Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
covering Dungeon Crawler Carl Book five, The Butcher's Masquerade, chapters
thirteen through eighteen. In these chapters, b is already being
brought out as I feel like it's unfair to say
a bargaining chip, but she's just in play a lot
sooner than I had been anticipating. I really didn't think
it would happen this fast. Welcome to spoil Me, Welcome
to the show everyone. I am Natasha. Thank you very
much to Jackie for commissioning this episode. Sup Jackie. Yeah,
these chapters are a surprise on a number of levels.
So let's just begin at the beginning, shall we.
Speaker 2: There is.
Speaker 1: We start off first of all, I want to mention
the weather. It's absolutely pouring down rain for a lot
of this section. And I know that we have encountered
rain before, but there was something about it in the
past that always sort of felt like it was the
aftermath of having had no rain in this being like
a specific plot point, or there was just something about
it that felt very like orchestrated, I guess. And this
is the first floor where the weather has felt like
it's just weather. It has been a bit of a
suspicious thing to me. If the weather like affects anything,
I don't know if constant rain is something that is
like particularly good for our people or particularly bad for
them in some way. I have to assume that there
are probably crawlers out there whose abilities regarding sense of
smell are really specific, So I imagine that it would
be the sort of thing where they are at a
disadvantage with the rain. But I don't know how much
I should even pay attention to this. I just wanted
to make note of the fact that I was noticing it.
And we hear about hear this like being called the Yanks,
which are these humanoid aliens, and they have three genders
and they need all of them to make babies. The
women and children lived in peaceful communities along with the
unintelligent third gender, whatever it was called. I didn't know
the details. The males were forced out once they reached maturity.
The males were also known as powerful fighters. They couldn't
work together lest they fight like beta fish, which is
very interesting.
Speaker 2: I would be uh, I would be.
Speaker 1: Down to get the newsletter from these folks find out
exactly how they do this.
Speaker 2: So there's a guy out in a tree and they're.
Speaker 1: Thinking that he's like poised to try and attack them
from above that he thinks he's hidden, and Carl casts
ping and the tree starts shaking once Ping lands, and
Donut is like, okay, I thought the way he was
still before that he was knocked out, but clearly not,
so what's happening? And then all of a sudden, Karl
looks at his map and he sees these multicolored dots
and he's like, oh God, damn it, and all of
a sudden, the double billed achievement makes sense. So yeah,
it has to do with the overlap with the vengeance
of the daughter plotline, and I think it's very funny.
I'm super curious exactly.
Speaker 2: How all look.
Speaker 1: There are times where things come to us and sort
of get lodged in our minds in a way that's
like kind of just a funny hypothetical at the moment,
and then you get to a point in some kind
of creative project where you're suddenly like, oh, that thing
that I said kind of half as a joke, actually
maybe that can happen. And so a part of me
is very strongly wondering.
Speaker 2: If maybe Matt.
Speaker 1: Dineman was watching something that had a really boring plot
line and was sort of like, God, can't they just
like do X y Z even that would make it
more interesting, you know, and then got to this point
and was like, oh, you know what I'm gonna do
and is intending to sort of I don't want to say,
like mock exactly, but just sort of play with that idea, because, like, guys,
this is something that happens with me in my job
a fair amount. There will be things that either I'm
covering by myself or sometimes this will happen with Miles
especially rare Shaan does this some, but she's not really
a fiction writer and so it's less with her. But
we will begin to bounce around ideas that we think
would have worked better for whatever it is that we're
reading at the time, and sometimes we will come up
with some really like light years better plots than what
was written and what like you know, earned millions of dollars,
and obviously it's one thing to just be able to
like say they should have done this. I'm not trying
to act like but I'm just saying that there are
times where it does sort of feel infuriating that there
are people making money writing some of the most uninspired nothing,
you know what I'm saying. And anyway, this is just
a thought for me. I recently entered a it's a
short story contest, a very short story, two thousand words,
and it had to be on either like a werewolf
or a vampire because of spooky season, and you could
do both.
Speaker 2: So I did both.
Speaker 1: And my short story is based on an idea that
I had when I was covering Twilight with Miles, which
was like, where are the grown ups stepping in on
this weird shit that's going on? And so I have
it that there's like, you know, a kind of Edward
Cullen esque vampire that gets called into the guidance office
by a were wolf who knows what he is and
is just like.
Speaker 2: Hey, what are you doing dude?
Speaker 1: So you know, things will, ideas will occur to you
at strange times and then wind up being useful when
you don't expect it necessarily. So anyway, this, uh, let's
see he we have like this moment of realization for
Carl of what's going on here, and then we immediately
cut into a flashback of him engaged in negotiations with Boring,
et cetera. And uh, he's got Quasar with him, and
as we find out, they're changing rules so that Quasar
can't message Carl easily, which is like one of those
things that is really insidious, the idea that they're going
to make it difficult for him to contact you when
he is your representative, so that you can't have information
that's fucked up, And honestly, it should be something that
he mentions on the air, I think too, just the
idea that I was given representation and now I'm apparently
not even allowed to consolet with him, Like what kind
of bullshit is that. I don't know if that would
get him in trouble instead, but you know, considering that
the everybody's fucking cheating tactic has been working, it might
be something that he could do. So we have the
four cretent bodyguards and the two spouse. My client is
requesting two more items and we'll have a deal. And
he says, I'm pretty sure you're already going to award this,
but we want it to be a lock. And he says,
we want you to extend a license for a program
to continue on collapse of the sixth floor Vengeance of
the Daughter, and Orran is like, that's not how this works.
AI decides it and if they if the AI can't
come to a conclusion, then we do a lottery. And
Quasar says, there's actually like a subclause. Showrunners running at
a lower than expected profit are allowed to give emergency
use to a single program. And Orrin is like, all right, fine,
but they'll have to pay twenty percent to boran and
they might not be willing to do that, and quasars like, no,
they are. I already talked to them, which I did
think was kind of funny. And evidently this is something
that has to be kept extremely hush hush.
Speaker 2: And uh, let's see.
Speaker 1: Here it is it guaranteed Vengeance of the Daughter of
the equivalent a third season. Not all secondary programs were
allowed to send their elites to the ninth floor. It
was a coveted reward, and Quasar insisted Sensation Entertainment would
leap at the opportunity. It would also once again give
them an incentive to keep me alive, especially if Born
agreed to my third request.
Speaker 2: And we still don't get information on that one.
Speaker 1: It's being pieced out, you know, very slowly over time here.
So this is when Carl messages Quasar to find out like,
did they agree to this or not, because he's trying
to determine just how motivated are these people that I'm
about to interact with to keep me alive? And he
just gets a mess like an answering machine basically, and
has to move forward without really knowing his standing within
all of this, and Mordecai notes that there are two
elites that they're about to deal with, and he's like,
oh shit, that's unexpected. And Carl asks Dona, if she
really wants to do this, you can come with me,
or you can stay here and deal with the town
and get setting up defenses and everything. And I enjoy
Donu just being like I thought we had already covered this,
he says, I figured, but I also promised to give
you the choice. So she asks him, as they're heading
over to meet them, are you sure that this is
really necessary? Because we've got a lot going on and
this just kind of seems like a distraction we don't
really need right now, and he insists, like, yeah, I
promise it is. After the third floor, she's going to
be friendly with us, and right now we really need
the help. So Sarena signet comes out, and he has
a little reminder of like, oh shit, she's so much
weirder looking than I remember. And she says, we came
seeking you, and we found others seeking you as well.
And this dude steps out the It's an ogre strong
man who looks really similar to the one that gave
him that horrible ice cream cone of worms. But after
a moment, Carl realizes that this isn't that guy. This
is a different one, and his name is Arison the
Wise and he's level forty five, all war black. Let's see.
A group of six small sized creatures emerged. All wore
black studded leather from neck to toe. Each wore a
pair of weapons over their shoulders. They wore no helmets,
but each of the male, pale skinned warriors had been
don as wrapped tight around their fuzzy heads rambo style.
All stood about three feet tall. All were wide, but
not fat, more like miniature well built football players, stout
like a roll of armored barrels. Their wide set, eyed
eyed face is glared at me and donut with mistrust.
One had a genuine mullet. Two had shaved heads, another
a mohawk. One's face was painted with camouflage, and he
eventually we find out that these are ware kin and
whatever it is they turn into, we don't know yet.
And you don't really find out unless you like see
them transform where they go after you, and you it says,
you find out for yourself after they bite you. And
later Carl realizes that he has not been taking it
seriously enough that their bite can infect him and he
needs to start paying a little little bit more attention
to that. As a possible consequence, Clint and his brothers
have joined forces with Serena Signet. They have a common enemy,
and at this point Signet brings forth a level fifty
whose name is Bravo, and his health is almost drained
all the way, and Signet says, I almost used him
as a blood sacrifice, but I decided to let you decide.
Speaker 2: What to do with him.
Speaker 1: And Carl says, heal him, and Signet is like, you're
still such a softy, and Carl puts on the ring
of suffering whatever it's called, and says, not anymore. And
that is a very uncomfortable moment. Kiddo's I didn't like
it at all.
Speaker 2: This later, like.
Speaker 1: He's thinking about how this ring feels heavy on his
hand and very warm in the rain, and it's only
one more kill and he'll get two additional dexterity points.
And there's just like a very very strong sense for
me of like.
Speaker 2: Here it is.
Speaker 1: This is like the idea that it can be addictive.
I was thinking of it as an actual chemical reaction
that the ring puts out, but it may be a
lot simpler than that, where it's just the more you
use it, the more advantages you gain from it, and
thus just naturally you begin to want to use it
more because of those advantages. And it may not actually
be any kind of like particularly magical effect due to
the ring in that sense. So I don't know, but
I don't like it, And I especially don't like how
Carl doesn't seem to be aware of it and the
fact that this is happening to him.
Speaker 2: He just seems utterly.
Speaker 1: Absorbed in imagining what could, you know, how great things
could be if he just got to do his thing,
And I just think that's so worrying. I wish that
he would say out loud a little bit how he's
feeling about things, because I think that Dona if she
heard him anything that he's been thinking, if she heard
him say it out loud, she would clock right away.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, you know what.
Speaker 1: But he's being I think probably pretty careful on purpose
about not sharing with anybody how he's feeling. And I'll
just say, if you have to kind of what's the
word I want to say.
Speaker 2: If you have to censor.
Speaker 1: Your feelings about something because it will worry your friends,
maybe you should be more.
Speaker 2: Concerned with what your friends are worried about than you are.
Speaker 1: You know, this is definitely one of those things where
if everybody is seeing something except you, consider that maybe
they are actually seeing something and it's you that's the problem. Unfortunately,
we have this thing in our especially American culture, where
we like to think that if I'm the only one
who doesn't see it, that means that I'm the only
one who stands up for the truth or isn't fooled
like these other sheep, or you know, like, there's all
kinds of ways that you can get yourself to think
that the reason I don't see it is actually a
good thing that means good things about me. When a
lot of the time. It's simply that you are too
close to something and you are you know, have a
conflict of interest or vested interest at least.
Speaker 2: So I don't like it. And and.
Speaker 1: He winds up taking all of his stuff. But he's
doing this new kind of looting where he's putting things
into a box before he opens it so that if
there's something dangerous in there, it will not catch him
off guard, which is a pretty clever idea. And I'm
wondering how many people have figured this out as a
method of going into inventories without harming themselves, because like
you know, on the very first floor, Carl had figured
out how to booby trap corpses. So it is certainly
possible many people have figured this out by now, or
that hunters.
Speaker 2: Had been doing that in the past, and that.
Speaker 1: It's just like a tradition at this point. So he
gets a bunch of stuff that he's just sort of like,
it's not none of this is really grey. And it
seems like they have more limitations on what they can
carry than the crawlers. But there are nine levitation potions.
They allowed you to rise up into the air for
as long as your intelligence times two seconds. It wasn't
clear how high one could go or what would happen
if the potion ran out before you lowered yourself. The
hunter had been using one of these to scat out
the city when he'd caught a missile to the face. Well,
life comes at you fast, buddy.
Speaker 2: So this is when.
Speaker 1: She like, first of all, we have Donat asking what
spells are you using to keep you dry? And Signet says,
it's not a spell, it's a curse. Be grateful you
don't have it. But that's all we.
Speaker 2: Get on that.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if there's anything that should be
a hint that I should have picked up on, but
that's not further elaborated on here. And Signet says, Okay,
we have to go into the forest. I'm going to
talk to you as we walk there, and I'm not
going to force you to help, but I'm hoping that
we can come to an agreement. And of course Carl
is like obligated to play along, but.
Speaker 2: She doesn't know that.
Speaker 1: And this is when she says, our Arison is going
to zoc out to like stop a bunch of the hunters,
and Carl has a we should assist.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, Okay.
Speaker 1: Also, they have this uh, giant caterpillar that has six
saddles on it and makes it look like they're riding
an amusement park ride when they travel, and I find
that delightful. I am very Look, I'm not a big
fan of a caterpillar. A lot of them actually are
really really creepy. Even when they're fuzzy, they are creepy.
And there are some that are fuzzy, but that fuzz
is like barbed and venomous not venomous?
Speaker 2: Is it that poisonous?
Speaker 1: I don't know, But anyway, I don't really go for them,
but in this context it does sound kind of fun.
Nadine wasn't born as a caterpillar. A bearded sage isn't
normally intelligent despite their name. Not that Nadine was miss
science Fair before the high alphattack, but she was a Chi,
a teacher in charge of the Chi Day School. And
I am assuming that again, this is a thing with
like the dinosaurs as well. So let's see signet. When
it rains really hard, Confederates sometimes range fourth from the river. Uh,
And that I didn't like think of that. The Naiads
are just as long as it's wet. Enough further out
of the water that that allows them more room to negotiate,
and that is a really like I love that as
a threat, and it's also really unsettling to think that,
like just getting out of the water itself isn't necessarily
going to save you if they're coming at you, Like
you need to get up the banks at least twenty
feet or something because if it's raining, oh well, you know.
So this is when Signet is talking about her mother
and she protected and loved me and taught me the
importance of family. And my family's palace is occupied by
the simpering dukes of the Confederacy. Nothing has changed since
I was cast out of the river and exiled from
the hunting grounds by my father's people. And I love
this interaction. Donuts like, oh yeah, my dad exiled me too,
But then he got his tail caught in a car
door and he couldn't go on showings anymore, so haha,
fuck him. And Signet's like, I can help you reclaim
your crown after we're done with mine, and she's like, oh,
I already got my crown back. Plus I conquered Cleveland
and secured the GC title, something he could only dream
of And I just love that Signa isn't asking any questions.
She doesn't care, she doesn't need to know, but she
is willing to engage with Donut on this level. And
I just found that very fun that she's like apparently
taking it quite seriously. And he finally says, why did
you come and find me? And she's like, I'm recruiting
a team and he's like, yeah, the last time you
did that, you like fucking left me to be a sacrifice,
and she's like the first time, yeah, but not the
second time. And then he asks about what happened after
he left the circus, because when they come by the
next day, everybody's gone, and she's like, well, when you
killed Heather the Bearer, you remember what happened that she
just like aged and then crumbled away. That's what happened
to everybody except for Grimaldi. And he asks did he
turn back into a dwarf and she says no, he
his story in this is mostly done. I'm gathering people
to me for a different reason. And I am real
curious about that, Like, is it possible that she's planning
to use this weird parasitic thing that Grimaldi had going
on against her enemies, which would be horrifying but also
would make some sense. Would he agree to do that?
Is it that he can't turn back or that she's
asked him not to.
Speaker 2: I have a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: And then he asked about the strong Man and says
he was here in the hunting grounds when the attack occurred,
only his brother Apalon was in the over city. Apleon
is gone, but Ariison lives. They have another brother, Herman
the Fleet, who was in Larroccos. We don't yet know
his fate. I exchanged a look with Donut. I'll fucking
bet you did. Yikes. So he like finds out that
these guys are where castors see a sto R and
I am assuming.
Speaker 2: That it's.
Speaker 1: A type of beaver. And I may be wrong about this,
but that's what I remember cast Storer being. I don't
remember where I know this from, but that's what I'm
going with. And if they are rad I'm very into it.
She says, a type of rodent, and I'm assuming beavers
are in.
Speaker 2: The rodent family.
Speaker 1: So anyway, their people were all magically transformed by princess Imogen.
This was long ago, even before Scolopendra's attack back then,
my father still sat upon the throne, and Imagen was
his right hand, his so sirer General. They attacked the
chi and stole their land. My sister cast the transfiguration
and then sent the cleansers in to mop them up.
Only a few escaped. These warriors were children then. Nadine
was their instructor, their teacher. She was transformed into the caterpillar.
The school children were all turned into different creatures, but
these six young boys were all turned into the same thing,
which is interesting.
Speaker 2: And I wonder why that is.
Speaker 1: If they just all happened to be together and the
spell was just in a general direction or what. And
he's like, okay, so what's the plan? And she says,
there are two cancers on this land and I'll cut
them both free, the Confederacy and the high Elves. And
he's like, okay, so you want revenge and then you
want to take out the high Elves. And she says
close enough, which is not quite the thing, but interesting.
She's keeping something to her chest and tell me start
chapter fifteen. It's just donut going. This fucking storyline.
Speaker 2: Is so lame. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: And she says, this sounds like something the CW network
would cancel after the first season, and when she asks
Zev how are the ratings, Zev just says, there dot
dot dot okay, I love Donut, just being like I
fucking knew it, and Zev has to very quickly be like, look,
when you were on the third floor with her, the
ratings were actually good. And the thing is a lot
of people are into the arc that they are on currently.
It lagged on floors four and five, but now with
the Warriors and the Caterpillar Mount, they're into it enough
that even though many are excited to see you back
involved again, there are also a lot of them that
are work You're going to just completely take this over,
And I love Dona is like, of course, we're gonna
take it over. Having myself and Carl on the program
is the equivalent of having Audrey Hepburn and I don't know,
Macho Man Randy Savage suddenly show up as guest stars.
You guys, I was not expecting anything like macho man
Randy said. That cracked me up so bad. You do
not understand how much I lost my mind. It was
just so unexpected. I fully thought it was going to
be like Audrey Hepburn and bing Crosby that it was
just going to be like, you know, a duo that
is just sort of relevant to each other in any way.
But she's like, nah, we're not doing that, And honestly,
that like fair. Actually there's a chance that people would
be more excited to see a duo that don't have
anything to do with each other than otherwise, you know,
like really, so anyway, I just that really got me
that I was not ready for that at all. So
let's see, we're talking to the Sensation people. Then they're
gonna try and steer the narrative. So you're back in
a Saferm in time for Odette's show in a few hours,
which eventually does happen, and like carl Atte first is
sort of why are these guys so insistent on us
going back to the Saferman And it's like, oh, oh right,
I forgot that that's like part of.
Speaker 2: The deal here.
Speaker 1: So this is when Arison the Ogre appears and he's
got a body over his shoulder and it's a hunter
and I love Arison being like, I'm really sorry. I
didn't mean to kill him. I tried to keep him alive,
but he just started yelling and shit, and I just
squeezed him to stop him yelling, and then all the
stuff came out. All the stuff came out is so
vivid and horrible.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: And he says it this way a few times, so
I'm just gonna assume this is like the way he
talks about it. But I just I really, guys, Oh boy,
I was horrified. And he's got like literal arrows sticking
out of him and doesn't really seem to notice and
signets pulling him out, which would hurt really bad, and
he's just like completely unresponsive to it at all.
Speaker 2: There's no reaction.
Speaker 1: So Carl examines the hunter ar Wick uh and he
is part of the dream and he remembers the photograph
of the dream leader Epitome no Flex, which is just
such a funny name, honestly, and he finds something that's
actually really valuable. There's, first of all, an arrow of
enthusiastic double gonna rhea, which is the worst and you
actually have to like geld yourself if you want to
get rid of it or pass it to somebody else.
But the other thing is a map that has the
whole hunting ground divided up into sections, and there are
different groups labeled on each of the sections. So it
has become clear that the hunters have like divvied up
this floor and are making sure that they sort of
stay out of one another's way, and they are in
the area of the dream. There are multiple other groups
with names, such as the Crafters and the nebular Sin Patrol.
I focused on one area in the south, near the
Elf Castle Skull Empire. My heart quickened. The Orcs had
sent hunters here. Excellent, But there was more to the
crude map too. Hey, our names are written on here,
Doughnut said, pointing with a paw. He spelled my name wrong.
There was a list of about thirty names. All of
the top ten were on there, along with several others.
I recognized. Each name had an arrow to a point
on the map. All the names were circled in different colors.
Some were circled in two different colors. Both Donut and
I were circled in blue and purple. If I was
reading that correctly, that meant we'd been claimed by the
Hive and the Skull Empire. The line from our names
led to the approximate location we'd been this morning before
we'd set out. They knew where all of us were.
It appeared each group was given a hunting area, but
some of the hunters claimed specific crawlers.
Speaker 2: Kac was circled by.
Speaker 1: The Skull Empire. Elle was being hunted by the Crafters.
Eva was also being hunted by the Crafters. In addition
to Me and Donut, the Hive had claimed lucymr. The
nebular group was hunting Prepotente and Miriam Dom. The Dream
only had one person on their list, the very last name.
This dead hunter had circled it a bunch of times,
pressing so hard the pencil broke through the paper, and
then at the bottom of the map he'd drawn a
pretty impressive likeness of their target with a big X
over his goofy, smiling face. Lewis, and he's the one
who wanted Juice Box to turn into Epitome no Flex.
Apparently they have zero sense of humor when it comes
to this sort of thing, and Carl once again takes
an opportunity. The others know where we are because they're
cheating assholes and they're coming for us, so he makes
sure to say that shit out loud again. Signet is
not concerned, and this is when Urson says, I'll squeeze
all the stuff out of them too. But so he
chats with Lewis and warns him. Lewis is sort of like, God,
everybody's so uptight, and I was like, dude, yeah, okay,
sure maybe they are, but like they're still fucking coming
for you.
Speaker 2: I don't know what you want anyway.
Speaker 1: One of the elves is like complimenting Mongo's behavior. In
the center of the clearing was a small eight foot
white barked tree with a fairy ring of white flowers
circling it, and the AI just says, this tree is
old as shit. So as Signet is about to make
an announcement, Quasar chimes in with a message for Carl
about the fact that they're making it so we can't
casually chat.
Speaker 2: I need a core order.
Speaker 1: To send you a message, which is huge. That's a
huge pain in the ass. You can still send me
messages all you like. All your constant bitching about the
Hunters getting outside info has caused a stir and things
are moving on that front. Regarding the program It's good news,
Bad News. Sensation has agreed to accept Born's offer, but
they're being bitches and want to wait before signing anything
between you and me. I'm reading between the lines. My
take is you got to find a way to make
the program more exciting, but in a way where the
spotlight isn't throwing the star in shadow. So basically, they
want to do this, but they want to be sure
you're not gonna ruin what they wrote. And then he
mentions the other thing, which we don't know what this
is in response to, but he just says, one hundred
and fifty million credits. I don't know how you're gonna
pull that off, Cowboy. That's enough money to buy your
own planet. By my count, your current outside the Dungeon
net worth is sitting at about one hundred and seventeen credits,
and you probably already have a taxi bill of fifty
And even if you do gather that much money, which
you won't, we have a few legal issues to deal with.
Bribery is both a way of life but also a
real crime out here in the real world. And while
technically it's not a bribe, I'm not so sure the
high courts will see it that way. It's not exactly
something we can keep hidden.
Speaker 2: Now is it.
Speaker 1: I have an idea, but it's a little never mind,
I'm working on it.
Speaker 2: Talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Don't die on me. This is the most fun I've
had since the night I graduated law school and nailed
Professor Foster. Never change, buddy, I very much enjoy Quasar.
So yeah, I'm very curious what he would need this
amount of money for.
Speaker 2: What is it? What is it?
Speaker 1: And this is when we get our new quest, vengeance
of the daughter uh Signet has returned and wishes to
reclaim your mother's crown or at the very least put
a proper government in place. And there is a confederacy
at Fort Freedom, so we need to assault that reward
you get to move on to part two, and every
survivor of the assault will be twenty percent more willing
to follow your orders. I bet that number will go
up even more if you complete the second half of
this quest. So that is really valuable that like, if
you do this, if you focus on this enough, you
are going to be able to have all of these
people not necessarily like your beck and call, but certainly
they will be potentially useful to you. And that's that's
a big deal. That's very helpful So then chapter sixteen,
this is when we have him and Donut walking with
these wearcasters and they are bringing them to a place
where they can go into a safe room. It's Clint
and Holger and Dona is asking Holger about his mullet
and it is like, yeah, well, in our world it's
a really specific cultural thing, and he says it's a
sign of my dominance, and Clint's like bullshit, and Holger's saying,
don't be bitchy just because you're bald. And they wind
up later arguing about like the history in a certain
place and then get in an argument and a fistfight
that Carl has to break up, and they behave after
the fight like nothing happened. So there seems to be
a very kind of sibling vibe with the two of them.
Speaker 2: Well they were.
Speaker 1: They will bicker and get really violent, but immediately drop
it and it won't be something that affects their ongoing
relationship necessarily. And let's see, uh, we've known her since
we were kits. She lived in the village with us.
After she was cursed, one of the village elders introduced
her to Grimaldi and she left with him soon after that.
Speaker 2: That bitch.
Speaker 1: Imagen came to the village and attacked and killed almost
all of us. A few years after that, when Scolopendra attacked,
those of us who had survived Imagen's attack were mostly
unaffected by the demon's cloud, and they don't know why.
He says it might be because one of the attacks
was a transfiguration spell and it was the exact same
one Imagen had used, so maybe it had like kind
of been done already.
Speaker 2: But there were also spores in the cloud.
Speaker 1: And I did get sick, but then I was fine,
So you know, I'm really not sure. Most of the
animals were transformed or killed. We almost all starved. Miss
Nadine saved us. And this is when he asks about
the High Elves and carl Asks, and Clint is like,
haven't you heard this story? Because they were basically untouched.
The High Elves, they had some kind of magic and
a lot of people actually think they were behind the
whole thing. And Clint says, rumor has that the elves
went down there once back when she was still asleep,
that when they collected all their soul gems, the worms
started to wake up, so they ran, but before they left,
they stole something else, an item that protected them and
saved all of them, and Holger says, well, I heard
that bitch Imagen tried to cast her transfiguration spell on
the giant centipede and it didn't work, but that was
why it was one of the spells in the nine
Tier attacks. Scolopendra was just firing back everything that had
been fired at her over the years, only it was
all at once, like a damage reflect And this is
when they start to get in a fight, back and forth,
back and forth, and then really go at each other.
And there's a moment where Dona is just like, man,
this is like you and your friend when you were
playing video games, and she says something like girls never
insult each other like that, and Carl says, girls are
worse than boys, but they usually don't do it to
your face. And I really hate this assumption that girls
are worse than boys. It is absolute horseshit, and I
am so tired of it, and never ever say that again,
because it's just the type of insulting that girls do.
If we're going to have a wild stereo type here
is oftentimes a lot pettier and comes with a different
kind of like social consequence, but trying to act like
men don't do this shit and aren't awful to each
other about it is absolute horseshit.
Speaker 2: So no enough.
Speaker 1: So this is when a mob comes in and it's
a bunch of weasels, and they are able to take
care of them quite easily. But it turns out that
Donut try to use her barred power and they are
with people who are not going to mince words about
the effectiveness of her spells. So Holger is just saying
to Donut, you can't sing, and I'm sorry. I don't
mean to offend you. It's not like you know, but
your spells don't work if you can't sing and you're
not on tune. And with more minor spells, that's not
really that big a problem. It just doesn't work super well.
But like if you try some bigger spells and you're
not in key, that's gonna be a really big problem.
So you're going to need to get some help with that.
Go to a barred guild and get singing lessons, or
get like an item that auto chunes your voice basically,
And I deeply appreciate that they just fucking tell her,
I really do. She says something like about how well
Carl and Mango think that I'm a great singer, don't they?
And he just says, they're your friends. Of course they
think that. And I appreciated that he like stepped in
and just said they're your friends, because if she just said, like,
don't you Carl, and he had sort of left it
open for Carl to reply, it would have been much
more awkward to make Carl say, yeah, he's right, don't
you really you can't sing? But instead he's just like, look,
of course they do. They see the best in you.
Speaker 2: That's what friends are for.
Speaker 1: And that was very tactful, I thought. So also Wet
like a brief description of the fact that this fight
against the Weasels was not easy exactly, but they were
able to handle it just fine. And a huge part
of that was the Wearkin because they are absolutely terrifying,
and Carl is like, you get like six or eight
of them together, I bet they'd be fucking unstoppable. These
guys are really intense. So this is when they get
an ADMIN noticed that they've gotten another sponsor, the Apothecary,
which rang a bell, but I didn't exactly remember what
it was for. And Carl does that it's from a
mob description on the fourth floor about the crack Cairn,
the real one. I had no idea what she really
looked like, but I doubted she was an octopus thing.
It was rumored she was involved with a company that
ran the tunneling system, which was owned and operated by
the Plenty, who were goat people. If this apothecary collective
was the Plenty, he's silent partner, it meant they likely
had a bottomless reserve of money. And I keep thinking
about the fact that it was a Caprid that was
trying to get Carl killed, and if she's working with
the Plenty, but a Caprid was the one who was
trying to fuck his whole day up. Is that related
or is that person an outlier or did they just
look like a Caprid but they weren't. Like what's going
on there? Is that linked at all?
Speaker 2: And Donut is like, I don't like us and.
Speaker 1: A bunch of other people are getting the same sponsor
that won't be they'll have they won't have the money
they need to send us good shit. And Carla is like, well,
I thought that about the Pacifist and they send me
really good stuff, and Donut said, they gave you a vegetable,
and I wanted him to be like, look, yes, but
they also gave me an emergency like platinum box or
whatever with the friggin shistera attachment that probably cost them
an absolute fucking fortune. So oh yeah, I think that
the vegetable really falls into shadow in that light. So
they go into the safe room and it turns out
that Samantha has been pitching a fucking fit. And it
turns out Donut didn't realize Samantha was at all linked
with uh, oh my god, what's her face?
Speaker 2: Daughter?
Speaker 1: Vengeance of the daughter, you know, the daughter in it.
And so the fact that Donat mentioned this has caused
Samantha to really get hyper focused on getting to talk
to this girl.
Speaker 2: And she has been screaming.
Speaker 1: For Carl so loud and so relentlessly and has figured
out how to open her mouth again and how to
like roll around, so they aren't able to even just
shut her mouth and stop her from talking. Donut did
block her from the chat and says something like, you
must have seen how annoying she is. And there the
way she talks, which I'm assuming is the all caps,
which is hilarious because it's exactly what Donut does. Sorena's signet,
that's the one, and she says I want to see her,
and Carl says, all right, I can do that, but.
Speaker 2: You have to stop screeching.
Speaker 1: One more squeal and the deal is off, and she
agrees to this. I patted her on the head and
she growled at me and tried to bite my finger.
So this is when we get transferred to first a
trailer that's like in outer space to get checked over
for any explosives or whatever. They are not given any
warning that they're going to be in space, and Donut
winds up throwing up as they just sort of like
float around, and Carl gets a look at Earth and
gets quite emotional for a moment there. I immediately thought
of Cooley, who'd written the nineteenth edition of the cookbook.
This had been his last view but of his own
home planet. He died after a failed assassination attempt on
a pair of admins.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I was sort of like, is the studio
out here? Like did she move? What's going on?
Speaker 1: But it seems like they just get sent all the
way out here to get checked over, and then they
get sent back down to be with Odette, and let's see,
we landed sideways and Odet's familiar trailer and she is
there with Zev, which instantly Carl is sort of like,
that's weird, what's going on? And Odett's like, look, we
don't have a lot of time, but I really need
to talk to you about your ex and she tells
them be as alive and you know, has to explain
a little bit about how that happened, and Donut is like, immediately, Zev,
did you fucking know?
Speaker 2: And Zev says, I just found out a minute ago,
Like don't.
Speaker 1: I wasn't keeping shit from you. Why did you take her?
And why are you telling us this now?
Speaker 2: Odebt?
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to tell you, Odette said, not till
you were free, But present circumstances have forced my hand.
The plan was to secret her away and keep her
safe till the crow was over. We had a security breach.
It hasn't yet leaked that she's alive and off planet,
but that will soon change. Another program is planning on
running a story. They're going to ambush you with the
information infromation stolen from me, and I want to make
sure you have all the facts before you're confronted, and
if you're amenable, we can completely head off this story
poaching bastard and she says that I took me to
protect my investment and he says bullshit, and she's like, no, seriously,
there was a number of ways this could have gone,
and I didn't want it to be like the cruelest,
worst one. And you know, kind of back and forth
just about I thought people on the surface were safe, YadA, YadA,
And finally Donah is like, can I talk to her?
Speaker 2: Is she here?
Speaker 1: And it's really like the narrator's delivery of this I
thought was really good, where she just keeps being like,
is anybody gonna answer me? Is she here?
Speaker 2: Can I talk to her?
Speaker 1: And I just thought it was it was very moving,
you know, this frustration. All she wants to know is
can I see my person? And of course, understandably, Carl
is very caught up with like the details on why
this is happening this way. I'm not mad at him
for that at all, but Donah is having a much
more like fundamental response to the news that be is
alive and they are not engaging with her at all
until she kind of loses her temper a little bit.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 1: Finally Zev just like she tries to say first of
all that this is partially about what I did to Mordecai,
and then Zev just blurts out she's using beat a
blackmail boorrent and Odette gives her an irritated look, but
Zev says, it actually doesn't have anything to do with
you or her, and it's a good thing, but we
all have to pretend it wasn't Odette who saved b
and that Bourne did something noble. In exchange, Odette is
getting a higher revenue share for the remainder of the crawl.
We just signed the contract, and Odette's like, the contract
was an afterthought, It wasn't my main motivation, which I
actually do believe, but it doesn't.
Speaker 2: Change that the other one is there.
Speaker 1: And then Odette says, well, if you're gonna tell him
about the contract, telling the rest, and Zeb says, you
get a fan box. You're not supposed to open it
for a few hours, but the votes are in. Soon
after you open it, you're going to be whisked away
to an event where you'll be able to interact with fans.
It's going to be just you, not Donut. That's where
they were going to confront you. It's why we're telling
you now. She's here. She's off planet, but she's standing by.
I want your permission to bring her on the show.
And Carl really begins to lose it and is like, absolutely,
no fucking way, and Dona interrupts and is like, we're
doing it. I need you to trust me. We've talked
about this and we are fucking doing it.
Speaker 2: I will see you guys on set.
Speaker 1: And Carl says, if you are fucking with us, Odette,
I will find a way to fucking kill you. I
don't care how long it takes. I will figure it out.
And she just says, I would expect nothing less of you. Carl.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Zev.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Zev said, she dropped all this on me
as we started prepping you. You don't have to do this, Donut,
I said, it's quite alright, Carl, Donut said she was pretending.
Of course, it's quite all right, she repeated. She jumped
from my shoulder and moved to the counter and peered underneath.
She gasped, Carl, they have treats hidden under the counter.
They found the treats.
Speaker 2: That come in the pink bag. I love those.
Speaker 1: Zev remained standing on the floor by the couch watching Donut,
a worried expression on her face. The small fish woman
was trembling. I'd never seen her like this. This is
such terrible timing, Zev said. This shouldn't be happening now.
This is too big to be happening now. God damn it,
there's something else going on. What are you so damn
nervous about? Sh Donut is going to need it is
going to need you focus on that. Look, I began,
I'm worried that you're. All you need to know is
that you need to close that yap of yours right now.
Speaker 2: Please.
Speaker 1: I was so surprised that she told me to shut
up that I did so.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the other fucking aspect of this is,
or what the interaction with fans and the fan boxes.
They have already tried to fuck with Carl right in
the beginning by giving him that picture of b But
maybe it's like it was going to be something like
that where they were going to put him on the
spot with her somehow regarding her cheating, because that's been
talked about a lot, you know. I don't know, and
I'm assuming like Zev being like Donut is going to
need you as related maybe to gravy Boat. I don't
know when he is going to be unleashed, you know.
But yeah, there's I don't know, there's just as Carl says,
there's like something else going on, and the fact that
Zev is as nervous as she is makes me think
that it's like kind of something that is against Borent somehow,
Like maybe she is part of a group that's you know,
a resistance of some kind and that they had had
a plan and this is like potentially going to fuck
up the plan, which would be amazing. He comments at
one point about how the Cuatine don't really have a
poker face at all, and how the fact that she
has been so convincing in playing her role that she
is still like under their control is evidence of what
a great actress she is, because this is not a
natural thing for the Cuatine, And I just thought that
was really interesting, the acknowledgment that she in particular has
this like, you know, ability to lie in her this streak.
We haven't gotten to know Zev in a very specific
way very much. So we have to pick up a
lot about who she is from all of these side
clues and just make.
Speaker 2: Judgments from that.
Speaker 1: So all right, I've got to wrap this up, but
I am really interested to see where we go. Like,
you know, I was giving Odette a lot of shit
at the end of the last book when you see
them getting picked up, because I was sort of misunderstanding things,
And now I definitely do believe that. It's basically she's
an opportunist. She's gonna do the thing because she wants
to help, but if she can fucking get money out
of it, she's of course going to do that. Like
why wouldn't you, And honestly, as a very practical person myself,
I would do the same thing. I know it would
look a certain way, But there comes a point where
it's like, oh, well, if it looks a certain way,
especially if she happens to be using that money toward
a bigger goal of some kind that she's keeping to herself,
maybe you're just willing to piss people off because your
cause needs money somehow, you know, I don't know, I
don't know, but uh, yeah, I am I'm really curious
how this is gonna go because be just was like,
she was so not okay when we last saw her,
and I have to imagine being scooped up by fucking
aliens has not helped, you know. I just don't know
what to expect of her when Carl sees her again.
Is she gonna be fucking lucid at all? Or is
seeing him going to like spark something in her that
brings her kind of back to earth Or is she
going to kind of crack upon seeing him after all?
I don't know, could go a lot of different ways.
So all right, well I have to wrap up, guys,
but thank you again so much for listening and for
coming to the lives those of you who are here.
Thank you Jackie for commissioning this one, and ntil next
time to the lou motherfuckers. That was an Unspoiled Network podcast.