Place · from book 1
The Dungeon
The eighteen-floor structure that replaces the surface of the Earth at 2:23 in the morning, into which some thirteen million people descend: a maze of quadrant-sized squares, safe rooms, tutorial guilds and boss lairs, run as a broadcast for an interstellar audience and collapsing a floor at a time on a timer.
First appears: Book 1
Series arc
Through book 1
Two of eighteen floors seen. Book 1 supplies the structure (quadrants, safe rooms, guilds, bosses in six tiers, a timer per floor) and one structural hint about the rest: floors three, six, nine, twelve, fifteen and eighteen exist simultaneously and are one linked setting (B1 ch. 44). The series' plot spine — floors, not books — starts here; floor pages arrive with book 2.
Where they appear
| Book | Chapters they are in (of the book's) | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 1 — Dungeon Crawler Carl | 39/48 | 1–10, 12, 14–15, 18, 20–23, 25–30, 32, 35–48 · the book's own page |
By book
The Dungeon in book 1 — Dungeon Crawler Carl
Named and explained in the first three chapters: eighteen floors under the surface, the first three a tutorial designed to drown crawlers in loot and kill them, floors collapsing on a timer (ch. 1–ch. 3); just under 13 million entering, and under 10 million left when it seals (ch. 4). The first floor is a condensed Seattle in a grid of squares (ch. 15); the second is cinderblock and grubs (ch. 30); the third onward, everyone says, is where it gets strange. Zev's parting hint (ch. 44): floors three, six, nine, twelve, fifteen and eighteen exist at once and are one linked setting.