Chapter 5 of Carl’s Doomsday Scenario begins inside the Belly-Rubbed Pug, where Carl and Princess Donut have escaped a pursuit by Grimaldi’s former circus performers. The pause lets them examine rewards and prepare for the quest opened by the attack. Mongo grows, gains a tracking collar, and becomes the subject of Donut’s new cloning spell. Carl’s attempts to improve his explosives reveal what he lacks for a sustained fight. When the party returns to the ruins, dead crawler markers and a hidden lemur lookout turn a proposed scouting trip into an investigation of a likely ambush.
A larger Mongo and an absent adviser
Mongo has reached level three by the time the party settles inside the saferoom. He has nearly doubled in size. His pink and deep-red arm feathers have thickened, his tail is longer, the skin around his eyes has turned bluish, and his beak has grown wide enough to make a bite more dangerous. Donut mourns that he can no longer ride comfortably on her back. Carl thinks his continued growth may eventually reverse their positions, with Donut riding him. The physical change matters immediately because Mongo is no longer a small creature whom Carl can casually carry through every threat.
Mordecai is present but useless as an adviser. He remains unconscious in his own vomit after arriving drunk at the pub at the end of Chapter 4. Carl and Donut open their rewards while he snores. They both possess Silver Earth Boxes, and Donut also has an unopened Gold Pet Box. Carl notes a new achievement for receiving their first quest. Its description makes clear that quests may require investigation as well as fighting, which leads him to consider whether Donut’s exceptionally high Charisma could help if they need to question anyone.
The Gold Pet Box contains a black magical collar for Mongo. Once Donut puts it on him, his orange position marker appears on the map wherever he is. Mongo initially screams and tries to remove the collar, then stops after Donut corrects him. The reward answers a practical concern for a growing, excitable companion: the party can locate him even when he is out of sight. It does not make him more obedient or resolve the danger of his rushing toward enemies without orders.
Clockwork Triplicate
Donut retrieves a spellbook from the saferoom mailbox and immediately learns its spell. Carl objects because she has not first discussed the description with him. Her demonstration divides the visible Mongo into three running creatures. The two additions look like him but act independently: one retreats behind Donut, while the others resume circling Mordecai. Carl initially hopes they might be illusions. Their separate movements and their eventual collapse into gears, servos, and other parts show that the copies have physical presence for their brief duration. The remains disappear shortly afterward.
The spell is Clockwork Triplicate. Donut says it lasts about a minute and costs 26 mana points per cast. It works on pets and minions, so she cannot produce copies of Carl. The real Mongo reacts with alarm when the first copies fall apart. Donut’s new ability can temporarily multiply a companion rather than directly attack an enemy, but the copies’ independent behavior means they cannot be treated as two identical extensions of Mongo’s decisions. Carl regards it as worth practicing.
Reviewing Donut’s spells, Carl sees that Torch has reached level ten and Magic Missile level nine. Puddle Jumper is at level three, Second Chance at level five, and Heal, Heal Critter, and the new Clockwork Triplicate are at level one; Heal is marked at its maximum. Carl had missed Torch’s progress because Donut routinely kept it active while traveling and adjusted its brightness as conditions changed. The list places her new pet spell beside the established light, movement, healing, and offensive magic on which the party already relies.
Carl asks Donut to cast Clockwork Triplicate repeatedly because it is one of the few spells she can use in the saferoom. Her mana regenerates at roughly one point every twenty seconds, limiting how quickly she can repeat an expensive cast. Mongo becomes enthusiastic about the two temporary companions. He plays and wrestles with them, then cries to Donut when they disintegrate. Even Carl cannot consistently tell the three apart from their overhead labels while they are active. After several attempts, Donut reports that the spell has not gained a level when she expected it to. Carl suggests that saferoom use might not count toward training, but without a conscious Mordecai they cannot establish why the progress is absent.
Mordecai’s condition also shapes a smaller decision. Donut asks whether they should move him out of the vomit. Carl has already tried to wake him and noticed his incubus tail rising in a threatening way. He declines to touch him again, fearing an involuntary magical effect that could put their manager in trouble. The group therefore has access to shelter and supplies but no reliable explanation of the quest, spell training, or Third Floor mechanics during this interval.
The Silver Earth Boxes
Donut’s Silver Earth Box contains a large cat tree, a scented candle labeled Sea Breeze, and an Earth Hobby Potion. The tree has multiple posts, platforms, and a hammock; Carl recognizes that he will have to assemble it. Donut asks him to do so and to light the candle. She recalls Beatrice lighting candles at home, prompting Carl to remember Beatrice’s fear that Donut might brush against a flame despite keeping many candles in the apartment. These rewards call up domestic habits from before the crawl. The candle’s advertised scent does not strike Carl as resembling the sea.
The potion’s description says a Syndicate requirement grants it to crawlers who choose a domestic class. Drinking it is optional, but the recipient cannot sell or transfer it. It confers a randomly selected level-three skill in an Earth hobby that the drinker does not already possess. Carl wonders why the rule exists and whether it is an attempt to preserve some part of Earth’s culture, but the chapter supplies no answer. The mechanic promises a real skill level without promising a useful skill or even an explanation of the hobby’s application.
Carl’s box also holds an Earth Hobby Potion. Its other contents are a small potted cactus with a Home Depot price tag and a shrink-wrapped set of eighteen Louis L’Amour paperbacks from the Sackett Family Saga. Carl remembers secretly reading his father’s Westerns under the covers as a child, though he has not read these particular volumes. His hands shake as he handles the set, and he puts the books into his inventory. He can see why Donut might appreciate a cat tree and a familiar candle; he cannot determine why the cactus was chosen for him. He stores that too.
Donut drinks her potion first and receives Scutelliphily. She does not know what the word means and cannot see how a skill can help if its owner does not understand it. Carl receives Cesta Punta at level three, with no accompanying explanation. He looks at his hands and feels no immediate change. Neither new skill has an established use in this chapter. Donut jokes that Carl should test whether his hobby involves cracking nuts with his toes, and Gordo, the Bopca tending the pub, goes to fetch walnuts at her request.
Gordo’s eager response draws Carl’s attention to Donut’s Charisma, now at 70. Mordecai has previously warned that even a number this high will not be sufficient indefinitely on lower floors. Carl observes that ordinary level gains provide only three attribute points, making potions, equipment, and bonuses important ways to raise their statistics. Donut’s treatment by Gordo gives a local example of her social advantage, while the unexplained hobby skills demonstrate that reward value cannot be inferred from the label or level alone.
Carl’s explosives and the choice to scout
While Donut and Mongo occupy themselves with the clockwork copies, Carl examines his explosives. His level-one Bomb Surgeon skill lets him sense details within a stick of dynamite, including the blasting cap’s depth and whether the explosive is close to going off prematurely. That new awareness does not give him all the equipment or materials needed to turn an idea into a device. He wants a Sapper’s table, which he expects would prevent dynamite from degrading and offer more ways to work with it. He leaves the proposed modification unfinished.
Carl then turns to his goblin smoke bombs. They are about the size of apples, slightly too large for his slingshot, and difficult to disassemble. He considers whether a sling would serve better. Although he has chemicals and black powder, he lacks both sufficient chemistry knowledge and the right combination of materials for the device he imagines. He concludes that an explosives supplier would help; he also considers a hobgoblin stash because their supplies seem better than the goblins’ materials he has handled. His inventory is substantial, but it cannot yet support every trap he wants to build.
The party had intended to reach a larger settlement before dark. Carl changes the plan while there are still several hours before the next recap episode. Rather than commit to the journey at once, he wants to examine the edge of the circus territory opened by their quest. His stated intention is to avoid provoking a major encounter until they understand what occupies the area. They leave the Belly-Rubbed Pug to scout, not to charge directly into the circus.
Dead crawlers and the rooftop lookout
Outside, Carl sees three X marks on the map near the place where the lemurs attacked them. The marks indicate dead crawlers. He recalls Zev’s earlier warning against joining the other crawlers in the area and regrets that he never sought them out while adjusting to the Third Floor. The group approaches cautiously through an alley. Mongo sniffs, growls, and looks upward even though Carl initially sees no hostile markers. Following his gaze, Carl spots a skull-masked lemur sitting on a roof above the street with the bodies.
The lemur’s marker appears only once Carl sees it, confirming that the circus creatures can conceal themselves from his map until discovered. The lookout has its back to the party and faces the dead crawlers. Carl judges the scene to be a trap and assumes that additional enemies may be nearby, though he can see only one. The empty houses offer a possible approach: their doors and windows are gone, and rotten wooden beams span the upper floors. Carl and Donut enter one such shell and look toward the rooftop, but there are no stairs or easy route for Carl to reach the lookout.
Donut proposes taking the lemur herself. Carl wants a silent attack because his slingshot may only anger it and her Magic Missile can be loud. Before he can settle the method, she leaps onto a second-floor beam, moves low across the roof structure, and reaches a beam behind the lookout. Her movement is quiet enough to surprise Carl, but the charm on her collar and her armor make noise when she lands. Mongo also cries out. The lemur turns just as Donut pounces. Her claws send it falling into the building, where it strikes a beam and lands below still alive. Mongo rushes in, tears open its abdomen, and finishes the attack.
Carl rebukes Donut for risking herself without a plan and points out that the bell on her collar undermines stealth. When she says she must set an example for Mongo, Carl calls him a pet and says they should not endanger their lives for pets. He immediately regrets the remark after seeing how much it hurts her. The distinction is especially painful in a party where Donut herself was Carl’s cat before she became a speaking crawler. Their disagreement does not stop the reconnaissance, but it exposes how differently they understand Mongo’s place in the group.
Mongo pulls away the lemur’s painted human-skull covering. Beneath it, the creature’s own head is skinless and furless, with protruding bloodshot eyes. Donut takes a poor lemur skin and a bandolier of six throwing knives from the body. Carl then asks her to return to the roof and locate other attackers and the center of the circus. She has already looked. She reports an apparently sleeping lemur across the street, large tents a few streets away in what may be a park, and at least three giraffes in the same direction as the animal that carried lemurs during the earlier pursuit. She has not seen another clown. Faint circus music is audible if they listen carefully.
Donut’s report changes Carl’s response to her initiative. She gathered useful information during the attack he had just criticized, while Mongo helped detect and kill an enemy the map initially hid. She notes that Mongo is already close to level four. Carl proposes a specific next sequence: kill the lemur across the street, examine the dead crawlers, and then investigate the circus. He addresses Donut as his partner, and she accepts the word. The chapter ends with that plan; the attack on the second lemur and examination of the bodies belong to the events that follow in Chapter 6.