Tear Jerker / Dungeon Crawler Carl

Dungeon Crawler Carl

• The story opens with very nearly everyone on Earth being casually murdered. Carl only survived because he had to step outside by happenstance, only to have to rush into the dungeon because his alternative was a swift death by exposure.
• There is a counter in every saferoom, showing the number of remaining crawlers alive. The numbers drops fast. Carl can't stop staring at it. It starts at about 14 million. By the time Carl's finished the tutorial it's down to 10 million. By the time he leaves the first floor, it's half that. Nearly eight billion people slaughtered, most of them in their sleep, and then, for a gameshow, the Nazi Holocaust is re-enacted in the space of a few days.
• The book doesn't shy away from how easily Carl is affected by the rapid death of humanity and how much he has to fight off the despair. When an NOC feeds him a delicious Thai meal he elatedly declares that it might be "the best food in the world!" only to be immediately crushed by the thought, "there is no world."

Carl's Doomsday Scenario

• The tale of Remex the Grand. He was a former crawler who made the mistake of agreeing to become an undead as part of his contract. He can only get out when he finishes delivering all his exposition, but it's rare for people to find his quest, and the last time it happened the crawler killed him before he could finish. He rambles, goes off on tangents, and keeps correcting himself in a way that makes it clear he is completely gone. Once he's done, Carl quietly asks if he wants them to kill him. He just cackles and says he'll see his son soon.
• "Carl, I'm not as dumb as I pretend to be. I know she's gone."

The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

• Donut screams and attacks Hekla when Hekla betrays Katia, and everything she says makes it clear that she did know Bea was planning to sell her off.
  Donut: [crying] It's just not fair, Carl! Katia didn't do anything wrong!
  Carl: I know, Donut.
• We finally learn why Maggie killed her daughter. Frank tells the story and he's simply broken and waiting to die. Frank and Maggie forced her to use the Enchanted Night Wyrm’s Ring of Divine Suffering to level up. She would Mark someone, Frank and Maggie would kill them, and then she'd be stronger and safer and level up even though she didn't want to fight or kill anyone. But then Carl got away and she got hit by the trap he left... and she couldn't heal. She was in agony and on the brink of death no matter what. It was a Mercy Kill.
• Hekla's plan involved betraying Katia, bringing her close to death, possibly all the way, in the hopes of getting the "dangerously reckless mad bomber" Carl to lose his temper and attack her so she could claim self defense and adopt Donut. Then Eva goes off book and cuts loose about Katia's history before the dungeon and mocking her for how much of a loser she always saw her as, including her complaints about not being able to adopt children.

The Gate of the Feral Gods

• The story of the changelings: Their children are being born with more and more birth defects because they simply can't grow the plants to get enough nutrients to survive. And, of course, this whole thing was just a stupid story invented by the showrunners, which makes it worse.

The Butcher's Masquerade

• Miriam Dom is trapped beneath a paralyzed Prepotente, and can't move because it will kill him. Dawn is coming, and it will kill her because she's a vampire. She didn't call Carl and Donut to rescue her—Prepotente accidentally used his Ring of Divine Suffering on her, so he can't heal until she dies. She called Carl because he was the only one she trusted not to kill her and Prepotente when they were vulnerable. Carl quietly sits and waits with her for the dawn.
  Donut: Carl? Would you do the same thing to save me?
  Carl: Without hesitation.
  I will break you all.
  "My beautiful boy," Miriam whispered as she turned to dust. "My beautiful boy."
  • When he gets unfrozen, all Pony can do is scream and weep.
• Signet, having discovered that she is just an NPC in an entertainment program, sacrifices herself to break the peace and summons her battle squad in the process. But she doesn't summon them as 2D fighters. Her sacrifice means they're alive again and have a second chance, a first chance, really, at living free.
  Signet: I want a favor from you, Carl. I want you to show her exactly how real my family is. I want them all to see.
• Eva's last act is to put the Enchanted Crown of the Sepsis Whore on Katia, which automatically equips itself. Meaning that now either Katia or Donut has to die before the other can escape the ninth floor.
• Carl prepares himself to make a Heroic Sacrifice to break the seal and give all the other crawlers the chance to escape to the seventh floor.
  Carl: I closed my eyes for a second, just a second, and I pretended like everything was all right. The world had never ended. My mother and I had never left Texas. I was outside right now, sitting in the shade of a tree I’d planted years before. Everyone here, all my friends, never met each other under these horrific circumstances. Donut was fat and happy, sitting in her cat tree somewhere warm, growling at a cocker spaniel.
  I’d never heard the water running through the pipes. Or gone down into the basement to investigate the noise. I’d never found the note followed by my mother a minute later.
  I let the dream live within me. Just for a second.

The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

• Carl and Katia are hired by the Night Wyrm to kill Astrid, manager of the Desperado Club. Except right before she's killed, it turns out that she's a former crawler and the Night Wyrm is her husband. Her last words are to beg that her husband and children are kept safe, because they're almost free. Her son explains to Carl in disgust that, this way, his father will get all of Astrid's money when they're free.

• The reveal that Beatrice, who was monitoring and had taken over Carl's Facebook page used it to get a single mother fired as well as actively conceal messages asking for help from his new step-mother and half-brother. Donut assumed the brother to be Beatrice's cousin as she had pictures of him on her phone and talked with her mother about it. The referenced conversation implies Beatrice concealed the information due to her continual insecurity over the relationship and not desiring for Carl to leave.

• The final fate of Quan Ch: Broken, bleeding, his Celestial robe stolen, stacked with a dozen debuffs. All he does is beg Carl for his ring back, the one that Carl found on his hand that said "for Daddy."
  Quan: She would have been disgusted with what I've become.
• Carl's starting to get PTSD from all the horrors he's been through, with occasional flashbacks when a situation triggers a specific memory. Otherwise, it's just the general rushing of a creek when he's not under stress, or a river when he is... or the water through the pipes his mother hung herself from.
• Carl's mother tried to murder his father (and did kill herself) as a birthday present for Carl. His stepmother succeeded in killing the man as a birthday present for his brother Asher.