Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
Speaker 1: covering the Dungeon Anarchists cookbook Dungeon Crawler Carl Book three,
Speaker 1: chapters three, four, and five. In these chapters, our friends
Speaker 1: are trying to untangle the Iron Tangle with mixed results.
Speaker 1: They do get an advantage, but that dude is dead
Speaker 1: now probably I'm unclear on how this thing works. Welcome
Speaker 1: to spoil Me. Welcome to the show everyone. I am Natasha.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much to Michael for commissioning this episode.
Speaker 1: These this Okay, I'm gonna start something off or start
Speaker 1: this off by saying something.
Speaker 2: That I don't know if it's like.
Speaker 1: A criticism exactly, because I feel like there is a
Speaker 1: possibility that it will all make.
Speaker 2: Sense in the end.
Speaker 1: But I just have to start it off because I
Speaker 1: feel like a bit of a way about it and
Speaker 1: I will acknowledge you guys like warned me. And also
Speaker 1: there's the uh the intro of this book where the
Speaker 1: author lets me know, I don't need to figure out
Speaker 1: exactly what's going on with this line and try and
Speaker 1: like understand it because it's meant to be pretty much
Speaker 1: impenetrable to the reader. It's them working with the actual information,
Speaker 1: you know, because we don't get given every single little detail.
Speaker 1: So I acknowledge that you know, you guys warned me
Speaker 1: about this, and that he himself warned me about this,
Speaker 1: But I have to say, I think if we're not
Speaker 1: meant to figure it out, there is too much focus
Speaker 1: on it. I think that there is. The focus would
Speaker 1: have been fine if it were just like our people
Speaker 1: sort of spitballing ideas and it were a.
Speaker 2: Little bit less like literally info dumping.
Speaker 1: But I feel that maybe, and this may be incorrect,
Speaker 1: but maybe the author wound up having to put that
Speaker 1: intro in because he found that people were focusing a
Speaker 1: little bit too much on trying to like solve the
Speaker 1: tangle itself and realized that it was like distracting from
Speaker 1: the story itself. And I would argue, maybe then the
Speaker 1: solution isn't to just put the intro and warn us,
Speaker 1: but maybe.
Speaker 2: You should edit some of it. I don't know what
Speaker 2: the publishing situation is with this.
Speaker 1: I think you guys have said that it's self published,
Speaker 1: and I know that there's a lot of controversy about
Speaker 1: publishing something that's already gone up and whether or you know,
Speaker 1: so I get not really wanting to do that, but
Speaker 1: it does just feel like the disclaimer is admitting kind
Speaker 1: of a problem with the material actually to me, And
Speaker 1: I'm glad to know that I don't need to puzzle
Speaker 1: all of this out, because that would be very distracting
Speaker 1: for all of us for this recording, for the whole series,
Speaker 1: for the book. But at the moment, it just feels
Speaker 1: like we're being given so much heavy detail on certain.
Speaker 2: Things that.
Speaker 1: I when I know that it's not something that I
Speaker 1: can really do anything with, I sort of glaze until
Speaker 1: we get to the end of that little section of info.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? So I don't, like I said,
Speaker 1: may there may come a point with this story where
Speaker 1: I change my mind and I'm like, Okay, now I
Speaker 1: get why it was done this way. But at the moment,
Speaker 1: it's just feeling a little bit tedious all of the
Speaker 1: colors and numbers that are being thrown at us if
Speaker 1: we don't actually need to do anything with them. And
Speaker 1: maybe that's the point. Maybe it's supposed to be. Look
Speaker 1: at all the information that is getting thrown at them
Speaker 1: and how confusing it is, and that's you know, maybe
Speaker 1: that's fair. I just am as I go along. That's
Speaker 1: the point of this show, right is for me to
Speaker 1: share how I'm feeling in the moments that I'm reading
Speaker 1: the chapters that I'm reading. So that is how I'm
Speaker 1: feeling right now. Arezu says, yeah, there are parts with
Speaker 1: unnecessary details. Rob says, without spoiling it does become significantly
Speaker 1: more clear, but I would encourage you to revisit how
Speaker 1: you feel about it at the end of the book. Oh, unavoidable,
Speaker 1: that's of course happening. Arazu says it came out chapter
Speaker 1: by chapter originally. Rob says glazing is totally okay. Sarah
Speaker 1: Fem says, I don't see it as a problem. This
Speaker 1: is meant to be incredibly confusing in verse and something
Speaker 1: the Crawlers have to figure out. Michael says worth, noting
Speaker 1: that we are feeling the confusion of the characters too.
Speaker 2: They need to figure it out.
Speaker 1: Rob says this is a hard one not to talk
Speaker 1: about more and miss t says that's how I took it.
Speaker 1: It's confusing to the Crawlers. I agree, and I think that,
Speaker 1: like I just think that there was a way to
Speaker 1: get across how confusing it is without quite going into
Speaker 1: the detail that he goes into, and maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: We'll get there and i'll read you the section that's
Speaker 1: like stands out to me. So chapter thirteen opens with
Speaker 1: them entering their private space and setting things up, and
Speaker 1: I love that immediately donuts door is purple. The writing
Speaker 1: that labels her door is purple. It's a real sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing the chat. Michael says, thirteen, question Mark, did
Speaker 1: I say chapter thirteen?
Speaker 2: I'm in chapter three.
Speaker 1: I must have said chapter thirteen. Sorry, guys, yeah, if
Speaker 1: that was that was my bad. My brain is all
Speaker 1: confused by all the numbers that were being thrown at me.
Speaker 1: Like I said, and I'll say this too, just a
Speaker 1: real quick aside on that. I also just have an
Speaker 1: issue with numbers, so it helps when it's.
Speaker 2: In the audiobook. But I think that.
Speaker 1: I have the dyscalculia I think is how or discalculia.
Speaker 1: It's basically the numbers version of dyslexia, where I will
Speaker 1: look at a page of numbers and it literally looks
Speaker 1: for me like they are moving around. It is really
Speaker 1: fucking frustrating and unnerving, and like if I have to
Speaker 1: enter data that is very numbers heavy into anything, I
Speaker 1: have to have somebody read the numbers to me as
Speaker 1: I enter them into the database, because if I try
Speaker 1: to look and then remember and go to the database,
Speaker 1: I will invert the numbers. I will do crazy things.
Speaker 1: And so that might also be part of it. Is
Speaker 1: just personally, numbers blow balls.
Speaker 2: I hate them.
Speaker 1: I understand that for some people they provide a kind
Speaker 1: of comfort in their solidity, consistency, and meaning, and that
Speaker 1: is something I am that exists for people, but it.
Speaker 2: Is not me.
Speaker 1: My comfort is language, which is funny because it is
Speaker 1: the least consistent bullshit ever, and yet something about that speaks.
Speaker 2: To me, you know.
Speaker 1: All right, So Doughnut, like I said, has the purple
Speaker 1: label and the purple door because she's a girl after
Speaker 1: my own heart who is almost immediately starting to customize
Speaker 1: the whole space to just look a little bit nicer.
Speaker 1: This reminded me a little bit of when I was
Speaker 1: first married and I was traveling with my then husband,
Speaker 1: and he traveled a lot for work, and one time
Speaker 1: he asked me to come with him because he was
Speaker 1: going somewhere we'd wanted to visit. And I came in
Speaker 1: the door and we had our bags, and I immediately
Speaker 1: like unpacked everything and.
Speaker 2: Set up little areas.
Speaker 1: That was his spot for getting ready, my spot for
Speaker 1: getting ready, a place to put our shoes, where did
Speaker 1: we hang up our robes on our you know, all
Speaker 1: this stuff. And he was just standing by the door
Speaker 1: watching me do it and just goes, wow, this is
Speaker 1: way home than when I travel by myself. This is nice.
Speaker 1: We just you know, there are some people that this
Speaker 1: is our thing and it's me and Dona to the end.
Speaker 1: As I have said before, Mordecai also is very excited
Speaker 1: that there is a room for him because they have
Speaker 1: upgraded to five and that means that he gets his
Speaker 1: own little compartment. Otherwise he'd be sleeping on the floor,
Speaker 1: which I'm very happy for him about. That's nice. And
Speaker 1: the kitchen it says food upgrades not yet purchased, but
Speaker 1: as we've heard, there are things that like once you
Speaker 1: cook in there will give you some upgrades and stuff
Speaker 1: which is nice. Crafting Studio has an upgrade possible. You
Speaker 1: may apply this upgrade in the common area. If you
Speaker 1: disengage your space, the upgrade will be returned.
Speaker 2: To your library.
Speaker 1: And then there is the training room, which is really nice.
Speaker 2: This is something that comes.
Speaker 1: Into play a little bit later, but they can actually
Speaker 1: practice inside.
Speaker 2: They can't practice magical stuff.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's something I just like there being
Speaker 1: any increase in space where our friends are safe, you know,
Speaker 1: any addition of new places that they can go where
Speaker 1: they can do things for their own betterment out of
Speaker 1: the fucking actual dungeon.
Speaker 2: I'm into it. So let's see.
Speaker 1: Mordecai explains about all of the things that they basically
Speaker 1: skipped that they would have had to purchase one space
Speaker 1: where you can, like you have to set it so
Speaker 1: that you can share it. It's way smaller and it's
Speaker 1: just one room other than the crafting studio. The fact
Speaker 1: that this place is as big as it is. He's thinking,
Speaker 1: there's even a possibility that we could like add a
Speaker 1: second floor to this place, which is pretty interesting. I'm
Speaker 1: curious about how all that works.
Speaker 2: There are some.
Speaker 1: Games where like you can have a second floor, but
Speaker 1: you also need to build the staircase to get there,
Speaker 1: so the floor will if you don't know that before
Speaker 1: you do it, the floor will just be up there inaccessible.
Speaker 1: It would just be kind of funny, but uh yeah,
Speaker 1: And he says that there are other helpers that they
Speaker 1: can employ which is really interesting. I'm curious, like who
Speaker 1: they can get. I'm assuming somebody to cook maybe, but
Speaker 1: I don't know, and would they live with them or
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just I have a lot of questions
Speaker 1: about all of this. ARESI says Sims Flashbacks. I have
Speaker 1: never played the Sims you guys, and like everything I
Speaker 1: see of it, it looks like it would be actual
Speaker 1: crack cocaine to me. So I have avoided it because
Speaker 1: I don't need another thing gluing me to a screen.
Speaker 1: I already have the tendency to remain way to inert
Speaker 1: a lot of the day. You know, I need to
Speaker 1: do things that get me moving more. But everything I
Speaker 1: see of it, I'm like, oh, that looks so fun.
Speaker 2: I really want to do that, and I just can't.
Speaker 1: I can't do it. I can't jump in, I can't
Speaker 1: do it. Michael says roller Coaster Tycoon for me, I
Speaker 1: would make rides that ended in enclosed areas guests could leave.
Speaker 1: Rob says there's a subgenre of web novel progression slash
Speaker 1: RPG fantasy that is base building stuff, and while it's
Speaker 1: not super my jam when it's the primary focus, it's
Speaker 1: totally fun. When it's a small little bit like this,
Speaker 1: and I almost want more of it. Michael, free food
Speaker 1: and drinks, but bathrooms cost fifty bucks, right, Yeah, all
Speaker 1: of these things are just kind of fun in a
Speaker 1: way that like, I understand Carl's lack of interest, Like
Speaker 1: we don't even get him choosing his door or anything.
Speaker 2: He just places a door right next.
Speaker 1: To where Donuts is and it's not even mentioned what
Speaker 1: his door looks like. That's how little he gives a shit.
Speaker 1: But a part of me is like, can.
Speaker 2: We please get donuts?
Speaker 1: Povs that I can see the assortment of choices that
Speaker 1: she gets and disagree or agree with whatever it is
Speaker 1: that she selects from the space because I would like
Speaker 1: to get I have a general understanding of her taste,
Speaker 1: but I would like to get zeroed in a little
Speaker 1: bit more.
Speaker 2: So. Oh sorry, guys, I kicked a dog.
Speaker 1: Toy that I didn't realize was under my desk and
Speaker 1: that was very loud. So this is when Carl has
Speaker 1: the exact same question about sleep that I was saying
Speaker 1: in the last episode about whether or not sleeping only
Speaker 1: two hours is going.
Speaker 2: To fuck him up.
Speaker 1: And what we see at least here is that it
Speaker 1: seems not. I am very relieved, and I hope that
Speaker 1: this like is is true and is real. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he falls asleep and is like he shares the room
Speaker 1: with Donut, who is like, you are sleeping with me,
Speaker 1: you idiot, and immediately passes out because the bed is
Speaker 1: so comfortable, and even Mongo climbing onto him, he can't
Speaker 1: feel the weight of Mongo, which I assume is just a.
Speaker 2: Feature of the bed, you know.
Speaker 1: And he wakes up feeling like he has slept a
Speaker 1: full ten hours. Oh my god, can you imagine? And
Speaker 1: he actually gets achievement and a reward for sleeping in
Speaker 1: this bed consistently, a buff of ten percent to base
Speaker 1: stats plus experience and skill training. I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: huge buff. That's a lot. And I wouldn't have needed
Speaker 1: any other motivation to climb into bed to begin with.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that sounds pretty good. I as long as
Speaker 1: it does seem to function the way it.
Speaker 2: Seems to like, as long as it really does.
Speaker 1: Because I've said before, and this is the thing, guys,
Speaker 1: there are so many things in life that are simultaneously
Speaker 1: the best and also a total drag. And one of
Speaker 1: those things for me is showering I love being showered.
Speaker 1: I love when I'm in the shower, the feeling of
Speaker 1: being in the water, but the act of having to
Speaker 1: put aside time to shower and then dealing with like
Speaker 1: my hair and skin app.
Speaker 2: It's all a fucking chore.
Speaker 1: Ugh. And sleep falls squarely into this for me, where
Speaker 1: sleep is amazing and I love sleeping, but also I
Speaker 1: resent deeply that I have to that it is like
Speaker 1: a non negotiable, and especially that sleep is like during
Speaker 1: the time that a lot of us have to ourselves.
Speaker 1: So it feels like when we're at home and we
Speaker 1: have to get up to work in the morning, we
Speaker 1: stay up later than we really should because we're trying
Speaker 1: to get the most out of the little free time
Speaker 1: that we have, and that inevitably winds up fucking us
Speaker 1: the next day. But it's just this like desire to
Speaker 1: squeeze out everything you can from the time you've got,
Speaker 1: you know. So anyway, I just if this works as
Speaker 1: well as it appears.
Speaker 2: I am real, real jealous.
Speaker 1: And yeah, he feels amazing and goes out there to
Speaker 1: see that when Dita made them all food, poor Mordecai
Speaker 1: has a big plate full of dead bugs, which is
Speaker 1: he does not look happy about it. I'm you know,
Speaker 1: she made this clearly because of the race that he is.
Speaker 1: But I can't help but wonder if, like, if you
Speaker 1: took a bite, would you suddenly be like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is amazing because of the race.
Speaker 2: That you are or are you not?
Speaker 1: Does that you're what you eat not depend on your race?
Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Like if he tried to eat pizza, would it do
Speaker 1: something bad because now he is this toad thing and
Speaker 1: toads don't eat pizza.
Speaker 2: Just curious.
Speaker 1: I love this description too, of the way that they
Speaker 1: are showing them. The Iron Tangle with like weird mixed
Speaker 1: up footage of real life and also movies and video games.
Speaker 1: It included stills from the animated movie The Polar Express
Speaker 1: and a bizarrely long sequence of a beat up John
Speaker 1: Travolta riding the subway from the movie Saturday Night Fever
Speaker 1: while the Beg's played in the background, which just in aside,
Speaker 1: if you've never seen Saturday Night Fever. I hate that
Speaker 1: movie so much, and it's so frustrating because the way
Speaker 1: that we talk about it makes it sound like it's
Speaker 1: this riporin fun dance movie, and it's actually one of
Speaker 1: the most depressing examinations of like poverty and the futility
Speaker 1: of many people's lives and situations in their attempts to
Speaker 1: like better themselves or advance in society. And it also
Speaker 1: has this very unexpected and not at all dealt with
Speaker 1: sexual assault that is terrible. So I would just say,
Speaker 1: if you think that movie seems fun and you want
Speaker 1: to throw it on for like a fun girls night
Speaker 1: with her friends, rethink it.
Speaker 2: It's not fun.
Speaker 1: It's a very The whole zeitgeist around that movie was
Speaker 1: very misleading to me. So let's see, the show was
Speaker 1: going on and on about trains. Mordecai started rambling about
Speaker 1: maintaining a schedule, and he wants Carl to train his
Speaker 1: smush skill. And there's also a big part of this
Speaker 1: that is redacted because they don't want the crawlers to
Speaker 1: actually see how the level works, which Mordecai says, that's
Speaker 1: basically from here on out what it's going to be like,
Speaker 1: because they will want to hide stuff about the levels. Sorry,
Speaker 1: Michael says, h only thing I knew about the movie
Speaker 1: was traveled to doing that hand in the air hip
Speaker 1: thrust dance move, and that's kind of what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what's circulated, and it makes it look like it's
Speaker 1: a fun, glittery movie about.
Speaker 2: Dancing, and that is not the case. It is not.
Speaker 2: So we have Katya.
Speaker 1: This is I really like the way that Katya is
Speaker 1: written because there is nothing about her that I dislike.
Speaker 1: But you just every time she speaks, it's about the daughters,
Speaker 1: and she's just really obviously like in constant contact in
Speaker 1: a way that reminds us every single time that she
Speaker 1: opens her mouth that she really isn't part of their
Speaker 1: party really.
Speaker 2: You know, And.
Speaker 1: I don't begrudge her that, you know, I think that
Speaker 1: she's being smart. Honestly, I feel she's an asset to
Speaker 1: the team in terms of what she can do, but
Speaker 1: she obviously doesn't really have the instinct to do what
Speaker 1: she's built for, and that's a problem. So her skill
Speaker 1: set is something that I'm like, yeah, we should hold
Speaker 1: onto that, But I can't fully endorse her because it's
Speaker 1: not like she's she's doing her best. You know, she
Speaker 1: does training on some of her things, and later on
Speaker 1: she does this weird like popeye transformation to her body
Speaker 1: that is very helpful, But there is something about her
Speaker 1: hesitancy that it feels is never really going to go away.
Speaker 2: And maybe that's not true.
Speaker 1: Maybe it you know, if she got more practice and
Speaker 1: now that she's leveled up so much, maybe it will
Speaker 1: begin to be that she starts growing in her confidence
Speaker 1: and she's able to like do more with the skills.
Speaker 2: But I just don't feel.
Speaker 1: Coming from her the kind of like hunger that I
Speaker 1: feel from Carl and Dona, where it seems like they
Speaker 1: are so focused on like getting ahead in a way
Speaker 1: that's about their own.
Speaker 2: Like pushing themselves.
Speaker 1: And Katya it seems like she depended a lot on
Speaker 1: the daughters and is in constant contact with them in
Speaker 1: a way that feels to me like she wants to
Speaker 1: go back to being in a group where she doesn't
Speaker 1: have to pull her weight quite so much, you know,
Speaker 1: which in a smaller group it is going to be
Speaker 1: more pressure. But yeah, it's I'm in this weird place
Speaker 1: where I like her fine, and I understand where she's
Speaker 1: coming from, but I am also a little impatient with
Speaker 1: her as a person, and I am waiting for this
Speaker 1: shoe to drop because she will bounce as soon as
Speaker 1: she can. And I worry about our friends being too
Speaker 1: dependent on her skills and then her suddenly, like you know,
Speaker 1: deciding to fuck off, and now they have to rework
Speaker 1: some of the strategies that they've grown to depend on
Speaker 1: because they don't have the tank anymore. So this is
Speaker 1: when he starts collecting the information from Mordecai about what
Speaker 1: he saw when he first got there and when he
Speaker 1: was at a different train station. It was stationed number
Speaker 1: three seventeen. The two smaller trains were the Yellow and
Speaker 1: Emerald line, and the big one was called the Misery.
Speaker 1: We should probably start charting this out. Do you have
Speaker 1: another one of those dry erase boards. I have one
Speaker 1: more in my room. I'll get it and start putting
Speaker 1: it all down. So far we only have the Yellow
Speaker 1: Line in common. Talk to your friend Brandon and figure
Speaker 1: out where he is. As soon as you come across
Speaker 1: any other crawlers, get all the other info you can
Speaker 1: from them, and we find out quite shortly what's going
Speaker 1: on with Brandon. We will get there in a moment.
Speaker 1: First we have to go through the top ten list.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go through it's this, you know,
Speaker 1: the usual suspects here. But there is just a really
Speaker 1: important mention of how Missus mcgibbons is a frost maiden now,
Speaker 1: so she is this blue skinned elf thing that he
Speaker 1: saw that he didn't recognize with her, and that Lee
Speaker 1: June is a street monk class, which is dope.
Speaker 2: And let's see.
Speaker 1: Then we saw buff heckliskewering a mass of four legged
Speaker 1: rat things with her crossbow. Then Lucia Amar, who was
Speaker 1: simultaneously terrifying and badass as ever, it showed the disgusting
Speaker 1: witch form of Lucia or Lucilla Tip, literally ripping the
Speaker 1: head off one of the Jinkininki Janitor ghouls. The girl
Speaker 1: laughed maniacally as blood showered the interior of the train car.
Speaker 1: And then we get to see all of their bounties,
Speaker 1: and we are told later that the people on the
Speaker 1: leader board can also participate in the bounty hunting and
Speaker 1: if they manage to survive to the next floor, they
Speaker 1: get a portion of their bounty as like a bonus,
Speaker 1: and they get a.
Speaker 2: Box loop box.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of fun, even though, like you know,
Speaker 1: putting bounties on them is fucked up and terrible. I
Speaker 1: was sort of like, well, that's you know, there's even
Speaker 1: more perks than just the fact that you have stayed alive.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: This is when Carl opens his chat and it's interrupted
Speaker 1: by the announcements about this floor and what's going on.
Speaker 2: That there won't be early.
Speaker 1: Cross through to the fifth floor. Will the stairwells are
Speaker 1: only going to actually open six hours prior to collapse.
Speaker 1: Patron bidding is active and we are happy with the results.
Speaker 1: You'll get a notification when your bidding has concluded. And
Speaker 1: this is when she explains the bounties. And then finally,
Speaker 1: we'd like to address this the especially high mortality rate
Speaker 1: of the third floor. This occurred due to a high
Speaker 1: instance of group quests gone bad. While the number of
Speaker 1: crawlers are still in the acceptable range, we are all
Speaker 1: concerned about early extinction. That does not mean we will
Speaker 1: be letting up. So quit sucking. It's as simple as that. Now,
Speaker 1: get out there, ride the rails and kill, kill, kill,
Speaker 1: Quit sucking.
Speaker 2: Katya asked, is that supposed to be a joke? I
Speaker 2: this is this is.
Speaker 1: Actually like kind of perfect, because you know how many
Speaker 1: things out there that are like slowly destroying us.
Speaker 2: Do we just like.
Speaker 1: And I say we, I mean more like powerful companies
Speaker 1: just think like I get points for simply acknowledging that,
Speaker 1: and then I don't do anything about it, and I
Speaker 1: don't change anything, and I kind of still.
Speaker 2: Blame you for it.
Speaker 1: But the fact that I acknowledged it is supposed to
Speaker 1: be something.
Speaker 2: This is just it.
Speaker 1: We're all worried about early extinction, but not really, not
Speaker 1: that worried, not actually like worried, worried, just we're we
Speaker 1: We just want you to know that we noticed and
Speaker 1: we get it. But also, fuck you, this is just familiar,
Speaker 1: That's all I'm saying. And finally, after she finishes, Carl
Speaker 1: can see that the message from Brandon it's it's I
Speaker 1: knew as soon as it says the I finally noticed
Speaker 1: the name of the folder in the top corner of
Speaker 1: my interface, and as he was saying earlier that it
Speaker 1: was in a weird folder that I hadn't seen before,
Speaker 1: I immediately was like, oh, that's that's dead people messages
Speaker 1: like I just fucking knew, and he gets so he
Speaker 1: gets hit so hard with this. There's something too. I'm
Speaker 1: looking at the text and it's done in such a
Speaker 1: way that there's online crossing through his name, which you know,
Speaker 1: obviously there's no way to really get that in audiobook,
Speaker 1: and that is a quite a good choice, I think. So,
Speaker 1: I uh, this whole thing with him dying, it's such
Speaker 1: a combo of things. I was talking about this with
Speaker 1: somebody on the discord the other day and like, don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, I know that this isn't really the
Speaker 1: same thing, but like Brandon and Carl, they work together
Speaker 1: for a short time, they had met in person, and
Speaker 1: they are part of this like collective trauma from this dungeon.
Speaker 1: So it's a very different thing. But it just made
Speaker 1: me think of how odd grief can be and the
Speaker 1: special set of circumstances that can happen where even somebody
Speaker 1: that you didn't know that well or who maybe personally
Speaker 1: wasn't like super important in your life, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, how their deaths can be oddly impactful in
Speaker 1: a way that you would not have expected. If somebody
Speaker 1: told you in a vacuum, oh, by the way, so
Speaker 1: and so dies it's whatever time, you'd probably think like, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: that sucks and is tragic. But you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: really that close with them, or we never even met
Speaker 1: in person or whatever. And there's been kind of a
Speaker 1: spate recently of people that I know secondhand or as
Speaker 1: influencers who have died, and the odd quality of what
Speaker 1: it feels like because it's like a parasocial relationship, so
Speaker 1: I don't actually know them, but I admired them for
Speaker 1: whatever it was that they were doing, and I just
Speaker 1: it's like it helped me to contextualize this moment a
Speaker 1: little bit because they didn't know each other that well,
Speaker 1: but they bonded over doing the right thing in a
Speaker 1: way a lot of people wouldn't have done it. And
Speaker 1: it's also the only person from the group that he
Speaker 1: had in his chat, which he says later is very
Speaker 1: stupid of him. And I have to agree, I understand
Speaker 1: having the one contact person, but I fully thought that
Speaker 1: he had options to contact others and this was just
Speaker 1: the person he was friendliest with, you know. And he
Speaker 1: is about to like he's sending this message right before
Speaker 1: the third floor is about to collapse and they are
Speaker 1: trapped somewhere, so he knows that they're not getting out,
Speaker 1: and he explains that he had a really bad fight
Speaker 1: with his brother Chris, and he left and took some
Speaker 1: of the guys with him, and they were in a
Speaker 1: separate party and he can see that those dudes are
Speaker 1: all dead, but Chris isn't. However, it says that Chris
Speaker 1: can't accept any new messages, which he suspects is because
Speaker 1: Chris blocked him, which I've got to say that must
Speaker 1: have been a hell of a fight, because in this situation,
Speaker 1: to actually block your own brother and make it so
Speaker 1: that he can't even reach out to you in moments
Speaker 1: of extreme emergency is a choice, like, I don't that
Speaker 1: is pretty aggressive. And he says something about how Mom
Speaker 1: used to say that he was slow, but he ain't slow,
Speaker 1: and even if he was, I said something stupid and
Speaker 1: he got mad.
Speaker 2: And I am.
Speaker 1: Super curious what it was that he said, because it's
Speaker 1: easy for me to imagine that he said something insulting
Speaker 1: to his brother based on the context of that, but
Speaker 1: also it's possible that he just said something like declarative
Speaker 1: about drawing a line in the sand, about an action,
Speaker 1: and his brother was just like, you're being an idiot,
Speaker 1: you know. And the whole like tone of this is
Speaker 1: I fucked up by alienating him. I love him and
Speaker 1: it is the only thing that mattered, and I completely
Speaker 1: lost sight of that. And I never said to him
Speaker 1: that I love him and it's all I can think about.
Speaker 1: So please, if you find him, let him know I
Speaker 1: sent this message also to.
Speaker 2: Who else?
Speaker 1: Does he say, I'm sorry, I'm trying to find the
Speaker 1: spot because he mentions that he has sent the same
Speaker 1: message to two.
Speaker 2: Other people but I can't find it.
Speaker 1: Of course, tell him, I said, if there's an afterlife,
Speaker 1: I promise not to give him shit ever again. He
Speaker 1: can eat all the Damn Traveler biscuits he wants. I
Speaker 1: promise not to get mad about him taking risks, not
Speaker 1: about girls, not about him stealing my matchbox cars, nothing,
Speaker 1: and tell him I love him. That's the most important part.
Speaker 1: It's always been the most important part, but I didn't
Speaker 1: realize it until it was too late.
Speaker 2: I gotta go.
Speaker 1: Damn Shade Gremlins, get them for me, Brother, get them all.
Speaker 2: And then the AI.
Speaker 1: This message is from a diseased, deceased Crawler. When you
Speaker 1: close this message, the crawler will be removed from your
Speaker 1: message list.
Speaker 2: Hey, at least you're still.
Speaker 1: And we come back to Carl, who is just reeling,
Speaker 1: and he decides to go into the training room and
Speaker 1: train his bare knuckle skill because he is very, very
Speaker 1: angry and needs to take that out on something which
Speaker 1: I respect. And then chapter four begins with it had
Speaker 1: been several hours since I'd beaten my knuckles raw on
Speaker 1: the wooden dummies. Both Donut and Kotia entered the training
Speaker 1: room about twenty minutes after I did. Doughnut worked on
Speaker 1: her dodge skill, bouncing back and forth while the hologram
Speaker 1: of a forearmed monster holding four whips lashed at her.
Speaker 1: Kotia was on the other side of the room doing
Speaker 1: something similar, but instead she was jumping in front of
Speaker 1: rocks as they were being tossed at a holographic puppy
Speaker 1: by the same forearmed virtual opponent.
Speaker 2: If I were.
Speaker 1: Motivated to protect a puppy, oh, it would be really rough, guys,
Speaker 1: that would be tough. I would really put myself in
Speaker 1: harm's way. I really, I mean I have, I actively have.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Mordecai then tells him about the three tables. He says,
Speaker 1: get them set up. I want you to basically like
Speaker 1: empty all of the stuff out of your pockets that
Speaker 1: is labeled as an alchemical supply, and while you're out,
Speaker 1: I will begin assembling these things into stuff, which, as
Speaker 1: we know from the past, results in Carl getting the
Speaker 1: recipe for the thing, which is nice. Well, he gets
Speaker 1: the recipe if he makes it according to Mordecai's instructions.
Speaker 1: But I imagine Mordecai is going to see what he
Speaker 1: can work with and like save things, so that, okay,
Speaker 1: this is that recipe. In that way, Carl can come
Speaker 1: back and assemble things that are already like figured out.
Speaker 1: And then he let's see, he has the Sappers table, which, guys,
Speaker 1: is that for blowing up stuff? I can't remember what
Speaker 1: Sapper's table even means, and I heard it so much
Speaker 1: in this chapter it began to lose all meaning to me.
Speaker 1: And then the engineering table is where he uses a
Speaker 1: shaping tool to mess with a huge chunk of metal,
Speaker 1: and this becomes essential later when he uses it to
Speaker 1: jam open the our jam the space for these creatures
Speaker 1: that try and get on the train, so that they
Speaker 1: can't get past. It becomes like this, basically like a
Speaker 1: closed door.
Speaker 2: They're telling me, yes.
Speaker 1: It's bomb building sappers, where the people charge with bringing
Speaker 1: down enemy fortications, usually via big booms a seraphim Okay,
Speaker 1: I wonder why it's called SAP like sapper like did
Speaker 1: they use actual sap? Is that why or is it
Speaker 1: like you're sapping the enemy's energy or supplies or like
Speaker 1: what you know? Anyway, etymology, So we have him crafting
Speaker 1: this thing and getting a Martha Stewart achievement where I
Speaker 1: came really close to feeling called out, but not quite.
Speaker 1: You used a workbench to craft for the first time.
Speaker 1: The next thing you know, you'll be fashioning bottle cap earrings,
Speaker 1: drinking oat milk, and selling your ugly crap on Etsy
Speaker 1: while you wax poetic on Instagram about your journey and
Speaker 1: look as somebody who is trying to open an Etsy
Speaker 1: store and working on building the stuff that she has
Speaker 1: made into actual sellable objects. I am on a journey
Speaker 1: and I will probably talk about it on Instagram. However,
Speaker 1: I drink regular milk, although oat milk is pretty good,
Speaker 1: I gotta admit, and I don't make bottle cap earrings.
Speaker 1: But other than that, it was a personal attack, so
Speaker 1: you know, what can you do? It is so funny, guys,
Speaker 1: because like, it makes sense why so many people make
Speaker 1: and sell on Etsy, because it feels like an outlet
Speaker 1: for creativity, a potential side hustle, you know. But I
Speaker 1: think that if people don't know, they think it's a
Speaker 1: lot easier than it is. And let me tell you,
Speaker 1: as somebody who's just in the beginning stages of doing
Speaker 1: all this, it's so much work. If you want to
Speaker 1: do this, you better really want it, and you better
Speaker 1: have a plan, because without a plan, it is so
Speaker 1: easy to get caught up in silly details and like
Speaker 1: completely miss the forest.
Speaker 2: For the trees. So let's see.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he mentioned to Mordecai about having talked to Batista.
Speaker 1: He is on the Azure and Brown line their station
Speaker 1: one ninety nine. They don't have a non colored line
Speaker 1: at their station, but they're going to the Azure line today.
Speaker 1: He also got a fancy base thanks to that upgrade.
Speaker 1: And they all do their like buff stuff shower and
Speaker 1: they go out into the world. And the first thing
Speaker 1: they do is stop at Limb Richard's little shop, and
Speaker 1: there's this thing called a battery fabricator that is seventy
Speaker 1: five thousand gold, which Carl is like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I really want this, but I genuinely don't really know
Speaker 1: what I would do with it yet, and it's possible
Speaker 1: that its description isn't super accurate, and for this price,
Speaker 1: I just don't really think that I can justify it,
Speaker 1: but it's on his mind and I can't help. But
Speaker 1: wonder if there's going to come a time where it's like,
Speaker 1: if you give me enough books, you can have it.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe he'll sent on like a quest, which
Speaker 1: would be kind of fun. And the what it comes
Speaker 1: down to in this scene is him explaining that, like,
Speaker 1: because of the status that he holds in this place,
Speaker 1: he doesn't get access to the entertainment action stuff like
Speaker 1: movies and TV shows. All he gets is physical media,
Speaker 1: which means books and comics. And he only has fifteen
Speaker 1: books right now and he has clearly gotten sick of them.
Speaker 1: One of the books has like the last few chapters
Speaker 1: pulled out, and I was sort of expecting that Carl
Speaker 1: was going to be like because he says that he
Speaker 1: had read that one. I was like, is he just
Speaker 1: gonna like offer to tell him how it ends, since
Speaker 1: he's probably read up unto a certain point many times
Speaker 1: and is desperate to know what happens in the end.
Speaker 1: But Uh, it doesn't come up. I feel like I
Speaker 1: might have used that, but I don't know. Maybe something
Speaker 1: else will happen with that later, or maybe he will
Speaker 1: find the missing chapters for him as a quest, which
Speaker 1: just a real quick aside, Guys, I'm starting this business
Speaker 1: with a friend of mine, and it's going to be
Speaker 1: a mystery in which you have to find both a
Speaker 1: murderer and a book that has been ripped apart chapter
Speaker 1: by chapter, and those chapters hidden in different places. So
Speaker 1: this just has my particular attention for that reason. But anyway,
Speaker 1: it's a book about cats that is by Andre Norton,
Speaker 1: who was a woman. Carl says, I don't recognize this
Speaker 1: author has been mentioned before. My dad hated cats, so
Speaker 1: he never had any books with cats on the cover.
Speaker 1: And this is when he gets the Luis Lamore books
Speaker 1: out and is like, I'll trade you five.
Speaker 2: Of mine for five of yours.
Speaker 1: And even though Limp Richard is like those books are
Speaker 1: a lot shorter, it's obvious he just would like something new,
Speaker 1: and he also hasn't tried reading westerns before, so he
Speaker 1: agrees to the deal, and Carl chooses a Swan Song
Speaker 1: by Robert R. McCammon, or no, he doesn't choose that.
Speaker 1: He left that one on the table and picked up
Speaker 1: sci fi three Andre Norton books, including the one he'd
Speaker 1: been reading, Breed to come. I'm sorry, guys, but Breed
Speaker 1: to Come is just such a It's a title that
Speaker 1: means too many things nowadays. I also picked up The
Speaker 1: Lathe of Heaven by Ursula kay Legwin and The Forever
Speaker 1: War by Joe Haldeman. I would like to announce officially
Speaker 1: here I've said at other places, but like here, I
Speaker 1: will put myself in your hands. Anybody listening who wants
Speaker 1: to commission any Ursula kay Legwin. I would be interested
Speaker 1: because I haven't read any of her books, and she
Speaker 1: is brought up so often as like one of the
Speaker 1: fundamental authors of sci fi fantasy, you know whatever. And
Speaker 1: I am very interested, But it also feels like the
Speaker 1: sort of thing that I don't want to pick up
Speaker 1: on my own.
Speaker 2: For some reason. It just feels like.
Speaker 1: I want a fan to lead me through it.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense? So I'll just say that here and.
Speaker 1: Then we will move on. And Carl, as they are
Speaker 1: walking away, is reprimanded by Donut for not driving a
Speaker 1: hard enough bargain. But basically Carl is playing the long
Speaker 1: game here, and he's like, hey, I know it looked
Speaker 1: like I went easy on him, but don't you worry.
Speaker 1: I know exactly what's going to happen, because in the
Speaker 1: Coast Guard you would get real sick of the shit
Speaker 1: you've read already. He is going to be Jones and
Speaker 1: and we are going to take advantage of it.
Speaker 2: Then, So.
Speaker 1: Let's see, the train that they were looking for only
Speaker 1: comes every hour and a half, and they'd missed it
Speaker 1: while they were.
Speaker 2: In his shop.
Speaker 1: Which just as somebody who has lived places with trains,
Speaker 1: this is such a funny, like it's it's not usually
Speaker 1: that far apart, but it is just the reality of
Speaker 1: some place that's got public transport is that, like, if
Speaker 1: you don't already know the route that you're going on,
Speaker 1: you will just find yourself screwing yourself. For like in
Speaker 1: ways like this, and they're looking at like there are
Speaker 1: different types of trains from different countries that are all
Speaker 1: mixed together in this This train traveled in a figure
Speaker 1: eight pattern, which meant once one got on it, they'd
Speaker 1: eventually end up back at this station.
Speaker 2: That was good to know.
Speaker 1: The train only had five stops total, though it appeared
Speaker 1: there was a good distance between each stop. Four of
Speaker 1: the five stops were transit stations. The one stop that
Speaker 1: was not a transit station was number four thirty six
Speaker 1: and appeared at the very top of the figure eight,
Speaker 1: which we'll get to this later. Unlike the map outside
Speaker 1: of the red station, this one gave slightly more information.
Speaker 1: It gave the colors for each of the transit stations
Speaker 1: it intersected. This station was yellow and red. The next
Speaker 1: was station two eighty three, but it was mauve and purple.
Speaker 1: The stop after that was four thirty six. Then stop
Speaker 1: two thirty eight again, but this time was the green
Speaker 1: line and the yellow line. Then it was station eighty
Speaker 1: three again but a different station eighty three. It was
Speaker 1: the tangerine and plumb line. And for me, this is
Speaker 1: adequate for me to be completely confused. You know, this
Speaker 1: is enough, And now I'm like, okay, I get it.
Speaker 1: There is no figuring this out. And then from there
Speaker 1: we went to the landing of the Yellow line. The
Speaker 1: map here was identical to the map of the Red line.
Speaker 1: The transit station numbers were the same, the line itself
Speaker 1: was shaped differently, like a giant upside down fish hook.
Speaker 1: As I was looking at the map, the train pulled up.
Speaker 1: And then we have these creatures, which it turns out
Speaker 1: they can like kill while they're standing on the platform
Speaker 1: and the creatures as like I'm trying to find the spot.
Speaker 1: Donut hit the cave Mudge standing in the open door
Speaker 1: with a pair of magic missiles, and it fell over
Speaker 1: dead just as the doors started to slide close. We
Speaker 1: can get them, but they can't get us. Let's wait
Speaker 1: for the next train and shoot some more, Doughnut said,
Speaker 1: and Katschia says, Hekla is doing this very thing, has
Speaker 1: been for a while, and she thinks that maybe this
Speaker 1: is some kind of bug.
Speaker 2: And Carl's is of a differing opinion. He thinks that
Speaker 2: it's done this way.
Speaker 1: On purpose to encourage people to sit tight and just
Speaker 1: snipe at these things all day and get them hooked
Speaker 1: on this like easy. But in his opinion, the XP
Speaker 1: that you would be getting from creatures this low level
Speaker 1: isn't worth sitting still for.
Speaker 2: And she goes on.
Speaker 1: Heckla also says the monsters all get off every five
Speaker 1: floors if you follow them out. The levels are like
Speaker 1: a cave system, and there are tunnels she hasn't yet explored,
Speaker 1: but she thinks the tunnels might lead back to the
Speaker 1: previous four platforms. She thinks the monsters are constantly migrating
Speaker 1: in a circle that was kind of weird.
Speaker 2: Tell her we'll check it out.
Speaker 1: Also tell her about the Matt Mordecai is building. Have
Speaker 1: her collect all the round info she can from all
Speaker 1: of her contacts and report it back to you so
Speaker 1: you can pass it on.
Speaker 2: I hope to have a better idea of.
Speaker 1: This place by this time tomorrow. And this is one
Speaker 1: of those things that I feel like I judge myself
Speaker 1: for a bit. It would be advantageous to everybody that
Speaker 1: you're in contact with, like recruit them for putting together
Speaker 1: a more accurate map. However, because I am feeling less
Speaker 1: than trusting about Hecla at the moment, I don't want
Speaker 1: to give her information and trust that she is giving
Speaker 1: me information that is accurate. I would be worried about
Speaker 1: her holding back because she is, you know, maybe looking
Speaker 1: to take me out, and it would be a very
Speaker 1: convenient way to do that is to like leave off
Speaker 1: some of what she is telling Katcya and get you
Speaker 1: cornered in a spot where she can swoop in. So
Speaker 1: a part of me was like, am I just being
Speaker 1: too paranoid? Or is Carl being too trusting? And also
Speaker 1: there's just the aspect of like, it's such an advantage
Speaker 1: to potentially know what's going on with the trains over
Speaker 1: other players who may not yet that I don't know
Speaker 1: how much information I would want to share because I
Speaker 1: want that advantage, And it's a difficult balancing act because
Speaker 1: the info that people are working with is going to
Speaker 1: be super valuable, so you want to be able to
Speaker 1: come to an agreement with them. But also it's you
Speaker 1: might wind up putting yourself in a position.
Speaker 2: Where you could have had a lock on a whole
Speaker 2: section because you know how it works.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I was sort of uncertain if I would
Speaker 1: have done what he would have done here, And also
Speaker 1: like I don't know exactly how the difficulty is that
Speaker 1: in addition to maybe using this as a way to
Speaker 1: get Carl out of the picture, if Hecla is trying
Speaker 1: to take Donut, it's just.
Speaker 2: A I don't know if Hecla.
Speaker 1: Knows this, but Mordechai is Donuts manager. So if Carl dies,
Speaker 1: Mordechai is still a resource that Hecla could take advantage
Speaker 1: of as part of her party if Donut became integrated,
Speaker 1: and thus any information that Carl put together would be
Speaker 1: saved and like complete, It's not like Carl dies and
Speaker 1: whatever it is that, you know, whatever info he's working
Speaker 1: with no longer applies or becomes inaccessible, even if it
Speaker 1: were in his inventory, I guess you could loot it
Speaker 1: off him. But yeah, so there's just there's a lot
Speaker 1: of angles of this that because of how I'm feeling
Speaker 1: about Hecla lately, I'm just a little bit more gunshy
Speaker 1: and I am a little saddened by it because I
Speaker 1: like Hecla in a way and I don't want to
Speaker 1: feel this way about her. But it is what it is,
Speaker 1: you know. Arazou says, it's a fair thought, but Carl
Speaker 1: is nicer than us. We just have to accept that.
Speaker 1: And this is the thing is like I'm not even
Speaker 1: sure I wouldn't do the same thing, but I would
Speaker 1: probably have anxiety about it because I can be nicer
Speaker 1: than I necessarily feel as wise in the moment, depending
Speaker 1: on the situation, just because I want to give people
Speaker 1: the benefit of the doubt. So it might be that
Speaker 1: he's not nicer than me. It's just that I have
Speaker 1: to acknowledge a little bit of a misgiving. Sarah Fem says,
Speaker 1: why would Karl want an advantage over other crawlers when
Speaker 1: that mindset will just make it harder for all of
Speaker 1: them to survive. I'm not talking about Carl, I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the mindset of players in the game in general,
Speaker 1: Like what is the practical thing versus what it is
Speaker 1: that he chooses to do, And like, I have to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that there is a potential advantage in not sharing
Speaker 1: with people. You just got to like face that there's
Speaker 1: reasons that some people operate the way that they operate,
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying one of them, you know, is
Speaker 1: what Karl should be doing. Like we want Karl to
Speaker 1: be the guy that's rooting for everybody, but I can't
Speaker 1: ignore that there would be some advantage to it. Arazeu
Speaker 1: says at this point, I think if Katcha knows, then
Speaker 1: Hekla knows. Well, that's kind of what I mean about. Like,
Speaker 1: Mordecai is the one in charge of the information. So
Speaker 1: if Katya were to leave their crew, she's got whatever
Speaker 1: they had before, like up until the point she left.
Speaker 1: But if Mordecai is continuing to assemble info, then getting
Speaker 1: donut means that you get everything.
Speaker 2: Beyond that point.
Speaker 1: And somebody who is good at processing that information, because
Speaker 1: it seems like Mordecai is pretty good at keeping track
Speaker 1: of all of the differences in there. You know, Seraphim says,
Speaker 1: there's no real advantage in withholding information for this unless
Speaker 1: your goal is to be a playing kill I think
Speaker 1: it's meant to be player killing asshole. Well, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: exactly my point, though. There are people that are gonna
Speaker 1: do player killing, and there are advantages to playing that way,
Speaker 1: Like saying there's no advantage is just incorrect. It's simply
Speaker 1: that those advantages don't align with the way that you
Speaker 1: would want to play or what you think is best
Speaker 1: for everybody. And that may be true, but it is
Speaker 1: a way to play, and there are going to be
Speaker 1: people who would handle it that way. And this is like,
Speaker 1: this is the thing about real life as well. You
Speaker 1: know that there are things that would practically be a
Speaker 1: smarter way to operate if you are only looking at
Speaker 1: the words smarter from a really narrow viewpoint, if you
Speaker 1: were only looking at like the number crunching as your
Speaker 1: pros and cons, and you were not looking at the
Speaker 1: long term effect of doing something that way. So if
Speaker 1: you are alienating people and you are not willing to
Speaker 1: share information for the greater good, and you are not
Speaker 1: willing to look out for other players because you're targeting
Speaker 1: them the same way that you would target monsters. That
Speaker 1: is going to cause some real problems for you with
Speaker 1: other players.
Speaker 2: In a huge way.
Speaker 1: But some people are fine with that because they like
Speaker 1: feeling as if they have ay. There's a feeling of
Speaker 1: superiority that can come with that, not only because of
Speaker 1: the inherent power over people physically in that way, but
Speaker 1: also telling yourself, Oh, these soft idiots who are trying
Speaker 1: to band together, it's hopeless, you assholes. Accept your situation.
Speaker 1: Anybody who decides to work together is just prolonging the inevitable.
Speaker 1: And there are countless people in the world who function
Speaker 1: according to that every day, And in my opinion, that's
Speaker 1: not the point of a society. Your whole reason for
Speaker 1: having a society is to provide a support system for everybody,
Speaker 1: including people who are not able to function according to
Speaker 1: what we deem as.
Speaker 2: Most valuable in capitalism.
Speaker 1: But I can't deny that a lot of the folks
Speaker 1: who function that way wind up financially stable, not necessarily
Speaker 1: in a good position. According to my metrics of a
Speaker 1: happy life, but it pays, you know, So it's just
Speaker 1: everything is very subjective. So we get we meet the bonkers,
Speaker 1: which are described by the AI in such a way
Speaker 1: that they it is clear that he is pissed at
Speaker 1: the Kuatine because of the way like he's basically like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're complete morons, but at least they're smarter than those
Speaker 1: assholes type of thing. And then Karl wants to like
Speaker 1: get onto the train and check things out. See if
Speaker 1: there's like a driver, and there is no like front
Speaker 1: compartment where the pilot would the driver would be. It's
Speaker 1: just like closed off. Each train car held four sets
Speaker 1: of exterior doors on each side.
Speaker 2: And he looks up, h.
Speaker 1: Let's see it, says we need a Yellow Line engineer's
Speaker 1: key to open the next door. Katia said, how do
Speaker 1: you think we get one of those? We need to
Speaker 1: get the driver to come out somehow, I guess.
Speaker 2: Then we got to take it.
Speaker 1: Then we got to take it from him, either that
Speaker 1: or maybe we can figure out how to break into
Speaker 1: the car from the outside. So they are I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna get too much because I'm running out of time here,
Speaker 1: but this is one of the moments where they are
Speaker 1: going up against these creatures and Kotcha does her popeye
Speaker 1: shape change and it all goes pretty well, and she
Speaker 1: says that it doesn't hurt this time as much as sting.
Speaker 1: And then let's see phantom kangaroo coming up.
Speaker 2: Came the announcement.
Speaker 1: The voice was similar to the last train, but not identical.
Speaker 1: That'll be station number eighty four. After that is stop
Speaker 1: number eighty five, which is an exit only cavern stop.
Speaker 1: Thank you for riding the tangle, and they let's see,
Speaker 1: I made it just about the right size. There wasn't
Speaker 1: anything fancy about it. This is when he uses his
Speaker 1: chunk of metal to block the door.
Speaker 2: And what I thought was.
Speaker 1: Sort of interesting is when these monsters come up to it.
Speaker 1: He says that they're sort of lethargic until they realize
Speaker 1: that they can't get.
Speaker 2: Onto the train, and then they begin to freak the
Speaker 2: fuck out. And I couldn't help but wonder if.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's two different groups of monsters and it looks
Speaker 1: like it's the same group, that's like going in a circle.
Speaker 1: But what of it's one group, what of it's two
Speaker 1: groups that are each pursuing the other. There's a point
Speaker 1: later on where the dude that they meet up with
Speaker 1: is saying that there are two groups of these like
Speaker 1: snake creatures that look identical, but that they fight each other.
Speaker 1: And so I wonder if that's what it is. If
Speaker 1: it's just like we are motivating them by cycling them
Speaker 1: through these caverns and onto this train in pursuit of
Speaker 1: or to escape the other group that preceded them.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Let's see.
Speaker 1: Oh, I forgot about this part where Carlo says, get
Speaker 1: ready to repel borders. Don't get grunted. You know, this
Speaker 1: isn't a boat, right. All the starboard and aft and
Speaker 1: pirate talk is starting to really annoy Mango. I love
Speaker 1: that she says that it's Mongo who's getting annoyed.
Speaker 2: Love you.
Speaker 1: So anyway, this thing manages to hold them back, and
Speaker 1: one of its arms gets cut off because this does
Speaker 1: not have the safety precautions built into a regular subway.
Speaker 1: And then they see the do not entertangle employees only
Speaker 1: sign and they go in anyway, and I'm glad I
Speaker 1: have too much respect for the rules, and I know, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a problem. So I was thinking to myself, would
Speaker 1: I keep out what I really or would I do it,
Speaker 1: and I think that I'd probably go in, just because
Speaker 1: the way that I work in Skyrim is I'll try
Speaker 1: every door a lot of the time, and I probably
Speaker 1: would go in. So this is when they meet Vernon
Speaker 1: the little Dwarf, and he is fed up and he
Speaker 1: basically explains to them that his role is pointless and
Speaker 1: nobody listens to him. So between when the train arrives
Speaker 1: where it's going and when it leaves, he is getting
Speaker 1: drunk and he's pretty unfriendly and is like, there's a
Speaker 1: sign you need to fucking go up until the moment
Speaker 1: that he sees Donut and processes her being royalty, and
Speaker 1: of course her charisma ends up getting all kinds of
Speaker 1: information out of him that is likely going to be useful,
Speaker 1: but it just feels so disconnected from things at the moment.
Speaker 1: And let's say I'm trying to find this this moment
Speaker 1: where he explains because he keeps on saying that stop
Speaker 1: four thirty five is the end of the line, And
Speaker 1: when Karl is asking yeah about what happens after that,
Speaker 1: he's real cagy.
Speaker 2: And finally don't know.
Speaker 1: It's like, why won't you answer his question? And he
Speaker 1: finally takes a big drink and is just like, all right,
Speaker 1: I don't know. We pull in there, everything gets weird,
Speaker 1: and then I'm on platform ten, which is really just
Speaker 1: the yard, and then when I climb on the train,
Speaker 1: it starts over and I don't even know how much
Speaker 1: time has passed. And some people think it's a time loop.
Speaker 1: But if it were a loop and I got injured
Speaker 1: and start over, the injury would be but the injuries
Speaker 1: don't go away. But and if I'm hungry at the
Speaker 1: end of it and then I start over, I'm still hungry.
Speaker 1: So it's obviously like something is moving forward in time,
Speaker 1: but I don't know why it's happening or what's going on.
Speaker 1: And I'm assuming, actually now that he says this, that
Speaker 1: maybe this is.
Speaker 2: What's going on with the monsters.
Speaker 1: Also, is that it's just this constant loop for them,
Speaker 1: and they don't like they're trying to get out. Maybe
Speaker 1: they're getting on these trains hoping that they are going
Speaker 1: to be able to get out of the tunnels, and
Speaker 1: it really just takes them back to where they had
Speaker 1: been on another level, and then they wind up in
Speaker 1: the same place, which is pretty awful, Like can you
Speaker 1: imagine just being put in a maze where there's no escape,
Speaker 1: but you think there is, and it keeps doing its
Speaker 1: thing over and over like so anyway, he explains too
Speaker 1: that like, there is this.
Speaker 2: Uh drawing his wife that.
Speaker 1: He normally leaves on the bedside in his cabin, but
Speaker 1: one day he put it in his pocket, and then
Speaker 1: the next day it was in his pocket again, so
Speaker 1: every time he does that he can make another one,
Speaker 1: which he's figured out also.
Speaker 2: Works with money.
Speaker 1: And they ask him like, if you've got this much money,
Speaker 1: why don't you just fucking leave? And he basically tries
Speaker 1: to play it like, oh, I'm not trapped. I'm choosing
Speaker 1: to stay and keep making money. And then this one,
Speaker 1: no way, I'm letting some greasy dwarf steal my magic
Speaker 1: gold supply while giving him such fine stroke material. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, I've never heard anything called stroke material before,
Speaker 1: and that is honestly very funny to me. And also
Speaker 1: the fact that it's like a crude drawing, which I
Speaker 1: interpreted to be a poorly done drawing, but now I
Speaker 1: wonder if it's crude meant to be like poor graphic.
Speaker 1: I think it's still the first one, but now I'm like,
Speaker 1: m so, yeah, this is when he says, we've got
Speaker 1: snakeheads in eighty six and eighty seven. They look the same,
Speaker 1: but they fight each other. Station eighty eight is Mothman station,
Speaker 1: and a few of the skinned mollies get on, which
Speaker 1: we see later. I think, which are those weird rabbit things?
Speaker 1: And he brings up the yellow line and the Indigo line,
Speaker 1: and she, being catcha is like, oh, that's where the
Speaker 1: daughters are, and just as Carl is like, fuck, well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to see them, she realizes, Oh, no,
Speaker 1: they're not there anymore. Never mind. Do the monsters always
Speaker 1: get off every five stops?
Speaker 2: Yes, I don't know why.
Speaker 1: They're usually pretty excited about it too, which maybe that's
Speaker 1: it where they think that, oh, we were finally getting
Speaker 1: out of here.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: And Carl says, do they ever miss their stop or
Speaker 1: stay on? If one of them misses his exit, he'll
Speaker 1: get off on the next stop. They're always in a
Speaker 1: big panic when that happens. Once a GOADEO from station
Speaker 1: two twelve tried.
Speaker 2: To loop around.
Speaker 1: He stayed on all the way to the end of
Speaker 1: the line. It was the only time I've ever seen
Speaker 1: something remain on the train. He was still there when
Speaker 1: you got back on sort of. His skeleton was still
Speaker 1: on the train, his skin and blood and hair wasn't.
Speaker 1: Whatever happened after four thirty five ended up killing him.
Speaker 1: It killed him a lot, which is a very funny line.
Speaker 1: And when they ask, like, what is a way to
Speaker 1: get the engineer out of his compartment, he says, the
Speaker 1: only time he's ever seen one come out is derailment.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to this section.
Speaker 1: I'm halfway through chapter five, but I'm already like five
Speaker 1: minutes overtime, so I'm going to kind of speed this
Speaker 1: up and also try and get across how much of
Speaker 1: this is began sort of blending together for me. While
Speaker 1: each colored line had hundreds of trains on a track
Speaker 1: at any given moment, he believed there was only one
Speaker 1: of the larger trains per line. He didn't know much
Speaker 1: about the tracks and the system, other than that trains
Speaker 1: did not cross tracks with other trains. The tracks worked
Speaker 1: like highways, with the tunnels going above and below one another.
Speaker 1: After every five stops, the train would completely empty of
Speaker 1: monsters until the next spot.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 1: According to Vernon, the monsters wouldn't break into both cars
Speaker 1: fifteen and ten if they knew we were there, but
Speaker 1: he insisted they'd never attack his car number five in
Speaker 1: the time between stations. The time between stations varied greatly.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the stations would come one after another, coming every
Speaker 1: minute or two, and then there'd be a stretch of
Speaker 1: twenty minutes. It turned out the entire trip from stations
Speaker 1: eleven to four thirty five took three whole days, which
Speaker 1: was alarming. My initial instinct was that we needed to
Speaker 1: stay as close to the stairwells as possible, but I
Speaker 1: was starting to suspect we need to get ourselves to
Speaker 1: the end of the line to figure this out. We
Speaker 1: only had nine days. The good thing was if there
Speaker 1: truly was only one Nightmare Express Line train that minute
Speaker 1: managed to take to make its large figure eight pattern
Speaker 1: in only an hour and a half, that meant we'd
Speaker 1: be able to end up back where we started fairly quickly,
Speaker 1: if we decided it was necessary. So Dona and Carl
Speaker 1: leave for a moment, and they are talking about how
Speaker 1: they need to find a neighborhood boss and they need to,
Speaker 1: you know, explore things and see if there is a
Speaker 1: map on one of them, and he asks Dona if
Speaker 1: Katcha has said anything to her about Hekla and Donuts, like, well,
Speaker 1: she did tell me that Hecla named a kick after
Speaker 1: me because I.
Speaker 2: Said it was awesome.
Speaker 1: And Carl has to be like, Okay, well, be careful
Speaker 1: how much you tell her, and he doesn't want to
Speaker 1: explain to Donut the whole thing. But and you know, honestly,
Speaker 1: I feel like, probably it's the right call not to
Speaker 1: tell her. I don't like keeping things from Donut. But
Speaker 1: she's also like, I don't believe that she's a good liar,
Speaker 1: and I can see maybe her suddenly acting very different
Speaker 1: with Hecla and giving it away that, oh, you might
Speaker 1: be after Carl, I don't like you anymore, and we
Speaker 1: need to stay allies for right now. So maybe keeping
Speaker 1: it to yourself for the moment is the right call.
Speaker 1: But it also means that like Donut potentially might have
Speaker 1: her guard down. So the way that Carl plays this
Speaker 1: off is, you know, we have this bounty thing, and
Speaker 1: I know that she's like with us for right now,
Speaker 1: but you can't trust anybody too much. Just be careful,
Speaker 1: And then I'm going to summarize what happens next quite
Speaker 1: a bit.
Speaker 2: They wind up at.
Speaker 1: A room that is a reward room like where they
Speaker 1: found Mango, and they meet a grapple who is a
Speaker 1: third Giant and he is in charge of giving them
Speaker 1: whatever suitcase by its number they request between one and
Speaker 1: two hundred. Carl gets a suitcase that's got like some
Speaker 1: women's clothes in it, that seems like a genuine suitcase
Speaker 1: from somebody's trip. But there are manipotions and an invisibility
Speaker 1: potion which only says, guess what this does? And I
Speaker 1: really would appreciate a bit more because I don't know
Speaker 1: what that means in terms of how long it lasts,
Speaker 1: and what if it just makes you invisible permanently, you know,
Speaker 1: if it doesn't say they could just do anything.
Speaker 2: And I don't like it.
Speaker 1: And then he goes to open donuts for her and
Speaker 1: he gets a.
Speaker 2: Warning, you sure you want to do that?
Speaker 1: Bucco, And he doesn't understand what the warning is and
Speaker 1: it turns out, as he sees later, this was a
Speaker 1: trap warning because he has a skill about spotting traps.
Speaker 1: And it is full of actual fire ants, their ants
Speaker 1: that are on fire. And I am on record on
Speaker 1: Facebook after having moved down to Texas. I think it
Speaker 1: was maybe year three that I said, you'd think it
Speaker 1: would be the heat or the backward legislation, but the
Speaker 1: worst part of Texas is the fire ants. And if
Speaker 1: you have never dealt with fire ants, you are very lucky,
Speaker 1: and don't change that because they are the actual worst.
Speaker 1: These things only set things on fire. These are, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, way less awful. I would rather deal with
Speaker 1: these version of fire ants than actual fire ants, just
Speaker 1: for the record, and if you know, you know, and
Speaker 1: that's all I'll say about that. But they light everything
Speaker 1: up and cause a massive conflagration that results in poor
Speaker 1: Vernon being burned alive. And I felt so bad for him,
Speaker 1: this poor dude, because like they're in a bar, so
Speaker 1: there's moonshine right there. I hated this and it ends
Speaker 1: up doughnut just saying that was the worst prize ever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sucks, poor Vernon.
Speaker 2: Wompomp.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm way over time, so I have got
Speaker 1: to go, But thank you guys again so much for
Speaker 1: hanging out with me. And I will be seeing you
Speaker 1: on Thursday with the new episodes and I'll miss it.
Speaker 2: And until then, to lou motherfuckers. That was an unspoiled
Speaker 2: network