Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
Speaker 1: covering Dungeon Crawler Carl chapters thirty two through thirty six.
Speaker 1: In these chapters, we come up against the crack heron
Speaker 1: genius problematic, Yes, fantastic. Also yes. Welcome to spoil Me.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show everyone. I am Natasha. Thank you
Speaker 1: very much to Michael commissioning this episode. So to start
Speaker 1: things off, I have Michael and Rob in the chat
Speaker 1: here with me, and Rob asked before starting, and I
Speaker 1: decided to save answering it until I was recording. I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if you're enjoying the book. Also, I wonder how
Speaker 1: much enjoyment must change when you do it for a job. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so first, I'm loving the book. I am having a
Speaker 1: great time. Definitely. I am very lucky with my commissions
Speaker 1: that there have been almost no duds at all. I
Speaker 1: won't say there have been none, there have definitely been
Speaker 1: a couple. There was a series that started to get
Speaker 1: commissioned for me at the very beginning of doing this
Speaker 1: that got dropped because it became so clear how much
Speaker 1: I hated the main character, and that was Iron Druid.
Speaker 1: Apparently one of those series that a lot of people
Speaker 1: feel if you like Dresden Files, then you will also
Speaker 1: like this. I didn't. I feel like Harry Dresden is
Speaker 1: written to be a lot more likable than the thousand
Speaker 1: year old Druid, who was insufferable. So that was a dud.
Speaker 1: But most of the time I have been very lucky
Speaker 1: that my listeners have great taste and they are really
Speaker 1: eager to share things that moved them, and that's what
Speaker 1: they want to spend their money on, and that usually
Speaker 1: means something that is really really worth the time. But
Speaker 1: oh sorry, Michael says, Iron Druid was very wish fulfillment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Iron Druid. The thing that kept getting me about that
Speaker 1: series was how immature the main character was. For being
Speaker 1: a thousand years old, he felt like he was twenty,
Speaker 1: just a regular old human of twenty years old. There
Speaker 1: was no feeling of real wisdom to him that you
Speaker 1: would have to accumulate after some time on Earth, and
Speaker 1: that always played a part in the plot, was him
Speaker 1: just being a fucking fool, and I just couldn't get
Speaker 1: on board. You can't have a main character be that
Speaker 1: old and not have them be really intelligent to a
Speaker 1: degree that you have to change the whole way you're
Speaker 1: writing your stories, which the author was not interested in doing.
Speaker 1: Rob says apropos of that. Then do you have a
Speaker 1: list that you keep of your bests. I don't have
Speaker 1: a list, but I definitely do have, like my mental
Speaker 1: tally my number one unfinished series. Unfortunately it's not finished.
Speaker 1: But the books that I covered that really, by far
Speaker 1: have taken over my brain are the Ninth House and
Speaker 1: hell Bent books by Lee Bardugo. You guys, I cannot
Speaker 1: recommend those books enough. They are some of the most
Speaker 1: spectacularly accurate to life and also fantastical books I've ever read,
Speaker 1: with some of the most brutal plot elements, but also
Speaker 1: moments of such deep satisfaction that you just want to
Speaker 1: like stand up and like pound your chest and yell
Speaker 1: because you're just like, yeah, fucking do it that kind
Speaker 1: of vibe. So highly highly recommend Ninth House and Hellbent,
Speaker 1: but only if you are prepared to wait for the
Speaker 1: third book, which isn't even forthcoming. We don't have a date, Sorry, everybody.
Speaker 1: I don't want to take over this episode with just
Speaker 1: talking about I will say though, for right now. Dungeon
Speaker 1: Crawler Carl is definitely like in my top ten that
Speaker 1: I have covered so far. There are certainly, though, times
Speaker 1: where something that starts off on the top of my
Speaker 1: list over time begins to fall. So I don't want
Speaker 1: anybody to hold me to this. I may change my
Speaker 1: mind eventually, who knows. But right now I am having
Speaker 1: a really good time and it's like different enough because
Speaker 1: of the structure of it from other things that it's
Speaker 1: really keeping my attention in this way as well. Sorry, oh,
Speaker 1: they're still talking at Michael's mentioning Iron Druid. I had
Speaker 1: trouble with a dog just being completely sentient as well.
Speaker 1: It doesn't play as well as Donut does for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: Agree the dog. It was the kind of thing this
Speaker 1: happens a lot when you just decide to make a
Speaker 1: pet talk Donut there is a childlike quality to her
Speaker 1: that makes her still feel like she needs Carl. But
Speaker 1: the dog, I can't remember his name. Wasn't it like
Speaker 1: Oberon or something? He uh? There was just always this
Speaker 1: sort of vibe of like Oberon can just do with
Speaker 1: or without his guy, It doesn't matter. He's basically like
Speaker 1: a full person, you know, Rob says oh Man. Ninth
Speaker 1: House is so good. I want Gideon Nabs my inner monologue.
Speaker 1: And then damn, that's not the same Ninth House. I
Speaker 1: don't know which one you're talking about, but yeah, the
Speaker 1: Ninth House by Lee Bardugo is. I mean, you guys,
Speaker 1: just strap in that. That is one of those books
Speaker 1: that the more I read, the more I kept being like,
Speaker 1: how does she keep doing this? Like she just she
Speaker 1: would these these descriptions that she describes at one point,
Speaker 1: the like trees and the fact that there are buds
Speaker 1: beginning to form as like rings on a gnarled old
Speaker 1: woman's fingers. Just like little moments like that that I'm
Speaker 1: just like they stuck in my brain as being so
Speaker 1: evocative and correct. And then the plot, the pace is
Speaker 1: beyond belief. It's just she just keeps fucking rolling and
Speaker 1: the stakes keep getting higher even though you don't think
Speaker 1: they can. And I just by the time I finished
Speaker 1: the second book, it was like I was out of breath.
Speaker 1: It was that kind of energy. So anyway, okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: start talking about this. Chapter thirty two begins with the
Speaker 1: the discovery of these fucking creatures I don't even know,
Speaker 1: like when we first see them, and they are described
Speaker 1: as unvaccinated. I had my suspicions the direction that we
Speaker 1: were going in, right of course, but I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe I didn't check to see what
Speaker 1: year this was written, so that was part of it.
Speaker 1: I wasn't really sure if the vibe was different when
Speaker 1: it was written than it was now, because there are
Speaker 1: certain things where the timing of it totally changes the
Speaker 1: context and therefore the intent of the author. And I
Speaker 1: was afraid to look up published dight because sometimes you
Speaker 1: just start to type in the type I've a thing,
Speaker 1: and it'll be like, you know, dungeon Crawler, Carl Donuts,
Speaker 1: terrible Death. We'll just autofill and it's like, oh, thanks great.
Speaker 1: So I just didn't want to even try it. But
Speaker 1: it's also, I have to admit, very difficult for me
Speaker 1: to fully comprehend that the start of the pandemic was
Speaker 1: at this point almost five years ago, because I can't.
Speaker 1: I just that doesn't make any sense. Time is insane.
Speaker 1: So I kept thinking, like, the way I'm interpreting this
Speaker 1: has to be too recent, because I wasn't understanding really
Speaker 1: like how long ago this could have been written and
Speaker 1: that still makes sense. And chloricons are distant hillbilly relatives
Speaker 1: of the Leprechauns. And while the Leprechauns are said to
Speaker 1: guard vast piles of gold, the only thing Chloricons might
Speaker 1: hoard are polaroids of their own sisters sitting on the
Speaker 1: can and questionable business schemes. This particular sect of the
Speaker 1: unvaccines of the unvaccinated variety. Don't let them sneeze on you.
Speaker 1: Warning this is a fairy class mob. Mobs of this
Speaker 1: class inflict twenty percent more damage against you due to
Speaker 1: your goblin pass. So these guys are actually quite easy
Speaker 1: to kill. But obviously, with Carl being possibly more prone
Speaker 1: to getting infected than Donut, he can't loot the bodies
Speaker 1: the way that she can, so she has to go
Speaker 1: and get the stuff like and she also he gives
Speaker 1: her the option to try her raise the dead spell,
Speaker 1: and she manages to do this and make it rip
Speaker 1: apart its friends, which is super gross. Both of them
Speaker 1: almost throw up when they see it doing the thing
Speaker 1: that she told it to do. Each of them has
Speaker 1: a clay jug of something called toilet grade moonshine don'na said.
Speaker 1: They have slingshots and stones on them as well, And
Speaker 1: we get this bizarre flashback. It's not even a flashback,
Speaker 1: it's just really a memory. I remembered my dad finding
Speaker 1: my sling shot. He and his friends played with it,
Speaker 1: breaking the band. He'd promised he'd get me a new one.
Speaker 1: He never did. I mean, I like just the idea
Speaker 1: that your father is basically the equivalent of like a
Speaker 1: shitty little brother. I there's a lot. It's interesting. Actually,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stories out there with female protagonists
Speaker 1: who have a mother that they kind of feel they
Speaker 1: need to be the adult for. And I've always related
Speaker 1: deeply to that because my mother had me when she
Speaker 1: was so young, and I grew up hyper aware of
Speaker 1: how fragile she was in some ways due to that,
Speaker 1: and like very protective of her. And eventually when people
Speaker 1: who knew me met my mother, I had more than
Speaker 1: one adult, like a teacher say to me, it's so strange.
Speaker 1: You feel like you're older than her, which is correct.
Speaker 1: That's how it's always felt. So I know this feeling
Speaker 1: very well in the context of mother daughter relationships, but
Speaker 1: this kind of vibe with a father's son is less
Speaker 1: of a thing, the father son relationship being like straight
Speaker 1: up abusive. You see that a lot, and this is
Speaker 1: clearly he was abusive, but a lot of the memories
Speaker 1: that Karl has that we have gotten so far are
Speaker 1: less like straight abuse and more just neglect and general
Speaker 1: like shittiness in a way that feels really immature. And
Speaker 1: I'm really really curious about this because I feel like
Speaker 1: this has to inform Carl's personality in a particular way
Speaker 1: that we haven't fully gotten to see yet. And I'm
Speaker 1: really interested to eventually see what that's going to look like,
Speaker 1: because Carl is, like, we know that he is somebody
Speaker 1: who is going to try very hard to do the
Speaker 1: right thing. We have already seen that with the elderly
Speaker 1: people and the way he's reacting to them. We know
Speaker 1: how he feels about bullies, and I am feeling like
Speaker 1: that may wind up being a big part of what
Speaker 1: drives him a little bit further on into things. But
Speaker 1: you know, we'll get there. So I loved this. A
Speaker 1: pamphlet entitled rev Up, Make Money, Be your own Boss,
Speaker 1: Move to the next floor down a y'all. I really
Speaker 1: enjoy this. This is look so so many books have
Speaker 1: their like little ways of making fun of pyramid schemes
Speaker 1: or the energy of like getting ahead and out smarting
Speaker 1: the system. And the thing about like why it's so
Speaker 1: easy to make fun of is the fact that the
Speaker 1: system is not designed for you to outsmart it. It's
Speaker 1: designed to trick you into thinking that you are outsmarting it,
Speaker 1: thus falling prey to it and looking down on other
Speaker 1: people who are also prey to it. Because you believe
Speaker 1: you've somehow cracked a code and they don't know the code.
Speaker 1: You also don't know the code. They just want you
Speaker 1: to feel like you're better than them, because dividing us
Speaker 1: is the best way to conquer us. That's really all
Speaker 1: it is. But the fact that this MLM, which they
Speaker 1: keep saying, it's not a pyramid and I love Donut,
Speaker 1: It's like it says, right there, it's not a pyramid,
Speaker 1: so it's not a pyramid. I love donut skullibility. It's like,
Speaker 1: this is a really fun character trait of hers. It
Speaker 1: would be so easy to make Donut, especially as a
Speaker 1: cat character. Making her sort of a snob is something
Speaker 1: that is a sort of go to personality trait when
Speaker 1: you make a cat be able to talk and communicate.
Speaker 1: But a lot of times that snobbery is translated by
Speaker 1: the author into a sarcasm and shrewdness, maybe even a
Speaker 1: cynical quality, and I really enjoy that's not quite present
Speaker 1: with her. She is a snob in a very specific,
Speaker 1: like a privileged way, but not in like a wise
Speaker 1: to the world kind of way, and that just gives
Speaker 1: a lot more room to the author to have fun
Speaker 1: with her and have her juxtaposed against Carl. So I
Speaker 1: just think that he is playing Donut really well because
Speaker 1: talking about Ober and the sentient dog in this other
Speaker 1: series and why he just isn't as much fun when
Speaker 1: the animal just seems straight up smarter than your main
Speaker 1: character in a lot of ways. I get that you
Speaker 1: think you're being subversive, but it's not really. That's sort
Speaker 1: of what often happens. You need your little character, your
Speaker 1: animal character, to have something that makes them still vulnerable
Speaker 1: beyond just their physical vulnerability of being smaller and more fragile. So,
Speaker 1: also getting back to the MLM, we find out later
Speaker 1: there is something at the bottom of this pamphlet about
Speaker 1: these drinks, these these smoothies rev up smoothies, portable, delicious, invigorating.
Speaker 1: The entire line was crossed out with discontinued written under it,
Speaker 1: and we find out later that the smoothies are composed
Speaker 1: of moonshine plus the body of a dead fairy blended together.
Speaker 1: I just feel like that's very significant. It's sort of
Speaker 1: like easy to just be like, oh, yeah, that's just
Speaker 1: a mechanic of the game, because this is what we're
Speaker 1: being led to, is that you do something really gross
Speaker 1: to get the perk of this, you know. But I
Speaker 1: think that there is something else happening here with the
Speaker 1: fact that, like these fairies work for a company that
Speaker 1: literally used to sell their parts as a smoothie. That
Speaker 1: does ring a little true to hyper capitalism, as like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, you can like you cracked the code they
Speaker 1: used to prey on you and blend you into smoothies
Speaker 1: and now you're the boss. Oh honey, is that even true? Like,
Speaker 1: I just there's there's something there and I can't totally
Speaker 1: put words to like what it is, but I just
Speaker 1: feel like there's more of a story in this than
Speaker 1: we are given time to unpack. And uh, it's obviously
Speaker 1: they're not the ones in charge, even though they are
Speaker 1: clearly like middle management, they have to be aware what
Speaker 1: the recipe used to be. So my assumption is kind
Speaker 1: of we used to be killing and blending you to
Speaker 1: sell you, as you know, something to stave off this disease.
Speaker 1: But for whatever reason, we can't do that anymore. So
Speaker 1: instead of literally killing you for sale, we will make
Speaker 1: you our middle management and exploit you in a less
Speaker 1: brutal but ultimately similar way. You know what I'm saying. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I am just I've got my eye on it, that
Speaker 1: is all I'm saying. So, of course, Doughnut, do you
Speaker 1: think we can become consultants? And he is like, girl,
Speaker 1: oh my god, got you gotta stop. As we finished
Speaker 1: our circle of the outer ring of the quadrant, I
Speaker 1: was forced to kill one of the Chloricons with a
Speaker 1: punch to the head. Doughnut missed a shot, and the
Speaker 1: little monster came running right at me, impossibly fast, and
Speaker 1: he defends himself too slowly, and it's head caved in.
Speaker 1: And when I opened my hand, my fingers were covered
Speaker 1: with a lime green oily residue. Warning you've been infected
Speaker 1: with the taint. Having the taint is like having the giggles,
Speaker 1: or like having the time of your life. But instead
Speaker 1: of being a good thing, you are balancing on the
Speaker 1: precipice of death. You may not heal your health using
Speaker 1: any method while you are inflicted with the taint. And
Speaker 1: Carl reacts quite poorly to this. Uh, I was genuinely scared.
Speaker 1: I had received something that was going to kill me
Speaker 1: on its own. The de buff wasn't a big deal.
Speaker 1: I simply had to wait it out. I suspected it
Speaker 1: was part art of a one to two punch. They
Speaker 1: first inflicted you with the taint, then they hit you
Speaker 1: with something else that seeped your health away. If that
Speaker 1: was the case, it didn't matter. These guys were only
Speaker 1: level three. They were dangerous. So this is when he
Speaker 1: starts looking at the moonshine and Uh. Jugs of this
Speaker 1: concoction are highly sought after by the drinking established this
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you guys, I cannot I get ahead
Speaker 1: of myself as I'm reading, and my tongue just starts
Speaker 1: to read ahead as well before I'm actually done, And
Speaker 1: so I combine words in these highly improbable ways. Jugs
Speaker 1: of this concoction are highly sought after by the drinking
Speaker 1: establishments that populate the third, sixth, ninth, twelfth, fifteenth, and
Speaker 1: eighteenth floors. Very very specific drinking A swig defined as
Speaker 1: one point five ounces of this potion will immediately cause
Speaker 1: you to gain the shit faced deep buff has a
Speaker 1: fifty percent chance to render you blind for period of
Speaker 1: thirty hours, a five percent chance to immediately kill you,
Speaker 1: and a forty five percent chance to permanently raise a
Speaker 1: random stat by two points. What odds like? Honestly, even
Speaker 1: though it's insane, I was a little still tempted, not
Speaker 1: gonna lie, and he decides that he is going to
Speaker 1: create some Molotov cocktails, which results in a new item
Speaker 1: that's created and named after him, Carl's jug a Boom,
Speaker 1: and I love how he is described created by an
Speaker 1: unstable pantsless man who talks to a cat. Carl's jug
Speaker 1: a Boom takes the bigger is better approach when it
Speaker 1: comes to Hobgoblin fire bottles burns hotter, bigger, and faster
Speaker 1: than your normal Molotov cocktail. The use of a standard
Speaker 1: torch instead of a cloth wick makes these devices much
Speaker 1: more stable. Just don't drop it once it's lit, lest
Speaker 1: you find yourself doing a joan of our impersonation. And she,
Speaker 1: like Donah, is super excited that this is named after
Speaker 1: him in a way that Carl isn't, But of course
Speaker 1: she would be, and he is like, I really hope
Speaker 1: that everybody doesn't see it like that, whereas personally I
Speaker 1: was sort of like, I don't know, man, it might
Speaker 1: be kind of fun to develop this weird like reputation
Speaker 1: before people meet you, and then they're like, wait, you're
Speaker 1: Carl jug a boom? Carl? Is that you? So they
Speaker 1: test one out and the thing just like makes such
Speaker 1: an inferno that they have to back away several times
Speaker 1: because it just keeps getting bigger. Most of the jugs
Speaker 1: were already about three quarters full, which was good. I
Speaker 1: didn't have to waste any of the moonshine. Out of curiosity,
Speaker 1: I examined the jugs in my inventory and compare their
Speaker 1: value to my other explosive devices. The jugs were pretty
Speaker 1: high on lie list, just above the smoke bombs. The full,
Speaker 1: unaltered jugs of moonshine were more valuable, however, in fact,
Speaker 1: they were near the top of my list, just above
Speaker 1: the engineer's table I still had. And I couldn't help
Speaker 1: but think about how I would react if I saw
Speaker 1: that they made this great weapon, but they also were
Speaker 1: super valuable just as moonshine. It would be very difficult
Speaker 1: to get myself to use them as Molotov cocktails. I
Speaker 1: have to admit it would just be too I think
Speaker 1: I might hoard them, I really do so. We finally
Speaker 1: came across a new type of mob just outside of
Speaker 1: the boss room. There wasn't any sort of giant machinery,
Speaker 1: but a tube ran along the ceiling, curving into what
Speaker 1: looked like a filthy aluminum bathtub. There were piles of bottles,
Speaker 1: empty and full. The snock covered Level threes were taking
Speaker 1: the jugs and tipping them into the tub to fill
Speaker 1: them up. At the far end of the room was
Speaker 1: a doorway guarded by a pair of small floating creatures.
Speaker 1: These weren't Chloricons, but small fat fairies who buzzed about
Speaker 1: with a pair of hummingbird wings. They looked like miniature
Speaker 1: winged soccer moms. Lambanac rev Up Consultant Elites Level six,
Speaker 1: the second tier of the rev Up Empire. These Laminac
Speaker 1: consultants don't need to speak to a manager. They are
Speaker 1: the managers. They run their business with a brutal efficiency.
Speaker 1: It is said that if one of their underlings falls
Speaker 1: behind on their sales quotas, they punish them by requiring
Speaker 1: them to take a sip of their own product. Those
Speaker 1: that survive are repurposed as workers for the filling room,
Speaker 1: or worse, as still engineers working directly under Krakaren herself,
Speaker 1: and he comes up with a plan here with Donut
Speaker 1: using her spell to jump over there. The two biggest
Speaker 1: problems with donuts puddle Jumper spell was the cool down
Speaker 1: and manocost one cast. She couldn't do it again for
Speaker 1: five hours, which meant once she was in that room,
Speaker 1: she couldn't teleport it out. Secondly, it costs twenty manipoints,
Speaker 1: which reminder, she can't drink manipotions for like two full
Speaker 1: minutes between them. So he basically tells her, if you
Speaker 1: get in trouble, you just have to run, but we're
Speaker 1: going to do our best. And what she has to
Speaker 1: do is go in there and use her charm on
Speaker 1: everybody to get them to leave and follow them into
Speaker 1: a room where Carl can attack them using one of
Speaker 1: these juggo booms. Every time I say it, it just
Speaker 1: feels like a little bit like a slur. I don't
Speaker 1: know why. And the thing that is interesting a little
Speaker 1: bit later is that Carl feels that using her ability
Speaker 1: to attack these creatures is a little bit unsavory. I
Speaker 1: think that's the word he uses, and what I thought
Speaker 1: he meant was more like, I don't like like. It's
Speaker 1: one thing to come in and just be ready to
Speaker 1: kill people and honestly say to them, yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: we're here for, is to kill you. It's another thing
Speaker 1: to pretend to be somebody's friend and act like you
Speaker 1: want to help and then turn on them, which I
Speaker 1: still would understand. I really would get it. But it
Speaker 1: turns out he really means is that once they get
Speaker 1: to know people, it's more difficult to see them as
Speaker 1: a just straight up faceless enemy because they say things
Speaker 1: that humanize them, which is exactly the thing about the
Speaker 1: way that war works is that you have to dehumanize
Speaker 1: the enemy in order for a lot of people to
Speaker 1: be able to do the job they're there for as soldiers.
Speaker 1: There's a forgive me for mentioning Black Mirror, which can
Speaker 1: be a very heavy handed show at times, but there
Speaker 1: is an episode where there is like this weird alien
Speaker 1: invasion and all of these soldiers are wearing these particular
Speaker 1: suits to protect them from some gas or something that
Speaker 1: these beings allegedly give off and you know, to keep
Speaker 1: them safe, and they have to go into these spaces
Speaker 1: and just eradicate all of these like weird alien insect beings.
Speaker 1: And then eventually somebody figures out that the suits or
Speaker 1: something that they were given when they first signed up
Speaker 1: changes their perception and those aren't alien insectoid beings, those
Speaker 1: are people, and they have been made to not see
Speaker 1: human beings very literally so that they would just go
Speaker 1: in and fucking destroy everybody. And so this whole time
Speaker 1: they've been murdering like hiding refugees, and it's a pretty
Speaker 1: fucking grim episode, as you can imagine. And the end,
Speaker 1: somebody has been promised a beautiful, like three bedroom home
Speaker 1: to come back to if he finishes his tour, and
Speaker 1: it's left very open ended when he gets back whether
Speaker 1: or not the beautiful three bedroom that he is looking
Speaker 1: at is really there, or if they have done something
Speaker 1: using that perception changer to make it look like that's
Speaker 1: what it is, when it's actually like some piece of shit,
Speaker 1: you know. And I just really like this was what
Speaker 1: I was saying when we were dealing with the goblins earlier,
Speaker 1: and then to talking about like the crawlers come here
Speaker 1: and we have to deal with them, but eventually we'll
Speaker 1: get to another floor. Clearly, everybody is being sold this
Speaker 1: bullshit climb the ladder, except the reverse sort of story
Speaker 1: where if you just work hard enough, you'll get somewhere
Speaker 1: where it's safe, where these people won't bother you. They're
Speaker 1: your enemy right now and you have to earn your way.
Speaker 1: And it's just obviously a fucking pipe dream for so
Speaker 1: many of them. And they are put in a place
Speaker 1: where they are being tormented for a game. Why would
Speaker 1: they just like let you get out of it eventually.
Speaker 1: Even if they do let you get out of it
Speaker 1: and go to a different floor, all of the floors
Speaker 1: have crawlers on them if you are, like, are up
Speaker 1: to the thirteenth floor, So how long could it possibly
Speaker 1: take you? You're not gonna make it. It's just so unlikely,
Speaker 1: you know. And so yeah, getting to know people makes
Speaker 1: them seem more real, and it makes them seem more empathetic,
Speaker 1: and you get more wrapped up in how they're doing
Speaker 1: and their story. And it's part of the reason why
Speaker 1: it's so funny to me how many people can just like,
Speaker 1: you know, create a stereotype of like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: welfare queens, and they just make up this person that's
Speaker 1: somehow living large on welfare, which is like, that's not
Speaker 1: how welfare works unless you are invested in a very
Speaker 1: very elaborate fraud, which is extremely rare and unlikely. And
Speaker 1: they make this thing up, and then everybody just has
Speaker 1: it in their head that that's the majority of people
Speaker 1: on welfare, and of course this welfare queen is almost
Speaker 1: always black in the imagination, when in fact, the majority
Speaker 1: of people on welfare are white, And by dehumanizing them
Speaker 1: and making them seem like they're a scammer, anybody that's
Speaker 1: on welfare suddenly becomes suspect and suddenly maybe it doesn't
Speaker 1: deserve it, and maybe we should keep an eye on
Speaker 1: them and look at what's in their cart and maybe
Speaker 1: judge them on the fact that they are getting something
Speaker 1: that's like a little bit too nice for somebody poor.
Speaker 1: Do they really deserve to have that they didn't work
Speaker 1: for it, even though the majority of people on welfare
Speaker 1: do have jobs. It's just like, it's really kind of
Speaker 1: remarkable how quickly and effectively that takes hold, because we
Speaker 1: are often so eager to feel superior to other people.
Speaker 1: And then there's another aspect to this of like how
Speaker 1: we can watch a TV show where we're in the
Speaker 1: POV of a bad person, but we still root for
Speaker 1: them because we're in their POV and so we've come
Speaker 1: to identify with them even though they are actively trying
Speaker 1: to harm others and get away with bad things, but
Speaker 1: we're still sort of like, yeah, but I want to
Speaker 1: I'm here, I'm rooting for them. And it's just like
Speaker 1: very funny how we can go from this one extreme
Speaker 1: of blaming a completely innocent person for something that you
Speaker 1: don't know at all about them, but just comes from
Speaker 1: a range of like brainwashing techniques, or if you get
Speaker 1: to know a person really well, you start to justify
Speaker 1: literally everything they do and make it seem like the
Speaker 1: you know, whatever it is that they're inflicting on the
Speaker 1: world isn't that big a deal. And it's just a
Speaker 1: kind of like interesting phenomenon to me because we'll do
Speaker 1: this with our friends as well. We'll know somebody and
Speaker 1: we'll know that they did some shitty things, but we'll
Speaker 1: also kind of excuse it because there are bud or
Speaker 1: you know whatever, and it's just like how much we
Speaker 1: actually are personally invested in somebody It's like it cannot
Speaker 1: be overstated how much we change our standards of conduct
Speaker 1: for that person depending on what we know about them.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I just really this like repeated sort of
Speaker 1: we were going to go to a lower floor. I
Speaker 1: expect that this is just going to be a thing
Speaker 1: over and over again. So and also she keeps yelling
Speaker 1: for somebody named Damien to come and help, who doesn't.
Speaker 1: But later on when he brings up the name Damien
Speaker 1: to oh my god, Mordecai, Mordecai gets very agitated that
Speaker 1: he even knows that name. So that's interesting. I have
Speaker 1: to assume again that this is like maybe maybe Damien
Speaker 1: was the one that was like, oh, yeah, we're doing
Speaker 1: something good. Well, we're not blending you up into smoothies anymore,
Speaker 1: we're putting you in charge. Actually, like I bet he
Speaker 1: was the fucking go between to make it seem like
Speaker 1: we're doing you such a favor. Look at how much
Speaker 1: more woke we are. So he like uses his uh
Speaker 1: boom thing, he catches one of them and kills her,
Speaker 1: and he has like is hoping that when he kills her,
Speaker 1: it's just gonna be that her body like drops a potion.
Speaker 1: But that is not how it works. So he just
Speaker 1: has to hold on to her, and uh, let's see.
Speaker 1: I remember what Mordecai had said that the mobs and
Speaker 1: deeper levels weren't going to be as sympathetic I really hoped.
Speaker 1: So I needed to remember who the real enemies were,
Speaker 1: the syndicate born the Kua Teine. I felt bad about
Speaker 1: killing monsters who were nothing more than ponds, but the
Speaker 1: fact was we needed to get as strong as we could.
Speaker 1: It was us or them, which, unfortunately at this point,
Speaker 1: seems to be true. So the Boss. The door to
Speaker 1: the boss chamber looked like the entrance to some sort
Speaker 1: of community center. It had live, Laugh, Love written on
Speaker 1: top of the door in little cutout wooden letters. Under
Speaker 1: that was a schedule of events. The next event schedule
Speaker 1: was for noon on the day after the collapse. It
Speaker 1: read good news everyone, Little Brian Lynn has the chicken pox.
Speaker 1: I just need to take a moment to admire Brian Lynn.
Speaker 1: That's all one word. It's honestly perfect. It's such a
Speaker 1: perfect name for this exact demographic. Pop luck pox party
Speaker 1: here at noon, No peanuts, Let's get that immunity. So
Speaker 1: he's saying, I think that maybe we shouldn't go into
Speaker 1: the deal with the boss. I think that, like, we
Speaker 1: might not get out if we try and just blow
Speaker 1: it up. We don't know how many of these other
Speaker 1: things are going to be in there, and they have
Speaker 1: that taint debuff and Donut is on board with this.
Speaker 1: So this is when he discovers that the bicycle things
Speaker 1: are actually blenders and he gets the smoothie recipe and
Speaker 1: it's just like, oh, oh gross, but he doesn't say
Speaker 1: out loud what it is yet. We find this out
Speaker 1: later and he puts together, oh, okay, this is set
Speaker 1: up so that we figure this out just before we
Speaker 1: fight the boss. But I don't want to drink this thing.
Speaker 1: Let's just not go in there. And then the door
Speaker 1: just opens and the AI says bosses can leave their rooms.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the second floor, bitches, and we Getaren the
Speaker 1: Krakaren Clone Level ten neighborhood boss. First off, this isn't
Speaker 1: the krak Karen. This is a Krakaren for everyone that
Speaker 1: is killed. Krakheren prime births two more part of a
Speaker 1: collective mind intent upon destroying any semblance of scientific progress
Speaker 1: in the universe. The kra Karen is the only communal
Speaker 1: brain entity in the galaxy who actually gets stupider as
Speaker 1: time moves on. Consisting of multiple shrieking tentacles, members of
Speaker 1: the k Karen Cooperative spend their days birthing their disease
Speaker 1: laden minions, creating and selling harmful products, attempting to debate
Speaker 1: scientific experts, and proselytizing to the weak minded, all in
Speaker 1: an attempt to well, nobody knows what the hell their
Speaker 1: end goal is. I swear to God, I know that
Speaker 1: there is a lot in here that like I should
Speaker 1: probably take issue with. But it's very difficult because you guys,
Speaker 1: if this isn't also partially very very true, I don't
Speaker 1: know what is the rise. And if you are listening
Speaker 1: to this and you yourself are an anti vaxxer and
Speaker 1: you had an issue with this representation, I am so sorry.
Speaker 1: But maybe look at the fact that you're an anti
Speaker 1: vaxxer and just like reevaluate what that means, because it's
Speaker 1: incredibly foolish and shortsighted and self centered and just it's
Speaker 1: fucking twenty twenty five. Grow up. But I so part
Speaker 1: of the thing for me is that Karen is something
Speaker 1: that actually this like has evolved into what we just
Speaker 1: call difficult women, especially difficult white women. But what it
Speaker 1: had used to be was a particular type of white
Speaker 1: women who would bully oftentimes black women, sometimes black people
Speaker 1: in general. And it really was like the type that
Speaker 1: would see a black person walking in their neighborhood and
Speaker 1: like call the cops. That was what Karen originally meant.
Speaker 1: And then over time it just became the thing that
Speaker 1: people just called a woman that was annoying them, and
Speaker 1: so it really lost its like ultimate meaning. But I
Speaker 1: still think that it applies here because honestly, if I'm
Speaker 1: thinking Karen now, I definitely also have like racist and
Speaker 1: anti vaxer together. Apologies if your name is Karen. That's
Speaker 1: just something that happens sometimes. But I just really, uh,
Speaker 1: I understood exactly what he was doing, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: help but support. So I am this this thing. He
Speaker 1: has to make the smoothie, and he has to he
Speaker 1: describes trying to get the fairy into the bottle that
Speaker 1: he will use to make the blender like shoving a
Speaker 1: uh what is it that he says, I'm sorry, guys,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember. I think he says, like a
Speaker 1: shoving a cornish game hen into a bottle. Oh. Here
Speaker 1: it is trying to stuff us a cornish game hen
Speaker 1: into a thermos, which her body is like still warm.
Speaker 1: The whole way that he literally has to consume the
Speaker 1: enemy to make this work is so gross and so bonkers.
Speaker 1: So he blends it and then he has to drink it.
Speaker 1: And the description here it was it tasted as if
Speaker 1: I'd taken a drink directly from the diseased asshole of
Speaker 1: an incontinent skunk. It took all of my strength not
Speaker 1: to vomit, honestly, that is vivid. I have to hand
Speaker 1: it to him, and of course he winds up getting buzzed,
Speaker 1: which later on, as he is feeling this, he's like, wow,
Speaker 1: what is this shit face? Deep Buff like, because I
Speaker 1: feel fucked up right now actually, and the two of
Speaker 1: them are having to like fight these things while there's
Speaker 1: a weird sort of shaky cam at Deep Buff that
Speaker 1: happens where he's like, woozy, my health already in the
Speaker 1: red moved further down. The monster didn't seem to realize
Speaker 1: what it has. I watched as it grasped on the
Speaker 1: last standing chloricon wrapping around him. The mouths stopped screaming,
Speaker 1: all revealing long, sharp teeth as they pulled the shrieking
Speaker 1: monster back into the boss room, chewing. It returned a
Speaker 1: moment later, blood dripping from the mouths, which resumed their catterwall.
Speaker 1: And then there is a tentacle with just orifices. A longer,
Speaker 1: thinner arm reached into the room and made a noise
Speaker 1: like a spray bottle. A fine green mist filled the chamber.
Speaker 1: You've been infected with the vigorous measles infection negated due
Speaker 1: to immunity. At this point, Donut says, if we die,
Speaker 1: I want you to know that I love you, Carl.
Speaker 1: I don't love you as much as I love Miss
Speaker 1: Beatrice because she's you know, she's my person, or as
Speaker 1: much as I love Ferdinand, But I love you focus, Donut,
Speaker 1: I said. I tried not to let what she'd said sting,
Speaker 1: but it did. Who the fuck was Ferdinand? Anyway? B
Speaker 1: was going to give you up, Donut. She was giving
Speaker 1: you up, trading you in for a younger model. But
Speaker 1: I didn't say it, not out loud. Now was not
Speaker 1: the time for that conversation. Never was that time for
Speaker 1: the con was the time for that conversation, not anymore,
Speaker 1: but especially not now, not when Bee was fucking dead.
Speaker 1: This was so interesting because I really got the impression
Speaker 1: that b was like obsessed with donut and knowing that
Speaker 1: she was going to trade up. First of all, what
Speaker 1: precisely does that mean? Was she going to put donut down?
Speaker 1: I have to assume not that wasn't it right giving
Speaker 1: you up? I would The thing is, though, what like
Speaker 1: he was fighting to keep donut when he felt like
Speaker 1: be or her father would definitely come after him to
Speaker 1: take donut away, which doesn't exactly align with she was
Speaker 1: going to give you up. I don't know, but I
Speaker 1: this like, honestly, the picture that he keeps painting of Beatrice,
Speaker 1: you really do start to be like, Carl, what did
Speaker 1: you like about her? Guy? What about her made you
Speaker 1: want to stay at all? It just seems like there
Speaker 1: was very little to recommend her. You know, everything that
Speaker 1: he has been saying about his time with her has
Speaker 1: been riddled with her being like incredibly selfish or just
Speaker 1: you know, a shitty person, and then finding out that
Speaker 1: he was cheating on her, that she was cheating on
Speaker 1: him with multiple people. Also, you know, there's just are
Speaker 1: that I'm like, maybe this is part of him having
Speaker 1: a father who is such a bully that he winds
Speaker 1: up seeking out the familiar, which is a bully. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's just that simple that she felt like a familiar
Speaker 1: type due to the fact that she It's an interesting
Speaker 1: thing that I'm reading this other book right now and
Speaker 1: somebody says, are you happy? And the person says yes.
Speaker 1: And they say, but you make other people unhappy, and
Speaker 1: the person says, yes, I think that's also true. And
Speaker 1: they said, okay, so you make other people unhappy, but
Speaker 1: you are still happy. That is significant. And the person replies, well,
Speaker 1: everybody is in charge of their own destiny. Basically, whether
Speaker 1: other people are happy is really up to them, not me.
Speaker 1: And the psychiatrist they're speaking with says, well, but you
Speaker 1: are driven and intelligent. You're a more powerful person than
Speaker 1: a lot of people out there. And they sort of
Speaker 1: shrug and are like, well yeah, and they say the
Speaker 1: psychiatrist says, so taking that is truth. This means that
Speaker 1: you have a certain amount of power and you use
Speaker 1: it to make other people unhappy, which means you're a bully.
Speaker 1: Because if you have a certain amount of power and
Speaker 1: you have the like you inherently have the choice of
Speaker 1: either protecting people who are less powerful than you or
Speaker 1: exploiting them. And you're choosing to exploit them, You're a bully.
Speaker 1: And unless you're a sociopath, and I don't think you are,
Speaker 1: Someday you are going to have to reckon with the
Speaker 1: fact that this is how you've chosen to live your life.
Speaker 1: It's going to catch up with you. And the person
Speaker 1: they're speaking with just has a moment of like, you know,
Speaker 1: that thousand yard stare into the distance of like realizing
Speaker 1: what he is saying is true, and then gets kind
Speaker 1: of angry because he truly like fucking read them for
Speaker 1: filth basically. And so this is what like I'm wondering
Speaker 1: about b is, Like was she just such a dynamic
Speaker 1: and driven person that she sort of overwhelmed him? You know?
Speaker 1: Because I could see how that could happen. I think
Speaker 1: I have been that person for some people. And you
Speaker 1: just tolerate a lot if you have been taught during
Speaker 1: other portions of your life to tolerate a lot. But
Speaker 1: I can't help but wonder if like, as this goes on,
Speaker 1: he's gonna start asking himself the same question, like why
Speaker 1: was I with her? I don't even remember you know,
Speaker 1: and reminder, it doesn't seem like Donut has any real
Speaker 1: concept that she's dead, so he isn't telling Donut she
Speaker 1: was going to trade you up, but he's not telling
Speaker 1: her because B is dead and Donut doesn't know that
Speaker 1: B is dead. So he's probably going to have to
Speaker 1: eventually have that conversation. Also that just like, I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe he won't. I don't know. I feel like, how
Speaker 1: long can this possibly be sustained? Though? It will have
Speaker 1: to come up at some point because there's been so
Speaker 1: many mentions via the AI of like, oh, so and so,
Speaker 1: too bad, they're probably dead, you know. I feel like
Speaker 1: there has to eventually come a moment where either Donut
Speaker 1: puts two and two together and has kind of a meltdown,
Speaker 1: or where Donut confesses that she has been in denial
Speaker 1: but she is perfect aware that B is probably dead.
Speaker 1: You know. Anyway, this the way that this fight eventually goes.
Speaker 1: He overdoes it with the dynamite. Donut is immediately like
Speaker 1: I thought you said the explosion was going to be
Speaker 1: too big to use it in here. I looked at
Speaker 1: my health already perilously low. Donut didn't have a scratch
Speaker 1: on her it probably is, and I'm probably about to die,
Speaker 1: but I think you'll be okay, Carl. No, No, it's okay.
Speaker 1: Go back to Brandon. They'll watch over you. I wrapped
Speaker 1: myself around the cat. I don't want to do this
Speaker 1: without you, Carl, I lied before. I won't be fine
Speaker 1: on my own. I need you. No, no, I couldn't
Speaker 1: answer her before the explosion came. I feel like him
Speaker 1: doing this is really going to uptick their popularity. He
Speaker 1: was very willing to sacrifice himself and doing that for
Speaker 1: a pet is going to earn you a lot of points.
Speaker 1: It just is, it really will. And also I do
Speaker 1: have to mention that, like he just had his feelings
Speaker 1: hurt by Donut saying that, like, I love you not
Speaker 1: as much as be but you know, there is some
Speaker 1: part of me that's like, do you feel like you
Speaker 1: have to prove something, buddy, because that's the vibe I'm
Speaker 1: getting here A little bit is like I'll show you
Speaker 1: she was going to trade you up, but I'll literally
Speaker 1: die for you, even though it's not like she's gonna
Speaker 1: like understand this comparison that's happening. But still, I it
Speaker 1: did enter my mind that maybe he had something to prove,
Speaker 1: That's all I'm saying. And he doesn't die, he does
Speaker 1: have his legs broken, and when he wakes up, his
Speaker 1: your drums are busted and she's yelling and he can't
Speaker 1: hear her, so she has to speak to him through
Speaker 1: the chat and tells him we killed the boss. That
Speaker 1: doors open, but the fire is getting closer. Hurry, and
Speaker 1: eventually she has to drag him, which it's super lucky
Speaker 1: that her strength is as high as it is. And
Speaker 1: she says something about how he needs to work on
Speaker 1: his cardio, but as we know, he's actually in pretty
Speaker 1: solid shape, so that's probably not it. He's probably real
Speaker 1: heavy because he's muscular. But yeah, this is delightful and precious.
Speaker 1: It's like it didn't even occur to him to not
Speaker 1: do this for Donut. This is a hero, straight up.
Speaker 1: I awakened my body screaming. I felt everything inside of
Speaker 1: me repair itself. Donut had used one of the healing scrolls,
Speaker 1: possibly at the last possible second. I jammed down on
Speaker 1: my healing spells, also was sped up the process. I
Speaker 1: felt my hearing return, my sight restored, the burn on
Speaker 1: my face smoothed out. I didn't move for several moments,
Speaker 1: sitting there staring up the ceiling of the hallway. You
Speaker 1: saved me again, I said to the cat, that's what
Speaker 1: I do, donut. I don't want to say this out loud,
Speaker 1: but our views went way up. Isn't it great? I
Speaker 1: really do love that. She just can't help but type
Speaker 1: in all caps all the time. It's just her. She's
Speaker 1: a little bit of a boomer. It's fine. I think
Speaker 1: I was saved by that damn pedicure kit. I said,
Speaker 1: the table should have severed my feet right at the angles.
Speaker 1: Instead it bounced off and broke my legs. I would
Speaker 1: have bled out. I it's like the idea that it
Speaker 1: would break it broke his legs, but that it would
Speaker 1: have been worse if he let you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: That is really scary to me. The idea of like,
Speaker 1: you die because you bled out when your legs got
Speaker 1: cut off. Friends, that's that's a really awful way to die.
Speaker 1: I just there's something about your feet and how essential
Speaker 1: they are for like our survival in certain circumstances that
Speaker 1: whenever that's the thing that goes first, I have a
Speaker 1: very intense visceral reaction similar thing to like, there's some
Speaker 1: horror movie where the bad guy is hiding under a
Speaker 1: car and he slices their achilles tendons as they're walking by,
Speaker 1: and so they just can't get up and run, and
Speaker 1: it's just its bad. So what I'm saying is, even
Speaker 1: though the AI is a creep, a kind of a
Speaker 1: appreciate that it's protecting his feet the way that it is,
Speaker 1: because it feels like that's actually a lot more valuable
Speaker 1: than Carl completely understands. So let's see they Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're looking at the Kirkaeren and uh, he says, I
Speaker 1: suspected the Kirkeren Collective was a real thing the whole
Speaker 1: time it had seen they were just combining absurd stereotypes
Speaker 1: from Earth with random monsters just to fuck with us.
Speaker 1: It came to me, now as I stared up at
Speaker 1: this thing, that they were doing the opposite. This is
Speaker 1: really for the benefit of the audience, not us. They
Speaker 1: were taking something familiar to the viewers, like these interstellar
Speaker 1: dumbass octopus monsters and combining them with an Earth analog
Speaker 1: in an effort to both teach the watchers about Earth
Speaker 1: culture and to lampoon Interstellar cultures and creatures they felt
Speaker 1: deserving of scorn, kind of like the way cartoonists would
Speaker 1: sometimes personify rats and snakes as scumbags, or foxes as
Speaker 1: shady used car dealers, or persian cats as princesses. And
Speaker 1: this is when he sees on the map fifty brindle
Speaker 1: grubs at least heading toward them, which makes sense later
Speaker 1: why when they open the door there are so many
Speaker 1: right there. So they go to the safe room or
Speaker 1: the Tutorio guild sorry, and Mordecai is there, and he
Speaker 1: is incensed about what Odette said, and he says, I
Speaker 1: want to note I would rather spend another two thousand
Speaker 1: years in this room another. You say, that's a long time,
Speaker 1: read that fine print when the time comes, Carl, That's
Speaker 1: all I'm saying. I'd rather meet a woman's sire children
Speaker 1: and then devour those children and then have anything to
Speaker 1: do with her again. He, by the way, is no
Speaker 1: longer a rat hooligan. He is a bugaboo, which is
Speaker 1: essentially some kind of like creepy rapist monster. And he
Speaker 1: can only say, like stay away from Alley's at night
Speaker 1: on the third floor, which Carl responds to with like
Speaker 1: night because they don't have night and day, and he says,
Speaker 1: I can't tell you about that, and we get this,
Speaker 1: like mentioned later that since they are popular, and since
Speaker 1: people can see inside the tutorial guilds like they do
Speaker 1: film in here, now that there is more attention on them,
Speaker 1: he can't play as fast and loose with giving them
Speaker 1: hints as he used to be able to do. And
Speaker 1: I for one, am devastated. Now it's going to have
Speaker 1: to be a lot more in code. He was doing
Speaker 1: his best to help. I believe he still will do
Speaker 1: his best to help. Obviously getting them to the fourth
Speaker 1: Floori's paramount to him. But I just hate that now
Speaker 1: he is more restricted than he was. It is kind
Speaker 1: of like a smart idea, though, to put these things
Speaker 1: together for the sake of like, yes, it's an advantage
Speaker 1: for them to level up and to get more eyes
Speaker 1: on them and get more popular, But there is also
Speaker 1: a different downside, and that is their guy isn't going
Speaker 1: to be able to help them the same way anymore.
Speaker 1: So the let's see if she invites us back on
Speaker 1: the show, Should we go? Oh, you should go. Her
Speaker 1: program is one of the few I would recommend, not
Speaker 1: that they give you much of a choice, and later
Speaker 1: on we find out about like the way that this
Speaker 1: is going to be handled, and they're actually going to
Speaker 1: get their own pr agent. This is when he mentions
Speaker 1: Damien it was a mob of fairy she called for
Speaker 1: him just before we killed her. Those damn theories. They're
Speaker 1: always getting themselves in trouble. Damien is a local manager.
Speaker 1: Each city area has one. There are only three for
Speaker 1: this floor. He's my manager's manager. You're not supposed to
Speaker 1: see or know about him. I'm only allowed to tell
Speaker 1: you about the sort of stuff if you asked directly.
Speaker 1: We spent some time talking about the borough Boss fight
Speaker 1: and the last fight with the kirk Karen, but it's
Speaker 1: very clear they're going to see another kirk Karen in
Speaker 1: the future. I asked him about Agatha, about them editing
Speaker 1: her out. He waved it off. They probably didn't want
Speaker 1: to confuse the narrative again. I could sense there was
Speaker 1: more there. I tried not to let my frustration show.
Speaker 1: I told him my theory about how they were combining
Speaker 1: real aliens with Earth stereotypes. Mordecai looked equally frustrated. He paused,
Speaker 1: as if thinking hard, that's mostly correct again, it's not
Speaker 1: really something I can disc But this isn't exactly some
Speaker 1: big secret either. Some of these monsters are made by AI,
Speaker 1: some are simply the actual creatures from their world, the
Speaker 1: Tuskling's ball of swine, for example, and some like you've
Speaker 1: deduced or created by a team of writers. Like anything
Speaker 1: that's been put together by a team, what you end
Speaker 1: up with can vary wildly. Those lamas, for example, they're
Speaker 1: unique to your planet, and I don't recall anything in
Speaker 1: your culture that suggests they should be anthropomorphized as drug
Speaker 1: dealing gang bangers. Someone just thought it'd be an interesting combo.
Speaker 1: Not everything will be social commentary. It's usually just stupid,
Speaker 1: I muttered. It's entertainment, Mordecai said, once again, reminding me
Speaker 1: of something Odette had said. There was a much deeper
Speaker 1: story there between those two. I wondered if I'd ever learn.
Speaker 1: I just love that this is basically the author being like, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: don't try and analyze all of my weird creatures, because
Speaker 1: it's not going to do anything that's not like, you know.
Speaker 1: That's just very much what it felt like to me
Speaker 1: was him just giving us a little bit of a
Speaker 1: nod and being like, yo, I know that y'all are
Speaker 1: going to want to find meaning in all of these
Speaker 1: and kind of don't bother, which I think is like
Speaker 1: it didn't even occur to me to try and look
Speaker 1: further into the lamas. They're delightful, bad lama. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's fantastic, and that is it, and I just immediately
Speaker 1: moved on and never thought any more about it. So
Speaker 1: apparently that was the right instinct new achievement Dragon Dono. Sorry,
Speaker 1: dungeon preneur, you've invented a stackable weapon device or potion.
Speaker 1: You will be memorialized for eternity with your name in
Speaker 1: the Dungeon Codex. Just don't let it go to your head,
Speaker 1: ey lawn. For every kill made with this device by
Speaker 1: other crawlers, you will receive a single gold coin. If
Speaker 1: you survived the Dungeon. You will continue to receive this
Speaker 1: benefit even during future seasons at the current gold to
Speaker 1: credit exchange rate, for the remainder of your natural life.
Speaker 1: Our lawyers made us put that last part in, but
Speaker 1: between you and me, we both no, you're going to
Speaker 1: die and or going to keep using your hard work
Speaker 1: for our own benefit, which if that isn't the truest
Speaker 1: fucking thing, just the idea like this is so, this
Speaker 1: is completely on brand, he says, interesting, it was too
Speaker 1: bad nobody else would ever use these things. The main ingredient,
Speaker 1: the jug of moonshine, was probably pretty rare. I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, dude, I bet that that's not as
Speaker 1: rare as you think it is. There's a mention at
Speaker 1: one point about like on floors, what three, six nine,
Speaker 1: it's like every multiple of three that there are like
Speaker 1: stills or something. I feel like maybe he will make
Speaker 1: some money off of this. I don't know. He opens
Speaker 1: the boss box. Don't say anything, don't say anything out loud.
Speaker 1: I couldn't help it. I looked up at the ceiling
Speaker 1: really fucking really behind me. Mordecai laughed, but a moment
Speaker 1: later he added, well, that's actually a really good prize.
Speaker 1: It was a white pair of boxers covered in little
Speaker 1: red hearts. God damn it, I muttered as I examined them.
Speaker 1: This is delightful. First of all, I believe on the
Speaker 1: cover he is depicted as wearing white boxers with little
Speaker 1: red hearts, and I assumed that this was simply the
Speaker 1: artist interpretation of him having been outside in boxers, and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that makes sense that you would
Speaker 1: put him in that for like the comedic effect of
Speaker 1: the drawing. I never thought about the fact that, like, no,
Speaker 1: this is an actual item that he is going to
Speaker 1: get later on. So that's delightful. And uh, the have
Speaker 1: the enchanted Big Boy Boxers as the name. Have you
Speaker 1: ever read an Incredible Hulk comic? I thought to yourself,
Speaker 1: everything rips off his body except his pants. No way. Well,
Speaker 1: spoiler alert, You're not wrong. Size altering and wear creatures
Speaker 1: such as the Big Boy are required to wear enchanted
Speaker 1: self sizing items lest they wish to turn the dungeon
Speaker 1: into a nudist colony when they transform. That means everything
Speaker 1: they wear requires an enchantment everything including their naughty little
Speaker 1: undies plus two to constitution. Wearer may cast a level
Speaker 1: fifteen protective shell once every thirty hours and duration five
Speaker 1: seconds plus one second per level of spell target three
Speaker 1: meter radius plus fifty centimeters of radius per level of intelligence.
Speaker 1: A favorite of frontline tanks and castle guards, The expensive
Speaker 1: and rare protective shell spell shields a caster and anyone
Speaker 1: within the sphere from a mob's physical presence or physical attacks.
Speaker 1: This spell does not protect against magic or against non
Speaker 1: corporeal entities. This shield spell does not move with you.
Speaker 1: This spell's area of effect remains static once cast, unimpas
Speaker 1: by your physical surroundings. So if you use the spell
Speaker 1: only when you really really need it, you're probably only
Speaker 1: delaying me inevitable by a few seconds. And Mordecai starts
Speaker 1: to say it has a fantastic secondary effect since the
Speaker 1: spell doesn't move once cast, you can and then they
Speaker 1: get interrupted by the arrival of a kuatine and I
Speaker 1: was so annoyed. And of course, at the end of
Speaker 1: the conversation, like Carl's just about to open the door
Speaker 1: and walk out, he does not remember to ask Mordecai.
Speaker 1: So what I keep trying to like determine is how
Speaker 1: you would use something like this to protect, Like if
Speaker 1: you can leave the area that it is in, is
Speaker 1: it possible to use it as like a solid object somehow?
Speaker 1: Even if you could, though, who cares because he's got
Speaker 1: a bunch of other things in his inventory that he
Speaker 1: can actually use the solid objects because they are solid objects.
Speaker 1: So what advantage is that serve? I'm trying to like
Speaker 1: imagine using it to sort of I don't know there's
Speaker 1: something here, and I'm very interested to see if Carl
Speaker 1: figures it out. So chapter thirty six, the Kuatine is
Speaker 1: two feet tall and she is wearing a particular type
Speaker 1: of water tank over her head that Mordecai mentions is
Speaker 1: like really antiquated and says, why are you wearing this?
Speaker 1: And she says because of the armor. If other people
Speaker 1: want to come down here without protection, that's their business.
Speaker 1: And when Mordecai is sort of like, I really don't
Speaker 1: think you need to worry about danger down here, she says,
Speaker 1: tell that to those twelve workers in site prep. Did
Speaker 1: you see this morning's update they were swallowed whole or
Speaker 1: that human admin who didn't realize the no urinating in
Speaker 1: the dungeon rule applied to everyone, they said, All that
Speaker 1: was left was splatter on the floor. I really enjoy this,
Speaker 1: as well as her little monologue that she gets later,
Speaker 1: all of this serving to remind us that even though
Speaker 1: these people work for the enemy, they aren't getting treated
Speaker 1: any better. They are just as subject to the fucking
Speaker 1: whims of the folks in charge as everybody else. Now
Speaker 1: there's a caveat here. It's not it's difficult because here's
Speaker 1: the thing that happens. It makes sense, fully that you
Speaker 1: begin to have sympathy for other people who are also
Speaker 1: being put in an impossible position. And I think you should,
Speaker 1: and I think if you don't, there's something weird about
Speaker 1: you that you need to examine. However, I also feel
Speaker 1: that this is another tactic of the people in charge,
Speaker 1: is that they make you feel responsible for the other
Speaker 1: folks who are at your level in a way that
Speaker 1: they don't feel responsible themselves, even though they are actually responsible.
Speaker 1: And what I'm saying is, for example, let's say you
Speaker 1: work somewhere that's understaffed, and they keep telling you they're
Speaker 1: going to hire more people, and they keep not doing that,
Speaker 1: and so every day you're always just a little behind
Speaker 1: all fucking day and super stressful. And then one day
Speaker 1: you're sick and you go to call in and your
Speaker 1: boss is kind of shitty about the fact that you know,
Speaker 1: we're shorthanded and you're just leaving us in the lurch.
Speaker 1: What about your friends here, you're letting them down? Well, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not. You know that people have to call out sometimes,
Speaker 1: and you've been saying you will hire people, and then
Speaker 1: you don't. Now it's my problem. Oh really, but it's not.
Speaker 1: It's fucking not. It's their problem. And they just pretend
Speaker 1: it's your problem because you're the one being exploited, so
Speaker 1: you're the one that's going you know. And the guilt
Speaker 1: trip here is very very effective on those of us
Speaker 1: who feel some sort of obligation to our fellow workers
Speaker 1: a lot of the time. And so that was what
Speaker 1: occurs to me when she Odette mentions that Mordecai needs
Speaker 1: them to get to the fourth floor in order for
Speaker 1: like his inventured servitude to be up. It just felt
Speaker 1: to me like, oh, the pressure is on, not just
Speaker 1: for yourself but also for him, and that feels like
Speaker 1: really manipulative. And then here finding out that, like all
Speaker 1: of these other people who are involved in this thing,
Speaker 1: she is literally she says, her family is being held
Speaker 1: basically at gunpoint, that if she fucks up, her whole
Speaker 1: family is going to die. So she is in almost
Speaker 1: a worse position than Karl in some ways, because Carl
Speaker 1: at least he's got nobody left but Donut, and this
Speaker 1: woman has a lot more left to lose. I say, woman,
Speaker 1: you know whatever. So it's like everybody is getting fucked
Speaker 1: here in this way that is, it's just so like
Speaker 1: that there's just so many levels of manipulation in it
Speaker 1: that it's it's really gross that the people who seem
Speaker 1: to have no empathy can use empathy as a weapon
Speaker 1: this way. It's just deeply fucked up. Anyway, she explains
Speaker 1: to them that she is going to be their new
Speaker 1: pr agent because they are popular enough that the requests
Speaker 1: for interviews are going to get kind of like too much.
Speaker 1: And she says, they make me come down here and
Speaker 1: talk to you directly after interviews for a deep briefing,
Speaker 1: and Donat of course, is super excited and is like, oh,
Speaker 1: can we provide advanced riders like with makeup and green
Speaker 1: room requirements? Which I would love if they could do that.
Speaker 1: This question does not really really get answered, but I
Speaker 1: would like to cover this later because who knows what
Speaker 1: advantages you could get if you set that up. Carl
Speaker 1: is much more like, okay, so can we just like
Speaker 1: not interview then? Is that something we're allowed to like
Speaker 1: just turn down? And she's like yeah, but Odette has
Speaker 1: contracted with us, so she gets first right of refusal
Speaker 1: and you're locked into those you'll go on her show
Speaker 1: if you keep your numbers up. You can refuse what
Speaker 1: show you go on, but I'm afraid you'll be obligated
Speaker 1: to pick something. We might move to three interviews for
Speaker 1: the lower floors, depending on how it's going. Whatever happens,
Speaker 1: I promise I'll do my best to get you quality gigs.
Speaker 1: For this first one. I went ahead and chose a
Speaker 1: program for you. It's a little less serious than Odath's show,
Speaker 1: but we'll hit a demographic you aren't yet trending in.
Speaker 1: I less serious like Odath's show is fluff. So what
Speaker 1: is less serious like? I'm concerned. It's a round table
Speaker 1: style discussion. And in this program, all crawlers get a
Speaker 1: parting gift. Sometimes it's a joke, but it's usually something
Speaker 1: useful a gift. Donut, said Carl. We get a gift.
Speaker 1: I am so donut, you guys. As soon as she
Speaker 1: was like, and you get a present, I was like, ooh, presence.
Speaker 1: I swear to God, you guys, it's just I am
Speaker 1: what I am? Are we doing this now? I asked?
Speaker 1: No Zev said, I'll pin you when it's time. It'll
Speaker 1: be at minus six plus one full. I felt a sudden,
Speaker 1: unexpected wave of rage at this fishwoman. It came out
Speaker 1: of nowhere, and I didn't know what set it off.
Speaker 1: I couldn't help it. She was the enemy and I
Speaker 1: couldn't do anything about it. So she like explains, six
Speaker 1: hours before the next recap, not the one tonight, but
Speaker 1: the next one, so in about forty hours, you should
Speaker 1: try to line up a major boss battle right as
Speaker 1: the floor closes, like you did last time. That really
Speaker 1: worked in your favor. That rage, which I thought I
Speaker 1: had successfully held back, bubbled up and out and he
Speaker 1: loses his shit and he is like, with respect, fuck you,
Speaker 1: we are literally just trying to stay alive, and you're
Speaker 1: worried about when we schedule boss battles when they apparently
Speaker 1: can fucking just leave their rooms, by the way, so
Speaker 1: it's not like it's that much up to them. I
Speaker 1: am doing what you have asked. I am killing monsters,
Speaker 1: trying to level up, trying to survive. I will smile,
Speaker 1: and I will joke, and I will put a proper face.
Speaker 1: I'm when we go on these shows. But fuck, you
Speaker 1: have already taken everything from us. Do not ask us
Speaker 1: to give more than what we have. We are not
Speaker 1: going to fight or survive on your schedule. Look, she said,
Speaker 1: after a moment, I know, Okay, nobody in this room
Speaker 1: is an idiot. The moment I appeared, he was terrified
Speaker 1: of me. Once he saw I wasn't wearing a party badge,
Speaker 1: he relaxed. When I'm done here, I go back down
Speaker 1: to the production headquarters not have to face my boss,
Speaker 1: who is a member of the party. If I do
Speaker 1: or say the wrong thing, my entire family will be
Speaker 1: wiped from the universe. You're going out there to kill
Speaker 1: and face mobs who know people like you are prowling
Speaker 1: the holes trying to find and kill them. The sapient
Speaker 1: ones live in constant fear of you. Guys. We are
Speaker 1: all parts of the same inexorable machine. All of us
Speaker 1: are afraid. Yes, your place in this really sucks. It's
Speaker 1: not fair. You know it. I know it. The cat
Speaker 1: knows it. But believe it or not, I am on
Speaker 1: your side. The better you do, the longer you survive,
Speaker 1: the better I do. So when I tell you that
Speaker 1: you should do something, you best listen because I know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. This is just like that scene
Speaker 1: in season three ye Gossip Girl when Chuck and Blair
Speaker 1: break up over the Hotel Doughnut said, I turned to
Speaker 1: regard the cat on my shoulder and I burst out laughing.
Speaker 1: I couldn't help it. It wasn't funny. I never watched
Speaker 1: that damn show yet I laughed, and I had a
Speaker 1: hard time stopping. No, it's not, Mordecai said a moment later.
Speaker 1: How do you even get that from this? Zev turned
Speaker 1: her fish gaze to my cat, and then Mordecai, I
Speaker 1: can't believe it. You too have watched Gossip Girl. Nobody
Speaker 1: on my team has watched anything except that old Cops
Speaker 1: and Judge Judy. We've been stuck here for fifteen solars
Speaker 1: with nothing for entertainment but earth based programs, and I've
Speaker 1: had nobody to talk to about them. You guys, I
Speaker 1: love this so much for so many reasons. First of all,
Speaker 1: I love the fact that sometimes Donuts like Charm is
Speaker 1: seemingly sort of accidental. She just manages to connect with
Speaker 1: Zev on this level, purely by mentioning Gossip Girl in
Speaker 1: this like offhand way. I also love we are in
Speaker 1: the midst of like a hostile government takeover, and I'm
Speaker 1: here talking about this book to people who paid me
Speaker 1: because they wanted to share it so badly, and other
Speaker 1: people are here who have read it because they want
Speaker 1: to hear me talk about it. This is like this
Speaker 1: kind of thing, detaching from the horror of your current
Speaker 1: situation and the world you live in by engaging in
Speaker 1: like joint enjoyment of media is like my whole job.
Speaker 1: That's what I do. And so for that to be
Speaker 1: what kind of brings them together in this moment. It's
Speaker 1: not that they are all in an equally garbage position.
Speaker 1: It's that they have all watched this show and they
Speaker 1: relay on that level, and this also takes their mind
Speaker 1: off of things for a little bit. This is it,
Speaker 1: This is it, This is how it goes. This just
Speaker 1: fucking got to me, guys. You know it would. It's
Speaker 1: my job, like I said, so, it's just really gonna
Speaker 1: hit a particular nerve for me. But my lord, and
Speaker 1: later on, when Zev says something like have you watched
Speaker 1: what is it that, she says, uh, there's something some
Speaker 1: other show that makes don't oh here it is. Tell
Speaker 1: me you've watched Riverdale, which is a similar I've watched
Speaker 1: gossip Girl. I have not watched Riverdale. Gossip Girl is
Speaker 1: the kind of show that I enjoyed so much at
Speaker 1: the time, and I have a feeling if I were
Speaker 1: to try and watch it now, I would be so
Speaker 1: disgusted that I wouldn't be able to get through it
Speaker 1: because it's about people who have such extreme wealth that
Speaker 1: it was just sort of fun to watch the rich
Speaker 1: people at one point in my life, and now that's
Speaker 1: not as much fun anymore. Riverdale is the seems like
Speaker 1: type of like trashy drama, you know, So I feel
Speaker 1: like I would kind of enjoy Riverdale in a weird
Speaker 1: way because I that's Michael Is in the chat saying
Speaker 1: Riverdale gets batshit crazy. That is what I have heard.
Speaker 1: I've been spoiled on a few small points of Riverdale.
Speaker 1: So anyway, just saying if anybody wants to commission that,
Speaker 1: I'm open. And Mordecai takes a moment to talk to
Speaker 1: Carl about how dangerous that was, and he brings up
Speaker 1: the party and is basically like the closest thing you
Speaker 1: would have is like access Japan with a good splash
Speaker 1: of Nazi Germany. When I signed my Indentions Indentureship contract,
Speaker 1: the Bloom represented less than fifteen percent of the votes.
Speaker 1: Now they control the whole Kubatine government. They've run it
Speaker 1: into the ground. The whole system is bankrupt, which is
Speaker 1: part of what is so funny about a lot of
Speaker 1: right wingers is that they whine and cry about taxes,
Speaker 1: but they always wind up fucking bankrupting us, and then
Speaker 1: we have to like, that's why we have to taxes, y'all,
Speaker 1: don't mind Like, ugh, you know what, I'm not doing it.
Speaker 1: I'm over time already as I was last time. I
Speaker 1: really need to get it together. Listen carefully. We don't
Speaker 1: have time to get into details. But Boren is being
Speaker 1: forced by their own government to end the game as
Speaker 1: quickly as possible. You need to be especially careful not
Speaker 1: to upset them. I don't understand. I thought they started
Speaker 1: it early to stave off a bankruptcy seizure action. That's
Speaker 1: what Odent implied. Wouldn't they want to keep it running
Speaker 1: as long as possible. That's what everyone thought at first.
Speaker 1: They're doing a cash grab with a new patron system.
Speaker 1: But they don't get that money or any money from
Speaker 1: the advertising or the tourism funds or Elite Monster sponsorship
Speaker 1: or anything else until the season is over. They need
Speaker 1: that cash as soon as possible, but they also first
Speaker 1: need to raise enough. Their whole system is balancing on
Speaker 1: a wire. They need the game to be entertaining and profitable,
Speaker 1: but they also needed to finish much more quickly than usual.
Speaker 1: The committee has already issued a warn putting Boring on
Speaker 1: notice over the bugs that keep occurring, like the issue
Speaker 1: with the bathrooms and the overpowered mobs. One too many
Speaker 1: violations and Born could lose everything. There are protections in place,
Speaker 1: plus there's pushback within the company, but the Kuwatin government
Speaker 1: is working extra hard to get you killed. That's just wonderful.
Speaker 1: And this is when they're like, all right, time to
Speaker 1: head out, let's do this. Zev has to leave before them.
Speaker 1: And then they opened the door and a waste high
Speaker 1: pile of grubs fell into the room. And that's the
Speaker 1: end of the chapter. There's more I want to say,
Speaker 1: but I don't have time. Kids, I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: save it till next time. All right, everybody, Thank you
Speaker 1: all again so much for hanging out with me. Thank
Speaker 1: you to Michael for commissioning this and commissioning the next
Speaker 1: book as well. I'm very excited. I hope you all
Speaker 1: are having fun listening I'm having fun reading, and until
Speaker 1: next time, to the lou motherfuckers that was an unspoiled network.