Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
Speaker 1: covering Dungeon Crawler Carl Book five The Butcher's Masquerade chapters five, six, seven, eight,
Speaker 1: But but them, Sorry, guys, I just got away from
Speaker 1: me for a second. In these chapters, for once, Carl's
Speaker 1: plan wasn't great. He really overestimated himself this time. There
Speaker 1: are plenty of times where his plans haven't worked out,
Speaker 1: shit's happened, But this is the first.
Speaker 2: Time that I was like, really, dude, come now. Welcome
Speaker 2: to spoil Me.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show everyone. I am Natasha. Thank you
Speaker 1: very much to Jackie for commissioning this episode. The saraph
Speaker 1: EM's got a comment here in the chat. This opening
Speaker 1: bit summed up, get out there and kill kill kill Wait, no,
Speaker 1: not them. The thing is, though, it seems like they
Speaker 1: want them to do this because of the thing with
Speaker 1: the hands, so I can't even say that. It's like
Speaker 1: they go wait, not them, because they seem to be
Speaker 1: fine with it. Michael says, imagine being donut. She thinks
Speaker 1: she's in for a nice day of relaxing grinding, and
Speaker 1: she suddenly dragged smack dab into the middle of a
Speaker 1: thousand hunters who want to kill her, and like, this
Speaker 1: is exactly what I was so worried about last episode, guys,
Speaker 1: when I said, I love that she's willing to trust Carl,
Speaker 1: no questions asked, and I'm really worried that this is
Speaker 1: going to result in him losing the trust. And it
Speaker 1: literally she says, I am never doing one of your
Speaker 1: plans again until you explain to me what it's about
Speaker 1: to be that goes down. And I'm not mad at
Speaker 1: her for that, For the record, she is right to
Speaker 1: react this way. It just makes me really sad because
Speaker 1: I loved that that was their relationship and it's so
Speaker 1: it's like it just sucks to.
Speaker 2: Me that it's over already.
Speaker 1: You know, I just didn't want this for them. So
Speaker 1: let's just start at the beginning. So chapter five we
Speaker 1: get an opening, and that's like pretty much been the
Speaker 1: theme in the past couple books is that the chapter
Speaker 1: opens with like an entry from a crawler in the cookbook.
Speaker 1: I think it's sort of interesting that what we're getting
Speaker 1: into now is a little bit.
Speaker 2: More of.
Speaker 1: Uncertain and t where there's a mention of like they
Speaker 1: say that these are all the same floor, but it
Speaker 1: seems like that can't be true because folks previously have
Speaker 1: mentioned such and such, and we don't have those here.
Speaker 2: There's always.
Speaker 1: Points in the entries where they're like, things may vary,
Speaker 1: you know, your results may vary. But this is the
Speaker 1: first time that it's like we're being told a thing
Speaker 1: that is untrue. And I find that pretty interesting personally,
Speaker 1: just because why would they lie about it. This is
Speaker 1: not my saying I don't believe you, because why would
Speaker 1: they lie about it. I believe you, but I don't
Speaker 1: understand why they would lie about it.
Speaker 2: Both of those things.
Speaker 1: It just feels like, what advantage do they get by
Speaker 1: pretending it's the same floor design every time? And I
Speaker 1: can't think of what it could be. I really can't.
Speaker 1: I I don't know, I don't know. I'm not coming
Speaker 1: up with anything. So that has got my attention a
Speaker 1: little bit. And he mentions that the political landscape is
Speaker 1: the same, and that like the general setup is often similar,
Speaker 1: but it's just that they're details that are very different.
Speaker 1: And he mentions Elves and also Naiads and how both
Speaker 1: of them fucking suck and if you approach them.
Speaker 2: They will attack.
Speaker 1: They don't give a shit, and that you know, it's
Speaker 1: like a sort of free for all with them, so
Speaker 1: it is advised to.
Speaker 2: Leave them the fuck alone.
Speaker 1: And the idea of like, well, these things are as
Speaker 1: bad as each other.
Speaker 2: Why do I feel like our guys are.
Speaker 1: Going to make the fucking Naiads and or Elves the
Speaker 1: center of some plan at some point? There's just something
Speaker 1: about this warning that had me personally going, ah, jeez,
Speaker 1: oh boy, what is that? What are we gonna do?
Speaker 1: I just I got a bad feeling about this. Michael says,
Speaker 1: I've said it before, but I'll say it again. I
Speaker 1: appreciate Matt being willing to put in characters who are
Speaker 1: more competent than Carl. Too many series in this genre
Speaker 1: feel the need to slabber all over their main characters
Speaker 1: as the greatest genius ever. I'm so sorry. It took
Speaker 1: me a moment to understand what Michael meant by slabber
Speaker 1: all over and I get that now. You mean like
Speaker 1: they suck their main characteristick, which is very funny considering
Speaker 1: Carl tell somebody to suck a stick this chapter. Michael
Speaker 1: also says Miriam Dom and Pony are really, really good,
Speaker 1: and I agree, Michael, this is something that I'm not
Speaker 1: sure sure if I meant to agree with them on
Speaker 1: this or not, But for the record, there comes a
Speaker 1: point in these chapters where Carl is like, it became
Speaker 1: clear to me that we needed to get away from
Speaker 1: these weirdos as soon as possible. And I was very
Speaker 1: much like, they're just as weird as you and donut
Speaker 1: like there's a weird dynamic here for sure, but there's
Speaker 1: nothing about them that made me feel like you aren't
Speaker 1: safe with them or they don't have your back. So
Speaker 1: for me, their weirdness was extremely uninteresting and very secondary
Speaker 1: to their competence and their abilities and all of that.
Speaker 1: And the fact that Carl was just like, well, we
Speaker 1: need to get away from these guys. I was like, Carl,
Speaker 1: all the thing is considered for somebody who is as
Speaker 1: bonkers as you are, you've got a really low threshold
Speaker 1: for weirdness in other people. Like it just felt weird
Speaker 1: to me, how because he was like this with them
Speaker 1: last time. This is not an isolated reaction for him.
Speaker 1: He just has a very extreme sort of revulsion from
Speaker 1: all of them. Like there's Miriam at one point smiles
Speaker 1: at him, and he had been having that like warm
Speaker 1: feeling of Mom's here to save me kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: and then she smiles and reveals her teeth and he
Speaker 1: is repulsed by her, and I just kind of wanted
Speaker 1: to be like, Bro, they did this to her, though,
Speaker 1: you are being framed in a way that isn't fair
Speaker 1: on all of the wrap ups, because they have an
Speaker 1: agenda in making you not appeal to certain crawlers as
Speaker 1: like somebody that they want to cooperate with. This is
Speaker 1: a thing that they do on purpose.
Speaker 2: And I just.
Speaker 1: Felt like the fact that he reacted so strongly to
Speaker 1: her teeth with like, this isn't something that she wanted.
Speaker 1: This isn't something that is like a race that she chose,
Speaker 1: and she only drinks blood from things that Prepotente has
Speaker 1: already killed because she clearly like just feels a way.
Speaker 2: About having to do this.
Speaker 1: I just didn't understand the intensity of his reaction to
Speaker 1: them overall, and I know that I'm getting ahead of myself.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but since Michael brought up Miriam and Prepotente,
Speaker 1: I just like there's just something about how harsh Carl
Speaker 1: is toward them that I was genuinely puzzled by, because
Speaker 1: they feel like really good allies to have and they
Speaker 1: have like been there more more than once for you.
Speaker 1: And as is said later when he gets in this
Speaker 1: stupid argument with prepotente A, Miriam's like that wasn't very nice, Carl.
Speaker 1: We did save your life, and she was like dead right,
Speaker 1: you know, I I don't know. There's just Karl occasionally
Speaker 1: will have priorities in who he deems like cool to
Speaker 1: hang out with or rely on that I don't really
Speaker 1: understand because I thought it was going to be about
Speaker 1: competence and variety of abilities and whether or not they
Speaker 1: are decent people who want to do the right thing,
Speaker 1: and these guys check all those boxes to me. So
Speaker 1: it's weird, you know it Just like I don't even
Speaker 1: know if I want to say that it's out of
Speaker 1: character exactly, because a part of me kind of wants
Speaker 1: to say it feels out of character, but he has
Speaker 1: done it consistently enough that it doesn't actually seem out
Speaker 1: of character. It's just more a strange aspect of his
Speaker 1: character that they don't really understand. Sarah him says, maybe
Speaker 1: he just has an issue with goats, but yeah, this
Speaker 1: is Carl being a bit of a dumb dumb Michael says,
Speaker 1: maybe related to what he said about Lee, Nah, he
Speaker 1: recognized how driven incompetent she was, but he didn't think
Speaker 1: they could party together because they drive each other to
Speaker 1: murder the other. Maybe maybe that's what he meant about,
Speaker 1: just like we have to get away from these guys
Speaker 1: or else I'm gonna kill them.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's that simple.
Speaker 1: It just it felt much more like a judgment on
Speaker 1: their personality, like that they aren't safe. And maybe I'm
Speaker 1: just like reading that into what he said and that's
Speaker 1: not really what he meant. That's definitely possible, So okay, sorry, sorry, sorry,
Speaker 1: let's back up. Donut as we arrive in the city
Speaker 1: is just like what the fuck is going on? And
Speaker 1: again Carl is like not telling her. I really, look,
Speaker 1: I get that part of what's happening here is that
Speaker 1: the way that they monitor the plans that the Crawlers have,
Speaker 1: Carl feels like he can't tell Donut because there's a
Speaker 1: possibility that he will be stopped, that zeb will get involved,
Speaker 1: that they'll tell him you can't do this, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's it's that there is like this difficulty in
Speaker 1: communication that means that they have to work in such
Speaker 1: a way that they don't talk out loud to each
Speaker 1: other about it. I maintain though, that if he had
Speaker 1: really prioritized it, he could have figured it out. They
Speaker 1: have that whiteboard on the inside of the bathroom. He
Speaker 1: could have gotten Donut more on board with this plan,
Speaker 1: and frankly her like, I feel like if she had known,
Speaker 1: there's a possibility things might have gone more smoothly somehow,
Speaker 1: you know. But I just it bothers me that he
Speaker 1: decided it felt it felt more like he was using
Speaker 1: the fact that it's difficult to communicate to make an
Speaker 1: excuse for not communicating, rather than that actually being a
Speaker 1: valid reason. It felt like he just didn't want to
Speaker 1: be bothered and kind of just wanted to do what
Speaker 1: he wanted to do. And she deserves a lot better
Speaker 1: than that. Especially, I will remind you all, bitch is
Speaker 1: low level at this point, Like she is not in
Speaker 1: a place where he should be excluding her from the
Speaker 1: plan and just dragging her along as an accessory for
Speaker 1: somebody who has repeatedly mentioned how low level she is
Speaker 1: and that it concerns him. He's not acting like it
Speaker 1: concerns him. He's just not you know. It bothers me
Speaker 1: a lot that he keeps claiming this is something that
Speaker 1: they need to work on, but also continues to treat
Speaker 1: her like a child. Really, either this is a priority
Speaker 1: that you really feel like you need to work on,
Speaker 1: or you don't, and it feels like you must not.
Speaker 1: It feels like that can't be of interest to you
Speaker 1: if this is still the way that you're behaving with her.
Speaker 1: So I just think that, Look, I'm just gonna say it,
Speaker 1: donuts low levels are partially Carl's fault. That's just a fact.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying they're all his fault. I'm not,
Speaker 1: but they're partially his fault. And the plans that they
Speaker 1: come up with often do not seem to involve utilizing
Speaker 1: her particular skill set in a way that might be like,
Speaker 1: she has her charisma at this bonker's level, and perhaps
Speaker 1: there was a way that we could have utilized that
Speaker 1: in this mix somehow, you know, But instead it just
Speaker 1: sort of feels like she didn't even have a job
Speaker 1: to do here. I correct me if I'm wrong, guys,
Speaker 1: but it seemed like he came in, he had his
Speaker 1: whole plan, and he was just sort of relying on
Speaker 1: her as a backup for defense. But she didn't really
Speaker 1: like the one role is within the move of Predator
Speaker 1: where they both go invisible and she uses her feet
Speaker 1: her heat vision goggles.
Speaker 2: But other than that.
Speaker 1: It was very much like he even says, if things
Speaker 1: go bad, just go down the stairwell to the next floor.
Speaker 1: That's really shitty, bro, that you would put her in
Speaker 1: the position where if this plan that you didn't inform
Speaker 1: her of goes left, she has to skip this whole
Speaker 1: floor and go to the next one without having gotten
Speaker 1: to level up or do anything before arriving there, and
Speaker 1: you're putting her in that spot where these are her
Speaker 1: only options. I just think that's kind of like remarkably shitty,
Speaker 1: and it just I will say, there was a moment,
Speaker 1: you guys after the episode, the podcast episode, after I
Speaker 1: wrapped on recording it, and I was thinking about what
Speaker 1: is it that Carl could possibly be wanting to go
Speaker 1: to this city for, and he asks specifically like, go
Speaker 1: take me to the stairwell.
Speaker 2: In this city.
Speaker 1: I was almost wondering, is he just trying to get
Speaker 1: to the stairwell to skip the floor entirely, which would
Speaker 1: have been fascinating to do as a storytelling exercise, you know,
Speaker 1: we're expecting that this floor there's going to be a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of stuff that goes down, that the story
Speaker 1: is going to go a certain way, and then maybe
Speaker 1: we just skip it entirely. I don't think that's necessarily
Speaker 1: like a good idea, but it would certainly be fascinating
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of potential within that, you know.
Speaker 1: But it's a very different thing for him to put
Speaker 1: Dona in the position where she would be the only
Speaker 1: one doing that and possibly either leaving Carl to die
Speaker 1: or leaving Carl on this floor alone leveling up and
Speaker 1: doing a bunch of stuff. He's already i think, more
Speaker 1: than ten.
Speaker 2: Levels ahead of her.
Speaker 1: You know. It just it just bugged me, man. I
Speaker 1: just did not like any of this. It's really the
Speaker 1: first time that one of his plans, from like top
Speaker 1: to bottom. I felt like I was just crossing my
Speaker 1: arms and staring at him, like, this is your big idea?
Speaker 1: Are you fucking serious? And it's not like nothing in
Speaker 1: this plan works out. It does somewhat still work out.
Speaker 1: So I'm not trying to say that this was a
Speaker 1: complete disaster, but it would have been had they not
Speaker 1: been rescued.
Speaker 2: He would have died.
Speaker 1: I don't know what would have happened to Donut, because
Speaker 1: it seems like they were far enough away from the
Speaker 1: stairwell at that point that I don't know she could
Speaker 1: have gotten there in time.
Speaker 2: So even the fact.
Speaker 1: That it worked out seems like it was low key,
Speaker 1: not because of his plan.
Speaker 2: It was despite his plan, and.
Speaker 1: Just the I'm not used to having this kind of
Speaker 1: like doubt for me in his mind, or in.
Speaker 2: Carl's mind.
Speaker 1: I mean, like I expect that he has thought things
Speaker 1: through to a good degree, and it just seemed like
Speaker 1: that had not happened here at all. And I don't
Speaker 1: really know what to blame for that. If it's just
Speaker 1: that he's getting he's letting himself get so angry that
Speaker 1: that's sort of overriding his better judgment or what, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, I don't know. Michael says Donut
Speaker 1: would have just joined Katya. No, Michael, I mean that
Speaker 1: Donut wouldn't have lived if they hadn't been rescued and
Speaker 1: Carl got taken out. I don't think Donut would have
Speaker 1: made it to either the the stairwell down or out
Speaker 1: of there right then.
Speaker 2: Maybe she would, but like they were in a really
Speaker 2: bad spot. Man.
Speaker 1: You know, I just I am not impressed, Carl. That's
Speaker 1: what it comes down to. I am not impressed. So
Speaker 1: and the whole plan is basically that he wants to
Speaker 1: sneak in and set some bombs up. They are going
Speaker 1: to be like, He's going to be able to detonate
Speaker 1: those when he needs so he thinks he does not
Speaker 1: count on the interaction of other people in the environment
Speaker 1: with the bombs that he has to leave unattended, which
Speaker 1: it turns out lowers their stability significantly and makes them
Speaker 1: liable to go off at a time that is not ideal. Also,
Speaker 1: what Carl does not bet on is that there are
Speaker 1: going to be traps everywhere. It's really kind of like
Speaker 1: obvious when you stop and think about it. Of course,
Speaker 1: all of these hunters are going to be aware that
Speaker 1: they're going to be crawlers who try and come at them,
Speaker 1: So of course they have traps in place around like
Speaker 1: the main city where all of them hang out where
Speaker 1: they are drunk and completely have their guard down like
Speaker 1: of course, you know, but it doesn't occur to Carl,
Speaker 1: and he isn't good at adapting. Once he realizes that
Speaker 1: the traps are in place. Later on, they are fleeing
Speaker 1: and he winds up running right into one of the traps,
Speaker 1: and despite having that ability that warns him, he's going
Speaker 1: too fast and he's not able to stop, so they
Speaker 1: set one off right away. And this is the sort
Speaker 1: of thing that it's just like he just got a
Speaker 1: little too cocky and really seemed to think that he
Speaker 1: knew every bit of how this all was going to
Speaker 1: go down and didn't like consider how the people who
Speaker 1: have done this, probably many times, these hunters, how they
Speaker 1: would be prepared for exactly the kind of assault that
Speaker 1: he's attempting to pull off here. Seraphim says, I do
Speaker 1: think it's mostly him just focus on focusing so much
Speaker 1: on hurt the people who are trying to kill us
Speaker 1: that he's overlooking a lot else, And I agree Seraphim.
Speaker 1: Michael says, they were already out out of the city right.
Speaker 1: If I recall, Carl collapsed once they got outside. He collapsed,
Speaker 1: but they were like people converging on them, so like
Speaker 1: it it could he they were not in the city proper,
Speaker 1: but like if it maybe maybe she would have been fine.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It just feels like considering how close
Speaker 1: they came.
Speaker 2: It just it is.
Speaker 1: Whether or not she would have survived in the end
Speaker 1: is sort of a moot point in just that it
Speaker 1: would have been very bad for her, and he just
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to really care. Yeah, Michael says he was
Speaker 1: very lucky. The trap he set off was an alarm
Speaker 1: trap and not one of the immobilization ones. The people
Speaker 1: converging on them were Miriam Domin prepotente, right, that's what
Speaker 1: I remember. Well, there was somebody firing on him with
Speaker 1: bolts that was like under an invisibility spell. And I
Speaker 1: can't recall if once they leave, once they get outside
Speaker 1: of the city limits, is that person not able to
Speaker 1: pursue them further or I don't remember exactly how that works.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so he sets this up and what he has,
Speaker 1: what he decides to do is he wears the Ring
Speaker 1: of Divine Suffering, which I genuinely was a little startled by.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you guys, but I I didn't
Speaker 1: think that his plan was going to involve that ring as.
Speaker 2: The first step.
Speaker 1: I was expecting if he ever had to use this,
Speaker 1: that it was going to be something he got pushed
Speaker 1: to and did against his own better judgment, knowing that
Speaker 1: it was maybe a mistake, but that he was in
Speaker 1: a really desperate spot, sort of like with the Gate
Speaker 1: of the Pharaoh Gods, where it's just like I have
Speaker 1: it if I absolutely must, I'd rather not, and so
Speaker 1: I will mostly discount that as an option unless there's
Speaker 1: not a better way to do this. But instead the
Speaker 1: whole plan revolves, it seems, around him wearing this ring
Speaker 1: to begin with. So, okay, everybody's telling me that the
Speaker 1: hunters can't leave the city yet, and I think that
Speaker 1: there's because like when Karl gets out of the city
Speaker 1: and looks back, he can't see them, and he can't
Speaker 1: see the road or anything. So I guess because what
Speaker 1: I was thinking is if somebody is firing on them
Speaker 1: with crossbow bolts, that they could keep firing on them
Speaker 1: even after they have left the city.
Speaker 2: But I guess that's not.
Speaker 1: Their vision is occluded the same way that Carls is,
Speaker 1: and they can't see outside the city to shoot him either.
Speaker 2: So okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: So he uses the ring, and the way that it
Speaker 1: works is that you mark somebody for death, and until
Speaker 1: they are finally killed, you suffer a d buff and
Speaker 1: there is a foot like a toe ring that he
Speaker 1: got as a prize earlier on that uh does a
Speaker 1: it's a super spreader.
Speaker 2: So what he.
Speaker 1: Does is puts on the ring marks somebody gets the
Speaker 1: de buff and then uses the ring or uses the
Speaker 1: toe ring. I'm having to really differentiate between my rings here,
Speaker 1: so that when somebody comes and attempts to attack him,
Speaker 1: he kicks them, hits them with the de buff and
Speaker 1: that will, in his original plan, spread to a lot
Speaker 1: of different people, right, and unfortunately there's only one person
Speaker 1: who gets.
Speaker 2: Hit with it.
Speaker 1: My assumption is that the super spreader thing, it infects
Speaker 1: them with the same version of it as him. So
Speaker 1: once he kills this guy, their de buff also goes away.
Speaker 2: And there's just a lot.
Speaker 1: About Carl in this scene that's really unnerving.
Speaker 2: The way that he taunts this dude about like you
Speaker 2: want to know a secret, your.
Speaker 1: Bait, The gleefulness of it, it was really upsetting. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that Carl hasn't got the right to
Speaker 1: be angry or to do all of this.
Speaker 2: I'm not arguing.
Speaker 1: That it's simply the excitement he seems to feel about
Speaker 1: it is. It's just extremely creepy like I wasn't ready
Speaker 1: for the joy of it that he is clearly feeling,
Speaker 1: and it's it's again one of those things where.
Speaker 2: It's like that is not.
Speaker 1: Unreasonable when people have done to you what they have done,
Speaker 1: and these folks are here to treat it like a vacation.
Speaker 1: They are here for the fun of killing you, guys,
Speaker 1: actually killing you. That is a really really it's the
Speaker 1: kind of thing where it's difficult for me to even
Speaker 1: wrap my mind around how I would feel about people
Speaker 1: doing that, because it is so monstrous that I can't
Speaker 1: even fully comprehend it. And thus, again I am trying
Speaker 1: not to police how Carl is feeling. However, I can't
Speaker 1: help my reaction to it, and I was a little
Speaker 1: revolted by it. If I'm being honest, it may just
Speaker 1: be kind of.
Speaker 2: An issue that I have to deal with.
Speaker 1: That like, if you are trying to take down an enemy,
Speaker 1: doing that is going to involve no small measure of
Speaker 1: satisfaction in certain ways, you know, and that the people
Speaker 1: that you are partnered up with to do this sort
Speaker 1: of thing might take more pleasure in it than you do.
Speaker 1: But it's hard to see it coming from a person
Speaker 1: who has for the most part, it feels like been
Speaker 1: so guarded that when he has let that down in
Speaker 1: this scene and just like is jubilant at killing these people,
Speaker 1: it's jarring to see. This is the first time that
Speaker 1: he's going up against folks that he considers complicit in
Speaker 1: all of this. Everybody else that he's gone up against,
Speaker 1: the only exception being Loita, who doesn't care out because
Speaker 1: she wasn't in the game. She was an appendage of
Speaker 1: the game, and him taking her out like there was
Speaker 1: a particular satisfaction because of the way that she was going.
Speaker 1: She was fucking with him and Doughnut specifically, she was
Speaker 1: party to the torture of Zev's family that was really
Speaker 1: really personal in a way that being jubilant at her
Speaker 1: death felt like I got it and I was one
Speaker 1: hundred percent there with.
Speaker 2: Him and behind it.
Speaker 1: With these people, it's there's still one hundred percent complicit,
Speaker 1: but it's it's an indirect sort of thing in certain ways.
Speaker 1: So the vibe of him going at them with this
Speaker 1: energy is really different.
Speaker 2: And again.
Speaker 1: That indirectness is very temporary because soon these people are
Speaker 1: going to be explicitly going after Crawl, So right now,
Speaker 1: coming at them, this way.
Speaker 2: There's just a part.
Speaker 1: Of me that's sort of like, oh, this feels really icky,
Speaker 1: but is it?
Speaker 2: Is it? It's really not. You're doing what the game.
Speaker 1: And this is the argument that he has with himself later,
Speaker 1: where he's like, I am playing the game as they
Speaker 1: built it and set it up. I am doing the
Speaker 1: thing according to all of their rules. And if they
Speaker 1: feel a way about it, then they had better go
Speaker 1: in and change those rules, which they will do probably
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases.
Speaker 2: But it just it.
Speaker 1: There are certain things that I think many of us
Speaker 1: in this day and age are trained to clutch our
Speaker 1: pearls over and I like to interrogate that reaction because
Speaker 1: I think in many cases we have been trained to
Speaker 1: clutch our pearls so as to discourage any rebellion or
Speaker 1: revolt of any kind. It is a tool of the
Speaker 1: oppressor to have us like be like, you shouldn't be violent,
Speaker 1: Yes you should. Any revolution that succeeded like it was
Speaker 1: a result of violence, with the exception of like one,
Speaker 1: and it is held up often as like proof despite
Speaker 1: it being objectively an outlier. So when I have this
Speaker 1: response to Carl and I'm just like, yikes, dude, I
Speaker 1: really do like to step back and be like, why
Speaker 1: why am I feeling this way right now? Is this
Speaker 1: even valid? Then I'm reacting like this, Like do I have.
Speaker 2: The right to react like this?
Speaker 1: You know? And honestly, I don't think I do. I
Speaker 1: don't think I do.
Speaker 2: I think what Carl is.
Speaker 1: Doing is right and his reaction is fair. It's just
Speaker 1: it turns my stomach a little bit.
Speaker 2: It just does.
Speaker 1: And probably were I in his shoes, it would not
Speaker 1: at all anymore. If I were any crawler, I would
Speaker 1: probably be fucking fist pumping right along with him and
Speaker 1: loving him, taunting them and all of that. I think
Speaker 1: it's just really hard for me because we have dealt
Speaker 1: with so many other characters that he has been up
Speaker 1: against earlier in these books. It's just hard for me
Speaker 1: to differentiate that these aren't NPCs, these aren't victims. They
Speaker 1: are part of the regime doing.
Speaker 2: This to crawlers.
Speaker 1: And so I think I'm having difficulty making that switch
Speaker 1: in my mind and not seeing what he's doing as cruelty.
Speaker 1: It's justice in response to you know. So I think
Speaker 1: that's kind of just where my hang up is. Is
Speaker 1: like we've literally never encountered any of the people who
Speaker 1: are part of the party in power here in the game.
Speaker 1: And so I'm having just a bit of like a
Speaker 1: stumbling block to processing what all this means and the
Speaker 1: fact that these people are like genuinely dying. This is
Speaker 1: not an in game dying. This is dying dying.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's the.
Speaker 1: Whole way that like this winds up going down is
Speaker 1: it's in combination with the traps that he was not
Speaker 1: prepared for, and the there are spells that are going
Speaker 1: off obviously in response to him and donuts presence, like
Speaker 1: people are tracking them, and I thought that was particularly interesting.
Speaker 1: This is evidence of the fact that somebody is sharing
Speaker 1: outside information, just as he complained, and he complains loudly
Speaker 1: and often, as he puts it. Later on we find
Speaker 1: out that he talked about this with his lawyer and
Speaker 1: they wind up getting rid of the h being able
Speaker 1: to see the chat because probably it was just way
Speaker 1: too easy for people to share information and cheat using that.
Speaker 1: And but there's still of course going to be other
Speaker 1: ways to cheat and share information, and you know, fuck
Speaker 1: somebody's entire time up. So yeah, there's no way that
Speaker 1: anybody should know they're here, know to cast this spell.
Speaker 1: To find them, but they do somehow, and that's also
Speaker 1: something that really winds up like eating into the time
Speaker 1: that he had planned on being able to utilize here,
Speaker 1: because the point is to get this one guy, use
Speaker 1: him as bait, and then get everybody coming at him,
Speaker 1: because his goal was to find the mayor and take
Speaker 1: that person down and then he would be the mayor,
Speaker 1: which not a terrible idea in theory, it's just the
Speaker 1: plan itself on how to accomplish this is just really
Speaker 1: not thought out well. And the way that it works
Speaker 1: as well, with like the safe room and the personal space.
Speaker 2: There's like one bar. This strip is.
Speaker 1: Filled with pubs and stuff, but there's only one that's
Speaker 1: a proper safe room, so they have to flee there
Speaker 1: when the bomb goes off, and the doors to the
Speaker 1: personal spaces are like in a hallway of that bar,
Speaker 1: so the hunters could in theory just like camp out
Speaker 1: outside the door of their personal space and wait for them.
Speaker 1: So they can't just go hide out. They have to
Speaker 1: go in to escape the bomb blast and then immediately
Speaker 1: leave again and relocate to somewhere else where the hunters
Speaker 1: can't find them, which hadn't.
Speaker 2: Occurred to me.
Speaker 1: I really kind of thought, Oh right, they can just
Speaker 1: flee to their personal space. That's nice forgetting that there's
Speaker 1: like a physical door that exists that people can come
Speaker 1: knock on, you know. Yeah, it's a real moment when
Speaker 1: they flee in there and Donut mentions the city name,
Speaker 1: I can't remember it, and Mordecai is just like, wait,
Speaker 1: we areware and loses his entire tiny little mind. So
Speaker 1: when they flee is when Carl winds up setting off
Speaker 1: a trap because he's running too fast to catch it
Speaker 1: with his ability, and somebody it's him.
Speaker 2: With a crossbow bolt.
Speaker 1: They are using an invisibility spell, and when they hit him,
Speaker 1: that bolt has a spell on it that slowly drains
Speaker 1: his health and also leaves a trail behind him of blood.
Speaker 2: It makes it so that.
Speaker 1: Even if his health goes back up briefly, it just
Speaker 1: continues to drop back down again, and the trail of
Speaker 1: blood will make him easily trackable, which at this moment
Speaker 1: isn't super helpful to them because they can't leave the city.
Speaker 1: But nevertheless, and they wind up getting rescued by Prepotente
Speaker 1: and Miriam because they once again interrupted a fucking spell
Speaker 1: that these guys were working on, but Prepotente is the
Speaker 1: one who's pissed about it. Miriam is really like it
Speaker 1: wasn't going to work anyway. Somebody was already noticing and
Speaker 1: and intervening, and I think that we were going to
Speaker 1: have to split any second as it is. So, Yes,
Speaker 1: it's annoying that you interrupted a spell again, but it's
Speaker 1: really not a big deal actually in the end.
Speaker 2: And I'm trying to jump ahead to this point. Sorry, guys, I.
Speaker 1: Forgot how to stop doughnut sweetie, do not touch the bolts.
Speaker 1: Oh my, that is a lot of de buffs. I
Speaker 1: will help, he will be okay. We are safe here,
Speaker 1: trust me. Somebody screamed, which is of course Prepotente. Chapter
Speaker 1: six opens with the the entry about the mercenaries and
Speaker 1: that they are there are so many like appendages to
Speaker 1: the contract and so many like rules about where they
Speaker 1: can be located and not that it makes working with
Speaker 1: them almost not really worth it. And I found this
Speaker 1: compelling in light of the fact that we have our
Speaker 1: mercenaries now that work with us, that we don't have
Speaker 1: to deal with those particular difficulties with necessarily, at least
Speaker 1: when it comes to like payment and stuff. But there
Speaker 1: are certain ways that they function that I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if that.
Speaker 2: So let's see.
Speaker 1: If they die, you can't loot their bodies, and our
Speaker 1: contract stipulates you have to pay their daily rate for
Speaker 1: the rest of the floor, which is kind of bogers. Second,
Speaker 1: it's easy to lose them. If they leave with me,
Speaker 1: it's fine, the door opens and we walk out together.
Speaker 1: Otherwise it automatically defaults to the last place they entered,
Speaker 1: as if they were a regular crawler. So if they're
Speaker 1: not right there with you when you exit, they could
Speaker 1: end up three or four safe rooms away. One of
Speaker 1: our guys left and never came back. He's still alive
Speaker 1: and I can see him in the chat. But the
Speaker 1: prick is just wandering around some town having a good
Speaker 1: old time. And I can't even fire him because you
Speaker 1: have to bring them back with you to let them go. Oh, plus,
Speaker 1: their levels mean next to nothing. My forty orc is
Speaker 1: a better fighter than my fifty dwarf who is now dead.
Speaker 1: By the way, twenty two more days at fifteen hundred
Speaker 1: gold a day.
Speaker 2: The whole thing is a scam.
Speaker 1: I have to agree.
Speaker 2: That's bonkers.
Speaker 1: Like this is very much we are pretending that this
Speaker 1: is an advantage to you so that we can continually.
Speaker 2: Rip you off.
Speaker 1: And as we see a little bit later with the
Speaker 1: way that they have changed up how big your party
Speaker 1: can be and this guild thing. Every time the Crawlers
Speaker 1: begin to figure out a way to have some sort
Speaker 1: of advantage, they find a way to take it and
Speaker 1: make it so that you have to pay for it,
Speaker 1: which is also exactly how things always work. We can't
Speaker 1: have people outsmarting the system. The system will always adapt
Speaker 1: to capitalize on whatever it is and exploit it, you know.
Speaker 1: So let's see him trying to find the spot where
Speaker 1: him and Prepotente get in this argument. Oh and there's
Speaker 1: a moment where he's looking at Bianca, the goat that's
Speaker 1: gotten to the size of a cart horse, and it
Speaker 1: gets bigger and bigger every time it levels up until
Speaker 1: it reaches level fifty. Eventually it will grow wings, It
Speaker 1: will be scary as shit. It will also be one
Speaker 1: of the most powerful badass pets available within Dungeon Crawler world.
Speaker 1: And Doughnuts like they make her sound mean, but she's
Speaker 1: sweet and I really wouldn't mind spending a little more
Speaker 1: time with Bianca. I think she seemed kind of dope.
Speaker 2: But and.
Speaker 1: Let's see new achievement. You cross the line you didn't
Speaker 1: even know what was there. You used an artifact of
Speaker 1: divine suffering for the first time. Hopefully there aren't any
Speaker 1: unintended and unadvertised side effects of using such a powerful
Speaker 1: and eas magical item. Which when Dona is telling Carl
Speaker 1: how mad Mordecai is that he used this, she says,
Speaker 1: Mordecai has mentioned that it is addictive somehow, and I
Speaker 1: don't remember if that was mentioned before. I think it was,
Speaker 1: but I can't fully remember. And Carl is just really
Speaker 1: not taking that seriously enough in my opinion. I get
Speaker 1: that it's just like extremely inconvenient to his plans and everything,
Speaker 1: and that sucks. But I don't know if you think
Speaker 1: you're going to be able to outsmart the results of
Speaker 1: this device, Carl. I don't think it works that way.
Speaker 1: I don't think that this is like a willpower thing.
Speaker 1: I think that they do something physically, probably to your
Speaker 1: body chemistry, like heroin does, and I am concerned about it.
Speaker 1: And there is a whole thing later with this, like
Speaker 1: sound in the back of his mind that he acknowledges
Speaker 1: having been there. His whole life basically that I was
Speaker 1: sort of, hey, what's that about, buddy, And it's just
Speaker 1: he like barely looks at it before turning away, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just barely mentioned and then.
Speaker 2: Sort of yikes.
Speaker 1: And there's also a moment when he's sort of like,
Speaker 1: I can't remember if it's here when he's down and
Speaker 1: trying to like wake wake up, or if it's later,
Speaker 1: but he has a sudden memory of like going into
Speaker 1: the basement on his birthday that day and finding his mom.
Speaker 1: So we knew that she had killed herself, but I
Speaker 1: don't think I realized that, like she had killed herself
Speaker 1: and he had found her. Everything about his story gets
Speaker 1: worse and worse, y'all. And it's like just the fact
Speaker 1: that it's on his birthday as well, like why it
Speaker 1: what you thought this was like good for him, ma'am?
Speaker 2: Did you really? Did you really?
Speaker 1: Or did you just want out and told yourself what
Speaker 1: you needed to tell yourself to make it so that
Speaker 1: you weren't inflicting hideous trauma on your son, Because it
Speaker 1: feels to me like it's more that second.
Speaker 2: One more than likely. But yikes.
Speaker 1: So here here's the achievement that I did really like
Speaker 1: the delivery from the audiobook narrator, You've permanently killed a
Speaker 1: non crawler biological. They ain't just dead, they dead dead
Speaker 1: their children and are now orphans. Their mothers are gnashing
Speaker 1: their teeth and cursing your name, and you're just sitting
Speaker 1: there all alive and shit and girlfriend, I am all in.
Speaker 2: That was pretty good. That was pretty good. It's rare
Speaker 2: that the AI gets me to like genuinely laugh, and
Speaker 2: that one got me. So yeah. A lot of the.
Speaker 1: Like achievements are just about how many people he has
Speaker 1: just killed, the volume of people, you know, all of that.
Speaker 1: He finds out about how many were NPCs, and that
Speaker 1: was more than two hundred, and he's like, it doesn't
Speaker 1: bother me, and that's probably fucked up that it doesn't
Speaker 1: bother me, But I genuinely believe that these NPCs are
Speaker 1: better off dead, so, you know, like it is what
Speaker 1: it is, and he thinks, this isn't on me.
Speaker 2: They started this.
Speaker 1: These are their rules their game, which I find interesting
Speaker 1: that he's like, they started it, and later when he's
Speaker 1: arguing with Prepotente, he says something about how like, well
Speaker 1: he started it, and then immediately is like I sound
Speaker 1: like such a little shit. Is that what we're like
Speaker 1: kind of trying to say here that it's is saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: well they started it justifying all this. I mean, it
Speaker 1: would be one thing if you were targeting people at
Speaker 1: pubs in the real world who are just living their lives.
Speaker 1: These people are here to kill crawlers explicitly though, So
Speaker 1: I feel like it's like that those things don't really
Speaker 1: compare to each other, and maybe the author didn't mean
Speaker 1: to compare them, and it's just a coincidence that those
Speaker 1: things sounded so alike to me. But I just wanted
Speaker 1: to acknowledge it because it got my attention a little bit. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: let's see Zev chimes in here and is saying that
Speaker 1: their numbers are crazy right now, and she says there
Speaker 1: will be additional security protocols put into place before you're transferred.
Speaker 2: This was not my doing, and.
Speaker 1: It applies to all crawlers. As long as you're not
Speaker 1: attempting to assassinate me or a member of Odette staff,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't have to worry. Also, I'm being asked to
Speaker 1: tell you ventions of the Daughter is still active and
Speaker 1: that you shouldn't participate with other elites. You figure out
Speaker 1: a way around it if you make a good faith
Speaker 1: effort to extricate yourself. I don't see it being an issue.
Speaker 1: And they talk a little bit about the shows that
Speaker 1: they go on with Miriam, and she goes on something
Speaker 1: called Plenty of Plenty. Pony doesn't do too well on
Speaker 1: these programs, but he's okay when there are other goats around.
Speaker 1: Pony likes it because they allow his brothers and sisters
Speaker 1: to come out, and they have new plants for them
Speaker 1: to try each time. The last time they had no treats.
Speaker 1: I find the program a bit unsettling, but it helps
Speaker 1: Pony relax. I have ten unaltered boers and pet carriers
Speaker 1: in my inventory, and I thought in the audiobook that
Speaker 1: she said bores, But I'm realizing like this, looking at this,
Speaker 1: it's spelled brs And when I am looking it up,
Speaker 1: I'm getting Dutch and Huguenot population that settled in Southern
Speaker 1: Africa in the late nineteenth century. I feel like, that's
Speaker 1: not what this author meant.
Speaker 2: So if anybody wants.
Speaker 1: To inform me what that means, let me know. But
Speaker 1: she says it's unsafe, and so she keeps them in
Speaker 1: pet carriers all the time until they get into like
Speaker 1: their personal spaces.
Speaker 2: So this is the.
Speaker 1: Point where him and prepotentai in an argument. He sets
Speaker 1: off all the traps in one shot, which, uh, it
Speaker 1: just lets them know where traps are, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: actually like disarm the traps, as we know from the.
Speaker 2: Description of it.
Speaker 1: And after they get in this argument, Miriam insists that
Speaker 1: they like hug and make up, and Prepatente is one
Speaker 1: down to do this and actually comes up and hugs
Speaker 1: Carl and then afterwards behaves like.
Speaker 2: They are besties.
Speaker 1: And I really love this a lot, guys. I love
Speaker 1: that Prepitente has the abilities of like a two hundred
Speaker 1: year old age but apparently like the emotional capacity of a.
Speaker 2: Six year old.
Speaker 1: It's just such a weird cas and that he like
Speaker 1: obviously looks at Miriam as mommy in a very literal way.
Speaker 2: It's just very funny to me.
Speaker 1: And you know, done up being in his chat being
Speaker 1: like you better hugim more else you're gonna look like
Speaker 1: real asshole.
Speaker 2: She's not wrong, So.
Speaker 1: Let's see. I'm trying to get to the because there's
Speaker 1: like all kinds of stuff to talk about that I
Speaker 1: I could.
Speaker 2: Spend a bunch of time.
Speaker 1: They wind up in a safe room that's actually a
Speaker 1: Whata Burger, which, uh water burger is good, but it's
Speaker 1: wildly overrated. It's one of those things that like it's
Speaker 1: talked about.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, you gotta go, man, but if you go, you.
Speaker 1: Are going to be kind of like, I mean, it's good.
Speaker 2: I guess it's fine.
Speaker 1: It's not earth shattering by any means.
Speaker 2: It's just like.
Speaker 1: Just different and mostly not that different. But I understand
Speaker 1: whenever you hear about a place that's like familiar, being
Speaker 1: in one of the safe rooms, that you'd instantly go,
Speaker 1: oh my god, get me blanklyink blank you know.
Speaker 2: And there's a.
Speaker 1: Conversation between because like Katya has come back and she
Speaker 1: has brought Lewis and for Us with her, and they
Speaker 1: talk about like him getting engaged. Chris and Clayton were
Speaker 1: not there. Katya said they were outside in the bar
Speaker 1: waiting on Team Metal Luck, who was still making their
Speaker 1: way to the town. And when Donut is heading to
Speaker 1: the bathroom, she's like stopping Mordecai and she says, look,
Speaker 1: we all know what you're gonna say. I've told Carline
Speaker 1: pissed and I just want to get this out of
Speaker 1: the way. Yeah that was fucking idiotic, and yeah it
Speaker 1: was suicidal. I'm not abandoning him. Yes, he's gonna tell
Speaker 1: me the plans from now on. We are not going
Speaker 1: to split up or have some storyline where we.
Speaker 2: Have to get back together.
Speaker 1: You're just gonna have to get over it. So don't
Speaker 1: say you don't know what you're dealing with. And I
Speaker 1: did enjoy this very much. So then we go to
Speaker 1: chapter eight where Carl is realizing that he this is
Speaker 1: the part where he's talking about this thing in his mind.
Speaker 1: So I'd run out of books to read. I needed
Speaker 1: a new outlet. But more importantly, I needed to rest,
Speaker 1: not sleep, rest, like really rest. Most of the time
Speaker 1: while I was idle, I was actually writing in my
Speaker 1: third scratch pad, composing thoughts for the cookbook. It just
Speaker 1: dawned on me that I was spending every free moment working.
Speaker 1: Even when I was playing Frogger. I was really just
Speaker 1: on autopilot and writing stream of consciousness words straight into
Speaker 1: the draft section of the scratch pad, planning scenarios, theories,
Speaker 1: recreating others, recipes and comments from memory as an exercise
Speaker 1: to make sure I could recall them. My brain was
Speaker 1: always working, turning everything over and over, which is frankly
Speaker 1: also how I am. It's just when I heard that
Speaker 1: there are people whose brains can like kind of just
Speaker 1: go into idle mode, I was astonished because I just
Speaker 1: never thought that was something anybody could do. I thought
Speaker 1: everybody was like I am. And it turns out like
Speaker 1: there are plenty of people out there who are like
Speaker 1: I am. I'm not alone in that. But I just
Speaker 1: thought this was like just how it is, and evidently not.
Speaker 1: I am very jealous. Recently, I'd been noticing something hidden
Speaker 1: in the back of my mind. It was difficult to explain,
Speaker 1: almost like there was a bubbling, meandering stream hidden back
Speaker 1: there in the weeds of my brain, nestled deep deep down.
Speaker 1: It had always been there, which meant I was so
Speaker 1: used to the quiet murmur of the stream I never
Speaker 1: noticed it. But recently that sound was starting to get louder.
Speaker 1: Only it wasn't a sound, not really. It wasn't even
Speaker 1: a physical feeling, just a sense of flow, and that
Speaker 1: sense was changing, rising in volume. It had gone up
Speaker 1: just a hair but it was enough for me to
Speaker 1: finally notice. I'd only found one way to mute. It
Speaker 1: only when I was completely calm, fully at rest, when
Speaker 1: we were in the heat of it all, like when
Speaker 1: we'd been fleeing 's a cow. It was right there
Speaker 1: the street getting louder. Okay, a lot to unpack.
Speaker 2: He is this.
Speaker 1: Rage because it feels like Carl has had a particularly
Speaker 1: traumatic past that he has not really dealt with.
Speaker 2: It's possible that he.
Speaker 1: Has seen a therapist, but I don't feel like he's
Speaker 1: ever mentioned it, so I'm going to assume no.
Speaker 2: I am genuinely like.
Speaker 1: Unsure the fact that being calm makes that sound kind
Speaker 1: of die down. What I find so unnerving about this
Speaker 1: is how relatable it is because I had this conversation
Speaker 1: recently on a True Blood episode with my friend Miles.
Speaker 2: But like we were talking about how.
Speaker 1: One of the things that aids with having ADHD and
Speaker 1: this overactive mind is complete silence and lack of simulation.
Speaker 1: Not listening to music, not listening to a podcast, not
Speaker 1: reading a book, not having a game to play, just
Speaker 1: sitting and maybe eating a meal, sipping on a cup
Speaker 1: of tea, or just sitting in the yard looking at
Speaker 1: the clouds and the trees. And that's all. But how
Speaker 1: particularly difficult that is to make yourself do because you
Speaker 1: have ADHD. That's the thing, the very thing that's best
Speaker 1: for you is also the thing that's the hardest to do.
Speaker 1: And that being something that I understand with Carl. I
Speaker 1: want to be like, oh, it's just something like that, right,
Speaker 1: But like Carl's whole situation is so much more extreme
Speaker 1: and exaggerated that I feel like it can't be just that.
Speaker 2: I don't know, and.
Speaker 1: Describing it as just like a bubbling stream makes it
Speaker 1: sound not exactly really dangerous, just.
Speaker 2: Innocuous.
Speaker 1: But if something like that gets big enough and overflows,
Speaker 1: it can be very dangerous. And I'm just not sure
Speaker 1: how much to worry about this, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And it's also interesting that this is coming up now
Speaker 1: in book five, but he never mentions this.
Speaker 2: In other books.
Speaker 1: And if this isn't like kind of supposed to be
Speaker 1: the result of the increase in anger, you know, because
Speaker 1: that's the reason I kind of went for, is it rage?
Speaker 1: This being the first floor that he can access hunters
Speaker 1: and people who are complicit in what's being done to
Speaker 1: him and everyone else on earth, that.
Speaker 2: Would make sense.
Speaker 1: That he feels a real particular way about it here
Speaker 1: on this floor when there's something to be done about it.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to interpret this anyway. This is
Speaker 1: when they open their boxes and every Hunter Killer box
Speaker 1: has a hand in it, which at first Dona is
Speaker 1: disgusted by, until the announcements come on later and talk
Speaker 1: about the Butcher's masquerade and she now suddenly wants way
Speaker 1: more of these hands. Carl winds up getting five hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety five thousand gold from all of his boxes
Speaker 1: because he gets thirty five one of them he didn't
Speaker 1: earn here, but the AI is just like, yeah, but
Speaker 1: you know you deserve that last one earlier.
Speaker 2: I just didn't give it to you then.
Speaker 1: And let's see, he gets a sigil of night Worm's
Speaker 1: Nasty Little Web of Suffering, which is a spider web
Speaker 1: tattoo on his elbow, which I noticed on the cover
Speaker 1: and I was like, he didn't have that tattoo before,
Speaker 1: so that must be something he gets in this book,
Speaker 1: and it gives him access to the Guild of Suffering,
Speaker 1: which is actually not a real guild and not a
Speaker 1: real religion.
Speaker 2: It's just like this cult.
Speaker 1: So we don't get a lot of information on that,
Speaker 1: and then we get a description of like turning in
Speaker 1: arcade tickets. It's a very long thing that I actually
Speaker 1: did really enjoy. But what it comes down to is
Speaker 1: every hunter's hand that you get, you get to turn
Speaker 1: in for like a reward at this party later. And
Speaker 1: then we get the highlight and it sort of interrupted
Speaker 1: because a part of it is redacted. But when they
Speaker 1: come back, Murderer Dimitri or Max and Popov screamed on
Speaker 1: the show. The screen was now showing things that had
Speaker 1: happened at the very end of the Last Floor, and
Speaker 1: it had returned in the middle of a scene the
Speaker 1: two headed Crawler fought with another human I didn't recognize
Speaker 1: in the final moments of the Last Floor. The guy
Speaker 1: they fought was a big guy, leather clad with a
Speaker 1: shaved head and a war gauntlet similar to my own.
Speaker 1: They would have brained the guy, but they suddenly all
Speaker 1: flew off their feet as a giant foot crashed into
Speaker 1: their world and then jumped away, which he notices as
Speaker 1: the demon Slit's foot. And unclear what exactly they were
Speaker 1: fighting for in the first place, whether or not the
Speaker 1: fight has ever been resolved, that's all we get. We
Speaker 1: have Kacia flooding lorocos. It portrayed Kasia's stoic face at
Speaker 1: what she'd done, and then it cut in a shot
Speaker 1: of me laughing from some other time, which I thought
Speaker 1: was particularly funny. This does not that seem to bother
Speaker 1: Carl here, he's just sort of accepting that they're gonna
Speaker 1: be doing this and is like, what can do well?
Speaker 1: You know, And there's a mention here of the build
Speaker 1: that Ellie is doing, called a four seasons build, which
Speaker 1: Mordecai says has never been completed. People have gotten to three,
Speaker 1: but not four, and he's just sort of interested to
Speaker 1: see if she manages to make this happen. Finally, then
Speaker 1: we get the leaderboard. Carl is still number one, Donna
Speaker 1: is still number four. She is level forty one and
Speaker 1: he is fifty four. So yeah, she's just crossed over
Speaker 1: into the forties. We really need to get things going
Speaker 1: for her. And then we get the announcements and the
Speaker 1: description about the uh what do you call it? First
Speaker 1: of all, getting rid of access to private chats. However,
Speaker 1: Barrent reserves the right to take your conversations and play
Speaker 1: them during any and all non live broadcasts. Party members
Speaker 1: share certain quests and will share experience. All personal space
Speaker 1: upgrades are shared. Party members may examine each other's properties,
Speaker 1: but you know, and then they say, we're breaking up
Speaker 1: any parties larger than thirty people. But we're implementing a
Speaker 1: guild system. And I won't get into all of this,
Speaker 1: but suffice to say there are tiers to how much
Speaker 1: how many like different benefits will come to your guild
Speaker 1: that you start. One person is supposed to be like
Speaker 1: in charge and they can kick people out. There will
Speaker 1: be guild only upgrades. Some of these are pretty spectacular,
Speaker 1: so you'll definitely want to check it out. And I'm
Speaker 1: super cure about that. For a small licensing fee, may
Speaker 1: share most pre existing environmental upgrades, and there's an option
Speaker 1: to change sharing experience for a fee. There are many
Speaker 1: more rules and exciting upgrades. The BOB because will have
Speaker 1: all the information you need to get started. And this
Speaker 1: is like one of those things that just is another
Speaker 1: advantage to people who can afford it. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just anything, and none of this is necessarily based on
Speaker 1: who deserves. It's who can pay, who has friends who
Speaker 1: can pay, Just like now, it's just the way it
Speaker 1: fucking goes and then at the end of this floor,
Speaker 1: we'll be having a party. Isn't that exciting? Only the
Speaker 1: top fifty crawlers in the dungeon will receive an invite,
Speaker 1: but all invited crawlers will be able to bring a
Speaker 1: plus one. Don't worry about your safety. Need to know
Speaker 1: is there will be music, dancing, a costume contest, a
Speaker 1: pet beauty contest, a talent show, and prize is available
Speaker 1: to all who attend. And I really thought that it
Speaker 1: was going to be Donut in the beauty contest, forgetting
Speaker 1: that she is considered a crawler. So she is going
Speaker 1: to enter mongo and is fucking thrilled. And I love
Speaker 1: Carl starting to say Donut, we are not and don't
Speaker 1: even think about saying we are not doing this.
Speaker 2: Donut.
Speaker 1: She paused, I have very little and this is something
Speaker 1: we are going to do, and you are not going
Speaker 1: to stop me. I just stared at her, look, I said,
Speaker 1: trailing off, Mordecai, don't worry.
Speaker 2: I'll talk to her, will come up with a compromise.
Speaker 1: And so what Karl winds up saying is just we
Speaker 1: won't even get to the party if you don't focus
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 2: And she admits that this is true. But uh, I
Speaker 2: just love of.
Speaker 1: How all of like she goes all in on. We
Speaker 1: need to start training, We need an extra hour a day.
Speaker 1: We need to find a seamstress, a walk coach. We
Speaker 1: need to purchase the upgraded pet shower to get all
Speaker 1: the bloodstains off. How many more MPCs can we hire?
Speaker 1: We have to see the standards manual immediately, all of
Speaker 1: this like she is so on it, and I can
Speaker 1: feel how comforting it is to be like planning for
Speaker 1: something that you've done a million times that you have
Speaker 1: real experience with.
Speaker 2: I understand why.
Speaker 1: You would be like, oh, absolutely, we're doing this. Fucking
Speaker 1: shut up and just let me drive just this one time.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not mad at it.
Speaker 2: Go for it, donnut.
Speaker 1: I don't trust this Butcher's masquerade thing. They say, oh,
Speaker 1: you'll be safe. I don't know why I should believe
Speaker 1: you at all. And then the chapter ends with I
Speaker 1: could hear it again, that river in my mind, rushing, tumbling,
Speaker 1: crash and getting fatter and louder by the moment it
Speaker 1: was starting to hurt.
Speaker 2: Just a little.
Speaker 1: That was okay, I'd rest later. So like, is this
Speaker 1: related to the ring of Divine suffering. Is it not
Speaker 1: that the ring does something to you out of nowhere,
Speaker 1: but that it amplifies something that's already in you? Possibly
Speaker 1: just very worrying. Just don't like any of the implications here,
Speaker 1: you know, thumbs down. I just don't like that you're
Speaker 1: using it, Carl. I get why I do, but like,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily feel like it was really worth it
Speaker 1: what it did just now, that advantage felt very minor,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, man, it just I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: willing to do it. I'll just say that I wouldn't,
Speaker 1: but you know who the fuck am? I all right,
Speaker 1: I gotta wrap up, But thank you guys again for
Speaker 1: joining me, and thank you to Jackie for commissioning this episode.
Speaker 1: I hope you all are enjoying the coverage, and until
Speaker 1: next time.
Speaker 2: To the loom. Motherfuckers.
Speaker 1: That was an unspoiled network podcast.