Character · Book 1, Dungeon Crawler Carl

Frank Q and Maggie My

A married couple — whom Carl takes for police by their bearing — who stumbled into the dungeon with their teenage daughter and were told by their guide that the only way to survive was to kill other crawlers. Frank has three skulls when Carl meets him; Maggie has five. Their daughter, Yvette, would not.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 13 — Rebecca W
• Chapter 20 — Frank Q
• Chapter 21 — Bitchmeat!
• Chapter 22 — The encampment
• Chapter 23 — Painting over the signs
• Chapter 43 — The Maestro explains himself
• Chapter 44 — What Donut overheard
• Chapter 47 — 124.8 trillion

Arc

Frank Q's name is over Rebecca W's corpse in ch. 13. In ch. 20 he steps out of a safe-room bathroom with a plausible ICE story and Maggie My steps out of stealth with a pistol; the system freezes them for shooting in a safe room and Carl leaves lit dynamite in a rat for them. The Maestro's footage (ch. 43) tells the truth: their guide told them the only way to survive was to kill crawlers; they ambushed a group as a family; their daughter Yvette never took part; Frank pulled the dynamite from the rat with Yvette behind him and lost a hand; Maggie strangled her wounded daughter — for the experience, Carl accuses, since the girl would have healed; 'You didn't get the whole story,' Maggie answers. Frank ends the book a hollow man who will not look up; Maggie ends it with a Legendary potion that will let her find any crawler by name, a vow to watch Carl and the cat die, and her first smile. Zev's assessment: it has potential, but nobody thinks they will live long enough.