It's unfortunately been too long since book 4, so I struggled a bit to remember some things (like how they met Samantha and what the deal was with the halflings, where honestly I still haven't worked that out still).

Carl has definitely become more hardened (or rather it's more apparent in this instalment) and seeing him use the ring so much gives me mixed feelings - all those extra stats are great, but man, at what cost :T

I'm sure I've forgotten important, underlying politics of the Dungeon Crawl, so while it's been talked about more, I'm not super sure of the significance of what's happened.  I mean, is this overall good for Earth / humans or will make us worse off?

What I know for sure is I'm awfully worried about Donut, now Katia, in line to be the Sultanate. Fuck, that's a mess and a half.

Also, poor Miram and Pony.  I can't believe Pony worked out how to skip the entirety of Floor 7. Fudging crazy.