Character · from book 1
Agatha
A homeless woman with a shopping cart, an IKEA bag of spray paint and a pink flamingo with an arrow through its head, who set fire to the eldercare facility and walked down the dungeon's stairs cackling. Level two without ever going through the tutorial. She is edited out of the recap episode, and her cart is not what it seems.
Race and class, since book 1: Human
First appears: Book 1 · Seen for what it is: Book 4
Series arc
In hindsight, after book 4
Read after book 4, Agatha does not work alone. Book 1 gives the homeless woman with the cart, the ramp the dungeon built for her, the Valtay hardware in Carl's inventory history, and her line on the stairs: 'Them critters already know I'm here. They just don't know what to do about it.' Book 3 puts her on the stairs again at level 8, human, unclassed. In book 4 Orren, the Syndicate's liaison, listing who is not Carl's outside source, rules her out: 'We know it wasn't Agatha or any of her helpers.' The source Carl does not name is the Cookbook; Li Jun sees her at level 12 in another bubble. The Trace has the lines. Who her helpers are, the books have not said.
As of book 4. The series' first mystery. Book 1: the homeless woman who burned Meadow Lark, made the dungeon build her a ramp, was edited out of the recap, carried Valtay hardware in her cart, and told Carl on the stairs 'Them critters already know I'm here. They just don't know what to do about it.' Absent in book 2; in book 3 at the station 36 stairwell at level 8, human, no class, the flamingo still in the cart. Book 4 says she has helpers: the Syndicate's liaison, Orren, rules her out as Carl's outside source — 'We know it wasn't Agatha or any of her helpers' — and Li Jun sees her at level 12 going down the stairs early in someone else's bubble. Carl still tells everyone to ignore her.
Open threads
Status is open or resolved; the chapter after it is the last one that moved the thread.
| Thread | Opened | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Agatha's cart and the Valtay hardware | B1 ch. 47 | open · B5 ch. 78 — A shopping cart in a glass pod far above on the seventh floor. |
| The 'outside source' the Syndicate wants named | B4 ch. 19 | open · B5 ch. 59 — Orren leaves until the ninth floor and explains liaisons as sheriffs; the source unnamed. |
All threads: Open threads.
Through book 1
The series' first mystery. Book 1 gives the facts and withholds the explanation: she set the fire that emptied Meadow Lark, the dungeon made her a ramp, she is edited out of the recap, her cart carried Valtay Corporation hardware including an illegal communications relay, the feed drops while she descends, and she tells Carl 'You worry about you, and I worry about me' (B1 ch. 47). Carl decides not to get involved. Odette's word for the Valtay is 'parasitic' (B1 ch. 48).
Through book 2
Absent, and pointedly so: Carl decides not to write about her to Brandon (B2 ch. 8). The Valtay are all over the floor without her.
Through book 3
Level 8, human, no class, the flamingo still in the cart: she makes the stairs at station 36 a ramp and goes down ahead of Carl, and Carl stops Imani from asking her anything (B3 ch. 34).
Through book 4
Ruled out by the Syndicate's liaison, Orren, as Carl's outside source — 'We know it wasn't Agatha or any of her helpers' (B4 ch. 19); seen by Li Jun at level 12 going down the stairs early in someone else's bubble (B4 ch. 33). The epilogue's homeless man in handcuffs in an airport garage, screaming at the police in a language nobody knew, goes unnamed; the book does not tie him to her (B4 ch. 35).
Through book 5
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 | » Crawler #7,450 “Agatha.” | Her card at Meadow Lark. |
| Book 1, Ch. 47 | Them critters already know I’m here. They just don’t know what to do about it. | On the stairs down from the second floor; Carl wonders whether she works with the AI. |
| Book 4, Ch. 19 | We know it wasn’t Agatha or any of her helpers. | Orren, the Syndicate's liaison, ruling her out as Carl's outside source of information, and speaking of her helpers. |
| Book 4, Ch. 33 | Yeah, that’s Agatha. We just ignore Agatha. | Carl to Li Jun, who has seen her at level 12 in another bubble. |
Where they appear
| Book | Chapters they are in (of the book's) | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 1 — Dungeon Crawler Carl | 10/48 | 22, 26–27, 30–31, 35, 37, 40, 47–48 · the book's own page |
| 2 — Carl's Doomsday Scenario | 2/26 | Ch. 8, Ch. 14 · the book's own page |
| 3 — The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook | 1/35 | Ch. 34 · the book's own page |
| 4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods | 2/35 | Ch. 19, Ch. 33 · the book's own page |
| 5 — The Butcher's Masquerade | 2/78 | Ch. 57, Ch. 78 · the book's own page |
By book
Agatha in book 1 — Dungeon Crawler Carl
A homeless woman with a shopping cart, an IKEA bag of spray paint and a flamingo with an arrow through it, who burned Meadow Lark, walked into the dungeon first, and turned its stairs into a ramp by pushing her cart at them (ch. 22). Level two without a tutorial. She pushes into the boss fight uninvited, Carl takes her cart into inventory and she screams about it until the pigs rain down (ch. 26, ch. 27); the achievement for it, Bully and a Thief, comes up in ch. 30. Then she is gone down the ramp, ahead of everyone, edited out of the recap (ch. 31), leaving grub corpses for them to find (ch. 30).
The inventory History tab is the reveal (ch. 47): three Valtay Corporation items — a pulse pistol, a personal shield, an illegal communications relay — passed through Carl's hands inside her cart. She wheels into the stairwell chamber as he reads it, calls him a cart thief, and gives him one look that says stop; the feed is out while she descends. 'Them critters already know I'm here. They just don't know what to do about it.'
Agatha in book 2 — Carl's Doomsday Scenario
Agatha in book 3 — The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook
One appearance, at the end: level 8, still human, still classless, the flamingo still in the cart, turning the stairs at station 36 into a ramp and going down first. Carl stops Imani from intercepting her: 'We'll talk later' (ch. 34).
Agatha in book 4 — The Gate of the Feral Gods
Named by the Syndicate's liaison as an outside source Carl might have, 'or any of her helpers' — none are in his bubble (ch. 19); Carl remembers the second floor: 'Them critters already know I'm here.' Li Jun sees her, level 12, arrive from nowhere and go down the stairs early without a word (ch. 33). The epilogue's homeless man in handcuffs, screaming in a strange language in an airport parking garage as the world ends, goes unnamed; the book does not tie him to her (epilogue).