Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is Spoiled Me
Speaker 1: covering Dungeon Crawler Carl Book two, Carl's Doomsday Scenario, chapters
Speaker 1: eight through eleven. In these chapters, Carl eats worms. Other
Speaker 1: things happen, but like, let's be real, we talk about
Speaker 1: this book, we're gonna be like that time that Carl
Speaker 1: ate worms. Welcome to spoil Me, Welcome to the show everyone.
Speaker 1: I am Natasha. Thank you very much to Michael for
Speaker 1: commissioning this episode. Yeah. Look, I think that in terms
Speaker 1: of storytelling this is valid and works really well and
Speaker 1: all of that. But I also would like it registered
Speaker 1: with everybody that anytime characters are made to eat something
Speaker 1: alive and wriggling, I won't be here for it, and
Speaker 1: it will never change. I will never suddenly be like,
Speaker 1: you know what, this time it was great. Nope. There
Speaker 1: is a point in the Red Rising series where somebody
Speaker 1: brings in a bucket full of cockroaches into snake and
Speaker 1: it's a hazing ritual and they have to eat them.
Speaker 1: And the woman grabs the snake right away and just
Speaker 1: bites its head off, and as they are scooping up
Speaker 1: handfuls of cockroaches, bros, Like she was smart to grab
Speaker 1: that fucking snake. Immediately she knew what she was doing,
Speaker 1: because these cockroaches are not it. And you know, when
Speaker 1: you're jealous of the snake, that's pretty bad worms. And
Speaker 1: then they take over his body and it's all so
Speaker 1: horribly uncomfortable, and I really what I liked about this,
Speaker 1: And I know I'm jumping ahead, but you know how
Speaker 1: I do. I think that's why we're here at this point,
Speaker 1: So I'm not apologizing anymore. But the way that it
Speaker 1: is described how it feels when they make him talk
Speaker 1: is really effective because I feel like so much of
Speaker 1: the time, the physical feeling of it is overlooked and
Speaker 1: it is just focused on the overall like violation of
Speaker 1: a feeling, you know, of like they've taken over and
Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm not in control, but it's very
Speaker 1: much like they are wrapped around my vocal cords and
Speaker 1: this hurts so bad, which I kind of appreciated.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Michael says, why do people feel like making hazing rituals
Speaker 1: disgusting and dangerous and or sexual assault instead of fun?
Speaker 1: Because the point is how bad do you want it?
Speaker 1: It has to be something that isn't fun to do,
Speaker 1: because you've got to prove this is how bad I
Speaker 1: want to be here. They not only have to eat
Speaker 1: those cockroaches, but they also have to each chug an
Speaker 1: entire bottle of what amounts to moonshine at the same time.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of vomiting, as you can imagine.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so I don't care for it at all.
Speaker 1: I don't like it. Let's start with chapter eight, where
Speaker 1: we get an update from Brandon, and this was so interesting. First,
Speaker 1: just a touch base with the state of the cat tree.
Speaker 1: It is assembled. So I thought that shit was going
Speaker 1: to hang around her ages and that he wasn't going
Speaker 1: to assemble it. But it's done, and I must say,
Speaker 1: I'm a little impressed that you took care of that
Speaker 1: so quick, buddy. I'm a little bit proud of you. Also,
Speaker 1: I could see, after what he said about we don't
Speaker 1: risk our lives for our pets, that perhaps he might
Speaker 1: feel a bit guilty and be jumping on assembling that
Speaker 1: cat tree a little sooner than usual, just because he
Speaker 1: feels like he sort of bows or something. But I
Speaker 1: don't know that that's true. It's not mentioned. I also
Speaker 1: lit the cheap candle for her. It filled the small
Speaker 1: rented room with the scent of home. I watched Donut
Speaker 1: for a bit, and I could tell what she was doing.
Speaker 1: She wasn't really asleep, she was just closing her eyes
Speaker 1: and pretending that she was back home in her favorite spot.
Speaker 1: This really got me, you guys, there was like just
Speaker 1: that closing your eyes and pretending a thing. I think
Speaker 1: all of us, at some point in our lives do
Speaker 1: this because scent is such a particular you know, it's
Speaker 1: so closely linked with memory more than any other sense.
Speaker 1: And I know that for me, there are moments where,
Speaker 1: like my mother used to burn this particular type of
Speaker 1: balsam pine incense when I was a kid, and she
Speaker 1: burned it in the winter in general, but on Christmas especially,
Speaker 1: and also at Christmas every year she would make this
Speaker 1: gorgeous walnut stuffed cinnamon braided bread that she would get
Speaker 1: up and put in the oven before anybody else was awake,
Speaker 1: so we'd wake up and it would smell like cinnamon
Speaker 1: and that balsam incense, which has a very wood smoke
Speaker 1: sort of smell, and the combination of those fragrances is
Speaker 1: so embedded in my brain and the other. Like a
Speaker 1: few Christmases ago, I baked cinnamon rolls and I had
Speaker 1: lit the incense, and I just had a moment of like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, you know, and if I hadn't already been
Speaker 1: awake and busy, I could definitely see myself climbing back
Speaker 1: into bed and closing my eyes and pretending that I'm
Speaker 1: six years old and just for a second, somebody else
Speaker 1: has taken care of all of the cooking and baking
Speaker 1: for the holidays, and somebody else is out there getting
Speaker 1: me oven started. You know, just let yourself be there
Speaker 1: for a moment, and especially, you know, having that sort
Speaker 1: of feeling of nostalgia just because you'll never be that
Speaker 1: age again is hard enough. But having that sort of
Speaker 1: nostalgia because that place is gone and you will never
Speaker 1: see earth again in like the same way, that is
Speaker 1: a kind of loss that it's impossible for me to
Speaker 1: even really understand. So I feel like I'd be doing
Speaker 1: this every night. I feel like I would be, you know,
Speaker 1: going in very hard for the dissociation treatment myself. So
Speaker 1: they go out and they meet Gordo, well they have
Speaker 1: met him before, but like I'm saying, meat, because like
Speaker 1: this is the real Gordo. Don'ut says, I need my
Speaker 1: breakfast and you need to brush me, and he says,
Speaker 1: hold your horses, you blow hard. I need to freshen
Speaker 1: up a bit. I'll get you fed, don't worry, and
Speaker 1: you can brush yourself. Princess, Well, I never Carl do something.
Speaker 1: Mordecai teach you the finger breaking trick. Finger breaking. No,
Speaker 1: he made me a potion. I told him I didn't
Speaker 1: quite feel myself since you two arrived, and he offered
Speaker 1: to makes me a draft using a few things behind
Speaker 1: my bar, something that allowed me to regain my dignity.
Speaker 1: It's not right taking advantage of my kind nature like that.
Speaker 1: And Mordecai, as they find out later, that potion apparently
Speaker 1: like did kind of bring him back to himself. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if he did that on purpose to
Speaker 1: make it seem like, yeah, that's what it was for,
Speaker 1: or if it accidentally worked or what. But the purpose
Speaker 1: of it was actually to knock Gordo out so that
Speaker 1: he could go and get the newsletter they get and
Speaker 1: Bopka's and shopkeepers don't have access to the feed, so
Speaker 1: they get a physical newsletter to each recapp Once he
Speaker 1: passed out, I went into the back so I could
Speaker 1: read the brief. I also stole a few items for potions.
Speaker 1: I don't have an inventory like you do, so take
Speaker 1: this and he hands them over a bunch of herbs
Speaker 1: and stuff and he apparently this is not technically against
Speaker 1: the rules. They can't engage in direct battle with mobs,
Speaker 1: but everything else they want to do as a manager
Speaker 1: is fine. The brief is regional and it warned of
Speaker 1: a potential major battle event happening in this area today
Speaker 1: or tonight. And he's like, it's probably an elite friend.
Speaker 1: I need you guys to eat and get the fuck out,
Speaker 1: and Carl says okay. And as soon as he says
Speaker 1: just okay, I was like, Yeah, this isn't gonna happen.
Speaker 1: I was just like, Carl is agreeing to do what
Speaker 1: he has told. They are about to leave, and it's
Speaker 1: too late already. I said it last episode, and I
Speaker 1: I was like, you're in it. I don't know how,
Speaker 1: I don't know what she's going to do, but you're
Speaker 1: part of it, and there's no backing out. And I
Speaker 1: know that we're just getting to see you agree without arguing,
Speaker 1: so that we can see you caught up very shortly,
Speaker 1: so the update from Brandon. None of the residents can
Speaker 1: choose human lest they remain in their current condition, and
Speaker 1: there is a lot of pushback. The ones with cognitive
Speaker 1: issues have to pick some really weird races in order
Speaker 1: to remain viable. I'll tell you all about it later.
Speaker 1: I stayed human, Chris and Immani did not. Most of
Speaker 1: the residents are still level one, but you would not
Speaker 1: believe the loop boxes they got for hitting the third
Speaker 1: floor without killing anything or dealing any damage. They are
Speaker 1: all getting legendary pacifist boxes, along with a ton of
Speaker 1: other ones. It's ridiculous how much magical gear we now have.
Speaker 1: Some of these bastards are going to be more powerful
Speaker 1: than Immani pretty soon. Anyway, Mistress Tiata says, we're likely
Speaker 1: pretty far from you now. I just wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you again for your help. I hope we see each
Speaker 1: other again. And you, guys, this is so incredibly fascinating
Speaker 1: to me. Do you understand how much I want to
Speaker 1: see them choosing their races?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Do you understand how compelling the process of choosing based
Speaker 1: on the cognitive abilities and what you're able to do
Speaker 1: right now? Like I desperately want to know what their
Speaker 1: options are, what effects those options might have if they
Speaker 1: do this. In combination with that, I live for this
Speaker 1: kind of shit. I I want to know all of
Speaker 1: it really very much, really very very much. And I'm
Speaker 1: disappointed that we're not going to be there. I am
Speaker 1: hoping that we are going to see them again. I
Speaker 1: don't feel like all of them would still be alive
Speaker 1: and that we would be hearing from them if we
Speaker 1: weren't going to be getting an update, and I mean
Speaker 1: an in person this is an update, but like an
Speaker 1: in person moment with them to I'm imagining this is
Speaker 1: like sort of preparing us for when we meet them
Speaker 1: and realizing like, maybe these aren't enemies, even though they
Speaker 1: looked like a very weird motley crew of extremely powerful people.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this is just really Can you imagine being
Speaker 1: older and in an aging body to a point where
Speaker 1: you're thinking you're like definitely gonna die because of the
Speaker 1: situation that you're in, and then you are given the
Speaker 1: opportunity to change race and jump into a brand new,
Speaker 1: completely otherworldly body and drop all of the struggle that
Speaker 1: you've been having with your regular human body, like the
Speaker 1: drive to stay human, as we have heard, is pretty
Speaker 1: strong in most people. So I get why there's pushback
Speaker 1: on that. But I also you know, I was saying
Speaker 1: how it would be difficult for me when I was
Speaker 1: making the decision. I don't know what I would choose,
Speaker 1: and like, it didn't occur to me that the body
Speaker 1: you pick is going to be I'm assuming immaculate to
Speaker 1: start with. You know, if you're ninety seven years old,
Speaker 1: but you pick a dragon born creature, I'm assuming you
Speaker 1: aren't in the shitty ninety seven year old equivalent of
Speaker 1: a dragon born body. Now granted, I'm assuming a dragon
Speaker 1: born body would be like still in prime shape at
Speaker 1: ninety seven, but you get what I'm saying. It never
Speaker 1: really entered my mind that if if you start, like,
Speaker 1: if you choose to remain human, you're staying in the
Speaker 1: human body you have. You're not getting upgraded to like
Speaker 1: prime version of human. So if you pick another race,
Speaker 1: are you getting the best option for that race, the
Speaker 1: best possible model? I would assume, so, right, So you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, I was really really struggling with what
Speaker 1: would I pick. I now thinking through this aspect of it,
Speaker 1: I would definitely not remain human. Like it would be
Speaker 1: very hard to get to step away from the body
Speaker 1: that I've been in. But I'm at an age at
Speaker 1: forty where I'm just starting to really see the like
Speaker 1: wear and tear and the effect that it has on
Speaker 1: my overall performance anymore. And it's sobering. So to ACTU
Speaker 1: be able to pick a different body and start from
Speaker 1: like a really good solid state. I mean, I just
Speaker 1: don't think that's something I could resist. And like, there
Speaker 1: are plenty of races that are close enough to human
Speaker 1: that I think I would still feel okay, and it
Speaker 1: wouldn't you know, I don't have to do something as
Speaker 1: incredibly bonkers as what's her name Lucita Lucia. I don't
Speaker 1: need to do something that intense. Obviously, there are going
Speaker 1: to be things that are a temptation to do for
Speaker 1: the stats, but like, I don't know, this just didn't
Speaker 1: enter my mind, and I really I'm just riveted. I
Speaker 1: really am. So this is when he uh, and here's
Speaker 1: here's my thought here. I think that maybe Carl has
Speaker 1: made a little mistake. First, he says, I thought about
Speaker 1: telling him about Agatha, but decided I didn't want to
Speaker 1: do that. I didn't want to put anything in writing fair,
Speaker 1: smart move agree. I also gave him a piece of advice,
Speaker 1: the same advice Odette had given us. If they weren't
Speaker 1: done yet and somebody had the manager ability, he needed
Speaker 1: to talk them into choosing it. Now. I don't know
Speaker 1: if he phrases it in the writing as Odette told
Speaker 1: us that we should do such and such, or you
Speaker 1: need to talk them into it or find a way,
Speaker 1: you know. I don't know. It's not we aren't shown
Speaker 1: the message from Carl verbatim. We are given the little
Speaker 1: summary that he chooses to share with us. So when
Speaker 1: I say that, I'm worried he might have made a mistake.
Speaker 1: What concerns me is whether or not this message could
Speaker 1: be seen by Mordecai, and if he will find out
Speaker 1: that he was tricked into this. I genuinely do not
Speaker 1: know if that's of concern, but it gave me pause.
Speaker 1: I'll just say that. So this is when they take off.
Speaker 1: They are heading out of the city. We need to
Speaker 1: stay far away from those assholes. Is you have been stunned,
Speaker 1: you have been paralyzed, you have been rendered unconscious. Why
Speaker 1: do you gotta get killed? You ain't so little as
Speaker 1: mice I didn't bounce you hard. And later on he
Speaker 1: mentions that that was a quote from of Mice and Men.
Speaker 1: I genuinely get my of Mice and Men and Grapes
Speaker 1: of Wrath mixed up terribly. But Lenny, is this quote right?
Speaker 1: When it was read in the audiobook? I thought that
Speaker 1: it was the actual person who had stunned them saying that,
Speaker 1: And I was sort of like, this sounds familiar, And
Speaker 1: then I thought maybe because you know, the whole thing
Speaker 1: is supposed to be basically that the human world Earth
Speaker 1: got seeded by aliens with all of our like the
Speaker 1: content that we now think of as ours wasn't really ours.
Speaker 1: It was like put there, you know. So I was
Speaker 1: sort of like, is this meant to be a reference
Speaker 1: to the fact that that story isn't ours? You know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Like that that dialogue got put in
Speaker 1: the mouth of a character, and once I see it
Speaker 1: written down here, it's clear that was the saying it
Speaker 1: to him in his head. And he wakes up and
Speaker 1: he calls out for donut and she is not responding,
Speaker 1: and he is beginning to freak out. Immediately, No, I
Speaker 1: don't want to be alone, And I just that was
Speaker 1: like one of those that hits you really hard, because
Speaker 1: as a reader, I am confident she's fine, you know,
Speaker 1: like I'm coming at this from a she has got
Speaker 1: lot armor and is probably not ever going to die
Speaker 1: in this series. And I might be wrong about that,
Speaker 1: but I feel confident enough that I'll just say it.
Speaker 1: But putting myself in Carl's shoes, there is absolutely no
Speaker 1: reason why you would assume that she's still alive, you know,
Speaker 1: in this universe, Like, why would you think they'd keep
Speaker 1: the cat around? I really understood that panic when I
Speaker 1: thought about it. From that perspective, the AI seemed to
Speaker 1: think I was about to die. It was kind of
Speaker 1: a fucked up seemed for the AI to quote, but
Speaker 1: it almost felt like it was supposed to be soothing.
Speaker 1: Carl Mordecai, I just woke up. I don't know what happened.
Speaker 1: I don't know where Donut is. I don't know where
Speaker 1: I am. Oh, thank the gods. You tied up in
Speaker 1: a cage in a web. I'm on a couch. I'm
Speaker 1: not tied up, and I still have all my stuff.
Speaker 1: It's dark in here, though I can't see anything. Okay,
Speaker 1: I can see Donut is alive. I can't see where
Speaker 1: she is, and if she's let's see when I checked
Speaker 1: the notifications, and I'd received three achievements, one forgetting stunned,
Speaker 1: a second forgetting paralyzed, and a third new achievement. Lazarus,
Speaker 1: you have been hit with and survived an offensive spell
Speaker 1: that was higher than level fifteen. The fact that you
Speaker 1: are not a quivering stain of meat on the dungeon
Speaker 1: floor right now is testament to your sheer luck. It's
Speaker 1: either that or you're banging the producer reward. You've received
Speaker 1: a platinum Lucky Bastard box. And here's signet and she's
Speaker 1: got her hand on his thigh, which startles him quite
Speaker 1: a bit. And she says, you were leaving, but you
Speaker 1: told me that we were going to meet. You promised
Speaker 1: that you were going to come back, and you were
Speaker 1: running away. I've got donut. She's asleep, and I even
Speaker 1: saved the dinosaur. I will let you see her on
Speaker 1: the way out, but you are going to participate in
Speaker 1: this the way that you promised. I was ready to
Speaker 1: just kill you, but I'm gonna give you another chance.
Speaker 1: I felt her palm rustle unnaturally as something moved by
Speaker 1: just under her skin. You guys, that is the most
Speaker 1: unnerving shit I ever heard of my life. It's like,
Speaker 1: it's not just that something is under her skin moving around,
Speaker 1: which I'm trusting is one of the tattoos, but it's
Speaker 1: the fact that, like it's under her palm, which we
Speaker 1: have all seen the special effect of something under somebody's skin,
Speaker 1: but I feel like it's usually reserved for under the arm,
Speaker 1: like the forearm, or maybe even under the face, you know,
Speaker 1: someplace near the neck. There is something about it being
Speaker 1: under her hand that took it to a different level
Speaker 1: for me and made it just And then there's the
Speaker 1: fact that it's dark, so he can feel it, but
Speaker 1: he can't see it. And even if it weren't dark,
Speaker 1: her hand is on him, so if it were on
Speaker 1: her palm, he couldn't see it then either. And that
Speaker 1: it reminded me of being like in murky water and
Speaker 1: you feel something around your ankles, but there's no possible
Speaker 1: way to tell what it is. You just are aware
Speaker 1: I'm not alone in this water and have to fucking
Speaker 1: trust that it's just a carp and not an alligator,
Speaker 1: you know. Oh my god, I hate it. I hate
Speaker 1: it so much. Oh, Michael says, I want to commission
Speaker 1: The Wandering Inn, but I would be worried Natasha wouldn't
Speaker 1: enjoy it. It takes like three thousand pages to really
Speaker 1: get going. My god, Rob says, I think she'd have
Speaker 1: to tough it out the first book, but by the
Speaker 1: time you get to the Horns and Rioka, it's pretty engrossing.
Speaker 1: My wife's just finished the last audiobook and she's dying
Speaker 1: for more. Does feel like it would be of Natasha's Alley,
Speaker 1: but it is so long and it'd be tough in
Speaker 1: this format. Michael says. Andrea Parsnow is stepping away as
Speaker 1: the narrator after books sixteen Jesus, which is devastating. Hope
Speaker 1: her successor can step into those massive shoes. I hear
Speaker 1: Andrea's voice even when I'm reading the future chapters on
Speaker 1: the web. There are also a lot of chapters where
Speaker 1: not a lot happens, so I'm not sure how Natasha
Speaker 1: would handle that in the fifty pages per episode thing.
Speaker 1: But inability to talk isn't really her issues, so I
Speaker 1: might be worried about nothing. Thinks that's what I'm good at. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm game to try whatever you want to try.
Speaker 1: But I also reserve the right to hate it and
Speaker 1: sure money, so let me know. So she talks about
Speaker 1: the spell that she cast on Donut, being called water lily.
Speaker 1: It puts you to sleep and you don't wake up
Speaker 1: until I cancel the spell. If I die, she dies too,
Speaker 1: which is extremely awful. When she said that, I was
Speaker 1: just like, oh fuck. So he goes and sees Donut
Speaker 1: and is struck while she is asleep here at how
Speaker 1: completely helpless she looks. Mango is wide awake and jumping
Speaker 1: around in the cage and freaking out. And he goes
Speaker 1: and like sniffs over her and tries to wake her up,
Speaker 1: and of course she doesn't move. We can't leave Donut here.
Speaker 1: She will remain. No fuck you, I said, reaching to
Speaker 1: pick her up. A health bar appeared. The moment I
Speaker 1: lifted her, it started quickly falling. Karl, I would return
Speaker 1: her immediately to her place. A water lily must not
Speaker 1: be removed lest it die. And he puts her down
Speaker 1: and it begins to go up again. This in particular,
Speaker 1: You know, there are all sorts of properties I have
Speaker 1: read or watched where there is a person who is
Speaker 1: struck by a sleeping spell given a sleeping, draft, to
Speaker 1: drink whatever, and almost always it's possible to move that person.
Speaker 1: They get carried along and brought to somebody who can help,
Speaker 1: or brought on whatever journey they're on until they can
Speaker 1: find somebody who can help. It was there was just
Speaker 1: something about the fact that not only is she asleep,
Speaker 1: not only is she tethered in life to signet, but
Speaker 1: that she has to stay in this location particularly that
Speaker 1: felt so limiting that I was just like, this really
Speaker 1: fucking blows. And he tells Mango, you have to stay
Speaker 1: here and protect her. Do you understand me? And it
Speaker 1: seems like he does, I think. So he checks in
Speaker 1: with zeb here and is like, I need you to help.
Speaker 1: I explained what I wanted her to do. She told
Speaker 1: me it was impossible. I told her to try anyway,
Speaker 1: And I had a suspicion that it was going to
Speaker 1: be something about talking to the producers and writers of
Speaker 1: the show, which is what it ends up being. So
Speaker 1: let's see, why are we doing this? Why do you
Speaker 1: attack the circus every day? And she says, I'm the
Speaker 1: only one that wasn't altered by that poisonous cloud. And
Speaker 1: Grimaldi got the worst of it and he's like I thought,
Speaker 1: you loved him, and she's like I do. And he
Speaker 1: saved me when I was a child and raised me.
Speaker 1: And then eventually, as I got to be older, I
Speaker 1: started to see him as more than a father, and
Speaker 1: I was like, ew, I hate it. You have to
Speaker 1: understand how horrible it was. The cataclysm Scolependra's poison cloud
Speaker 1: was a nine tier attack. It attacked you in nine
Speaker 1: different ways. The lucky ones simply died, the others were transformed,
Speaker 1: all in different ways. Grimaldi was more than just the owner.
Speaker 1: He was also the circus's ring leader. We were nearing
Speaker 1: the end of a show and the cataclysm came. He
Speaker 1: stood in the middle of the center ring. The others
Speaker 1: were all out there taking their bow. He transformed into
Speaker 1: the vine. All the others in the tent, no matter
Speaker 1: how they transformed, were soon infected with the mold covered parasites.
Speaker 1: This put them under Grimaldi's control. They do as he says,
Speaker 1: and if they die, the spores returned to the vine
Speaker 1: and they are reborn the next day. So why did
Speaker 1: you survive and the others didn't? She didn't answer my question.
Speaker 1: Last night I cast my spell expecting you to perish tonight,
Speaker 1: I am putting my faith in you. So the fact
Speaker 1: that he asks why didn't you get caught up in
Speaker 1: it too? And she doesn't answer, I have to assume
Speaker 1: is because the writers don't want her to ask that question,
Speaker 1: because that leads to answers that they don't want, they're
Speaker 1: not ready for yet. So she tells him the whole
Speaker 1: point of me capturing Heather was because she would kill
Speaker 1: who I was going to use as a sacrifice. But
Speaker 1: I think that tonight you will be able to kill her,
Speaker 1: and we get the most horrific description you guys. She
Speaker 1: appeared to have once been a black bear. She wore
Speaker 1: a tattered pink clown hat and a pleated clown rough
Speaker 1: around her neck, both of which appeared to be physically
Speaker 1: attached to her body. She had no skin on her face,
Speaker 1: Her two front paws had been transformed to white worms,
Speaker 1: like her claws had been replaced with mobs. Even in sleep,
Speaker 1: they moved and undulated. But most absurd of all was
Speaker 1: the bear's two back legs, which had a pair of
Speaker 1: roller skates attached to them. She also wore a pink tutuo.
Speaker 1: I really can't the way that I felt sick like
Speaker 1: the whole. I really appreciate the fact that Carl is
Speaker 1: just as horrified and like gut sick about this as
Speaker 1: I am. And we get the you know, description of
Speaker 1: her somewhere in their deep, deep down as a spark
Speaker 1: of the old Heather, the beloved Bear had moments of
Speaker 1: lucidity as she runs down her terrified prey. In those
Speaker 1: brief moments, she thinks, good, I've always hated all u
Speaker 1: assholes anyway. Which, Yeah, anytime that you've got like animals
Speaker 1: that are trained for the circus, I always get my
Speaker 1: hackles raised because, like, it's perfectly possible that animal was
Speaker 1: treated well when it was trained. But most people are
Speaker 1: lazy and they want immediate results and they want to
Speaker 1: make money, and they will be really awful, and sometimes
Speaker 1: they will not think that they're being awful, which is
Speaker 1: also a difficult part where you're watching and you're like,
Speaker 1: this is clearly mistreatment and the person's like, what what
Speaker 1: do you mean? So her just wanting to kill human beings?
Speaker 1: After that fair he gets in touch with Mordecai about
Speaker 1: this and he's like, look, the females are really they're
Speaker 1: more dangerous. Use your shell as much as you can.
Speaker 1: Don't let her hug you. I don't know about the
Speaker 1: worm clause or what the fuck that is. And the worms,
Speaker 1: as he begins to face up against her begin to
Speaker 1: get longer and longer, and then spread to the ground.
Speaker 1: I caught glints of actual bear claws at the end
Speaker 1: of the pause. I sense the forward movement before I
Speaker 1: saw it. I'd only looked over my shoulder for a second,
Speaker 1: but the bear had had the distance between us. And
Speaker 1: eventually there's this point where the worms touch his skin.
Speaker 1: I felt them start to burrow into my body. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: this is new flesh, primal flesh, delicious, flesh, strong, he
Speaker 1: is Do we taste this? He will feed our clowns well.
Speaker 1: The clowns hunger primal. They are ravenous, and now they
Speaker 1: know of your flavor. Uh no, okay, denied. Mm hmm,
Speaker 1: thumbs down. And this invasion begins to like It freaks
Speaker 1: him so bad. It's felt like someone had taken their
Speaker 1: dirty fingers, sunk them directly into the meat of my
Speaker 1: brain and dragged I would die before I let that
Speaker 1: happen again. Which you actually step into doing that voluntarily, buddy,
Speaker 1: But that's for later. Long story short, he decides that
Speaker 1: he's going to use this, this weapon that came in
Speaker 1: the Lucky Bastard box, and it either turns into a
Speaker 1: level fifteen fireball, which will kill Heather, or it will
Speaker 1: splatter her with strawberry custard, which will heal her. It
Speaker 1: hits and it's custard, but instead of healing her back
Speaker 1: to her possessed worm form, instead it heals her back
Speaker 1: to the way she looked before being possessed, and the
Speaker 1: roller skates fell off the bear's feet as she struggled,
Speaker 1: so did the hat. The skin on the bear's face formed.
Speaker 1: She remained on all fours like a normal bear. Her
Speaker 1: tattered black fur held a silver sheen, especially evident around
Speaker 1: her muzzle. By healing it, I'd killed the worms. The
Speaker 1: bear let out a howl. Mournful and afraid. She sat
Speaker 1: down and lowered herself painfully to the ground. The last
Speaker 1: of the boiling custard sizzled away. The bear looked at me,
Speaker 1: all of the fight out of her. This was Heather,
Speaker 1: the real Heather, free of the parasites that had been
Speaker 1: controlling her. She looked at me with her newly formed
Speaker 1: eyes ended. Those bitter eyes said, I should never have
Speaker 1: lived this long. She made a quick, pained whimper and
Speaker 1: her eyes closed. I really like how this there makes
Speaker 1: practically every victory feel like it isn't one at all.
Speaker 1: It's not a win. It's very sad and awful. And
Speaker 1: it says without the worms and mold, her body was
Speaker 1: breaking down fast and her health bar is lowering because
Speaker 1: she's like aging in catch up time. He forms a
Speaker 1: fist and smashes in her head with two punches. I
Speaker 1: finished her off by pressing my foot against her skull
Speaker 1: and crushing her skull caved in easily. He gets winner
Speaker 1: some achievements. He's gone to level fifteen. But it's just
Speaker 1: all so awful. It really does not feel like a victory,
Speaker 1: you know. And the blood goes to Signet because she
Speaker 1: was the sacrifice. Carl when talking to Mordecai, is like,
Speaker 1: for sure she wanted me to die, and that she'd
Speaker 1: cast that sacrifice spell on me again. She probably did,
Speaker 1: Like I said, the system lets some fudge with reality
Speaker 1: when you're dealing with the leads, which is why we
Speaker 1: stay away from them. I thought that was interesting. The
Speaker 1: idea that she is claiming Heather is the sacrifice does
Speaker 1: she believe that when she says it, do the writers
Speaker 1: just make her say that, Like, I don't. I wonder
Speaker 1: how much she even gets to how much is she
Speaker 1: lying and how much is she just being played because
Speaker 1: she's a character, you know. And he is looking into
Speaker 1: a way to break the water Lily curse. But there's
Speaker 1: like specific ingredients he needs that he has to travel
Speaker 1: to get, so he lootes her. There's a map upgrade,
Speaker 1: and he begins to see a bunch of other red
Speaker 1: dots gathering around. Signet appeared. Wow, I said, taking in
Speaker 1: the sight. She's got her summoned minions with her. The
Speaker 1: smallest of the monsters, a floating head thing, was about
Speaker 1: ten feet tall. And what he starts to realize is
Speaker 1: that all of the creatures that are her tattoos are
Speaker 1: two dimensional and is sort of like, I don't know
Speaker 1: if these things are really going to be able to
Speaker 1: do anything. They look like paper, you know. And all
Speaker 1: I could think was, like, Carl, it's very clear that
Speaker 1: this bitch is nobody to fuck with. Do you really
Speaker 1: think that her guys can't fight? Get real? Come on now, please,
Speaker 1: Blood and Ink elemental summoned minion of Serena's signet level fifty.
Speaker 1: Their potential realizes heavily on too many factors to list here,
Speaker 1: kind of like humans. If you have to guess, odds
Speaker 1: are good. The one you're looking at right now is
Speaker 1: probably hot garbage. Oh god, So let's see. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to jump ahead. Oh right, follow, or you get smash.
Speaker 1: The middle head said, you can talk. I can smash too.
Speaker 1: I do enjoy that they can talk. I have to
Speaker 1: assume it's going to be only in like little fragmentary
Speaker 1: sort of speech like that, but it's very fun. So
Speaker 1: she tells him, I think you freed Heather, like she
Speaker 1: was stuck in this loop and I, you know, getting
Speaker 1: to see her released from this. Thank you. And she says,
Speaker 1: we usually push through the defenders, and this is the
Speaker 1: strongest we've been in a while. It's the final defense
Speaker 1: I need help with. And the spell Mordecai describes as
Speaker 1: ink marauder, and he gives a description of it. I
Speaker 1: don't see the producers allowing her to blow that wad
Speaker 1: early and blow that wad this early in the story,
Speaker 1: assuming that is her most powerful spell. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to jump into because you know, I've only got like
Speaker 1: twenty minutes left, and there's kind of a there's kind
Speaker 1: of a lot here that we get into. Mordecai says,
Speaker 1: I know the recipe now. It's just satchtowed extract mix
Speaker 1: mixed with a standard healing potion. I should have known.
Speaker 1: Negates all niad sleep effects and curses. Simple. Do you
Speaker 1: have that stuff? Not in this town, but it's common
Speaker 1: enough I can buy in an alchemical market in a
Speaker 1: medium or large town. So I'm assuming that Carl just
Speaker 1: does not believe that Signet is going to be able
Speaker 1: to I think that it's like he's trying to just
Speaker 1: have a backup plan in case he dies, that Doughnut
Speaker 1: will at least still have a chance. But I think
Speaker 1: more than anything, he is just suspecting that, like Signet
Speaker 1: will keep her word about bringing Donut back. Maybe I
Speaker 1: was just surprised that he was trying to find another
Speaker 1: way to save her when I was like, you were
Speaker 1: told how to save her, do that, you know? And
Speaker 1: then I was sort of like, Natasha, you are very
Speaker 1: confident because you are reading a book and this is
Speaker 1: the main character, and you're like, yeah, you'll do it
Speaker 1: because you're the main character. But he doesn't know that.
Speaker 1: He doesn't know he's in a book. So Zev then
Speaker 1: gets in touch The producer didn't want to speak with me.
Speaker 1: He's waiting to see how this plays out. My boss
Speaker 1: made me run your request past the syndicate AI referee,
Speaker 1: and it said they'll only allow this under very strict circumstances.
Speaker 1: I can't and they can't give you any help whatsoever,
Speaker 1: Believe it or not, though this isn't the first time
Speaker 1: this sort of thing has happened. In fact, later Zev
Speaker 1: stay tuned, I'll need you in a bit. I was like, ah, look,
Speaker 1: you are busy. I completely appreciate that, but also I
Speaker 1: really wanted to know what she was about to say,
Speaker 1: very very badly. So they get into the tent and
Speaker 1: there is a mist around them, and Signet says, damn.
Speaker 1: I'd hoped that we would be able to overcome the
Speaker 1: protection this time. This is where our fight usually ends.
Speaker 1: There's magic here protecting the exterior. I've been banished, so
Speaker 1: I can't go in. My minions can't go in. The
Speaker 1: outside is impenetrable, but not the interior. If we break
Speaker 1: down the tents, the spell will disperse and we can
Speaker 1: finish this some of these clowns will carry big top tickets.
Speaker 1: Find one and brandish it. It will allow you to
Speaker 1: go inside. The tickets are magical. They will promise you
Speaker 1: safe passage within the tent as long as you don't
Speaker 1: enter one of the three rings. You need to go
Speaker 1: in there and collapse the tent. There are three poles.
Speaker 1: You must break each one in turn. I take it
Speaker 1: these poles are in the middle of the rings. What
Speaker 1: about the vine also in the ring, the center ring.
Speaker 1: This setup was designed to be completed by a group
Speaker 1: of at least three crawlers, not a solo player. There
Speaker 1: was no feasible way I could do this, not with
Speaker 1: a straight up fight. So he's already got a big
Speaker 1: top ticket in his inventory and he's like, all right,
Speaker 1: here we go. He goes in and it's just a
Speaker 1: you know, the I don't want to say typical because
Speaker 1: I always feel like that word sounds insulting in a
Speaker 1: way that I don't really intend. But you know, like
Speaker 1: the spooky circus thing has been done, the decrepit, fucked
Speaker 1: up circus thing. We've seen this sort of thing before,
Speaker 1: So that's what we're getting, except that there's the added
Speaker 1: vine aspect. With everything being corrupted by this mind control
Speaker 1: worm vine thing, and he's walking inside and thinking about
Speaker 1: how much he hates clowns, holds the ticket out in
Speaker 1: front of him, and he wore a brightly colored but
Speaker 1: filthy pink and blue gown with a dirty white ruffle
Speaker 1: around his neck. Clammy the clown level nine, and he
Speaker 1: was a tumbler. Kids always love the fat clowns. They're jolly,
Speaker 1: they're happy, they make you laugh, and that he doesn't
Speaker 1: do any of that, but is happy in jolly when
Speaker 1: he's eating you. So he holds up the ticket, gets
Speaker 1: Clammy to back up. As a kid, one of my
Speaker 1: earliest memories is going to the circus with my mom
Speaker 1: on my fourth birthday. She temporarily left my dad and
Speaker 1: run away to her parents' house all the way down
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere southern Texas, dragging me along. It
Speaker 1: was during that time she'd taken me to the circus.
Speaker 1: It hadn't been one of the major traveling circuses like
Speaker 1: Ringling Brothers, but a small ghetto one. Anyone who has
Speaker 1: ever lived in the America Southwest knows exactly what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. Even little kid me had registered that this
Speaker 1: was a low rent version of the real deal. They'd
Speaker 1: had clowns and acrobats, plus a bunch of other weird attractions,
Speaker 1: like guys on motorcycles riding around the inside of a sphere,
Speaker 1: and women juggling chainsaws. They had also had animals. I
Speaker 1: remember camels and dancing poodles, and a clown who walked
Speaker 1: around with a small monkey on his shoulder. They had
Speaker 1: an elephants or giraffes, but the the main attraction had
Speaker 1: been a crusty old tiger who'd sat in the middle
Speaker 1: of the ring while a woman in a leotard twirled
Speaker 1: firesticks around it. Most of these memories came back to
Speaker 1: me years later from photos. I'd found the shoe box
Speaker 1: with those pictures more than a decade later, hidden under
Speaker 1: my parents' bed. This was after another birthday of mine,
Speaker 1: the one when I was left alone in the world.
Speaker 1: The box had been my mother's, her secret, filled to
Speaker 1: the brim with photographs and ticket stubs and a deflated balloon.
Speaker 1: The items were only of that time, the few weeks
Speaker 1: of our lives when she'd run away. You guys, this
Speaker 1: got to me so bad. I am not trying to
Speaker 1: say that my father was like Carl's father. But my
Speaker 1: father married my mother when she was sixteen years old
Speaker 1: and he was twenty eight, So right there, I think
Speaker 1: you can see the power dynamic was very off, and
Speaker 1: when I was little it was he was extremely controlling.
Speaker 1: He came from a very misogynist upbringing, and the expectation
Speaker 1: was that my mom keep house and stay home and
Speaker 1: live to serve him. And in the early years of
Speaker 1: their marriage, they didn't even have a phone, never mind
Speaker 1: a car, so my mom was completely cut off from
Speaker 1: the entire world. Combined with the fact that my father
Speaker 1: was a coke dealer so he had very questionable friends,
Speaker 1: she was really lonely and isolated. And it wasn't until
Speaker 1: I was older that I really began to look back
Speaker 1: at some of the outings that I had with my mom,
Speaker 1: and I began to realize she was squirreling money away.
Speaker 1: She was like expected to give him her whole paycheck,
Speaker 1: but she had opened a bank account secretly, and she
Speaker 1: was having some of each of her paychecks siphoned into
Speaker 1: that account. Because my dad was so controlling about money,
Speaker 1: and so there were times where we would go out
Speaker 1: and do things and I was told not to tell
Speaker 1: him about it afterward, and I didn't. I was a
Speaker 1: very careful kid in that way. I think I understood
Speaker 1: the danger of it, you know. And like I said,
Speaker 1: my dad wasn't like Carl. He wasn't a bully, and
Speaker 1: he didn't hit me. He broke down a bathroom door
Speaker 1: when I was eighteen, and that one was really scary
Speaker 1: trying to get to me. But that was the really
Speaker 1: bad time, and otherwise there was no hitting. It was
Speaker 1: just always the threat that he might hit that was
Speaker 1: held over our heads kind of, you know. But he
Speaker 1: had grown up in an abusive household, and I think
Speaker 1: he was trying very hard not to do that. But
Speaker 1: this concept of a woman desperately attempting to find and
Speaker 1: hold on to joy and it always having to be
Speaker 1: a secret and something that she does against the wishes
Speaker 1: of her husband is just a really really familiar thing
Speaker 1: for me, and it just struck a chord, like you know,
Speaker 1: it just it's one of those that you look back
Speaker 1: on once you're older, and you can't help but lament
Speaker 1: how many things could have been done differently that might
Speaker 1: have kept everybody from being so unhappy. And if my
Speaker 1: dad had been different and if my mom had been
Speaker 1: different if either of them had made different choices, if
Speaker 1: my mother's parents hadn't allowed her to get married at sixteen.
Speaker 1: You know, like they're just.
Speaker 2: It's a.
Speaker 1: It's complicated, and he's thinking. Back on the smell, it
Speaker 1: was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. It was the scent
Speaker 1: of peanuts and cotton, candy and roasting corn and hay
Speaker 1: and animal musk and cheap plastic toys all rolled into one.
Speaker 1: But it was more than that. My four year old
Speaker 1: mind couldn't possibly register it at the time, but it
Speaker 1: was the sense of happiness, of joy, of being a kid,
Speaker 1: of not being afraid. Over the years, I'd catch similar
Speaker 1: sense in places such as the country fair, county fair, sorry,
Speaker 1: or carnivals, or whenever I visited a place with livestock.
Speaker 1: But this was a different, oddly specific aroma that had
Speaker 1: been indelibly imprinted on me as a four year old,
Speaker 1: a I'd sometimes remember as the path I could have taken,
Speaker 1: the world I could have lived had my dad not
Speaker 1: found us and taken us back. It was a scent
Speaker 1: I'd been chasing all of my adult life. It's funny
Speaker 1: how this happens. Sometimes we associate smells with memories, and
Speaker 1: when that memory is triggered, we're momentarily pulled away no
Speaker 1: matter the current circumstances. That's exactly what happened here. As
Speaker 1: I stepped into the most fucked up circus in the
Speaker 1: history of the universe, I was surrounded by bedlam, by
Speaker 1: unorganized chaos and clutter, by one what the fuck after another,
Speaker 1: and that smell just came out of nowhere, smacking me
Speaker 1: like a goddamn baseball bat and making me think of
Speaker 1: my fourth birthday party, when I had been with my
Speaker 1: mom and visited the circus, and I'd laughed and clapped
Speaker 1: and dropped my hot dog onto the dirty bleacher before
Speaker 1: picking it up and eating it, even though it tasted
Speaker 1: like dirt. My mom had cried, had been crying, and
Speaker 1: up until that very moment when the smell hit me
Speaker 1: for the second time, I'd always thought she'd been crying
Speaker 1: about the Tama hot dog. And it made me mad,
Speaker 1: so fucking mad. I had so little of my mom,
Speaker 1: so little memory I could call my own. It was
Speaker 1: one of the few things this fucking place couldn't possibly
Speaker 1: take from me. Yet that was exactly what had just happened,
Speaker 1: and it was so unexpected so violent, so final, that
Speaker 1: I no longer cared about the stupid plan or of
Speaker 1: trying to save my life. I just wanted to tear
Speaker 1: it all down. And then it gets interesting. But you
Speaker 1: don't want to hear about any of this shit, do you.
Speaker 1: It's not important, Not when we were weeks past the
Speaker 1: Earth's expiration date, not when I was standing there like
Speaker 1: an idiot as I watched a unicycling woman clown roll
Speaker 1: past me while greedily devouring what looked like a goblin leg,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, no, I really do want
Speaker 1: to hear about the shit. This is exactly what I want.
Speaker 1: I want way more about the details of your life
Speaker 1: before you got here. It is important, This is it.
Speaker 1: This is the whole thing. I was like, completely like, no,
Speaker 1: Carl wrong, incorrect, And I found it interesting. The idea
Speaker 1: that he's angry at this place for yanking this memory out.
Speaker 1: It didn't occur to me, because again, it's hard to
Speaker 1: put yourself in his place in such a bonker situation.
Speaker 1: But something that is one of the most beautiful, joyful
Speaker 1: moments of your life and a very very like tiny
Speaker 1: handful of your mom and a place like this manages
Speaker 1: to pull it out of you. It is obscene. So yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I get it. And it made me think of, you know,
Speaker 1: earlier we had donut with this candle, and it just
Speaker 1: is interesting how much scent and memory were a theme
Speaker 1: in these chapters. So he's looking around trying to get oriented,
Speaker 1: and he finally spots the vine, which he had thought
Speaker 1: was like part of the tent, and when he turns
Speaker 1: and sees what it is, he's just like, how did
Speaker 1: I just fucking not even see this thing? Because it
Speaker 1: looks more like a shrub And it goes all the
Speaker 1: way to the ceiling and swallows up the whole center pole,
Speaker 1: and he's like, as he's standing there, an achievement pops up.
Speaker 1: You can't fight city Hall, but you can sure die trying.
Speaker 1: You have discovered a city boss. Just an FYI is
Speaker 1: of at this moment, not a single crawler has faced
Speaker 1: a city boss and survived reward. A lot of people
Speaker 1: are probably gonna watch you die. That's a better prize
Speaker 1: than most of us get. And he's thinking to himself, like,
Speaker 1: you can do this. You've got a fucking plan, ring
Speaker 1: Master Grimaldy pastiferous Vine. This is an elite level eighty
Speaker 1: five city Boss, and we get the story about Grimaldi
Speaker 1: and his family being so important to him and how
Speaker 1: he is using his power to keep his family safe
Speaker 1: and alive. And after the description ended, nothing changed. Nobody
Speaker 1: moved to attack. The vine didn't move at all. He
Speaker 1: comes across an ogre called a Pallen the Mighty, and
Speaker 1: he's supposed to be scooping ice cream, but he holds
Speaker 1: out an ice cream cone filled with worms, and Carl
Speaker 1: like when he says, like I try not to be sick,
Speaker 1: I walk away. All I could think ice was, oh boy,
Speaker 1: oh no, he's gonna eat these fucking worms. Like I
Speaker 1: just knew as soon as they showed up. I was
Speaker 1: just like, he's gonna fucking do it, or somebody's gonna
Speaker 1: make him do it. Either way, he's eating that cone.
Speaker 1: It's happening. I just you know immediately it. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: Chekhov's worms, And what we find out is that the
Speaker 1: pactiferous line thing is, first of all, it's a trope
Speaker 1: that Mordecai doesn't think much of, and they're easy to
Speaker 1: kill if you know the trick, and they like to
Speaker 1: drink blood, and basically, you drink poison, you let it
Speaker 1: drink your blood and it poisons itself, but it does
Speaker 1: take something like twenty minutes for it to die. And
Speaker 1: if you drink the antidote and it drinks more of
Speaker 1: your blood, it doesn't die. So you've got to find
Speaker 1: a way to like poison it, revive yourself, but be
Speaker 1: out of its reach so that it can't heal itself.
Speaker 1: And let's see, I'm trying to find does it kill
Speaker 1: all the other mobs depends. Some immediately go insane, some
Speaker 1: drop dead, some don't realize anything is changed. So you
Speaker 1: poison yourself, dribble some blood on it, and it's dead.
Speaker 1: It won't know, but if it suspects, you need to
Speaker 1: be careful, or it can save itself. If you've given
Speaker 1: yourself an antidote and you give the plan an equal
Speaker 1: amount of the same blood, it will cure it. You
Speaker 1: can't just pour an antidote potion on there. It has
Speaker 1: to be the same blood, so be careful. If it
Speaker 1: knows you poisoned it, it'll try to get monsters to
Speaker 1: bleed you. So he has to lower the guard that
Speaker 1: he has against poisoning by taking off the cloak that
Speaker 1: he is wearing. And so when he drinks the poison,
Speaker 1: It's like, has a really immediate, awful effect that he
Speaker 1: was not prepared for, really, and he pours it onto
Speaker 1: the vine the blood, and then sits and waits and
Speaker 1: gets in touch with Zev and she says, oh, my
Speaker 1: god's Karl, the net is going crazy. Only a few
Speaker 1: people understand what you just did, but word is getting out.
Speaker 1: Your numbers are going up and up. It's amazing, both
Speaker 1: of these dramas playing out at the same time. He
Speaker 1: responds with Zev, are you listening? And guys, when I
Speaker 1: tell you that in that moment, I was like, you
Speaker 1: need to ask her what she means by both sir,
Speaker 1: the way that I zeroed in on her saying that,
Speaker 1: and he just didn't seem to care. It is so
Speaker 1: funny how in the moment I will be obsessed with
Speaker 1: a weird detail that really just probably it's smarter that
Speaker 1: Carl doesn't get distracted this easily and immediately is like,
Speaker 1: are you listening to me? Zeb, I have a thing
Speaker 1: I'm doing here, Please help. He's focused, but my ADHD
Speaker 1: brain was like, what does she mean and immediately started
Speaker 1: to veer off on this other whole thing, which, h yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is when he basically talks to the producers
Speaker 1: of Vengeance of the Daughter and just like I am
Speaker 1: going to hold your whole shit hostage if I let
Speaker 1: this thing die and Grimaldi dies and everything goes to hell,
Speaker 1: assuming that that is like your plan, and that you
Speaker 1: have set this shit up, that that poll the third
Speaker 1: pole is going to fall and maybe even break on
Speaker 1: its own, because you don't need all three broken. You
Speaker 1: just want singing it to get in. And that's my purpose,
Speaker 1: is that I die on behalf of her getting to
Speaker 1: where she needs to go. But I think you should
Speaker 1: listen to my proposal. You can't help me because that's
Speaker 1: against the rules, and that's fine. But if we happen
Speaker 1: to be on your show and make it to the
Speaker 1: sixth floor, you know we are bringing your ratings way up.
Speaker 1: I think you could look at your numbers right now
Speaker 1: and see how high they are. We will sign an
Speaker 1: exclusive agreement to only complete elite themed quests on the
Speaker 1: sixth floor that are directly associated with Vengeance of the Daughter.
Speaker 1: I'm told new programs such as yours rarely receive anything
Speaker 1: like this. Most fail right out of the gate. You
Speaker 1: probably went out of your way to place the circus
Speaker 1: near me and donut in the hopes we'd stumble upon it. Now,
Speaker 1: imagine the ratings if we continue to participate in the storyline.
Speaker 1: And he's like, if you don't agree, I'll heal this
Speaker 1: vine and I will just chill and do fucking nothing,
Speaker 1: and your eager viewers will watch me do fuck all
Speaker 1: and just talk out loud about what I think might
Speaker 1: be going to happen on the show, and that's it,
Speaker 1: and everybody is going to be real pissed. And he
Speaker 1: says it'll be Heraldo and al Capone's vault all over again.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what this is like. Obviously, Haraaldo
Speaker 1: got a hold of access to Capone's vault. It was
Speaker 1: a big build up, and maybe they opened it and
Speaker 1: there was fucking nothing in it. That's the best I
Speaker 1: can come up with. But the idea that they would
Speaker 1: like be unaware of what's in the vault and hype
Speaker 1: it up is so hilarious to me, Like nobody decided
Speaker 1: to check first, Nobody decided to make sure it was
Speaker 1: anything bonkers. They would never today like that would just
Speaker 1: it would just not happen that way. Maybe on a TikTok,
Speaker 1: but on like a fucking syndicated TV show, like absolutely never.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Michael Haralda had a special where he
Speaker 1: was opening Copone's fault and yes, there was nothing inside.
Speaker 1: I absolutely cannot I would crumble to Dust. I would
Speaker 1: absolutely fucking die. Oh my god, Michael. It was like
Speaker 1: an hour of him awkwardly trying to fill airspace while
Speaker 1: going from empty area to empty area. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: they opened it at the beginning of the episode. Honey,
Speaker 1: that is not how you do things, oh my god.
Speaker 1: Like what you do with something like that is just
Speaker 1: in case there's nothing good, You get like a Capone
Speaker 1: scholar in the place to encase there is stuff for
Speaker 1: them to inform you what each thing is or the
Speaker 1: significance of it. And if you don't, then you can
Speaker 1: talk through with them why it's empty, what possibly could
Speaker 1: have happened, who could have emptied it, go through the
Speaker 1: theories like you need some Oh my god, that is
Speaker 1: just reorganizing anyway. I'm so sorry, I'm overtime and I'm
Speaker 1: like not even quite at the end here. So long
Speaker 1: story short, they agree, like basically, if you can get
Speaker 1: your ass out of this, They're not really agreeing, but
Speaker 1: they're like agreeing tentatively, and he's like, that doesn't sound
Speaker 1: good enough. I feel like I really need something on paper,
Speaker 1: and she's like, no, it's official, and he's like, h okay, okay, fine.
Speaker 1: So he heals the Boss. He uses the Wisp Barmer
Speaker 1: spell book and we get the description of it again.
Speaker 1: The spell negates seventy five percent of incoming damage from
Speaker 1: magic based attacks, provides temporary immunity to mind control effects.
Speaker 1: Higher skill levels increase both effectiveness and duration. And this
Speaker 1: is what he dawns before he eats the worm cone.
Speaker 1: I love it. I met eyes with the Ogre who
Speaker 1: just looked at me even he seemed shocked. I've just
Speaker 1: done that, which is very funny. So he has the
Speaker 1: worms speaking in his head as he runs to go
Speaker 1: and talk to Signet. Well, first to Grimaldi. My bad.
Speaker 1: He's talking to Grimaldi as he's making his way and
Speaker 1: he says he's thinking to himself, this is what it's
Speaker 1: like to go crazy, to lose control. No, Grimaldi answered, no, son,
Speaker 1: this is nothing like that. And there was something about
Speaker 1: that thought that like was sobering for a moment. I
Speaker 1: was just suddenly like ugh. So he goes out there
Speaker 1: Signet can tell immediately that he is possessed and thinks like,
Speaker 1: oh God, who did this to you? And he's like, look,
Speaker 1: I took I have a spell well so that I
Speaker 1: can get you to talk to Grimaldy, And he's like,
Speaker 1: I know you want to kill me, but you need
Speaker 1: to have a couple minutes of conversation. You keep attacking
Speaker 1: because you love this place and you're trying to free them,
Speaker 1: and Grimaldy, his brain is a jumble. I can only imagine, Grimaldy,
Speaker 1: what you were going through when this thing happened. But
Speaker 1: everybody was taken except Signet because you protected her, And
Speaker 1: now you're trying to murder each other even though you
Speaker 1: want the same thing to protect your family. The worms
Speaker 1: in my throat surged into my mouth. The sensation was
Speaker 1: like I was suddenly vomiting. She hurts the family, she
Speaker 1: has turned her back. I croaked, fucking hell. They'd physically
Speaker 1: forced me to say it. I felt blood start to
Speaker 1: drool down the side of my mouth. My throat felt
Speaker 1: as if I'd swallowed razors. Don't do that, I gasped,
Speaker 1: Holy shit, just think it and I'll say it out loud.
Speaker 1: Ooh horrible. So he tries to plead with Grimaldy. You
Speaker 1: saw my memories, and that bear was grateful. Every time
Speaker 1: they kill somebody and eat somebody, their soul is dying.
Speaker 1: This whole thing is hopelessness. And you used to be kind.
Speaker 1: The whole thing here was that you wanted to bring joy,
Speaker 1: and you're damning the people that you wanted to protect
Speaker 1: and love the most. And she is supposed to be
Speaker 1: down in the hunting grounds taking care of her fucking business,
Speaker 1: but she can't leave until this is done, and you
Speaker 1: can fix this for her. I have unbanished you, my love,
Speaker 1: I growled. I slammed the potion, and then I fell
Speaker 1: to my knees and started vomiting and never ending stre
Speaker 1: of dead and dying worms onto the ground. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: what's worse, the eating or the vomiting of them? The eating?
Speaker 1: The eating's gotta be worse. So she tells him Doughnut
Speaker 1: will awaken when the sun rises, and goes into the tent.
Speaker 1: I lost something today, But if this story with the
Speaker 1: circus had a relatively happy ending, I knew I'd gained
Speaker 1: something as well. I suddenly remembered something else about that
Speaker 1: day at the circus with my mom One of the
Speaker 1: items we'd taken home from the show had been a
Speaker 1: pair of little sapling trees with the roots wrapped in nets.
Speaker 1: That was something this circus always did. They gave little
Speaker 1: trees to all the kids. My mom and I had
Speaker 1: planted those trees in my grandparents' backyard. Years later, long
Speaker 1: after my grandparents had died, I'd looked up that house
Speaker 1: on the internet and I found the satellite images of
Speaker 1: the backyard. The trees were still there. They'd grown huge.
Speaker 1: All it takes is a little seed, my mom had
Speaker 1: said that day as we planted the trees, Just little
Speaker 1: seeds here and there, and soon enough you have a forest.
Speaker 1: And I felt a slight pang that I'd missed out
Speaker 1: on my chance to so local a city boss. But
Speaker 1: I was also certain I wouldn't have survived the experience,
Speaker 1: which I was like, Yeah, I'm glad that it wasn't. Hey,
Speaker 1: everybody's died up until now, but you, Carl, you're going
Speaker 1: to be the first one to be. I was just
Speaker 1: waiting for it to kind of be that moment, and
Speaker 1: I was very relieved that it wasn't, even though I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been mad about it, But it's just so
Speaker 1: played out, you know. So he gets a quest completed
Speaker 1: and he is at level eighteen and he keeps throwing
Speaker 1: up worms, and then he thinks about Zev saying, both
Speaker 1: of these dramas playing out, and Mordecai donuts health just
Speaker 1: dropped below twenty percent. Go go now. And I had
Speaker 1: to stop reading because you guys are very mean and terrible.
Speaker 1: So I hope you're happy. I hope you're enjoying yourselves,
Speaker 1: you sick fucks. Ah, alright, everybody, I'm over time. I've
Speaker 1: got to go, but I appreciate you all very very much,
Speaker 1: and I hope that you all will be here at
Speaker 1: the next episode.
Speaker 2: Until then, to the LU motherfuckers.
Speaker 1: That was an Unspoiled Network podcast.