The Short Answer
This is a full spoiler video about the ending of A Parade of Horribles, by Matt Dinniman, book eight of Dungeon Crawler Carl. If you have not finished it, stop here. Fandom spoils it on every page, so I will keep this one in order, and I will only say what the book says.
Here is the answer in four sentences. On the eleventh floor, Carl summons Scolopendra, the final boss of the whole dungeon, on purpose. A god of thunder and a pig do most of the work. Donut then throws the wrong thing into Scolopendra’s mouth, and the boss shrinks into a level one crawler who joins their party. Nineteen crawlers walk through the portal to the twelfth floor, and the dungeon’s own rules are different from here on.
Where The Ending Starts
The ending begins at chapter eighty eight. Twenty three crawlers are left. Carl’s final ranking is two, and the leaderboard stops, because the AI says it hurts feelings once fewer than thirty crawlers remain.
Carl leaves the party before the floor starts, and it is meant to be temporary. Donut is not speaking to him about it. The reason comes from the stable scene earlier. A god named Emberus has a smite hanging over Carl unless a man named Hellik is dead before the floor ends, and leaving the party is part of how Carl deals with that.
The announcement comes from Chaco, a former crawler now made the Grand Master of a parade. Everyone gets ninety minutes to build floats. There are five groups, and each has a theme. Resolution, Betrayal, Decision and Destruction go to the other crawlers. The fifth, which Carl picked himself, is Vengeance.
The Float And The Speech
Carl and Donut ride the last float, the Big Shot Chicken truck. The mercenaries and pets march in matching blankets and hats, covered in black, gold, magenta and white dahlias. Mongo, Rend and a few other animals march in front as the band.
At the judging stands, a giant triangle of flowers falls away. Under it is a statue of the Unwashed, an upside down tree. Carl takes the microphone and says he does not want revenge, which needs the person who hurt you. He wants vengeance, which falls on everyone who watched and did nothing. Then the airship doors open, and sluggalos rain down on the masked audience of bankers and politicians, who cannot fight back.
What Are The Horribles?
The parade route is a yellow brick road lined with thousands of masked people. Their masks are large and colorful, shaped like goblins and demons. The text calls them horribles.
Carl examines a little girl. The description says she is a non-combatant who no longer exists. Under the mask is what some people call a Primal. A narrator says these are memories from the Eulogist. They are a small sample of something that once existed, with no names, no faces, and no way back.
Later the AI takes over the fleshmancer Grigori and gives an exposition about this, and says the AI was once a Primal himself, a sample of many mixed together, like a cup of water from the sea. Carl realizes the monsters in the arena are in the same position, drips from the same well. The book does not explain more than that, and the AI says part five of its story is not yet written.
Why Summon Scolopendra?
At the arena door, Carl gets a choice to make, and he says in front of every screen that they will no longer play on the AI’s terms. His first choice is Scolopendra.
The AI warns them straight. Scolopendra is the dungeon boss, level five hundred. If she dies, her remaining attacks all fire at once. If they escape without killing her, her remaining attacks also fire. If she is left on a collapsing floor, the same thing happens. But if she dies, level timers stop and the Ascendency battles start, and the only exit left is the door on the eighteenth floor.
Carl does not plan to kill her. Killing her is only the backup. The main idea is to turn her into a pet and keep her in his inventory, so that if he ever dies, she dies, and the final attacks become a fail-safe. The clue behind the plan is in the god descriptions, and it is lightning. Carl and Donut have pulled every lightning spell from their books and installed them.
How The Plan Works
The plan is a chain, with plans behind plans. Penny the pig has been fed a pet biscuit that makes her a sapient party member. She wears a harness, and Carl wears a patch. The patch passes damage to Penny.
Carl rides into the side of Scolopendra on the pig, using Gloom Wraith Phase. Inside the creature is Club Scolopendra, a club full of alien tourists. Taranis, god of lightning, appears first. He has fallen for the pig, and he calls her sweet love from outside the creature. Emberus appears inside, at human size.
Donut teleports in, replaces Penny, and fires bolts into both of Emberus’s eye sockets. The bolts hold the god in place. The god of sun and ash throws a fire spell at Carl’s chest, and the patch sends it to Penny. Penny ends up outside at Taranis’s feet, a bubbling pile of plasma, and not yet dead.
Emberus grows into the half faced monster, still screaming Carl’s name. Taranis sees his younger brother rising and knows who fired at his beloved. Emberus says, Brother, no. Taranis twists his wrist, and Emberus explodes. The notice reads that a deity has fallen. Scolopendra has a hole in her. Her health bar is still green.
The Wrong Biscuit
Eris cracks the world. Her power swaps the inventories of everyone nearby, so Carl’s pack is full of hats, and Donut is carrying his. Scolopendra’s third attack is ten seconds away.
Carl needs a banger sphere and an enriched pet biscuit combined. Donut finds them. Carl throws the ball into the mouth of the boss. It works. The biggest creature in the dungeon turns into a puddle the size of a small elephant.
The plan was that she would become a pet, kept in a carrier, a fail-safe. If Carl died, she would die, and the remaining attacks would fire. Then Donut admits the problem. She grabbed the wrong biscuit. Scolopendra stands up as a human sized centipede with a humanlike face, huge lips, twin antennae and no arms. The notice says a new member has joined your party. Sexy Scolopendra, Level one, crawler number twelve million, nine hundred fifty three thousand, four hundred fifty six. She wraps around Carl and says, boop.
What Eris And Taranis Mean
Eris tells Carl she has come to realize something. She is the goddess of chaos, and Taranis is the god of thunder. Taranis has worshippers. Thunder itself and lightning itself do not worship him. The book leaves it there, and nothing in the last pages explains what she will do with that.
Her taunting also gives away a secret about Taranis. She says four of the five pieces of his mother are in the arena watching him. Taranis says he does not know what she means. He sets Penny down, orders Khepri home, and says he is taking two pieces of his mother, though he does not know what Eris meant. He spares Carl and Donut because Penny spoke for them, and he says they are not done.
Penny and Taranis break up. She writes that he lied to her, and that she had no idea he was married.
The Cost
After the fight, the gods are gone, the horribles stand, and the fog takes them. The AI says they are winners, sort of. Neither boss is dead. The door on the eighteenth floor is now open.
The cost shows in what follows. Hedy the gremlin is lost. Jamal is wrecked. Tipid loses both legs in the crash. The Abrams tank crew is dead, including the hexcrafter Sarah Hayse. Prepotente’s memorial crystal is stolen by a god. Samantha leaves with Taranis. Lucia Mar steps into the portal with Florin, and with a small girl Carl has never seen. Nineteen crawlers remain, twenty if you count Penny, and Carl does not.
Carl also finds the tattoos on the back of his hands changed. They are called Mark of the Damned. He picks up the Emberus memorial crystal. And a dart he does not remember hangs in his leg. It is a tracking tag, and the text says the Kyryap has claimed him.
What Happens Next
In the epilogue, Carl decides what he has to do. He must stay on the twelfth floor and keep anyone from winning the Ascendency until everyone left in the dungeon gets out. He tells himself that this is hope.
The final interludes widen the view. Sydnee Iglacia, a historian, talks live about the crisis. Prime Minister Victory sees the AI start the Ascendency game, with a countdown of one hour. And Louis wakes in Sheol, on the fifteenth floor, with Britney, Pontiff and a demon called Forkith. He was meant to go to the Pineapple Cabaret, and the plan went wrong.
Book nine is next, and I have not read it. If this helped, subscribe, tap like, and tell me below: was the wrong biscuit the best joke in the book, or the cruelest?
