Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
Speaker 1: covering Dungeon Crawler Carl book seven This Inevitable ruin chapters
Speaker 1: twenty three through twenty seven. In these chapters, there is
Speaker 1: a major death here that I really thought it would
Speaker 1: take us longer to get to, and then once it happens,
Speaker 1: I'm like, it wasn't even the death. It was Caral
Speaker 1: during the death. That was the climax here. Yikes. Welcome
Speaker 1: to spoil Me, Welcome to the I'm so sorry, guys,
Speaker 1: I just got so distracted by Michael's comments that it
Speaker 1: totally threw me off my intro. Welcome to the show everyone.
Speaker 1: I am Natasha. Thank you Michael for commissioning this episode.
Speaker 1: But no, thank you Michael to all these comments. Never
Speaker 1: say this in front of me again. And that's that.
Speaker 1: On that. Yeah, this section, guys, was like a really
Speaker 1: surprising section because I thought it was going to take
Speaker 1: a bit longer for us to get a major death.
Speaker 1: Not a major like ally death, to be clear, but
Speaker 1: I just really never expected this to happen so quickly,
Speaker 1: and it being in Pristinadia, She's like such a figure
Speaker 1: in my mind of representation of everything, that Carl in
Speaker 1: particular hates that I thought we'd be saving her for
Speaker 1: like later in the book, and I have no problem
Speaker 1: for the record killing her now, but it was just
Speaker 1: not what I was thinking the order of things was
Speaker 1: going to be. So let us begin. Chapter twenty three
Speaker 1: starts with like the note from Crawler Ossi about creating
Speaker 1: confusion to make an enemy frightened, and the way that
Speaker 1: this whole thing kind of like it ramps up and
Speaker 1: we know that they're working on something, but we don't
Speaker 1: really get any details at this point. It's not until
Speaker 1: later when we get Victory talking to him that we
Speaker 1: find out exactly what it was that Carl had set
Speaker 1: up and on She seems kind of flicked out, Like
Speaker 1: I was startled by how much it's it's I was
Speaker 1: thinking any type of victory for her team, she would
Speaker 1: be very much on board for you know that it
Speaker 1: was just going to be like, yeah, way to play
Speaker 1: the system, that's my jam, I'm proud of you kind
Speaker 1: of energy, and instead it's more like, you guys came
Speaker 1: up with something I hadn't even thought of, and I
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time thinking about this, So now
Speaker 1: I kind of feel uncertain and unsettled because I'm realizing
Speaker 1: I thought I knew the ground that we stood on,
Speaker 1: and I don't not the way that I thought. And
Speaker 1: I really like you guys know how much I love
Speaker 1: her as a character already, Like immediately out of the
Speaker 1: get I was just sort of like, yeah, uh huh,
Speaker 1: this bitch is it for her to be like shook?
Speaker 1: Has me shook? I part of me wants to say
Speaker 1: I don't like it. Another part of me is like, no,
Speaker 1: I definitely like it. I'm very torn here where I'm
Speaker 1: just sort of it's making me like a little anxious.
Speaker 1: But I also if even she can be surprised, then
Speaker 1: we're really in for a ride, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Michael says. Brent said in the spoiler discord throw that
Speaker 1: he found it tough to read about her death. I
Speaker 1: have to say that I agree. Each time I reread
Speaker 1: and re listen to these sections, I find myself not
Speaker 1: sympathizing more, but empathizing more. And it is tough. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is such It's such an interesting thing. I don't
Speaker 1: know how much of this is on purpose, how much
Speaker 1: of this is accidental because of who we are as people.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know, but I am going
Speaker 1: to say the audiobook narrator especially gives Empersinnadia a sort
Speaker 1: of tremulousness to her voice that I feel like it
Speaker 1: would have been very easy to play her death scene
Speaker 1: as her being sort of nasal and irritating in her upset,
Speaker 1: and instead he makes her feel really genuinely afraid and
Speaker 1: genuinely sad. And it's there's something also, like I understand
Speaker 1: the necessity. There's so many things, and I know I'm
Speaker 1: jumping ahead, guys, but Karl is worried about there being
Speaker 1: further traps in her dress, so he has the clockwork
Speaker 1: manga rip her dress up to make sure that there's
Speaker 1: not another shield. And I get why, but it just
Speaker 1: this is the sort of thing that an enemy might
Speaker 1: do simply to humiliate somebody before killing them. That is
Speaker 1: not what is happening here. Explicitly, it is not what
Speaker 1: has happened. There is a reason, but there is something
Speaker 1: about that detail, as well as her voice, as well
Speaker 1: as the rage of Carl, that the whole scene, instead
Speaker 1: of it being this satisfying fist pump, Yeah, we got
Speaker 1: our sort of victory, for me, it was like sickening
Speaker 1: which I think is a fucking triumph as an author,
Speaker 1: because I don't think Matt Denneman wants us to be
Speaker 1: fist pumping. I think part of what he's trying to
Speaker 1: do with this whole series is emphasize everybody is a person,
Speaker 1: even when they're garbage, even when they are making evil
Speaker 1: choices and doing cruel shit, there's still a person that
Speaker 1: doesn't change that they are not suddenly this unknowable monster.
Speaker 1: And in the moments before death, you get to really
Speaker 1: see this in such a naked and raw way that
Speaker 1: it can be very tempting to almost be like, maybe
Speaker 1: we shouldn't kill her. Look at how fucking broken she is,
Speaker 1: you know. And I feel like that serves both to
Speaker 1: make Karl's rage in the moment and his desire to
Speaker 1: be the one to kill her. It makes it feel
Speaker 1: more grotesque in the moment, and it also helps me
Speaker 1: to imagine what Dona is feeling when she sees what's
Speaker 1: going on with him. And I just think it's really
Speaker 1: important if we're going to be talking about like revolution,
Speaker 1: building community to overthrow people who are doing harm and
Speaker 1: making all kinds of excuses for why this doing harm
Speaker 1: isn't really that bad. We can feel a sort of
Speaker 1: grim sense of accomplishment when somebody is taken out, but
Speaker 1: that is a very different thing than glorying in their death,
Speaker 1: feeling gleefulness about it, or otherwise like almost romanticizing the
Speaker 1: moment to make it something that's like really cinematic and
Speaker 1: distanced from reality in a storybook kind of way. I
Speaker 1: feel like he is going out of his way to
Speaker 1: ensure that when we face down with some of these people,
Speaker 1: we keep being brought down to earth for a second,
Speaker 1: U punintended and reminded. This is just a person. They
Speaker 1: aren't the system. They are a participant in a system,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't excuse any of their actions, but just
Speaker 1: a reminder they're just a person. They're just one person.
Speaker 1: And I think that's so important. And I just don't
Speaker 1: know were I writing this, if I would be able
Speaker 1: to keep that in mind myself as an author, you know,
Speaker 1: if I would be able to make this scene as
Speaker 1: effective as it is, because like, it doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: a victory. It doesn't feel like a great and triumphant
Speaker 1: moment for us. It feels like we just missed something
Speaker 1: really bad happening to our guy. It was a close
Speaker 1: call for it. They're in like full control of the scene.
Speaker 1: There's no moment where I'm actually worried for Carl and
Speaker 1: Donut safety. In regard to UH and Personadia, it's the
Speaker 1: two of them on top with no question. And yet
Speaker 1: I am worried about Carl in the scene, not because
Speaker 1: of her, but because of him and his choices and
Speaker 1: what he is doing to himself. Which this is a
Speaker 1: brilliant move storytelling wise, this ring. It's like what Karl
Speaker 1: is motivated by is what he gets out of the
Speaker 1: ring in terms of stat points and whatnot, which all
Speaker 1: of that valid, huge advantage, right, But what are you
Speaker 1: letting it do to you? He says later to Donut
Speaker 1: that he isn't going to give it up yet because
Speaker 1: he needs it. He needs to be stronger. And I
Speaker 1: would argue it's making you weaker. It's stronger in a way,
Speaker 1: but if you are barely in control of yourself in
Speaker 1: a moment like this where so much matters, that's weakening
Speaker 1: you in a way that's really significant, not only to
Speaker 1: yourself and your integrity as a person within yourself, but
Speaker 1: also as a figurehead for this entire movement, because like Carl,
Speaker 1: is the de facto face of this rebellion, and if
Speaker 1: he does something that's really unhinged, that could very easily
Speaker 1: begin to just discredit the motivations that he has and
Speaker 1: cause a lot of people who have been up to
Speaker 1: this point kind of following him willingly to sort of wonder,
Speaker 1: are we being run by a madman? It can really
Speaker 1: have an effect on the morale of everybody if you're
Speaker 1: on video like torturing somebody to death and enjoying it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? I just I understand why
Speaker 1: this ring is so difficult to give up. I really
Speaker 1: really really get it. But I think he is having
Speaker 1: a lot of very short term thinking right now, and
Speaker 1: I am not sure. Even though he claims to see
Speaker 1: the moment where he's up on the edge, it still
Speaker 1: doesn't really feel like he fully comprehends how close he
Speaker 1: came to just completely losing it. And I don't know
Speaker 1: how many more near misses he's gonna be allowed to get. Like,
Speaker 1: what is going to have to happen for you to
Speaker 1: be willing to give the ring up? Dude? How bad
Speaker 1: do you have to hurt? Donut? Because like, all I
Speaker 1: can think about is she Maria and she took his
Speaker 1: body over and made him do these horrible things that
Speaker 1: hurt people. He was fully not in control, and yet
Speaker 1: he still feels this guilt about what happened. What happens
Speaker 1: when it is you, when it is like you are
Speaker 1: still not in control of yourself, but not because an
Speaker 1: entity is taking you over, but because you have let
Speaker 1: your rage control you. What happens? Then how do you
Speaker 1: come back? I don't know, you know, like setting aside
Speaker 1: the movement itself, the rebellion? What just about your relationship
Speaker 1: with Donut after she told you that you're scaring her
Speaker 1: and you refuse to get rid of the ring? What
Speaker 1: do you do to repair it? If you hurt her,
Speaker 1: or you hurt Mongo or any one of your other allies,
Speaker 1: or even if you hurt an enemy, but you do
Speaker 1: it in such a way that it's obvious you're enjoying yourself.
Speaker 1: How do you fix that? It's a lot harder to
Speaker 1: fix that than it is to adjust to not using
Speaker 1: this ring. Ah. Anyway, I just saw a bunch of
Speaker 1: comments and I'm having to like scroll backward a little
Speaker 1: bit here. Jeff says it's as if he wrote it
Speaker 1: at Hollywood, saying don't make this movie. Saraph him says,
Speaker 1: she always came off not so much as an asshole,
Speaker 1: like say the Skull Empire, just as a person who's
Speaker 1: been so privileged and sheltered her whole life. She simply
Speaker 1: doesn't get how horrific all this truly is. Henry says,
Speaker 1: war ruins people, and Michael says, yeah, pretty sure it
Speaker 1: was deliberate. I think you can see it in Carl's
Speaker 1: reaction to her death. Afterward, his rage is gone and
Speaker 1: he just feels empty and mournful. Jeff says that glee
Speaker 1: is why I've always hated murder quips in movies. Fair
Speaker 1: The unhinged exultation of violence from reminds me of the
Speaker 1: Red Court King in Dresden. That's an interesting one. There
Speaker 1: are other characters that I think of, but not that guy.
Speaker 1: Like in a way, sure, but there's like another character.
Speaker 1: Michael says, no spoilers. I'm trying to motivate myself to
Speaker 1: read the new books he put out. It's this isn't
Speaker 1: a reference to a new book. It's a reference to
Speaker 1: proven guilty. But there are some beings in that who
Speaker 1: have a real gleefulness in the violence and the oh no, sorry,
Speaker 1: Jeff is saying, changes, the red court changes. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the one that I'm thinking of, which is
Speaker 1: in proven guilty, and it's uh, there's an attack in
Speaker 1: a bathroom and Dresden goes back to the scene and
Speaker 1: feels this like happiness that something is feeling as it
Speaker 1: beats the shit out of somebody, and it's like that,
Speaker 1: that's the thing that I'm worried about, you know, Seraphim says.
Speaker 1: The thing is, I never saw the ring as being
Speaker 1: the issue or causing any of this, and it's more
Speaker 1: just a symptom of the larger issue of what being
Speaker 1: in this crawl is doing to him. Michael says, I
Speaker 1: definitely think the ring is affecting him, though his hands
Speaker 1: shaking as he was taking it off really implies it is.
Speaker 1: I think both are true. I think it's definitely meant
Speaker 1: to be a metaphor the ring, but also I think
Speaker 1: the ring is actually physically creating a feedback loop in
Speaker 1: him that is amplifying what he feels when it's anger
Speaker 1: and hatred and rage. And I think that's what the
Speaker 1: name of it implies. Even though the ring of divine suffering,
Speaker 1: who's suffering because Karl suffers. And it's very easy to
Speaker 1: be like you're profiting off the suffering of others because
Speaker 1: you put the ring on and you get a boost
Speaker 1: when you kill someone. But killing people eats at you,
Speaker 1: and whether or not you think it does, unless you
Speaker 1: really have no conscience whatsoever, I believe that the suffering
Speaker 1: is inflicted on the wearer, and that it being like
Speaker 1: a divine suffering is like the hatred and anger that
Speaker 1: you feel will be amplified so that you can like
Speaker 1: kill more easily in the moment you can get the
Speaker 1: job done. But those are not pleasant emotions. It may
Speaker 1: not it may seem odd to say that when you
Speaker 1: hate someone you are suffering, but I think that's correct.
Speaker 1: I think that's just sort of the way that works,
Speaker 1: even if we can't feel it in the moment, you know.
Speaker 1: So I don't know exactly what it is that, like
Speaker 1: how much giving it away would affect Karl, Like what
Speaker 1: kind of loss would he suffer to his various stats
Speaker 1: if he got rid of it. I really don't know.
Speaker 1: I just feel like I don't think whatever that loss is,
Speaker 1: that it would be worth what he's what he's cultivating
Speaker 1: in himself, right now. And that's really the only way
Speaker 1: that I can put it, because at this point this
Speaker 1: is a choice. He is aware what it's doing to him,
Speaker 1: and he is still choosing and tries to say, I
Speaker 1: don't know what came over me, And I was so
Speaker 1: glad that Donna is like, the fuck you don't you
Speaker 1: know exactly what came over you? And I was so
Speaker 1: plea is that she just doesn't let him get away
Speaker 1: with that. Oh, I have no idea. What shut the
Speaker 1: fuck up. Don't insult me by playing in my face
Speaker 1: about this. It's not a mystery, dude, you know, Michael says.
Speaker 1: We've also heard Mordecai I say the Ring is really
Speaker 1: popular for the warlords for its power boost. How much
Speaker 1: has the Ring affected them? Have stuff in the game
Speaker 1: amplify their blood thirstiness or their callous disregard for crawlers
Speaker 1: and NPCs, something to maybe think about, possible. Jeff says
Speaker 1: earlier about the King that he is addicted to her. Oh,
Speaker 1: in changes, I thought that it was much more. The
Speaker 1: King is just addicted to He's a blood addict. It's
Speaker 1: not the hurting. The hurting is incidental, but it does
Speaker 1: not matter. This is not a Dreasden podcast, Jeff says,
Speaker 1: making it so you have to heal them before making
Speaker 1: them before marking them is super insidious. It turns them
Speaker 1: into a hardcore murderer instead of someone taking advantage of
Speaker 1: an opportunity. Agreed, Agreed. It's just it's a really there's
Speaker 1: there's a certain sequence here, and I feel like the
Speaker 1: moment I remember approving of him using the ring on
Speaker 1: Prepotente's mom Miriam dom and I still like, in terms
Speaker 1: of the actual practicality of that moment, I do stand
Speaker 1: by it, but I just really it's the sort of
Speaker 1: thing where I'm like, I didn't want him using the
Speaker 1: ring at all to begin with. If he's gonna use it,
Speaker 1: then yeah, that was the right call in that moment,
Speaker 1: but like, just don't use it. Though everybody was right
Speaker 1: regarding what danger this poses. Mordecai's been around enough. If
Speaker 1: he's that flipped out the you have this ring, I
Speaker 1: think you need to take that a lot more seriously.
Speaker 1: And he just really isn't hearing it. I just look,
Speaker 1: a lot of the theming behind this book has been
Speaker 1: Carl feeling really alone and really angry and occasionally being
Speaker 1: reminded I'm not alone. There are other people in this
Speaker 1: with me. There are other people who believe in this
Speaker 1: cause that are willing to sacrifice and organize, you know,
Speaker 1: And this ring is something that serves to further isolate him.
Speaker 1: And the fact that we had that moment of Louis
Speaker 1: being like, you come in here with your crazy eyes
Speaker 1: and I'm just waiting for you to suddenly lose your
Speaker 1: shit and kill everybody. I don't feel like that had
Speaker 1: enough of an impact on Carl to hear you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like, do not telling him you're scaring me?
Speaker 1: And Louie having told him that earlier, I need you
Speaker 1: to hear, very bluntly, what is happening, Carl. You are
Speaker 1: turning into the kind of man your father was that
Speaker 1: people were afraid of and tiptoed around because he became
Speaker 1: so prone to violence and so unpredictable and in a
Speaker 1: way predictable actually, but like what you are trying to
Speaker 1: fight against, you can become quite easily. That is how
Speaker 1: it works. That's the trap, and you better fucking watch it.
Speaker 1: And I do not feel he is watching it adequately.
Speaker 1: I do not feel that he takes these moments seriously
Speaker 1: enough because they are scary. I'm comfortable, deeply inconvenient, by
Speaker 1: the way, and he doesn't want to face up to
Speaker 1: what it means. And I really really understand that. I'm
Speaker 1: profoundly I understand. But the stakes at this point are
Speaker 1: so high it's funny. He's interpreting it as differently as
Speaker 1: possible from me where I'm going. The stakes are way
Speaker 1: too high for you to keep ignoring this, and he
Speaker 1: is going the stakes are way too high for me
Speaker 1: to bother with this right now. I'm sorry, Carl, but
Speaker 1: this is literally what it's all about. And if you
Speaker 1: let this start to slide, that's it. What have you got?
Speaker 1: What are you fighting for? Then? What is it? You know?
Speaker 1: Like So anyway, Seraphim says, I still don't see it
Speaker 1: as some one ring type thing as much as it
Speaker 1: just a tool designed to encourage people to give into
Speaker 1: their darker aspects to make them better crawlers disagree. I
Speaker 1: think it's a tool. I don't. I'm not saying it
Speaker 1: is a one ring type thing, but I definitely think
Speaker 1: that it has an inf I mean, the AI basically
Speaker 1: said so. In its description. It said something like, I
Speaker 1: sure hope there's not some weird side effects from using
Speaker 1: this ring that would be really bad. Like, it's definitely,
Speaker 1: to me, without question, affecting him in some other way
Speaker 1: I don't like. To me, that's not even a question.
Speaker 1: It's simply how is that happening? How much of that is?
Speaker 1: How much does the ring need to influence him before
Speaker 1: it no longer even needs to keep pushing and it
Speaker 1: sort of begins to snowball on its own. You can
Speaker 1: just give somebody a couple of pushes and then it
Speaker 1: takes off in a certain direction and you can just
Speaker 1: step back and put your hands behind your back and
Speaker 1: whistle and neck like you didn't do anything. So oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Michael says. The AI had the ominous description, and it
Speaker 1: mentions it a couple of times. It had another line
Speaker 1: about the ring doing something far worse to him when
Speaker 1: it was talking about something else affecting him, if I recall.
Speaker 1: And that's also the thing with like the Daughter's Kiss,
Speaker 1: is that the way the name of it, But that one,
Speaker 1: it's a much more obvious thing because it's actual literal
Speaker 1: soul poisoning that he'll get like a notification for, and
Speaker 1: it will warn him AT's happening, and there will be
Speaker 1: a specific d buff to go along with it. That
Speaker 1: is something that is quantifiable, and therefore, as much as
Speaker 1: it's terrifying, because he knocks himself out later, it doesn't
Speaker 1: scare me as much as the ring does, because this
Speaker 1: is something that is so much more insidious, so much
Speaker 1: more difficult to put your finger on. It is something
Speaker 1: from the outside that it seems you can see happening
Speaker 1: to him, but there's not an easy way to like
Speaker 1: verbalize what it is. And because it is so vague,
Speaker 1: he can deny it or pretend it's not as big
Speaker 1: a deal. I don't know, like donuts, the person who
Speaker 1: knows him best, and the fact that she is afraid,
Speaker 1: I think she'd be the last straw for him. And
Speaker 1: it makes me really sad how quick he is to
Speaker 1: just be like, not yet. There is not going to
Speaker 1: be a point going forward, Carl, where it will be
Speaker 1: better and easier to get rid of the ring. He's
Speaker 1: acting like there's going to be some point where it
Speaker 1: will like will have reached peak and I won't need
Speaker 1: it anymore. When when would that be? When do you think,
Speaker 1: after you win, how long will that take? How much
Speaker 1: damage will have been done by then? If you had
Speaker 1: been here alone, or if Donut hadn't talked you out
Speaker 1: of it, what would you have done to Impersonnadia, what
Speaker 1: would you have done? How? Like, It's just it is
Speaker 1: such a close call to me, and he just isn't
Speaker 1: treating it like that. He's really behaving like this is
Speaker 1: a one off moment rather than a symptom of a
Speaker 1: larger problem that is only going to continue to grow.
Speaker 1: It's just, guys, it's really upsetting man. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to back up here, but I don't regret starting with
Speaker 1: that scene. We'll get there too, because I want to
Speaker 1: talk about some specific lines. But Immani shows up as
Speaker 1: they're in the trenches and she is buffing everybody to
Speaker 1: calm them down and like, you know, relieve their anxiety,
Speaker 1: which people are actually physically sighing in relief when she
Speaker 1: does this. So let's see. The original plan was to
Speaker 1: have more tribuchetes, but the confusion about whether we'd be
Speaker 1: allowed to build these, mixed with the early end to
Speaker 1: the ceasefire, had led to us only having one. It
Speaker 1: was loaded with about fifty contraptions called dazzlers, and they
Speaker 1: had a pile of almost two hundreds sitting nearby. They
Speaker 1: were basically a combination of an alarm and spotlight trap.
Speaker 1: They would only shine toward the eyes of the closest
Speaker 1: enemy soldier, strobing powerful beams of multicolored light right into
Speaker 1: their faces, and they'd all play the same song at
Speaker 1: the same time. It was one of the few types
Speaker 1: of trap modules. Victory would allow us to load into
Speaker 1: the tribu Chaise. She crept into existence just behind us,
Speaker 1: like I'd summoned her with my thoughts, and she has
Speaker 1: Drick with her. Victory had told me adjutants could go
Speaker 1: invisible if they needed to observe something where their presence
Speaker 1: would give away that their team was up to something.
Speaker 1: I was going to say something sarcastic, but I dropped it.
Speaker 1: We see the target. This is Louis lowering for the bombing. Run.
Speaker 1: Now get into the fog as soon as you drop,
Speaker 1: and Ellie says, I have the first air gun targeted.
Speaker 1: A bubble appeared around Doughnut's head and Moni had it
Speaker 1: as a spell, but Mordecai had also mass made a
Speaker 1: potion that did the same thing. This thing he works
Speaker 1: slightly better than it's supposed to. Is this particular buff
Speaker 1: and their ear plugs so that everybody's hearing will be
Speaker 1: protected when these fucking traps go off, which eventually he
Speaker 1: gets deshrouded. Everybody gets destrouded and all of their own
Speaker 1: protections come off, which sucks. That got me really fuked
Speaker 1: out for a second. Y'all, and they're all drinking invisibility potions.
Speaker 1: The mages will cast obfuscation and will go up and over.
Speaker 1: Don't stop running until you're in their trenches. The soldier
Speaker 1: who brings me the most dead cheese sticks gets surprised.
Speaker 1: This is Doughnut steering them all with positive reinforcement the
Speaker 1: assault of the The alt part of this plan had
Speaker 1: not come from me, but was one of many contingencies
Speaker 1: that Tippett and Rosetta had brought with them from the outside,
Speaker 1: which was part of the reason why we'd been able
Speaker 1: to put this together so smoothly. It's only a second
Speaker 1: part that I'd planned out. We'd put it together with
Speaker 1: some input from Baroness Victory. Katya wouldn't be actively participating
Speaker 1: since she was needed on the other front, and I
Speaker 1: found myself missing her dearly. I still hadn't had a
Speaker 1: chance to talk to her since we'd separated from the
Speaker 1: dream World. I'm kind of wondering if Carl hasn't developed
Speaker 1: feelings for Katya that he's simply not acknowledging right now
Speaker 1: because it's extremely inconvenient. I don't it's not really like
Speaker 1: that much of a thing, you know, It's just a
Speaker 1: little bit of a suspicion. I didn't feel it from
Speaker 1: him earlier, and it may just be that it's like
Speaker 1: he's so clamped down on it. But it just never
Speaker 1: really felt to me like it was more than I
Speaker 1: care about you as a person. You're part of my team.
Speaker 1: I've grown to like you, you know, like, and I
Speaker 1: really just didn't see him as a threat or feel
Speaker 1: like Bautista had anything to really worry about. And now
Speaker 1: I'm starting to be like, maybe, but Tison knew better
Speaker 1: than me. I just assumed it was the optics of
Speaker 1: both of them being like around the same age, attractive people,
Speaker 1: you know, like that you would see Carl as a threat.
Speaker 1: I just thought it was like the circumstantial thing. And
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe it's more than that, and I
Speaker 1: was just being payheaded about it. So let's see. The
Speaker 1: bombs were strong, but their main purpose wasn't simply to
Speaker 1: blow stuff up. The enemy trenches were covered with layers
Speaker 1: of anti explosive fortifications. Louis was aiming the party planner
Speaker 1: in front of their position. The bombs would leave a
Speaker 1: deep crater in front of their trenches, showered dirt over
Speaker 1: the defenders, which their mages would have to clear off
Speaker 1: and would clear any traps and protective enchantments set up
Speaker 1: right there in front of the enemy line. So then
Speaker 1: we have the signal to go, and a bunch of
Speaker 1: people began just begin just like lunging forward. A second,
Speaker 1: then a third, then a fourth explosion walked its way
Speaker 1: across the enemy lines. Ellie reported she'd hit the first
Speaker 1: anti air battery with a missile, but there was a
Speaker 1: protection spell around it. Still the device had fallen over
Speaker 1: and hopefully would be unable to fire for some time.
Speaker 1: And this is when the Dazzlers come out, peaking at
Speaker 1: number three on June twentieth, twenty twenty. Wait, really, huh anyway,
Speaker 1: peaking at number three on June twentieth, twenty twenty, despite
Speaker 1: first coming out nineteen ninety two. It's killing in the name,
Speaker 1: which is very very on the nose. This is no accident.
Speaker 1: It is very appropriate that it peaked in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty was a fucking hell of a time man,
Speaker 1: and he and Donut drink invisibility potions. He puts one
Speaker 1: on Mango and let's see. He asks Donut if she's scared,
Speaker 1: and she's like, of course, but actually lately it's been
Speaker 1: more that I'm numb and I don't get scared until
Speaker 1: after everything is over. And he just feels like real
Speaker 1: sadness at that. This has been something for me for
Speaker 1: a long time. And I, you know, when I performed
Speaker 1: on stage and stuff, I often had this where I
Speaker 1: would be completely in the zone before and after and during,
Speaker 1: but after I would start to shake and just like
Speaker 1: lose it. It wasn't until it was over, you know.
Speaker 1: So as they begin to push forward, he's getting all
Speaker 1: these notifications about troop deaths, to the point where he
Speaker 1: finally turns the notifications off because it's so constant that
Speaker 1: it becomes like a solid sound. And Imani is out
Speaker 1: here just like healing people and handling, and it's just
Speaker 1: I just really want to stress how much of a
Speaker 1: fucking g Imani is. I just finished. I can't even
Speaker 1: remember what number book it is of the wandering in
Speaker 1: the Last Light, and there's a character in that named
Speaker 1: Geneva who is she is a surgeon from our world,
Speaker 1: or was going to be, And she winds up in
Speaker 1: the middle of a battlefield and begins to administer aid
Speaker 1: to people on both sides, regardless she doesn't have any
Speaker 1: stake in either, but she leaves that it is her
Speaker 1: duty to help whoever she can help. And there are
Speaker 1: some really harrowing chapters in those books, because there's lots
Speaker 1: of violence, there's lots of battles, But to me, Geneva's
Speaker 1: chapters are the most like the most deeply harrowing, grim
Speaker 1: exhausting chapters. They're really compelling, but there is a sense
Speaker 1: of like the only thing that can keep you going
Speaker 1: in that sense, in that frame of work is like
Speaker 1: I believe that I must. All of it is being
Speaker 1: motivated from your ethics and your personal integrity and what
Speaker 1: you believe is the right thing to do, because logic
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense in this, like staying and helping everybody
Speaker 1: when you're in them, It doesn't Logic doesn't support doing
Speaker 1: any of this. It is about having a very firm
Speaker 1: belief on what your duty to humanity is and I
Speaker 1: don't have that in that way, and reading about somebody
Speaker 1: who does, and how just unwavering it has to be
Speaker 1: to keep doing that kind of work and to withstand
Speaker 1: the kind of abuse that you take, The threats, the
Speaker 1: constant danger to your life is overwhelming. And Imani is
Speaker 1: in a different situation where she's the healer for one side,
Speaker 1: so it's not exactly the same, but still a healer
Speaker 1: is putting themselves in danger for the sake of other
Speaker 1: people and not simply going out there and fighting to
Speaker 1: keep themselves alive. They are always looking around for who
Speaker 1: needs help, and it is such a selfless impulse to have.
Speaker 1: It's just a little humbling, you know. And Imani, I
Speaker 1: really hope nothing happens to you because we need you
Speaker 1: so bad. I swear to God. Sorry. Jeff says, often
Speaker 1: I'd have to go to the bathroom to avoid talking
Speaker 1: to audience members. Oh about I was like, what Seraphim says,
Speaker 1: Geneva is awesome. Michael says, boss bitch Geneva. If you
Speaker 1: please only use her full unofficial title when referring to her,
Speaker 1: that Seraphim says, hey, now that is doctor, boss bitch Geneva.
Speaker 1: Henry says, I just started the Wandering In and I
Speaker 1: found it not that compelling, but it seems I should
Speaker 1: continue and finish the first book. I'll tell you what, Henry,
Speaker 1: the first book is the weakest by if only because
Speaker 1: I don't like Erin very much. It's a she's a
Speaker 1: weird character where I like parts of her, but I
Speaker 1: find her really difficult in a way that's like very specific,
Speaker 1: and so I found myself starting to get very impatient
Speaker 1: with her. And eventually something's happened that not only kind
Speaker 1: of make it like we're gonna actually cope with those
Speaker 1: flaws in her, but we also get other povs and
Speaker 1: that helps a lot. So just you know it's it's
Speaker 1: not you don't have to keep pushing through it. I
Speaker 1: always say, like, if you're not enjoying something, feel free
Speaker 1: to drop it. But there are times where I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: something pays off in my opinion, you know, Michael says,
Speaker 1: Aaron and Riyoka were both meant to be difficult. In
Speaker 1: my opinion, Riyoka is difficult, but she's difficult in a
Speaker 1: way I find so relatable that I just find her
Speaker 1: very fascinating. Aaron is difficult in a way that I
Speaker 1: don't get. I just don't get like her thought process
Speaker 1: a lot of the time, and so she infuriates me. So, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. It's it's just it's the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that I run into with like I don't I
Speaker 1: don't like when characters seem to have no fucking common
Speaker 1: sense about shit. It's very tough, and Aarin is the
Speaker 1: biggest airhead bitch. Sometimes it's crazy to me, like how
Speaker 1: she's still alive after everything. She's made some bad calls anyway,
Speaker 1: So Michael says, I also listen at one point five speed,
Speaker 1: which helps I could see that. Yeah, so all right, uh,
Speaker 1: and missile streaked in our direction. I pulled a full
Speaker 1: strength hoblobber and tossed it in the direction of the
Speaker 1: heavy gun. I saw a flash but received no experienced notification.
Speaker 1: This is when he says, go forward, and he intended
Speaker 1: to send that just to Donut, but it goes to
Speaker 1: everybody's screens and they all comply. Which is one of
Speaker 1: those moments that I think is like way more significant
Speaker 1: than Carl realized as it is in the moment, I
Speaker 1: feel like this is going to be like I think,
Speaker 1: I just I think he was unintentionally inspiring in that
Speaker 1: one moment, you know what I mean. Anyway, So the
Speaker 1: moment after I sent the command, the ground and under
Speaker 1: me gave way and we fell into the wide crater,
Speaker 1: I clicked from full assault band to near proximity band.
Speaker 1: Keep back reading the scroll. So he does a build
Speaker 1: the trench creates a channel in front of him, and
Speaker 1: there are a bunch of soldiers of the enemy side
Speaker 1: that just like fall because he's at a different level
Speaker 1: than they are at. There was a long existing exploit.
Speaker 1: The scrolls were craft magic, so it pretty much ignored
Speaker 1: most protections as they weren't meant to be used offensively.
Speaker 1: The scroll didn't care who was casting it. And this
Speaker 1: is something that they've known about but never fixed for
Speaker 1: like literally years and years and years. I activated the
Speaker 1: Daughter's Kiss. I jumped into the air and landed hard
Speaker 1: onto the enemy's chest. And the next chapter starts with
Speaker 1: Donut being like, Carl, get up, Get up. They're running
Speaker 1: and he's like, what the fuck happened? And I'm like, bro,
Speaker 1: you got warned. It told you that it was gonna
Speaker 1: be like a post coital thing. I was surprised that
Speaker 1: he was surprised. I am just grateful it was only
Speaker 1: thirty seconds because I really like it just he look.
Speaker 1: One thing about Carl is he isn't going to take
Speaker 1: warnings seriously enough. That is just something that I have
Speaker 1: learned about him, and probably to a point that's a
Speaker 1: good thing, because I have anxiety I'm gonna take warnings
Speaker 1: too seriously. You know, there's a balance that I think
Speaker 1: that we could find Carl, but if he were more balanced,
Speaker 1: he probably wouldn't be here. And I mean that on
Speaker 1: every level. I feel like that sentence works on a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. But there's times where I'm just like, dude,
Speaker 1: that shit's been hanging over you, like you're lucky. It
Speaker 1: was only thirty seconds, and I guess you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot going on right now. There is a lot happening.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be surprised that he had forgotten Mongo stood
Speaker 1: next to me, completely covered in dirt. He'd gone, oh,
Speaker 1: and don Quixote has gone from forty five to fifty one,
Speaker 1: and it goes up to forty two as he's watching,
Speaker 1: or fifty two and the middle trench is filled and
Speaker 1: the illusion is holding. Let's see the second anti air
Speaker 1: battery is down, Louis, hurry your ass up. The first
Speaker 1: one's almost back up. I'm running. They have a pair
Speaker 1: of mages on my scent and Imani says, get the
Speaker 1: hell out of there. So everybody is cheering because of
Speaker 1: this like tactic working, which we shall get to in
Speaker 1: a moment. But Colonel Boomer chimes in here and it
Speaker 1: is just like, hey, everybody, you're really counting your chickens
Speaker 1: before they've fucking hatched. So just chill out because we
Speaker 1: have these guys up against a wall, and when people
Speaker 1: are trapped, they will pull all all the stops. So
Speaker 1: be ready because this is not over. And he jumps.
Speaker 1: Carl jumps onto the party planner as it comes down
Speaker 1: to pick them up, and he sees, uh, Ruby is
Speaker 1: it Ruby? No, Bonnie, I keep getting them mixed up.
Speaker 1: And later he spots like another kid and is going,
Speaker 1: what the fuck? Why are they letting kids participate? And
Speaker 1: Donut actually says to him that she's older than I am, Carl,
Speaker 1: which I was like, oh, damn, that's true. I don't
Speaker 1: know how much she feels that age. She could physically
Speaker 1: be older, but does she have the kind of compounded
Speaker 1: experience of age that happens when you actually retain all
Speaker 1: your memories. I don't know exactly how this works, because
Speaker 1: I know that some of them seem to unlock memories
Speaker 1: when they learn their MPCs, and they can access the
Speaker 1: memory of previous seasons and whatnot. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's what's going on here. I totally understand Carl being like,
Speaker 1: we can't let kids into this, but Carl, I also
Speaker 1: urge you to consider that otherwise the kids are literal
Speaker 1: sitting ducks. And is that preferable. I don't know. I don't.
Speaker 1: It's a really hard call because these aren't normal kids.
Speaker 1: So I just don't. Really, I don't know. Let's see,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to find this bit don't And I sneaked
Speaker 1: up on the three guards and killed them before they
Speaker 1: even knew we were here. I can't believe there's so
Speaker 1: few soldiers, there's no protections, nothing. She's very trusting for
Speaker 1: such a backstabbing bitch. They made her commit all her
Speaker 1: troops to the front line. Rosetta said she spent every
Speaker 1: penny getting here, and once the quarantine went into effect,
Speaker 1: the officer she was expecting refused to come, so she
Speaker 1: only has a few friends, which is h life comes
Speaker 1: autch you fast, doesn't it interesting? And I really kept
Speaker 1: expecting there to be more of a trap, and there
Speaker 1: just isn't. It's pretty much what it looks like. Not
Speaker 1: that she's unarmed or anything, but you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It just so. This is when as they're going into
Speaker 1: the throne room, there are a couple people who appear here,
Speaker 1: an adjutant and another appearing right next to me. This
Speaker 1: was Baroness Victory. She had a somber look upon her face.
Speaker 1: She shook her head sadly. You're too smart for your
Speaker 1: own good, Carl, she said, you guys slaughtered them back there.
Speaker 1: Do you know how many blindly jumped into that middle trench?
Speaker 1: The scout for team rechribution went up almost twenty levels.
Speaker 1: The normally stoic orc looked shaken. I think we need
Speaker 1: to revisit what's considered offensive magic. That chemical alteration spell
Speaker 1: is a little too powerful. I don't feel like you
Speaker 1: should revisit anything in the midst of it all. If
Speaker 1: we're not gonna have prepared exploits beforehand, that's a done deal.
Speaker 1: That's the rules, and that's what they are. I don't
Speaker 1: like this baroness pipe down. That's all I'm saying. Excuse me,
Speaker 1: the scout in question was an NPC bartender. Instead of
Speaker 1: just purchasing a bunch of different alcohol types, they gave
Speaker 1: the NPCs a few scrolls with the ability to alter
Speaker 1: the chemical composition of water within a container. In this case,
Speaker 1: they dropped a water scroll, and the container was the trench.
Speaker 1: The two NPC team spies had filled the empty middle
Speaker 1: trench of the enemy with water, turned that water into
Speaker 1: some sort of acid, and covered it all with an
Speaker 1: illusion spell. The retreating enemy is confused and scared, had
Speaker 1: fallen back from the first trench, only to blindly jump
Speaker 1: into a pool of acid. It was a horrifying spell.
Speaker 1: That is honestly brutal. Bruto, I'm not mad at it.
Speaker 1: We're doing what needs doing. But I can't pretend I'm
Speaker 1: a fan. It's a smart idea, but I get why
Speaker 1: victory is just like fucking Jesus Christ, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We jump then to Milk's POV. This is a bit
Speaker 1: of a flashback because Miriam is still a live This
Speaker 1: is this is a really this is what Matt Deneman
Speaker 1: keeps doing is being like I think you think you
Speaker 1: know how bad it can be. Hold On, hold on,
Speaker 1: hold on, hold on. I have another POV for you.
Speaker 1: And so every time you find out about another one
Speaker 1: of the deals that somebody made, it's just a fresh
Speaker 1: wave of horror. You know, it's just milk situation. I
Speaker 1: literally paused the audio book and went out to Marshall,
Speaker 1: who was just sitting on the couch minding his own business,
Speaker 1: playing a video game, and I was like, Babe, there's
Speaker 1: a character and this is their deal, and this is
Speaker 1: how many times they're supposed to end. This is how
Speaker 1: many times it's actually happened. This is really sad. And
Speaker 1: he was just like fuck and I was like, yeah, fuck,
Speaker 1: And then I just turned around on press play again.
Speaker 1: It was just like a moment of Kenyon, Kenny, stop
Speaker 1: it that. But no, that's the point, that's what it's for.
Speaker 1: This is what it is, and he's right to do it.
Speaker 1: I don't like it, but I'll allow it. So Milk
Speaker 1: is basically in such a profound depression that she is
Speaker 1: just letting herself barely exist and has found a way
Speaker 1: to mute all the notifications about what's going on, not
Speaker 1: feeding herself, not moving, and is essentially doing the most
Speaker 1: extreme form of like bedrotting that I can think of.
Speaker 1: And you know, we've had a lot of her in
Speaker 1: the The Anarchist Cookbook. She has contributed a lot. But
Speaker 1: what we find out she's on the fifth floor. She
Speaker 1: hadn't really been paying attention this season. A pile of
Speaker 1: newsletters remain stacked up by the door. And let's see,
Speaker 1: she hadn't had a one on one with a floor
Speaker 1: supervisor in over fifty seasons. What was the point? And
Speaker 1: what was the point is really kind of like the
Speaker 1: whole vibe for her, you know, it's just what's the point?
Speaker 1: Which been there? Absolutely been there? So this is when
Speaker 1: she hears prepotente Miriam and uh, oh my god, what's
Speaker 1: the other one's name, Bianca? That's the one Bianca. Bianca
Speaker 1: melt the guards. So this is her like once Miriam
Speaker 1: comes in, Milk immediately realizes what was likely happening. Miriam's
Speaker 1: been turned into a vampire and now she doesn't get
Speaker 1: to go into Club Vanquisher anymore. They just probably told
Speaker 1: her her membership has been revoked. It's not her fault
Speaker 1: that this happened to her, but it doesn't matter. And
Speaker 1: you guys. There's a couple notifications, one of them being like,
Speaker 1: if you've died a starvation, it's not like you escape,
Speaker 1: We'll just save you and add years to your indentureship.
Speaker 1: And then punishment can include, but is not limited to,
Speaker 1: additional time added to indentureship, reassignment to a combat role,
Speaker 1: or the worst fate undead reassignment. That's really it's giving
Speaker 1: you're not done yet, which I am not excited about
Speaker 1: getting to see that in action. So the door opens
Speaker 1: and Milk is shocked because nobody comes in here. Nobody,
Speaker 1: and Bianca begins to like get ready and attack, and
Speaker 1: also Bianca is just like on fire and so begins
Speaker 1: to light up things in the shop without even intending
Speaker 1: to do that, and eventually Miriam steps in and she's
Speaker 1: just like, oh my god, I'm so sorry. Gets Bianca
Speaker 1: to like calm down, uses a salve on Milk to
Speaker 1: heal her arm, which Milk is shocked by because crawlers
Speaker 1: just don't use their own resources to save NPCs or
Speaker 1: help them in any way. So she's just like what,
Speaker 1: And I really love Milk's like finding a way around things.
Speaker 1: There's there's a point where she's just like you know,
Speaker 1: this is how it works with the guards coming. If
Speaker 1: you wait too long, these guys will start to mobilize,
Speaker 1: but they won't do anything. And she gets like a
Speaker 1: notification of like you're telling them too much information. Be
Speaker 1: careful and Prepatente says, you're a former crawler, and she thinks, interestingly,
Speaker 1: the words were like an accusation. You were a crawler,
Speaker 1: you fought you were part of something once and now
Speaker 1: look at you. All you do is sleep And just
Speaker 1: essentially the fact that all the fight has gone out
Speaker 1: of her, she's really ashamed of and she thinks her
Speaker 1: family would be ashamed of her too, But like, this
Speaker 1: is a very valid response. But the way she's coping,
Speaker 1: I get it. I understand. It feels like Matt Denneman
Speaker 1: just was like, let me go interview a bunch of
Speaker 1: like vets and tell their stories about how each of
Speaker 1: them coped or didn't when they were finally like released
Speaker 1: from service and the system them down completely. It's just yep,
Speaker 1: So I love this moment too, of I sure hope
Speaker 1: you don't threaten me. I might be forced to give
Speaker 1: you information like the map in the back of this
Speaker 1: room that I hope you don't steal from me. And
Speaker 1: it turns out milk is still indentured in the dungeon,
Speaker 1: so we might come across milk at some point, and
Speaker 1: I'm pretty stoked about that. I wonder if they're feeling
Speaker 1: a little bit more motivated lately. Will not be freed
Speaker 1: until her services are used at least three hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty three times times used so far six So I'm
Speaker 1: going to just briefly touch on Donadia again. I'm out
Speaker 1: of time technically, and we have talked about this already,
Speaker 1: but there are just a couple of like moments that
Speaker 1: I want to address here. Get the dress, I called,
Speaker 1: just in case she had more shields. One of the
Speaker 1: clockwork's pipe swiped and the entire top of her gown
Speaker 1: ripped off, revealing a green tinged body covered with tentacles.
Speaker 1: They popped out like biscuit dough being released, flapping in
Speaker 1: all directions. The Empress sobbed as she waved her tentacles
Speaker 1: about the clockwork Mongo's bit and tore at her arms,
Speaker 1: leaking blue blood everywhere. I cast a heel scroll on her,
Speaker 1: and so he marks her. Don't let them kill her,
Speaker 1: not yet. Help Empress Donadia gurgled, somebody help me. This
Speaker 1: is what happened in the end, I called out to
Speaker 1: the ceiling. This is what happens to all tyrants, big
Speaker 1: and small. I'm not, Donadia cried, I'm not. And the
Speaker 1: thing is like, she's not. She's not, but she is
Speaker 1: a participant. She doesn't see Carl and Donut as real people.
Speaker 1: She just doesn't. That's a fact. She told another NPC
Speaker 1: she wasn't real, and then was like, I can't wait
Speaker 1: to get a chance to kill these two. And now
Speaker 1: that the tables have turned, it suddenly, Oh no, Look
Speaker 1: I have sympathy for you in this moment. But you
Speaker 1: said what you said, and you are what you are,
Speaker 1: and you did what you did, and you have got
Speaker 1: to cope with that. She tried to hold my hand
Speaker 1: and cried when Manassa was assassinated. For just a short moment,
Speaker 1: I thought perhaps she was one of the good ones.
Speaker 1: Then I'd learned she was attempting to purchase a faction
Speaker 1: worse spot, that she'd been trying for a long time,
Speaker 1: that she wanted to come into the dungeon and freely
Speaker 1: kill people just like me, my friends. The anger that
Speaker 1: washed over me was so brilliantly white. All three of
Speaker 1: my eyes burned. I'd never felt anything like this. That's
Speaker 1: the ring. I'm so sorry. An anger that is so
Speaker 1: insane that his eyes burned, and it's like nothing he's
Speaker 1: ever felt, one hundred percent. And in his head he's
Speaker 1: hearing his mother say, it's so loud, Karl, it's so loud. Quiet.
Speaker 1: I said, he's saying to something else, but it seems
Speaker 1: like he's saying it to Donadia. You know, it's just oh.
Speaker 1: This is when he tells Dona, I changed my mind
Speaker 1: and donut no, Carl, please no, I need you to
Speaker 1: step back. I needed to calm down right now. I
Speaker 1: got this. It's okay. I did it for my people.
Speaker 1: Donadia whispered for your people, I asked, incredulous, No, donadi Ya,
Speaker 1: you did it for you, and now your people are
Speaker 1: going to suffer because of it. Your mark has fully formed.
Speaker 1: And there it was the edge. I saw it clear
Speaker 1: as can be. Right there, I stood upon it, one
Speaker 1: foot stretched out over open air. You can do that.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you can find clarity when you need it most.
Speaker 1: I took a step back. You can find clarity, but
Speaker 1: you can't hold on to it. Apparently, Carl because you're
Speaker 1: still gonna use this fucking ring, so you know, mm
Speaker 1: mmmm mmmmm mmmm. I'm just saying mm hmm. So the
Speaker 1: Mango kills her. I love that Donut frames it like
Speaker 1: he's pissed about your ruling in the pet show a
Speaker 1: donut never change and he gets this huge like achievement.
Speaker 1: Gavrillo princip I'm gonna read you a Bosnian Serb student
Speaker 1: who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro Hungarian throne,
Speaker 1: and his wife, Sophie, Duchess von Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on
Speaker 1: twenty eighth June nineteen fourteen, set off a chain of
Speaker 1: events that led to the Austro Hungarian invasion of Serbian
Speaker 1: the start of World War One a month later. So
Speaker 1: that's who that is. And basically the AI is like,
Speaker 1: you killed somebody important, important in like a sort of
Speaker 1: bureaucratic sense, but still and if you really want to
Speaker 1: function up, I can't wait to see some of the
Speaker 1: other guys that you could kill. So that's the notification
Speaker 1: and Mongo gets the credit for the kill, which I
Speaker 1: think is interesting because Mongo being Donuts Pet I would
Speaker 1: have thought she'd get the credit. I didn't know he
Speaker 1: could get credit on his own. That's I just didn't
Speaker 1: realize that. So Michael says, probably a touch of she
Speaker 1: Maria too. Regarding the anger for sure, Sarah FM says, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't see how that is the ring, but the
Speaker 1: all three, in my eyes, that very much feels like
Speaker 1: she influence. Sarah f'm no offense, but I don't get
Speaker 1: why you are so like the ring isn't doing anything
Speaker 1: when the AI's description says it more than once. It's
Speaker 1: just weird how you're like refusing to see that the
Speaker 1: ring is doing anything. I don't get that. Like you
Speaker 1: can think whatever you want to think, but I just
Speaker 1: don't understand the logic. It feels like it's just said.
Speaker 1: It's not subtext, it's actual text. I don't get it.
Speaker 1: It's fine, but it's just weird. So now we have
Speaker 1: to deal with the mercenaries, and they all have like
Speaker 1: a pink ring, but they're like is a red one also,
Speaker 1: So we've got to like figure out exactly what we're
Speaker 1: doing with these guys and see if we can trust
Speaker 1: them or you know, it's it's a ticklish situation. Because
Speaker 1: they're telling Carl, we didn't want to be here or
Speaker 1: we didn't want to fight you guys. This was like
Speaker 1: something that we were just conscripted in too. And I
Speaker 1: believe this in theory, but I just don't really know.
Speaker 1: It is certainly possible for the mercenaries to be promised
Speaker 1: something else, you know. I just don't really like I
Speaker 1: want in my heart, I want to believe them so bad,
Speaker 1: and for the most part I do. For like eighty
Speaker 1: percent of them, I do. But the decision to be
Speaker 1: a mercenary indicates a certain type of person. I understand
Speaker 1: that we don't always get choices the way we'd like,
Speaker 1: so I'm not trying to cast too many judgments on
Speaker 1: them just based on this, but there is an element
Speaker 1: of that in there, and I'm just I'm just I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know. We'll see. So this is
Speaker 1: when uh, one of the Nole's, Colonel Pillbacks, no Corporal, sorry,
Speaker 1: Corporal Pillbacks, is like explaining to him we didn't want
Speaker 1: to be here. But then he's like, these two lock
Speaker 1: John Mains are our mates, and if you kill them,
Speaker 1: we won't be too enthusiastic about helping you. And Carl carefully,
Speaker 1: slowly takes the ring of divine suffering off his finger,
Speaker 1: which seems to I won't say everybody relaxes, but I
Speaker 1: will say they are watching for that, because on this
Speaker 1: floor he can mark all of them at once, which
Speaker 1: is just bananas. And yeah, it's uh. As he is
Speaker 1: talking to him, all the anger I'd just been feeling
Speaker 1: was gone, drained out of me, like all my rage
Speaker 1: had been ejected out of an air lock. I felt
Speaker 1: painfully empty in my chest, as if part of me
Speaker 1: was gone now too. I'd been holding onto that anger
Speaker 1: for so long. I wasn't sure how I felt now
Speaker 1: that she was dead. An unexpected sense of mourning hit
Speaker 1: me all at once, and it was confusing and strange
Speaker 1: and completely bewildering. And I think that morning is coming
Speaker 1: from the rage you felt toward her was like driving
Speaker 1: you in a way that once it's gone, once she's
Speaker 1: dealt with, you don't have that pushing you anymore. And
Speaker 1: now what once you realize that, like taking care of
Speaker 1: this one person hasn't really solved anything. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to say they shouldn't have killed her, and
Speaker 1: it is going to be the first step in solving things.
Speaker 1: But it's like any time that you create a big
Speaker 1: plan for yourself and you finally execute it and you
Speaker 1: have a moment of oh and it's done. Oh and
Speaker 1: it's done. Now what you know? So he uh, finally,
Speaker 1: it's just like, guys, don't worry. We're not going to
Speaker 1: kill you, at least not like now, and we're just
Speaker 1: gonna need you to make it to like agree, if
Speaker 1: any of your friends try to hurt any one of us,
Speaker 1: you have to kill them, which is a fair deal.
Speaker 1: And they are also He's like, we're going to disarm
Speaker 1: you all and also have you guys all be separated
Speaker 1: and let's see, Zev, this is victory. Zev wanted to
Speaker 1: me to alert you you'll all be going on a
Speaker 1: live round table tomorrow all the remaining war lords, including
Speaker 1: Juice Box and Ferdinand, which is a first. Don't worry.
Speaker 1: All hostilities traditionally freeze while you're away. I don't like
Speaker 1: that line. Traditionally. If there's anything that the past ten
Speaker 1: years has taught me is that tradition is nothing. Nobody
Speaker 1: in power her respects tradition on any level or gives
Speaker 1: a shit if it means they lose. It's nothing. And
Speaker 1: I expect this is gonna be different this time. I
Speaker 1: just feel like, you know, so Florin is letting him know,
Speaker 1: Northern Side, we're gonna have to retreat and fall back.
Speaker 1: It's bad. And then Donut, are we gonna talk about it?
Speaker 1: And it turns out that he is now the leader
Speaker 1: of the party because his strength in total has outstripped hers.
Speaker 1: And she has a moment, but he recognizes it's kind
Speaker 1: of for show, and that a few floors ago she
Speaker 1: would have been genuinely pissed, but right now that's not
Speaker 1: truly an issue. And this is when they have the
Speaker 1: chat conversation. You do know what came over you. I
Speaker 1: want you to th that ring away. It's not worth it.
Speaker 1: It's doing something to you. You're scaring me. The words
Speaker 1: were like a slap to my face. How many times
Speaker 1: had my mother said that to my father? Still my
Speaker 1: finger itched. I took a deep breath. Not yet. I
Speaker 1: need it for just a little longer. I need to
Speaker 1: get stronger. It's important. It's not going to matter if
Speaker 1: it kills you first. That's why I need you. Donut,
Speaker 1: you did good. Just now I'm going to need you
Speaker 1: to help me stay grounded. Donut didn't answer. That's fucked up, Carl.
Speaker 1: I don't like this about him. He's like, I need
Speaker 1: you to keep me from going nuts. That is so unfair.
Speaker 1: She has her own mental health to deal with, and
Speaker 1: it's already precarious as we know. You being like I
Speaker 1: need you to help pull me back. No, no, no no,
Speaker 1: don't you dare put that on her? Do you know how? Like,
Speaker 1: suppose you don't listen next time, how is she gonna
Speaker 1: take that? She will blame herself forever it is. I
Speaker 1: don't like that response at all. The fact that she
Speaker 1: doesn't answer him, I think indicates that she feels the
Speaker 1: same way I do, but doesn't really have the words
Speaker 1: for it. If you are depending on an outside force
Speaker 1: to keep you grounded, because otherwise you can't be trusted,
Speaker 1: what happens when there isn't one there? Dude, Hello, you're
Speaker 1: playing with I was gonna say explosives, and then I
Speaker 1: was like, oh god, all right, I'm over time. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna rap thank you guys again until next time. To
Speaker 1: lou motherfuckers. That was an unspoiled network. Pat