Tserendolgor—Ren entered the World Dungeon and joined the Crawl with a simple yet naive goal: to save the friends and family taken from her during the collapse. To do so, she would have to beat the dungeon—a game never meant to be won. It was a trap, after all, designed to make her an unwilling contestant in the galaxy’s greatest death game: Dungeon Crawler World. Now, the former French model from Mongolia turned flamethrower-wielding Dog Soldier finds herself a rising star on a galaxy-spanning game show where her time on stage becomes her tool for survival. But her fame is a double-edged sword, and Ren becomes trapped in the gravitational pull of a much larger star: a cat. A literal, blue ribbon, prize-winning, dog-hating, Bond villain, tortoiseshell Persian cat by the name of Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk. The rivalry between cat and dog, it turns out, is not unique to Earth, but shared all across the stars—a story as old as time itself. Where better to see this feud play out than an intergalactic death game powered by an unhinged AI? Try as Ren might, there is no escape. Once Ren attracted the ire of the famed Princess Donut, the universe took notice. Faster than limelight, their feud has become legendary, sweeping the galaxy by storm. Egged on by the viewer's desire for drama and the money pouring in from their sponsors, Ren has, time and again, had her story forced to cross paths with Princess Donut. To stoke the tension. To stoke the drama. To set off the final showdown. But it is more than that. Other powerful forces want to use her as a weapon. One to defeat the dungeon's top crawler and Donut’s partner: Crawler #4,122 “Carl”. He wants to break the Crawl and everyone responsible. With his brains, his bombs, and his bare feet, he will break them all. Those who profit from the Crawl want to stop him, but the AI running the World Dungeon won’t let them do it. At least, not directly—there are rules, after all. They must send other crawlers after Carl. Ren is on that list, and they will push Ren to the breaking point to make her do what they want. But they made a mistake. They forgot the old adage: you don’t mix fire with gunpowder. Carl wants to break them. Ren wants to burn them. Together, they will break and burn them all. Break and burn, baby. Break and Burn. CHANGE LOG - (7/31/24) I'm taking more time to writing chapters now that I've started working on an original writing project. Once I get to what I suspect to be the midpoint of this story (chapter 7, I think), I will take a hiatus to do an overhaul of the story, to rework my narrative technique, since I'm getting a better handle of the type of narrative I want to work with (and, assuming, I can solicit enough feedback from readers). AUTHOR'S NOTE This is a What-If styled fanfiction that branches off the main series at the sixth book of the Dungeon Crawler Carl Series: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride. So, READ THE SIXTH BOOK BEFORE THIS FANFIC. Otherwise: SPOILER WARNING This work explores the story that could have been if Matt Dinniman hadn't killed off our favorite canine side character, by asking the question: what if? What if Tserendolgor and her team had joined Guild Safehome Yolanda? Assuming that the AI would still have railroaded them into an awful outcome, because he is cool like that, Ren would likely still be forced to join Carl in Cuba. But, at least Carl's teleport traps wouldn't have scattered her team across Havana. You see, Carl specifically set his traps to trigger for any crawler not of Guild Safehome Yolanda. If Ren had joined the guild, then she'd have had her whole team together and more time to prepare for Quan. It may have been enough to change the outcome of her doomed fight with the one-arm bastard. Or, at least, it would have escalated things. So many small events had to happen for the eighth floor to end the way it did that one some change earlier on the floor could drastically change the course of the story. So what would happen if Ren survived? Certainly, among the bush-fire of butterfly effects, there would be more Ren and Donut drama. And, if you are like me, then you loved the love-hate relationship between Tserendolgor and Donut. They are perfect foils for one another: cat and dog, french model and award-winning showcat. Flamethrowers and Laser-eyes! If you are like me, then you looked forward to Ren joining Donut's guild, hoping for further hijinks. And, like me, you were blue-balled by Matt and made to cry like a little bitch. Curse you Jeff and your beautiful voice! I wanted more shenanigans, not the feels! But, unlike for Annie Wilkes, there are better coping mechanisms than kidnapping your favorite author and keeping him chained in your basement: There is fanfiction. Is this a mania-fueled writing exercise to help me drown my tears with words? Perhaps. Do I have a Louisiana Slugger named Deez Knees tucked under my bed? Most definitely. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing it. You may find me lurking the subreddit r/dungeoncrawlercarl under u/whoisedward