Carl's Doomsday Scenario (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #2) by Matt Dinniman 
Published by Ace on January 6, 2021
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 371
Format: eBook
Source: Netgalley
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"The training levels have concluded. Now the games may truly begin."
The ratings and views are off the chart. The fans just can't get enough. The dungeon gets more dangerous each day. But in a grinder designed to chew up and spit out crawlers by the millions, Carl and Princess Donut need to work harder than ever just to survive.
They call it the Over City. A sprawling, once-thriving metropolis devastated by a mysterious calamity. But these streets are far from abandoned. An undead circus trawls the ruins. Murdered prostitutes rain from the sky. An ancient spell is finally ready to reveal its dark purpose.
Carl still has no pants.
They call it Dungeon Crawler World. For Carl and Donut, it's anything but a game.
Doomsday has never been so much fun.
This entire story just focused the 3rd floor where Carl and Princess Donut need to select Race and Class going forward. Donut wants Carl to select cat as his Race, but after noting that one of them should have an opposable thumb, Donut relents and let’s Carl make his own decision. Of course, since selecting anything other than cat would be an evolutionary step down, Donut is sticking with cat has her Race but upon recommendation, she is selecting a Class that involves having a manager, which will keep Mordechai attached to the Royal Court of Princess Donut. Mordechai is a font of information on the dungeons which will give Carl and Donut a better chance to survive. And if Mordechai can make sure Carl and Donut make it to the 4th floor, he will have fulfilled his obligation to the Syndicate and he will be allowed to finally escape the dungeon himself. Even better for out favorite crawlers.
As both Carl and Donut rocket up the leaderboard and they start to get followers watching them, a Fan Box won’t be far behind. Hopefully they will include important armor or shields.
In the first two floors, they were fighting mobs to gain experience and understand how the “game” is played. And while everyone else is busy working with their consultants and making their selections, the third floor is all about being given quests to complete which provide different type of bonuses. Mordechai wants them to avoid wasting time with quests but of course it isn’t that easy for Carl and Donut as they end up being approached by an Elite from one of the lower floors, someone with so much power that saying no isn’t really an option. So that is how Carl and Donut find themselves trying to rescue the members of a cursed circus.
Carl and Donut are of course joined by Mongo, Donut’s dungeon pet, part-chicken/part-velociraptor, and Donut received several spells just work on Mongo, like Clockwork Triplicate, which creates extra Mongos. They have also been asked to take care of Katia who has been separated from her group, Brynhild’s Daughters, who is lead by Hekle, who selected Amazonian-shieldmaiden, and who is on top of the leaderboard. They aren’t excited to drag Katia around as they don’t expect the shy, quiet woman to survive the harsh environment even if her Race is now doppelganger but it wouldn’t be a good idea to get on the wrong side of Hekle this early in the game.
One thing is certain is that things aren’t going smoothly with this year’s dungeon crawl. The Borant Corporation rushed the start for the rush of cash to avoid bankruptcy so things are breaking down with the NPCs and they seem to understand that their lives are faked. It is interesting to see how this will effect the end game when the NPCs won’t stick to their scripts.
I enjoy watching Carl and Donut become a real team. Now that she can speak, Donut is proving why her intelligence is listed as higher than Carl’s and he is coming to respect her more as a partner and not just back up. I am having so much fun watching doomsday play out. Sorry gang.
Favorite Scene:
“Want me to take him out?” Donut asked.
“We need to do it silently,” I said. My slingshot would only piss it off. Donut’s magic missile could be a little loud.
“Be quiet, Mongo, and watch how Mommy does this.”
“Wait. Goddamnit, Donut,” I hissed.
But before I could protest further, Donut leaped into the air and landed on a second-floor beam. She crossed the roof, walking low. Huh, I thought. She’d managed to be lot quieter than I thought she could be considering her…
She jumped to the center ceiling beam landing right behind the lemur.
Even from here I could hear the little charm on her collar jingle as she landed on the roof. In this silence, it was as loud as a damn church bell. Her backside armor also clinked loudly onto the beam.
Mongo, deciding he wanted in on the fun, screeched loudly.
The lemur turned, looking over his shoulder just as Donut pounced.
She somehow managed not to fall off the edge and into the street below. She slashed savagely at the creature, and he crumpled over, falling into the building, bouncing off one of the second-floor beams and cracking into the ground. Mongo rushed forward and pounced, landing hard on the not-yet-dead lemur. He ripped savagely at the furry monster’s stomach, unzipping him like he’d been trained. Mongo squeaked and shoved his head into the lemur’s now-open belly.
Holy shit, I thought, rushing forward.
Donut jumped down and sat next to her kill, looking triumphant.
“We’re gonna need to do something about that bell of yours if you want to be stealthy,” I said. “You’re too fragile to do stuff like that without planning it out.”
“I need to make a good example for my child, Carl.”
“He’s not your child, Donut. He’s a pet. We don’t put our lives in danger for our pets.”
I regretted it the moment the words came out of my mouth. Donut looked as if I’d slapped her. I suddenly felt like an enormous asshole.
Mongo ripped off the painted skull, revealing the dead lemur’s own skull.
“Ew,” Donut said, looking horrified. The look of hurt had disappeared just as quickly as it had come. “Carl, do you see that? It’s disgusting!”
“Yeah, that’s really gross,” I said, happy for the quick change of subject.
The human skull hat covered a secondary skull with a pair of bulbous, bloodshot eyes. The thing had no fur or skin on its head at all. It looked even more scary without the skull hat than it did with it.
The lemur held a poor lemur skin and a small bandolier containing six throwing knives. Donut took all of them. The knives were each about the size of my hand with little black handles.
“Donut, you should go back up there,” I said. “Slowly and quietly, and look over the street. See if you can spy any more lemurs on the roofs. Also see if you can tell where the main part of the circus is.”
“No need,” Donut said. “I already looked. There’s one more lemur across the street, but he’s asleep. I can probably take him out with a missile and nobody will notice. And a few streets over, you can see the large circus tents. There’s a park, I think. It’s the same direction from where the giraffe came. I could see at least three of the giraffes walking around over there. I didn’t see any of the scary clowns though. Also, if you’re really quiet, you can hear the music from the circus.”
I just looked at Donut. She really was growing, getting more efficient. Again, I felt bad for the pet comment. But at the same time, it was true, wasn’t it? Donut was different. She was more than a pet.
Donut gazed down lovingly at Mongo, who’d eaten his fill.
“You did good,” she said. “You’re almost at level four already!”
The little dinosaur hopped up and down, waving his bloody arms and splattering gore everywhere.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s kill the guy across the street, examine the bodies of those crawlers out there, and then check out the circus. Sound like a plan, partner?”
Donut paused and then nodded slowly. “Okay,” she said. “Partner.”
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