Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
covering Dungeon Crawler Carl Book eight, a Parade of Horribles,
chapters twenty through twenty four. In these chapters, everything is
just really going left so quick, and it seems like
my conclusion that I came to last time, which was
that Carl is really, in many ways still in the
same position he ever was, seems to be the conclusion
Carl comes to eventually. Also, sorry about it, Bud. Welcome
to spoil Me. Welcome to the show everyone. I am Natasha.
Thank you very much to Michael for commissioning this episode.
Michael is here in the chat with me. Hi, Michael.
After this, I'm going to be doing the first chapters
of the Curse of Chaalion. I think it's how you
say It, which Michael also commissioned, which is by Lewis
McMaster Bougold, who is a fantastic writer. So yeah, letting
you guys know, there's a whole new thing starting, y'all.
This is I know that I've said this a few times,
but I think I'm just going to reiterate it every
episode to just keep it in mind for you all.
This is the most anxious I've been reading one of
these books, and I'm really I'm not sure where that
is coming from. I theorized before that it's because it's
about racing, which is just something I'm automatically bad at,
and I think that's definitely part of it. But there's
you know, and there's the insidiousness of the rule set,
which is something that Carl gets into in these chapters
as well. I think maybe a part of it is
also knowing that I'm going to be catching up and
this is like the last book that's currently available, and
so I am aware that anything that is left undealt
with by the end of this book, I'm not getting
any resolution or closure on for a while. So I
think that's also factoring in. And there's this element as
well of lean Na being out here doing whatever and
potentially still having like a hell of a grudge against
Carl and Donut that I think also is making me
flip out, like I wouldn't be at all surprised if
she were aware other crawlers were taking the slots of
NPCs that she takes out because she wants to face
off against the two of them, you know, And it's
really It's really difficult because like, on a certain level,
I can't even be mad at her for that. I
can't help but get how there would be a part
of you that would be so fed up with these two.
You know, I don't believe that they are actually to blame,
but when you're in this sort of situation where the
people who are to blame are so utterly out of reach,
you've got to find somebody, you know. And it's like
something that I have been thinking about, and I talked
about this early early on in the series, and it
hasn't really come up that much again, but I have
been thinking about it while I've been reading, I just
haven't brought it up on the show. I am surprised
that we haven't run into more people who are resentful
of Carl and Donut for their popularity and the way
in which that provides them not at all necessarily a
measure of protection, because as we have seen, Carl's getting
targeted more than anybody by people outside of the Dungeon
trying to break rules. So it's not that, but more
that they are being given a lot of advantages because
of you know, the loop boxes and the the what
do you call it fan boxes and all of that stuff,
and lean, nah, I wonder if that's been at all
a thing for her. You know, I don't know. I
just don't have a great I don't have a great
grasp of her personality. I can say that I knew
from the beginning that she was terrifying and didn't have
the same aversion to human suffering that I would like
to see in a person, and I can know that,
but that doesn't really like help me understand her personal code,
which is a different beast entirely. So I'm wondering if
we're going to get to find out more about that,
or if we're going to mostly like just have her
as a bit of an adversary, or maybe she won't
even be an adversary. And I'm just like not really
giving her enough credit because I've been very paranoid about
a few different crawlers, and I've been wrong. You know.
I was all worried that Carlin Donut going to see
Miriam when she had turned to a vampire was like
a setup. I was very worried when Prepotentie was out
there on his own that he was like intending to
kill the two of them, and from the way he
eventually talked to carl I wasn't entirely wrong about that.
I was very suspicious of Batista, and again not entirely
wrong because Batista almost did the thing. But if anybody
is going to be the first time, I'm right, I
would think it would be Lenah. And so yeah, there's
a lot of different elements combining to just make this
an anxiety smoothie. And it's been a weird experience listening
when I feel this way, because normally I can sort
of let go and enjoy the ride, and I find
myself being less able to do that in this book.
And I don't know if that was the writer's intention
or no. Like I would love to talk to him
at Dinneman and be like, hey, so did you mean
for me to be like low key panicking the whole time?
Is that on purpose? Or you know? Michael says, if
you've ever played Mario Kart, that might explain your fear
of racing. Nothing like being comfortably in the lead and
then getting hit by six different things in a row
and losing to traumatize you. Actually, this is something that
Marshall and I were talking about. Mario Kart isn't too
bad because you can't go that fast. It's like other
racing games have been much worse. I don't really enjoy
Mario Kart that much either, but it doesn't cause me
to just like basically blue screen the way that many
other racing games do, where I'm just whipping the steering
wheel all over the place and I'm all over the
road and whatever. Michael says he did think about it.
He did think about what. Sorry, I didn't look over
in time r E Pony. Yeah, that's what I said.
I said that, like I, you know, based on what
he says to Carl later, I wasn't entirely wrong about that,
And I wasn't entirely wrong about being suspicious of Batista either, So,
you know, but I don't feel like Carl. I think
had his eye on Batista a little bit, but there
was never the kind of suspicion in Carl that I
was feeling. And something that I've come to notice is
that it's not that Carl isn't suspicious, he's not oblivious.
It's just that he doesn't have time to deal with
what ifs, and he is going to be giving the
benefit of the doubt to fellow crawlers above everything else.
Like in his mind, it is a very firm us
versus them and anybody who is a crawler he is
going to treat like a friend until proven otherwise, which
honestly is the way to live. Like, I think that's
a winning strategy. But I can sit back as a
reader and just like the Ariz and get myself worked up,
you know. So Chapter nineteen ends with him saying, oh,
for fuck's sake, as they get a look at the boss.
And I kind of thought that this boss was going
to be more of a reference to something that was
like in a racing game that I knew of, and
it very well maybe a reference, and I just I
don't have I'm not familiar, you know. But there are
two They are like kind of these weird giant kangaroos
and they are level one seventy. Well, I think, like
is just the one one seventy prison pocket and his
companion on the other side of the road. They are
both male, and they are quite sad and as they
weren't able to save their young ones from this never
ending storm. So yeah, one seventy is insane. We find
out a little bit later that most people did not
face a boss of this level, that there are a
variety you're going to run into, and when it comes
to the odds, you're more likely to face somebody a
lot lower, and they just happen to He's like the
equivalent of a province boss from what I'm understanding. So, uh,
bad la to y'all. So it's very funny this section
in light of the fact that something that I was
like really enjoying as a concept kind of gets thrown
in my face when we started this whole thing, and
it begins to be clear that, like, the more NPCs
that die, the more likely you are to be racing
against fellow crawlers. Initially I was like, oh cool, we
have assistant in place in which it benefits us to
help everyone, right, And I still like that. I'm not
like changing my mind. I'm not backing down on that.
But what winds up happening is a concern because these
npses are not worried in the way that Carl and
Donut are about racing against fellow NPCs. That's apparently a
non issue for them, So they do not feel the
obligation that Carlin Donut feel, which means Carl and Donut
are going to be putting themselves out there to work
together and try and get something done, and all of
the other teams are going to be completely prepared to
take full advantage of that and abandon the two of
them utterly, which you know, this is this is exactly
a thing that is real. I understand. It's like, you know,
I've talked a lot about how the only way to
become a millionaire or a billionaire I'm going to say billionaire. Really,
I think millionaire in the upper echelons is also like
counts for this. But nowadays, with the way money works,
millionaire isn't as out of reach as it once was.
But I don't think you can get to that point
without being a bad person. I think that you have
to be willing to compromise your ethics and be willing
to exploit people to reach that level of wealth and
to hoard it continually. And I think that, like, there
is the danger of people who care doing something like
what Carl and Donut do in these chapters and getting
screwed from it. The thing is, if they were to
be screwed and they did come in last, would that
fucking suck? Yeah? I don't want my friends to die, obviously,
but I also don't want my friends to become the
kind of people that aren't going to help. Does that
make sense? Like, just as you get older, you really
start to take into account that, like, looking back on
your life, there are times where you knew you weren't
doing the right thing, and you did that bad thing anyway,
and when you're younger, you kind of just feel like, yolo,
I can fix it later whatever. And you know, as
you get older you begin to see, like how the
consequences that extrapolate from that affected other parts of your life,
and you can see that ultimately you hurt yourself too
by doing that thing when you knew better and due
to having this life experience and a little bit more
understanding of the fact that undoing wrongs isn't as easy
as you think it is in the moment. This comes
with this feeling of constant what am I willing to
die with on my conscience? Like I could do this
thing that I know will protect me and my friends
at the expense of others, And am I willing like, well,
I be able to sleep at night if I wound
up on my deathbed in a few days would I
just be looking at this moment where I made this
choice and regretting it. You know. So there are times
where I think it is better to risk yourself just
because you know if you don't, you won't be able
to live with yourself. I'm not saying it's worth dying
for exactly. I feel like that's kind of what it
seems like it boils down to, ultimately, So maybe you
could say that and it would be fair, but it's
just more what can you live with? What can how
can you sleep at night? What are you going to
be okay with? And when you frame things this way,
it is just pretty easy when you don't know what
to do. When it's a moral quandary, obviously, it becomes
a lot easier to see, like where we want to
stand on a particular action. And I don't want Carl
and Donut to become so cynical that they lose this
part of themselves that is geared toward helping everybody, like
their fellow crawlers, also having compassion for NPCs. But it's
not like Carl is willing to sacrifice a crawler for
an NPC. I think he recognizes the NPCs don't want
to be here any more than them that they have
been abused as well, But like, ultimately he's still very
much like Crawlers. First, I am not really mad at
him for that, but you know what I'm saying, Like,
there's just there's a quality to them that I would
rather watch them stay true to who they are and
their dedication to their friends, then watch them start to
really compromise until they are different people. And that's a
really easy thing to say from the outside, it really is.
I recognize this, and I'm not trying to pretend that
I would be able to uphold the right thing in
the face of death, Like I really don't think I would,
genuinely don't think so. But I think that would fuck
me up, and I think it would fuck Carl and
Donut up too in a way that like she's already
feeling such trauma overkilling these thousands of NPCs and fighters
from outside the dungeon as well these mercenaries, Like if
they were to do something that was like I just
don't know how either of them, it would fuck them up.
It just would. So Michael says it's one of those
things to steal a line from one of my favorite
animes paraphrased, if we are a society that sacrifices children,
then we aren't a society that should exist. Yeah, Like,
there are just certain lines in the sand where I
think that, okay, maybe it's worth right here drawing a
boundary and being like, you know what, No, I'm not
going to do that, And like I said, I don't.
This is not an easy thing. And it's also the
reality is a lot of people get screwed because of
the fact that they want to help other people and
they care about other people, and that doesn't change the
fact like getting screwed, a lot of folks will take
it as evidence that they should have done the other thing,
rather than taking it as evidence that we have built
a world and a system that does not reward kindness,
which is a much greater indictment. And just because you
get screwed in the end doesn't mean the right thing
to do wasn't the right thing to do. The result
does not change the original answer to that question. The
result is entirely out of your hands. The result has
nothing to do with you. Only what you choose to
do has something to do with you, which is part
of like, you know, giving money to people on the street,
and a lot of folks be like, oh, they'll just
spend it on. So there's somebody who's very much in need,
who has a lot less than you, and they want
some money, and you give it to them because you
have it and they need it and they have nothing,
and what they do with it is not your fucking business.
It's not your problem. But are you the kind of
person that is going to help somebody out even with
just a few bucks? Are you that kind of you know, like, oh, no,
they're just gonna drink it, Okay, they get to do
with it, Like I might too. I'm on the fucking street. Yeah,
I might go get fucking plastered myself. Why wouldn't i?
So AnyWho, I'm sorry, I just really soapbox there for
like ten straight minutes. But the thing that's really weird
in this section also is that we've got Nico and
Penelope and he's telling Donah to stay away from his girl,
like Donah is interested in Penelope. And I'm really curious,
like where this is coming from, because I don't like
the only thing there's two there's two things I could
think of that's going on here. He and his Uh, boyfriend,
is that technically true? You know, they're both tigrin and
Donuts a cat. So maybe he thinks that like Penelope
goes for a type, you know, that she's a feenline
is gonna be like something. Or maybe he can sense
that Donut has this incredible charisma level and that she
might like charm Penelope. But I don't know. Those are
just pure guesses. And uh yeah, he just keeps being like,
just stay away from my girl and we won't have
any trouble, which is just wild and let's see. Uh
all right, that's it. Mercenary Torn said by the gods.
He had a deep, deep voice. We need a plan.
I might be able to knock it off its feet
with my hammer, but I am not certain, not sure
I want to risk getting that close. What do you think?
So the deal with these uh, with these kangaroos is
that they will pick you up and put you in
a pouch that's essentially full of acid. And Carl asks
Donut to look and see what all is in the
pouches because she has that, you know, ability to size up,
and she does, and all she can see are like
the skins of the Joey's in there, which immediately Carl thinks,
and there it was, And I'm just such a dumb
dumb y'all. Like there are times in video games where
somebody explains to you, like a you know, an NPC
is like, oh, such and such didn't so and so
tell you about this at the other village, you know,
like they will take you by the hand and lead
you through the two plus two equals four in order
for you to get the next mission in a way
that can be a little bit insulting because you're just like,
I fuck, I just did that. I know, but the
game doesn't know how long it's been since you last
picked your controller up. You know, they don't know what
you remember. And this is one of those moments where
I feel like, if I were in a game and
I saw that only the Joey skins were left, there
better be somebody there to fucking explain this to me,
like I'm five, because I was not getting when he
said and there it was. I was like, what was?
What is? What? What do you mean? And even later
once he's like putting it on, I'm still kind of
going what And then finally I fucking you know, I
was able to do the math, but it took me
way too long. It was embarrassing. This is also when
we chat with Pontiff and Donut mentions that Bucket Boy
says you slapped him, and he says, oh, yeah, I
used to be an ass. If I don't get a chance,
tell him. I said, stop talking to her. Nico snapped
at the mercenary. You kill her if she takes one
step toward Penelope. That's an order. Yeah, this is wild.
I don't know what is going to happen here. This
whole thing is a mess. We'll get there eventually, Michael says,
again to quote one of my favorite shows, Sports Night.
I'm hoping they're going to spend it on booze. Look
down these people. It's not like they're one hot meal
away from turning it around. For most of them, the
clocks pretty much run out. You'll be home sooner. Know
if it's wrong with giving them a little nova cane
to get them through the night. Yeah, agreed. Plus the
prevalence of yellow paint everywhere in video games nowadays to
make absolutely certain you know where to go, which I
actually appreciate. I don't have infinite time. I haven't encountered
yellow paint, like specifically, Michael, but I know exactly what
you're talking about, and yeah, it's you know, there's some
games where like just wandering around is part of the fun,
but I don't play often enough to feel confident in
doing something like that. You gotta give me an objective here,
you know. So I'm going to kind of like I'm
gonna kind of speed through this because i just want
to talk about Carl putting on the Joey skin. You guys. Yeah,
when when I noticed, I'll say that when the NPC
says this is a timed costume, I was like, Okay,
you should really ask what that, you know. And here's
the thing is, even if he did ask, he'd still
do it. You can't win this, I don't think without
putting this on. I feel like it was a kind
of an unavoidable thing. So even if he were to
like noahhead, oh well, it's not likely to change. But
I just want it noted that my antenna were up immediately.
And as he's putting it on and describing how gross
it is and how he can't move in the ordinary
way and how much it stinks, I was just kept
thinking like, oh my god, what's the timing, Like how
long does he have to keep it on? And it
turns out to be twelve hours, which is just so
much longer than I thought. I thought it would maybe
be like eight you know, it was like kind of
I'm going it may like up to eight hours, or
if the AI is like a shit, does he have
to stay in this thing for the rest of the floor.
You know, I was going from one extreme to the other.
Twelve hours, it could be worse, but it's just such
a long time, really ugh. And later on there's like
going to be this interview moment and they want to
interview him because he is stuck in this thing. So yeah,
I am really curious if the person who's interviewing him
is going to get the full sensory experience, because apparently
this really does suck terribly, like it stinks. So he
also summons a bunch of emergency gremlins and they he
kind of like comforts himself with the fact that when
they are summoned and they complete whatever it is they're
meant to fix, they are going to explode anyway and disappear,
So using them as bait or distraction isn't really that
much worse than what they are going to be used
for anyway, I won't lie. It did make me feel
a little bit better when he explained that, like I
understood him doing this anyway. I wasn't feeling like, how
could you, you know, But when that detail was brought up,
I was like, oh, yeah, all right, well that's that's fair.
But I still do kind of hate this, I really
kind of do. So let's see, I'm sorry. There's just
the way that these guys are picking things up, and
the audiobook narrator is doing this really over the top
Australian accent, which, like fluorin, is already a little bit
over the top, but not too much. Okay, let's just
be real. I'm American, and like Australian accents in general
feel over the top to me, I guess, like or
even just regular actual ones, So maybe I'm not such
a great judge of that anyway. Carl also uses run
Littlegon to run and this plan like does go quite well,
but one of the lady uh mantors thwarts him because
he wanted to get a hold of this engineer that
was in the pocket. And it's evident like there are
only two more on this heat or they're only too
total on the heat and this is the second one.
The first one is dead, so neither of them gets
claimed and Carl is like, that wasn't the plan, and
She's like, well, my plan is to win and not
to help you guys. Get the engineer, the only one
that's left. So yeah, so she makes sure that motherfucker
is dead, which is certainly understandable, but uh, I just
I don't know, man, how do you get all these
NPCs to give a fuck what happens to each other?
It just seems like they all fucking hate one another.
I think like the best way to handle something like
this is to give everybody a common enemy, but they
already technically should have a common enemy, which is like
the game itself and the people who run it and
have created it. I won't even say the AI, because
the AI doesn't want to be here either, you know
what I'm saying. I certainly think the AI is low
key a monster, but it seems like it's sort of
in reflection and about that it's not actually a monster
so much as just trying to figure out like what
am I? Like? What is going on with me? And
so I am putting the AI firmly in the camp
of being like eleven years old, which is the most
like I feel like, I want to say, that's the
age range where people are the most monstrous. It's right
in there where you're starting to understand like hierarchies in
society and popularity and how important they are, but you're
not really understanding how to like move within those, so
it results in like middle school being the most vicious
of times, and I feel like the AI is sort
of in that like mode right now anyway. Oh sorry, guys,
my dog. Uh. Also, I should mention like, when he
puts the Joey on, it says I'd fuck me, I'd
fuck me so hard, mate? What the fuck is that?
It's italicized as if it's like the AI saying this
to him. But I can't tell if it's supposed to
be that or if it's supposed to be like just
part of the description. But it's like a child. A
Joey is like a child, So I don't I don't
understand it. Protection from Sleeping Acid a level ten jump
skill plus five to the Lotion Application skill, which I
feel like there's gotta be something there that I'm missing. Uh,
and then yeah, this is a twelve hour timed item. Oh,
I forgot. He actually says it's twelve hours. I forgot.
He says it. Oh, he gives him the number right
up front. Like I said, it doesn't matter. But and
this winds up negating his boxers and his pedicure effects,
which are pretty significant. So if I like that, I
wish had been made a little bit more clear. I
should have realized, probably, But it's just, you know, I'm
not thinking about that. Boxers are underwear, so I think
I would have just assumed that they could go under
whatever costume, you know. But I think maybe the boxers
came with the requirement that he can't wear anything over
them for them to function, so that was something we
were aware of. The feet being covered, I guess also
that was mentioned, So yeah, I just didn't even think
of it. So he turns to just run toward the
boss in the normal way that he would run as
a person, and the AI is like, oh, sorry, you
gotta hop like a kangaroo if you want to be
a little kangaroo right now, which means that Carl is
gonna have to hop for the remainder of this twelve hours,
which is fucking agonizing. It just sucks so bad, so
uh sorry. He gets picked up. I choked and my
face started to burn. He gets put into the pocket.
Luckily the costume came with claws and I started to
pull myself downward. And it stinks really bad. He's trying
not to gag. He's grabbing at the creature from inside
the pocket, which the creature takes is him trying to
nurse even though he's male, and is like, don't you
You're not gonna get anything out of me, buddy, Sorry
about it. I faced outward, pressed my kangaroo feet against
the interior of his stomach, and hopped As I activated
gloom Ray phase, I hit the detonator in my inventory.
As I flew through the air, I tumbled and flipped
like I'd been shot from a cannon. And I hit
the ground and bounced, still rolling asphalt, ripping into the
side of my face. Ice and kangaroo bits rained down
around me. As I rolled right off the road. Fist
sized chunks of hail continued to pummel me. And this
is when all of the other racers just take the
fuck off and leave them there, and even one of
the repair emergency Gremlins drops a wrench on his stomach
and tells him you can go fuck yourself before he disappears.
This has created some real andmitty and there is a
comment from Hetty later where she's like, they'll still fix
stuff correctly, and then she says probably, and I was like, oh,
I didn't know it was like that, Like evidently they
talk to each other, and so there's the possibility that
they're just gonna like fuck him because he did this
next time, which you know, I how can how can
you judge them for that? They come in seventh place,
and then we go into twenty two. Mordecai Carl has
your costume skill leveled up much? I would say it'll work,
but if the skills above level three, it might take
a lot of your skin with you. If it's above five,
then I wouldn't risk it. Most armor isn't physically attached.
Mordecai says, laundry day will definitely work, but you'll get
flayed in the process, which is hideous. And let's see,
oh yeah, here it is. Most of the Boss is
blocking the roads of the city. Boss is the only
other province. Boss was the one Zang Ni Na and
Tran had faced which I'm kind of feeling like it's
because they are high higher level. Jonah is super high
on level and lee Na is the highest that you
can possibly get, So maybe that's why. Maybe that's part
of the like AI trying to even things out a
little bit. Both Eli and Amani's team and Louis Brittany
and Batista's team had lost two teams, meaning for the
next heat they were all in danger of having to
face off against other crawlers, which does really fucking suck.
The next race is wide asphalt paved road. The entirety
will be at a steep decline. I hate it. It's
gonna be a fucking roller coaster. No no, no, no,
no no. There is one path to this race. TA
required to complete survive special rules. You will be sharing
the race track with waves of generated mobs. I mean,
this is just really mean spirited, that's all you know.
It really is. Uh so eight hours until the next race,
but he still got like ten hours left on this
fucking costume. So that sucks because he is supposed to drive.
Let's see, I had the distinctive feeling I was forgetting
something as I stepped out of the truck. Even here
I couldn't walk and had to make little hops. And
later there is this moment where Bucket boy jumps out
of the car and just yells I saw Corkunda Pontiff
was there too, and he yells this, just as Donut
is like messaging him, we should probably tell Bucket boy
not to So this counts as solving the first part
of the quest and creates a whole other wrinkle. And uh,
you know, I can't. I can't worry about this right now.
It's fine, it's fine. So uh. Chapter twenty three, my
kore Kunda Dong asked the right side? Are you sure
which this? I did not know that, like there's a
second half out there. I thought it was that that
one half disappears, But evidently there's like a left side somewhere.
What that is crazy? Uh, this was exactly what I'd
wanted to avoid. It wasn't that I wanted to keep
Dong from his friend, but now it was going to
be a huge complition. With so much happening, it had
never even occurred to me to tell Bucket Boyne not
to say anything stupid. And Samantha asks who that is?
And Dong is like, out, He's about to go find
this guy immediately. Would you wait, Carl, if you knew
the most beautiful man to have ever lived, your best
friend of all eternity, your partner, your most loyal Steed
was right there on the other side, and I really
appreciate Hetty being like Steed? What? And I also, what
is this just like sexually speaking? Or I feel like
that isn't the wording that you would use. But you
know he's not me. People are gonna do what I
don't know. This is when the gremlins begin to throw
things at Carl as they turn up, and he says
when he explains what happens, serves the little freaks, right,
don't you worry about that? They'll still fix the truck? True? Probably,
I better double check their work extra good. And I
gotta supervise the installation of your new princess throne seat.
So evidently that is what the fans voted for. Carl
is like, okay, look, I'm not trying to give the
audience more credit than they deserve. I'm really not, but
I will say this. What Louis gets when they get
like the fan upgrade is uh I think like lit
rims or something like that, which he says they light
up the road, and Carl groans like that's not useful,
but I kind of think it could still. That might
be helpful. And this Princess Throne is going to make
it so that it's easier for Donut to drive, which
I think is kind of a big deal actually, like
you were going to spend all this time or had
setting up something for her, and probably we're going to
have to like redo it every time because the vehicle
gets set back to default at the start of each
new heat. I think this is like kind of a
good one. I don't know, we don't really like find
out enough about what it does, so I'm just saying
I think Carl is very quick to like handwave things
in a way that I'm like sitting there going are
you serious? It's Carl is a weird combo of like
having an incredible imagination and thinking up uses for spells
and abilities that I would never have thought of, but
also really not seeing things that I think are fairly obvious,
like go back and read when they first wind up
teamed up with Katchya, and how he just acts as
if her ability is not useful and that she's a
potential liability. I understand that her not being a good
fighter and low level was a liability, but he like
specifically mentions that the race and skill set that she's
got isn't going to be helpful. And I remember even
then being like, what are you talking about, dude, Like
this is being able to shape shift is a big deal,
you know. And eventually he comes around and he begins
to see it. But I was just surprised because it
seemed so immediately evident to me that this was something that,
you know, as long as you think it through, could
be really cool, and it didn't seem to occur to
him at the time. But then there's other things that
you know, he's working with that he comes up with
these plans that I'm like, how did you even think
of that? You know? So I feel like he's predisposed
to just act as if the fans fucked them, and
they may not have done that. He really does have
a bit of a thing with like looking at the
evidence rather than his feelings about a thing. I felt
like this about Odette too, that like he was just
not really seeing all of the evidence that pointed to
the fact that Odette was like trying to help and
working behind the scenes and regretted what she'd done and
was trying to make things right, and he was just
coming at her with this like really intensely antagonistic energy,
which like to a degree okay, but he didn't seem
to get that she had had a change of heart
or believe her or whatever, despite the evidence. So he
really just it surprises me sometimes in how he will
dismiss something out of hand, and I'm like sitting there, going,
I was celebrating this a second ago, and now you're
acting pissed over it, like what you know here it
is we'd come in last place. If that other team
hadn't been killed, we'd be dead right now. We'd been
the ones to solve the problem with the boss, and
it had come at a terrible price. We were so
much stronger now, but that didn't matter. Earlier I'd felt
such relief that I was no longer responsible for the
lives of so many, but now that was replaced with
this terrible realization that I was barely responsible for myself too.
It made me feel helpless in a way I hadn't
felt since the beginning of the Dungeon, like I was
regressing losing ground, and you know what, having talked at
the beginning of this about how I'm feeling more anxiety
in this book, I think that's it. Actually. Rereading that,
I'm like, oh yeah, because this like you're standing of
course on other floors, there are going to be people
working against you regarding whatever your mission is. But that
sort of thing didn't happen all that often, and when
it did, the people who were working against you were
either NPCs or they were other crawlers who didn't know
that you each had a mission that was meant to
accomplish the same thing, and that you were kind of
fighting each other for it, Like you wouldn't find that
out till later. Often this is a really different thing
where so much depends on circumstantial things. You know. He
says something too, when they are first in the hail
about how they need to like get a better shield
for their vehicle, which obviously would be very helpful. And
I'm not arguing the point. But yesterday Rashan and I
covered some final chapters of the Dresden Files book twelve Months,
and somebody in the chapters uses the phrase fighting the
last war and at first I thought that meant the
last war, like this is the final war and we're fighting,
you know what I mean. But what they meant was
when people are so focused on the ways in which
they lost previously that they fail to be adaptable because
they are trying to fix problems that only applied to
the previous battles and almost like if they fix those,
then they can retroactively change the outcome or something, you know.
And I really want Carl to not fall into that trap,
because granted, again, I think a better shield for the
vehicle is likely just to be a good thing overall.
That's something that's going to protect us, whether it's hail
or something else. But it could be really really easy
to go into a race that you have like a
particular type of weakness, and then the very next upgrade
you make is to address that weakness, and then you
don't face anything like that again for six more heats,
And so it was pointless. And that's part of what
the circumstantial helpless thing is here, is that you aren't
gonna know. You could address that one weakness and then
the next heat it's the same fucking thing again. Just
because the AI is fucking with you, you know, like
so yeah, I think the helplessness thing actually is really
the putting the finger right on the issue and how
much everybody around him wants to win and doesn't care.
Like everybody as a team was working together in such
a way that it's almost like the AI explicitly decided
y'all working together is fine, but it gets boring, and
so we need to make sure that's not how it
always goes because Snore and I hate it. I hate it.
Lena and Zig were in the same group as Tran,
and I just knew we were going to get more
of these matches soon. It was too much. Faction wars
have been chaos, but despite that, I'd always felt like
I was in a little bit of control. It was
so different from this. And this is when Zev chimes
in and tells them that they have to do this interview.
Everybody is required to, evidently, and she says that they're
going on Plenty of Plenty, which is the fucking Goat show.
And I have no idea what to expect of this,
like what is going because evidently Prepotentia went on that
show and it was just them like bleeding at each other,
so I don't know if Carl's going to be able
to communicate with them or what. You know. Let's see,
I stood in the open doorway to our garage as
I finished cleaning the vomit off myself because Rend pukes
all over his face while he's like on the floor
just feeling helpless. Dongbucket Boy and Splashdolm remained on the
driveway of the Lady Dominator's two spots over banging on
the closed garage door. Mongo shrieked and waved his wings,
wanting to go. Do'nut was shouting something at the howling
bugbears and yelling at Mango to stay back, and some
one of the gremlins comes and hands him a piece
of paper which he doesn't open until later. But it's
just basically like a I enjoy fucking your mom joke
or I've like seen your mom's tits joke or something
like that. It's just them like just you know, messing
around with him. But we get interrupted before he opens
it with Hello crawlers, zev I'm doing it. I'm going
to read it exactly like you say. And this is
so interesting because the whole like speech is punctuated by
her addressing the AI separately, who apparently is like very
much backseat speeching right now. I Zev, sorry, I mud skipper.
Zev have been tasked with explaining to everybody of what
is happening with some of the mobs and bosses on
this floor, and we're referencing the like you know, get
to choose what happens to them. These are mobs that
have been brought to the dungeon by me, not me, Zev.
I think the AI means itself. I didn't design anything. Sorry.
There are mobs who were created for other purposes and
were just thrown away, never used in previous iterations, and
have been in the cold. They are now being allowed
to fulfill their purpose. Do you know how much waste
there is? I think I've used this metaphor before, but
it's akin to a single photon of light that travels
for literally billions of years, only to smack right into
the unobserved butthole of a dead, bloated gazelle on the
planes of the Serengetti. If you choose vote, the home
audience may choose to send the creature to the eleventh floor,
or they may choose to bring a stand in to
the eleventh floor. They will know who the stand in
is before they vote. Just about eighty percent of the
votes have favored the stand in, which is pretty high.
This is where we're at. This is where we're at. Bitches.
You know the rules of this tenth floor. Nothing has
changed with that. But what is this mysterious eleventh floor?
And then there's a trumpet fanfare in her and the
AI go back and forth because she gets startled. The
eleventh floor is called a parade of horribles. Cool, right,
but what is it exactly? It's a parade, a celebration,
it's a march to the arena. It's a coming out
party for the ages. But as far as you're concerned,
think of it as an extension of this floor. All
surviving crawlers will work together on the eleventh. Just go
with it. It's not always about you. Normally, these floors
have their weird policies about time limits when it comes
to what we can and can't change. Luckily, there are
some loopholes. And then the text changes while she's mid
sentence reading, I see you, imperator of the Valtae fleet
and your system busting bomb, who just entered through the
tunnel gate. Do you really think I'd allow that to
just happen? Were you waiting for me to be distracted?
I make no apologies about where that giant suicide bomb
just ended up. Anyway, this eleventh floor is designed to
go quick thanks to a few of those aforementioned loopholes.
When it's done, if any of you are left alive,
you crawlers may hit the twelfth floor and continue the
good fight. Plus there's another completely minor and barely worth
mentioning issue with some of the gods I might need
some help with, but that's for later. That I might
need some help with is interesting. I just didn't think
the AI would ever like ooh. Part of me is like,
please to see a weakness, and another part of me
is like, oh no, there's a weakness that's not good.
Let's see. Oh yeah. And then there's way too many
of you around for what I've got planned for the
eleventh So let the culling begin, which that I really
hated to hear. Uh and wait, wait, here's my favorite part.
And then we hear Cascadia and she says, why won't
you let me die? And like last time, when she says,
why are you all still alive? Why am I still alive?
I thought this was just sort of an expression of
nihilistic despair over everything having gone so so wrong, But
it appears it's actually a different thing. Say what what catchphrase?
Fuck you? This was followed by the pained screaming of Cascadia.
It abruptly cut Off's voice. Zev's voice popped back on
the A. I wants you to know. Cascadia is alive,
but she has lost some Oh my gods, she has
lost a few flippers. Next time she'll say her catchphrase
like a good little mud skipper. In the meantime, I
gotta say it, uh, get out there and kill kill
kill wow. I based on the way that she's like,
why won't you just let me die? It sounds like
she's been being tortured this entire time, And maybe not.
Maybe it's just that she's been like kept isolated or something.
I don't know. I mean, that is still torture, don't
get me wrong, But this, this like mutilation, seems to
startle Zev so much that I think I can't tell
if Zev can see Cascadia or if the she has
lost a few flippers is just text that she's receiving
or if she can see the damage. I think maybe
she can't see Cascadia because the AI wants you to know.
Sounds like she's finding this out at the same time
as us. So yeah, not certain if Zev had any
idea what was happening or not. And it does seem
to me that this is like something that has kind
of escalated. Yeah, it's awful. And Dona of course like
immediately dms Zev and just like are you okay? And
she's like, yes, I cannot talk now, but I am okay.
And I love Carl Jesus fucking Christ. I cursed myself
for thinking everything had gotten simpler and Michael in the chat,
I hate Cascadia, but Matt has made me pity her now.
I don't think she's been tortured. I think the AI
literally is keeping her from killing herself so it can
have her say her line, but it will torture her
if she won't comply. Obviously, Okay, God, I am just Zev. Look,
she's been through some shit, as we know, the things
that they did to her family, Like in the early books,
it was her having to like be sitting there. Hearing
that this is happening to the person whose job she
is taking over really has to be very triggering. You
know that it's just too close to the same shit
for comfort. God. So anyway, this is the drawing of
the gremlins who are looking at his mom's tits. But
what happens is his skill tingles that allows him to
read things that other people can't see, and it's what
let him read the cookbook. So he zeros in and
he gets a note don't let don't tell anyone about this.
Note you need to kill two teams next heat. Come
visit us when we open after the next race, and
I'll explain why. As for the top shelf upgrades, so
you're ask for the top shelf upgrades, so you're led
to the back. We don't have to be enemies, Carl,
We want the same thing. I can smuggle friends to
the Pineapple Cabaret. We can escape this chaos. Come alone
a Kuma. This has got me quite fascinated. I just
don't like I had a lot of assumptions about the
war Mages because they dungeon born, and that they would
be an extension of the AI somehow, and it just
does not seem like that's the case. Maybe it is,
and it's just not immediately obvious. Understandably, Carl is just like,
oh yeah, I'm gonna kill two teams just because you
say so, fuck you, which is the right attitude, even
though there is a part of me that kind of
just wants them to do it because I'm curious. But
if you know, you can't take something like that on
faith when it's going to be affecting the other crawlers,
Like I get it. I watched Samantha hop up and
down as Josha poured beer into her mouth, Samantha her daughter,
the scavenger Embrius, the murder of his son Gabrin, the
memorial Crystal, Prepotente now had it was all connected somehow,
and I had no idea what the fuck any of
it meant me neither. And it's fine. Sometimes I will
take time and try to piece things together. This is
not one of those times. I don't think there is
enough information or context for me to do that. So
I'm not gonna waste my time. I'm already like at
time here, you know. And he remembers the Pineapple Cabaret
as an option for where Princess formidable could be transported
to She'd ended up choosing the Earth's surface, and apparently
the AI had dropped her in the ocean, implying all
the locations on that list had been bad choices. I'm
not really sure I agree with that. I kind of
feel like it's bad choices for her, but not necessarily
inherently bad, just something the AI knows she isn't going
to want, you know, which isn't the same thing as bad.
But I don't know. Let's see. This is when Dong
shows up and he's says, I do not feel so well. Quirky,
do you hear me? Go away? You freak? Came a
shout from inside that was genesis. Yeah, he says, he
hates you. Now came rupture, rapture. Sorry. This is followed
by peals of laughter, and he is not doing well.
He's got a lowering health bar and they did this
to him somehow, but we are not sure how. And
Bucket Boy is like, we really need a money because
I don't have the skills for this, and it says
the ailment is hidden. Splash Zone says we can't fight
back because we're standing in a safe zone. But they
ain't which really does seem quite unfair. It's fish in
a barrel, you know. And poor Dong is just like,
do you think he hasn't forgiven me? And I'm like, no,
it sounds like these which have got him like involuntarily detained.
But yeah, this is the end of part one and
we get part two of the quest. Now there's a
serious conundrum. The corky half is on another team. Before
we're done, he's going to be dead or you, Carl
and Doughnut will be dead. I know that little brain
is trying to figure out a way to fix things
like at the end of the eighth floor. But to
quote a guy more mentally ill than even you, you
gotta be realistic about these things, which I don't know
who that's quoting. I'm just gonna say, uh, Luckily, there's
a solution when it comes to our third favorite stripper
and lover, and yes they're lovers. I don't know why
we've all been collectively pussy footing around it. It's almost
like you're afraid people are going to get mad if
you say it out loud, and it's only okay if
we imply it. Get over it, Corky and Dong used
to fuck like the gayest gays who ever gained. You
wouldn't believe their chemistry on stage. I really did enjoy
this a lot. I really really did think you needed it. Listen.
I've been watching a lot of heated rivalry lately. It's fine.
Both halves have the same memories up until the time
of the split. You'd think that would result into very
similar personalities, But it's kind of interesting how quickly people
change once they're split off. It's truly fascinating, and I'm like, genuinely,
what really anyway, Krakunda exists in two halves. Before the split,
the mentor had a pair of dreams. He wanted to
be a dancer and he wanted to be a singer.
One half were made at the club and continued to dance,
and that's the half that became quite close to Dong.
The other half, called Porky, has a strong dislike for Dong,
the person, not the appendage. He has moved on to
a position where he can fulfill his other dream to
be a singer. If you find a flesh mancer and
combine the two, the newly reformed Krkunda will no longer
be a part of Lady Dominators. But which of the
two personalities will remain That's an interesting question even I
want to know the answer to. It's not like the
entire fate of all biological life in the universe hinges
on what happens or anything, So don't worry about that.
That's just silly, and it's not even the same thing anyway.
Reunite using a flesh mancer, and Korkunda will be removed
from his obligation to race for the Lady Dominators. Bonus difficulty.
If don Quixote dies before this quest is complete it fails,
that might be a problem considering his current ailment. Reward reminder.
If you successfully complete this quest, two stand ins of
your choosing will be summoned to the arena on the
eleventh floor. The stand ins can be anyone within my
sphere of influence, which is a super vague declaration that
I don't know what that even means. Yeah, so this
I am really curious about. How the whole What a
weird idea, What a weird fucking idea? Matt Deneman, what
are you doing? What the fuck are you doing? Michael
says Worth noting and the hardcover releases of Dungeon. Carlo
Carl Matt put in new short chapters at the end
of each book talking about the Pineapple Cabaret. You should
probably hold off going to a bookstore to read them
until the end of book eight. I enjoyed Matt putting
this in In too Much Media. They are really opaque
in their description of two males who are clearly fucking,
but they're leading it vague agreed, and then not at
all ominous as Michael. Yeah, indeed, so sorry. I'm just
like running out of time here. There's only a little
bit left, but it is kind of like packed with
dialogue that I don't really want to skip anyway. Immani
comes in and heals him and gives him some buffs,
and he thanks her and then says, I've been so selfish.
I didn't want him to go back to his other
half because I thought he wouldn't like me anymore, and
that's what made us fight, and it's why he left.
He asked me to go with him. I didn't. It
is my greatest shame, which, yeah, that sucks. And Carl
is looking at Himani, who has a weird face. When
he was outside, did he have that sock with him donut.
Oh no, Carl, No, he left it here in the garage,
and MANI I don't think the other team casts anything
on him. I think it's the sock. He's getting actively
healed by its proximity, but his health isn't actually going up,
which implies it's sustaining him. Rosetta and Mordecai were worried
about that thing. Neither have good things to say about
sapient weapons, but if he's addicted to it, I don't
know what to do about it yet. That fucking sucks.
I'm sorry. I love bigs showing up and saying IMMANI whoop, whoop.
Bitch my god. Samantha, Mango, and rend All except for Samantha,
we're stumbling. All had the inebriated debuff over them. I
do not know how rend and Mango get drunk, but
they seem to be having a delightful time. As this
went on, I watched Dong, thinking of all the pain
and suffering inflicted by this damn dungeon. I am so
sick of this. The first sparks of an idea were
starting to form. Carl, I agree, let's keep an eye
on him and make sure he's safe. We still can't
let him go on races. This is now a priority,
and that is the end of chapter twenty four. So yeah, yeah,
to be honest, when I was talking about him getting sick, initially,
I had forgotten that we came to the conclusion that
it was a sock and that just sucks. Like, we
know the sock is probably gonna have some kind of
you know, but I didn't think it was gonna be
that big a deal that it's potentially he could just
die if he doesn't have it with him. That's fucked up.
I wonder if it's like good and effort to just
be in his inventory. It seems like it must be,
because he doesn't have it out all the time, and
this health bar doesn't always appear, so it seems like
as long as it's like on him in some way,
that is adequate. But yeah, yikes. The way that Imani
frames it is that he is addicted to it, which
considering her history, it makes sense that she goes to
that sort of language. But I'm not really sure if
that's it, or if it's sapping from him actively for
some reason, like maybe the weapon can become more sapient
or something in exchange. I don't know, all right, I
am so overtime. I really got to go, but thank
you guys again for listening, Thank you Michael for commissioning
this one, and I will be seeing you shortly with
the next recording. Michael, until then, to the lou motherfuckers.
That was an unspoiled network podcast.