Speaker 1: This is an unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
Speaker 1: covering Dungeon Crawler Carl Book four Gate of the Feral Gods,
Speaker 1: chapters eighteen, nineteen, and twenty. In this episode, I get
Speaker 1: to talk about how to properly cook a fish. She's dead.
Speaker 1: I hated her so much and she's dead and I'm
Speaker 1: so happy. Ugh, there's other stuff that happens too, but like,
Speaker 1: come on, welcome to spoil Me. Welcome to the show everyone.
Speaker 1: I am Natasha. Thank you very much to Michael for
Speaker 1: commissioning this episode. Oh, Michael's in the chat says, shout
Speaker 1: out to Jackie for booking the next book. Sadly, my
Speaker 1: break from book means crappy UI is over and over
Speaker 1: is over and now I have to endure the pain
Speaker 1: to commission book six. I I book dot means crappy UI.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Michael, I'm not following. I don't know if
Speaker 1: there was a typo in there or something. But I
Speaker 1: also thank you Jackie for commissioning the next book. But uh,
Speaker 1: I am you know. I know that I'm going to
Speaker 1: catch up and that it's going to be a wait. Now,
Speaker 1: this is the thing that happens even when something has
Speaker 1: been out for a while and has built up enough
Speaker 1: books that I am getting into it after it's really
Speaker 1: gotten its legs under it, inevitably I catch up, you know.
Speaker 1: And this is going on with also the Bastian series,
Speaker 1: which I really really enjoy, and the author had thought
Speaker 1: he was going to have the next book out in July,
Speaker 1: and now it's looking like it won't be till October.
Speaker 1: And due to that weight, there was like, you know,
Speaker 1: a delay with the commissioning, so I probably won't get
Speaker 1: to start talking about it until January, which means I
Speaker 1: will have almost gone a year between the last book.
Speaker 1: In this book, Oh, Michael says, refer to the website
Speaker 1: you use. Sadly, my break from book Got Me's Crappy
Speaker 1: UI is over and now I have to inture okay,
Speaker 1: got you? Yeah, I understand. It's one of those services
Speaker 1: that you wouldn't think what I need is particularly specialized.
Speaker 1: But I had to try eight different booking sites before
Speaker 1: I found one that did what this one does, and
Speaker 1: it was really annoying because I didn't always get that
Speaker 1: it didn't work the way I needed until the mistake
Speaker 1: was already in place. And then a huge headache to undo.
Speaker 1: So that is why I have stayed with them. Many
Speaker 1: of these things that I have to do with my
Speaker 1: line of work rely on services that are not so reliable,
Speaker 1: for example crowdcast, but we gotta do what we gotta do.
Speaker 1: So Chapter eighteen begins with a note from Crawler Cooley,
Speaker 1: and he is clearly intending to stage some sort of
Speaker 1: attack on this interview that he is about to go on,
Speaker 1: and it's broken up in part where at first he's
Speaker 1: talking about how this view of my beautiful planet from
Speaker 1: this ship will be my last view, and then later
Speaker 1: on we get an update where it turns out that
Speaker 1: the people he intended to harm weren't even actually physically there,
Speaker 1: which is part of the reveal of Carl's plan. Part
Speaker 1: of it is us finding out exactly how he was
Speaker 1: able to ensure that Luita was there in the room
Speaker 1: with him and not just a projection. So Carl, I
Speaker 1: have some things cooking on my sapper's table. Let me
Speaker 1: take care of them really quickly before you transfer us.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Of course, after that entry from Cooley and Carl saying this,
Speaker 1: it did have me thinking that he was planning something,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't fully getting it, and I was misunderstanding
Speaker 1: in my suspicions, the intent behind doing certain things. So
Speaker 1: he's got some smoke bombs that are like infusing in stuff.
Speaker 1: One of them it doesn't work out, and the other
Speaker 1: he gets hobgoblin disco ball Uh produces heavy, multi hued
Speaker 1: billows of smoke that are both photosensitive and frequency responsive.
Speaker 1: In case you don't know what that means, just set
Speaker 1: one off and find out. The smoke will conceal all
Speaker 1: movement within and the plumes will bounce to the beat,
Speaker 1: which is rad as hell, like I really really really
Speaker 1: want to see this. Unlike a regular smoke curtain, the
Speaker 1: caster of this tossable is not immune to its effects.
Speaker 1: In other words, you'll be just as blind as the monsters.
Speaker 1: So you don't want to be dropping this thing at
Speaker 1: your feet unless you find yourself to be the most
Speaker 1: handsome dude at the orgy. And he puts the donut
Speaker 1: robot on his sapper's table and it knocks the what
Speaker 1: do you call it, the little smoke thing down onto
Speaker 1: the floor and causes it to go off. Now what
Speaker 1: I was sort of thinking here was that he was
Speaker 1: using the smoke as a means of concealing something that
Speaker 1: he was doing. But it turns out it's more than that.
Speaker 1: It's also the residue of the smoke on the robot
Speaker 1: means that it can't be put on camera and thus
Speaker 1: has to stay in the room with Loita later on.
Speaker 1: So I liked it. It wasn't as simple as what
Speaker 1: I was thinking. That there was like more going on
Speaker 1: even and this guy's pretty colors robot, Donut said. I
Speaker 1: felt the head turn around to face me in the
Speaker 1: complete multi hued smokestorm. The voice went down and octave.
Speaker 1: This is what we all see in the end. I'm
Speaker 1: always here for you, Carl and you guys. This robot
Speaker 1: occasionally lapsing into very unsettling statements is very funny. The
Speaker 1: fact that she says pretty colors had me very arrested
Speaker 1: for a moment, because, like, between this and her response
Speaker 1: to some other things said around her later, I was
Speaker 1: realizing this toy is a lot more interactive than previously.
Speaker 1: She just used to say shit, you know, and now
Speaker 1: she's actually formulating responses like AI, which is certainly more
Speaker 1: fun because it's like specifically mostly within the framework of
Speaker 1: what Donut would say. But you know, the way that
Speaker 1: the voice actor is delivering these I had to say
Speaker 1: this narrator. I actually accidentally ran across him on my
Speaker 1: Facebook feed. I don't remember. It was a short video
Speaker 1: of I think an early recording of him in Book two.
Speaker 1: Maybe whatever it was I heard, I had heard before,
Speaker 1: and it was fascinating to see him because he's on
Speaker 1: camera and he's this Asian guy with like very little
Speaker 1: expression on his face, busting out these lines and these
Speaker 1: jumps between different voices. And there was something about how
Speaker 1: dead pan he was while delivering these jokes that I
Speaker 1: found really funny. It was just it was remarkable, It
Speaker 1: really is. It's like the kind of thing that a
Speaker 1: part of me. If I were to do something different,
Speaker 1: I think I might try and get into voice acting
Speaker 1: or you know, audiobook narration, because like, I'm pretty good
Speaker 1: at doing the live audio for the show that I do.
Speaker 1: Occasionally I stumble on my words, you know, as anybody
Speaker 1: would who isn't really trained. But I think it would
Speaker 1: be pretty fun to get into the voice thing. So anyway,
Speaker 1: Loita transfers them to the little station, which I think
Speaker 1: it was a submarine this time. Again right, this was
Speaker 1: a nice middle quality trailer, but it was a submarine,
Speaker 1: not a boat like the last time. Right, despite being
Speaker 1: under the surface, this trailer was set up similar to
Speaker 1: Odet's production trailer, with a green room and a doorway
Speaker 1: to the studio. In fact, I realized this was the
Speaker 1: exact same model, though the green room on this one
Speaker 1: had a different layout and included a large picture window
Speaker 1: that looked about the dark ocean. No snacks, Doughnut grumbled.
Speaker 1: So this is when Carl sort of means over her
Speaker 1: and is looking out the window. I felt the water
Speaker 1: from her rebreather splash against my leg, and I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: if this were some other situation, I would be suspecting
Speaker 1: him of like pickpocketing her right now, or of planting
Speaker 1: something on her. But I knew that really couldn't be
Speaker 1: the case here unless it was something from like his
Speaker 1: sapper's table or you know. And even that, I was like,
Speaker 1: can he detonate that sort of thing remotely when it's
Speaker 1: like on her person? Would that even work? So I
Speaker 1: know something's up, but I'm not getting it. And he
Speaker 1: asks about whether the trailers go into space or are
Speaker 1: they all offloaded to offloaded to a large transport, and
Speaker 1: she asks how that's his concern, and he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember, but people tried to
Speaker 1: assassinate us when we were on another show, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a bit concerned about security. She says, you know,
Speaker 1: for such a famous crawler, you sure are a coward,
Speaker 1: which the absolute gull. Just the trailer is shielded once
Speaker 1: you arrive, nobody comes in or goes out until the
Speaker 1: program is over again. You are safer here than you
Speaker 1: are in the dungeon, I hope, so, I said, don't forget.
Speaker 1: You're in here with us too. Her eyes widened, but
Speaker 1: it was quick. She finally noticed the dust covered robot
Speaker 1: donut under my arm. She let out a little gasp
Speaker 1: of despair. Oh you idiot, what did you do to
Speaker 1: the product sample? So she gets in touch with them
Speaker 1: via messenger and finds out that they have another one
Speaker 1: and it's fine, but she is very, very cranky about this.
Speaker 1: Read the script. If you can't think of anything to say,
Speaker 1: do not be negative. This is not live, so don't
Speaker 1: think you're going to go changing the universe with your
Speaker 1: bravado today. Anything stupid you say will be edited out
Speaker 1: and we'll all be stuck in this can for longer.
Speaker 1: I'll be watching the taping from in here. Do not
Speaker 1: make me get up and go in there. I swear
Speaker 1: to the gods, you will not be happy if I
Speaker 1: have to go in there. So this leads to Carl
Speaker 1: straight up saying, why are you so angry all the time, Loyda,
Speaker 1: And she said, she answers him, You, your cat, your people,
Speaker 1: your ugly culture. This is a cancer upon the bloom,
Speaker 1: and we should not be doing this. We should not
Speaker 1: be celebrating your culture, spreading your filth so the fry
Speaker 1: may see celebrating. You're exterminating us and profiting on our ashes.
Speaker 1: If it were up to me, we'd simply exterminate you
Speaker 1: and nothing else. You're filthy, you're dry, You're a rot
Speaker 1: upon the bloom. Donut swished her tail. You probably shouldn't
Speaker 1: have become a pr agent, if that's how you really feel, Darling. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I can't help but feel you don't have our best
Speaker 1: interest at heart. This is why we worked so much
Speaker 1: better with Zev. She understood how to exploit our star
Speaker 1: power that seemed to have struck a nerve Zev. What
Speaker 1: you've done to Zev is the exact reason you are
Speaker 1: so dangerous. She is young, she is impressionable. She is
Speaker 1: the future of the Kuatine, the bloom. Her generation is
Speaker 1: enraptured by the newest, shiniest thing. They do not trust
Speaker 1: in the concept of system, strength, of true unity, of
Speaker 1: the great consensus. Do you know what we had to
Speaker 1: do just to bring Zev back into the fold? Unspeakable
Speaker 1: things to her mother and her aunt's. It was only
Speaker 1: then did she take the badge. We need to do
Speaker 1: this to a whole generation now because of you, because
Speaker 1: of your filthy culture. Well, if you had, you know,
Speaker 1: just left us alone, you wouldn't have to worry about
Speaker 1: she interrupted, pointing directly at Donut, who looked stricken. Your culture,
Speaker 1: your non unifying, defeatist, dry, multi organ diversified attempt at
Speaker 1: culture is a deadly contagion, and it must be treated
Speaker 1: as such. After this crawl, after every single one of
Speaker 1: you drivermen is dead, the boring system will close its borders,
Speaker 1: and only then will the reawakening occur. Only then will
Speaker 1: we be free of this rot. This is bonkers, and
Speaker 1: Donut just says it. It's just like this bitch crazy, huh.
Speaker 1: It's really upsetting to hear her say we had to
Speaker 1: do unspeakable things to her mother and aunt, because if
Speaker 1: she says that they are unspeakable, it must be really bad,
Speaker 1: it must be real, real bad, poor fucking zeb And
Speaker 1: like I assumed that it was going to be something
Speaker 1: like this. Honestly, the writing was very much on the wall,
Speaker 1: like from before Zev even left, and the way that
Speaker 1: she was talking about certain things, and the depression that
Speaker 1: had clearly kind of come over her. But it's actually
Speaker 1: being said now, and poor fucking Zev and the whole like,
Speaker 1: as Carl points out, nobody asked you to come here.
Speaker 1: All of this wouldn't even have been in your in,
Speaker 1: you know. But they are evidently a conquering people who
Speaker 1: feel compelled to exterminate and also evidently are broke as fuck,
Speaker 1: like she's talking about, you know, eventually, once we do this,
Speaker 1: the boring system will close its borders. And I can't
Speaker 1: help but think, like, probably not. This is the thing
Speaker 1: about the way that a lot of bigotry works is
Speaker 1: that the flames are fanned of that bigotry simply for profit.
Speaker 1: Sharing increases, simply for money, and the people encouraging it,
Speaker 1: it's not even like they believe any of it. They
Speaker 1: just know there's a profit to be made from this,
Speaker 1: and so they exploit that and it works, and then
Speaker 1: the people who believe all of this is in service
Speaker 1: to our eventual supremacy are genuinely surprised Pikachu face when
Speaker 1: that's not what they get. And it would be funny
Speaker 1: if it weren't so sad and so predictable, you know.
Speaker 1: But I can't help but think she's a fundamentalist, and
Speaker 1: they feed into this, but it's not really what it
Speaker 1: is about. I think it's just purely we're doing this
Speaker 1: to make money. But will tell these psychos whatever we
Speaker 1: need to tell them about how it's ultimately good for
Speaker 1: like the supremacy of our people, as long as that
Speaker 1: gets them to show up to work on time and
Speaker 1: not call out and do overtime, you know. So they
Speaker 1: go into their thing, and this is when we get
Speaker 1: the update from Cooley. I have secreted bugbear paste in
Speaker 1: my boots. I will detonate them while I am in orbit.
Speaker 1: If this skill works, my blast shield should protect me
Speaker 1: from the explosion. But if I blow the ship, it
Speaker 1: won't matter. Think of me, brothers. It is little, but
Speaker 1: it is all I have. And to find out that
Speaker 1: he did this and it didn't even result in doing
Speaker 1: It's really that's the way so much rebellion goes. You know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of statements made that nobody ever
Speaker 1: hears that really don't do much. But sometimes you got
Speaker 1: to do shit for your own self, even if it
Speaker 1: isn't accomplishing a greater purpose necessarily. The hosts of vera
Speaker 1: lux New Toys showcase were a pair of tall, giant
Speaker 1: eyed alien soothers, the forsothed a man named Gravo and
Speaker 1: a woman named Lyddy. I was beginning to realize these
Speaker 1: soother guys were one of the most common types of
Speaker 1: aliens in the universe, and they are wearing Gravo's dressed
Speaker 1: like a cowboy with a sheriff thing on him. Lyddy
Speaker 1: is dressed like a superhero. It's just very much like
Speaker 1: if you were just trying to do the most generic
Speaker 1: appeal to kids kind of look that you could do.
Speaker 1: It's almost like we've got Buzz and Woody, but like,
Speaker 1: obviously if Buzz weren't an astronaut and were just a
Speaker 1: superhero type. It's got that same energy though, and the room,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole way that this is set up
Speaker 1: is a little different because they usually there's a studio
Speaker 1: audience element and that's not happening here. The toys would
Speaker 1: supposedly appear on the table and we were supposed to
Speaker 1: discuss how awesome they were. And Carl is like, do
Speaker 1: you guys really think that this is the approach for
Speaker 1: selling these toys? And they're just like, yes, we do.
Speaker 1: We have done a lot of research about it, and
Speaker 1: they find out that this is a commercial that's going
Speaker 1: to air in gas stations. Basically like the equivalent of that,
Speaker 1: which the fact that we live in a world now
Speaker 1: where like you can't pump gas without getting ads. Of
Speaker 1: course it depends. There are plenty of older gas stations
Speaker 1: that don't have this feature, but if you go to
Speaker 1: like bigger chains, a lot of them are equipped with
Speaker 1: screens and they feed you all kinds of ads while
Speaker 1: you're pumping your gas. And if you've got air pods in,
Speaker 1: it's fine, like you can just ignore it. But it's
Speaker 1: just it's so ubiquitous that you get ads pumped into
Speaker 1: your fucking eyeballs every chance they can get. And Lyddy
Speaker 1: is a fan of donuts, so they talk about that
Speaker 1: a little bit and the fact that Donah is one
Speaker 1: of only two favorites she uh favorites her and of
Speaker 1: course LUCIMR because everybody has favorited LUCIMR, which honestly kind
Speaker 1: of makes sense because she's just so unpredictable. I feel
Speaker 1: like I would have to know what she's going to
Speaker 1: do next, you know. Sorry, robson the chat fascist governments
Speaker 1: making poor financial decisions, color me shocked, sarahim says, I
Speaker 1: get the impression Loita is the average Bloom Party member.
Speaker 1: They do seem to be just that committed to being
Speaker 1: fascist assholes. There's a reason their government is on the
Speaker 1: brink of financial collapse and had to rush out this crawl.
Speaker 1: The thing is that the average member doesn't necessarily represent
Speaker 1: what the ultimate goal of a party is. Do you
Speaker 1: see what I'm saying? Like, the average person can believe
Speaker 1: in what she does, but that's in service to something else.
Speaker 1: So I don't think that the ultimate goal they're feeding
Speaker 1: their average member is like the thing at all. But
Speaker 1: I'm also just deeply suspicious of everybody at this point
Speaker 1: in life. So whatever Rob says, but also coolly inspired
Speaker 1: Carl two and then, as for why are alex is
Speaker 1: spending all this money on something that seems unlikely to
Speaker 1: ever make enough profit to be worth it. My thought.
Speaker 1: My thought was they are just using it as a
Speaker 1: means to funnel money to warrant indirectly. Any money they
Speaker 1: make on the toys is just a nice bonus. Which
Speaker 1: this is also where my mind was, was like, this
Speaker 1: is a money laundering thing. It's all just so odd
Speaker 1: the way that it's set up. It felt very much
Speaker 1: like what is this really? You know, it's a front
Speaker 1: for something. Rob says that the ads on at gas
Speaker 1: stations are not a thing in Canada, but I saw
Speaker 1: the ads when we went to as to Arizona pre
Speaker 1: COVID and that was very culture shocking. Yeah, it's not awesome,
Speaker 1: So let's see. Uh. Research indicates children prefer to have
Speaker 1: a trusted adult speak down to their level and present
Speaker 1: them with the best possible options. And like Carl has
Speaker 1: to be like, Okay, you know what, I think he's
Speaker 1: completely wrong, But why am I gonna argue with this guy?
Speaker 1: Let them do what the fuck they want? And I
Speaker 1: understand this impulse very much. And sometimes you've just got
Speaker 1: to pick your fucking battles. So then we get another
Speaker 1: note from Crawler Coolie. I have failed. I have blown
Speaker 1: the ship. My skill indeed protected me, but the force
Speaker 1: field has prevented it from fully breaking. The admins only
Speaker 1: appeared to be with me. They were hollows. I was
Speaker 1: fooled today and I am ashamed. Brothers. The gravity has failed,
Speaker 1: the temperature is dropping, and it's getting difficult to breathe.
Speaker 1: I do not think they can remove me while the
Speaker 1: force field remains. But I see my planet, my beloved Corux.
Speaker 1: It shines and it warms me in this cold. I
Speaker 1: pray one day someone will avenge her for I cannot.
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, just really heartbreaking. So then we go
Speaker 1: to the ad copy and it's very stilted and weird.
Speaker 1: There is a mango doll that bites the donut doll
Speaker 1: on the nose, which is fantastic, and they ask Carl
Speaker 1: what his favorite feature is, and there's a paragraph that
Speaker 1: he's supposed to read, but instead he's like, oh, I
Speaker 1: was able to train the donut doll to do some tricks,
Speaker 1: and the dude is clearly like about to be cut. Dude,
Speaker 1: follow the fucking script, but instead Lyddy is like, no,
Speaker 1: he's bringing up something that might be you know, appeal
Speaker 1: to folks, So let's do that. And he says, she
Speaker 1: says the weirdest shit. But if I tell her to sit,
Speaker 1: she sits. If I tell her to follow, she follows.
Speaker 1: She's much more compliant than the real donut. It's what
Speaker 1: we all want, isn't it compliance? What's your parent company
Speaker 1: called again, Veritin Linkage? Isn't that their thing? Stop rolling?
Speaker 1: Gravo said. He turned on me. I don't know where
Speaker 1: you heard that, but that's absolutely not true. Varitin is
Speaker 1: our parent company, yes, but we operate independently from them.
Speaker 1: I shrugged. It's not what I heard. Someone said, your
Speaker 1: parent company advocates for slavery. People are saying there are
Speaker 1: really trackers hidden in the toys. Carl, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Donna asked, just stick with the script, Okay, don't be
Speaker 1: an imbecile. There's nothing you can say that I'll make
Speaker 1: it onto air, so why bother nothing I can say?
Speaker 1: And here the dungeons is another story, though, isn't it.
Speaker 1: What are you trying to say? You're trying to shake
Speaker 1: us down for a loop box? Is this a joke?
Speaker 1: I had no idea if Veralux Toys had any sort
Speaker 1: of sinister motives. With all this, Mordecai seemed to think
Speaker 1: it was a money laundering operation or something. Honestly, I
Speaker 1: didn't care. This was dangerous, stupidly dangerous. I was gambling.
Speaker 1: All of this was about to be forgotten. I just
Speaker 1: needed Loita to get up off that damn couch. The
Speaker 1: lights flickered, the two soothers disappeared, the floor shook, the
Speaker 1: studio went black, then filled with red lights. A terrible
Speaker 1: creaking noise filled the chamber, and of course Carl has
Speaker 1: to be like, oh, what's happening? You know, I bolted
Speaker 1: for the green room door. It irised open as I approached.
Speaker 1: Smoke poured out through the hole, and he sees that
Speaker 1: there's a huge crack in the window and that it
Speaker 1: hasn't ruptured yet, but it's like perhaps about too. The
Speaker 1: blue force field was the only thing keeping the water out,
Speaker 1: and he's thinking to himself, oh my god, that you know,
Speaker 1: he's thinking, thank God, and then no, thank Coolly for
Speaker 1: the information. The crumpled form of the dungeon admin had
Speaker 1: been blown across the room and smashed against the wall.
Speaker 1: Donut rushed to her. The small couwatine was missing her
Speaker 1: left arm and both of her bottom legs. Her rebreather
Speaker 1: miraculously still worked. Her entire fish body was blackened. She
Speaker 1: looked as if she'd been flash fried in a pot
Speaker 1: of oil. But she wasn't dead. I felt my heart quicken.
Speaker 1: She couldn't just teleport away. They had to first lower
Speaker 1: the shield. But if they lowered the shield, the window
Speaker 1: would break and Donut and I would die instantly. Barrent
Speaker 1: had to make a choice. I realized they could probably
Speaker 1: heal her in seconds, but only if she teleported away,
Speaker 1: save a low level admin or save their two highest
Speaker 1: grossing crawlers. I looked down at the injured woman and smiled.
Speaker 1: You you did this, Loita panted, What do you mean
Speaker 1: it was an accident. The robot blew up. You're the
Speaker 1: one who made them put that self destructed sequence in it.
Speaker 1: I was in the other room. I have no idea
Speaker 1: how it blew You saw how buggy that damn thing was.
Speaker 1: You won't win. The bloom will prevail. You will be forgotten.
Speaker 1: No one likes melodrama, Loita I said, as the Kuatine died.
Speaker 1: I am so pleased that he used that line on her.
Speaker 1: I know that's what set him off in the first place.
Speaker 1: So getting to throw that in her face, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful little moment. Note added by Crawler Carl Coolly.
Speaker 1: I know you can't read this, but I want you
Speaker 1: and every future reader to know I use the information
Speaker 1: from your passage to help plan the first step. If
Speaker 1: it wasn't for your words, I wouldn't have had the
Speaker 1: confidence or knowledge to act what I did today. I
Speaker 1: did for you and for a little girl named Bonnie.
Speaker 1: My only regret is that my first step was a
Speaker 1: small one, and I don't know yet if I'll survive
Speaker 1: long enough to take a second. But if I do
Speaker 1: manage that second step, please forgive me. What I do
Speaker 1: from here on out is solely for me and my people.
Speaker 1: As long as I am alive, I will do everything
Speaker 1: I can to make them burn. They will not fucking
Speaker 1: break me. So then we go to chapter nineteen and
Speaker 1: the repair subs fix the damage and tell port Dona
Speaker 1: and Carl away, but they wind up at the Desperado
Speaker 1: Club instead of going to their personal space like he
Speaker 1: was expecting, and later on we find out that they
Speaker 1: are There's like a time lapse that they're not feeling
Speaker 1: at this point, and five days go by in the
Speaker 1: game that they are not feeling those five days whatsoever.
Speaker 1: This is something that keeps unnerving me. You know, we
Speaker 1: know that they can do this because they also had
Speaker 1: this with Mordecai, where by the time he reappears like
Speaker 1: ten days later, he's still fucking mid sentence with what
Speaker 1: he was saying when he got teleported away for a moment,
Speaker 1: so he didn't feel that time lost at all either.
Speaker 1: And it's just really eerie, you know. It just makes
Speaker 1: me think of like Rip van Winkle and how how
Speaker 1: long can they do this for how much time can
Speaker 1: they make you miss? It's just like, really it's creepy.
Speaker 1: There was a part of me that kind of thought, Mordecai,
Speaker 1: they can do this too, because of like the function
Speaker 1: he plays in the dungeon and finding out that this
Speaker 1: can be done to anybody, it seems like is just
Speaker 1: it's very scary. I don't like it. The desk was
Speaker 1: the paper covered desk was occupied by a tall man.
Speaker 1: The shadowy figure wore a dark cloak with a hood
Speaker 1: which supernaturally obscured his face. Grim reaper like his hands,
Speaker 1: the only flesh I could see were a dark, dark purple,
Speaker 1: almost black. It was a small office with slat walls
Speaker 1: and the same tiled floor as the rest of the
Speaker 1: Desperado Club or in syndicate liaison. So he has them
Speaker 1: sit down and he says, I don't work for BORN.
Speaker 1: I am independent, retained by the syndicate. You would not
Speaker 1: normally meet me or one of my colleagues, but under
Speaker 1: certain extreme circumstances. And he says, I am a non
Speaker 1: AI fact finder, not quite a sheriff, not quite an attorney,
Speaker 1: not quite a judge. If the syndicate sees something that
Speaker 1: requires more information, they will ask both the Kuatine and
Speaker 1: AI for reports on what happened. Sometimes those reports contradict
Speaker 1: each other. Sometimes those reports are inconclusive. In such cases,
Speaker 1: a liaison such as myself investigates and if the facts
Speaker 1: warrant it, I recommend what should be done about it.
Speaker 1: And this is very much reminding me. Previous to this recording,
Speaker 1: I was doing the Vorkosigen saga, and Miles in that
Speaker 1: series has a job as an Imperial auditor, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of giving that same vibe for me as just
Speaker 1: somebody kind of outside of all of the workings to
Speaker 1: do independent investigations and whatnot. And Carl, as this is
Speaker 1: like all being explained, is feeling a little bit guilty
Speaker 1: because he knows that Dona is probably freaking out and
Speaker 1: she didn't know anything about what it was he was planning,
Speaker 1: so she's just wrapped up in all of this and
Speaker 1: it wasn't intentional. But you know, he also wouldn't take
Speaker 1: it back because of course he wouldn't, Like, I don't
Speaker 1: blame him for that at all. So this dude says,
Speaker 1: do you know how many times people have tried to
Speaker 1: assassinate admins? And Carl just says probably a lot, And
Speaker 1: he says, yeah, more than we'd like to admit, and
Speaker 1: a lot of been successful. Two seasons ago, a crocodilian
Speaker 1: managed to snap the head off his outreach associate. He
Speaker 1: shouldered the admin into the hallway and literally bit the
Speaker 1: man's head off, and instead of teleporting him away into
Speaker 1: the crawler disposal unit, the idiot Fourton admins sent two
Speaker 1: of their own security agents to subdue the crawler and
Speaker 1: also got themselves killed before the AI finally intervened. Three
Speaker 1: admins at once, which were the only admins killed by
Speaker 1: crawlers that season that wasn't the record, but three is
Speaker 1: still a lot. I'd like you to guess how many
Speaker 1: have died this season so far due to your fellows, zero,
Speaker 1: I said, the man grunted an amusement, Not including this
Speaker 1: most recent death of Admin Louta. The number for this
Speaker 1: season currently stands at fifteen. Lucia Marr has killed two
Speaker 1: three if you count her first game guide, which we
Speaker 1: do not. The rest were all one off attacks. Genuinely
Speaker 1: intrigued and more than a little proud of my fellow humans. Guys, fifteen,
Speaker 1: this is genuine pride in my voice. Good for you,
Speaker 1: the way they've been keeping it quiet. I mean, who
Speaker 1: would they tell? Obviously they're keeping it quiet, you know,
Speaker 1: but I love finding out that this is happening. I'm
Speaker 1: not even sure it was wise of this man to
Speaker 1: tell Carl so much, you know, I feel like it's
Speaker 1: just sort of encouraging him, if anything. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know, I don't know. Fifteen is already
Speaker 1: considered a disaster. Do you know why that number is
Speaker 1: so high? And you know, Carl says what we're all thinking,
Speaker 1: which is because they don't want to spend any fucking money,
Speaker 1: and he says, yeah, that's basically it. Every one of
Speaker 1: those fifteen deaths, and in fact, every single ADMIN murder
Speaker 1: until this very moment, have all got one thing in common.
Speaker 1: We know exactly how the crawler pulled it off, but you,
Speaker 1: we don't know how you did it. And Carl's like,
Speaker 1: it was an accident, and Dona is going, oh my god,
Speaker 1: he thinks you did this on purpose, and dude, it's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it was an accident. We know what killed her. We
Speaker 1: can't figure out how you set it up because the
Speaker 1: explosion shouldn't have been as powerful as it was. And
Speaker 1: he leads Carl to be like, why do you think
Speaker 1: it was so powerful? I had the cat on my table.
Speaker 1: She was watching me decant those infusions. He slapped the
Speaker 1: desk and pointed at me like I'd just given him
Speaker 1: the answer to an equation. The sudden and unexpected sound
Speaker 1: was like a thunderclap. I tried not to flinch, and
Speaker 1: I hated myself for flinching anyway. I'm sorry, guys. If
Speaker 1: you can hear my dogs are do a little bit
Speaker 1: of a running around out there. They're so adorable it's
Speaker 1: hard to be mad. So, Yes, the Sapper thing actually
Speaker 1: affected this, which is just so interesting to me because
Speaker 1: I wouldn't expect the game stuff to affect real life
Speaker 1: objects that are made for sale outside of the world,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So I just really was
Speaker 1: caught off guard by that even being a factor. And
Speaker 1: then I love this guys, Donna, Oh my god, he
Speaker 1: does believe we did it on purpose. If Karl was
Speaker 1: gonna purposely kill Louda, he would have shoved a stick
Speaker 1: of dynamite and her gills and kicked her in the head.
Speaker 1: Carl is very good at killing things, and he can
Speaker 1: be very clever about it sometimes, but he doesn't do
Speaker 1: Secret Asian Man style murders. Agent what it's Secret Agent Man,
Speaker 1: not Secret Asian Man. Are you sure? Yes, I'm sure.
Speaker 1: How does Secret Asian Man make sense? Yes? I suppose
Speaker 1: that does make more sense. This tickled me so much
Speaker 1: because back in my youth I worked as a grocery
Speaker 1: stocker for Whole Foods for a while and I had
Speaker 1: a coworker there who was Asian Japanese tattoos all over
Speaker 1: his neck, and the radio would play Secret Agent Man
Speaker 1: that song and he would sing it as Secret Asian
Speaker 1: Man when he would sing along to it. So I
Speaker 1: hear it as secret Asian Man every time I hear
Speaker 1: it now due to that, and this just felt like
Speaker 1: a little bit of like, you know, I just it
Speaker 1: got me in a kind of inside joke sort of way.
Speaker 1: So when he was with Miss Beatrice, his definition of
Speaker 1: subtle was pulling his boxers down, saying me so horny,
Speaker 1: No offense, Carl, What I never did that? Oh right?
Speaker 1: That was Brad, wasn't it? Anyway? You get my point.
Speaker 1: The way that she just casually drops in all of
Speaker 1: the fucking dudes that Bee was cheating on him with
Speaker 1: is insane and she needs to chill um so orin.
Speaker 1: We have surveillance from the MECHS unit in this trailer,
Speaker 1: but that is it. Since you weren't in the room,
Speaker 1: the footage isn't nearly as holistic as we like, but
Speaker 1: what happened is clear. Luyda jumped down off the couch,
Speaker 1: the toy jumped down to follow, and a few seconds
Speaker 1: later it exploded, killing her and almost killing you two
Speaker 1: as well. The panel on the back of its head
Speaker 1: dislodged when it jumped, which activated the creature's self destruct sequence.
Speaker 1: And set off the explosion due to the interface lockout.
Speaker 1: Because of Admin Luyda's presence, neither of you received a
Speaker 1: self destruct warning. And then Carl brings up that thing
Speaker 1: was made out of some shitty plastic. It's not my
Speaker 1: fucking fault, and he's like, Okay, first of all, it's
Speaker 1: not plastic. It's made out of tamper proof polymer designed
Speaker 1: to fail under certain circumstances. And let's see, I'm saying
Speaker 1: the residue dust left behind by the disco ball smoke
Speaker 1: curtain started to slowly eat away at the panel. That
Speaker 1: process was greatly enhanced when you place the toy within
Speaker 1: range of Admin Louda's rebreather apparatus. The moisture caused the
Speaker 1: remaining dust to run across the panel and along the edges.
Speaker 1: Then you engineered a situation that would cause the admin
Speaker 1: to get up off the couch, and I love that.
Speaker 1: Carl internally is like, wow, this went way better than
Speaker 1: I expected due to a bunch of shit I wasn't
Speaker 1: even aware of. It's like, this guy is overestimating Carl
Speaker 1: in a way that I can't decide if this is
Speaker 1: beneficial to Carl or not. And he's trying to get
Speaker 1: them to basically sign a plea deal. If you just
Speaker 1: admit you did it, you can just go back into
Speaker 1: the dungeon and it'll be fine. And Carl is like,
Speaker 1: if you really thought I did it and you could
Speaker 1: prove it, you wouldn't want me to sign anything. You
Speaker 1: just fucking killed me. And this is so interesting. You're
Speaker 1: obviously getting information from an outside source. We know it
Speaker 1: wasn't Agatha or any of her helpers. None are in
Speaker 1: your bubble. We don't believe it was Odette, either.
Speaker 2: Agatha or any of her helpers. What what are her helpers?
Speaker 1: What is that? Hmm? I am really you know something's
Speaker 1: been up with Agatha. She was an alien to begin
Speaker 1: with or something. I don't know. I am so curious.
Speaker 1: Tell us who your source is and how they communicate
Speaker 1: with you, and you will be returned to the dungeon
Speaker 1: with no penalties, and you will be given a legendary
Speaker 1: box that will contain an item that will all but
Speaker 1: guarantee your survival until the ninth floor. And this is
Speaker 1: when we get Carl just being like I had no
Speaker 1: idea about that reaction, YadA YadA, And it is funny,
Speaker 1: like I kind of wanted Carl to point out to
Speaker 1: this guy, you're giving me credit for knowing that this
Speaker 1: thing would eat away at the panel when I thought
Speaker 1: it was just plastic, Like, how would I have even
Speaker 1: known that it did what you claim when Earth doesn't
Speaker 1: have a a product like this, you know. So anyway,
Speaker 1: he breaks the little tab off of the thing that
Speaker 1: holds the battery in place, just so that it becomes
Speaker 1: really like delicate and it pops out all the time.
Speaker 1: So when I'd leaned into tap on the glass and
Speaker 1: ask Loyda if the trailer could go into space, thus
Speaker 1: confirming Lloyda was really there thanks to the moisture, I'd
Speaker 1: attempted to get my nail in place, but it'd slipped out.
Speaker 1: I'd had to lean in a second time to get
Speaker 1: it right. I leaned over the couch and I'd made
Speaker 1: the move with my left hand, pressing the robot toy
Speaker 1: against my chest. In the end, it'd been simple. I
Speaker 1: held the panel in place as I pulled my hand away.
Speaker 1: When I placed the toy on the couch next to
Speaker 1: the admined, I'd pulled away with enough force to dislodge
Speaker 1: my fingernail, which held the panel precariously in place. I'd
Speaker 1: practically crapped myself when Robot Doughnut had turned its head
Speaker 1: to say some creepy shit to Loyda, but the little
Speaker 1: panel had held it wasn't visibly loose. So yeah, this
Speaker 1: whole thing, it's like a really genius idea anyway, But
Speaker 1: it's funny because they're just giving him a lot of
Speaker 1: credit that he doesn't deserve. I'm not signing anything because
Speaker 1: I have nothing to give up, nobody to rat out.
Speaker 1: And believe me, I'd love to get a free legendary box,
Speaker 1: but I have nothing to give you in exchange. This
Speaker 1: was an accident, but you're obviously not an idiot, so
Speaker 1: I won't lie to you. I wish I had thought
Speaker 1: of this. I wish I had outside help, because if
Speaker 1: I did and thought I could have gotten away with it,
Speaker 1: I would have done it without hesitation. But I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have wasted the opportunity on some low level bitch like Loyda.
Speaker 1: And who would you have used it on? Then I
Speaker 1: didn't answer. There were only so many lines I could cross.
Speaker 1: There was so much I wanted to say. I thought
Speaker 1: of Brandon, of Yolanda, everybody else in the world, they'd
Speaker 1: all died and nobody cared yet someone like Louda died
Speaker 1: and we had to go through all of this For
Speaker 1: reference to anybody listening to this in the future. It
Speaker 1: is currently September sixteenth of twenty twenty five. A couple
Speaker 1: of days ago, Charlie Kirk was shot through the throat
Speaker 1: while he was literally mid sentence about to talk shit
Speaker 1: about gang violence, which we all know is dog whistle racism.
Speaker 1: And when I say we all know, I mean anybody
Speaker 1: with any knowledge on the way dog whistle politics works knows.
Speaker 1: And the same day there was a school shooting and
Speaker 1: I never found out about that school shooting until like
Speaker 1: next day because Charlie Kirk's murder was made out initially
Speaker 1: to be the work of left wing terrorists, and then
Speaker 1: a fucking course, it turned out to be some right
Speaker 1: wing nut job who was pissed that Charlie Kirk wasn't
Speaker 1: as right wing as he wished he were, and it
Speaker 1: was part of this weird ongoing feud thing. And you know, guys,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people out there who are in
Speaker 1: the unfortunate position of either having said that they aren't
Speaker 1: sorry he died, and then getting fired from their jobs
Speaker 1: for having put that out on social media somewhere, or
Speaker 1: who feel that way but can't actually put it out
Speaker 1: there due to being worried about being let go. I
Speaker 1: am not in that position. I work for myself and
Speaker 1: I can say what I want. And all up and
Speaker 1: down my feed were people who were saying, basically like,
Speaker 1: after the way that man lived, for him to die
Speaker 1: this way is like some serious irony. And then in
Speaker 1: the comments, somebody would come in and be like, I
Speaker 1: can't believe you're acting like he deserved this, and that
Speaker 1: person would reply with I'm not saying he deserved it.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying you reap what you sew kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, he did deserve it. He absolutely
Speaker 1: deserved it. Like I will not stutter, my friends, Louta
Speaker 1: isn't out here holding a gun to anybody's head or
Speaker 1: swinging a knife or any such thing. She has a
Speaker 1: very non violent job, but nobody questions that she's part
Speaker 1: of this hideous system that wants to annihilate entire group
Speaker 1: of people. And Charlie Kirk was also doing this. He
Speaker 1: was also espousing the same kind of bigoted rhetoric about
Speaker 1: white erasure, and that black people with certain jobs were
Speaker 1: clearly not qualified and had been given that job out
Speaker 1: of some sort of DEI bullshit, and that trans people
Speaker 1: should be quote taking care of back like they did
Speaker 1: in the fifties and sixties unquote. He is literally saying
Speaker 1: they should be murdered, and folks have the goal to
Speaker 1: call him nonviolent because he didn't personally pick up a
Speaker 1: weapon and shoot anybody. Are you seven years old? What
Speaker 1: is fucking wrong with you? It doesn't get more violent
Speaker 1: than building your entire platform that reaches there's millions of
Speaker 1: people and having your entire life revolve around speaking jobs
Speaker 1: where you share this kind of sick rhetoric. That's all violence.
Speaker 1: That's all it is. That's the job, and the idea
Speaker 1: that folks aren't making that connection is wilful. This is
Speaker 1: not stupidity. This is on purpose. We are choosing to
Speaker 1: separate physical violence from the violence of rhetoric when I
Speaker 1: would argue what he was doing is in many ways
Speaker 1: worse because he can hide behind that. The fact that
Speaker 1: he didn't personally wield a weapon while mobilizing a huge
Speaker 1: group of people, and folks like him are why Trump
Speaker 1: got elected and why many folks being radicalized, but we
Speaker 1: act as a country like it's not accomplishing anything, and
Speaker 1: it's truly bizarre. It's the weirdest. And the folks who
Speaker 1: were so sure it was a leftist who killed him,
Speaker 1: We're all talking about how he had the right to
Speaker 1: his opinions, but then a person says, I'm not sorry
Speaker 1: he's dead, which is an opinion. And those same folks
Speaker 1: arguing about how he has the right to his free
Speaker 1: speech are reporting that Facebook post to get this person fired.
Speaker 1: Do we get free speech or do we not? You know,
Speaker 1: like the right is decrying political violence with his assassination,
Speaker 1: But yesterday my governor Greg Abbott pardoned a man who
Speaker 1: drove over a protester at a Black Lives Matter rally
Speaker 1: after sending texts to his friends about how he was
Speaker 1: going down there to quote kill looters. This dude murdered
Speaker 1: somebody for political reasons and was pardoned by the governor.
Speaker 1: He was dishonorably discharged when he got arrested, and they're
Speaker 1: trying to even reinstate him as being honorably discharged. Do
Speaker 1: we support political violence or don't we? So I know
Speaker 1: that there are a lot of liberals out there who
Speaker 1: are like, well, I don't agree with him, but I
Speaker 1: don't think we should resort to these measures. Yes we should,
Speaker 1: Yes we should. I am so sorry, but some people
Speaker 1: make the world worse and more dangerous. That's just fucking facts,
Speaker 1: and it's not pretty. I don't like it, but I
Speaker 1: think the world's better without a minute, and I am
Speaker 1: not going to stutter when I say it. You can
Speaker 1: clip this and cut it and put it wherever you want.
Speaker 1: I will stand by this until my dying breath. So yeah,
Speaker 1: good for you. Carl kill Louda. You can't root for
Speaker 1: this in this fiction and not see how somebody like
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk deserved to die. He did, He fucking did,
Speaker 1: and that's that on that So now their bodyguards are
Speaker 1: here to pick them up. It's very fun because he
Speaker 1: doesn't sign shit, and this guy can't make him, and
Speaker 1: there's just not anything that they can really do except
Speaker 1: keep an eye on him. I have no choice but
Speaker 1: to recommend that the Syndicate closed the matter. However, you
Speaker 1: should know we have implemented a punitive measure onto Barrent
Speaker 1: for the remainder of this floor, as this wasn't an
Speaker 1: isolated incident. No crawlers will be allowed to be teleported
Speaker 1: away by third parties until the next floor opens. Yes,
Speaker 1: that means your next appearance on Odet's show has been canceled.
Speaker 1: She's already filed an appeal. And this is when Carl
Speaker 1: starts to be like, filed an appeal, all of this
Speaker 1: has had It's been like ten seconds, and he's starting
Speaker 1: to realize, oh wait, it's longer than that. And he's
Speaker 1: also wondering how Lucy mr had killed two admins and
Speaker 1: gotten away with it. Why wasn't she dead? Prediction they
Speaker 1: did something to her and that's why she's acting so
Speaker 1: bananas that her acting out overtly got some kind of
Speaker 1: weird punishment that fucks with her perception or I don't
Speaker 1: know what. I don't know what they can do, but
Speaker 1: it seems to me something specific about her behavior is
Speaker 1: linked to a punishment. So that's my guess, And let's
Speaker 1: see whomever it is that's helping you. They're not doing
Speaker 1: it for your benefit. If the Kuatine hadn't intervened on
Speaker 1: your behalf, this would have gone much differently. What do
Speaker 1: you mean how did they intervene? Certain crawlers are simply
Speaker 1: too valuable to just throw away off screen, no matter
Speaker 1: how recalcitrant they are. Ultimately it's their call. And even
Speaker 1: though I can't find legal cause to place Administrator Lloyda's
Speaker 1: death upon you, if it were up to me, i'd
Speaker 1: have you removed anyway. We discussed this in council and
Speaker 1: it was decided that my personal recommend be ignored for
Speaker 1: now the month. Skippers aren't known for their ability to
Speaker 1: recognize threats. If the rumors are correct and we do
Speaker 1: take over after the next floor, I hope my own
Speaker 1: people will be much more willing to listen to my
Speaker 1: personal assessment. How long have we been away. It's only
Speaker 1: been five days. You're lucky it wasn't longer. You still
Speaker 1: have five days left to finish your bubble. Your partner,
Speaker 1: Katia has gotten into some interesting adventures while you've been gone.
Speaker 1: She's back on the top ten list above you. Actually,
Speaker 1: you two are about to slip off, so you probably
Speaker 1: want to get back to work. And Carl, this is
Speaker 1: the first time he really shows emotion and is just
Speaker 1: like motherfucker Orin looked up then, and the man's hood slipped.
Speaker 1: The swirling black coalesced and I realized it was actually
Speaker 1: a face shaped bowl of liquid made to look like
Speaker 1: swirling darkness within that liquid, a tiny glimpse of light.
Speaker 1: Mordecai had described what they looked like to me, so
Speaker 1: I recognized what was in the liquid, A worm of
Speaker 1: Valtae worm. Yeah, interesting, interesting, interesting, Okay, okay, Valta, I
Speaker 1: see you. So they come back, and Mordecai is clearly
Speaker 1: he is a distray and thought that they probably were
Speaker 1: going to not be returning, And Doughnut has to share
Speaker 1: the whole story. Katcha actually did go on her Sidekicks show.
Speaker 1: I guess they added the band as my show was
Speaker 1: being taped. Zev told me about the band just before
Speaker 1: I teleported back down here. So Zev is back as
Speaker 1: our pr agent again, which Donut is excited about. And
Speaker 1: I'm really curious because you know, having people tortured to
Speaker 1: force you into something, it can certainly break your brain
Speaker 1: and make you terrified, but it won't convince necessarily. So
Speaker 1: I'm curious exactly what Zev's going to be like when
Speaker 1: there isn't somebody like Loyda around to restrain her. I
Speaker 1: also want to mention now that we've gotten to know Loyda,
Speaker 1: thinking back to her being Hecla's PR agent. What a
Speaker 1: terrifying combination, you know, Like, I'm not absolving Hecla of
Speaker 1: the way she operated, because clearly that was a personality
Speaker 1: thing and that's part of who she was. But she
Speaker 1: was clearly being encouraged. I'm sure to be as completely
Speaker 1: like cold as she was. It says that Zeb's a
Speaker 1: temporary PR agent, but I don't know. Maybe maybe temporary
Speaker 1: will last a while. I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: So let's see. She was now in the last quadrant
Speaker 1: and was in the personal space via a pub down there.
Speaker 1: She was also now level forty one, three higher than
Speaker 1: the last time I'd seen her, and she didn't know
Speaker 1: what had happened. She had to have everybody like explain
Speaker 1: to her. If you hadn't, if you hadn't left the
Speaker 1: controller with Lewis, we never would have been able to
Speaker 1: fly the thing. I've spent the last five days killing
Speaker 1: scorpion men and arguing with Gwen. We could really use
Speaker 1: your help down here. Lewis and Firos are on the
Speaker 1: way back to pick you up. They've turned into quite
Speaker 1: the pilots. Once you get your asses down here, I'll
Speaker 1: catch you up and uh, Mordecai. Next thing, you know,
Speaker 1: the lawyers will be here. Everything gets complicated once the
Speaker 1: lawyers get here and we find out Chris and Maggie
Speaker 1: are still trapped. It's let's see a goddamn syndicate liaison.
Speaker 1: Just let you walk right out of there. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: didn't even say anything about this. I held Lloyd To's
Speaker 1: rebreather up in the air. I'd looted it off the
Speaker 1: dead Kuatine's body, you guys, that's honestly next level. He
Speaker 1: couldn't put it in his inventory, so it was just
Speaker 1: shoved into his boxers. I mean, insane. I love it
Speaker 1: so much. Now that we're going to be going underwater,
Speaker 1: potentially this could be really useful. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but Mordecai just gouged me be hanging down.
Speaker 1: So we go then into chapter twenty and I'm running
Speaker 1: a long on time here, so I'm going to do
Speaker 1: my best. I may have to continue some of my
Speaker 1: coverage of this into the next episode, but uh yeah,
Speaker 1: this the fun thing about this. Carl and Donut being
Speaker 1: gone has sort of given everyone else room to breathe,
Speaker 1: And it's not like the two of them. I don't
Speaker 1: think we're a dampening influence. I think they were actually
Speaker 1: inspirational to people. But there is something about having a
Speaker 1: person who's super capable and higher level around all the
Speaker 1: time that I'm sure can make you feel like you
Speaker 1: have something to fall back on. And once these two
Speaker 1: are taken out of the equation, everybody, you know, they
Speaker 1: don't know that these two are actual going to come
Speaker 1: back for sure. They just got to fucking manage their
Speaker 1: shit and it they're managing it, like, you know, not perfectly,
Speaker 1: but they're stepping up to for fear of us is
Speaker 1: level thirty now when he had been twenty two at
Speaker 1: the beginning of this floor. And let's see, did Kaya
Speaker 1: tell you about how she stuck the house into her inventory?
Speaker 1: A lot has happened. It was Lewis's idea. We had
Speaker 1: the thing floating just off the ground. Katya did that
Speaker 1: weird thing she does when she puts the backpack on
Speaker 1: and it worked. Then that same night, after the recap,
Speaker 1: they patched it and the whole damn contraption just popped
Speaker 1: out of her inventory, floating over our heads. It almost
Speaker 1: smushed all of us. We were all in a pub
Speaker 1: called cuttlefish Point and it pretty much blew up the tavern.
Speaker 1: That Pazuzu guy that runs it was pissed, and Pazusu
Speaker 1: is the name of a demon in the beginning of
Speaker 1: the Uh what do you call it? Oh, my god,
Speaker 1: the one where the exorcist. I think that's the name
Speaker 1: of the demon that possesses her. I was just it
Speaker 1: was funny to me. We all had to jump on
Speaker 1: the thing and fly Away thought he was going to
Speaker 1: sting us for sure. It was pretty intense. Then Lewis
Speaker 1: peeded over the edge on the guy while he was
Speaker 1: still screaming up at us, and it pretty much got
Speaker 1: us banned from town. Oh my god, y'all, that is
Speaker 1: a lot. I thought Gwen was gonna rip his schlong off.
Speaker 1: Katya had to stop her from kicking his ass, but
Speaker 1: she was laughing too, and that made Gwen even more mad.
Speaker 1: And later on we meet Gwen and we get a
Speaker 1: description from Katya that is interesting, So we will get there.
Speaker 1: Langley has a couple of his guys on it, keeping
Speaker 1: it clear of sand. It's gonna be tough starting tomorrow
Speaker 1: once the Red equinox. They're building something to protect it,
Speaker 1: and Karl had forgotten about that whole like weather patterns thing,
Speaker 1: so he's like, ah, shit, this is going to be
Speaker 1: a whole problem. So this is when Lewis says, all right,
Speaker 1: we got to get moving. Let's see. Do you feel
Speaker 1: out of the loop? Donut whispered, I feel out of
Speaker 1: the loop. Part of me was proud that Katya had
Speaker 1: just rolled with us going missing. She'd gotten a lot done.
Speaker 1: She'd managed to get the whole house down to the
Speaker 1: land quadrant, and she'd figured out how to breach the
Speaker 1: magical door that guarded the front of the land Quadrant castle,
Speaker 1: all without us. Fear Us told me that they would
Speaker 1: have finished with the castle already if Zev hadn't asked
Speaker 1: Katya to wait for us. At the same time, part
Speaker 1: of me stung at the notion she could do this
Speaker 1: without me. It was stupid, selfish, and it was more
Speaker 1: than a little narcissistic to think without me and Donut,
Speaker 1: Katcha and the others were absolutely screwed. But that feeling
Speaker 1: was there, and I was simultaneously relieved. It was that
Speaker 1: I'd been wrong and horrified i'd been thinking it in
Speaker 1: the first place. I still didn't know if we'd get
Speaker 1: there in time, but Katsche and the other's actions while
Speaker 1: we were away proved I wasn't as indispensable as I thought,
Speaker 1: and in the end I realized it was a necessary feeling.
Speaker 1: And then we get a flashback from his dad screaming
Speaker 1: at him, you'll die in a gutter without me. You
Speaker 1: need me. You think you're just gonna be fine. What
Speaker 1: will you do, you disrespectful little shit. You will break
Speaker 1: after just one day and then you'll die. That's what
Speaker 1: you'll do, just like your fucking bitch of a mother.
Speaker 1: This guy's a real piece of work, I swear, Carl,
Speaker 1: how did you wind up being as good a dude
Speaker 1: as you are? Like? How though? How I really like
Speaker 1: this whole thing with Carl reckoning with the fact that
Speaker 1: he isn't indispensable. It's not. It's something that I think
Speaker 1: a lot of us like get into this weird space,
Speaker 1: especially when we're at shitty jobs, where we tell ourselves like,
Speaker 1: this whole place would fall apart if it weren't for us,
Speaker 1: and it really is. It's like a way for us
Speaker 1: to cope with the garbage situation we're in, and it
Speaker 1: makes us feel like we've got some power and like,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, upon occasion, when a person leaves
Speaker 1: a certain job, it is a disaster in their wake
Speaker 1: because they did way more than anybody knew. But mostly
Speaker 1: people are fine. Mostly. You can tell yourself, this place
Speaker 1: would fall apart without me, and they could replace you
Speaker 1: tomorrow and almost nobody would even notice. And it's always like,
Speaker 1: you know, finding out a place is continued on without you.
Speaker 1: It can be sort of like quelling. And I think
Speaker 1: he's got a good attitude about realizing it's a mixed
Speaker 1: feeling he's having. In response, I think it's mature. So
Speaker 1: one of Lucimar's Rottwiler's had somehow accidentally killed a group
Speaker 1: of crawlers after a battle. The event had caused Lucia
Speaker 1: to undergo some sort of psychotic break one worse than usual.
Speaker 1: They'd shown the strange crawlers sitting alone in a room sobbing,
Speaker 1: which was the first real emotion they'd ever portrayed other
Speaker 1: than rage and pure insanity. Flora in the shotgun Crocodile
Speaker 1: Guy had finally emerged into a quadrant to find everybody
Speaker 1: else in the entire bubble was already dead. That first
Speaker 1: of all, I want to say that considering that they
Speaker 1: can bring people's like relatives back that were killed in
Speaker 1: the thing, I can't help but wonder if they like
Speaker 1: brought She mentioned her father in one of the videos,
Speaker 1: and like, is one of the dogs her relative turned
Speaker 1: into a pet? Did they do that to fuck with her?
Speaker 1: And that might make part of I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it could certainly cause you to go into a psychotic
Speaker 1: break that one of your creatures killed everybody just because.
Speaker 1: But I could also see it being extra upsetting if
Speaker 1: it's like this is a person to me still, but
Speaker 1: they're not. They're changed, and it's like, as much as
Speaker 1: I'm hanging onto something, it's not real, you know. I
Speaker 1: don't know, guys, my brain is going all over the
Speaker 1: place in terms of possibilities with her Flora. Finding out
Speaker 1: everybody is dead is truly awful. It's all on him,
Speaker 1: like yikes. He'd only managed to clear one castle so far,
Speaker 1: and the general consensus was that he was screwed. The
Speaker 1: Goat Squad was almost done with their bubble, but Miriam
Speaker 1: Don the Shepherd Lady, was hit with some curse that
Speaker 1: ended up changing her into a vampire. Apparently she was
Speaker 1: a vegan before this. And the assholes thought to be
Speaker 1: hilarious to do that to her. Look, I don't think
Speaker 1: veganism is a great way to live for a number
Speaker 1: of reasons, but it's not my fucking business. I don't
Speaker 1: get why people get so like, you know, just get
Speaker 1: over it, Jesus. So I'm at eight minutes over time,
Speaker 1: and there's still like a substantial amount left in this chapter.
Speaker 1: So uugh, let's see. Okay, we have the meeting with Gwen.
Speaker 1: We'd exchanged fist pumps when Donut was collecting all the
Speaker 1: now worthless engineer hats. The woman was about forty five
Speaker 1: years old and solid, and she is First Nations, and
Speaker 1: he can see that she is somebody who has done
Speaker 1: some real physical labor and has muscle on her and
Speaker 1: is a person who probably got into bar fights, and
Speaker 1: just is a type that he knows really well, race
Speaker 1: human class, boring old fighter. Sorry, we can't whine and
Speaker 1: dine you first, bomber boy, but we need to get
Speaker 1: trucking on this bullshit your friend is making us do.
Speaker 1: The storm that's about to hit is the last one
Speaker 1: before the weather change, and we don't know if that's
Speaker 1: going to fuck us over or not. We can only
Speaker 1: do Kacha's electric door thing during the sandstorm. Let's see
Speaker 1: you a friend of yours are going to go in
Speaker 1: there and try and kill the mage for us, just us. Oh,
Speaker 1: she didn't tell you the deal, did she? Why does
Speaker 1: that not surprise me? So? Donut I like her? She
Speaker 1: reminds me of a miniature sized Hekla, Carl, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: that turned out great, Katya. She's an amazing fighter. She's
Speaker 1: fast too. Her class trades fighting skills for no magic
Speaker 1: spells whatsoever. I watched her use that spear to pierce
Speaker 1: a pozuzu in the back, vault over him and use
Speaker 1: the momentum to throw his body at another monster. The
Speaker 1: problem is she's a real bitch. She is like Hecla
Speaker 1: in some ways, though instead of scheming in her head,
Speaker 1: she just says it out loud the moment she thinks
Speaker 1: of it, And if she doesn't like you, she will
Speaker 1: tell you, and then, just to make sure you were
Speaker 1: paying attention, she'll say it again, but in a different way.
Speaker 1: At least, Hackla pretended to be supportive, Carl. I was
Speaker 1: actually surprised when Firas said you two were always fighting.
Speaker 1: I thought you could get along with everybody, Kotcha, I
Speaker 1: made a promise to myself not that long ago. I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to take any shit anymore. When Gwen makes
Speaker 1: up her mind about something, it's impossible to change her mind,
Speaker 1: and then she becomes a bully about it. I don't
Speaker 1: like that, donut. That makes her sound more like Carl
Speaker 1: than hecla. He's not a bully, though, Kotya agreed. Carl
Speaker 1: doesn't insult you when you have a different idea. Carl,
Speaker 1: She's exactly the type of person who would survive here.
Speaker 1: So what's the deal with the castle? Katya? Okay, So
Speaker 1: here's the problem. We've discovered. There are two ways to
Speaker 1: take it easy and hard. Gwen wants to do the
Speaker 1: easy way, but if we do it her way, I
Speaker 1: think we're going to lose our chance of getting the
Speaker 1: winding box from the mage. Honestly, I'd also much rather
Speaker 1: do it her way too, but Zev has been unusually
Speaker 1: insistent that we wait for you too. That is interesting
Speaker 1: to me. The idea that like Zev is trying to
Speaker 1: influence what's happening in there, I'm sure would not be
Speaker 1: approved of by Luita. And it's just showing for me
Speaker 1: that there's still some of zev in there, hopefully. Let's see.
Speaker 1: Most of this information is from a drunk scorpion guy.
Speaker 1: This he turned himself into a sand elemental. That's how
Speaker 1: he managed to get that one part he has. He's
Speaker 1: all mixed in with the sand. Now there's a magical
Speaker 1: door to get into the castle, but you can dig
Speaker 1: behind it. At first I thought it was a poor
Speaker 1: but it's not. After they've reached the last wall, Gwen's
Speaker 1: team found a secret drainage panel against the side. If
Speaker 1: they turn it, it will release all the water inside the
Speaker 1: necropolis and shoot it back out into the ocean through
Speaker 1: the main drainage tunnel, which is what the sand castle
Speaker 1: is built around. We wouldn't even need to get through
Speaker 1: the magical doorway. It'll just destroy the sand castle like
Speaker 1: we were hitting it with a water hose. Easy though
Speaker 1: apparently it would only half drain the necropolis because the
Speaker 1: water is still being pumped in, and so if we
Speaker 1: blow it out the water hose, blow it out with
Speaker 1: the water hose. Plan we take the castle, but the
Speaker 1: mage guy gets turned to mud and we never find
Speaker 1: the winding box. What's the hard way? You see those
Speaker 1: two towers on either side of the sand castle. At
Speaker 1: the base of each was a coiled up electrical line
Speaker 1: with clips at the end. If you attach the line
Speaker 1: to the tower and then to the door, when the
Speaker 1: sandstorm hits, lightning hits the towers and they act like
Speaker 1: lightning rods. They electrify the doorway and a glass hallway
Speaker 1: appears if you examine it while it opens. The message
Speaker 1: says it only opens once per sandstorm. But the door
Speaker 1: closes really fast. There'll only be enough time for a
Speaker 1: few of us to enter. I made a deal with
Speaker 1: Gwen that we would do it. She thinks we're idiots
Speaker 1: for trying it this way when there's an easier solution,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to stop here. But suffice to say,
Speaker 1: the door gets opened, it works, and they go through.
Speaker 1: I am very interested in seeing what happens from there.
Speaker 1: So I have to wrap though, because I just wasn't
Speaker 1: able to get through at all. Apologies. I know that
Speaker 1: probably I shouldn't have talked about Charlie Kirk for as
Speaker 1: long as I did, but you know what, I just
Speaker 1: needed to get it out, kids, I just needed to
Speaker 1: say it. I just had to. So sorry, not sorry,
Speaker 1: appreciate you all so much and until next time to
Speaker 1: the loom motherfuckers that was an unspoiled network past