Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
Speaker 1: covering Dungeon Crawler Carl Book five, The Butcher's Masquerade, chapters
Speaker 1: sixty three through sixty six. In these chapters, our friends
Speaker 1: are getting to the masquerade itself. I don't like the
Speaker 1: looks of any of what's going on here, but I
Speaker 1: will confess I don't really know what's going on. I
Speaker 1: don't think I'm meant to know what's going on, and
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna let it wash over me. That's just
Speaker 1: what's best. Welcome to spoil Me. Welcome to the show. Everyone.
Speaker 1: I am Natasha. Thank you very much to Jackie again
Speaker 1: for commissioning this episode. Jackie, appreciate you so much, my friend.
Speaker 1: Hope that you are enjoying these episodes. So, yeah, guys,
Speaker 1: this was like a I actually really appreciated that. At
Speaker 1: one point, I think Louis or Faraz, one of the
Speaker 1: two of them, says something about how they're having Iron
Speaker 1: Tangle flashbacks, and I was like, Okay, good, because I
Speaker 1: was feeling rather confused by a lot of it, not
Speaker 1: in a way that I found necessarily frustrating, because I
Speaker 1: was sort of just taking it as like a Okay,
Speaker 1: I bet to a certain degree, I don't really need
Speaker 1: to like remember all of this, but more in a
Speaker 1: way that I was sort of growing worried. Am I
Speaker 1: going to regret not trying to get a better handle
Speaker 1: on all of this? And his comment about the iron
Speaker 1: tangle was sort of reassuring, I think to me in
Speaker 1: a sense that it was just don't worry. I know
Speaker 1: it's a lot, it's fine, just enjoy the show. Kind
Speaker 1: of that was what the like. It felt like a
Speaker 1: reassurance from the author. And you know, I may be
Speaker 1: totally wrong about that. It may not be what he
Speaker 1: intended by that at all, but I am going to
Speaker 1: tell you guys that that's how I interpret it. Is
Speaker 1: so that if there is something that I missed and
Speaker 1: you're like listening to this coverage, going, how has she
Speaker 1: not put two and two together yet? That's how I
Speaker 1: have not put two and two together yet? Is that
Speaker 1: I am just like, it's probably that I don't need
Speaker 1: to know right anyways, So this section is is really
Speaker 1: interesting because we have everybody like working together on a
Speaker 1: certain level, but also they are having to adapt on
Speaker 1: the fly repeatedly, and they are also like being what's
Speaker 1: the word I want here scuppered, I suppose by some
Speaker 1: folks who don't want to be part of a team.
Speaker 1: And you know, we've got Eva who turns up later
Speaker 1: on after Carl has put all of these potions out
Speaker 1: and all of this equipment and stuff, and she just
Speaker 1: takes everything and then just like makes snide comments. And
Speaker 1: I don't know about you all and how you have
Speaker 1: felt about Eva. I am kind of curious, like what
Speaker 1: the overall audience vibe has been. But I don't think
Speaker 1: that I expected Eva to be willing to just to
Speaker 1: put everybody at risk in that way where she would
Speaker 1: just take all of the supplies and just say screw
Speaker 1: you to everybody. I know that she is like that,
Speaker 1: she has been willing to throw people to the wolves,
Speaker 1: so to speak. But I thought it was sort of
Speaker 1: a if it's necessary in this situation, I'll do what
Speaker 1: I have to do kind of mentality. And what it
Speaker 1: seems like instead is much more I am out to
Speaker 1: like fuck everybody over in every sense I can come
Speaker 1: up with, which there's something much more like malicious and
Speaker 1: purposeful about that, which I wasn't really expecting. And it
Speaker 1: made me very sad because it's not really as if
Speaker 1: I had been expecting better of her exactly. It's more that,
Speaker 1: like I thought it was a passive effect that she
Speaker 1: was simply selfish and the side effect of that was
Speaker 1: affecting other people badly, But I didn't think that it
Speaker 1: was there being an actual malice. And when it starts
Speaker 1: to get to that place where it feels like I
Speaker 1: just enjoy screwing with everybody and sabotaging things, I don't
Speaker 1: know how to cope with that. Guys. I will be
Speaker 1: very honest, like this is something that I run into
Speaker 1: in real life as well, and I never really know
Speaker 1: what to do because there's not a way to reason
Speaker 1: with a person who's motivated by this sort of enjoyment
Speaker 1: of causing mayhem and pain. There's no way to like
Speaker 1: argue the position because there's no logic involved with their
Speaker 1: enjoying that. And so the only way to sort of
Speaker 1: convince them to like work with everybody is to give
Speaker 1: them some other way of achieving that outcome. And how
Speaker 1: do you do that without basically tacitly agreeing that they
Speaker 1: can hurt people later instead of now, you know, and
Speaker 1: putting folks in their way for them to fuck with
Speaker 1: eventually down the line, just to buy yourself some time.
Speaker 1: At this moment, I don't if anytime that people just
Speaker 1: enjoy hurting others. I genuinely am flabbergasted because it's so
Speaker 1: unthinkable to me. I don't even really like hurting people
Speaker 1: that I dislike or hate. I don't like I can
Speaker 1: take a sort of grim satisfaction in it when it happens.
Speaker 1: But I don't think that I could do it to
Speaker 1: somebody in a particular like I could take somebody out.
Speaker 1: I feel like if I felt like the world's better
Speaker 1: off without them in it and we just need to
Speaker 1: like eliminate them, that's a different thing than making somebody
Speaker 1: suffer and liking that part of it, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. And that's just sort of where it feels
Speaker 1: like it's at with her. I don't know. Ooh, Ariz
Speaker 1: just says, I have a map. I have a map.
Speaker 1: I will put in the discord for you. Awesome, thank you, Irazoo.
Speaker 1: I think Eva is mentally ill, and without Heckla as
Speaker 1: a handler, she's gone off the rails. That's interesting. I mean,
Speaker 1: that does make sense. It's funny too, because she was
Speaker 1: the psychiatrist right Sarah him says, yeah, I get the
Speaker 1: feeling she was always like this. Heckla was just keeping
Speaker 1: her in check. Michael says, Hecla is manipulating Eva to
Speaker 1: do the dirty shit she didn't want to do herself,
Speaker 1: which fucked up even even more. And without Hekla, she's
Speaker 1: just angry and lashing out, mostly at Katchya for killing Hecla.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the Batman Joker arguments us nerds
Speaker 1: do online. Batman is responsible for the murders of hundreds
Speaker 1: because he refuses to murder Joker even after he has
Speaker 1: escaped dozens of times to murder even more innocent people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is like, this is a question that comes
Speaker 1: up all the time, right and I later on I'll
Speaker 1: be covering the first book of the Expanse series, Leviathan
Speaker 1: Rises or no, Leviathan Wakes. Leviathan Rises is I think
Speaker 1: the second or third book. But there is a character
Speaker 1: in that who last week I was just talking about
Speaker 1: our last episode that he seems to think that if
Speaker 1: you just like don't initiate on like hurting a person,
Speaker 1: that it's keeping your hands clean, even if by not
Speaker 1: doing that you are going to be causing more suffering,
Speaker 1: and to me, that's a very childish understanding of the
Speaker 1: concept of consequences and responsibility. It feels for me naive
Speaker 1: isn't quite strong enough a word. It's over simplistic to
Speaker 1: a degree that feels purposely obtuse, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: And it's just so convenient a way to let yourself
Speaker 1: off the hook for a very complicated situation. So Eduardo says,
Speaker 1: I may be wrong, but isn't there a high incidence
Speaker 1: of psychiatrists going into that profession as a way of
Speaker 1: trying to understand themselves. I don't know about that, Eduardo,
Speaker 1: but I do know that it's a bit of a
Speaker 1: trope that like, oh, the psychiatrist is the crazy person
Speaker 1: in a lot of fiction, so that maybe where that
Speaker 1: comes from, I don't know, Michael, Just like pyromaniacs gravitate
Speaker 1: to be firemen and bullies gravitate to being cops. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's like a list of certain professions that people who
Speaker 1: have a bit of sociopathy tend to get into, and
Speaker 1: it's often positions of authority over others and over the helpless.
Speaker 1: Explicitly nurses is you know, getting into the medical field
Speaker 1: is one of them. But I digress, so let's get
Speaker 1: back to chapter sixty three. The start of this is
Speaker 1: Karl talking to Signet about what is going to happen
Speaker 1: during the event, and it's one of those really like
Speaker 1: tricky situations where Carl knows that he can't really likely
Speaker 1: get through to Signet fully, but he has to at
Speaker 1: least make the attempt. And what's happening here is that
Speaker 1: Signet is fully, fully anticipating that she is going to
Speaker 1: be able to begin her assault on Imagen during this event,
Speaker 1: and Karl knows they are not going to allow that
Speaker 1: to happen. And it's for a number of reasons, but
Speaker 1: the main issue is whatever winds up on film as
Speaker 1: a result of that would be fought over between the
Speaker 1: people who are running the Krawl and the people who
Speaker 1: are running the Vengeance of the Daughter show that Signet
Speaker 1: is the star of. So it just puts them in
Speaker 1: a weird position where there will be like a whole
Speaker 1: you know, court issue over it, and likely the people
Speaker 1: who run the Krawl will find a way to like
Speaker 1: take Signet out or force the show to take her out.
Speaker 1: And if Carl is the one who put them in
Speaker 1: the position where they have to do that. They will
Speaker 1: also take Carl out as vengeance for the daughter, lol,
Speaker 1: because he caused this whole situation to be what it is,
Speaker 1: so you know, if he pushes this too hard, he's
Speaker 1: fucking himself over also. And he's trying to convince her
Speaker 1: to like do things another way, both as a means
Speaker 1: of avoiding getting in trouble himself getting her in trouble,
Speaker 1: and also using her. He's hoping that if he can
Speaker 1: like convince her to wait and handle things a certain way,
Speaker 1: they will be able to use signet as a distraction.
Speaker 1: And he feels a little guilty because he understands that
Speaker 1: she sees him explicitly as an ally and he knows
Speaker 1: that he is taking advantage of that to a degree.
Speaker 1: But he's got to do what he's got to do,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And I understand him feeling
Speaker 1: bad about it, But I don't fault him in any
Speaker 1: way for this, not even a little bit. This is
Speaker 1: just what has to happen, and it would be awesome
Speaker 1: if he weren't put in the position where these are
Speaker 1: the only choices that he has. But I don't really
Speaker 1: feel like there was another way to handle this that
Speaker 1: would have kept him alive, and I feel like, even
Speaker 1: though it's a secondary consideration, it is probably going to
Speaker 1: like go some ways toward keeping her alive also, So
Speaker 1: how bad is it really? I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I just tell Michael's comment. Can I just
Speaker 1: say that Vengeance of the Daughter is clearly a crap show?
Speaker 1: They're a parent big plan finale is for Signet to
Speaker 1: confront the sister who stole everything from her and get
Speaker 1: squashed like a bug. How is that entertaining? It isn't
Speaker 1: even properly tragic, since she'd presumably be swatted like a fly,
Speaker 1: follow this character and her friends for a long time,
Speaker 1: and then watch them die horribly nice storyline. It's an
Speaker 1: interesting question, Michael, because like it does sort of seem
Speaker 1: like that is their destiny. But was this the plan
Speaker 1: from the start? Or was Imagen turned into the big
Speaker 1: bad for this floor after they had already decided for
Speaker 1: Vengeance of the Daughter that Imagen was going to be
Speaker 1: her big bad? Was this the plan all along for
Speaker 1: it to like work out this way? Because I know
Speaker 1: that things have shifted and been changed a number of times,
Speaker 1: and it's hard for me to tell how much of
Speaker 1: this is predetermined and how much of it was adjusted,
Speaker 1: and not that it really matters, but like it does
Speaker 1: seem sometimes like the people who run the Crawl just
Speaker 1: like fucking with the the showrunners, you know, of the U,
Speaker 1: these other dramas. So yeah, I don't know. Eduardos has
Speaker 1: given how sadistic the Broader Universe seems as a whole.
Speaker 1: They may be into that kind of crap show though
Speaker 1: they might, Eduardo, but it does seem like they aren't
Speaker 1: that into it based on the way that, like Quasar
Speaker 1: said that the show just sucks balls unless Dona and
Speaker 1: Carl are there. So I don't know, I really I
Speaker 1: it seems like they were if they, Like, we're giving
Speaker 1: them credit also for planning ahead quite a bit, and
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of that credit they really deserve,
Speaker 1: because there are times where writers just fly by the
Speaker 1: seage of their pants, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 1: so part of me is sort of like, are they
Speaker 1: trying to blame Carl for some shit that's really their
Speaker 1: own fault because they just didn't handle this all that well.
Speaker 1: I don't know anyway, So I the whole thing with
Speaker 1: him talking with her is also kind of punctuated by
Speaker 1: this weird sense of unease at the fact that she's
Speaker 1: being really intimate with him in putting her hand on
Speaker 1: his knee and leaning on him, and he is thinking
Speaker 1: about how Doughnut said that it's always like the night
Speaker 1: before the battle, that the main character has to have
Speaker 1: sex with somebody to blow off some steam, and you know,
Speaker 1: that doesn't actually wind up coming to anything here, And
Speaker 1: I was sort of surprised that there wasn't even like
Speaker 1: a hint of it being what she's attempting to do.
Speaker 1: I am curious if you all were sort of expecting
Speaker 1: this to be more of a thing, because I was,
Speaker 1: and I'm not mad at it at all. For the record,
Speaker 1: I'd rather we not do this, But I really did
Speaker 1: expect that since it was set up that it was,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of expected that it would definitely be
Speaker 1: followed through on in some fashion. And maybe it will
Speaker 1: be a little later, I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: So we go over to the safe room and we
Speaker 1: have got five more crawlers who were given things from
Speaker 1: their benefactors that are all meant to go to Donut,
Speaker 1: and Mordecai says that he has never seen anything like
Speaker 1: this before. The only one who actually got stuff for
Speaker 1: themselves is Katya. She gets a beanie that increases all
Speaker 1: her stats by three percent and gives her a spell
Speaker 1: called I Need My Personal Space, which violently knocks everybody
Speaker 1: back with a powerful blow, and it affects her own
Speaker 1: team as well, and I'm very excited to see exactly
Speaker 1: how that all works. We'd receive notifications because we were bringing
Speaker 1: attendance to the party, meaning the pets, dinosaurs, two Cretans,
Speaker 1: and Samantha, that we'd be escorted in instead of being
Speaker 1: teleported in that Brambles would overtake the village in an
Speaker 1: hour and a half. Doughnut remained outside with the dinosaurs
Speaker 1: and Brittany her plus one, practicing for the Big Talent
Speaker 1: Show dance number. And Brittany, as we see later, she's very,
Speaker 1: very twitchy. I am extremely concerned that she is going
Speaker 1: to wind up being a serious weak link. I just
Speaker 1: don't at all like where like the vibes that I'm
Speaker 1: getting from her and the way that it seems she's
Speaker 1: also the one. Correct me if I'm wrong, guys, but
Speaker 1: I think that she is the one that Katya mentioned
Speaker 1: had nothing in her blood bar because she had actually
Speaker 1: done no damage whatsoever this floor, is that right? So, like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to go so far as to call
Speaker 1: Brittany useless. I feel like that's pretty harsh, but it
Speaker 1: does seem like she is uh timid. And later on,
Speaker 1: after there is the conversation with Imagen that we of
Speaker 1: course will get to, she says something about how Imagen
Speaker 1: reminds her of her mom, and I was like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: all of this is really stacking up to make it
Speaker 1: seem like Brittany is not the person to rely on
Speaker 1: for this whole plan. But it seems like we're relying
Speaker 1: on her in some pretty important fashion. And she set
Speaker 1: off her shield spell that has like a four hour
Speaker 1: cool down. She sets it off just on impulse when
Speaker 1: Imagen shows up, which, like the whole thing was, is
Speaker 1: your cool down reas set? You know, she's just already
Speaker 1: fucking up. And she's also later we see her wearing
Speaker 1: this like weird jacket that's very itchy, So I'm assuming
Speaker 1: that it's made from something weird and I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's supposed to be like it's actually an explosive.
Speaker 1: Because Carl is a little bit worried that they are
Speaker 1: going to clock it as a weapon when they get searched.
Speaker 1: So it seems to me that it must be something
Speaker 1: that's sort of offensive, But I don't know what it
Speaker 1: could be. I am trying to think there there are
Speaker 1: so many abilities and hacks and loopholes to like keep
Speaker 1: track of, you know, guys, that there are a lot
Speaker 1: of things that I think if I had some sort
Speaker 1: of spreadsheet that I was always double checking about who's
Speaker 1: got what and can do what, maybe I would be
Speaker 1: able to pinpoint, oh, Okay, probably this is what's happening here.
Speaker 1: But I really don't want to go through that effort.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I want to solve this like
Speaker 1: it's a mystery. I just want to let it happen
Speaker 1: and then see what it turns out to be. I
Speaker 1: think that's fine. Michael says. I don't know if the
Speaker 1: broader universe is supposed to be any more statistic than
Speaker 1: we are. Honestly, the descriptions of how people acted at
Speaker 1: crawlcom really fit a lot of how people act at ARCNS.
Speaker 1: It's just that they are cheering about real people dying,
Speaker 1: of course, but that isn't so far from us. Public
Speaker 1: executions used to be used as entertainment. Gladiatorial combat was
Speaker 1: also common, and while most gladiators didn't die, the slaves
Speaker 1: they used as Podder did. Yeah. I think that her
Speaker 1: jumpy trigger finger on her shield and her empty blood
Speaker 1: bar doesn't speak well as to her ability in the game.
Speaker 1: I think the implication for her characters that she finds
Speaker 1: someone to cling to to take care of her the
Speaker 1: skeezy plastics surch when we first met her and now
Speaker 1: fi Us Yeah, agreed fully. So, Yeah, whatever it is
Speaker 1: that they've got her doing, I really hope that they
Speaker 1: have accounted for the fact that she doesn't seem reliable.
Speaker 1: I mean, they clearly know that about her, but it
Speaker 1: still seems like they are relying on her in a
Speaker 1: way that I'm not mad at them for, because like, truly,
Speaker 1: what options do we actually have? You know? But I
Speaker 1: also can't help but feel like, oh, I just don't
Speaker 1: like that you're doing this, Like just fucking find it
Speaker 1: a way to like execute this whole plan without involving
Speaker 1: her at all, and frankly, that's just probably not possible.
Speaker 1: So there's this stuff that like Carl is seeing that
Speaker 1: Doughnut has accumulated recharge wand scroll I understand the same
Speaker 1: with the tiara and the sheet music. But what's the
Speaker 1: stick for? And this I picked up the ball peen hammer.
Speaker 1: The whole thing fit in my hand. It had been
Speaker 1: given to Amani. She'd gotten to notice that Boran had
Speaker 1: filed a dangerous appeal to keep the gift from arriving,
Speaker 1: an appeal that had been immediately denied. Why give it
Speaker 1: to Donut? She can't even use it. What is she
Speaker 1: supposed to do? Hold it in her mouth? And what
Speaker 1: does the name mean? Enchanted hammer? A fast forward. This
Speaker 1: is a small hammer. It's enchanted. That means it's magical.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't do anything magical, which like, how is
Speaker 1: it enchanted but doesn't do anything magical? I don't know
Speaker 1: what that means. I like, how does that work? What?
Speaker 1: And he eventually he's like running his fingers over it,
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh shit, there's a number seven on
Speaker 1: the end of this. And I'll be honest, He jumps
Speaker 1: immediately in his mind to maybe this is supposed to
Speaker 1: mean floor seven, which, you know, considering what all they
Speaker 1: are in the midst of it makes sense that's what
Speaker 1: he would think of. But I will be honest, guys,
Speaker 1: what I immediately thought of as like assembly instructions. I
Speaker 1: was thinking about those, you know, pieces of furniture that
Speaker 1: poor people wind up having to assemble themselves, and there
Speaker 1: are little stickers on the parts that are like ABCD,
Speaker 1: et cetera, and then numbers or A one, A two,
Speaker 1: a three, and you have to get your little like
Speaker 1: very frustratingly vague instructions and assemble the thing using these
Speaker 1: numbers to connect each thing to each other, which might
Speaker 1: account for the fact that they are not able, that
Speaker 1: they like are enchanted but don't do anything. Perhaps it
Speaker 1: is that they are the sum of their parts but
Speaker 1: don't do anything on their own, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: And it's that they have to be connected to one
Speaker 1: another in order for something to actually get activated. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but I did want to mention that as
Speaker 1: a possibility, and it like it just a hammer doesn't
Speaker 1: seem as if it itself would be a part. It
Speaker 1: would be something to use to assemble stuff potentially, but
Speaker 1: then it being called fast forward that doesn't quite work then,
Speaker 1: you know, So I don't know. I just had a
Speaker 1: lot of thoughts going around in my head there, and
Speaker 1: he comes to the conclusion in the end because he's
Speaker 1: sort of wondering why somebody would just be sending all
Speaker 1: of this stuff to Donut, and he comes to the
Speaker 1: conclusion that it's because whoever is sending this stuff doesn't
Speaker 1: think anyone else is going to survive. He thinks that
Speaker 1: all of them believe she's the one that's going to
Speaker 1: remain standing. And then we get this little bit it's
Speaker 1: why Quasar wanted donuts name on the board of directors
Speaker 1: for our new corporation, and just sort of drops that
Speaker 1: in there like it's nothing, and I was like, excuse
Speaker 1: me for your what now, Like, you know, we didn't
Speaker 1: get any details on this. We have him and Carl meeting,
Speaker 1: and then the camera cuts away, so to speak, and
Speaker 1: so we don't get to see exactly what all happens there.
Speaker 1: So this just gets mentioned in this offhand way, and
Speaker 1: I was just sort of blinking in surprise. I don't know.
Speaker 1: There's a conversation later with the princess turned Empress Denaudia,
Speaker 1: who turns up as well, and Carl says something about
Speaker 1: how he has a newfound disdain for her or something
Speaker 1: like that, and I think that this has to be
Speaker 1: related to whatever was going on with them behind the
Speaker 1: scenes that we didn't get a chance to see yet,
Speaker 1: so we'll see. I'm just like very much sitting here
Speaker 1: waiting for a lot of things to be revealed. We've
Speaker 1: got even Carl says in this whole scene, like at
Speaker 1: the end with Mordecai, I don't like all these loose ends.
Speaker 1: I'm always spinning plates, but this feels like it's too much.
Speaker 1: Something is going to go wrong, and Mordecai helpfully just
Speaker 1: says always does, which you know, not exactly super encouraging, bro,
Speaker 1: But I also can't argue with you, so you know
Speaker 1: there's that, and like something will go wrong, of course,
Speaker 1: there's just things go wrong before they even really get started,
Speaker 1: because they are operating with whatever information they have, which
Speaker 1: is always incomplete. And this is the sort of thing
Speaker 1: that I always like find sort of paralyzing. I am
Speaker 1: somebody who really loves to have a plan, but I
Speaker 1: can when there are a lot of variables that I
Speaker 1: know are out of my control and I don't feel
Speaker 1: like I've got a good grasp on what's most likely
Speaker 1: to happen, my anxiety will like fully take over and
Speaker 1: I won't do anything because I'm just sitting there sort
Speaker 1: of panicking about well, who knows what could happen? And
Speaker 1: I feel like this is one of those things where
Speaker 1: they have all of these plans and all of these
Speaker 1: scenarios in place with like Plan D, E, and F.
Speaker 1: You know, within case things don't go the way that
Speaker 1: they expected them to go, but there is no possible
Speaker 1: way that you can cover every scenario. But you've also
Speaker 1: got to plan something. You've got to do something you
Speaker 1: know to a degree, and like keeping track of all
Speaker 1: of the different plans and how they're supposed to go
Speaker 1: versus how they're actually going. I don't know, guys, it's
Speaker 1: just an awful lot. It's just a bit overwhelming. I
Speaker 1: don't think I would be particularly great at this part.
Speaker 1: If I were working with all of them, I feel
Speaker 1: like I would be a wreck right now. I don't know.
Speaker 1: At the same time, I can have a weird sort
Speaker 1: of philosophical reaction where knowing that the results of something
Speaker 1: are out of my hands like gives me a sense
Speaker 1: of peace. I don't know. It's like a couple days ago,
Speaker 1: my husband and I found out we are currently paying
Speaker 1: just under six hundred dollars a month for health insurance
Speaker 1: through the market in the US the health care market,
Speaker 1: and we found out that our premium is going to
Speaker 1: triple to just over fifteen hundred dollars a month next
Speaker 1: year for the same plan, and my husband was understandably
Speaker 1: losing his actual shit, but I was weirdly calm, and
Speaker 1: I could see that he was sort of like a
Speaker 1: little irritated by the fact that I wasn't reacting as
Speaker 1: strongly as him, and I had to explain to him
Speaker 1: that it's not that I'm not worried, it's just that
Speaker 1: there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. So
Speaker 1: I am not having the kind of reaction I would
Speaker 1: when it's like we need to fill out a bunch
Speaker 1: of papers, we need to get in touch with a lawyer,
Speaker 1: we need to do this and that, where there's a
Speaker 1: big to do list and that feels kind of overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: There's none of that. We can't change this, there's not
Speaker 1: a thing we can do. And so to a point,
Speaker 1: I just didn't feel that panic on that level and
Speaker 1: was very much feeling, well, we'll figure it out. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe we won't have health insurance, I don't know, but
Speaker 1: whatever it is that we figure out, it's sure not
Speaker 1: going to be changing the price, because that's not something
Speaker 1: we can affect at all, you know. Oh, oh god,
Speaker 1: Michael in the chat, six hundred for two people is
Speaker 1: actually pretty decent, and then well that sucks. Yeah, six
Speaker 1: hundred dollars for two people, I would say is not
Speaker 1: decent at all. It's actually insane. It's not decent, And
Speaker 1: the fact that we would think it's decent is evidence
Speaker 1: of the fact that we as Americans are fucked up.
Speaker 1: It's bad, you know, Like, it's just very hilarious to
Speaker 1: me that we would rather this be the system than
Speaker 1: just be taxed for healthcare, Like you're spending so much
Speaker 1: more this way? Do you not fucking see that? No,
Speaker 1: they don't, because they're very dumb. Anyway, I digress again.
Speaker 1: So there's this moment too where what are the fucking bears?
Speaker 1: Is telling Ruby that she's going to hell? These bears
Speaker 1: just why did we save them? They suck? So we
Speaker 1: get then sixty four. The start of this is an
Speaker 1: entry that Carl references in the previous chapter, and it's
Speaker 1: a crawler who is having some misgivings about her sponsor,
Speaker 1: and then the sponsor Sensor's something that saves her life
Speaker 1: and her whole party's life, and she's feeling pretty good
Speaker 1: about it actually, and thinking maybe there are some decent
Speaker 1: people out there, and even feels like confident that, well,
Speaker 1: my sponsor is going to want to keep me alive
Speaker 1: because as long as I'm alive, their ads will still
Speaker 1: be aired. So I can take I can rely on that.
Speaker 1: And then I take it back. I take it all back.
Speaker 1: My sponsor was deliberately steering me not toward life, but
Speaker 1: a death that would be watched and remembered and ultimately
Speaker 1: heartrending and painful. I was a fool. Fuck you dictum
Speaker 1: Waystation Controls Limited, whatever that means. I hope your company
Speaker 1: and all your children die in pain. And this is
Speaker 1: followed up by somebody saying that she never gave us
Speaker 1: any details on what exactly happened, which is a shame,
Speaker 1: and that in the future, people who leave notes need
Speaker 1: to be as detailed as possible. And then we get
Speaker 1: Carl's entry, and he is being real fucking detailed. He
Speaker 1: is taking them at their word and being like, yeah, bet,
Speaker 1: I will give you every single little bit of the
Speaker 1: notes and what our plans are, and you know all
Speaker 1: of that, and you know this is of course meant
Speaker 1: to sort of get our uh like, increase the tension
Speaker 1: for us as readers, knowing that just because you're getting
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff that seems to be pointing towards
Speaker 1: a certain direction doesn't mean that that direction is to
Speaker 1: your benefit. But I also know that there is somebody
Speaker 1: who is interested in keeping Dona and Carl alive in
Speaker 1: the mix of sponsors. So I can trust to a
Speaker 1: degree that somebody involved genuinely wants to help them. It's
Speaker 1: just whether or not they are behind all of these
Speaker 1: other things that are all being directed toward Dona, Like
Speaker 1: what exactly could be going on there? And why would
Speaker 1: Burn want to stop it? At least stop one of
Speaker 1: the things the hammer of fast forward, I don't know.
Speaker 1: So solve the Tina quest number one, get her to
Speaker 1: dance on stage. I used to want to abandon this one,
Speaker 1: but I think we can use this to our advantage
Speaker 1: to kill Eva. If she's stupid enough to go to
Speaker 1: the party, we shouldn't waste the opportunity. Not something I
Speaker 1: really want to do, but how many more good people
Speaker 1: will she hurt? Three? Save the change things and get
Speaker 1: them to the next floor down four. We can only
Speaker 1: accomplish three if we get them into the castle, that
Speaker 1: won't be easy unless we first killed Queen image In
Speaker 1: and take the castle for ourselves. The fight will probably
Speaker 1: be forced on us, whether we like it or not.
Speaker 1: Five kill Lucymr. Again. I don't want to do this,
Speaker 1: but she's too dangerous. Six. I made a promise at
Speaker 1: the end of the last floor, and I intend on
Speaker 1: keeping it. We are going to make certain not a
Speaker 1: solitary single hunter gets off this floor alive. Once you
Speaker 1: see this, sign your name so I know I can
Speaker 1: erase it and we can move on to the planning.
Speaker 1: And it's the signatures of everybody. With occasional commentary, La
Speaker 1: just says Jesus Christ. Car, you are going to get
Speaker 1: us all killed. Donut. I hate this paper thing, Carl,
Speaker 1: GC BWR and W Princess. Don't at the queen an chunk.
Speaker 1: I am claiming Lucmr for myself. If someone attempts to
Speaker 1: stop me, we will have a problem. Florin which Florin, buddy,
Speaker 1: you can claim her all you want, but if the
Speaker 1: situation doesn't work out that way, you had better be
Speaker 1: able to adapt. I don't think he is. I don't
Speaker 1: think he's able to adapt. He's not okay. Nobody has
Speaker 1: tried to convince me not to go down the stairs.
Speaker 1: I think we should. Louis same, Firas le na, I
Speaker 1: have my own method of speaking with my team. I
Speaker 1: will keep them updated. Also, I agree with Ellie who
Speaker 1: said you're gonna get us killed. Daniel Batista says, I'll
Speaker 1: do whatever I can, and Chris just signs his name.
Speaker 1: So we get to see like everybody who's really on
Speaker 1: the inside of this whole plan. And it's interesting to
Speaker 1: me that Brittany is not one of these people, which
Speaker 1: leads me to believe that she isn't like I won't
Speaker 1: say that she's not instrumental, but she certainly isn't probably
Speaker 1: in the inner circle in terms of understanding the full
Speaker 1: scope of the plan is what I'm getting from this,
Speaker 1: But I don't know what Firas would tell her. It's
Speaker 1: possible that because of his involvement, she's getting everything anyway,
Speaker 1: I don't know. So we have the like meet up
Speaker 1: with this elf who is their sort of liaison explaining
Speaker 1: how everything is going to go. And his name is Theobald,
Speaker 1: and he's talking about, like, you know, just the timing
Speaker 1: of things and what they'll have access to and he says,
Speaker 1: the Queen will not attend either performance. It's crucial we
Speaker 1: keep to the timeline, and Carl clearly had expected her
Speaker 1: to be at the performance, so he's sort of thrown
Speaker 1: immediately regarding that. And no weapons will be brandished in
Speaker 1: the ballroom. Normal magic of any kind be tolerated. You
Speaker 1: may cast limited magic or brandish weapons on stage if
Speaker 1: it is crucial to your act, but you will not
Speaker 1: be allowed to physically interact with anyone not on stage
Speaker 1: with you. Those of you with magical storage not be
Speaker 1: able to access it within the ballroom. You enter the
Speaker 1: ballroom and you are deemed to be in compliance with
Speaker 1: all the rules. You will officially be under the formal
Speaker 1: protection of the Queen of all that is, and the
Speaker 1: Queen of all that will be the one and only
Speaker 1: true blood, her Majesty on High Queen Image and of
Speaker 1: the Highalves. And Carl tries to get information on him
Speaker 1: about what the Queen's protection means, and I won't go
Speaker 1: through this whole back and forth, but suffice to say
Speaker 1: he gets a more detailed explanation from Image in herself
Speaker 1: fairly shortly. And this is just the first time that
Speaker 1: the Goddess of Pito is mentioned, and you know, Carl
Speaker 1: begins to understand that this whole thing is working on
Speaker 1: a scale that he wasn't really prepared for. And I
Speaker 1: forgot about this whole thing with Donut arguing with Tina
Speaker 1: in the background, because Tina just keeps on trying to
Speaker 1: eat people, and Donah is a tempt to insist that
Speaker 1: Tina is like well trained, but you know, when the
Speaker 1: bitch keeps on trying to decapitate folks, it's not really
Speaker 1: very convincing argument. So Carl also he sort of attempts
Speaker 1: to like ingratiate himself with Theobold by suggesting, I have
Speaker 1: all kinds of difficulties with my cat, Dona. I bet
Speaker 1: you have the same thing with your cat the Night.
Speaker 1: And Theobold is just like, he's not really a night.
Speaker 1: He's just a fucking creature. And that's part of his name.
Speaker 1: It's not a real title that means anything, which apparently
Speaker 1: is like a thing for his race. And you know,
Speaker 1: he tries to insinuate a little bit of doubt into it, like,
Speaker 1: you can't I'd watch him if I were you. You
Speaker 1: can't ever trust cats. And then I have a whole
Speaker 1: stat of these hands I got from killing hunters. They
Speaker 1: said there'd be a prize counter. Do I need to
Speaker 1: take them from my inventory ahead of time? No needs, sir.
Speaker 1: The award table attendant will be able to extricate the
Speaker 1: items from you, And we don't get to see anything
Speaker 1: about that in this section. I'm very, very curious about
Speaker 1: what the rewards are, like, really dying to know. So
Speaker 1: this is when he is sitting with Brittany trying to
Speaker 1: calm her down. We get this little bit with surrenderl Gore.
Speaker 1: Everybody is calling her Wren because no one can pronounce
Speaker 1: her name. I don't think surrendal Gore is that hard
Speaker 1: to say once you get it. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: the narrator always makes sure to sort of stumble over
Speaker 1: it when he says it, which at first I was
Speaker 1: sort of puzzled by, and then I began to understand
Speaker 1: that it was like part of the bit. She has
Speaker 1: a pet herself that she got from attending the con,
Speaker 1: called a tummy acre named Garrett, and he's like giant
Speaker 1: with and round, with stubby legs and a single tooth
Speaker 1: and is weirdly adorable. And evidently there is like the
Speaker 1: potential for it and Tina to clash pretty spectacularly, So
Speaker 1: look at there in a second. But he also has
Speaker 1: a changeling in the cart that is meant to look
Speaker 1: like Signet, as if he were attempting to smuggle Signet
Speaker 1: into the party with him. And this is in an
Speaker 1: effort to attract Imagen's attention, because they are trying to
Speaker 1: draw her out, and I think it's a combination of
Speaker 1: hoping that they can get information from her and also
Speaker 1: to figure out who is going to be playing Imagen,
Speaker 1: because everybody knows that it's likely the showrunners are going
Speaker 1: to make it somebody they all know since it had
Speaker 1: been going to be be and they just can't do that. Now,
Speaker 1: who will it be? And it turns out that it
Speaker 1: is the twins sister of Effeci, Floren's girlfriend who died,
Speaker 1: and so it's not actually that they used Effeci, it's
Speaker 1: her twin. But it's like in effect going to probably
Speaker 1: have the same effect on Florin regardless, you know. And
Speaker 1: he says something about how the vibe coming off her
Speaker 1: is like this contained rage and that there's a sense
Speaker 1: of her being drugged out of her mind, and I
Speaker 1: was sort of wondering if her twin was actually alive,
Speaker 1: if it were like the same situation as b where
Speaker 1: she was captured and they are forcing her to play
Speaker 1: this role but controlling her in some way way, versus
Speaker 1: reanimating her corpse, which is what it seemed like they
Speaker 1: had done with some of the others. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm curious, Michael says. I'm curious as to
Speaker 1: when Slash how Karl replaced his ink that Louis spilled.
Speaker 1: I don't remember if it was mentioned. I am so
Speaker 1: glad you say that, Michael, because I have the same
Speaker 1: thought while I was reading it, and I just let
Speaker 1: it go. I was like, oh, I guess it was
Speaker 1: just you know, but I definitely also had a moment
Speaker 1: of going, huh. I thought he ran out of ink
Speaker 1: and that that ink was kind of hard to find.
Speaker 1: I guess he just must have found more, you know,
Speaker 1: Michael says, Jeff Hayes really sells the snooty disdain from
Speaker 1: the Footman. It's funny because like, this is actually one
Speaker 1: of the few times where I felt like I didn't
Speaker 1: love the voice that he picked. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's like a like just a result of going really
Speaker 1: hard with the distinct quality of the voice he chose.
Speaker 1: But I found it a little irritating, and not in
Speaker 1: a way that it's like, oh, this character is so irritating.
Speaker 1: I don't know. He kind of does this throughout this section,
Speaker 1: like with the other elves that are in the ballroom
Speaker 1: making announcements, he gives them this really bizarre cadence and
Speaker 1: this like throat clearing or something that precedes the lines.
Speaker 1: That's a sort of vocal tick. And I was really
Speaker 1: sort of like, I don't know if this is working
Speaker 1: for me, but I can't. I don't know, I'm undecided.
Speaker 1: Jeff says, I really don't love the it's hard to
Speaker 1: pronounce Asian names bit. Yeah, it's just a weird choice.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if it's like gonna be something
Speaker 1: that's like internally addressed or what. But yeah, I agree,
Speaker 1: Jeff Michael says, haven't you ever been to a chuck
Speaker 1: e cheese, Chinese finger traps, whistles, maybe a pair of socks,
Speaker 1: a few pencils. Yeah, this is exactly what I was saying.
Speaker 1: Last episode was like, are the prize is all going
Speaker 1: to be garbage? Single starbursts? All the dishes. Oh right,
Speaker 1: right right, miss Tea for the prizes and Sarah fem
Speaker 1: I think it was just the magic ink that let
Speaker 1: him write on the paper remotely. But they can still
Speaker 1: just use regular ink if they are in the bathroom.
Speaker 1: Oh is that true? I thought that they that he
Speaker 1: needed the other ink specifically. I don't remember, but doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter, Okay. I'm seeing in the kindle version
Speaker 1: of this book as well. The map is in this
Speaker 1: kindle version, so I don't know if this is what
Speaker 1: our zoo had shared in the discord. But yeah, if
Speaker 1: you are only listening to the audio book, then you
Speaker 1: won't get the effect of this. And I don't know
Speaker 1: how much this really helps, you know, Like I'm looking
Speaker 1: at it, and it's information, surely, but I don't really
Speaker 1: have enough like understanding of a lot of the plan
Speaker 1: to do much with this yet. So it might be
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that I refer to. But I'm
Speaker 1: just going to go ahead and bookmarket in the kindle
Speaker 1: in case I need to go back to it. So
Speaker 1: we get the description of the control of the ballrooms
Speaker 1: and how this all works from Carl's note that's left
Speaker 1: on the inside of the bathroom, and he's explaining what
Speaker 1: the restrictions are going to be regarding weapons, and that
Speaker 1: certain things are going to actually be in the room
Speaker 1: with them and other things are not going to be.
Speaker 1: And then we jump back to the present and Queen
Speaker 1: Imagen and basically what the AI says about her is
Speaker 1: that here is a villain with no redeeming qualities. She's
Speaker 1: not somebody that has a redemption arc. That's not what
Speaker 1: we're doing. She is just power hungry and that is it.
Speaker 1: And Donut says, I just got my plus one token back.
Speaker 1: I don't know why, because Britney got in the top fifty.
Speaker 1: She was fifty eight a few hours ago, and it
Speaker 1: seems like based on the views that they are getting,
Speaker 1: so she's going to get to go, which actually saves
Speaker 1: her life because it looks like Queen Imogen had been
Speaker 1: going to kill her just to make an example of her,
Speaker 1: or at least hurt her quite badly, which the fact
Speaker 1: that she's like would even have been allowed to do
Speaker 1: that as bonkers, but you know whatever. So Carl is
Speaker 1: looking at her and she's done up with a lot
Speaker 1: of gold, and he just thinks about how the first
Speaker 1: time he saw Effecchi. He had thought that she was
Speaker 1: maybe a guy, and then is looking at her twin
Speaker 1: all done up and is just like Jesus, but she's gorgeous,
Speaker 1: and is a little puzzled at the fact that, like
Speaker 1: there's this blood purity thing going on with the elves
Speaker 1: who are all white, but she's black, and how that
Speaker 1: doesn't really seem to go with the purity shtick, but
Speaker 1: nobody seems to care about it. And then we have
Speaker 1: him like thinking about Floren's reaction, and he messages Katya
Speaker 1: and says, get him down the stairs, and I was
Speaker 1: just like, oh, yeah, sure that's gonna happen, and she
Speaker 1: immediately sends back, there's no way that's going to happen.
Speaker 1: I was like yeah, And he messages Floren and says,
Speaker 1: you know the rule that we all agreed to if
Speaker 1: Imagen took the form of one of our loved ones,
Speaker 1: the intended target goes down the stairs, and Florence says,
Speaker 1: go fuck yourself, Carl, I don't see your cat going
Speaker 1: down the stairs. Now back off. I'm fine. And you know,
Speaker 1: as much as if you all agreed to a thing
Speaker 1: and you immediately back out of it, I am side
Speaker 1: eyeing you. I can't help but agree with Florin being like, well,
Speaker 1: then send Donut down since Ferdinand's going to be there, Like,
Speaker 1: he's not wrong if this is going to be the rule,
Speaker 1: you know, like either you think people can handle it
Speaker 1: or they can't, And why does Donut get a pass? Like,
Speaker 1: I do not think that this is good for the record.
Speaker 1: I think that Floren is going to probably do something
Speaker 1: very stupid, but I can't fault his logic here. And
Speaker 1: I understand what Carl like is feeling, and he's right
Speaker 1: to feel it, but he just, you know, the idea
Speaker 1: that he could get Florin to just yeah, no, never
Speaker 1: gonna happen. Absolutely not. Sorry, Michael says, to be fair,
Speaker 1: Carl did try to go down with Donut when he
Speaker 1: found out about He wanted to go down just like Frankly,
Speaker 1: he says, it's about protecting Donut. Like I think that
Speaker 1: he believes that. But Karl is also a control freak
Speaker 1: to a degree, and you know, he could have made
Speaker 1: her if he really felt it, but he didn't because
Speaker 1: in the end he believes that she can handle it
Speaker 1: because of the way that she responded when she came
Speaker 1: back to her consciousness. So if he's making an exception
Speaker 1: for her, then that's just sort of it, you know. Like,
Speaker 1: so he has this weird conversation with Imagen where she says, like,
Speaker 1: the whole point of this party is that everyone will
Speaker 1: be under my protection, and if you suggest that people
Speaker 1: won't be safe, it's actually insulting. And she says, do
Speaker 1: you know why it's named such the Butcher's Masquerade? We
Speaker 1: do not wear masks, yet it is a masquerade. And
Speaker 1: I was laughing because when I was listening and she says,
Speaker 1: do you know why it's named such the butcher's Masquerade?
Speaker 1: I was like, Yeah, what is the deal with the butcher?
Speaker 1: And then she's like addressing the masquerade part and not
Speaker 1: the butcher part, and I'm like, the masquerade part is
Speaker 1: not the part that I give a shit about, Lady,
Speaker 1: that's not, you know. But anyway, she explains this like
Speaker 1: sort of mythology behind it. Taranus and his wife a Pito,
Speaker 1: the blessed Oak Mother, put the party on for all
Speaker 1: their children, and it was meant to be a night
Speaker 1: of respite with no violence. And you know, the idea
Speaker 1: is that the masquerade is the smiles that we put
Speaker 1: upon our faces, and of course eventually somebody got fucked
Speaker 1: up and tried to rape somebody, and because he disrupted
Speaker 1: the piece, he banished to the nothing. Taran is angry
Speaker 1: with his wife for exiling his child. Rage fights broke out.
Speaker 1: All the attending mortals and demigods were slaughtered, leaving a
Speaker 1: Pito in tears. After the party became a ritual, a
Speaker 1: holy sacrament, a rite of reflection and of nonviolence, of
Speaker 1: us striving to meet the goal of a Pito, the
Speaker 1: most perfect of mothers, who wants nothing more than for
Speaker 1: all of us to get along, which I would just
Speaker 1: point out. I understand that it's probably the fact that
Speaker 1: everybody died and that's the butcher part, but it still
Speaker 1: doesn't really like explicitly explain that. And I feel like,
Speaker 1: if we're not wanting everybody to kill each other, probably
Speaker 1: we should change the name. So, in my opinion, this
Speaker 1: name is still inadequately explained, and I don't care for
Speaker 1: it overall. So the whole thing is that a spell
Speaker 1: is cast for this party to happen. It's not she's
Speaker 1: just throwing a part the way that you would be like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's Christmas time and we're having a Christmas party because
Speaker 1: it's the time of year to have it. She gets
Speaker 1: granted the right to cast the spell because she is
Speaker 1: almost divine and she can cast it once in her life.
Speaker 1: Once cast, the ritual begins, the guest list forms, and
Speaker 1: we have the party. It's one of a pedo's holiest sacraments.
Speaker 1: The guest list comes from the Goddess herself, and we
Speaker 1: are not to harm the attendants before the party unless
Speaker 1: they attempt to harm us first, which is why I
Speaker 1: am here right now talking to you instead of having
Speaker 1: my soldiers fertilize the forest with your entrails. And this
Speaker 1: is when he brings up Ferdinand trying to kill Dona
Speaker 1: and is like that wasn't self defense, and she is
Speaker 1: like he has been chasened, and Carl's like, yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: you can't fucking chase in a cap But whatever, We
Speaker 1: prepare the evening just as a pito tirelessly prepared. We
Speaker 1: offer the same refreshments, the same opportunity to showcase one's
Speaker 1: talents and familiars, and if the party properly finishes without violence,
Speaker 1: a pito grants a boon and she is just like,
Speaker 1: you're not going to fuck that up for me. I
Speaker 1: want the boon. That's the whole thing. The guest list
Speaker 1: is deliberately chosen by the goddess, goddess to so discord
Speaker 1: amongst everyone involved. So she's like trying to fuck with
Speaker 1: you allegedly. You know, obviously we know that there's no
Speaker 1: goddess and that this is the whole just organized thing.
Speaker 1: But nevertheless, and she's like, I can't harm you, and
Speaker 1: I can't stop you from coming to the party, but
Speaker 1: I know you're plotting something, and the second that you
Speaker 1: make a move on that, I will send you into
Speaker 1: the nothing. And if anything else goes wrong, you're the
Speaker 1: one I'm going to look at as being responsible for it.
Speaker 1: Like just you know, it's really kind of unfortunate that
Speaker 1: he's in this position because he decides, like the new
Speaker 1: plan is that we're not going to try anything and
Speaker 1: we're just going to party, but like, if somebody else
Speaker 1: tries something, it seems that you are going to bear
Speaker 1: the brunt of it anyway. So she threatens him with
Speaker 1: this and then disappears, and then we go to chapter
Speaker 1: sixty six, which starts with Karl explaining to everybody that
Speaker 1: they need to check out the map and get accustomed
Speaker 1: to it, because even though the place is like perfectly
Speaker 1: cubed cube shaped, which makes it seem like everything inside
Speaker 1: will be laid out in a pattern that will be
Speaker 1: easy to navigate, that is not actually the case, and
Speaker 1: that it's very confusing inside and it's sort of labyrinthine
Speaker 1: and they are going to have to be able to
Speaker 1: keep their bearings and all of this like information again
Speaker 1: about the what you're actually touching and accessing and what
Speaker 1: you're not and who's actually in the room and who isn't.
Speaker 1: I won't get into all of this, like because I
Speaker 1: feel like it's the sort of thing that will touch
Speaker 1: on as it comes up with the plot. But it's
Speaker 1: definitely like interesting to think about this as all of
Speaker 1: these layers working together to create a complete picture somewhere
Speaker 1: else just a weird concept, you know, that I really
Speaker 1: rather like. But this is the part where Louis says
Speaker 1: I'm getting iron Tangle flashbacks and Carl says it's not
Speaker 1: that bad. All you need to know as we'll be
Speaker 1: in ballroom A, the hunters will be in B, the
Speaker 1: Queen will be in her own and there'll be a
Speaker 1: color code system letting you know what items you can touch.
Speaker 1: So then Carl gets in touch with everybody and is like,
Speaker 1: new plan. We can't start shit, so we're gonna do
Speaker 1: everything that we were going to outside the party, but
Speaker 1: while we're in we just have to behave ourselves. And
Speaker 1: this is when Brittany is like, should I take this
Speaker 1: jacket off? And he says no, but don't set it
Speaker 1: off prematurely. So again I don't know what the fuck
Speaker 1: it does, like is it a bomb? Is it just
Speaker 1: like a sort of distraction? Is it? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Jeff says, are the group separated so
Speaker 1: all the Crawler hunter nonsense doesn't screw up the TV show?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what you mean, Jeff. They are on
Speaker 1: different floors, the Hunters and the Crawlers, so that they
Speaker 1: aren't able to actually like be in contact with each other.
Speaker 1: Michael says, if Draka ever read Carl's notes, they might
Speaker 1: have changed their tune about be as detailed as possible.
Speaker 1: It did. I was thinking that to Michael of like,
Speaker 1: are they gonna are people going to want? But I
Speaker 1: think it were I somebody reading this after the fact,
Speaker 1: I would appreciate all this detail. I would really want
Speaker 1: to know but uh, that's just how I operate. If
Speaker 1: I'm trying to like make a plan, I want as
Speaker 1: much information as I can get. So so we get
Speaker 1: to the actual castle, and uh, he is realizing that
Speaker 1: the place like it looks like it's just cement or something,
Speaker 1: but when he gets inside, it seems to be made
Speaker 1: of one single piece of wood that's been like carved out,
Speaker 1: which is a really cool idea. And uh, this is
Speaker 1: when he's like talking about how Zev wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure he didn't actually try and smuggle Signet in because
Speaker 1: it would lead to all kinds of problems, and he's
Speaker 1: he was like, yeah, I was never planning on doing that.
Speaker 1: But the changelingk who has been clocked as Signet, is
Speaker 1: told to get the fuck out, and when she tries
Speaker 1: to be like, but the brambles, they're like, not my problem.
Speaker 1: Maybe you shouldn't have tried to sneak in. Then this
Speaker 1: is when Donut starts to get mad about the fact
Speaker 1: that the uh show animals are going to be caged,
Speaker 1: and one of the elves, who is a level high
Speaker 1: level fifty high elf Stablemancer rolls up and says, all
Speaker 1: the animals are going in cages. We won't want we
Speaker 1: don't want them hurting each other that belly acre. He'll
Speaker 1: swallow one of your Mongolians as whole given half the chance.
Speaker 1: And your Alisaurus is still a juvenile, which means you
Speaker 1: can't control her too well. So he knows what he's
Speaker 1: talking about. But she still wants to argue. Of course
Speaker 1: she does, and she is like messaging Carl that her
Speaker 1: charm upgrade isn't working, and Carl says, yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't talk to us at all if it weren't
Speaker 1: for that. It's just not doing as much as it
Speaker 1: normally would do, which he does regret. But you know,
Speaker 1: she's behaving as if it's simply like failing, and he says, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's We're lucky to have it, just to get this far.
Speaker 1: So they go into the building and they get the
Speaker 1: notifications about being peace bonded, being muted with magic, that
Speaker 1: the whole place is under protection, YadA, YadA, YadA, and
Speaker 1: they get searched as they come in, sent into a
Speaker 1: kind of like locker room, and then they are searched
Speaker 1: after quote changing into something for the party, even though
Speaker 1: none of them actually change into anything. Everybody is wearing
Speaker 1: the shit that they always wear, because why would you
Speaker 1: not keep all of the stuff that gives you like
Speaker 1: a magical edge in a situation like this, of course
Speaker 1: you wouldn't change into something else. Like I am somebody
Speaker 1: who would love the excuse to get in like dressed
Speaker 1: up at any point, and I wouldn't even do that.
Speaker 1: I'm not that insane. So they go into the ballroom
Speaker 1: and it is enormous and just really really impressive, and
Speaker 1: there's like this huge stage that's very elaborate and done
Speaker 1: up with like you know, there's a sense of luxury
Speaker 1: to everything. A buffet was in the process of being
Speaker 1: erected in one corner. Sure enough, the trays of food
Speaker 1: on one of the buffet lines were marked gold and
Speaker 1: the others were marked black, so that the gold is
Speaker 1: the stuff that you can actually touch. I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: this is like, can you stuff your pockets with food
Speaker 1: and leave the party with all of this stuff? Is that?
Speaker 1: Does do these treats give you any sort of buff
Speaker 1: Like I'm gonna be very curious about all of the details. Here,
Speaker 1: four pillars led upward to a large domed ceiling covered
Speaker 1: with a massive moving mosaic The artwork featured a glittering
Speaker 1: black and gold cave dotted with sparkling crystals, like the
Speaker 1: anterior of a golden geode. Curled up in the midst
Speaker 1: of this was a black centipede whose form continued to
Speaker 1: twist like one of those spirals one used to hypnotize someone.
Speaker 1: This is a depiction of Scolopendra. She's dreaming. It's said
Speaker 1: when she finally awakens, she will destroy everything and free
Speaker 1: us all. So if it's a depiction, I'm assuming that
Speaker 1: she's not here and can't do anything. But like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, what do I know? And we find out
Speaker 1: that the guy who's working the prize counter is Choco,
Speaker 1: the one that has the beef with Mordecai. So I
Speaker 1: don't know if Mordecai comes to this event, does he?
Speaker 1: So that'll be interesting. But uh, Mordecai, you've made bad
Speaker 1: moves are e this man before? Don't do it again.
Speaker 1: This is when Princess Donadia turns up and we find
Speaker 1: out that she is actually Empress Donadia, and she chats
Speaker 1: with Carl and says, your attorney and that new corporation
Speaker 1: of yours almost ruined my buy in bid, and he says,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry about that. If I had known it was you,
Speaker 1: I would have had Donut send you a message. But this,
Speaker 1: like the way that he talks about I was laying
Speaker 1: it on thick, trying my best not to let my
Speaker 1: newfound utter contempt for her show. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's that the contempt had developed when he heard
Speaker 1: about the buy in bit, or if it's now that
Speaker 1: this is happening. But there's something going on here that
Speaker 1: evidently has changed his feelings towards her, But it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to have affected the way Donut reacts to her,
Speaker 1: unless Donuts just playing it really convincingly, which I suppose
Speaker 1: is possible. But it may be that whatever the implications
Speaker 1: are of what she did, Doughnut doesn't fully understand them.
Speaker 1: But I can't say it because I don't know what
Speaker 1: she did. So and this is when Vra enters no
Speaker 1: longer with her crosh on fire and she sees Donut
Speaker 1: or she sees Karl and just immediately heads toward them.
Speaker 1: And then Carl is messaging Beamo and Sledge and tells
Speaker 1: them it's time. Sledge, tell the change things. Get their
Speaker 1: asses moving. Brittany, do your thing, and Empress Donadia looks
Speaker 1: at Vat and says, I'm looking forward to this, and
Speaker 1: that is the end of the chapter. Really left me hanging. Kids.
Speaker 1: I was extremely I just really wanted to keep reading.
Speaker 1: It's all. This is the fourth to last episode of
Speaker 1: coverage of this book, so there's three more episodes and
Speaker 1: then we start Eye of the Bedlam Bride, so we're
Speaker 1: not as close to the end as I was sort
Speaker 1: of expecting. I kind of expected the next episode to
Speaker 1: be the penultimate, but not even so, I'm very interested.
Speaker 1: We've got a lot left to get through. Seraphim says, No,
Speaker 1: that is such a minor thing that the actual Crawl
Speaker 1: runners wouldn't set up things this elaborate just for it. Sorry, Seraphim,
Speaker 1: I don't remember what you're referring to at this point, says,
Speaker 1: but is an image and from that story, Oh, I
Speaker 1: think Seraphim's replying to Jeff's question about the groups and
Speaker 1: their relationship with Vengeance of the Daughter, got it, got it?
Speaker 1: Got it? Michael says, big break over Christmas and New Year's. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it would have been cool if the break coincided with
Speaker 1: finishing the book. It happens, and you know, It's kind
Speaker 1: of good that we're not as far to the end
Speaker 1: of the book, because if it were like the penultimate
Speaker 1: episode today and then I had to wait two weeks
Speaker 1: before I got to read anymore, I'd be super sad.
Speaker 1: But it's fine. We're gonna we'll have a good number
Speaker 1: of episodes and I may even go back and re
Speaker 1: listen to this section in addition to the next section.
Speaker 1: Get my feet under me a little bit better. So yeah,
Speaker 1: the time will pass like that, Guys. I always do this.
Speaker 1: I see a big break, I get real sad, and
Speaker 1: then the break is over and I'm like, why was
Speaker 1: I so worried? It feels like it was two days ago.
Speaker 1: So anyway, Okay, I have to wrap, But thank you
Speaker 1: guys again so much for hanging out with me, for listening,
Speaker 1: and to Jackie for commissioning this episode. Appreciates you very
Speaker 1: very much. And until next time, which will be just
Speaker 1: to give everybody a heads up. December sixteenth. December sixteenth
Speaker 1: and eighteenth, So a little bit of a gap there,
Speaker 1: but I don't think that's even like. We've got sixteenth
Speaker 1: and eighteenth and then, oh I spoke too soon. I
Speaker 1: spoke too soon. December sixteenth and eighteenth are two more episodes,
Speaker 1: and then which eighteenth is the penultimate, and then there
Speaker 1: is a big break until January sixth for the final section.
Speaker 1: So the very thing that I was like, oh, that
Speaker 1: would have sucked is what's happening. Oh well, it happens, man,
Speaker 1: It just it happens. You know, what can you do?
Speaker 1: But uh, so be it. It's fine, we'll get through
Speaker 1: it together. Friends. It'll be just as painful for y'all
Speaker 1: as for me. Probably uh probably not. Did balloon Motherfuckers?
Speaker 1: That was an unspoiled network podcast