The second book in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. It’s mostly more of the same. Carl and Donut work to level up and defeat monsters. Now there are quests available, however they can be more trouble than they’re worth.

While the first book sprawled across three floors, this book wholly takes place on the fourth. Carl and Donut get to choose their race and classes to help specialize their roles. Donut stays a cat, but her role is fairly complicated. Basically though, she can adapt to each floor as it comes. This versatile option wasn’t what I expected as it seemed she was going to be a pure magic user, but it leaves a lot of possibilities open. Carl actually changes races, which really threw me off. His appearance doesn’t change, but he becomes a Primal. No one knows what these beings looked like nor much about them at all. Their stat spread was what made Carl choose it and I’m sure it’s going to have significance later. Mongo has also been growing steadily and the three have become a capable team. Mordecai is ever present this time around as he has become Donut’s manager. It basically means they have an expert on-call at all times. He helps them a lot and you can tell he’s opening up to them and vice versa as they work together. The team also gains a “temporary” ally in Katia as she’s a member of the Valkyries who got split off from the group. She seems harmless on the surface, but is she a spy for Brynhilda? Her meekness despite her physical power makes her more of an interesting character that I have high hopes for.

This floor also has a few towns and a major city within as well. This place persists and will show up every three or so floors. Anything done here will have ramifications later on and let me tell you, our party gets into some shenanigans on this floor. They get wrapped up in a couple quests that see them making some under-the-table deals with showrunners and investigating murdered prostitutes. There are also some discrimination issues within the settlement and a deep history about a volcano that erupted tainted magic and cursed some circus folk. It’s crazy stuff that you’d expect someone writing a DND campaign to come up with. The twists and turns these plots take kept the story engaging and I had trouble putting it down.

While this entry doesn’t do much to change the game, it provides a “peek behind the curtain” so to speak. Having other companies producing shows within the game is an interesting aspect. It shows how disconnected the rest of intelligent life is from the carnage seen in the games.They truly see nothing wrong with what they see on tv and want more stories told through it. Carl’s humanity, despite not being a human anymore, gives me hope that he can make them see how messed up the entire thing is. He tries his best to plant seeds of doubt and it does get him in hot water at times. You can also see Donut mature as she has to train Mongo and learn about societal issues. There are some genuinely great moments between them and I’m excited to keep reading this series to see how/ if they can win the games.