Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
Speaker 1: covering Dungeon Crawler Carl Book five, The Butcher's Masquerade, chapters
Speaker 1: nineteen through twenty four. In these chapters, we have the
Speaker 1: reunion with B. It doesn't go how I expected it
Speaker 1: to go at all at all, at all, not at all.
Speaker 1: Welcome to spoil Me, Welcome to the show everyone. I
Speaker 1: am Natasha. Thank you very much to Jackie for commissioning
Speaker 1: this episode. So when I say it didn't go the
Speaker 1: way I expected at all, I'm like, first of all,
Speaker 1: I want to acknowledge, guys, that I that is actually
Speaker 1: kind of a small portion of what happens in this
Speaker 1: whole section, even though it was what I was particularly
Speaker 1: looking forward to coming into it. It's actually only like
Speaker 1: the first third of the chapters. But I had really
Speaker 1: overall kind of not been sure what to expect regarding
Speaker 1: our friends seeing be again. And I'm just thinking back
Speaker 1: to like the openings of the book, right finding out
Speaker 1: what B had done to Carl and the baggage that
Speaker 1: he had surrounding that, and my feelings like regarding how
Speaker 1: storytelling works. It was like I was sort of thinking
Speaker 1: it was likely that Bee was alive because she had
Speaker 1: been on that ship, and that the way that we
Speaker 1: were getting so much information about her and who she was,
Speaker 1: made it feel like Bee was probably still alive, and
Speaker 1: that was read at the beginning, and then as the
Speaker 1: story continued, I think I eventually came around to thinking
Speaker 1: that she was definitely dead. And I don't remember when
Speaker 1: that transition happened, why it happened, if there was something
Speaker 1: in particular that caused me to sort of crossover, but
Speaker 1: it just felt like there was. Maybe it's just that
Speaker 1: we had gone so far into the story without there
Speaker 1: being anything that involved the friends and family of Crawlers,
Speaker 1: and then we begin to get the information about how
Speaker 1: people's you know, dead family members are being brought into
Speaker 1: the game, and YadA YadA, and so my suspicions began
Speaker 1: to be roused. But I will say that even back
Speaker 1: when I was thinking, well, maybe she was on that
Speaker 1: ship and thus escaped being flattened the way that so
Speaker 1: many people were, I didn't expect her to be in
Speaker 1: such bad shape. When we see her on the surface
Speaker 1: at the end of the last book, before she's even
Speaker 1: brought back up, she is not okay, you know. And
Speaker 1: I was wondering about the reaction she'd have at sea
Speaker 1: Carl and Dona again, and it just wasn't what I
Speaker 1: had thought we were going to get. And it's not
Speaker 1: even a criticism. Really, it's so lacking in drama in
Speaker 1: one sense because they aren't permitted to really see each
Speaker 1: other for a long moment. They aren't given any privacy,
Speaker 1: and so the nature of how this all is forced
Speaker 1: to play out is just not what I had been
Speaker 1: picturing at all. So when we start chapter nineteen, we're
Speaker 1: on stage, Odette does the intro and she's kind of
Speaker 1: doing a much more somber, heavy gravity tone to the
Speaker 1: way that she is delivering all of her like you
Speaker 1: guys aren't going to believe like who we found and
Speaker 1: what's coming up, because you know, she's trying to play
Speaker 1: it that she is respectful of the intensity of this
Speaker 1: whole thing. And it's kind of funny because, like, I
Speaker 1: actually think she is respectful of the intensity of the
Speaker 1: whole thing, and it's just she has to do it
Speaker 1: a certain way that is less sincere seeming for the audience, which,
Speaker 1: like when you stop and think about it, is actually
Speaker 1: fucked up, but still kind of makes sense. And she
Speaker 1: is very very careful to like make it clear to everyone.
Speaker 1: I warned them this was coming. I Am not springing
Speaker 1: them on this as a surprise. They know, you know,
Speaker 1: and we get this moment that I was so disappointed.
Speaker 1: She says, you guys are here because of your special connection.
Speaker 1: We're going to get right to it. Watch this. The
Speaker 1: screen appeared and it started showing something, but we couldn't
Speaker 1: see it. Zev says, sorry, guys, the censor won't let
Speaker 1: you see this. They're just showing scenes from the planet's
Speaker 1: surface and talking a little about the rules regarding humans
Speaker 1: who didn't go down into the dungeon. They're explaining the
Speaker 1: details on something called the walk on List and the
Speaker 1: illegal practice of bounty hunters seeking out and finding survivors
Speaker 1: so they can sell them to the production. She says,
Speaker 1: I'm being called back to the office, so I won't
Speaker 1: be in the studio when you get out. I'll pinulater.
Speaker 1: And so the way that they're playing this is that
Speaker 1: the story is pirates who were doing this illegal bounty
Speaker 1: hunting that Borran definitely doesn't approve of it all. They
Speaker 1: brought her b to Borrent, and Borrent refused to use
Speaker 1: her on the show because this is not allowed, and
Speaker 1: they're really trying to make it like we would never gasp,
Speaker 1: you know, like, which is the way it has to
Speaker 1: be played in order for all of the things to
Speaker 1: not completely implode and make them look like shit and
Speaker 1: ruin Odette's plans and all of that. And because like
Speaker 1: the information had leaked already, as we had found out
Speaker 1: in the previous section. So Miss Beatrice appears, but she
Speaker 1: is a hologram and she doesn't understand that that's what
Speaker 1: things are. So she tries to embrace Carl and touch
Speaker 1: Donu and it doesn't work. Thin, long, straight hair, freckles,
Speaker 1: poudy lips. She'd lost weight, a lot of weight. She
Speaker 1: had a shell shocked and hollow look to her, and
Speaker 1: she appeared as if she'd aged ten years since I'd
Speaker 1: last seen her. She wore a glittering red gown with
Speaker 1: an open back, and at one point she turns and
Speaker 1: he can see it scoops so far down that it
Speaker 1: exposes the top half of her ass. The poorly drawn
Speaker 1: tattoo of Princess Chancolat Donut's grandmother seemed out of place
Speaker 1: on her lower back. Her white skin was shockingly pale
Speaker 1: as if she had never seen the sun. She wore
Speaker 1: ridiculously tall, high heeled shoes, her ever present Aris anklet
Speaker 1: hung around her ankle. I don't know if it's ever
Speaker 1: been mentioned that she wore an ari's anklet. It feels
Speaker 1: vaguely familiar for some reason. But uh, I just found
Speaker 1: that detail very funny for some reason. It's one of
Speaker 1: those things that, like you would think I would get
Speaker 1: a little bit more diffen siev about than I do.
Speaker 1: Whenever women who put a ton of stock in horoscopes
Speaker 1: get shit on as somebody who believes in horoscopes, I
Speaker 1: would say about like seventy percent. You would think that
Speaker 1: I would get like more annoyed by it than I do.
Speaker 1: But I just understand why people think it's horseshit. I
Speaker 1: really get it, And my belief in it isn't even
Speaker 1: really something that I feel like defending. It's just sort
Speaker 1: of like, yeah, it's a fun thing, you know. I
Speaker 1: don't really put stock in it. When I was younger,
Speaker 1: I did a little bit more, and I was willing
Speaker 1: to like pick a wedding date based on the position
Speaker 1: of the planets, because I could pick any date. Why
Speaker 1: not just pick something that seems like a good fortune
Speaker 1: type of day, you know, But it's just not something
Speaker 1: that I invent all that much energy. And in this way,
Speaker 1: there are some people who go very hard on like
Speaker 1: their astrological signs and getting tattoos related to it and
Speaker 1: bringing it up a lot in conversation, and that's just
Speaker 1: that's not me. So I feel distant enough from that
Speaker 1: type of personality that it doesn't feel like, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. But anyway, so she turns and sees them,
Speaker 1: and her eyes get really huge, and she I didn't realize,
Speaker 1: isn't prepared for Donut to speak, and Donut, for her part,
Speaker 1: is determined, absolutely fixated on pretending that she doesn't give
Speaker 1: a shit that this bitch is here. I have to say,
Speaker 1: it was not an approach I was expecting. I actually
Speaker 1: really admire it because I think it's just it works
Speaker 1: so well on so many levels. But if you had
Speaker 1: asked me the way I expected Donut to play it
Speaker 1: when this happened, finally, this wouldn't have been it at all,
Speaker 1: not at all. And I am sort of like, I'm
Speaker 1: proud and impressed, you know. So she we get a
Speaker 1: flashback to the conversation before, and he says, you can
Speaker 1: do this, don't give them the satisfaction. And she says,
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm strong enough. She's just an ex
Speaker 1: girlfriend to you, but she was everything to me, my
Speaker 1: whole world. And he says, I know, and she says
Speaker 1: she was going to abandon me. Carl, I pretended not
Speaker 1: to know, but I new. I think I even knew before.
Speaker 1: I pretended for so long, and I don't think I
Speaker 1: can pretend anymore. And I should have paid more attention
Speaker 1: to him saying don't give them the satisfaction, because that's
Speaker 1: the crux of the way they approach this year. They decide,
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do is go into this fucking interview
Speaker 1: and we are going to give them fuck all. We
Speaker 1: are going to drain every drop of drama out of
Speaker 1: the situation so that there is nothing exciting that can
Speaker 1: be clipped and shared. There won't be an advantage to
Speaker 1: having this like shattering moment at all, which truly is brilliant.
Speaker 1: And you guys, I cannot emphasize enough how I don't
Speaker 1: think I could manage it. I am a very open person.
Speaker 1: I share my thoughts and feelings on my face before
Speaker 1: they even come out of my mouth. And I just
Speaker 1: don't see it that I could pull this off when
Speaker 1: I've been through everything that they've been through, and I'm
Speaker 1: seeing her for the first time after thinking she was dead.
Speaker 1: Everything about the the whole circumstances surrounding it would already
Speaker 1: have me so off balance and lacking in control in
Speaker 1: certain respects. I think that I would give Adebt exactly
Speaker 1: what she wanted, and I hate that, but like I really,
Speaker 1: I just don't feel like I could. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I knew that I could kind of do, because
Speaker 1: what happens is Doughnut holds it in until after the
Speaker 1: cameras are off. So it might be that if I
Speaker 1: knew I could do that, I could manage it for now.
Speaker 1: Maybe I could do it, But I think I would
Speaker 1: be extremely tempted to just unleash on that person for
Speaker 1: my own satisfaction in the moment, without considering that I'm
Speaker 1: feeding the fucking beast. You know so, And this is
Speaker 1: like Bee says, Wait, they didn't tell me that she'd
Speaker 1: be talking. Carl, what's going on? Why aren't you wearing pants?
Speaker 1: And Donut says, I really wish we had a live audience,
Speaker 1: O Debte, I mean, really, a live audience would have
Speaker 1: loved that line. And that's like the one thing I
Speaker 1: think that they can maybe clip and use. And when
Speaker 1: Carl's like, I thought you said she'd been briefed, Oette
Speaker 1: says she has. Apparently it didn't take, and I believe her,
Speaker 1: you know, but I'm wondering about, like, why didn't it take?
Speaker 1: Is that you can tell her something, but seeing it
Speaker 1: in person is just a different thing. Is it that
Speaker 1: it just fully didn't sink in because she was not
Speaker 1: with it, Like, I'm curious about why she seems so
Speaker 1: taken off guard here. So she also and this is
Speaker 1: not intentional on her part, but b is also failing
Speaker 1: to feed into any of the drama that Odette was
Speaker 1: hoping for, and basically is just giving a very basic
Speaker 1: summary of what happened to her and is claiming to
Speaker 1: not remember very much. And Odette circled back a few
Speaker 1: times so that supposed black mark exchange and shootout, but
Speaker 1: be claimed ignorance. It seemed to me that Odette was
Speaker 1: trying to poke holes into her own lie. That was
Speaker 1: interesting because you know, Odett's had to do this whole
Speaker 1: thing where born rescued you because they're decent. And I
Speaker 1: think this is her trying to make it clear to
Speaker 1: the audience that this story doesn't add up and to
Speaker 1: see through it. She's trying, I think, to tip everybody
Speaker 1: off that this doesn't make any fucking sense. But b
Speaker 1: isn't really even cooperating on that front. And oh sorry,
Speaker 1: Saraphi was commenting a bunch of stuff. Something that I
Speaker 1: thought was why is she that big into the Greek
Speaker 1: god of war and had to consider for a few
Speaker 1: months before realizing it was horoscope thing that's funny. And
Speaker 1: my guess is she's just so out of it between
Speaker 1: the drugs, the memory fuckeray to sell Born's story in
Speaker 1: just general stress that she didn't register anything, and I
Speaker 1: remember them mentioning, Carl mentioning that she's clearly drugged. I
Speaker 1: didn't remember memory fuckery. They actually went in and fucked
Speaker 1: with her memory. I thought that she was sort of
Speaker 1: just supporting this, like she says, my memory has holes
Speaker 1: in it, but I didn't take it as literally like
Speaker 1: somebody's been messing with it. Donut says she gets like
Speaker 1: that sometimes too many dirty Shirley's Oh my god, but
Speaker 1: that would make sense as to why they would trust
Speaker 1: her in an interview, because otherwise, how do you control
Speaker 1: her just blurting out what actually happen in front of everybody,
Speaker 1: So messing with her memory would that would make much
Speaker 1: more sense than them just trusting her to uphold the lie,
Speaker 1: especially considering that she's clearly like not really okay, So
Speaker 1: even if she agreed and fully intended to support the lie,
Speaker 1: she would not be reliable, you know. So finally, Odette's
Speaker 1: wrapping this up and says, Princess, is there anything you'd
Speaker 1: like to say? And Donut just says, have a good life,
Speaker 1: And then she gets as close as she gets live
Speaker 1: and says, also, if you ever get another cat, make
Speaker 1: sure you only purchase the wet food for her, and
Speaker 1: don't conspire to sell her once she gets a little older.
Speaker 1: Don't pretend to love her when you don't. Don't make
Speaker 1: her feel special when you don't really feel that way
Speaker 1: about her, That is all. And she delivers this very
Speaker 1: like evenly and in control, and then Odette says, what
Speaker 1: about you, Carl, And he just says got nothing, which, honestly,
Speaker 1: when it comes to Carl and what his situation is like,
Speaker 1: this is kind of what I expected. He broke up
Speaker 1: with her with like little ceremony once he saw this
Speaker 1: this photo, knew that she was fucking around. He was
Speaker 1: clearly completely unaware of her cheating on him to the
Speaker 1: level that she was. But this breakup that happened once
Speaker 1: he realized there was no drama to it, you know,
Speaker 1: he was just like, yeah, all right, we're done. So
Speaker 1: it makes sense to me that when he comes face
Speaker 1: to face with her, he's not going to fucking like
Speaker 1: make it a thing. You know, even were they to
Speaker 1: meet face to face with none of the other whole
Speaker 1: apocalyptic shit happening, he would not do that so on
Speaker 1: screen in front of everybody. Extra, No, this definitely was
Speaker 1: in character for me. So Odette asked additional leading question questions,
Speaker 1: trying to coax info out of all three of us,
Speaker 1: and Bee was going to burst into tears any moment.
Speaker 1: Odette could sense it the host's side and said goodbye
Speaker 1: to us. The lights all turned on. Odette pulled off
Speaker 1: her bug helmet. She glared at me angrily for a
Speaker 1: second before breaking into a smile. Well played, Carl, She said,
Speaker 1: not quite the explosive interview I hoped for? Was it
Speaker 1: Plus the timing is terrible, she sighed, But this was
Speaker 1: always destined to be messy. At least we scooped that
Speaker 1: Naga asshole. If he comes to you, make sure to
Speaker 1: tell him I said, better luck next time. And the
Speaker 1: timing being terrible, we find out later on why everybody
Speaker 1: keeps saying that. So, if it hadn't been for Odette
Speaker 1: removing her helmet, I think there would have been a
Speaker 1: part of me that was suspicious. When Donut let's loose
Speaker 1: here that they are being recorded after all, it's that
Speaker 1: she has started to get out of costume that reassured me.
Speaker 1: And this is when Donut turns to be and says
Speaker 1: you vile, disgusting bitch, and b is truly shocked, and
Speaker 1: Dona says, you danced with me, you sang to me,
Speaker 1: you made me feel loved, I didn't do anything wrong,
Speaker 1: and you were going to give me away, and b
Speaker 1: just says what again, which I'll admit is very unsatisfying.
Speaker 1: There isn't a sensation of her like getting it, because
Speaker 1: she's so stunned and startled about everything that it's just
Speaker 1: like not sinking in, which makes sense on the one hand,
Speaker 1: because this is a very crazy situation. Anne, she's drugged,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to feel like she was hit by it,
Speaker 1: and you don't get that in this scene, really, and
Speaker 1: that's not what it's about. It's about Donat getting to
Speaker 1: say what she needs to say. It's not about b
Speaker 1: I just personally wanted to see that, you know. But
Speaker 1: I also know that in life that's frequently how it happens.
Speaker 1: You have to be satisfied with getting your opportunity to
Speaker 1: make your stand and say what you're gonna say, and
Speaker 1: then you have to let it go, and you often
Speaker 1: either don't get the reaction you were hoping, or you
Speaker 1: don't get to see their reaction at all, or the
Speaker 1: reaction that they have still feels inadequate. Even if it's
Speaker 1: like you got your point across and they heard you,
Speaker 1: they'll often still not seem like to really take responsibility
Speaker 1: or hear you. You know, it's just often not very
Speaker 1: satisfying to confront assholes because they are such assholes that
Speaker 1: they don't hear anything you're telling them. That's what makes
Speaker 1: them a person that you're having issues with to begin with.
Speaker 1: So I didn't do anything wrong. You were the only
Speaker 1: person I ever knew I was born and you were there.
Speaker 1: I loved you. You were my world, my whole world.
Speaker 1: I know you had a bunch of cats growing up,
Speaker 1: and maybe I was just nothing to you other than
Speaker 1: a way to win more ribbons than your mother. But
Speaker 1: you were the only human I ever knew, and to me,
Speaker 1: you were everything. And I was so stupid because I
Speaker 1: thought since I loved you, that meant you loved me.
Speaker 1: Odette muttered something under her breath, which is definitely that.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, now she says it, I have to imagine.
Speaker 1: And you were just awful to Carl and even though
Speaker 1: he's big and dumb, he didn't deserve that. And this
Speaker 1: was I was gratified, because you guys know that I
Speaker 1: was sort of like, what the fuck donut with her
Speaker 1: constantly like throwing that shit in his face. He's not perfect.
Speaker 1: I know he snores and has all these disgusting habits
Speaker 1: and smelly friends, but what you did to him is
Speaker 1: not okay. I know I make fun of him sometimes
Speaker 1: I can't help it. I'm a cat, That's what I do. Plus,
Speaker 1: I mean, let's be honest here, he walks right into
Speaker 1: it most of the time. But you actually betrayed him.
Speaker 1: We don't do that to people we love. And you
Speaker 1: know what, Miss Beatrice, you don't deserve how sad I
Speaker 1: feel right now. I still love you, I still miss you,
Speaker 1: and I hate myself for it. You don't deserve to
Speaker 1: get to explain your side of the story. You lost
Speaker 1: that chance. But I'm glad you escaped because if the
Speaker 1: world ends and none of us survived except you, I
Speaker 1: think that's an even more fitting fate because you're gonna
Speaker 1: be all alone, and maybe then you'll finally understand how
Speaker 1: you made me and Carl feel. You're not my person anymore.
Speaker 1: Carl is He's always been, and I really liked that
Speaker 1: he's always been, because like the little flashback that we
Speaker 1: had gotten about him arguing with B about giving Donut away,
Speaker 1: he was the one being like, you can't fucking do that,
Speaker 1: are you serious, and so Donut saying to Carl, like, B,
Speaker 1: but she was my person. There was a big part
Speaker 1: of me that sort of was like, I don't think
Speaker 1: she was, and now Donut is seeing, yeah, no, she wasn't,
Speaker 1: and that sucks. It just totally sucks. I hated this
Speaker 1: so much. And B just says to Carl, she doesn't
Speaker 1: even respond at all to Donut, which is so insulting.
Speaker 1: She just says Carl, and he interrupts, I'm glad you're okay. Truly,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't wish our fate on anybody, not even you.
Speaker 1: But what we're dealing with right now is so much
Speaker 1: more important, so much bigger than this drama bullshit. It's
Speaker 1: stupid that it was even a thing. I'm glad it's
Speaker 1: finally over. I think Donut said everything that needs to
Speaker 1: be said. We're done, finally, goodbye, Beatrice. I looked at Odette,
Speaker 1: get her out of here, and just like that, she
Speaker 1: was gone. I am really curious because, you know, b
Speaker 1: having this kind of breakdown on the surface felt very
Speaker 1: much linked to like deep regret over like cheating on
Speaker 1: Carl and getting caught, and then Donut being gone. All
Speaker 1: of it felt like she only just started to begin
Speaker 1: to value both of them in any way because everything
Speaker 1: was ripped from her. And I'm wondering if having this
Speaker 1: moment of real closure, because it is, does anything to
Speaker 1: change her state of mind regarding the two of them.
Speaker 1: I will say the whole thing with Gravy Boat, I
Speaker 1: am super not looking forward to finding out what's going
Speaker 1: on there. I'm dreading that part. We'll have to see
Speaker 1: where that fucking goes. And they both like feel better
Speaker 1: after this, but you know, Odette didn't get what she wanted.
Speaker 1: It's very funny. And then Donut says, Odette and zeb
Speaker 1: are right. The timing is awful. And this was so
Speaker 1: delightful because it turns out Donut knows more than Horl
Speaker 1: about some things, and he never even suspected, and neither
Speaker 1: did I. I knew that her and Zev were in communication,
Speaker 1: but I figured they were in communication in a very
Speaker 1: like social comforting each other, being support to each other
Speaker 1: kind of way. It never entered my mind that the
Speaker 1: two of them were doing something. You know, as she says,
Speaker 1: vive la revolution. It just never occurred to me that
Speaker 1: Zev would risk it or that Doughnut would be interested
Speaker 1: on that level. And I am extremely thrilled for this
Speaker 1: development is super super fun. So they get an ADMIN
Speaker 1: message due to a system regency change, a conflict of
Speaker 1: interest has a risen, resulting in one of your sponsors
Speaker 1: being removed effective immediately the valte he does get to
Speaker 1: keep everything they gave him for prizes, but they are
Speaker 1: no longer his sponsor. And then Planet wide message. The
Speaker 1: Born Corporation, not to be confused with the Borrant System Government,
Speaker 1: has been declared an independent non governmental entity by a
Speaker 1: syndicate court. As a result, a previously filed court ruling
Speaker 1: was automatically executed, granting the Valte Corporation fifty one percent
Speaker 1: ownership of the Borran Corporation. The Boring Corporation remains in
Speaker 1: charge of this crawl, and as far as most of
Speaker 1: you are concerned, nothing will change. This is nothing more
Speaker 1: than a courtesy notice. All previous legal contracts will be honored,
Speaker 1: including indentured contracts. However, the Borrant System Government no longer
Speaker 1: has any stake in either the planet, the resources, or
Speaker 1: the production of Dungeon Crawler World Earth and regency has
Speaker 1: been granted solely to the Borring Corporation and their new
Speaker 1: principal owners, the Valte. If you have any questions about
Speaker 1: how that might affect debts or obligations, legal counsel is
Speaker 1: available free of charge. Have a great day, and free
Speaker 1: has an asterisk next to it, and Odette is like, well,
Speaker 1: they didn't cancel contracts. That's great and for Mordecai it's
Speaker 1: good news. But you guys, that fucking sucks and I
Speaker 1: was like what. So Donah says she did it, she
Speaker 1: did it, and he says what happened, and this is
Speaker 1: when she says, Viva lover revid Lucien Carl. So that's
Speaker 1: the end of that chapter. When we jump into chapter twenty,
Speaker 1: Donah is back to talking about b and we don't
Speaker 1: get details on this enough at all. Let's see but
Speaker 1: Papa Odette told them to keep quiet about the interview
Speaker 1: until after it airs. And this is when Lexus comes
Speaker 1: in and Carl starts to like push Dona into being like, no,
Speaker 1: you have to tell me what the fuck's going on,
Speaker 1: and then is like, never mind. Actually it's too dangerous
Speaker 1: even here. So this is when Lexus comes in and says,
Speaker 1: wait for it, and then the lights flicker. There. It
Speaker 1: is the handoff. The system's transferring from mud Skipper control
Speaker 1: to Valte. It'll take a minute or two. No sniffers
Speaker 1: will be online, so I've got to speak quickly, shut
Speaker 1: up and listen. Do not speak of this, as it
Speaker 1: will be construed as cheating. Queen Imagen of the High
Speaker 1: Elves is a country boss. She's a new character this season.
Speaker 1: Nobody has seen her yet. A sure sign she's going
Speaker 1: to be a repurposed human. They're saving the big reveal.
Speaker 1: Obvious choice is Beatrice because of your ties with the
Speaker 1: vengeance of the daughter storyline. Don't know who it'll be now.
Speaker 1: Best guess is the elf won't appear until the Butcher's maskarade.
Speaker 1: The top fifty crawlers will all be transferred to the party,
Speaker 1: whether you like it or not, it's thet It'll be
Speaker 1: in the high Elf Castle. There'll be a party, contest, prizes,
Speaker 1: you mingle with remaining hunters. I don't know how that'll work.
Speaker 1: The party will end with a big battle. They're setting
Speaker 1: it up to zero out the top crawlers and Carl's
Speaker 1: like why, and she says, I can't fully explain. But
Speaker 1: they don't have full control. They have fifty one percent,
Speaker 1: but the collection action is in limbo. Think of the
Speaker 1: worms as the new babysitter, or better yet, step Dad,
Speaker 1: and he's just as strict, but in a different way.
Speaker 1: They want total control. They are going to take be
Speaker 1: like apex predators taking over a pride, wipe out everything
Speaker 1: and start fresh. They'll want the top ten to be
Speaker 1: crawlers of their own. Choosing and Donut was like, but
Speaker 1: they sponsored Carl and she's like, yeah, because he was
Speaker 1: fucking up the whole jam for the mud Skippers. But
Speaker 1: now he's going to be fucking their shit up and
Speaker 1: that's not what they want. And she says, let's see
Speaker 1: what do you think is gonna happen. Now, we'll go
Speaker 1: down the stairs early. Then we'll get down before this
Speaker 1: ball thing. That would be Odet's advice as well, Lexus said,
Speaker 1: I suddenly realized this is all coming directly from Odeppa.
Speaker 1: She was filtering it through Lexus because of how dangerous
Speaker 1: this information was if we got caught, she had plausible deniability.
Speaker 1: What about everybody else? Donnut ask, even if Ellie and
Speaker 1: Kachia and all the others go down, they'll just use
Speaker 1: the next fifty top crawlers, and those guys will be
Speaker 1: even less prepared. Plus I already started training Wongo for
Speaker 1: the beauty pageant. I love that she brings that up.
Speaker 1: The system will reboot in ten seconds, you'll be transferred
Speaker 1: out in fifteen. And then Donut says, this is most distressing.
Speaker 1: I certainly would never have smuggled all those Valtae secret
Speaker 1: agent guys to Zev and the boring emancipation front if
Speaker 1: I'd known this was going to happen. What what, you guys,
Speaker 1: This is not Denneman publishing like side stories from Donuts
Speaker 1: Perspective on his Patreon or something. Please tell me yes,
Speaker 1: because I mean what I exchanged an incredulous look with Lexus,
Speaker 1: who stared at the cat open mouthed, and the whole
Speaker 1: like vibe here that I really like is even when
Speaker 1: you are trying to like get like monsters out of power,
Speaker 1: oftentimes the only other option that is positioned to take
Speaker 1: the reins are also monsters, because they have to have
Speaker 1: a certain level of power already in order to make
Speaker 1: that transition, and if they have any level of power,
Speaker 1: usually they also suck in some way. So this makes sense,
Speaker 1: you know. It's I think really really exciting story wise though,
Speaker 1: because Carl being number one in the top ten did
Speaker 1: give him a huge advantage in terms of the dungeon
Speaker 1: itself wanting to keep him alive. And so now that
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, we want all the top tens gone
Speaker 1: because we want to pick, that makes the stakes change
Speaker 1: around completely and puts him in the fucking direct crosshairs
Speaker 1: of people who are in control of stuff, and that
Speaker 1: is so much more interesting, you know, very excited about
Speaker 1: it because there are so many ways this can go.
Speaker 1: So Michael says the Olivia slash Ivy thing from the
Speaker 1: previous book was a big hint as to how Matt
Speaker 1: from Matt asked how Donah and zebr communicating. Zev is
Speaker 1: probably using a number of different fan accounts with avatar
Speaker 1: names that were for you to obscure earth media plots
Speaker 1: to post messages that might show up on the social
Speaker 1: media board and don't would We're going to mention something
Speaker 1: related to said plot to let Zev know she saw
Speaker 1: the message. I would love for Magic create in post
Speaker 1: donuts chat logs, but those would be five times longer
Speaker 1: than the actual DCC series. Probably, Yeah, I just like
Speaker 1: that would be such a fun little bit of like
Speaker 1: additional content, and I'd imagine would be super fun to write. Also,
Speaker 1: you know. So they appear back in their safe room
Speaker 1: and Mordecai is like, you guys, get this news. I
Speaker 1: don't know how this is gonna work out, Like usually
Speaker 1: our contracts get frozen, but it seems like maybe nothing
Speaker 1: is really going to change. And he's looking through like
Speaker 1: his interface and the maps and stuff, and he says, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is all looking unchanged and acknowledges that, like the
Speaker 1: valte their aesthetic is usually juristic androids, hover cars, laser
Speaker 1: pistol pistols, mechanical death machines. But like, we're so far
Speaker 1: into the game and everybody has races and abilities that
Speaker 1: revolve around this, like medieval fantasy world, that if they
Speaker 1: were to switch up the aesthetic, it wouldn't make any sense,
Speaker 1: and half of the stuff people have gotten or that
Speaker 1: they can do wouldn't even work anymore. So I think
Speaker 1: they're probably just going to keep the aesthetic as planned originally.
Speaker 1: So we're thrown back into the game itself here and
Speaker 1: the Ersigine are finally convinced, like they're complaining nevertheless, but
Speaker 1: they're understanding that the hunters are a danger to them
Speaker 1: and the where casters are working on the walls, and
Speaker 1: he says something about they work fast, especially when they've turned, which,
Speaker 1: considering what beavers do, makes sense. I really enjoy that.
Speaker 1: And let's see. We awakened in time to watch the recap,
Speaker 1: and upon watching it, I found myself wishing I'd stay asleep.
Speaker 1: We watched his raw and a unit of four other
Speaker 1: mantis creatures swooped in from the air and decapitated a
Speaker 1: group of crawlers. They rode down a heavily wooded trail
Speaker 1: on the back of a cart and she takes their
Speaker 1: heads and it's just like really awful. Then there's a
Speaker 1: bunch of crawlers that get mauled by animals, and then
Speaker 1: there's one that gets skewered in the eye by a spike,
Speaker 1: and it's by a fungus that he is trying to pick,
Speaker 1: which Mordecai is like, oh, yeah, if you see one
Speaker 1: of those, grab it for me, but just don't touch
Speaker 1: the top. And I love just all that, Carl says
Speaker 1: is christ Mordecai. He's just so very much like it's
Speaker 1: nothing to worry about. You just don't touch that part.
Speaker 1: Fucking Jesus. And then the dinosaur encounter, and then we
Speaker 1: have Lucia mar She cast her weird damage Reflects spell
Speaker 1: and the dinosaur is crushed by damage inflicted on her dog.
Speaker 1: The show portrayed Lucia cackling maniacally as she pulled out
Speaker 1: the now dead boss's eyeball with her bare hand and
Speaker 1: bit down on it like it was an apple. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's normal, Dona said, I firmly believe that this is
Speaker 1: doing something specific. That she is laughing because she succeeded
Speaker 1: in getting something that they were like trying to keep
Speaker 1: from her or something. I really do think that Lucia
Speaker 1: is being framed in the same way Karl is, and
Speaker 1: that maybe there's something off with her as well, but
Speaker 1: that she isn't nearly as crazy as they make her look,
Speaker 1: and that probably there was some weird shit she was
Speaker 1: set up to do, like cutting off the hands of
Speaker 1: that one guy. Karl had to do it a million times,
Speaker 1: and like that doesn't look good either, but there was
Speaker 1: a reason for it, you know. So we also chicken
Speaker 1: with Eva, and we get to see this raid that
Speaker 1: was being headed by Kacya. She's got Flora and Batista
Speaker 1: with her and they try to like keep her pen
Speaker 1: in this village. She gets away, but she like enchants
Speaker 1: the people to fight against the crawlers, and luckily somebody
Speaker 1: has like an ability to take that enchantment off, and
Speaker 1: the others are really sad explaining like I'm so sorry
Speaker 1: that we did that, you know it Just like Eva sucks,
Speaker 1: I just really she sucks. I do not like her.
Speaker 1: And then we get another of like another one of
Speaker 1: the system messages from that really excited. Hello, Crawlers, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of rumor and speculation about what that Last
Speaker 1: World announcement means for you, and then we get something
Speaker 1: very specific. But I was like, as some of you know,
Speaker 1: this particular crawl has been my personal life project. I
Speaker 1: had been working on it for a very very long
Speaker 1: time and I am going nowhere. And there was a
Speaker 1: tone to that delivery in the audiobook that felt like
Speaker 1: a threat. It's very interesting because it, you know, when
Speaker 1: you're just reading it in text, it doesn't necessarily come
Speaker 1: across that way, so you can interpret it that way, sure,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't necessarily feel you know, And I don't know.
Speaker 1: But speaking about the hunters, we have good news everybody
Speaker 1: because of the public concern and outcry from a new
Speaker 1: court injunction we fully support. We've implemented a few changes
Speaker 1: and it stops them from communicating with people outside, hoping
Speaker 1: to put a bit of a chokehold on the cheating overall.
Speaker 1: And then Patch notes the hot springs weren't hot enough,
Speaker 1: so we upped the hotness, which did result in us
Speaker 1: boiling some of the crawlers. Sorry about that. In a
Speaker 1: related note, lava tubes are also active. Alosaurus mobs have
Speaker 1: been split into two mob types to accommodate a newly
Speaker 1: generated quest. We've been forced to temporarily disable the fuck
Speaker 1: those Trees in particular spell as it didn't work as
Speaker 1: intended on this floor. I'm very curious about that, but
Speaker 1: probably we'll never find out. And then a new feature,
Speaker 1: the Butcher's Masquerade. Because people don't know where they stand
Speaker 1: in the rankings, they have decided that they will make
Speaker 1: a board of everybody in the top thousand so that
Speaker 1: they can see how they are positioned to maybe be
Speaker 1: able to attend. And they talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the masquerade and how it could possibly work that the
Speaker 1: hunters can mingle with crawlers and not fight. You know,
Speaker 1: there's going to be something in place, obviously, And Katchia
Speaker 1: doesn't know that Bee was on the show. She's just like,
Speaker 1: how did it go? And they say, we'll tell you
Speaker 1: about it later, but we don't actually see that moment.
Speaker 1: I don't think in these chapters in general at all,
Speaker 1: although I may be forgetting. And this is when Carl
Speaker 1: opens his fan box and it's a badge to be
Speaker 1: in a at crawl con It's all these fans of
Speaker 1: Dungeon Crawler World and he's going to meet them and
Speaker 1: take pictures, and he will be at three events, and
Speaker 1: I think, do we get the like, yeah, art contest,
Speaker 1: a panel, crawling through the ages, and autograph and keepsake session. Now,
Speaker 1: Carl is a very against this and just kind of
Speaker 1: disgusted at the whole thing, But I have got to
Speaker 1: be honest, this feels like the prime opportunity for somebody
Speaker 1: on the outside who is planning some shit to get
Speaker 1: to talk to him and pass him some information. And
Speaker 1: I would not be at all surprised if this were
Speaker 1: a fix that came in from somebody wanting to speak
Speaker 1: to him, that they managed to like get this particular
Speaker 1: reward to him on purpose to do this. He is,
Speaker 1: he's just not seeing that aspect of it, because we
Speaker 1: know that there are some folks on the outside that
Speaker 1: are like specifically rooting for him in his whole mission here,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't know that at all, so it's not
Speaker 1: occurring to him, you know, as far as he is concerned.
Speaker 1: The only one of them that has anybody sort of
Speaker 1: working with things on the outside is Donut with Zev,
Speaker 1: which he only just found out, but I think that
Speaker 1: probably this is some kind of setup for him to
Speaker 1: meet someone specific, and it's probably also why it's him
Speaker 1: that's going and not Donut, because she's just not going
Speaker 1: to be the one that people see as the revolutionary.
Speaker 1: We know now that she is, but doesn't look it
Speaker 1: on a lot of levels and has a cultivated, a
Speaker 1: very specific persona. But I can understand why they would
Speaker 1: be leaving her out of it. It's just to him,
Speaker 1: this just looks like I'm going to mingle with people
Speaker 1: who are rooting for our deaths. That fucking blows. I
Speaker 1: don't want to meet them, and like Donut would be
Speaker 1: just better at this whole schmoozing thing overall, which yeah, true,
Speaker 1: but it is what it is. And carl Is or
Speaker 1: Mordecai is like, oh wow, three events, Like I got
Speaker 1: sent for the autograph session, but I he says, I
Speaker 1: only ended up signing three items, So yeah, they're trying
Speaker 1: to keep them there for something. I think. I think
Speaker 1: we'll see. Of course, Dona desperately wants to go, but
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, there's there's something else happening, probably
Speaker 1: for her eventually, so let's see. Oh, right, This is
Speaker 1: when they start to deal with Katya actually leaving their
Speaker 1: party and getting set up with the Guild. And Dona
Speaker 1: is of course really sad about Katya, but Ktya is
Speaker 1: like reassuring her I will absolutely still be around. But
Speaker 1: we really do need to do this, because every time
Speaker 1: y'all get a quest I get it too, and I'm
Speaker 1: off doing my own fucking thing, you know, like it's
Speaker 1: just we can't keep it like this anymore. So they
Speaker 1: become part of the Guild safe home Yolanda and Carl,
Speaker 1: you know, recognizing Yolanda's name, and just like the overall
Speaker 1: it's just a really it's a memorial. Emani is the
Speaker 1: guild master. The guild is level seven. There are six
Speaker 1: parties with a total of sixty three crawlers. You have
Speaker 1: multiple upgrades available for your personal area, and there's a
Speaker 1: pet stable and Orcai says, don't place anything yet until
Speaker 1: after Katscha leaves the party, and Donut says, there's a
Speaker 1: pet stable. A pair of barn doors appeared to the
Speaker 1: left of the new exit. Your beds have been upgraded
Speaker 1: to the instacat sixty. What did I just say, Mordecai demanded,
Speaker 1: God damn it, I mumbled. The instacat was the second
Speaker 1: best bed on the market. It refreshed us after sixty
Speaker 1: seconds of sleep, but it also changed our good rest
Speaker 1: bonus to great Rest, and it imparted a whopping fifteen
Speaker 1: percent bonus to our stats for the day. Still, I
Speaker 1: hated the idea of it. I absolutely hated it. I
Speaker 1: completely get it. It's really I really get it. You know.
Speaker 1: It's creepy, and it just really does feel like, probably
Speaker 1: this is having some kind of effect that we just
Speaker 1: don't detect and don't care about, because you guys don't
Speaker 1: care about us, you know, trying to utilize as much
Speaker 1: of the time that we exist to generate content, and
Speaker 1: it's gross. On the other hand, there have been so
Speaker 1: many days where I wished I didn't have to sleep
Speaker 1: because I had so much to do or things that
Speaker 1: I just wanted to do and I had to sleep,
Speaker 1: and I was really sad over it. So there's a
Speaker 1: part of me that is like, kind of I wish
Speaker 1: I had one of these, you know. But yeah, so
Speaker 1: let's see, oh right, this is when Clint shows up
Speaker 1: and he's in his little beaver form adorable and let's see,
Speaker 1: oh right, This is when Carl says, I had a
Speaker 1: sudden idea, a ridiculous idea. Hold on, I need to
Speaker 1: go grab something, and he ducks out, and there is
Speaker 1: this attack happening, and a big part of it is poison,
Speaker 1: which Carl is immune to. But he's still keep getting
Speaker 1: like tons of notifications you've been poisoned, poison negated, over
Speaker 1: and over across the screen. Samantha is also immune, and
Speaker 1: she could bite now too. She chumped pretty good on
Speaker 1: my hand when I went to fetch her. It didn't hurt,
Speaker 1: but she had enough force to actually latch on. Her
Speaker 1: fangs bent harmlessly when any pressure was applied. I could
Speaker 1: pull my hand free with a little yank. So what
Speaker 1: he decides to do is use the she Sarah attachment
Speaker 1: that throws her and jam a explosive into her mouth
Speaker 1: because as a sex doll, her mouth opens really wide.
Speaker 1: And it's very funny because he's like, make sure not
Speaker 1: to open your mouth until you're over there, because that
Speaker 1: triggers it. And of course she immediately does that and
Speaker 1: sets it off and almost blows them all to shit.
Speaker 1: But he is able to chuck it and it actually works.
Speaker 1: It's super fun I am enjoying Samantha in the audiobook,
Speaker 1: especially the accent and voice that the narrator has decided
Speaker 1: to give her, is so funny, and it's just it
Speaker 1: adds something and makes her feel so distinctive and so weird.
Speaker 1: It works really, really well, And I really wonder if
Speaker 1: I would feel the same about her if I were
Speaker 1: only reading the text. I'm not sure. So let's see
Speaker 1: he uses paying, he flings her. I could love Samantha
Speaker 1: fifty plus kilometers, so I had to be careful with
Speaker 1: how hard I threw. That's Banana's fifty plus kilometers. Holy shit,
Speaker 1: that's like what like thirty eight miles something in there. Yikes, dude,
Speaker 1: that's crazy, and then get her back right away like insane.
Speaker 1: You could use her to like transfer messages that fit
Speaker 1: in her mouth, if you were able to like write
Speaker 1: stuff down, if you could get your aim really good,
Speaker 1: send her off to someplace far away, have them stuff
Speaker 1: a message in her mouth, and then retrieve her again.
Speaker 1: That could be a pretty like good way to communicate
Speaker 1: without things being in actual like in the chat, you know,
Speaker 1: or just like send each other stuff if it's small enough.
Speaker 1: So let's see, uh oh, right, this is when he
Speaker 1: drinks this potion of levitation, and he is able to
Speaker 1: touch the slider that makes him go like up and
Speaker 1: down as far as he need to, And he says
Speaker 1: it's like stepping on as if he were standing on glass.
Speaker 1: Mordecai emphasized how dangerous these potions were. He said, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't stop me from dropping if I had enough momentum.
Speaker 1: They were not a suitable alternative to featherfall. We couldn't
Speaker 1: use these to keep from plummeting to the ground unless
Speaker 1: we took them before we jumped. Treat it like you're
Speaker 1: standing on thin ice, he said. So he drinks the
Speaker 1: major Charlie potion, which gets his intelligence up so that
Speaker 1: this thing will last longer. Casts Ping chucks her and
Speaker 1: let's see, I paused my descent. She didn't veer off
Speaker 1: like I'd hoped, but continued her forward momentum. I tried
Speaker 1: not to throw her too hard, but it looked as
Speaker 1: if I had. But then she shot down at a
Speaker 1: right angle, just as something shot from the ground up
Speaker 1: at her, a fireball trying to knock from the sky.
Speaker 1: The slow moving projectile missed, and Samantha disappeared into the
Speaker 1: trees past the clearing just as I lowered myself fully
Speaker 1: to the ground, I could hear the distant detonation. Yes,
Speaker 1: I cried, I got one of those fuck sticks as
Speaker 1: the experienced notification rolled in and then Samantha is yelling,
Speaker 1: bring me back fast, and he does, and her hair
Speaker 1: is on fire. But she has brought something back. She
Speaker 1: has clamped the ankle of an elf. The thin, pale
Speaker 1: elf was unconscious. And the fact that she's able to
Speaker 1: bring back a whole body it didn't even occur to
Speaker 1: me as I was saying what you could transport before,
Speaker 1: because I was saying it had to like fit in
Speaker 1: her mouth. But evidently not. As long as she's biting it,
Speaker 1: it comes back, So that's even more useful. Like that's
Speaker 1: as long as she can clamp down enough rad okay,
Speaker 1: And he's conscious Ackland moon elf and she wants it
Speaker 1: as her kill. But Carl is like, yeah, no, this
Speaker 1: was mine, sorry about it, and he says, heal him,
Speaker 1: but I want to talk to him first, and puts
Speaker 1: on his ring and again this ring, it's being used
Speaker 1: so casually, Carl, sweetheart, baby, I don't like it. Ackland.
Speaker 1: It's not supposed to be like this. How is it
Speaker 1: supposed to be what you heard me, How is it
Speaker 1: supposed to be We weren't even hunting you. The Dark
Speaker 1: hiven Skull Empire of Both League claimed, but you're in
Speaker 1: our territory. The bridges are all out. We were going
Speaker 1: to take the city. He just wanted us to find
Speaker 1: the crawler that human besmirched Tag's mother's honor. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to get involved. I did well at Fantasy Hunter
Speaker 1: CA and I want a spot on the Faction War's army.
Speaker 1: I was supposed it was supposed to be easy. They
Speaker 1: offered me so much money. I'm not even a member
Speaker 1: of the family like the others. And he says, Carl's like,
Speaker 1: what is Fantasy Hunter Camp. It's so people can pretend
Speaker 1: like they're on the show. The best players get to
Speaker 1: play in Faction Wars Wars. I did well and won
Speaker 1: a spot. I wasn't ever supposed to be in real danger,
Speaker 1: but they offered me money. And I'm just an accountant.
Speaker 1: I work with soy crop shipping manifests all day. I
Speaker 1: will like say, I do not feel about this guy
Speaker 1: the way that I did about the bounty hunter hunting
Speaker 1: down people on the surface, despite the fact that he
Speaker 1: hates all of this and he has to put food
Speaker 1: on the table. He's participating. You know, this guy, he
Speaker 1: may just be an ordinary dude, but he is still
Speaker 1: doing something that is fully not necessary to his life.
Speaker 1: It is an extra for funzies. So I don't have
Speaker 1: the kind of sympathy for him that I had for
Speaker 1: the other dude. It doesn't seem like the same thing
Speaker 1: at all to me. And this is Carl does the
Speaker 1: whole like do you know what I do every day?
Speaker 1: And doughnuts like you can't do the fucking bad guy soliloquy.
Speaker 1: But Carl really wants to get this established at least once.
Speaker 1: And he says, I couldn't hear myself think the river
Speaker 1: in the back of my brain, raged, flooding, filling all
Speaker 1: the empty spaces it could find. And he remembers his mother,
Speaker 1: this is my birthday present to you. I'm giving you
Speaker 1: a chance at life. I'm sorry it took me so long.
Speaker 1: This will stop it. It's so loud, Carl, it's so loud. Yikes,
Speaker 1: the fact that both him and his mom had this, Like,
Speaker 1: is this just a straight up mental illness thing? Is
Speaker 1: this a result of abuse, which like also can be
Speaker 1: a mental illness thing. But you know, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: like a mental illness that you are simply born with,
Speaker 1: versus one that is created out of trauma. I am
Speaker 1: really curious about, like what all this this is, and
Speaker 1: I am assuming it's a trauma thing. But I don't
Speaker 1: understand why she thought her own death would stop it
Speaker 1: for Carl and make his life better. I like, I'm
Speaker 1: giving you a chance at life. Why did she think
Speaker 1: her death would do that? I just I am assuming
Speaker 1: it's because she thinks that he feels like he has
Speaker 1: to stick around his shitty father for her sake, and
Speaker 1: that now he'll be free and able to do what
Speaker 1: he needs. But is that it or did she have
Speaker 1: something else in her mind about how this worked? You know,
Speaker 1: I'm very curious, like you know, exactly circumstantially what was
Speaker 1: going on at this point. So yeah, he marks Ackland
Speaker 1: and then we have the end of the chapter, and
Speaker 1: the next one starts with congratulations murderer, and Dona is
Speaker 1: just like, dude, that was way too gruesome. It was
Speaker 1: absolutely not necessary, and you are really genuinely starting to
Speaker 1: scare me. And he says, I promise I'll kill them
Speaker 1: nice and clean from now on and I want to
Speaker 1: mention her saying that he's scaring her is in regular type,
Speaker 1: but then in all caps, well you have to add
Speaker 1: a little flare. Maybe we can come up with a
Speaker 1: new catchphrase just for killing bad guys. So she just
Speaker 1: has her two modes, and you can see it in
Speaker 1: her type when she's being like sincere and vulnerable versus
Speaker 1: when she's just kind of making a joke out of things.
Speaker 1: And let's see, the guy had something equipped you'll like
Speaker 1: it's a bracelet and she reads it and at first
Speaker 1: it is like, ah, this bracelet is like kind of cuter,
Speaker 1: but and then she reads it and is like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: obsidian bracelet of the raggle Rouser. This item has a
Speaker 1: fifty percent chance to permanently break if it's upgraded again.
Speaker 1: Fifty percent is a lot, uh. They bracelet ibuse plus
Speaker 1: ten to constitution plus five to dexterity plus fifteen percent
Speaker 1: fire resistance. Wharer may cast a level ten fireball spell
Speaker 1: once every twenty minutes. And I love him being like,
Speaker 1: don't use fireball in a tight space. It's a lot
Speaker 1: more dangerous. And she just says, I know how fireworks, Carl,
Speaker 1: which he deserved that. So let's see. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: make sure because I'm like out of time here and
Speaker 1: I still have This chapter is really short. All of
Speaker 1: them are actually in this section. But he'll see Samantha
Speaker 1: growled and rolled away. She started barking at an ursine
Speaker 1: cleric and she says, he says, what in Pawna's name?
Speaker 1: And she says, pawn is a big liar. She plays
Speaker 1: all innocent and virginal, but she's into soaking. Look it up,
Speaker 1: which if you don't know what soaking is, it's really
Speaker 1: not that exciting. But it's basically like laying on top
Speaker 1: of somebody and mimicking dry humping, except you don't move,
Speaker 1: and you have somebody jump up and down on the
Speaker 1: bed to make you move against one another so that
Speaker 1: you can technically have like plausible deniability that you were
Speaker 1: dry humping and it was just circumstantial to the fact
Speaker 1: that a person happened to be jumping on the bed.
Speaker 1: It's a really weird like loophole for people who believe
Speaker 1: that any sort of action made in lust is wrong
Speaker 1: and extremely funny to me because it's just such a
Speaker 1: weird you know. So anyway, this is when Dona is saying,
Speaker 1: I'm worried about Samantha. Mordecai was never expecting her to
Speaker 1: get as strong as she has. She's like rolling around
Speaker 1: faster and stuff. And Carl actually really hears what Donut
Speaker 1: saying here and is like, huh, you may have a point.
Speaker 1: I'll keep an eye on her, but we like can't
Speaker 1: ditch her right now. Now that we know she can
Speaker 1: bring stuff back with her, it makes her extra valuable,
Speaker 1: maybe Donut said, she sighed dramatically, I wish Kotcha were here.
Speaker 1: It's difficult being the voice of reason. That was her job.
Speaker 1: And she says that Samantha reminds her of the thing
Speaker 1: out of the movie Critters. I have never seen that movie,
Speaker 1: so I cannot comment on this. So then finally chapter
Speaker 1: twenty four and we have this crawler entreat by Drakia,
Speaker 1: and we find out that some hunters actually explicitly go
Speaker 1: after elites, even though it's a super dangerous proposition and
Speaker 1: the payout it's like they get really good gear. But
Speaker 1: in the opinion of this crawler writing this entry, it's
Speaker 1: just like not really a smart move. And they are there,
Speaker 1: like thing that they are doing is setting traps to
Speaker 1: bring elites and hunters together. When one values coin above life,
Speaker 1: you should target the coin for it hurts them more.
Speaker 1: And that is my food, my life, my god, hurting
Speaker 1: the Naga and everyone responsible for this nightmare. And when
Speaker 1: people value coin above life, you should target the coin.
Speaker 1: Is a fucking sermon, It really is. So we get
Speaker 1: Carl's boom from Embras and it sucks balls. It's a
Speaker 1: boost to fire damage spells, and he doesn't have any
Speaker 1: except burn and apparently that boost doesn't apply to burn.
Speaker 1: It's like an exception, so lame. And they also like
Speaker 1: they kill another crawler, find another photo of Louis. It's
Speaker 1: a photo, not a drawing, and he's got like a
Speaker 1: filter on and make him look like a dog. And
Speaker 1: then let's see, oh right, they find a eleven contraption
Speaker 1: that's like a rock trucker. Uh, and the contraption has
Speaker 1: a ninety second cool down between each use. There's no counterweight,
Speaker 1: but the machine is made with the pair of magical
Speaker 1: plates that wanted to come together like magnets. Upon closer inspection,
Speaker 1: the plates weren't magical, but some sort of high tech bullshit,
Speaker 1: something that was just as out of place as that
Speaker 1: photo of Lewis. The only quote enchanted part of these
Speaker 1: things was the wood. These assholes are still cheating, I grumbled,
Speaker 1: inspecting the postage stamp sized plate. It was covered with
Speaker 1: little diodes. I looked into the sky. Do you guys
Speaker 1: see this? Well, it's mine now. I pulled the individual
Speaker 1: spikes and then picked up the trebuchet, taking the whole thing.
Speaker 1: A new tab appeared labeled siege equipment. So the fact
Speaker 1: that there is able to like smuggle stuff like this
Speaker 1: in it's not entirely unexpected, but like Christ, you know,
Speaker 1: getting caught this early on in things as well is
Speaker 1: like very embarrassing and sloppy to me. There's a point
Speaker 1: when Dona is just like, these guys are not good
Speaker 1: at their job, like the way that they keep getting killed,
Speaker 1: and She's fucking correct. These dudes are just like they're
Speaker 1: not hardened. Because the crawlers are fighting for their lives
Speaker 1: and have been doing this a minute, and these assholes
Speaker 1: are just coming in here for the funsies. It makes
Speaker 1: some sense that even with them being higher level, their
Speaker 1: tactics are just poor and sloppy. And Samantha is like,
Speaker 1: why are you even taking that? Because you can throw
Speaker 1: me way further than that stuff can throw anything. And
Speaker 1: Carl is like, well, yeah, but you might somebody get
Speaker 1: your body back, or I want to throw something really big.
Speaker 1: Plus this mbuse it with poison Cloud and she grumbles
Speaker 1: and rolls away and I love that. Like Mongo runs
Speaker 1: after her very excitedly, and later we see him just
Speaker 1: like chewing our like a chew toy that's honestly like
Speaker 1: a ball that moves around on its own. This is
Speaker 1: something you can actually buy on Amazon as a dog toy.
Speaker 1: It has like a little weight inside it and it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, battery powered to keep your dog excited because
Speaker 1: it's like a living thing that it's chasing. So uh yeah, ideal. Perfect.
Speaker 1: They talk a little bit about why the Dream is
Speaker 1: so pissed over this whole thing with Lewis and that
Speaker 1: they clearly just like are very uptight, and Donut is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you get famous, you have to deal with thirsty fans.
Speaker 1: This is just a thing, Like I keep getting pictures
Speaker 1: of this guy's tentacles. I don't know why, but I'm
Speaker 1: not offended. It's just a thing. Ugh, I love you,
Speaker 1: I love you, Donut. And this is when Carl is
Speaker 1: sharing I like that something has been bugging him about
Speaker 1: the story. Signete's goal was to kill her half sister, Imagen,
Speaker 1: but this same lady was also the big bad country
Speaker 1: boss that was that all the top crawlers were gonna
Speaker 1: have to deal with on the third floor. My exploits
Speaker 1: with Signet weren't shown on the recap episodes because anything
Speaker 1: that happened with an elite was licensed to the owners
Speaker 1: of the elite's program. There was no way that Born
Speaker 1: or the valte or whoever was in charge would allow
Speaker 1: this floor's massive climax to be exclusive to some other program.
Speaker 1: Maybe that meant the vengeance of the daughter's climax was
Speaker 1: set to pop off before this party at the end
Speaker 1: of the floor. If so, it'd be Signet versus a
Speaker 1: boss that wouldn't be allowed to be killed, which meant
Speaker 1: a tragic climax. And then he's like, but there's like
Speaker 1: the possibility at some point that maybe they don't want
Speaker 1: another season like that. You know, well, maybe this is
Speaker 1: the point, is that they are pretending and stringing me
Speaker 1: along with this whole thing when they're not even intending
Speaker 1: for there to be, which would be in line with
Speaker 1: like Valte not wanting Carl to be in the top
Speaker 1: ten anymore either, eh, you know. And then we have
Speaker 1: this little bit where Karl is remembering an entry from
Speaker 1: Herod in the cookbook, who he thinks is like maybe
Speaker 1: a genius, and her talking about surrounding yourself with trustworthy,
Speaker 1: competent people and not too many, which I think is
Speaker 1: always good advice, keep it tight. And as he's thinking this,
Speaker 1: like remembering this, we have just Samantha just screaming and
Speaker 1: like it's just you know, he's got a fairly wide
Speaker 1: net cast right now of the people that he's working with,
Speaker 1: and how many of them are competent and trustworthy? I mean,
Speaker 1: real question mark there, real question mark. We also get
Speaker 1: a little bit of the convo with the casters and
Speaker 1: Doughnut and her talking like asking whether that's where castor
Speaker 1: oil comes from. And she mentions that Bee made her
Speaker 1: swallow some to make her poop before going into the
Speaker 1: presence of a judge, which evidently is like really bad
Speaker 1: for cats. It's like dangerous for them. I had no
Speaker 1: idea any of this was a thing, but yeah, and
Speaker 1: I love Samantha. She wouldn't shut up, so I was
Speaker 1: making her role She followed behind her head, happily growling
Speaker 1: and splashing through the mud and foliage. She could move quickly,
Speaker 1: but she couldn't jump or hop, which sometimes bogged her down.
Speaker 1: She kept getting hung up in bushes and branches, and
Speaker 1: we were constantly rescuing her. At first, I was worried
Speaker 1: about her running off or disappearing into the darkness. She didn't.
Speaker 1: She hummed to herself merrily as we went, and cursed
Speaker 1: loudly whenever she bumped into something. She was frequently threatening trees.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but I love her. I love her so much.
Speaker 1: What a little weirdo. I am into it, low key,
Speaker 1: just keep her around. At first, I was very much like,
Speaker 1: oh boy, where's this going? And he has managed to
Speaker 1: turn her into somebody that is just a really fun,
Speaker 1: strange little companion. And oh right, at this point, we
Speaker 1: have a lightning strike and I love this, Samantha. I'm
Speaker 1: on it. I'll kill him, Samantha said, rolling off weight.
Speaker 1: I hissed, but she was already gone. I was about
Speaker 1: to grab her, but hesitated. The whole plan was to
Speaker 1: use her as a distraction anyway, So she just rolls
Speaker 1: off and just yells yoho, who's shooting? Oh god, So
Speaker 1: it's Signet and some of her people and they have
Speaker 1: caught another hunter. And it just ends with Samantha catterwauling
Speaker 1: because she got stuck and Carl going all right, come on,
Speaker 1: and that's the end of the chapter. So I am
Speaker 1: so overtime, I have to wrap. But yeah, this is
Speaker 1: a fun little section, full of surprises, full of surprises.
Speaker 1: It was a really, really good time. I'm enjoying this
Speaker 1: book so much more than the last one. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't like the last one was terrible. It was just like,
Speaker 1: for me, a bit of a lull when I had
Speaker 1: been enjoying the first three and this one has gone
Speaker 1: right back up again. So yeah, thumbs up so far.
Speaker 1: All right, everybody, I'll see you next week. Until then,
Speaker 1: to the loo, motherfuckers. That was an unspoiled network