Character · from book 1
Chris
Chris Andrews 2 — Brandon's older brother, near-silent ('Silent Bob'), who casts a magic spear and pulls the residents' train in a tuskling pig harness.
Race and class, since book 4: Igneous · Zulu Warrior
First appears: Book 1 · Seen for what it is: Book 4
Series arc
In hindsight, after book 4
Read after book 4, everything strange about Chris from the end of the third floor is Maggie My. Book 1 gives the man: Brandon's older, quieter brother, three spoken lines, a metal skullcap and no weapons. Book 3 reports the change second-hand — Imani says he picked a rock race, an igneous, and that the race changed his personality; Donut reports that he killed Frank Q at the Desperado Club's counter and walked out; Odette starts to warn Carl about him and Loita mutes her. Book 4 has him walk up to Carl as a seven-foot Igneous with three skulls and say, as Chris, 'I can’t kill anybody else in my family' — Maggie's sentence in Chris's mouth ('I'm not angry anymore' comes at the book's end, from a sand dune): an Infiltrator worm took his body at the end of the third floor, and he has watched everything since from inside, Frank's murder included. The Trace has the lines. What Maggie was threatened with — her older daughter, who died in the collapse, brought back as a monster for someone to kill — is book 4's own thread.
As of book 4. Brandon's older, near-silent brother in book 1, who speaks three times, each worth listening to. Book 2 says only that he did not stay human; book 3 says he became an igneous, that the race changed him, that he left his brother, maybe blocked him, and went looking for Carl, that he killed Frank Q at the Desperado Club's counter and walked out, and that Odette was about to warn Carl about him when she was muted. Book 4 explains all of it: the seven-foot rock creature with three skulls who walks up to Carl in bubble 543 is Maggie My, an Infiltrator worm who has worn Chris's body since the end of the third floor, and Chris has been awake inside for all of it. He asks, through Imani and Elle, to be killed; Carl tells him to go fuck himself and delivers Brandon's message to the stone; Donut drops them both into a tomb. He gets one warning out — 'Maggie is cheating. She has outside help. A cap…' — before he is muted, and at the end Carl pulls the worm out through his skull with a phased hand. 'Brandon.' He goes down the stairs in Carl's party, owed to Imani.
Open threads
Status is open or resolved; the chapter after it is the last one that moved the thread.
| Thread | Opened | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Chris, freed, owed to Imani | B4 ch. 34 | open — 'We'll get him to you on the next floor.' Three skulls, Frank's death and a club ban in his name. |
| What Odette was about to say about Chris | B3 ch. 35 | resolved · B4 ch. 14 — Chris was Maggie My; Odette's warning is explained by a rock body with three skulls. |
All threads: Open threads.
Through book 1
Three speeches in the whole book, each worth listening to. Goes down with his brother (B1 ch. 41).
Through book 2
Off-page; did not stay human (B2 ch. 8).
Through book 3
Through book 4
The crawler who took the Akula walks up to Carl as a seven-foot Igneous with three skulls, and is Maggie My: an Infiltrator has worn his body since the end of the third floor, and he has been awake inside for all of it (B4 ch. 14). Petrified, he asks through Imani and Elle to be killed; Carl tells him to go fuck himself and delivers Brandon's message to the stone; Donut drops him and Maggie into the tomb. They dig out, kill a tomb raider, and Chris gets one warning into the quest chat — 'Maggie is cheating. She has outside help. A cap…' — before he is muted (B4 ch. 29). Carl pulls the worm out through his skull with a phased hand (B4 ch. 34). 'Brandon.' He goes down the stairs in Carl's party.
Trace
The thread line by line, in reading order: its presence before anyone could see it, and the lines that made it legible. Each line is verbatim from the cited book.
| Where | The line | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Book 1, Ch. 22 | “He doesn't talk much, does he?” I asked, indicating Brandon's brother, Chris. | Book 1's whole characterisation: Brandon's older, quieter brother, who speaks three times in the whole book. |
| Book 1, Ch. 31 | There’s more to it. She was edited out of the scene. She was next to me under the speedbump, but she wasn’t there when they showed it. | The second time Carl hears him speak: Agatha cut from the recap. |
| Book 3, Ch. 3 | I got into a fight with my brother Chris, and he left the party. | Brandon's last message: Chris left, maybe blocked him, and is alive. |
| Book 3, Ch. 8 | He won’t answer us. But I know he’s looking for you. I thought you should know the story before he finds you. | Imani: an igneous race changed him. |
| Book 3, Ch. 8 | Chris picked a rock race, like these guys, but a different kind. Called an igneous. | Imani: the race changed his personality; he wants to hunt, and to find Carl. |
| Book 3, Ch. 20 | It was Chris. Chris killed him. Sledgie said he did it and walked right out. | Donut's report: Frank Q's head crushed at the Desperado Club's counter; Chris banned. |
| Book 4, Ch. 10 | He’d taken a race called an Igneous. […] He’d stopped all communication with Imani, and Odette had tried to send me a warning about him. | Carl's summary before the meeting. |
| Book 4, Ch. 14 | This was Maggie. Maggie My. But how? | The three-skulled Igneous is Maggie My in Chris's body — an Infiltrator worm since the end of the third floor. |
| Book 4, Ch. 29 | Maggie is cheating. She has outside help. A cap… | Chris's last chat message before he is muted and his notes vanish from the log, the second time that has happened. |
Where they appear
| Book | Chapters they are in (of the book's) | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 1 — Dungeon Crawler Carl | 11/48 | 21–22, 26–27, 30–31, 37–41 · the book's own page |
| 2 — Carl's Doomsday Scenario | 1/26 | Ch. 8 · the book's own page |
| 3 — The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook | 7/35 | Ch. 3, Ch. 6, Ch. 8, Ch. 9, Ch. 20, Ch. 32, Ch. 35 · the book's own page |
| 4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods | 15/35 | 9–11, 13–15, 19–20, 25–27, 29, 31, 33–34 · the book's own page |
By book
Chris in book 1 — Dungeon Crawler Carl
Chris Andrews 2, Brandon's older brother, put in a special school because he would not speak; 'If he says something, you better listen' (ch. 22). He speaks four times in the book: to say 'I liked that show' of The A-Team or MacGyver, never saying which (ch. 26), to notice that Agatha was edited out of the recap (ch. 31), to say Jack really did have a weird-looking dick (ch. 39), and to tell his brother not to be that guy (ch. 40). He casts a five-minute magic spear, pulls the residents' train in a tuskling harness, and is found kneeling with his head down after the slaughter of the tusklings (ch. 27) and again after the collapse (ch. 31).
Chris in book 2 — Carl's Doomsday Scenario
Named once, in Brandon's message from the third floor: the residents with cognitive issues had to pick really weird races to stay viable, and while Brandon stayed human, Chris and Imani did not — nothing more this floor (ch. 8).
Chris in book 3 — The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook
An igneous — lava rock, full of holes — and changed by it: he wanted to hunt, wanted to find Carl, fought with his brother and left with men who all died (ch. 8). Would not take Brandon's messages (blocked, Brandon thought); will not answer Imani; alive, and looking for Carl. He walks into the Desperado Club, kills Frank Q at the bar, and walks out banned (ch. 20). Odette starts to say something about him and is muted (epilogue).
Chris in book 4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods
Maggie's armour
The crawler who took the bridge of the Akula — invisible to its sentinel gun, alone with the head in the jar, lying about the escape tubes (ch. 9, ch. 25) — walks up to Carl in Hump Town (ch. 13) as a seven-foot Igneous Zulu Warrior with coal eyes and three player-killer skulls, and is not Chris. The chat costs him health; family makes you weak; the speaker has two daughters, the older dead in the collapse, and a guide who said the collapse dead are in storage, though Chris has no children Carl knows of and his guide is a woman (ch. 14). It is Maggie My, an Infiltrator in his brain since the end of the third floor, and Chris has been awake inside, watching, for all of it: Frank's death, the flight from Meadow Lark, everything.
'Please. Kill me.'
Petrified by Katia's bolt, he messages through Imani and Elle: 'It's okay. I give you permission.' Carl tells him to go fuck himself and delivers Brandon's message to the stone (ch. 14). Donut drops him and Maggie into a sealed chamber of the tomb rather than let Carl kill him. They dig out, kill Tyler on the way, and Chris gets one warning into the quest chat — 'Maggie is cheating. She has outside help. A cap…' — before he is muted and his log erased (ch. 29). At the end Carl, phased through lava rock, pulls the worm out through his skull. 'That hurt.' 'Ditto.' 'Brandon,' he says, and goes down the stairs in Carl's party, in his brother's honour (ch. 34).