Spoiler Warning
Spoiler warning. This is a full recap of The Gate of the Feral Gods, by Matt Dinniman, book four of Dungeon Crawler Carl. It gives away everything, the ending included, and the book has heavy swearing and gore. If you haven’t read it, come back after. If book five is next and book four has gone fuzzy, stay.
A quick note, because people search for Dungeon Crawler Carl book three and land here. Book three is The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook. This is the one after it.
Here is the short answer. The whole book happens on the fifth floor, a world of bubbles. Carl and Donut have to take four castles to pop their bubble, while gnomes bomb a town. Along the way a gate lets a god’s lost puppy out of a prison, and Carl ends the book by flooding a whole city.
I grouped the thirty-four chapters and the epilogue into stops, and every number comes from the text.
Chapters One To Four: The Bubbles
The fifth floor is called the Bubbles. Carl, Donut and Katia arrive with one hundred seventy-eight thousand, eight hundred eighty-seven crawlers left, and fifteen days on the clock. Carl is ranked third, and a new achievement for surviving the last floor in the top ten doubles every bounty on him.
Their home is bubble five hundred forty-three, out of eleven hundred seventy-two. It has four quadrants: land, sea, air and underground. About one hundred fifty crawlers share it, and the stairwell stays shut until all four castles fall.
Carl’s team lands in the air quadrant, a bowl of sand and dust storms. The town is Hump Town, run by two-humped dromedarians. A flying gnome fortress, the Wasteland, never bombs it, because of something locked in the town hall. Carl’s first quest says stay out of city hall.
In chapter three he meets two drunk Americans in a bar called the Toe, Louis and Firas. In chapter four he and Katia build a folding dune buggy they call the Chariot. Then the Wasteland floats over the other town and bombs it flat.
The recap show brings a death. Ifechi, a healer, dies in a clash with the number one crawler, Lucia Mar. Her teammate Florin, a shotgun crocodilian, gets the kill credit. Carl is now ranked second.
Chapters Five To Nine: The Town Hall
In chapter five, Mordecai tells off Louis and Firas, and Carl learns that the prostitute Juice Box is a changeling, a shape-shifter. In chapter six Carl, Louis and Firas break into the town hall while Katia plays a camel.
In the basement they find a dirigible gnome named Wynne, held by a changeling named Henrik, who belongs to a group called the Principals. The quest to free Wynne lasts less than five minutes. Another group of crawlers burst in, and one stabs the gnome dead. The achievement is called Total, Utter Failure.
Chapter nine brings the first boss. Ruckus, a giant buzz-ard with a buzzsaw weapon, goes down to Carl’s homemade rockets, fired from the Chariot. Then the bubble announces that the water quadrant is free. A crawler called Chris took its castle.
Chapters Ten To Twelve: Squeeze Out The Juice Box
Chapter ten gives Carl a new quest. Save Hump Town from the bombing before the gnomes learn that their hostage, Wynne, is dead. The gnomes check a mirror watch every day. If they stop seeing proof of life, the bombs fall.
The plan is a con. Katia plays several parts at once, Wynne, a camel and Henrik’s body. Firas cuts a throat, and the gnome envoy Leon thinks he has seen the truth. Then it turns into a brawl. Carl, Donut and Katia leap from a balloon basket, slam into the sand, and wreck the Wasteland. The town survives, and the quest pays a platinum box.
Chapters Thirteen To Sixteen: The Gate And The Goose
Chris is an igneous, a rock creature, with a brain parasite. It is Maggie, the widow of Frank Q, who gave Carl a ring before Chris crushed his head. Maggie wants Carl dead.
In chapter fifteen Juice Box explains the artifact the Principals want. The Gate of the Feral Gods has three parts, two pocket watches and a winding box. When it closes, it lets a feral god out of the Nothing. Carl gets a quest of the same name.
The first watch belongs to Commandant Kane, in a house hanging from balloons. Carl flies a biplane there with Donut and Mongo. Inside he finds the commandant dead and his daughter Bonnie in a trance. A goose boss named Denise charges in as the house starts to fall. Carl jams her down a kitchen drain, and the air quadrant is free.
Chapters Seventeen To Nineteen: Veriluxx
Bonnie moves into the personal space with the other kids. Ten days remain. A toy company has made a talking robot Donut.
In chapter eighteen a toy company called Veriluxx takes Carl and Donut to a showcase on a ship in orbit. The robot blows up, and Loita, a dungeon admin, dies on the floor. Carl, who has been tampering with the toys, lets it happen.
A hooded Syndicate observer named Orren questions him about it. Carl refuses to sign a blank page. Five days are gone when he gets back, and about five remain.
Chapters Twenty To Twenty-Four: The Sandcastle
The land castle is the sandcastle of the Mad Dune Mage. Gwen’s team has found two ways in: a flood, or a lightning tower. Inside is a mage called Ghazi, who tried to summon a god and got the wrong one. She is Psamathe, and she ends up as a talking head from a love doll that Carl names Samantha.
A sand ooze fills the stairwell. Carl sets it on fire, the castle washes away, and he and Donut sink in the flood. They survive, and Carl keeps the winding box, the second piece.
Chapters Twenty-Five To Twenty-Seven: The Akula
The last watch is at the Akula, a sunken submarine five hundred meters down. Carl, Katia and Tran descend, with Katia as a diving bell. Henrik is dead inside, killed by the ghost queen Quetzalcoatlus. Then Lusca, an octopus-shark, swallows the sub. Carl, Katia and Tran escape her mouth, and Vadim stays behind to seal a room.
Carl dials the gate, and the three step through to a beach. The quest is complete. The achievement is called Who Let The Gods Out.
Chapters Twenty-Eight To Thirty-One: Orthrus
The gate has pulled Orthrus out of the Nothing, a two-headed puppy. His owner is the blind sun god Emberus, who starts smashing bubbles to find him. A quest says the puppy must live, or the god will turn the bubble into a kiln.
Carl flies the biplane with a healing potion. Quan, a crawler who steals kills, hits the dog from behind. A celestial grenade from Maggie’s side is meant to summon a pain god. Because Carl has just chosen to worship Emberus, it summons Emberus, who finds his puppy and leaves. Carl rips off Quan’s arm.
Chapters Thirty-Two To Thirty-Four: Larracos
Carl is now a devotee of Emberus, with two church quests: find the killer of his son, and kill his twin Hellik. With the gate, his group frees about fifteen hundred crawlers from other bubbles, and the count drops under one hundred thousand.
In chapter thirty-three Katia says she will not follow Carl down. She wants to protect the former followers of a rival, Hekla. She stays in the party, but not on his floor.
In chapter thirty-four comes the plan. Carl buries the gate on the rim of the bowl. At the planned minute it opens, and the sea, with sharks and timed bombs, rushes through into the faction market of Larracos, the city on the next floor. Zev says thousands of non-player characters die. Maggie attacks, Carl cures her out of his neck, and Mongo eats her.
Carl walks to the stairs as the number one crawler, level forty-seven, bounty one million gold.
Epilogue
The epilogue jumps to Earth. Two alien hunters raid a camp near Seattle, looking for a cat. Instead, they find Bea, Carl’s ex. A woman named Lexis, who works with Odette, rescues her. Bea is alive.
Before Book Five
Book five comes next. The author’s note says it is underway. I have not read it, so that is all I will say. If this helped, subscribe, tap like, and tell me below: which twist hit hardest, the flood or Bea?
