Chapter 40 of 48 · Book 1, Dungeon Crawler Carl

Chapter 40 — Bomb Chicken

Book: Dungeon Crawler Carl · Part: The Second Floor · Previous: Chapter 39 — The recap · Next: Chapter 41 — People buckets · Floor: Floor 2 — The Second Floor · Series: the series

Opening

We still had some cans of Agatha’s spray paint, and I painted “Mother of All Bombs” on the

Summary

Five hours building the Mother of All Bombs — 'Bomb Chicken,' Brandon insists — a ski-jump ramp of chopper wheel-wells on a bike trailer that launches free-weight-wheeled 'babies' backward at speed. Imani's idea proves the exit: open the safe-room door, let the elemental swipe, watch it teleport away; it takes 75 to 120 seconds to come back every time. Explosives are inert inside.

Donut, at one trillion views, rides tailgunner. Baby Uno with the last hobgoblin pus, Imani's chain dropped as a bola, boom babies flipping on grubs and lighting the hallway blue, shredder babies to burst the pupae so the hornets slow it down. The chopper's boiler is about to breach. 'Fuck it,' Carl says, and speeds up. An oil slick from the red lever, the chopper sacrificed into the stairwell hole, an oh-shit baby set on the lip, Puddle Jumper counting down while the level-93 monster charges across the oil: they reappear 500 feet away, and the dungeon dissolves the elemental under its own rule. No experience — Donut: 'Carl, you broke the game!' — and Carl tells Brandon to get his people to the stairs.

Characters

• Brandon — Newton, Mythbusters, the weighted babies.
• Chris — To Brandon's MOAB pedantry: 'Don't be that guy.'
• Imani — 'Why don't we just open the damn door?'
• Princess Donut — Bombs away; 'Burn, baby, burn!'; Puddle Jumper on cue; 'Carl, you broke the game!'
• Carl — Keeps the exploit in his head; pedals; lures the elemental into the stairwell.
• The Rage Elemental — Chased and chasing; slides into the stairwell and is dissolved.

Locations

• Safe rooms — Big Shot Chicken as a workshop.
• The Second Floor — The scorched hallways to the stairs.

Motifs

• The residents' train — The MOAB.
• Explosives — Four kinds of babies, including the oh-shit kind.
• Brindle grubs — Pupae as speed bumps; Brindled Vespas born early.