Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
covering Dungeon Crawler Carl, Book four, Date of the Feral Gods,
chapters thirty four and epilogue. In these chapters, there's a
whole bunch of shit with Carl, but let's all be
very real. The epilogue is the most interesting part. I
am very excited to be getting some alien puvs just
a little, just a taste and bees alive. Welcome to
spoil Me, Welcome to the show everyone. I am Natasha.
Thank you very much to Michael for commissioning this episode.
Michael just left a big chunk of text in the
chat and then wrote sorry for the essay. He says,
I didn't want to mention it at the time, but
back when you were wondering about Donut asking Zev if
she should name the doll Charlie or Ivy, it was
actually Donut probing Zev to see if she was still
Zev via a gossip. Oh, I knew. I understood that
was what she was doing. But then in one of
the middle seasons, a new character showed up named Charlie.
At the end of the season, it was revealed she
was actually a girl named Ivy who was hired to
pose as Charlie as a scam. So Zev was telling
Donut she was still Zev pretending to be someone else. Ah, Okay,
I love it. I love it because I understood what
Donut was trying to do in terms of just being like,
are you still in there? Zeb, But I didn't know
that that specific reference was a story about identity in
that way. So it's great. It turns out whatever they
did to Zev, it didn't take, and Zev's still doing
her a thing, and as we see a little bit later,
she's really trying to frame it as like I'm scolding
you right now, bad job that you did, carl and
is managing to squeeze in a lot of information. It's
really smart and I'm delighted with her. Michael says, all
these references make me wonder how much media Matt has watched,
and it also concerns me that I catch a lot
of them and what that says about my media habits. Listen,
this is the thing about pop culture in general is
sometimes there's things you can't help but like absorb, and
then there's just you know, being around people like it
may be the sort of thing where Matt isn't a
huge gossip girlfriend, but he was dating somebody who was
and they were watching. You know, like I've absorbed some
things about X Men because I'm just around a massive
X Men fan all the time. And not to say
that dudes don't like Gossip Girl, because there's a whole
podcast of dudes covering Gossip Girl. And also one of
Marshall's best friends, Chase, Gossip Girl is like his favorite show,
so it's absolutely something that appeals to do this as well.
But I'm just saying sometimes it's just, you know, the
friendships that you have, you wind up seeing and being
around stuff more than you would otherwise as well. But
we just a lot of our lives in the modern day,
like it or not, a lot of our lives are
spent consuming media. And that's just you know, something that like,
we have the media to consume, and some of them
sometimes it's great, and sometimes I think it can be
a bit of a problem, but it is what it is.
And I like the the whole thing with Charlie and
Ivy and one posing and then admitting who they really are.
I was like getting confused because I haven't seen Gossip Girl.
I watched like one episode and it just wasn't for me.
But I remembered you guys talking about how there was
like a plot line where they introduced a character that
pretty much everybody fucking hated, and so I was thinking
that it was that plot line that she was referencing,
and I didn't see any significance in that. But that
was the only thing that I came up with. Sarahm
Bad Crawler. Why just think how much worse it would
be if you did X y Z, So don't do it.
Wink wink zeb Did you just type out wink wink. Yeah,
that's like kind of what it does come down to
in this section. It's very it's very great. I ah,
you guys not to bring it down, but I do
want to say that we are in a place right
now in the United States as a country where people
feel worried about actually posting their opinions about certain stuff
on social media, and like there are gonna be people
out there that were like, oh, it was always dangerous
to do that. People got dockxed all the time. It
was always dangerous to just say racist shit because then
people would get in touch with your job and be like, hey,
did you know what racist works for you? But now
if people are just like I'm not that sad that
Charlie Kirk is dead all of a sudden, that you know,
that can be reported and they will get fired. And
that's a very different thing of like you are not
performing grief at the level I think you should. That
is not the same thing as I actively hate an
entire segment of the population. And it's resulted in this
like awful thing happening where even Rashaan, you know, she
works for a bank, and it's the kind of setting
where this sort of thing is taken seriously. And so
not only does she not feel free to post things
on her socials even though all of them are set
to private, she is starting to get worried about saying
certain things on the podcast as well, Like she's starting
to get worried about her name being out there connected
to the podcast at all, and like is like looking
back at ten years ago and kind of wishing that
she had chosen a different name to go by so
that she could feel a little bit more free to
state her opinion. And what a fucking shame, man. You know,
the idea that like these sorts of penalties. You it's
just bonkers. Sorry, I'm just seeing Michael. Did you not
see how hot Blake Lively and Leyton Measter and Chase
Crawford and Penn Oh you know what, Michael, I'm so wrong.
You guys are talking about Gossip Girl. I just realized
I completely forgot. I'm getting this mixed up with Gilmore Girls.
That's the one that I watched an episode and it
wasn't for me. I've watched all of Gossip Girl. I
lie to you, I don't remember the Charlie Ivy thing though,
I will be honest, I remember very little of that show.
I enjoyed it a lot while I was watching it
because like the fashion and you know, obviously, but so apologies, Uh,
I take it all back. I enjoyed Gossip Girl at
a great deal. Brett in the comments says, those are
different shows. Yes, Gossip Girl is about extremely wealthy people
living in New York and going to high school with
these like class issues between them, and then Gossip Girl. No,
Gilmore Girls is about allegedly middle class people and it's
a mom and her daughter and their relationship and they
live in the suburbs. From what I understand. So yeah, anyway,
I really need to get it together, guys. So let's
talk about the first and like, the first installment on
chapter thirty four is from Crawler Porthos and he is
basically saying, this book came to me full of a
lot of kind of low key useless information, and I'm
going to add info. But I just wonder how long
it's gonna take for this to develop into something, this
book to become something that will be actually be useful
to people. And I think that's a fair question. That's
the difficult thing that I keep referencing how fighting against
injustice is a kind of job that you often don't
get to see the results of it, like in your
own lifetime, and so you just have to trust that
what you are doing is going to help somebody eventually,
it's going to matter at some point, but in the
moment it may feel very futile, and like, for all
you know, it may be futile. This is not meant
to be discouraging. It's just you've got to do what
you can, regardless of the projected success of it. You've
got to do it because it's simply the right thing
to do. And that's just it's really hard. We try
and act like it's sort of not it is, though
it's very hard. So this I'm gonna kind of low
key go through this whole thing with the gods like
really quickly, because there's other stuff that I want to
get to that I find a lot more interesting. I'm
gonna be real with you, guys, the whole thing with
the gods is like, low key my least favorite part
of the story so far. It's not exactly that it's
like not interesting at all. It's more that the scale
of it is so enormous and it's so like difficult
to have any like major effect on that it's hard
for me to completely relate to it and connect with it. It's
just too big, you know. And so there's like a
whole segment in here where he pulls some math's head
out into the world, which her presence will generate another God,
and everybody's like, what are you doing? And this is
the solution is that by doing that and drawing another god,
it's getting rid of the first one that showed up, which,
like again it just feels like this is like it's
not a Carl didn't affect anything because literally he's the
one that summoned another god. But like it's just getting
the god here and then they do everything, and it
doesn't really feel like much to me, you know what
I'm saying. The only thing that I thought was interesting
was the attachment for the chist Era that he gets,
and it's apparently an emergency platinum box, which later on,
Mordecai says that the amount they probably paid for that
is insane, that it's more than like the GDP of
some systems, and can't even wrap his head around it.
And Carl is feeling kind of sad about it because
he thinks that this is coming from people who are
hoping he's going to do the right thing that he
has been saying very loudly to everybody he's about to
do when he has a different plan in mind. And
so he feels kind of like these folks maybe kind
of put it all on the line to help me
because they are under the wrong impression what I'm about
to do with this. Sorry, Michael says, it's like the
Abudon from Cradle, which was a complaint for a lot
of people. Yeah, like the Avedon, at least we get
povs and we get to see interpersonal interactions in a
degree that makes them feel humanized. But the gods in
this are just a joke so often that nothing about
them feels like it matters to me, you know. Saraphim says,
the god stuff is basically just a massive soap opera
that we're tuning into like season fifty of exactly, and like,
I just don't care about any of it. I don't
even with it being a joke. I don't even find
it particularly funny. There are a lot of times with
the humor in this series where I feel like he's
trying a little too hard, And with the gods, it
feels like, especially that it's just it just feels like
really going big in a bunch of ways that fall
sort of flat for me. So anyway, when we looted
the letter and papers from Gazi the Mage, it had
contained more than just a group of coordinates. At the
back was a list of scenarios that showed what would
happen if different parts of the Gate were brought through
an open portal. The very last scenario showed a method
of keeping the Gate from unleashing a monster into the
world that required us to leave one watch on one side,
another on the opening side, and the winding box inside
the gate. It had basically ruined the artifact, but it
would make the portal safe. But it was the second
to last scenario that had intrigued me. Sorry, guys, if
you hear that, if the first watch was left in
the box and it was taken through the portal, but
the second watch remained on the opening side, it would
result in a feral god appearing on both sides of
the portal. The plan, as I loudly and happily explained,
was straightforward. We'd open a portal to the ninth floor,
I'd keep the second watch, and we'd send juice Box
through with the rest. That would result in a feral
god appearing on the ninth floor and hopefully trashing the
area where it was summoned. Which is already kind of
a dope idea. It turns out this isn't this isn't
the thing, but I'm into it. I remember when Prince
Stalwart had made his stupid little video after he'd killed Manossa,
the singer. He'd been in a castle overlooking a field
of soldiers. This was right after the ninth floor had opened.
Since there was only one pre built castle on the
faction war's playing field. We now knew in which of
the nine locations their army was located. Thanks to the
Book of Coordinates, I knew exactly where to summon the gate. Amazing.
I did not see this specificity coming at all. Seven
of the nine factions had sued to stop this from happening.
They knew the armies weren't yet strong enough to hold
back an attack from a feral god, especially if a
second god was summoned to their location, the ensuring the
ensuing chaos would be enough to flatten their fortifications and
kill their armies. And there's a conversation between him and
Juice Box where she's like, so, everybody that's an NPC
like me, you're fucking killing And he's basically like, wouldn't
you rather die this way than in their little game?
And she's like, I guess, which that's really the right
attitude of just like I suppose, but like, don't pretend
it's noble or anything like, it's just I don't know. Uh, Carl,
I decided, I don't like giant monsters. Don't not announced.
I'll be much happier when we're done here. I have
bad news for you, donut. You won't be done with
giant monsters after you leave this floor. That's not if anything,
they're getting bigger, I'm guessing, you know. Like, so this
is when Zev chimes in and talks about the legal
challenge and says that you know, it was a close thing,
and since you now own stock in a company based
in the Skull Empire, which had not occurred to me
him owning stock the way that he got from the AI,
but that makes sense that would be a factor, even
though it's a tiny amount. So he expresses some surprise
at the fact that Boran and Valtae are working together,
and she says it's no surprise since the sole plaintiff
for this one was the Skull Empire, and even though
we're currently at odds with the valte neither entity is
a big fan of the ORCS. I bit my lip,
not allowing my sudden anger to bubble over into the
chat a lawsuit because I was threatening their goddamn toy
soldiers and imaginary fortifications and yeah, and the whole thing
just being like, yeah, I guess we don't like orcs.
Fuck those guys, Like really, what it comes down to
is racism about these people, which we later see is
like really a thing with the alien races that they
have like a very particular idea about what each of
them is or is like. So then Zev says, we
approve of what you're planning, but game breaking antics that
affect sponsors will not be tolerated in the future. And
he tells her tell them to go fuck themselves, and
she's like, yeah, you know, I can't say that, but
but bye bye, bye, bye bye. I gotta hang up.
So then they get a chat from Gideon and he
mentions these gods and that there's one left that's got
a very large whip and they can hear it yelling,
and eventually this is when he goes and gets some
eth and brings her outside and he gets the emergency
Platinum box. I extended my Shissarah, and sure enough the
device slid easily onto the scoop. I wouldn't be able
to retract it like this, but the item's purpose was clear,
and it's just meant to hold her head so that
he can chuck it, which is remarkable, Like just imagine
her head being that important that they that they would
spend this much for him to use it the way,
you know, it makes total sense. You know, he has
to chuck it as far from himself as he can
get it so that the god is nowhere near him
when it appears, hopefully that it gets drawn to her instead.
But nevertheless, she wants him to put a knife between
her teeth, and he's just like, yeah, sorry, don't have
time for that. When tossing ahead of a withering spirit,
distance travel will be greatly enhanced five hundred meters time's strength.
Tossed head will be magically returned once the extension slot
is removed from the chiest era. That is like so impressive, honestly,
the fact that he can reuse this' and I'm assuming
he's going to have to, you know, wild uh and
Donut is like it's crazy that they had that ready
to go, and Carl's like, nah, they had this for
another floor I think, and then they just got their
hand forced to send it now. And of course I'm
thinking about this, like because later on we get a
scene with people who are from this like pacifist group,
and they are obviously being funded. There's there's something else
going on with them, and at this point I was
very much on the alert they're able to spend that much,
and they're like this group of pacifists, like the way
that Mordecai described them was a sort of scrappy grassroots group,
and I would never expect them to have access to
that kind of money. So them being the ones that
funded this, I was instantly like, Okay, what the fuck?
That doesn't make any sense. And in the epilogue, one
of them's like, we got to work on this before
people start to wonder, and the other character is like,
they're wondering, it's too late. That's like kind of done,
and I was like, yeah, I feel like everybody's got
to wonder about that. Now there's gonna be some attention
on you. You kind of blew your own spot up
by doing this. But evidently these people, it seems like
they are at actually working to maybe take down the game,
and they see like Carl has their best chance at
doing that, and so they're trying to keep him specifically
alive because he might be able to be a sort
of figurehead. So anyway, the whole thing here, The demon
that has the whip is named Slit and she has
a sister named Gash, which I was like, oh my God,
and the god that is summoned is apparently Samantha's mom,
and she takes care of slit, so that whole thing
she talks about like that there was a misunderstanding and
that's why the one thought that I had sex with
her king, but it was my king. YadA YadA, it's
you know. But apparently she has other sisters that will
probably have to worry about later. So then we jump
back over to Juice Box and it's after this, and
she's showing them different forms of creatures and telling them
about their weak spots and how to kill them, which
is really really helpful. And we eventually get Juice Box
telling Carl to keep Lewis safe because she's in love
with him and they're going to get married. And I
love that Carl describes all the crazy shit he's seen.
But this is the thing that really makes him stop
and gape, And I fully understand it's not just that
it's Lewis, because that's kind of how it's played, is
that the thing that makes him stop and gape is
that anybody would be in love with Lewis. But for me,
it's the idea that anybody is having time to fall
in love and even consider marriage. It's just so like
off plan in terms of what we're really meant to
be focusing on. And in a sense, that's what I
like about it, you know, But there's another part of
me that's just like, really, you guys are even thinking
about this stuff, I guess. So this is when Carl
just says, all right, Maggie, I know you're out there,
just fucking come out already, and Carl explains about the
potion that Mordecai has figured out how to make with
the yam. The yam can be used for a lava
potion where they can pass through rock. So basically, I
drink it and you aren't going to be able to
hurt me because your arms as a rock monster will
pass through me, which Maggie pretty much immediately solves by
jumping on out of Chris's body and burrowing into ca
Carl as the worm, which he you know that phase
potion has nothing to do with. But first there's the
conversation between the two of them where she says, they
have my other daughter, Carl. They're going to bring her back.
They're going to turn her into a monster and make
someone kill her. If I don't do this. I can't
let it happen. And Carl I appreciated. He says, they're
doing this to all of us. We all lost someone, Maggie,
we could have worked together. You got misled. I regret
what happened with Yvette, but you're focusing your anger on
the wrong people. And she says, you don't understand. I'm
not angry anymore. Just go down the stairs. I was
so angry before. I wasn't a bad person before this,
I swear, but I have to protect my family no
matter what. I thought it was done when I killed Frank,
but I was wrong. When the Caprid came to us
in the rest area, it told me it'd help if
we killed you. And as she's saying this, she's apparently
getting warnings that she's not supposed to. And she says,
if it's legal to happen, she's saying this out loud,
then it's legal to say out loud. Fuck all of you.
What are you gonna do? Accelerate me. He's a cleric,
a goat thing, a liaison. He said, I have to
stop you or and a liaison. I don't think that's
prepotente right, because that's a crawler so this is somebody
else that's like in the mix. Now. I don't know
if I'm supposed to recognize them, but this is what
I think they had mentioned earlier when somebody said cap
and there was like a it was cut off. It
was going to be that they were going to say
Caprin and that was I think it was Chris that
was trying to talk to Karl at the time. So sorry,
Sarah FM. No, it's someone on the same level as
the guy who interviewed Carl over killing Loita. Okay, gotcha?
So interesting. I am curious exactly Like obviously this cheating
blackmailing her into targeting a specific crawler, the fact that
she does say this out loud is I'm curious if
this is going to have any real consequences or not,
you know, because I just don't fully know what this
show looks like when people are watching. Are they watching
in real time or are they able to edit that
whole thing out? I don't know obviously when they run
the highlights, that won't be in there. But is it
possible for people to have heard it and be spreading
the word about it as we speak? And if so, like,
how much will it matter be because everybody seems to
know cheating happens, So it's one of those things where
everybody can be upset by it, and that doesn't mean
anybody stops them. It doesn't matter necessarily, so anyway, and
the fact that Carl says like this is happening to
all of us, I really appreciated because she's really acting
like my pain is the only pain. And I fully
acknowledge that I'm not exactly selfless and able to be
like I would not place my own pain above the
pain of others, because we do every day, like that's
just the way that it works a lot of the time.
But I like to think that I wouldn't be able
to put somebody else through a thing because I'm trying
to keep myself from being emotionally hurt. It's not I
am stopping myself from being killed by killing you where
it could be seen as purely defense of my life.
This is like they're going to do something to one
of my kids within the game, where that is hideous
and cruel, but also they're gone, you know, like I don't.
Everybody has somebody that can be used against them, and
I feel like there has to be a point where
you like realize that every time they do this, they
are exerting a kind of power that you have to
take back and make a choice. And Maggie is just
I think that she is seeing this as her one
last chance to like protect a kid after not being
able to protect the other. So it's hitting her in
a particularly vulnerable place, and I actually do have sympathy
for that, but it is very self absorbed, if that
makes sense. So anyway, this whole thing with her climbing
into Carl's body, he manages to get her out, thank god,
before she is able to because I was like, oh my god,
are we about to see a Carl that's like possessed?
What is going to happen? But when she comes out
of his body, I was sort of like, oh, is
she going to take somebody else over? And Mango just
eats her. He eats her and pukes her up again
and then eats her again, which I appreciated because this
indicates very much that she is dead. If he had
just swallowed her, it would be like, maybe he's possessed now,
but it feels pretty solidly like no, she's in pieces,
she's dead. That's not doing anything, and they're also able
to loot her, which absolute indicator that she's really dead,
and she had a lot of stuff apparently, which Donut
is like she had a bunch of hats, and I
think I should get to keep the hats because he
wants her to give everything over to Chris. They'll have
to discuss that. They'll figure that out. And poor Chris
is like only just able now to really grieve his brother,
so he's having a pretty hard time, and I really
felt for him, especially all things considered, I wouldn't be
surprised if, like they use his brother somehow later in
the game as well. Why wouldn't they. I don't know
what kind of state he's in. I don't know what
the limitations are on how fucked up somebody is that
they can actually bring back. I don't know how this works,
but I have to assume they can do kind of anything.
So this is when Carl is talking to Juice Box.
Plan has changed. You need to go. The gate will
be open in a few moments, but it'll only be
open twenty minutes. Don't worry about bringing anything with you.
We're not sending a god to the ninth floor. We're
keeping the gate. This isn't going to be a one
time thing. I still want you to go to Lrocco's.
You need to stay hidden, but tell the others what
you know. We're not done with you yet. By the
time we get there, I want all the survivors to
know what they really are. And she's like, wait, where's
the gate? And he's like, go out over the water,
and in a few minutes it'll be very obvious where
the gate is. You can turn into a shark, right
And I wasn't getting it still, because like Lukie, why
would I. I'm really curious if any of you were
like figuring it out at this point, because I just wasn't.
I wasn't even really trying, honestly, because I just accepted
I don't have enough information to put this together. More
than likely, you know. So let's see, gotcha, the gate
is opened. Those timed charges you made got sucked in.
I dropped the chum bomb nearby just before, and it
worked really well. The sharks are also slurping right in
and they're already in their feeding frenzy. Hopefully the bombs
went off before the sharks got there. I guess it
doesn't really matter. Some of those pain amplified jellies are
getting pulled in too. So this has me more puzzled
because at first I'm like, are there people that were
hidden underwater that they didn't you know? And then they're
talking about like sharks getting pulled in and stuff, and
I'm like, you want the monsters to get pulled through?
Like I was just I really wasn't fucking getting it.
It was going to be tough for Katcha to move
through the water with the pull of the current draining
into the lowest level of the city of Laraccos, but
she'd anchored herself to the rocky wall of the temple.
She was going to use the subterranean stairwell to exit,
as there was an entrance right there near the shelf
where the Akula had been parked. This was the most
dangerous part for her, and I was worried, but she
insisted she'd be able to do it no problem. For
the next twenty minutes, the inverted cone of the city
of Larracos would be filled with a rush of water.
The gate opened right inside the faction market. There there
was probably a drainage system, but it would be temporarily overwhelmed.
The bombs would explode moments after they arrived, leveling the
market and scattering the shoppers and shopkeepers, and then the
sharks would come. If Kocha's math was correct and the
map she'd made was accurate, more than half of the
city would be submerged by the time the gate closed.
The only parts that would be spared were the upper levels,
the NPC residences. The onslaught of water and bombs and
sharks and other mobs would be sudden, violent, destructive, and
nowhere near where they thought it would be. I was
so delighted, and you know, he gives Juice Box these
instructions really quickly. I am not sure that she's understanding
by the time this all happens, like really what he's doing.
She's agreeing to do what he says, but she doesn't
have the context because he can't tell her yet. And
he can just tell her we're not doing the one thing,
but he doesn't tell her what they are doing. So
I am just imagining the moment where she realizes he's
not just going to be killing NPCs, like they will die.
There will be NPCs that are casualties here, but like
the NPC residence is being the one thing that isn't
touched is it's just really kind of a cherry on top.
You know. I really really enjoy this a lot. It's great. Sorry,
Michael was saying, I'm one hundred percent sure Chris would
happily give Donut all the hats she wants, absolutely, especially
considering they're worth like one gold. At this point, Saraphim says,
I think it's a thing they can just use anyone
caught up in the collapse as raw materials. Michael says,
I don't think they can use dead crawlers. They're just
allowed to use their stored resources that were crushed in
the initial action. I wonder, and then he says, I
wasn't trying to suss out any plans at this point.
I was just along for the ride, and that's kind
of where I was at this point. Michael rob says,
I noticed the thing about water being sucked in earlier
when Carl first used the gate, but didn't put two
and two together. Yeah, honestly, it is a really good
clue to see all of that water and the intensity
of the destruction in just that second. But I was
just so certain that whatever you do, you're going to
get pulled through, you know what I mean. I didn't
think that there were methods by which you can open
the gate and not get yanked through it. So I
just didn't really consider because, like my theory had been,
we're going to give this over to the NPCs and
they'll use it, but we can't be anywhere near it
because we'll get sucked through too, and then we'll be
killed because we're not allowed to go anyway. So this
is when Zev chimes in and it's like, oh, they
are pissed. This isn't what you promised, and Carl is like,
I didn't promise anything. If you fill Moroccos with modern mobs,
it's going to kill all the NPCs. The markets will
be flooded, the mercenaries will be killed. If you kill
the NPCs at the entrance bar, access to the Desperado
Club will be shut off. The sponsors won't have any
to the club to gamble. They won't be able to
get to the markets where they can buy magical gear.
Borne depends on that money. Sponsors need that market to
outfit their troops. Oh, I'm sure they'll patch it. The
water will drain right out. It might take a few
days since there's some sharks mixed in. But I'm sure
it'll be fine. No, Carl, you know this. We can't
add new worker NPCs once the level is created. Mobs, yes,
but NPCs that's written to the rules. We can't just
replace the shopkeepers. The food market for the troops was
down there too, And again that was another hint, that
entry about killing a shopkeeper and that they don't get
replaced and you don't get access to their loot from
their body. But again I wasn't seeing the relevance. I
was just sort of like, Okay, that's interesting information, and
I'm expecting whatever that is to be what happens, like
something relevant within that chapter, but it doesn't, and then
I kind of forget about it. But it's all the
hints for this, and Zev continues, if they want to
fix this, they'll have to get the syndicate to vote,
and they won't have the votes, and even if they did,
they'll have to get the AI on board, and that's
not going to happen. The whole system is already spiraling,
and it's the earliest this has ever happened. They keep
talking about the AI and losing it, and I am
so curious about why exactly this is happening, Like I
am assuming a lot of it is because they're accelerating
the game the way they have been, and so it's
resulting in the AI madness being accelerated also, But I
don't know if that's it. It might be like there's
some other factors in there. I'd killed people today, innocent people,
a lot of innocent people, but they were all in PCs,
and none of them were former crawlers, and that's what
mattered to me. Former crawlers with contracts like Mordecai were valuable.
They didn't waste them in a city that was raised
every season. Still, there was no sugarcoating what I'd done.
We didn't have time for moral debates. I was doing
them a favor. And while the emotional abuse of NPCs
such as Little Bonnie had been enough to nearly break
my sense of resolve, the knowledge that I'd just saved
those NPCs the horror of having to endure a bloody
conflict that would end in their inevitable deaths anyway, was
enough to ease any concern at what I'd done. And
I could see some people looking at this as like
a rationalization, But I agree with him. They're literally just fodder.
Good take them away. They are a weapon that the
enemy is using. They are innocents, but they weren't going
to be treated better than what you're doing, so you're
just cutting to the chase. Really, a distant part of
me was alarmed at this attitude, But this was war,
and there was no use pretending like it wasn't. Zev
continued to breathlessly rant. It was finally dawning on me
that her astonishment and outrage was actually an act, and
what she really was doing was relaying crucial information to us.
She was practically giddy and was barely containing it. She
and Dona were talking somehow, likely via the social media board,
but I didn't dare ask, not even using the magical
paper we had hanging in the bathroom. And I am
going to guess Zev has some username and she's just
like in there pretending to be a regular social media
user and drop some hints that got Donah understanding who
she really was, And that's how they're communicating, that's my guess,
and that's why Donah is on the board so much.
Because Karl was expressing some concern about her maybe getting
a little bit too preoccupied with that, but this would
make sense, and that's why she's in there, like in
the room, talking as often as she is, because there's
actually a person she personally cares about in there. Born's
outrage at what had really happened was testament to the
idea they hadn't caught on to our method of communication.
I'd been half certain they'd known what Donut Katcha and
I had been meticulously planning, and again, really really nice
like this. I knew that they had to be planning
something they didn't want the others to know about. But
it is very reassuring to see that this method worked.
It's very very smart. Sorry, I'm just seeing, Rob says.
You also asked earlier if you would think differently about
the plotting after finishing the book, and I can say
now that the reread is so good because there are
tons of tiny hints. That's kind of what I was thinking.
Rob was like, I am wondering if there's something at
the end of this that makes the rest of it
work a lot better. And I would argue, I don't
think it's a good idea to sometimes sacrifice the first
read to make this second read better, not that that's
necessarily done on purpose, but you get what I'm saying. However,
I get I understand, you know, and I feel like
I have a better feeling towards this book overall, now
that we've gotten here. I just wish there is enough
early on that I do think could be culled from
the overall story. I really like looking back there, there
seems to be things that I'm sort of like, we
did we really mean X Y Z though, and maybe
it'll turn out later that we did for this thing.
But based on what you guys have said, it seems
like Matt Denneman doesn't plan everything ahead, So I don't know.
I don't know how much he plans ahead. He's got
to be planning somewhat ahead a little. But yeah, I
think that it could still use editing, but I understand
more what was happening here. So I'm sorry Brett XX
Underscore ivy underscore, not ZEV underscore suffer off for twenty
underscore XX that's the useer name. I love it. So
let's see. Carl says, I'm adding Chris to the party,
so he travels with us. See you on the other side,
Kotcha good job today, and I love that, like Kotya
is the instrument by which they got this done. There.
You know, I think it's good for her to separate out,
but I am looking forward to maybe seeing her around.
And Zev, let's see, half of them had their armies
hidden in the city so they wouldn't get hurt by
the God. I'm sure plenty will get out. But you
don't know what you've done. You've killed thousands, tens of thousands.
Who knows what the playing field is going to look
like when it settles. Carl says, I'm sure it'll be
wonderful for ratings, and Zev says they'll be consequences. Carl, probably,
But tell them they approved this, We didn't cheat, We
used the tools they gave us. Also say they're gonna
want to wait and see what happens next before they
decide to, you know, accelerate me or throw me in
the disposal unit or whatever. I know they're in real
danger of losing control of the season. Whoever ends up
in control of the next floor is going to make
a lot of money. Zev, what do you mean, Carl,
just watch and uh, yeah, I want to know. Also,
and I'm not going to really try and figure it out.
I'm just gonna let it roll. So this is when
Mordecai chimes in and is like, you need to get
rid of that fucking ring. I don't think you understand
exactly what's happening. You were making the money and they
were letting you get away with shit, but you just
cost them so much. And Carlo says, I got my
sponsor to purchase that box, and I think they got
a deity sponsorship that has to be worth a lot. Mordecai,
you can't fight a war like this and expect to win. Donut.
Don't be mean to Karl. Mordecai. He didn't do it alone.
We're all in this together. And I really love that.
Carl is like, I won't say he's like touched by
it exactly, but he's just like, yeah, I'm not alone.
This is nice, you know. Made for Crawler Carl by
the Open Intellect Pacifist Action Network Intergalactic NFC, with design
approved by CEO and President of Outreach Operations, Doctor P. Hugh,
which I definitely thought was a joke until we see
an actual doctor Hugh later, but I thought it was
like pu you know what I mean. I thought it
was like a joke. Name also Open Intellect Pacifist Action Network.
I was trying to be like, is that an acronym
that I should be? Oh, oipan oipan. No, that's nothing.
I don't know. I feel like there's a message in
there somehow, but I'm missing it. So let's see, Carl.
They're gonna want everything we have, not just the ring,
but the gate too. Can you imagine how powerful that'll
be on the battlefield. There's two different marketplaces. There's the
Desperado Club market where the hunters sell their wares, and
there's the online one where the crawlers sell using the kiosk.
The kiosk ones are trashed. Crawlers use the interface, but
the faction war guys have to actually go to a
merchant and buy it. We just killed all those merchants,
so no more buying from crawlers. So they're going to
be after their stuff extra and he says the Desperado
Club will be closed for a while. But what I'm
guessing is gonna happen is each of the factions are
quickly deciding whether or not to send someone down to
the sixth floor. To collect stuff manually and buy stuff
from the other hunters while they there. We didn't wipe
out all the armies, but we wiped out most of
their ability to get more gear, and we upset the
power structure. They're scrambling now wondering how they're going to
outfit their soldiers. There's only one feasible way. Either they
don't outfit them, or they risk sending their own people
down to the sixth floor. I could be wrong, but
I suspect it's going to be crowded down there, so
we're just going to have more hunters. Donut have you
ever heard the term seeding the pond? Now, Seating the
pond is when you put fish in to catch them, right, like,
you make sure that there is something to catch. So
I guess that's what he's saying for themselves. The kill
kill Kill lady said, the hunters can also collect bounties,
and you're worth a lot. Now everyone is coming after us.
That's what I'm hoping for. So why is he hoping
for it? Like, exactly what is he got up his sleeve?
He clearly believes that whatever it is he's planning is
going to work, and seems super confident, but I don't know.
He is now number one. Lucimmar is number two Prepotente three.
Donut is four. She's drucked behind him considerably because she's
only level thirty nine. He's forty seven. Lucymr Is forty eight,
Prepotente's fifty five. Miriam is level fifty two. Yeah, so
let's see who's the lowest here. She's Donut's the lowest
on the leaderboard. The only other person that comes close
is Eva, who is on there and she's level forty.
So don't like seeing her name up there. Once the
sixth floor opens, will all be locked in together. They'll
be just as trapped as we are. I tossed the
ring in the air and I caught it. I looked
up into the sky, ending all pretense that I was
actually saying this to just Donut. You guys, see this thing.
I'll tell you what. If you want it, it's yours.
It's right here, Come and get it, motherfuckers. Actually, you
know what, I have a better idea. No need to
come to me, because I'll be coming to you. That's
my pledge to you and to everyone else watching this.
By the time the sixth floor collapses, every single hunter
who dares to set foot on the same floor as
us will be dead. This I swear on my life,
one by one, I will break you. I will break
you all. And that's the end of the book, except
for the epilogue, which is pretty intense. God damn. So
this is when we go to a woman talking to
doctor Hugh and asking how much money we spent and
him saying, I think you don't want to know. He's unstable.
He's gonna die any moment, and even if he doesn't,
the Ai is going primal, going primal, that's his race.
So why does she think that? What does that mean?
The valte are sticking their nose into everything, The Kuatine
underground are going to start a bloody civil war any
day now. King Rust's children are all trying to murder
each other, and Princess Dinadi is probably gonna do something
stupid too. Plus this human is not nearly as clever
as you think he is. You should have included instructions
with the yam. They wasted half of it on saving
that other crawler. He knows what it's really for, does he.
I'm not so sure, my dear. He's already shaken everything up.
Even if he fails, it's already a success. Every time
he goes on that odette woman's show. Now more people
sign up for the cause. They sign up for his cause,
not ours. It's the same cause. He's going to die. Porthos,
He's never going to make it past the sixth floor.
That's what you said about the fifth floor. Doctor Hugh said,
hmm hmmm. So what does that mean? What does the
ai going primal mean? And how can she tell it's
going primal? Like, what's the what are the symptoms? So
to speak? Sorry, I'm just seeing Brett Prepotente killed the
paral turkey God right? Good eating? Yeah, apparently it smelled
like roasting turkey for a minute there. Seraphim says. The
Primals are a mythical progenitor race everyone has stories about. Right,
So you'd heard the name Porthos before this section? At
that I heard the name you mean this section of
chapters that I just covered, or do you mean Porthos
was mentioned in this book in this section of chapters? Sorry?
When I ask, when I give you two options and
you just say yes, I do not know which one
you're saying yes to both? You said the name already
earlier this stream. I don't remember I remember saying Porthos.
I don't remember, though, the quote from the start of
the chapter is by Porthos. Oh shit, So he didn't
go crazy after all? Well, I mean he might have,
but like, apparently he got it together. Do you know?
It's funny because I was sort of thinking I wouldn't
be surprised if there are some folks that are like
people who got out, that are funding this. But I
genuinely I don't know about of anybody who has really
gotten out or how they can. Like, for all I know,
Porthos is still under contract so to speak, like the
way that Mordecai is, So I don't know how separate
they are allowed to be or how that all works.
But okay, I appreciate that being pointed out, because like
his name was ringing a bell, but it was very much, ah,
you know, very faint bell. I have a lot of
names to keep track of, not just in this, but
I have many properties that I'm covering at the same time,
and names often fall by the wayside. So let's go
into this whole thing with the uh bounty hunters so
to speak. It turns out that even though the humans
that didn't go into the dungeon are technically supposed to
be off limits, they aren't really. They hire third parties
to find people that are significant to high level or
high name players. The Syndicate knew about the walk on list,
of course, they knew. There was even a hollow drama
up at it. A few seasons back, wrights organizations crowed
about it. They wrote bills and sub committees demanding the
practice be officially condemned. Nothing ever happened. Syndicate security still
patrolled the planets, They still hunted down and captured and
sometimes killed trespassers. But the corporations, who were the real culprits,
there was no accountability, none, bastards, all of them, se
dear thought bitterly. Some of these worlds had guaranteed income
just for being lucky enough to be born on the planet,
and here he was literally risking his life in freedom
to make a living. And later on Genrick, who's the
other alien that he's working with, is like, why are
you doing this? You clearly are not in agreement with
what's happening to these people, And Sadir feels very targeted
and is like defensive about it, but it's also like,
I don't get to choose what I do to fucking live.
I have a bunch of kids to feed, and I'm
not allowed to work in a lot of different fields
because there is prejudice against my race of alien and
Genrick tries to be like, there's no prejudice against you, guys,
which is just very much giving, like why are you
gotta make it about race all the time? It's a
totally fair system based solely on merit, of course, So
what they're looking for initially is a cat named gravy Boat,
who it turns out is with B. I was wondering
if we were heading into like hints that B was alive,
but I really didn't expect to see her specifically. And
the way this all happens is so weird, because you
know them searching for gravy Boat, I'm already like, oh,
I don't like that, because obviously they are trying to
find somebody that Donut cares about, specifically to use against her.
But B is somebody to use against Donut and potentially Carl,
and I don't like that at all, and I don't
like B, but I don't want whatever they're about to
do to happen, like I don't know what this is
going to look like. And there's a mention of like
a family that was, uh, we're all like every single
one of that crawler's kids was used as a guard
of a certain doorway, and when that crawler got there
and saw like even the one that was like less
than a year old, they had been modulated somehow and
made into where is it? Who could forget that Valta
season were crawler Whoon piloted his mech to the elevator
leading to the twelfth folo Or, only to find his
own children repurposed a sentinel hunter killers guarding the exit,
all five of them, even the yearling Whoon had chosen
to eat his own gun. It was one of the
few times the cruelty of the game had been too much,
even for the free citizens. Sadir felt a shiver come
over him, remembering that moment. They'd banned the use of
collected children after that, pregnant women too, and this being
like what he hates but also what he is helping
to support is so real. It's so real. You cannot help.
If you are at the bottom of the fucking hierarchy,
you cannot help but work for the monsters. There's fucking
no options, you know, like it doesn't matter what you
do because they own everything. So other than finding a
way to work solely for yourself like I managed to do,
which was I'm incredibly lucky, and I'm barely surviving by
the way, like I am not paying my bills. So
it's not like I'm a success story necessarily. I'm just
very fucking stubborn. But it's like we just try and
act like you need to uphold your principles in every
area of your life, and it's like, if you can
afford to do that, good for you. But we're not
all in that fucking position, man. And that's what makes
it so toxic, is that then you like have this
weird guilt around the fact that you're helping. Talking about
Rashaun working for a bank again, like there are very
very powerful people whose bank accounts she gets to personally
see and has information on and whatnot, and so she
gets to be reminded firsthand that what she does helps
make rich people richer, monstrous people richer, and she fucking
just has to live with that every day because she
needs this job, she needs the health insurance. She has
a husband who's like partially disabled, and yes, the health
insurance may cost seven hundred dollars a month, but they
wouldn't be able to get it at all if it
weren't for her job, so you know, So yeah, this
is just it's like fucking gross. But also so then
we have the slow reveal that they are in Seattle
at this moment, which one could have guessed at them
looking for gravy boat, but they might have been in
the entire wrong place, you never know. And then they
we jump into another POV. Brad's the guy whose lap
B was sitting in in that photo, her ex and
he is looking at B who apparently B is not okay.
She cried herself to sleep again. The others were getting
pretty annoyed with her. Everyone had to work. That was
a rule. If you wanted to live in New Queen Ann,
you had to work. Everyone was afraid and overwhelmed, but
they still worked. That meant fishing, foraging, tilling, or building.
B did none of those. Ostensibly, she was a nurse
and she would work if someone needed healing, but that
was a joke. They had four doctors already in their group.
Actually all of them were dentists, and we get some
information about how like they had been on a plane
that ran late, and then they wind up outside this
parking garage and so they're standing out in the open
when and there's a guy there that is trying to
get them out from under the parking garage and he
starts setting cars on fire. So there's some dude in
the mix who I don't know if he's sort of
like an Agatha where he was a homeless person that
knew shit, or if he was just an alien who
was aware it was coming and was just came down
to the planet to try and warn them. He's speaking
another language, but like that doesn't mean anything. I'm sure
Agatha can fucking speak something weird too. And let's see. Uh,
he'd stayed with Bee. He regretted it. He used to
make so much fun of her cook boyfriend. She walked
all over the dude and he didn't do shit. Brad
had been moderately impressed when the guy had grown some
balls and finally dumped her after she posted the picture,
but then Bee flipped the fuck out and demanded they
leave the resort early. They'd been paid up for another
four days but she wouldn't stop crying. Her bitch friends
pretty much pushed the two of them out of the suite,
so they went home. I should have stayed, he thought,
if he was going to be stuck in an alien
invasion apocalypse, it would have at least been better weather.
But that wasn't his real regret. Oh no, I should
have gone into that dungeon. And he's thinking of this
as missing his chance at glory. And then I am
a king. I am a king. This is the dude
who would stand in the mirror and flop his dick around.
I remember Donut talking about him, and later on Bro
is just crying like a baby apparently, which I'm not
saying kings don't do. Maybe he's just like a king perhaps,
But the fact that he really thinks like I would
have kilt it down there, my guy, it's about to
be very, very real. So yeah, he goes with b
back to her building because she insists on seeing whether
or not her cat is alive. Of course, there's nothing there,
but they find gravy boat and she collects him and
refuses to leave him there. And let's see at night,
she'd sit there in the dark and hug the cat
until it yowled and scratched at her to let it go.
She had cuts all up her arms and face from
the monster. It eventually settled on the mattress next to her.
She would stroke its yellow and orange fur and sing
softly to the cat in that weird voice. Good boy,
good boy, you're a good boy. For Dinand, you're no
gravy boat. Oh no, oh no, I'd take it all
back and let you in. I'd do it all over again.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry for Dinand, I should
have let you in. She'd sings some variant of that
bizarre song until she fell asleep. Brad envied her ability
to sleep. And this is when people crawl in. They're
looking for the cat, but then they see b and
one of them gets killed right away. Uh. The gray
is the one that isn't But he's about to be
framed for this whole thing, so we get to see
firsthand that his suspicions about exactly how he is seen
and treated are right. And not only that, but it's
fucking Odette who is behind all of this, which is
crazy gross. I knew Odette was not to be trusted,
and perhaps on the outside chance. Maybe there's something that
she's trying to do here that's for the good. But
it feels very gross through and through, so I have
a hard time believing that. And when he the gray
recognizes Beatrice, somebody else turns up and it's this woman
who is able to turn on a translator and says,
miss Beatrice, my name is Lexis. I apologize for the inconvenience,
but Syndicate security is on its way. You are being hunted.
I am here to take you to safety. Now saying
that these that you are being taken to safety? Is
that real or is that just what they're telling her?
You know, Lexis. This is when she gets in touch
with Odette. Kill the sack pirate captured another. I suggest
we make it look like he turned on his partner,
shot him right in the back. He is a null,
so they'll buy it. Oh, I also had to shoot
a human be's partner. He's still alive. He tried to
get to the pirates flushet. I'd call him brave, but
he's crying like a little girl. He's going to bleed
out in a few minutes if I don't intervene. What
about the cat, asked Odette, he's knocked out. With the
rest of the settlement. The thing is fast, He's almost
got away. Security will arrive in three minutes. The first
responders are on our payroll, but a supervisor will want
to come down for this one. I'm guessing we have
twenty minutes at most. You want me to bring the cat. Also,
I can wipe the whole town if you want any witnesses,
just the ones I mentioned, the Null, Beatrice, the human
I shot, and the cat. Okay, here's what we do.
We're not going to vaporize the town, leave the Null
alive and plant the weapon like you suggested, but let
the human expire. Put the cat in a bounty key
and leave him there. Shoot the Knull with the flesh
ec gun, maybe in the leg, then drop it on
the human. We'll have our security guys clean the scene
up so it looks like the whole fight was over
the cat and nothing else. The Null will talk. He'll
be facing multiple charges. Don't worry about that. I'll get
a message to him after he's arrested. We'll buy out
his warrant. That'll guarantee his cooperation. The whole idea will
leave the Null to take the rap and people will
believe it because he's a null. You know that sucks.
But I mean she's it seems like she means well
for him in the end, but in the meantime it's
just taking advantage of like the racism. How's Beatrice taking this?
I had to knock her out and then stick her
in a cube. She's a little freaked out about the
whole thing. I don't think she's all there. She has
scratches all over her face when she wakes up. Make
sure you tell her I can't wait to meet her
and reassure her that we won't be selling her to Born.
Tell her we have a much better use for her.
Lexus laughed. So I guess it worked out for everybody,
well almost everybody. She thought of the poor cat and
what they were going to do to him, She shuddered.
Odette grunted. We can't all have happy endings. Now get
to work. So what I'm getting is that basically Odette
is swooping in and getting Bee out of there so
that she can't be used against Carl, but that she
knows enough about what's going on down here, and so
maybe it is for the best. Maybe she is like
trying to do the right thing. It's hard to say
because saying we have a much better use for her,
like it sounds so sinister, you know. And they are
leaving the cat, so he apparently is going to get
made into some fucking monster or something, which is awful.
I feel very bad for him. And they're letting Brad die,
which I just simply cannot be upset about because he sucks,
so fuck you, and I'm over time. But I am
just going to briefly mention the audio commercials that come
after this for the training Ground thing, and it's also
an ad for Matt Dineman's other series that he is
working on, like an audio play and audio drama, and
I'm interested. But it does sound like it's kind of intense,
so I don't know, maybe, but I just wanted to
acknowledge it because it's not something that's in the audiobook
obvious or the print book obviously. So yeah, that is
the end of the book. Very very promising, Like I
feel like this is the most interested I've been to
start the next book, and I'm always excited to start
the next one, but this has me really really curious
because we're clearly changing up a lot coming up. There's
going to be some major differences, so I'm looking forward
to that. All right, everybody, Well, I have to wrap it.
Thank you all again for hanging out with me. Appreciate
you very much. Thank you to Michael for commissioning this.
I had a moment of just about to say Marshall
my husband's name, and yeah, I'm just excited. So can't
wait for Thursday. All right, I will see you then
till then to the Loo, motherfuckers. That was an unspoiled
Network podcast. Stone