The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook follows Carl and his party—Donut, Katia, and Mongo the dinosaur—as they navigate the fourth floor of a deadly dungeon modeled after the Moscow Metro system. This floor presents a vast network of colored train lines connecting hundreds of stations, each populated by dangerous monsters and inhabited by NPCs with implanted false memories. The protagonist discovers that he has been selected to receive The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, a hidden guide containing recipes, strategies, and accumulated knowledge from previous crawlers who have attempted to escape or overthrow the dungeon's administrators. As Carl progresses through the floor, he learns that the trains themselves are central to the floor's design, and that the monsters are controlled through addiction to race-specific sedative potions distributed by high-level bosses. The stakes escalate dramatically when Carl discovers that the floor's infrastructure—powered by soul crystals and maintained by miserable NPCs—is designed not merely as a challenge but as a deliberate system of exploitation and control. Carl's journey transforms from personal survival into a mission to rescue trapped crawlers and dismantle the systems that oppress both players and NPCs, ultimately leading him to declare his intention to destroy the dungeon itself and target its administrators. Throughout the floor, Carl grapples with the moral weight of death and survival, the bonds formed between strangers united by circumstance, and the realization that true escape may require more than reaching the next level—it may demand revolution.

Carl, Donut (who reselects her class as Football Hooligan), Katia, and Mongo spawn in a moving subway car on the Red Line of Floor Four, modeled after the Moscow Metro system. Forced to flee from swarms of demonic baby-like Dreks, they use creative combat tactics and Carl's Protective Shell spell to survive, eventually reaching Station 83 where they can safely disembark. At Station 83, they upgrade their personal saferoom to a luxurious conjoined level-five space called "The Royal Court of Princess Donut," spending significant gold and using upgrade coupons. Carl opens achievement boxes and selects The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook from Prize Carousel, a hidden guide containing recipes and accumulated wisdom from previous crawlers. He reads Brandon's final message revealing that Brandon died holding the line against Shade Gremlins, asking Carl to find Brandon's brother Chris and tell him Brandon was sorry. Brandon's death devastates Carl, who resolves to rely on his team rather than being broken by such losses.

The party explores the Yellow Line, experimenting with combat formations and meeting Vernon, the train conductor who reveals a strange pseudo-timeloop: he blacks out at the line's end but retains memories and physical wounds, suggesting the floor's NPCs have been given false memories. This revelation deeply affects Carl, who recognizes the parallel between the NPCs' constructed existence and the crawlers' situation. However, when Carl opens a suitcase at the Porter's reward room in car ten, it explodes with fire ants and moonshine, killing Vernon and forcing them to evacuate at Banshee Station 116. While exploring the tunnel system and grinding against Red Cornets, Carl discovers from Bautista that Imani is alive and needs to speak with him urgently at the Desperado Club. Carl attends the club with Donut, encountering Elle (now a Frost Maiden) and Imani (now an Obsidian Butterfly with Fire Spiritualist abilities). Imani reveals that Chris underwent a personality-changing race transformation and fought with Brandon over strategy, ultimately resulting in Brandon and Henry's deaths during a Shade Gremlin outbreak. Carl receives Mordecai's train system map and discovers all transfer stations are numbered as prime numbers.

While studying Mordecai's map, Elle suggests investigating every fifth station and the line's end. Carl becomes determined to extract an engineer from the locked engine cars and proposes infiltrating a train. He deliberately derails a train on the Ochre Line using "Jelly Bomb" landmines, where he meets Gore-Gore, a two-torso mantaur engineer. Gore-Gore reveals that engineers pass through an "abyss gate" portal at stop 435 that teleports the engine car back to the depot while other cars undergo deep cleaning, meaning anyone inside the engine car during this transition would survive unharmed—a potential escape route. When Gore-Gore learns Carl caused the initial crash, he enters a berserker rage as a neighborhood boss. Carl barely defeats him by executing a drop kick that sends Gore-Gore onto the electrified third rail. Carl obtains a map of the Ochre Line and learns that sponsors have been assigned: Donut gets Princess D'nadia of the Prism Kingdom, Carl gets the Valtay Corporation, and Katia gets Princess Formidable of the Skull Empire.

Carl continues exploring train lines, boarding the Dismemberment Limited where a quest triggers to protect the engineer Levi from hundreds of Fleshers and War Mage Dismember. Carl and Donut defeat Dismember by pulling his head through a hole Donut creates and severing it. Carl later constructs an oversized metal backpack for Katia, discovering that equipped items allow her to add them to her mass, enabling her to transform into a heavily muscled seven-foot-tall form. He recruits Katia to serve as a "cowcatcher" for their train infiltration plan. While reading the Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, Carl discovers that breaking NPCs out of their scripted patterns is possible and considers the moral implications.

Attempting to board the Nightmare Express, Carl and Donut attempt to intercept the train on the tracks but fail when Donut's Puddle Jumper teleport exceeds her line-of-sight range. The train hits Carl, pulling him into the engine cab where he finds two dead engineers and a critical boiler tended by Fire Brandy, a demonic fire elemental. Carl stabilizes the train and learns from Fire Brandy that engineers experience the abyss gate transition and engine cars escape the cleaning process. He kills every monster on the train with his Protective Shell spell, leveling up three times to level 32 and earning a Platinum Big Daddy Box. Carl reaches Station 436 (Abyss Station) and discovers a massive burning pit filled with thousands of portals and crashed train cars, where Jikininki janitor ghouls scavenge wreckage. He analyzes portals using his subspace portal skill and discovers a heavily-guarded trainyard beyond with zombie creatures and engine cars. Carl returns to retrieve Donut and Katia, distributing stat points and reflecting on the bonds between crawlers.

Carl and his team board the Nightmare train and encounter approximately forty babababoons suffering from stage-two withdrawal symptoms from sedative potions, forcing them into brutal combat. Carl discovers a two-way pass-through portal at the switching station and observes a red steam engine navigating multiple tracks. The train emerges into Station E's trainyard filled with thousands of Festering Ghouls created from victims of Rev-Up vitamin shot withdrawal. Widget, a Grease Gremlin technician, explains the station is closing due to the ghoul infestation. When a spider ghoul decapitates Widget, Donut operates the turntable controls to help their train escape. Madison, a human resources associate fleeing the burning Iron Tangle Substation, boards the train and reveals fragmentary information about six entities called Station Mimics or Terminus and that workers with gold armbands are marked for death to increase productivity. Carl warns others about the Terminus Station trap. Madison eventually reveals she cannot remember key details of her life, confirming the NPCs were given false memories at the floor's creation.

At Station 101, Carl encounters Frank (Yvette's father), now a level-17 Night Elf Blood Assassin, drunk and missing his right hand. Frank reveals he and Maggie forced Yvette to wear the Ring of Divine Suffering, which marks a target for death and prevents healing. Frank explains their backstory: he and Maggie were drawn into the dungeon while responding to their runaway daughter Yvette being picked up by Maggie's brother, a deputy sheriff. Maggie killed Yvette because the pain from Carl's dynamite explosion wouldn't stop while Carl remained alive. Frank gives Carl the Ring of Divine Suffering as revenge, wanting him to understand the weight of responsibility. Frank claims Maggie still has a legendary Find Crawler skill potion and may be hunting for revenge. Carl accepts the ring but later removes it after Mordecai explains that such rings are tracked by hunters on the sixth floor and designed to empower sadistic combatants in faction wars.

Carl's group discovers that Elle and Imani have found a secret tunnel beneath the robot rooms with train tracks. They learn that monsters are addicted to race-specific sedative potions distributed by Pooka bosses at every fifth station, keeping them compliant and predictable. Interrupting trains causes withdrawal and physical changes in mobs. Traveling via teleportation to a submarine production trailer operated by Mexx-6000 AI, Carl and Donut record segments for the show Planet Beautiful. Carl refuses to read the provided script containing incel terminology and instead selects a segment about video games. Donut speaks off-script about cocker spaniels and Crufts. Carl learns that Frank was killed in a fight with Chris, Brandon's brother, who was then banned from the bar.