Earth has been transformed into the set of the galaxy’s most watched game show: The top ten list is populated, and Carl and Donut have made it. But that popularity comes with a price. They each now have a bounty on their head. They must work with other crawlers to solve the puzzle of the floor, but how can they do that when they don’t know who to trust? The secret to unraveling it all may be hidden in the pages of a seemingly useless book. <Includes part three of the exclusive bonus story “Backstage at the Pineapple Cabaret.”<

Autorentext

Matt Dinniman

Klappentext

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Welcome to the Iron Tangle! Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, have to team up with other contestants not just to survive, but to solve a deadly puzzle in this third, mind-twisting novel in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series—now with bonus material exclusive to this print edition.

Earth has been transformed into the set of the galaxy’s most watched game show: Dungeon Crawler World, a nightmarish, multilevel, video game–like dungeon filled with traps, monsters, and mind-bending puzzles. Carl and Donut have survived so far, but this fourth level is unlike anything they could imagine. The Iron Tangle: an impossibly complicated subway system tied together into a knot of trains of all kinds, from classic steam engines to sleek modern cars. Up is down. Down is up. Close is far. The cars are filled with monsters, the railway stations aren’t always what they seem, and the exit is perpetually just a few stops away.

The top ten list is populated, and Carl and Donut have made it. But that popularity comes with a price. They each now have a bounty on their head. They must work with other crawlers to solve the puzzle of the floor, but how can they do that when they don’t know who to trust? The secret to unraveling it all may be hidden in the pages of a seemingly useless book.

Welcome, Crawlers. Welcome to the fourth floor of the dungeon.

Includes part three of the exclusive bonus story “Backstage at the Pineapple Cabaret.”

Leseprobe
1

Time to Level Collapse: 10 days.

Views: 43.1 Quadrillion

Followers: 677 Trillion

Favorites: 158.1 Trillion

Leaderboard rank: 6

Bounty: 100,000 gold

Red Line.

Welcome, Crawler, to the fourth floor. "The Iron Tangle."

Your title has reverted to Royal Bodyguard.

Sponsorship bidding initiated on Crawler #4,122. Bidding ends in 45 hours.

The world rumbled. The ground shook. I stumbled backward the moment we appeared, but I was held upright by a metal wall. Lights flashed in a quick staccato, pulsing on either side of the long, thin room. I felt the thump, thump, thump under my feet. We were in a long plastic-and-metal tube that vibrated and thundered. The lights in the room blinked out, then turned back on.

Mongo screeched in anger and fear. Donut jumped to my shoulder, trembling. Katia clutched on to a metal pole rising from the floor to the ceiling.

New achievement! I'm on a train!

Choo Choo, Motherfucker.

Reward: You've received a Train Conductor's Souvenir Hat! Wear it with pride!

"It's a subway car," I said. We hurtled through a tunnel, racing toward some unknown destination.

A double aisle of seats, facing inward, filled the train car. The seats were made of beige molded plastic with brown cushions that were ripped and tagged with marker and spray paint. The words were in nonsensical letters in the Cyrillic alphabet. The floor was dingy and pocked. Scorch marks dotted the plastic walls. Poles rose to the ceiling at regular intervals and also ran the length of the car. The whole place smelled like a pile of dead rats.

The train car was empty except for our party.

"It's a Metro car from Moscow," Katia said. "But the ones I rode were in much better condition than this. And cleaner." Her face had returned to the mostly human, blond-haired form she'd held earlier. Her nose had been knocked halfway around her face the last time I'd seen her in her doppelganger form, but she'd willed it back into place.

At the end of the subway car was a closed door with no window. Above the door hung a small electric sign with red words scrolling across the top.

Red Line, Car 20. Next stop: Sirin Station (81) in 12 minutes and 32 seconds.

"Everybody get dressed," I said. I sat down in the chair and quickly began the process of putting my gear back on. I briefly examined the stupid train hat we'd received, and it was junk. It wasn't magical. It was a simple blue-and-white hat one would see on a toddler. It had the words "I rode the Iron Tangle" embroidered on it.

"Carl, it says I have to pick a new class because of my Character Actor skill. I only have six minutes to choose, or I will get a 'random' one," Donut said. "The list is full of new stuff. Not the same as before."

Carl: Mordecai. Help Donut pick a class. She's going to read off some choices. We're in a moving train car. I think it's a subway-system-themed floor.

Mordecai: Welcome back. Donut, hit me with the suggested list.

Donut: I DON'T LIKE THESE CHOICES, MORDECAI.

As Donut rattled off a list of options in the chat, including things like Alley Cat Brawler and Nec-Cat-Mancer, I moved to the window and peered outside.

We moved swiftly. The exterior wall of the tunnel was right there, barely inches from the window. It appeared to be made of dirt or rock. Lights flashed by occasionally as if electrical lights were built into the tunnel walls at random intervals.

"Why does she always type in all caps?" Katia whispered as I peered out the window. "Is it because she's four-legged?"

"No. It's because she's Donut."

"She's quite the handful, isn't she?"

I remembered what Odette had said about Hekla wanting to steal Donut away.

"More than you know," I said.

We had 10 days to complete this floor. Our first priority would be to find a stairwell. If we were constantly moving, that was going to provide a unique challenge. There were only 9,375 stairwells this time. If the level truly was subway- or train-themed, and this wasn't just taking us to some random location where the floor was really going to begin, we needed a map. Even if there was a stairwell at each and every stop, that suggested this system was beyond huge. Finding a stairwell wouldn't be enough if we didn't know how to circle back.

My Escape Plan skill couldn't find any directions or maps, at least not in this car. The skill worked great, but you had to know where the hidden maps were before you could utilize it.

"Wow," Katia said. "My constitution is double what it normally is. I'm at 102. I have an active momentum bonus even though I'm not moving."

"Good," I said. That means you're our meat shield, I didn't add. "I hope that's by design. Otherwise, I wouldn't get used to it. If the showrunners didn't mean for that to happen, you can bet it'll be patched out tonight."

If we were going to be doing a lot of close-quarters fighting this level, that meant I needed to work on my hand-to-hand. Last floor had been all about explosions. I suspected that was going to take a back seat here.

Donut: SO, SHOULD I DO THE FOOTBALL HOOLIGAN OR THE FIRECRACKER CLASS? QUICK, I'M ALMOST OUT OF TIME.

Mordecai: Hooligan. If you're going to be stuck in a series of tubes, it's the best choice. It comes with a momentum bonus and several team buffs. Plus the Mascot skill, which gives a bonus to Mongo.

Donut glowed for a moment.

Donut: I DID IT. I GOT THE MASCOT SKILL! BUT I DIDN'T GET GROUP CHANT OR MOVING RIOT. I GOT THE 10 POINTS TO MY CONSTITUTION, THOUGH.

Mordecai: Damn. Chant would've been good. Okay, you three. I just peeked my head out of my room, and I am…