Carl's bare feet

Carl loses his borrowed Crocs fleeing the dozer (ch. 2) and the AI notices: the goblin engineer he jumps on (ch. 3) earns Podophilia (ch. 5), then the Smush skill read in a breathy voice — 'Your bare, beautiful feet' (ch. 8). He wants shoes; Donut suggests the computer fancies him and they should take advantage. Frank Q's offer of a dead man's pants is the bait in the safe-room trap (ch. 20); Odette explains why no pants ever come — because complaining about them is funny (ch. 29).

By the second floor the joke is a build. This Little Piggy Went to Market pays out a Platinum Shoe Box containing the Enchanted Pedicure Kit of the Sylph (ch. 30) — +15% barefoot damage, unbreakable metatarsals, a trap warning, all conditional on staying barefoot — and Imani has to teach him to use it (ch. 32). The unbreakable buff is what keeps the alchemy table from taking his feet off in the Krakaren blast (ch. 35). The Maestro's tactical boots in his size are therefore a taunt he can see through (ch. 43); and Ralph dies under the sole with a 'Sorry, Ralph' (ch. 45) and a groan from the dungeon (ch. 46).

Sasquatch — size-24 sparkling feet — is the AI's recommendation, and Carl reads it as the Maestro's 'pet' taunt made flesh (ch. 2). The Upgrade scroll's Freeballing benefit forbids any layer over the boxers, so the pants he promised himself are gone for good (ch. 13); Donut suggests chaps. By the blast, even the boxers come off (ch. 25).

A Drek bites through a lapsed buff (ch. 1); Talon Strike turns the side of the foot into a blade (ch. 2, ch. 4); the toe ring goes to +10 strength (ch. 9); a foot catches the front of a train (ch. 14); an invulnerable, numb foot is what a mantaur grips on the way into a portal (ch. 32).

Sticky Feet from the Leprous Bandit's toe ring — walls and ceilings, barefoot only, dexterity-times-two seconds every six hours (ch. 2) — used upside down over a living floor with a bag of fire (ch. 22) and on a looping biplane's wing (ch. 31); Talon Strike on a changeling's head and a bully's (ch. 6, ch. 31); a gerbil under his sole to end a siege, which is what the AI wanted (ch. 13). 'No socks, no shoes.'

'I bet they smush really well' (ch. 2); tootsies spread funny on the moss, and a view counter full of perverts (ch. 12); landing on bare feet on cool metal in a zero zone (ch. 30); bare feet up on the panel table (ch. 33); no shoes and no pants for the event (ch. 64); bare feet skipping across a ballroom floor toward Imogen's open hand (ch. 73).

A mob a little too big to simply smush (ch. 7); a frozen floor Carl dares not test with a bare foot (ch. 10); a barefoot man in a straw headdress walking out of the fog, fire flecking off his bare feet (ch. 10, ch. 11); Carl's feet washed on the sun, the pedicure kit sparing him the feeling (ch. 18); a swordfish killed with a foot, Smush at 12 (ch. 40); Alpha Carl's bare foot on his chest — a naughty man with beautiful feet (ch. 46).

A frozen coffee drunk with a finger (ch. 0); bare feet sloshing in the mud of a Larracos alley (ch. 1); a patch of four-leaf clovers being smashed under a bare foot, which Carl will never wear (ch. 57); a war mage staring at his feet — 'Nice shoes, asshole' (ch. 61); the AI's 'a babbling idiot with your bare feet buried in an All Tree root' (ch. 65); and bare feet on a trapped white floor, and Gloom Wraith Phase, as Burcu falls (ch. 68).