System Message. Posting Book 8 spoilers will result in "acceleration" per our rules.
"Carl: "Jesus fuck. Nobody can follow this.”
Katia: “Just pretend like you half understand.”[1]
See also: Untangling the Iron Tangle
The Fourth Floor is called the Iron Tangle because it consists entirely of thousands of interconnected subway tunnels. Each tunnel has a color designation or unique name an has one or more trains running in a loop.
Train stations are located up and down the lines. At some stops mobs board or exit the train; some contain safe rooms. There are also transfer stations where crawlers can transfer to different lines.
When trains get to the end of the line they are portaled to either a train yard where they are readied for another loop or to the Abyss - a giant pit where wreckage is discarded.[2]
Introductory Announcement
Hello Crawlers. Welcome to the fourth floor!
We are so very excited to introduce you to what is being hailed a genius feat of engineering. We call it the Iron Tangle. The trick is to find the stairwells. There are a lot of them out there, but where? Let's see how many of you figure it out.
This is important. This is not a permanent change, but it is a new rule for this level only. You may not go down early this level. The stairwells will open six hours prior to collapse, and that's it. Again, you may not go down early this floor. Now have fun out there. These train things are so nifty. We never had anything like it on our world.
Patron bidding is active, and we are very happy with the results so far. You will get a notification when your bidding has concluded. We'll have more info on that later.
You will notice that the leaderboard has finally populated. Congratulations to everybody on the list. As you can see, each member of the top 10 has a bounty after their names. That means hunting season is open! Isn't that exciting? If you kill one, you will receive a loot box containing the reward. If you are on the leaderboard, don't worry, you get to join in on the fun too. If you survive the floor, you will receive 10% of your own bounty upon floor collapse. That percentage goes up each floor.
Finally, we'd like to address the especially high mortality rate of the third floor. This occurred due to a high instance of group quests gone bad. While the number of crawlers are still in the acceptable range, we are all concerned about early extinction. That does not mean we will be letting up. So quit sucking. It's as simple as that.
Now get out there, ride the rails, and kill, kill, kill!
Layout
The Iron Tangle consists of a web of interwoven trains. These trains come in two types, Colored Lines and Named Trains.
Stations come along the train somewhere between 2-20 mins. The entire trip between stations 11 to 435 takes three days on colored lines, but the named trains can take around an hour and a half. [3]
- Trainyard at 10
- Stairwells at 12, 24, 36, 48, and 72 on any colored line [4]
- Saferooms at prime numbered transfer stations (11, 13, 17, etc.) [5]
- Exit-only Caverns every five stations (15, 20, etc.) where monsters get Rev-Up Vitamin Shots
- Desperado Club at transfer stations ending with 1 [6]
- Club Vanquisher at transfer stations ending with 9 [6]
- End of the Line 435 (employees depart and portal to trainyard) [3]
- Abyss Station 436 (giant pit to dump left over trains) [2]
“stations 11 through 72 were each about a city block or two apart from one another. We could walk that distance unhindered in a few hours. That was good to know. By comparison, stations 300 and 301 looked to be about 40 or 50 miles apart.” [7]
Colored Lines
Colored lines are normal subway cars.
- First Car is Engineer
- Fifth Car is Employee Break Room where the train conductor sits [3]
- Tenth car is Porters.
- Fifteenth car is Jikininki Janitor Ghouls on them. [3]
All employees get off the train at station 435. Crawlers are recommended to get off at station 433, which is said to be a big transit hub. [3] It's actually a Station Mimic. Employees remember pulling into station 435, and then they blink and they are back at station 10, the Trainyard and get on the train. The train is not in a time loop, but it does reset everything back to where it was every-time the train starts a new run. [3]
Porters and Conductors get on at 10. Jinkinis get on at 12. Engineers are already on by 10.
Monsters get off every 5 stops. If they miss their stop they panic. Monsters can't stay on the train or they die. Monsters will break into cars 10 and 15 but not 5. [3] The showrunners use Control Sigils to gate the movement of monsters, which is considered sloppy programming. The mobs are on drugs where they get their fix, are moved back 5 stops, then have to get back onto the train to get more drugs. [6]
Engineers only come out for derailment. Engineer keys are tied to the line, so an engineer's key of another color won't work to get into the train car on another line. [2]
Known colored lines: Red, Orange, Yellow, Indigo, Azure, Purple, Brown, Mauve, Green, Tangerine, Plum, Winter Sky, Ochre, Fulvous, Camel, Cobalt, Puce, Vermillion, Mango, Sinopia, Mindaro, Grullo, and Zomp.
Named Trains
Named trains behave in this way.
- Nightmare Express - An old-school, jet black, steam locomotive with cowcatcher that runs in a very large figure eight every ninety minutes. The figure eight loops from Station 83 to Purple/Mauve Station 283 to Abyss Station 436 to Station 283 to Station 83 and then back to the other Station 83. You must enter this one through the very last car, and you are expected to fight through thirty eight cars to the front. The train is actually steam-powered from the fire produced by the Lesser Demon MILF, Fire Brandy. [8]
- Dismemberment Limited - A white monorail train with only two cars on a wide track with two metal beams. The platform is smaller than normal, and it arrives every 48 minutes. The engineer's car, unlike the colored lines, is open with no seats and is reminiscent of a freight car. The engineer - Levi the 7th, a Troll Flesher and Hobgoblin Skellie Symbiote - is the key to the Levi is on the Menu Quest. In the back car, a war mage named (Dismember) waits for crawlers with his army of minion fleshers.[7] One stop on this loop is Mauve Station 281.[9]
- Eviscerator - One stop is Cobalt Station 271
- Name Unknown - A diesel-style train with an orc war mage who controls drill crabs (crab-like monsters with drills instead of pincers).
Events & Quests
- Upon Entry to the Floor: When crawlers enter the 4th floor they are randomly placed on a train with their Party.
- Levi is on the Menu Quest
- Vermillion Line Rescue
- End of the Line Rescue
- Stairwell Fight on the Fourth Floor
- Stairwell: Crawlers may only go down 6 hours prior to level collapse.[10] They are located at stations 12, 24, 36, 48, and 72.
Achievements
System Message: the following achievements were for actions taken on the Fourth Floor, but are opened in Gate of the Feral Gods book.
| Achievement | For | Reward |
|---|---|---|
| Let There Be Chaos Achievement | Summoning a God | |
| Divine Epiphany Achievement | Seen a deity | Option to worship Grull |
| Indomitable Achievement | Been Physically attacked by a god | Legendary Deity's Box |
| Smushed for Daddy Achievement | Been stepped on by Grull | Platinum Spicy Box |
| Hail Mary Achievement | Initiated attack that caused 100 casualties 100 km away | Gold Sniper's Box |
| Extinction Event Achievement | Killed all the Wall Monitor's on the Fourth Floor | Platinum Asshole's Box |
References
- ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (Chapter 30)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Dinniman, Matt. The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (Chapter 11)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Dinniman, Matt. The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (Chapter 5)
- ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (Chapter 2)
- ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (Chapter 9)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Dinniman, Matt. The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (Chapter 6)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Dinniman, Matt. The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (Chapter 12)
- ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (Chapter 14)
- ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (Chapter 13)
- ↑ Dinniman, Matt. The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (Chapter 3)