Carl's Book of Boom, Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 8, Prologue. News updates. (Patreon)

Apologies ahead of time. We don't yet get into book 8 just yet. I'm working on it, but it's not quite ready. I want to start this one with a bit of a bang which requires going straight to action before slowing down like we usually do, and I gotta frame it correctly. In the meantime, here's the prologue.

Also, the title "Carl's Book of Boom" is just the working title for now. We'll see.  

Carl’s Book of Boom

Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 8

Prologue.

“Hello, Donut,” Princess Chandra, Esquire said.

Across from her, the blood-soaked, wild-eyed creature thing looked madly about the blank room. Chandra could smell the gore, and she immediately flicked off the receptors in the control panel.

Chandra was coiled aboard the communications room in The Ventilator, a class-C rapid-attack battle cruiser, fresh off the shipyards. The naga warship had already sustained a large amount of damage during the short but violent and tumultuous coup that had removed the king and ultimately placed her uncle on the naga throne. Her uncle, the former opposition leader of the Gilt Party was calling himself “Sultan Protectorate of the New Reformer” or something as equally inane.

It would be cycles before this all sorted itself out, to which Chandra was glad. She’d waited her entire life to find an opportunity like this, and she’d jumped at the chance when it presented itself. It was risky, yes. But if the next few weeks went as she hoped, it would all be worth it. And as long the political upheaval stabilized long enough for her to collect her money and leave her home system, it didn’t really matter what happened next.

She didn’t care about power, or titles. She didn’t care who was in charge of what. She just wanted out of her home system. That was why she’d become a lawyer in the first place. It’d been a way out.

She suppressed a bitter laugh. At least she now had a plan. A good plan.   

And it all hinged on this disgusting, warm-blooded, fur-covered rodent before her now. Donut. “Princess” Donut. What a joke.

This creature wasn’t even a true lifeform, but a barely sapient, invasive cyst that artificially formed itself on a seeded planet.

No different than mold, really. And more dangerous for sure. If they didn’t need these things to die to help fuel the center system, Chandra would be all for the original Soother proposal, which was to eradicate all the seeded worlds.

Still, this one was valuable. She’d already signed several contracts on the creature’s behalf and was already collecting royalties. The “Donut Holes” licensing fees—should they agree to her demands—alone made it all worth it.

Still, there was always rumblings when any contract originated in the naga sector. Chandra was sick of how her kind were treated. How they weren’t trusted. Or worse, looked down upon as inferior. They were sometimes even lumped in with the nullians, which was just absurd.

That was one of the reasons why Chandra wanted out. Why she wanted to move to the center system. Once she paid the visa fees and secured a home, she wouldn’t have to ever worry about political upheaval ever again. She wouldn’t be constantly ashamed of her own people.

At least Vinata was dead. Her plan had been to flee into the frontier. To start over. Chandra couldn’t even imagine such a thing. Why would one flee away from society? It was practically the same thing as devolving. She tried to imagine herself working the dirt of an uninhabited planet. Preposterous.

The thought of wide, open skies was suffocating to her.

Chandra couldn’t wait to get away from it all. Her idiot, late husband had been constantly involved in the court’s machinations, and where had that led him? Murdered by a crawler while playing a game.

That one action turned out to be the luckiest turn of events in Chandra’s life.

Chandra had reluctantly accepted the noble title of princess when her uncle came to power. She didn’t want attention brought to herself, but the title was necessary if she wanted to claim Widow’s Rights.

The path that had presented itself to Chandra had appeared all at once, as if by magic. As if a divine entity had seen how much she’d suffered, at the humiliations she’d had to endure and thought: Enough. Now is your time.

All it required was for Carl and Donut to survive for just a little longer.

That, plus a touch of graft and maybe an assassination or two to help push the plan along, and she would never have to worry about money again. It was so simple. And the best part was she was the only one who could do this. The opportunity was unique to herself. It was meant to be. All her suffering. All that hard work. The humiliation of being a second wife. It would all be worth it.

Once this was all done, Chandra wouldn’t just be well off. She could possibly be one of the richest private citizens in the galaxy.

And all because of a fucking human in his underwear and his pet rodent.   

The first few steps in the plan were already done. This first part had happened so fast. It was literally just a few hours’ worth of legal work and filings to get started. She’d done it from this tiny room in the Ventilator. It was done before Faction Wars was finished. Even as the dwindling royal battleship had fired their last salvo, she’d not felt even a tingle of danger. It was amazing how much one could accomplish while sitting in a tiny room with wide-band tunnel access. In hours, she’d changed the course of her own life.  

She’d asserted her Widow’s Rights and claimed Carl as her husband in naga court. She had a moment of terror when the judge had thought it worthwhile to put the matter to public jury. But, apparently, the idea of “punishing” Carl by forcing him to marry her was amusing to the uneducated peasants, and they’d voted overwhelmingly to allow the union. They’d even added the traditional wedding gift—the holdings of the defeated—as Carl’s “prize” in a fan box or something.  

Either way, now that was done, Chandra, as Carl’s wife—and therefore his signatory in most legal matters—had already gotten the burners fired up on multiple contracts. Carl’s own lawyer, a nullian named Quasar, had done a surprisingly competent job building the legal entities required for the Princess Posse fan group to exist and collect money. Though she still had a case pending to early withdraw half of their profits.

Where this Quasar had failed was in not asserting Carl’s rights over all of Donut’s earnings. Donut’s species was not yet recognized as a legally competent racial entity by the Syndicate and therefore all of her assets should be placed under a conservatorship. Carl was clearly the best choice as custodian. And not just a custodian, but a true beneficiary. She’d filed on her new husband’s behalf to be recognized as such, and it was granted automatically.

The will wasn’t necessary. As his wife, she would automatically get everything upon his inevitable death, minus any taxes. But she filed one anyway. Better to be safe.

And then, after a short conversation and a discreet payment to a district judge’s re-election campaign, Chandra found herself assigned as Princess Donut’s attorney, effectively giving herself access to both Carl and Donut’s financial empires.

She was currently in the process of threatening the second fan group, the Donut Holes, with obliteration should they not immediately assign 38% of their profits directly to Donut’s conservatorship. Their newest product, the Princess Palette eye makeup kit, was already the highest-earning piece of crawler merch in the history of the crawl.

The Donut Holes group had recently won the auction for Princess Donut’s open sponsorship slot. There was yet another court case pending on whether or not to allow it. Chandra’s assistant was writing a brief asserting that the claim should be allowed, but only if the Donut Holes agreed to pay the licensing fee to the conservatorship. With the 60% already going to the Syndicate, the 2% that was left over should be more than enough for them to keep operating. And either way, she really wanted to take a look at their books. That group seemed to have much more money than they should. There was something going on there, and she needed to get to the bottom of it.

If the Donut Holes didn’t agree to the 38%, Chandra would have her two Taurin associates call on the families of the founders of the unauthorized fan group. If was always easy to get people to agree to things when one exerted pressure in the proper place. Especially when they had small children.

She’d have them do that as soon as they were done with their first assignment, which was to eliminate her biggest threat. Quasar. She’d just paid the fee, and they were already on their way to the nullian system to pay him a visit.     

But all of the legal issues with the Donut Holes could wait until tomorrow. For right now, Chandra needed to make certain the rodent didn’t take a deal. That, and she was legally required to show her client all the paperwork regarding the multiple claims. She didn’t think this would be difficult.

“Who are you? And why do I feel funny?” the creature asked. She shook her head, splattering red ash over everything. Chandra had missed what’d happened at the end of the previous floor, though she was glad to hear Donut had survived. The odds makers had her survival rate at 40% the last she’d checked, but Chandra knew the creature would pull through. Rodents had an uncanny ability to come out on top.  

Chandra spent a moment examining the ugly thing. She didn’t understand how this creature had captivated so many people. It resembled and had the same coloring as the long-haired pack voles that were prevalent in her world, but with an annoying, flat face.

That thought made her stomach rumble.

“My name is Princess Chandra, Esquire, and I have been assigned as your attorney,” Chandra said. “You feel funny because you’re in a type-A containment zone. Most of your enhancements are turned off. It’s like a zero zone, but designed to accommodate certain types of crawlers who might have issues in regular zero zones.”

“Princess?” The creature straightened on her chair. “And my attorney? I thought it would be Quasar.”

“Then you thought incorrectly.”

Donut seemed to spend a long moment examining her. “Very well,” she finally said, sounding hesitant. “So, you’re a princess then? I certainly hope you don’t hold what happened against me and Carl. I do hope the dead snake lady wasn’t your sister or something.”

Chandra chuckled. “I wasn’t considered a princess until most recently. There’s been a recent change of government, and my uncle is now the Sultan. I was of no relation to the late Vinata.”

Donut’s voice brightened. “Well then congratulations are in order! I suppose that means Carl and I are partially responsible for your ascension. If you need any advice on being a princess, I will, of course, be happy to give you tips. I must say, princess, your golden brown pattern really is a nice shade. Vinata was quite stunning with her cobra hood and white and gold scales, but Carl says she really wasn’t really white and gold, but gray, and she’d been hiding it. Was that a scandal when people saw it? I bet it was a scandal.”

It actually was quite the subject of conversation, much to Chandra’s irritation. The literal king had been deposed and a new government put in place via a bloody coup, yet that particular scene had dominated the news cycle. The vid of Vinata, insane, ashen scales on full display, beating on Carl as she bled out, only to be finished off moments later by a slug had been shown over and over side-by-side with the video of the historic Ziggurat of Ages burning to the ground. It had to have been humiliating to the remaining surviving members of the royal family.

Still, Chandra had taken no small amount of pleasure at the sight of Vinata’s death. Chandra had worked hard for everything she’d ever had, and Vinata had been born into it. The late crown princess had basically won the genetic lottery by getting born into that family, and she still couldn’t hold on to what she had. She hadn’t even been killed by a fellow naga, but by a crawler. And not just a crawler, but a crawler’s pet slug. What a disgrace.

The sight of Vinata losing it all had been so... satisfying.  

The rodent continued to ramble. She was not making any sort of point. She just sat there, talking and talking, absently wiping her paw on the side of the table.   

“...One should be proud of who they are, I say. I would be lying if I said people don’t judge based on coloring, but one should never pretend to be something they’re not. It’s true, yes, that tortoiseshell coloring is not as ‘desirable’ as an all-white Persian in some circles. And, yes, people say ‘tortitude’ makes some cats difficult to work with, but you know what I say to those snobs? Look at my pedigree and my points and tell me I’m not as desirable. Tell me I’m not a champion. As bad as Miss Beatrice was, she did have an eye for exceptionality, and nobody can accuse her of not shooting for the stars, at least on the cat show circuit. Do you really only have two arms? Vinata had six. And you’re much smaller. At least you probably save a lot at the nail salon.” She examined Chandra’s hands, and Chandra instinctively felt herself hiding her dirty nails under the table, strangely ashamed, especially since this thing talking to her was a nightmare of gore.

She usually did have nice nails, but the last several hours had been quite tumultuous. She’d been forced to flee onto the attack cruiser when the late king’s security forces started rounding up everyone even remotely related to her uncle. Now they were all dead, and she was not.  Donut made no additional comment about her dirty nails.

Chandra bristled, more at her own reaction to this thing.

“Stop,” she finally said, making a point to hold up her hand. “For the sake of the gods, stop talking. We have a lot to go over.”

Donut nodded. “I know you have a job to do, but I’m telling you right now, I have no intentions upon taking a deal at this point.”

Chandra nodded. “I figured as much. You have several offers, but I agree that none of them are even worth looking at.” That actually wasn’t true, but she wasn’t going to say that to Donut. While most of the crawlers, even Carl, were getting worse than usual offers, likely due to the large number of survivors, she’d taken a glance at all the offers they had for Donut. There was one where she could co-host the prize carousel with Carl if he also picked the deal. There was game guide, with just a 15 season commitment. That was unheard of for someone on the 10th floor. Most of Donut’s deals were quick, safe assignments but with a nasty royalty-snatching clause buried deep inside. They were basically offering her an easy out in exchange for all the money she’d already earned. These were likely a direct result of Chandra’s recent movements. Most crawlers died intestate, and their earnings went straight to the Syndicate anyway, but now that Donut had competent representation, they’d lose out on a significant amount of money once the rodent finally died. These offers were trying to claw some of that back.    

It was interesting, considering that the entire show seemed to be self-destructing all around them. Honestly, Chandra hadn’t been paying attention this season. She’d only taken notice a few weeks back when someone had suggested that her husband, Rishi, and first wife both were in mortal danger. And they were in danger because of that same crawler who’d stabbed her husband’s cousin in the neck with a pen.

But if Chandra was being honest with herself, and if she didn’t have a literal interest in Donut lasting at least a little longer, she would have recommended that her client take the deals.

Donut whisked her tail. “Carl says he’s not going to take a deal, so I’m not going to take one.”

“Very well,” Chandra said, closing the folder, relieved she wasn’t going to have to waste time explaining everything. On her interface, she selected Crawler Refusing a Deal. There was a chime.  

“So, are we done here?” Donut asked.

“Not quite,” Chandra said, pulling out a second folder and opening it. She’d had her assistant print off and label all the new filings and rulings. There were dozens of pages. She took a breath, feeling oddly nervous all of a sudden. Why did she feel like this? She’d just literally survived a missile barrage against the warship she was sitting upon, yet this non-entity was causing, what? Apprehension? Ludicrous. It was something else. Maybe she was anxious that this idiot was going to screw it all up for her.

Chandra stood straighter. “We need to have a conversation about something else. Several somethings, actually. You’re not going to like what I’m about to say, but you need to know there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. And the sooner you come to terms with that, the sooner we’ll be able to move on. Do you understand?”

The creature seem to narrow her eyes. In an instant, her posture changed. “What’re you trying to say, princess?”

She pulled out the court order laying out that Princess Donut had been put under a conservatorship and that Carl was named guardian. She slid it over, and Donut immediately looked down to read it.

“Why can’t I read this? Why is it all gibberish?” Donut asked. She put her paw on the paper to move it, but her paw went right through.  

Chandra silently cursed. She moved to the control panel and flipped a switch.

“I deactivated some of the zone settings. You can read it now.”

Donut peered down at the paper and just stared at it for several moments. The rodent seemed to sigh. “Quick question. Is this meeting being broadcast to the universe?”

“It is not,” Chandra said, “but the negotiations of all the top-ten crawlers are available live to media accounts, so we are likely being watched by many right now.”

The rodent nodded. “Well, let’s see the rest of them, then.”

Chandra was mildly surprised. She was expecting the rodent to immediately lash out. Instead, she just quietly and quickly went over each page. She’s beaten and she knows it. That was a relief. This was going to be easier than she thought.

Donut continued to examine the papers, reading them in turn without any questions. The lawsuit that re-routed all future funding and royalties into Chandra’s trust account. The seizure of the Princess Posse’s accounts, including the prize money for winning Faction Wars. The first draft of the brief regarding the challenge to the Donut Holes being a sponsor. The formation of a corporation to seek out and attach damages to all those who were using Donut’s likeness for profit. The subpoena on the Donut Holes, demanding to see their books.

The only time when Donut paused was when she’d read the one at the top of the last pile. This was the marriage ruling and certificate that announced Carl was now Chandra’s husband. She had evoked Widow’s Rights, one of the oldest customs in naga history. This was the naga law that stated a naga royal widow could claim her husband’s assassin as her new husband. This right usually only extended to the “primary” wife, but because that bitch of an obsidian had died alongside Vinata, Chandra had moved to the primary slot, even if it was only for a few hours.

Rishi had five more wives after Chandra. She knew some of them were now dead, but she didn’t know who. She didn’t care. She’d hated them all. She’d hated Rishi, too.

The final sheet, which basically laid out how all the money both Carl and Donut were earning was now being stored in multiple, interest-bearing accounts at Kindred Bank, remained on the table. Donut took a few moments looking at the bottom line.  

“I suppose that goddess was correct when she said Carl was married,” Donut finally said after several minutes of reading. “Is this bottom line correct? This is how much money Carl and I have earned?”

Chandra was surprised at the question. “Yes. And this is before we go after the crawl itself. They haven’t been following some of their own rules, and there are some penalties buried in there that should see us getting a few percentage points from their 60%.”  

The creature nodded again. She kept rubbing her paw on the table.

“You know,” Donut said after a moment, “Carl has some legal papers just like this. He got them on the 8th floor from his father’s trailer. He pulled them out and left them on the table in my room where we sleep, but I don’t think he has even read them. I believe he’s too scared to look. But I read them. Do you know what they say?”

“I don’t care,” Chandra said. “All pre-collapse earth rulings have been rendered invalid.”   

“Exactly,” Donut said. “Invalid.”  

Chandra felt herself blink. “What? What does that mean? These are valid, enforceable legal documents.”

“Did you know,” Donut said, “that every naga we have met so far has been a raging psycho? For about five seconds I thought maybe you’d be a nice one, but it appears I was incorrect. And that’s really sad. The only nice one was Manassa, and she was a worm-head. I must say, you guys really are doing a terrible job of being ambassadors for your species. It’s no wonder they say all those nasty things about your kind on the internet.”

“What does that have to do with anything? What does that have to do with the earth legal papers?”

“I thought you didn’t care what the Earth legal papers said?” Donut tsked. “If you must know, it was a remarkably similar set of documents. Earth jargon is just as stupid and boring as your stuff. Carl’s grandparents had set money aside for Carl, and the father was attempting to get access to it without Carl knowing. And there was a marriage certificate in there as well, though that one was for Carl’s father and his new wife. There were also a few court documents for Carl’s dad regarding several arrests. Nothing too important, especially now. But, in the end, when you put them all together, they do something very interesting. They paint a very distinct picture of who Carl’s father was as a person. Much the same way these papers paint a picture of who you are, Princess Chandra.” Donut let out another sigh. “What a sad little snake you are. I pity you.”  

The words hit Chandra so hard, she felt as if she’d been slapped. It took her a moment to recover.

I am not little. I am not sad. I deserve this.

She knew this creature had an acid tongue. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t react. She needed to keep up her emotionless, matter-of-fact delivery. She had a plan.

Chandra forgot all of that as the red-hot anger overwhelmed her. She had lived her entire life in the shadow of the undeserving. She had worked for everything she ever had. And for this...thing to call her sad? To call her small?

How fucking dare she?

“Listen to me, you vile rodent. I don’t care what you think. This is all going to happen no matter what you do or say. I am showing you these papers, because as your attorney, I am required to show them to you. I only want you to live through this next floor because if you survive to the 11th, it makes me money. After, I don’t care. Either way, your financial legacy is now in safe hands.”

Donut scoffed. “Let me ask you a question. Why do you think they rendered all the Earth stuff invalid?”

“What sort of question is that? It’s because Earth no longer exists.”

Donut, who’d been sitting on the chair, suddenly jumped to the table. She stood on all fours right in the middle of the table atop the pile of papers, her body overlapping and combining with her folder. Chandra had to force herself not to shrink away.   

“Oh, honey, let me explain something to you. Whatever happens to me next, it doesn’t matter anymore. You’re not trying to just rob me and your husband, who, by the way, snores like a chainsaw. I hope that weird snake head of yours can wear earplugs. I also hope you like biscuit sandwiches. No, sweetie. You’re attempting to steal from the Princess Posse. And the Princess Posse is more than just myself and Carl. Didn’t you see what just happened? You think you being out there, outside the dungeon is protecting you?”

The creature let out a little laugh.

“We are everywhere. Yes, Earth is destroyed. Yes, Carl’s dad’s legal documents mean nothing. What do you think is going to happen to your little marriage certificate and your money transfers when you are destroyed?”

Chandra laughed bitterly, trying to sound more confident than she suddenly felt. “There is nothing you can do. And it’s not stealing if it’s done legally.”

“Hmm,” Donut said. “So, as my lawyer, if I offered someone 50 million credits to stop you from doing this, by any means necessary, would that be legal?”

“Of course not,” Chandra snapped.

Donut looked up into the air. “Then to any reporters watching this, I want it known that I am not offering 50 million credits to anyone who finds this snake and turns her inside out on my behalf. And I am most definitely not offering an additional 5 million to someone who takes that head of hers and turns it into a hat for me. Though if I was, I would be willing cancel the order should she change her mind about attempting to steal from the Princess Posse.” She seemed to contemplate. “I’ll have to think about the Donut Holes. I would like for them to stop selling pornography.”

A strange, unexpected terror washed over her.

Chandra suddenly had a blinking message from her Taurin associates on her own interface. Their fee was only 60,000 credits, plus expenses, for the job to find and eliminate Quasar. The message coming in at this very moment was a coincidence. It had to be. How could they possibly be watching this? Why would they have a media pass?

But the sight of the new message rattled her.

By the gods, what’s come over me?   

She clicked the message.

Chandra. We have questions about the job. What are your coordinates?

A new sense of terror came over her.

I have to get out of here. This isn’t what was supposed to happen. How could everything change so fast? Chandra started to rapidly gather up the folders. She suddenly felt very claustrophobic in this room. Of course they wanted to ask in person. All her meetings with them were in person.

To gather the final folder, she’d have to reach through the creature standing on the table, staring directly at her. She’d never seen eyes like this. She’d never seen such intensity, not even in her uncle when he’d told her that he planned on betraying her own husband and taking the sultanate for himself.

She couldn’t bring herself to reach through the illusion of the creature to grab the last folder. Princess Donut took yet another step toward her, and it was everything she could do not to let out a yelp. Shame and fear overwhelmed her at the same time.  

Donut leaned in toward Chandra and let out a low growl, like she was going to pounce. The crawler  whispered, “Since you’re new to this, let me give you your first lesson on being a princess. Lesson one, don’t put yourself in situations where you’re so afraid that you piss yourself. It shows a lack of decorum.”

Chandra, shaking, looked down. She hadn’t soiled herself, yet she’d still looked, and for that, she was humiliated. “I...I didn’t.”

“Not yet,” Donut said.  

   ~~~

Apologies again for not actually starting the book yet, but I want to start this one correctly. I was playing with actually starting at the end, but I've decided to nix that idea for now, though I may revisit that when it's all actually written. You can pants some things, but writing the whole thing backwards and keeping yourself AND your patrons sane is not something that can be easily pulled off, and I decided against trying it.

This next book is a challenge because we're finally at the point where several of the characters are OP, and as such, we need to build it in a way where the tension comes from a different angle. I can't wait for you guys to see what we have in store.

More soon. I hope you all have a great holiday season, and I wanted to thank you for your continued support. I have lots of news that's pretty amazing, but I can't yet say. I will have news soon on the live action television series front. I will have news soon on the graphic novel front, which will be a concurrent story in the DCC universe told from the POV of another character you know very well. I will have news soon on the web comic front to which is in active production right now.

I am now done with all of my events for the year after Sanderson's DragonSteel, which was pretty amazing. I got to meet and share the stage with Sanderson and Fonda Lee and Wesley Chu and Robin Hobb and so many other awesome authors. I did an event in a church with Daniel Greene, and the first question he asked me was about Uzi Jesus. Kickstarter is ALMOST THERE. Sorry about the delay on that.

I'm currently listening to the book 7 audiobook proof, and it sounds amazing so far. I can't wait for you guys to hear it. Audible will be filming an advertising spot for it soon that involves myself and Jeff Hays and a hopefully a promise fulfilled.

For next year I will be trying to do less events so I can focus on THIS, which will always be my priority. Carl's Book of Boom, which probably won't be what you expect. The events I do have confirmed and planned so far are Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle in March, the details of which were supposed to come out today but didn't. Litrpg Con in Denver in July. And Dragon Con in Atlanta August/Sept.  I believe Penguin is also sending me on tour in May post release of the Bedlam Bridge hardcover where I will hit several cities in rapid succession. That's currently being put together.

I love and appreciate all of you. Happy Holidays!