Chapter 38 of 48 · Book 1, Dungeon Crawler Carl

Chapter 38 — The Rage Elemental

Book: Dungeon Crawler Carl · Part: The Second Floor · Previous: Chapter 37 — The janitors · Next: Chapter 39 — The recap · Floor: Floor 2 — The Second Floor · Series: the series

Opening

The next several seconds seemed to happen in slow motion.

Summary

Yolanda's arrow pins Jack's hat to his head a half-second too late. The stain sizzles and a Rage Elemental, level 93, six-legged, a horned badger skull in purple smoke, forms over his body. The book stops for a paragraph to tell you who Yolanda Martinez was — sixty-hour weeks for her son's college, a warmth Carl never had as a child — and then she and Randall are unravelled like a knitted sweater.

Protective Shell from the boxers holds it for twenty seconds. Reverse Gravity throws Carl and Elle McGibbons onto the ceiling; he carries her upside down, drops with her, and dives through the door of Big Shot Chicken with the claws a millimetre behind him. He throws a jug at its back for the pleasure of hearing it scream. The door holds. 'Do you think it's gonna leave?'

Characters

• The Rage Elemental — Summoned; kills two; besieges the room.
• Yolanda Martinez — Killed; the obituary.
• Randall — Killed with her.
• Jack — Dead before the monster forms.
• Elle McGibbons — Thrown onto the ceiling; carried over Carl's shoulder along it and down again.
• Carl — Protective Shell; the ceiling run; the jug.
• Imani — Screaming Yolanda's name; hauling residents through the door.

Locations

• Safe rooms — Big Shot Chicken, the fourth safe room and the one under siege.

Motifs

• Staying human — 'It would've been kinder to have left them on the first floor.'
• Borant — The penalty, enforced.