Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
covering Dungeon Crawler Carl book. What is this? Six The
Eye of the bedlam Bride, chapters forty two through forty five.
In these chapters, we have got a really intense fight
with numerous enemies in a farm, and then we have
a really intense scene with Carl seeing his father's murder.
This is a very heavy section. Welcome to spoil Me,
of Welcome to the show everyone. I am Natasha. Thank
you very much to Michael for commissioning this episode. And
Michael is here in the chat with me today. Delighted
to have you, sir. So this is a I'm trying
to think exactly how to say this, because it's like
I keep using the word intense for obvious and correct reasons.
But it's an odd type of emotional rollercoaster because even
though the first fight doesn't seem like it's emotional initially,
it ends in a very emotional way on a number
of levels. And I don't know what to make of
some of this, Like there's I have suspicions, I don't know,
I don't know. So okay, let's begin, let's start. Let's
forty two. We open with and this is so compelling
note added by a crawler Drachia. Ever since I hit
the tenth floor, I've noticed a peculiarity in some of
the mobs, like they're embracing death. There is a strange
joy that only appears at the very end. There's frustration too.
It will sound unhinged, and maybe I'm losing my mind,
But the voice that runs this world has been getting
stranger and stranger. I believe it's moving into the minds
of these monsters, taking them over at the point of death,
as if desperately attempting to know what it's like to
lose it all. But it keeps failing, and its frustration grows.
If only I could convince it to move into the
minds of one of these nagas. So that is I'm
I heavily edited as I read that, I was reading
but cutting chunks out, So that's not verbatim what it says.
It's much longer, but I think I got the gist
of it there. First of all, the concept of moving
the AI into somebody's mind and making them crave death
or to lose it all terrifying, but also potentially very
useful depending on if the AI is feeling friendly toward
you or not. But I also like you know, it
has clearly been the policy based on everything that we
have heard over the last few books saying policy is wrong,
it has been expected that the AI starts to get
odd the longer the game goes on, not necessarily becoming
like fully self aware, but close enough to it that
it's quite dangerous and there has to be a specific
set of rules on how to handle them because by
the end they are considered basically sentient and so they
can't simply be destroyed, so they're left in this retirement home.
For lack of a better way of saying it, So
there has been you know, talk of this already, but
this specific type of attempt to connect with mortality and
what it means to be alive and afraid or alive
and about to and why the frustration because it doesn't
feel anything as it dies. Is that why it doesn't
get the the type of emotional rush it's expecting or
is it trying to feel the emotional rush of the
creature it's inhabiting, and it feels it, but it doesn't
mean anything to it, Like there's a lot I have
a lot of questions about this, and again something that
could be potentially super useful or just terrifying, depending I
there's so much in this world, y'all. I feel like
dungeon crawler Carl is a ripe property for fanfic, Like,
you know, not talking about like slash with characters hooking up,
although I'm sure that's the thing, but it's just the
type of crawls that we have heard little bits and
pieces about having happened in the past, and people could
expand on that or you know what I'm saying. So
this then starts with the uh summary of what we
have in our deck, which I won't go through. But
we are still in this barn with all of these turkeys,
and they are starting to peck at Dona and Carl,
but not in like a the attack has been signaled
sort of way, just if they're close enough, and they're
sort of like, what's up with this guy? Peck? Can
I eat him? Peck? I don't think I could eat
him peck that kind of thing. So it's a real casual.
There's there's a sense here of like almost this is
worse because they're not as aggressive, and so this has
to be leading up to something, which eventually it very
much does, and in a terrible way. It turns out
that Carl's attempt to sort of preempt whatever the trap
is by killing as many turkeys as he can really
backfires because, as we discover, one of the two deckmasters
that we are dealing with here is a necromancer, and
so we wind up having to deal with zombie turkeys
who are not only higher level than the regular turkeys,
but they also can zombify you if they bite you
or peck you whatever. So this is all coming up,
but for the moment we meet Tom Level seventy five
Bereft Shaman of Meleagris Malay Chris Galipavo Wrecks. Did you
know that turkeys naturally have brown feathers, but the ones
you see in this farm are all white. It's because
after turkeys are slaughtered, plucked, and put up for sale,
they're pin feathers, like little baby hairs, are still visible
sometimes on the carcass. When these little feathers are brown,
it makes the turkeys look less appetizing, like massive, sweaty nutseacs.
So the farmers eventually started breeding them to be white,
making the feathers less visible to the eye. Funny, isn't
it how things can be bred in a way that
makes it so those holding the butcher knife are less
likely to face their own revulsions. There's no point to this,
just an observation. I've been doing that a lot lately,
observing things, noticing them. It's all right there if you
look long enough. Anyway, this is a magic using turkey.
Oh my god, you guys. I listen to this section twice,
as I try to do most of the time, and
this moment, even though I knew where it was going,
still made me laugh on the second listen laugh even
though it's like not funny, but it was just so
well delivered. You know, this is a fucking top tier narrator.
And I really wonder I would love to talk to
a voice actor who like gets projects like this and
maybe I don't know what else he's done, but like
in comparison to a property where you're doing ordinary voices
a little bit more often, and when I say ordinary,
am mean less like like exaggerated. You know, is it
more fun to do the wild and out there voices
or does it get to be sort of exhausting knowing
I'm gonna go in there today and I'm gonna have
to come up with fifteen different voices, and I'm gonna
have to like bring the energy for all of them.
I feel like it's gotta be like anything creative, where
the more variety and the more demand on you, the
more fun it is, but the more exhausting it is,
and the more difficult it is to get it up
on days that you are just tired, you know. But
this is I mean combined with like the announcing voice
of the AI versus the regular voice. And when I
say announcing, I mean like you know it, it's that
kind of thing. This is varied, it's all over the place,
and uh yeah, it this long fucking description. Can we
just go back to the normal descriptions? I muttered, Holy shit.
And I when he says this, I thought to myself, Huh,
is the AI going to be mad at him for this? Yes? Yes,
it is in a far more personal way than I
was even expecting, and I expected it to be pretty personal.
We'll get there in a second. So Donut is, you know,
trying to play her deck and is encountering some really
frustrating gameplay from the other side, and there's like, at
first it's looking pretty good. She summoned Skyler Spinach. She
uses the thief. She is able to steal one of
their cards. But there comes eventually a card that is
called Idol Eyes, and that is the one that really
begins to turn the tide. First, we have to meet
Sharp Elbows, which is like a weird name. She is
an ogre woman about seven feet tall, and she's got
like a swamp which kind of energy, as Carl puts it.
And this is when level eighty blah blah blah blah,
basically a necromancer. This is deck Master number nine of ten.
You want short descriptions, okay, you little bitch. It's not
like you're at a disadvantage when the descriptions are long.
You know, your perception of time slows during these moments.
I could make one of these as long as the
Zack Snyder film and it wouldn't matter. I did that
for you because of our special connection, and you don't
appreciate it. Fuck you, I just I you know, Like,
this is the way I would talk to Marshal if
he were being a particular dickhead after I put a
bunch of work in. This is like married couple type shit.
This is just a lot more specific than I was
thinking it was gonna get. And also the mention of
your perception of time slows, which this was like a
question that I had a few sections ago. When he's
reading the really long description of the what's the thing
with the night Worm the Guild of Suffering, and at
that point it did sort of seem like the NPC
with him perceived the time passing, because he actually says
to Carl, why are you just standing there? Are you
going in? Or what are you doing? So the AI
doesn't like, I don't know that it slows time as
much as it says. It seems as if it was
still really noticeable to somebody on the outside. But anyway,
I just loosely and half assidly based on the rich
and beautiful eye Away culture. This legendary creature has a
really interesting backstory. But you don't want to hear it,
do you suit yourself? I just hope you haven't killed
too many of those turkeys. There's your description. You a
grateful little prick. So Carl says, sorry, I pissed you off.
I really want to point out, Carl, that's not exactly
the kind of apology we're looking for. That's like, sorry
you were offended kind of you know, say I'm sorry
that I didn't appreciate your very detailed and helpful descriptions.
This is probably a little bit more likely to get
you favorable treatment, It's all I'm saying. Also, it's very
interesting that the AI is saying because of our special
connection specifically, I know that it's very likely simply about
the feat what can you do? But it maybe that
the AI sees it a little bit more than Carl
sees it, you know. So Carl tries to use a
bomb and it goes off too soon, and I had
noticed earlier that he had mentioned that it was getting warm,
and I was like thinking that had something to do
with it. And eventually he figures it out that there
are heat lamps in here and that's what's causing his
bombs to go off early. But it takes him longer
than I expected it too, for him to put two
and two together there. So this is when we have
the temple guards that get summoned, who it turns out don't.
They're brothers, but they like never liked each other, so
they're pretty stoked to get to fight one another, which
is genuinely funny. And then there's also the tin man
had it all wrong. Ain't nothing gentle about these lizards.
I don't know what that is, Donnut, ask Carl. He
doesn't excuse me, He doesn't know. Do you guys know?
Is this like something? I don't know what it is
here it is idolized. All the turkey dots blink red.
They're gobbling resumed just as quickly as it had stopped,
the sound, causing my heart to skip. I tossed a
regular banger sphere at the ogre and it embedded itself
into the witch's shoulder with a wet smack. She didn't
even falter. This bitch is very tough, so he uses
fear and the turkeys begin to run away. But then
there is a counter spell that not only negates his spell,
but makes it so that he won't be able to
cast any more spells for the duration of this card
being active, which is really fucking tough man. That sucks.
Now they have possession of this card, so that's helpful.
The idolized turkeys weren't totems, which meant they'd be able
to attack Donut directly, and he can't cast protective shell.
He can't do a lot of things, like later on
when he is you know, there's a bunch of moments
where it would have kept everything from going quite as
left if he had been able to cast a spell,
and this in particular makes things really bad for them.
So at this point, Donut summons she Maria and he
is so excited. I'm the excited is the wrong word. Relieved.
Carla is just like, oh, finally we're going to be
done with this fucking nightmare because she Maria just always
has it on lock. But then there's another card cast
by the enemy called get back in Line, and it
sends she Maria back into the deck. Oh boy, that
really fucking sucks. So he then gets the notification the
Scavenger's daughter has been fed unleash her wrath, and he's like,
I wonder if this would even work because it's like
feels like a spell, but technically it's a skill. And
eventually he is indeed able to do it, but it
is so destructive that it almost results in their losing anyway,
and by losing, I mean they're death. So this is
when she summons her weird combo totem and Necro card
the worm folkrum and this thing it's quite powerful. It's sentient.
Necro Staff level fifty. The fact that it is sentient,
I really wonder what the fuck like, I can't imagine
what that means. How is how how much? In how
does it communicate? I just lots of questions. This is
when the zombie turkeys begin to rise, and this is
when Carl attacks Tom and uses the power of the Daughter,
and it says, I felt like I just kicked a
hole in the world. I slammed into the ground, utterly
obliterating the boss Turkey and everything around it of turkeys alive,
dead and zombie flew off in all directions. In front
of me, the north wall of the barn bowed out
like it had just been hit with an invisible truck.
Above us, the roof sagged further. The ground under us
was suddenly slanted, facing toward the closest cliff edge. Everything
started to slowly slide away, and I was just like,
oh shit, and I can't. Like part of me wanted
to be like Carl, you knew how precarious everything was,
why did you do this? But there was literally no choice,
Like they were seconds away from getting fucked, you know,
so he had to do what he had to do.
But this is when the cascade begins, of everything sliding
off the side in a manner similar to a waterfall,
as he describes it later, and he falls off the
edge with poor Mongo, who is still unconscious. Eventually he's
like holding Mongo by his tail to keep him from
and eventually Mango wakes up and saves himself and rushes
off because he has that jump that's like insane, so
he manages to jump up into the rafters of the barn.
But even so, like you know, it's not exactly stable
there either, it's more stable than where he's standing, I suppose.
And this is when the ogre comes smashing down on him,
and it is horrific. Like we have had Carl get
injured before, we have had him see Doughnut injured before.
It's not like we haven't had our close calls already,
but this feels really different. It's a combination of the
extent of the damage and the fact that he gets
nailed in the eyes with two of these spikes, which
is its own specific hideous experience that is terrifying because
if things go a little bit like wrong here. Even
were he to heal, he might not get his eyes back,
So it's really one of those like I am personally
sure that he is likely to keep his eyes in
this story. However, there is a sense in me of
he's gonna have to lose something though, sooner or later,
you know what I'm saying. Very I suddenly was faced
with the reality that when you're writing a story like this,
there is going to come a point where your main
is gonna have to make some kind of sacrifice, and
it's almost always bodily. I am assuming and I have
been assuming it's related to that bone key, and probably
that is what we're getting, is gonna be something like that.
But there was a suspicion of, like, but this could
be it. It seemed like it. The moment wasn't quite right
for it, because usually this sort of thing happens as
like a uh uh, maybe a wake up call or
sacrifice on behalf of saving somebody else, and like he
saved Mango here, but that's not really the same thing.
It just didn't quite feel right. But I was still worried,
you know, And to be honest, y'all, just any injury
in the eyes is always going to give me major X.
It's not I'm not unusual in this. I think a
lot of people have it. So it was just the
visceral quality of the injury as well as the fear.
I was pretty confident he'd get his eyes back in
the end. But even so, you are feeling yourself dying
in a way that's got to have really intense trauma
that isn't addressed too much within the story. But I'm
wondering if because this experience was so much more extreme,
perhaps it's going to begin to come up more. This
is something that the other series that I'm covering, there's
a new book out that I haven't gotten booked yet,
but it's the Bastionian Immortal Great Souls series, and there
is a exercise, so to speak, where people can basically
be transported into a very hyper realistic battle in order
to hone their skills and try and basically like level
themselves up. But you can only enter it so often,
and it's pretty regulated, and somebody finds a loophole where
they can get in more often, and they think it's
fine and that they're just like it's found a cheat
code where they can keep leveling up faster than other people,
until one of his friends points out the effect that
it's clearly having on him, because you are killed in
this simulation and you feel and remember your death. And
his friend has to be like, Bro, you are not okay,
and you're acting like dying repeatedly has no effect on you,
and it does. And if you can't see it, I
don't know what to tell you. And so that was
sort of what occurred to me. Here is like, it's
not even that it's quite the same thing, but it's
the PTSD that you would have to be experiencing while
playing this game. Is it even PTSD? Like, I'm sure
it's just TSD because we're still in it. You know
how many people are developing a really like difficulties in
coping as things go on, And I wonder if this
is going to have an effect on him like it
has to. So this is the part that is so odd.
I could smell her rotted yellow teeth against my own,
clinking together, like we were forced in a locked kiss
that tastes like that of rotted meat. There were things
in her mouth. I felt them wriggling there, pressing against
my teeth as I screamed, with my mouth clenched closed already.
I do not like this at all. Okay, and then
they starve us, you know, the ogre growled. She was
whispering the words, and I felt them more than I
heard them. She started to pull away, the spikes ripping
out of me one by one. When we're not here,
we are there, and when we're there, they make certain
the hunger festers. You can stop it, you can satiate
us all Karl her face fully pulled away, releasing my eyes.
I felt twists of tingling, thick gore, linking us like
our bodies didn't want to separate. And he drinks a potion.
His sight comes back and he's just like, fucking thank god.
And then Raoul, this insignificant incurase here to rescue you.
I shall free you from this demon. The ogre face
was right there, staring directly into my eyes and they
were pleading, sad afraid. I've seen those eyes before. Where
where where? When we're not here, we are there, and
when we're there, they make certain the hunger festers. What
the fuck is this? And I don't know if it's relevant,
but Donnut, at one point later, says something about how
they're reusing this plotline of like the Undead and people
are getting bored with it, and a part of me
is starting to be like, does these things have something
to do with each other? I don't, you know, Ah,
this is so. I mean the eyes could be any
number of beings that he has encountered and had to
put out of their misery. You know, I'm trying to
remember what The person that I keep thinking about is
the uh bitchy woman on the train line who insisted
that she had an apartment and you know whatnot and
then she gets there and there's nothing there, but it's
not I don't think it's her. Then. I The other
thought that I have is a the goblin woman that
they connect with on the first floor that they have
to like rob a trick. But it could be even
somebody that he killed that was like a boss, that
had been a regular person, like the Jim bro or
that first woman who was you know, uh hoarder. I
don't think so. I don't think it's that. I think
it's an NPC thing. But when we're not here, we
are there and the hunger festers, what the fuck does
that mean? I just all of this is very upsetting.
I also want to mention Raoul does save Carl here.
Thank you, Raoul, appreciate you. My health stuttered. I had
a gaggle of d buffs. Did you catch you, guys?
That he's the word yeagle? Huh it's a little pun. Yeah. Anyway,
At this point, Donah scoops him up and puddle jumps
away and he finally wakes up like forty five minutes later,
and she is very agitated. It's obvious something is wrong.
And uh, we find out about this friggin' ring, the
ring Peter Cole had secretly helped me buy at Club Vanquisher,
the one disguised as my strength ring burned. Did we
see this happen? I genuinely don't remember, guys. There's lots
of you know, collecting of gear and stuff, so I
just may have lost track of this. But uh, Donah
is like noticing the ring, and I thought it was
your strength ring? Like, what's going on with that? Where
did you get it? And I found it sort of
interesting that, like she like, why wouldn't he have told anybody?
Is that part of getting the ring was that he
wasn't allowed to say so? Then let's see oh. This
is when she says, I don't have the tokens, and
the bodies tumbled off the edge, which means you need
to go diving into the ocean to find the corpses.
They're probably buried too, so you need to get moving.
But first we have to make sure that Woozy Deebuff
goes away first. I'm afraid the bodies might be hopelessly buried.
If so, that means will fail the quest to get
the key. And he says that he has both bodies
in his inventory. They they have the tokens on them,
but not their cards. It turns out she got their cards.
But then this moment, you have the tokens already. Oh,
she sounded almost disappointed. And what it turns that is
going on here is that she is really anxious about
Carl having to go to the Boss battle where he
is going to see his father. They both know it's coming.
She in particular saw a motorcycle that had the dent
that she recognized from when there was that weird like
choice of prizes, and she perceived his very extreme reaction
to the sight of it, and so she knows the
significance of it and is just like yeah, it's definitely
his dad, and if they weren't able to collect all
of the tokens, he wouldn't be able to go into
the boss battle. So a part of her is obviously
a little bit hoping maybe we don't have to do
this at all, maybe we can just find another key somehow,
which later, when they they are faced more directly with
the choice of simply choosing not to do this, he
has to be like, don'na, do you really want to
fight other crawlers for a key rather than get it ourselves,
And once she's like asked directly, she's like, no, I
guess not. But this is what's so interesting about like
the way that our minds work is this whole time,
she's kind of trying to make the choices that would
lead to them doing just that, except it's clear when
asked that she does not want to do that. So
we can like, in reality, not want something, but still
do all the things required to get us to that point,
despite the fact that if we really stop and think
about it, it's not what we want. It's just very stupid.
We are not like the it's it's very annoying the
way that we can ignore what we are really feeling
about things and how much we are able to just
set things aside. It just fucks us, man, it really does.
So anyway, she talks about the totem, that's that like staff,
I have to imbue it with one of my spells
before we start the fight, and if I do, I
can cast that spell, but I can only do it once.
The staff itself works like a totem, and it looks
different depending on what spell it's holding, and he mentions
clockwork triple kit can make three she marias, and she's like, yeah,
and I tried it and it works, which I was like,
God damn. That is like simultaneously once again incredible, so advantageous,
but potentially really really dangerous, these things being able to
potentially overpower our people. This is not It is by
no means out of the question. And there is something
about not always knowing which is the real one as
well that has me just deeply creeped out at the
idea of more than one. She Maria. I don't like it.
I think that this is like I wouldn't be able
to resist using this the way they're talking about because
of how close this last fight was. But it all
I can think is how rife this situation is with
the potential to get get all the tables turned on them.
We got another combo card. It works the same way
as last time, but it's not consumable, so we can
do it over and over, which is pretty incredible. Anyway,
she said, cutting me off. I was thinking, maybe I
can do this last fight by myself with those new cards.
I'm pretty much indestructible. And he's like what. And then
eventually they get to the point of what's going on
here and him being like, you remember when I wanted
to like skip the entire floor because of what was
going on with Ferdinand And she's like yeah, and Leader,
you said you wished you had just skipped the floor,
and he's like, I wish we could have skipped the fight,
but if we'd done that way, more people would have died.
And this is when he asked, how would you know
it's my dad anyway? And she explains and he ends
it with, you know what, it's okay. They're doing this
to everybody. We have to get it over with and
don't try to be like me. Don't you need to
be like you? And I really loved it, but this
is like the kind of attitude that I would take
with something like this. It's a really specific thing about me,
is like the types of procrastination that I participate in.
And if it's like a routine thing that I need
to get done that's boring and tedious, I can put
that off until the sun grows cold. You guys, I
will not fucking face it. But something like this, where
I know it's targeted at me, where I know it's
a one time deal. Hopefully it may not be, but
you know we're going to operate like it is, where
I know getting through it as fast as possible means
it will be over sooner. I would definitely take the
approach Karli is of just like, let's fucking go do it.
Let's just get it over with, let's just do it.
That is one hundred percent. It's just most things that
we deal with in life are not like that. Most
things are routine, every day trying to be consistent. And
that's where I really fucking do not shine at all.
So they get to this like vending machine that has
his dad's silhouette on it and it says that you
put nine tokens in for to like activate the fight.
You can leave, but then you need another nine tokens,
and by the way, there's no other nine tokens in
this entire area, so probably you don't want to do that.
And she says something about how he looks exactly like
his dad, and he says, never say that again. This
is also interesting that like everything that they are looking at,
let's see, you know what, my eyes f focused on
the green weeds growing up around the tires of the motorcycle,
at the flowers. You're right, this is wrong. All of
this is wrong. Everything here was covered in snow just
a few hours ago. It melted because it was transferred
here to Florida. The trailer and the entire yard is different.
Look at the grass, look at all the dust on
the truck and the motorcycle, and they are able to
see the exact spot where things were like cut in half.
So it's mentioned later as he enters that like the
time here is different than where when they are in
the rest of the floor, that interactions with the memories
are going to react differently. There's like a bunch of
just differences here that our result in later he can
like take the motorcycle into his inventory, which he is
really surprised by he tries to take this truck that
does not work. He's not strong enough to pick the
whole thing up, even though he thinks like he should be.
And it seems to me he's been set up to
take specifically the motorcycle only. So let's see, I'm trying
to find Yeah, this is when he starts looking around
and he sees all of this evidence that his father
has remarried or is at the very least just like
in a relationship with somebody, Because there are flower pots
that are tended and carefully labeled in like really feminine handwriting.
And this is like the beginning of this feeling to him.
And I had a suspicion that it was going to
turn out he had a sibling that he wasn't aware of.
I am very concerned at what they're going to do,
because like kids aren't allowed as crawlers, but I have to, like,
we have heard people talk about how there were crawlers
who committed suicide rather than fight their own children who
had been turned into mobs, you know, So it's very
possible that this little brother is going to be used
against him somehow, And I really don't want to see that,
but it might be we'll have to see. So I
cleaned out the yard, taking everything I could pick up,
including the old washing machine, several kids bikes of various sizes,
and all the pieces of rusty crab. I couldn't quite
lift the ford all the way, although I felt as
if I should be able to. This one had Iowa
plates and the registration was surprisingly up to date, despite
the missing tire. And I am assuming that anything that's
like being taken care of at all is down to
his wife. So also on the backside of the trailer
was another surprise, half of an old mini van sitting
in a parking spot. It was cut down the middle
front to back, and it was leaned over. The winter
half wasn't there at all, The engine was cut right
in half. And there was other stuff here too, in
the far side of the yard. Stuff I didn't want
to think about it. The stuff I didn't want to
think about. Doughnut saw it too and said nothing, and
that is the toys and whatnot, indicating that there's probably
a kid here. And like, right up until the moment
that he sees this kid, he's hoping maybe the woman
already had a child. When he met her, which isn't
necessarily like better for that child, but I like, I
understand where this is coming from. So he goes in.
He leaves doughnut outside, and his father is inside, and
I was expecting this to be something that he could
like interact more with than he is able to. As
it turns out, he is really purely there to observe.
There's a forty five minute timer before the fight is
going to start, so he has to watch everything transpire
in what seems like real time here. So he comes
in and his father is dying. Unclear exactly what's going on,
but I'm assuming that it's something to do with his
lungs because he was a heavy smoker and there was
a mention of him coughing, and he is really diminished
from you know, the big man that Karl remembered. And
Carl has this moment as he sees him of just God,
this is what I was afraid of. Really. I especially
love the pointing out of the scent that parents have
that you don't think about, but that is uniquely theirs,
and if you've been away for a long time, you
smell it again and you're just like, oh, oh, yeah,
that's it. There it is, you know. And it's interesting that,
like he shares this home with two other people, but
his scent dominates this place, which is just who he is,
you know. And Carl is just startled at how in
because he hasn't seen his father in twelve years, which
is a while, sure, but the changes that have happened
look like much more time than simply twelve years. This
dude has gone down the bend. I don't know if
it's supposed to be. Maybe it's cancer, you know, lung stuff.
Can it can be that it's cancer and it's resultant
from lung stuff, or maybe it's something else. I don't know,
it doesn't really matter. In the end, there's a moment
where his dad starts talking out loud like are you
gonna sit and stare at me? Or gonna or are
you gonna ask what you want to ask? And Carl
jumps because he's thinking, oh my god, he can see me.
But it turns out his dad's talking to this young
kid who is about six years old, and Carl is
just like, oh, I really hoped that this wasn't it,
but there he is, and it really sucks ass. You guys,
This is something that you guys know. I am very
pro choice, pro control of women over there, like women's
control over their own healthcare, And this sort of situation
is exactly what I think about because I don't. It
is not a coincidence and it is not a subconscious thing.
This is a very specific thing that men do, is
they decide to trap women by getting them pregnant. And
I know that there is such a thing about like
women who meet rich men and get pregnant on purpose
to trap the men. But the truth of it is
that men are never really trapped. They can always leave.
Women are in a very different situation. They might be
able to leave after having given birth, but sometimes times
not then, And it really heavily depends on what kind
of support system do they have. Are they employed, can
they make their own money? And abusive men make sure
to isolate women and also insist on them being at
home all the time and giving up their jobs explicitly
so that they do not have anybody to rely on,
anywhere to go when things begin to inevitably get really awful.
And getting a woman pregnant is like a very it's
a very simple way to ensure she has something that
you can use against her all the time, and that
she has something that she will feel. I am caring
for my child by staying because they need two parent household,
and both our incomes are necessary for them to get
what they need and all kinds of things. And I
have a friend who had a really hideously abusive ex husband,
and this guy has gone out and gotten four more
women pregnant since then, And I cannot emphasize enough what
a piece of shit this guy is. The fact that
he is still out here pro creating makes me sick.
And I have no idea whether these women were aware
of what was going on here, because definitely there are
men who will mess with birth control or convince you
to go off it. They will be very convincing. And
this is why, after pregnancy is established that I think
it's so important that women be able to access a
way to terminate the pregnancy, because they know better than
anybody whether or not they are in a position we're
having a child is safe or healthy on a number
of different levels. And there's just this like the way
that this is set up in this he sees a
wedding photo of the two of them and just looks
at this woman once she actually comes in, and how
she is a shell of who she had been, and
that there is something about her that is exactly like
his mother, even though they do not look anything alike.
There is that hunted clowd sort of energy, and it's
so it's so devastating, y'all, this like this type of
man and how many lives he is able to ruin
the way that he is able to carry on through
the world and spread misery and heartbreak. And there you
know the fact that two different women tried to kill him,
one succeeded. Thank god. All I can say is I'm
glad he got sick enough that there was a way
for her to do this that would like probably be undetected.
But yeah, so this like interaction, this boy wants to
watch TV and his dad says, no, I need to rest,
but go get me my cigarettes, which he's not allowed
to have. So like, apparently this TV is the only
one they have, and it's in the room with him.
It's been moved in here, so you can only watch
TV when he says it's okay because it's in his presence.
And it just is another way of like him exerting
control over every little thing you do, and denying this
kid to be able to just watch like cartoons or anything.
It's just you know. So anyway, this is when Donut
chimes in with a lady just appeared out of nowhere.
She's in the yard. She walked through me, and her
clothes didn't come off. She went to the shed and
grabbed something, and now it looks like she's scooping something
up that isn't there. There's a mention of a tattoo
on her neck of a dog and how horrible it is.
And Donut says, she can't be your stepmom. She's like
Cotcha's age. Which, yeah, that's another thing is men like
this often will go after quite young women, not just
because of like physicality, but because they know younger women
aren't going to be able to see the red flags.
They don't know enough yet, they don't have the experience
to like clock what certain things mean and see the danger.
So this is when he realizes that what this lady
is holding and handling isn't there because he took it
and he knows what it is. It's evidently morphine. And
she comes in. Her husband rails at her for not
being here to take care of him when he's her husband.
And this is when we hear Patrick Warburton's voice acting
so surreal y'all to have his voice show up, but
it's great, and she says I'll get your medicine and
there's just this whole vibe and Carl is looking at
him like, yeah, you don't even know what's coming to you,
do you. So as she's prepping this all he leans
in on his dad and you're a bully, nobody likes you.
Mom tried to kill you, and in about twenty minutes,
I'm pretty sure your new wife is going to finish
the job. You're so goddamn sufferable. She can't even wait
for whatever this is to kill you. Two different women
and they both try to kill you. What does that say?
And you know what, your passage is so unimportant, so
insignificant that nobody will care. The only reason I'm here
now to watch this is because he's idiots running this
shit show. Think I'm gonna buckle under the pressure of
seeing you, of finally confronting this big, bad monster from
my childhood, which I've got to be honest, I am
not sure that is the purpose of showing him this like,
I don't. The fact that he can't interact with him
is what makes it sort of odd. I don't know,
And he does like message Zev and ask is this real?
And she's like, yeah, all of this up to the
fight was actually captured and recorded. Yes. My only regret
is that you lived long enough to inflict yourself onto
my poor brother. If I'm lucky, the assholes will resurrect
your and turn you into a boss so I can
kill you again. So he's acting like, if I do
have to face you as a boss, it'll be fine,
which makes me feel like maybe the boss isn't going
to be his dad after all, and I'm really concerned.
So she gives him the injection, leaves the room, is
talking to her son about how he has you. Guys,
you say, just a few minutes, then you're gonna go
over to missus Tomlinson's house and tomorrow we're having your
birthday party. What is it with these women killing their
husbands right on or before their son's birthdays? Guys, how
about we don't do it like that. At least this
kid isn't gonna know that it was a murder, So
there's that, But it's it's still like a death that
happened right before his birthday, So that's going to really
like cast a pall over his birthday for the rest
of his life. Like Carl, I'm sure doesn't celebrate his birthday.
You know, I wouldn't be able to after what happened
to him. So his father he can hear him like
calling out, but nobody goes to see him, and he
dies alone, ignored, which is exactly what he deserves. And
this is when Carl begins to rifle through the place.
He takes cigarettes, He takes folders filled with court documents,
a nine millimeter glock, three boxes, two boxes of Ammo,
keys to the motorcycle and the Ford truck. After that,
I just picked up the whole dresser with mirror and
took it all into my inventory. I took the queen bed,
the cheek bedside tables, all the clothes. There were more
photos on the walls of asher and I left those,
but I took everything else. He'd only had the single gun.
There was also an arcade cabinet unplugged and had clothes
draped over it. Centipede. With just a minute left, I
took out a cigarette and lit it I returned to
the living room, moving past my motionless father. I took
my lighter and I lit the drapes with the purple
flowers on fire. If your intention was to hurt me,
you fucked it all up. This is pretty much exactly
what I needed to see. So he goes outside and
Donuts like, are you okay? And he's like yep, and
she says, okay, good, so I can tell you to
fucking spit that cigarette out, and he says, just give
me a second. She looked suspiciously at the door. Do
you know what we're going to face in there? No,
I said, but I do know what we're not going
to face, and we're not going to do it in there.
It's way too cramped for our totems. So first we're
going to watch this goddamn trailer burn to the ground. Interesting,
very curious about it. That's the end of this section.
I am dying you, guys. I cannot wait to keep
reading and see what the hell is going to happen.
Because the way he says I know what we're not
going to face, I think he also is singing that
they probably won't be using his dad, But I don't know.
Maybe he means symbolically, you know, my intimidating dad isn't
so much anymore now. It's like he's changed in my mind.
I don't know, but yeah, this was a really it
was an emotional section and it's a kind of Catharsis
that I really do feel was for the best in
a way. His father's pre presence in his mind has
been so overwhelming, and having this as the period at
the end of that sentence has got to help a little.
Not that it makes it so that stuff stops showing
up in his mind, but it would help a little.
You know. I'm so sorry, guys. I just saw all
of these people in the chat and I have been
ignoring it this whole time because I felt like I
was really worried I'd fall behind. But I am going
to go back and see Michael says. Jeff Hayes is
a prolific audiobook narrator for lit RPGs, in particular. Interesting
does Robot have the same weird code dependent vibe with
other crawlers because they don't seem to complain about it.
That is my question too, Jeff, Like, how many special
connections does he have? Michael says, I think the AI
can selectively time, so in situations where there's a battle occurring,
time is slowed. When the crawlers aren't in danger, it
might be more loose with time dilation. That makes sense.
And let's see Michael says lion, I'd be brave as
a blizzard, tin man, I'd be gentle as a lizard. Oh, scarecrow,
I'd be clever as a gizzard. Wow. Those are really
fucking lame lyrics. Guys, I really like stopping and looking
at that. I'm like, what, None of that makes what anyway?
And Michael, due to the little blurb at the start
of the chapter, I was actually wondering if it was
the AI saying that to Carl. Uh. Matt spent too
much time showing us Carl getting his feet massage. So no,
we didn't see the ring getting bought right, right, right.
It's too bad that he was credited and you saw it.
I was looking forward to trying to convince you that
Jeff just got really good at doing Patrick's voice. Yeah,
his voice comes up earlier as well. He does the
earlier in this book. I mean, you don't have to
like me, but you will respect me. And it's Patrick
Warburton doing that part, and he really it's distinct. You
can tell it's him immediately that it's not Jeff Hayes.
You know, Jeff Hayes is quite good, but come on now. So, yeah,
this is this book so far I've really been into.
But it's also been like much more sad in a
lot of ways, and it's some inherent it's not a
bad thing. It's just a different sort of energy than
than the I would put like the third and fourth. Really,
I feel like things started to get quite sad in
the last book on some of the details about learning
more of what was going on with like Luciamar and
you know, the revelation of what's going on with a
lot of the NPCs and stuff like that. But this
book has started with a lot of sad things being
a focus from the beginning, especially knowing that other crawlers
are having to face somebody from their own past the
way that Karl is right now, so knowing this is
happening to everyone, and that likely had something to do
with the weirdness of choosing the location you get to
go to and being given only one choice sometimes or
you know, the way that they had to pick up
and move a chunk of Iowa over here. Yeah, it's
all manipulated very carefully. All right, I'm gonna wrap this up.
Thank you all again so much for hanging out with me.
Appreciate you a lot. Thank you Michael for commissioning this one.
Until next time to gloo motherfuckers. That was an unspoiled
network past