Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
covering Dungeon Crawler Carl book seven, This Inevitable ruin chapters
eighty two, eighty three, eighty four, and eighty five. In
these chapters, I'm still kind of thinking that Lenaw might
be a threat. I haven't let go of that, okay,
but I will say that I'm grateful that we aren't
dealing with that in these chapters. Instead, We've got seven
other emergencies instead, So you know, yay. 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 being very patient about the fact
that my livestream was not working initially. Yeah, so guys,
next episode, finale of this book, and then I go
into parade of horribles. I am very excited. I truly
everything with how these stories have progressed has been so
full of surprises. I'm not even going to hazard a
guess as to how this book ends. I'm not going
to hazard a guess as to what the next floor
is like, or what anything is going to be. I
think Matt Denneman sits down and puts a friggin In
my imagination, he's got tons of index cards with all
of the possible things that could happen next based on
what is likeliest in the text already, and goes one
by one through these index cards and decides to try
and write the opposite of that as close as he can,
just to fuck with us, and then like puts them
in a hat and shakes them and picks it out.
Because guys, did any of y'all see that we were
just gonna be skipping a floor back when it was seven?
Because I sure didn't. And there's a part of me
that's sort of wondering if we're doing that again, are we?
You know what I mean? Like we're saying goodbye to
Katcha for a little while otherwise, which possible, certainly, I
don't know. But there's just a lot of there's a
lot of reasons to not have everything follow the ordinary plan,
and yet you could and you could still find other
ways to have our people show up or the AI
decide to do something different, like because everything is so
nonstandard with this particular crawl, it just there's a sense
of like there's definitely rules of a kind, but everything
is sort of up for grabs inasmuch as it can
be like if you can come up with the right
double speak to sort of make it seem valid, and
like this loophole is totally legit, the AI is gonna
at least consider it, you know. So as I'm getting
to the end of this book, I just keep trying
to think, like, what, what's happening? What's happening? And kotscha.
I mean, I shouldn't even like be theorizing about her
getting to that other what is it? Floor fourteen? I
think the flower takes her too, because she's still in
that coma, So she's in this weird in between where
we don't know if she's actually even going to survive,
and it's possible she won't. I genuinely, really, guys, I
genuinely don't know how Matt Dinneman is going to handle
the concept of sacrificing characters, because to a degree, I
think that you can really make things rough without actually
killing people, and that's what he's kind of perfecting, it seems,
you know, with like Louise's situation. So there's a part
of me that keeps being like, I don't think so
and so is going to be killed. But then I'm like, yeah,
but part of what the story is about is that, like,
there's worse things than dying. There's just being so fundamentally changed,
and not that that's a hopeless thing either, and you
can come back from it, but still it is what
it is for the time being. So floor twelve, Sis
Seraphim is where Katcia is going. Okay, not quite as
far away as I thought. We're on what floor nine?
Now right? I really lose track? Okay, all right, so
let me let me get started here so that I
don't waste all of my freaking time. Y'all. It has
been it's been an adventure just getting this live started.
So let's just focus here, Natasha, let's fucking do it. So.
Chapter eighty two starts with Prepotente showing up again and
offering a pet carrier to Dong because he's got gronk
that he's been writing, and when he gives it to Dong,
Dong is like, yeah, I know, there's no such thing
as something being free. But and then he stops as
he's like talking to the freaking spirit of this miser
in his sock, and he's like, yeah, you're right. Okay,
you're right. And I'm really concerned about this because, like
I feel that he is being radicalized slowly, like we're
going to see him suddenly turn a corner and become
like a crypto bro. And I cannot tell you all
how much I do not want that. Also, the whole like, oh,
nothing is free. I would love for that miser to
find out that's not true. That sometimes yet there is
so much such a thing as free, because people just
sometimes want to give a shit about each other. And
I don't, if you know what I mean. I think
that there are just are people out there that truly
do not understand the concept of doing something without the
expectation of something in return. And this is not to
say that like I'm not going to expect that. Hey,
if I'm nice to you and I lend you something,
not even money, but just something, when you're in a
state and some time passes and then I wind up
in a state and I need something that you could
loan me, I won't that part of me won't be like,
well I help them, maybe they'll help me. But it
by no means feels like actually transactional on my part.
But I do know that there are folks out there
who really really keep score and in relationships that are
romantic as well, which, let me tell you, can really
lead to some resentments because if both parties are not
behaving with that same metric in mind, it leads to
one party feeling like the tally is way off and
the other not knowing there's a tally at all and
been there. So sorry, Michael says, or he's going to
start asking people, Hey, are you guys ready to become
your own bosses? Yeah, he's gonna try to start rev
up again. Jeff says, a lot of selfish people see
us as suckers, as if our morals were just quirks
or bad habits that get in the way of getting
it over on people. Yeah, and that's that's exactly it.
That's so sad. It's just like you really believe it too.
I can tell you believe it, you know. Sarah fin says,
the sock needs to meet the spirits of krawl. Miss
past President in future, Cindy's here, Cindy, good news to you.
I started ten minutes late because my camera wouldn't connect,
so you didn't miss almost anything. So this is when
Lena shows up and look, I already said she doesn't
attack our friends in these chapters. That doesn't mean I
have dropped my guard. Okay. Ellie looks up says, how
do you feeling? Hun, She had a health bar over
her that was about three quarters full. She did not
answer Ellie. Good talk. Ellie said, yeah, I feel that
Lena is just biding her time. I really want to
believe that her brother instilled in her a sense of like, please,
don't everybody's doing the best they can. Don't blame people.
But the fact that she like said to Donut that
it's her fault, I'm really worried. And also I'm kind
of like wondering if he appeared to Carl and so
thank you for giving me that time. Did he appear
to her? And is it possible that, like I guys,
I have so many Lena is one of those characters
that I actually want to know the most about, simply
because she has been so close lipped and is such
a dramatic player. The spells that she has chosen, well,
I say chosen, You don't choose your spells. But the
race she chose is like very specific. There just feels
like a story that I really want to know. I
feel like it would be kind of fun if we
got a little side story about everybody in the before times,
you know, like if Matt started a Patreon with bonus
material like some writers do. So this is when Biggs,
one of the slug Alos, is looking up and is
growling at her, and Carl says, she's not a bad guy.
Her brother just died, she's going through shit, and Biggs
is like, uh, she is a bad guy. She tied
a potion to Sneaky Tyler See and ordered him to
run right into the god. He blew up the moment
he touched the thing. That's what I heard. It was
a bitch ass move. I don't like her, and this
is one of the things that feels like it does
sort of set her apart in a way. Is like,
it's not as if the slugglos are seen as on
par with crawlers in terms of the value of their lives.
I wouldn't say that, because they're a different things than
even the regular NPCs, you know, but I definitely don't
think that Karl would be willing to sacrifice one of
them like that. It's like the whole reason that we've
got justice light is that working with them and being
excited about it, at least initially was simply they're willing
to risk their lives, not I don't feel so bad
if they die. It's their choice that they are cool
with risking their lives. So Lena doing this is just
a real indicator of the fact that she really doesn't
see the NPCs as people the same way, and it's
just a different She would be somebody willing to sacrifice them,
no problem. I just think that probably there's a thin
line between crawlers and NPCs and crawlers who are my
people or not my people? You know? So let's see
Prepotente says that there are. It's some bad news for
her because there are eighteen people that she marked and
three survived long enough to get away, and unfortunately they
got away in the most final way, which is they
are on the eighteenth floor now, so she isn't going
to be able to regenerate her health until they're dead,
which I don't know how we pull this off. Now. Look,
part of me is horrified on her behalf, and another
part of me, who is very very worried about her,
is low key relieved because now potentially if she did
decide to come at our friends, we have a reasonable
means of defeating her. It's reasonable, is gott an asterisk
after it? Because as Prepotente says, she has a health
bar that is actually several times all of ours combined.
I just really want to say that again, several times
that of all of us combined. Okay, when I say reasonable,
I mean that it is possible to wear her down
because she has this effect. But by no means is
it going to be like an easy thing, and she
would the whole conflict would have to be like ideally
after she had continued taking some other damage. She is
no dummy, and if she had been thinking I'm going
to try and take out Carl and Donut, I think
this would prevent her either from doing it because she
wants to like wait until her health repair is fully back,
or she would want to try and get them as
quick as she could because she is aware that as
much as they're way lower level than her, they're not
people to fuck with. So if she's gonna come, she
better come correct as they say, so, yeah, best not miss,
we'll see. I just really I have my eye on her, guys,
and my concern is it's going to be a long wait.
If that is so, I don't know that there's ever
gonna be a point where I stop suspecting that she
wants to kill them. I don't know what she could
possibly do other than basically what Prepotentie does with Carl,
which is to say, oh, I had intended to kill you,
but actually now I'm cool. And it could be that
she would be willing to lie and say that to
pretend things are cool, to get your guard down, where
I don't think Prepetente would ever do that. But uh,
Lena seems kind of direct, and I don't feel like
she would say it if she didn't mean it. So hmm.
All this to say she's scary and I don't like her.
So this ends this little section. Guys. It is so
devastating with fucking Tippett coming up to Carl and saying,
who the fuck are you and where the hell are
we and it turns out that that disassemble fucked his
hardware up that they installed to fix his brain that
had all that damage from the fights. You guys, this
is so sad and like in a similar fashion to Louis.
Even if they are able to get things situated for
him again in here outside of the dungeons, a different story,
and there's just it would cost him so much money. Now,
I don't know where Rosetta transferred all of that money
that she stole from King what's his face, but maybe
they have it. I don't. I don't like, there's no
point in even thinking about what happens after the dungeon.
I feel like that's I just don't know that that's
going to be even relevant. So we have Rosetta explaining
to them the situation and then taking tip it aside
to tell him about himself basically. And there's a moment
here where we get like a kind of hint of
something where Milk is floating in front of a bunch
of crawlers and they are gathering around her, and Carl
is sort of like, what's going on over there? And
later on we find out what's going on over there
and we get another really touching moment and it is fantastic.
So now we have the birth scene Kiwi's giving birth
and it's a oh guys, a real weird situation. We've
got this like birth that's overlaid with a conversation with
Juice Box that. Oh man, So I'm gonna deal with
juice Box first, because it turns out she talks about
what caused her to fall in love with Louis, and
she took on a shape that allows her, as she
puts it, to see into the hearts of men. I
wasn't expecting it, but he is so genuine, so pure,
and I have never seen anything like it. When you
see someone like that, and it's so free of the
raw of cynicism, so free of corruption, It's like the
most alluring, beautiful thing in the world. I have seen
so much, and I've never had anyone like him, someone
who clings so hard to every drop of happiness he
can find, even when there is so little. He is
to me like doughnut is to you. The thought of
seeing him again kept me from truly falling into the darkness.
And that is just such a sweet thing. I love
this so much, even when it's all devastating and horrible.
So she goes on to say that she wished that
she didn't take that hunter Wraith form to save him.
It was worth it, but she still kind of wishes
that she hadn't, And this is when she brings up
the concept of the inevitable ruin, and Carl says, I
knew that phrase. I'd never read it, and I didn't
know where I'd heard it from, but I knew it.
It didn't appear anywhere in the cookbook that I could remember,
but I knew i'd have to have heard it somewhere
because the idea was burned into my bones. And then
we have italicized do you remember the circus? Which you
know is the thing that his mother said when she
was like contemplating jumping off the fucking edge of the
Grand Canyon. And I, you know, obviously we have our
like flashbacks that we get to see of these different
characters that Carl doesn't get to see. So I know
that I have information regarding this that he doesn't. But
I think it's interesting that he has this idea of
what it is, but it's coming from a source that
he can't understand. And the do you remember the circus
thing with his mother being what because it's like he says,
I've heard of the concept. It's the moment you recognize
something is a lost cause and anything you do past
that point doesn't matter because you can't change the outcome.
And I think that's meant to be that, Like when
his mother is standing on the edge, it's clear like
even if she doesn't do it now it's happening, she's
definitely going to be taking her own life. You know,
I I don't know. It's just it's a it's a
weird moment that makes me almost wonder is it just
his life experience that's making him feel like he knows
what this means? Or is there some other source, because
we've got shit in his brain at this point, we've
got monsters locked in his chest, Like, who knows? So
what this? She says. It's also a spell, a curse
inflicted upon the mind of the Hunter Wraith, which is
why they are so bitter. When they possess someone. It
ruins something pure. It doesn't change whatever it is. It
just tells you the truth. It's difficult to explain, and
it manifests itself in different ways. But for me, when
I had Louis possessed in order to save him, the
curse showed me the truth, and the truth is that
he is terrified of me. The truth is he is
not in love with me. He thinks he has a
special ability that causes NPCs to fall in love with
him a special ability that he was asked about when
he was interviewed earlier. Today, it doesn't matter that it's
not true. He doesn't trust what I feel and he
never will. And this is really interesting to me. So
I don't know how many pe people that like found
this distracting and not in a bad way. But she says,
it doesn't matter that it's not true. He thinks he
has this ability. Why does he think that? Why are
they asking him about it if it's not real? Is
she's saying it doesn't matter that it's not true. I
didn't fall in love with him because of his ability,
because like what I initially took from this was he
doesn't have that ability at all. He thinks he does,
and there is somebody who interviewed him who kind of
fed into this idea that he does, but he doesn't.
And I'm really like wondering if holy shit, I'm sorry, guys,
I just like touched the chat and it just scroll
and there are so many fucking chat I just completely
missed all these. Sorry, it just wasn't updating. But I
am wondering if somebody is like, is putting this in
his head in an attempt to sabotage him. I don't
know what the goal would be, if it's like to
just keep the Crawlers and the NPCs from uniting, and
that being like the source, you know, Louie and juice
Box getting married seeming like such a thing. They feel like, Oh,
as long as I like poison, that it won't really
ever happen. Jeff says, the protagonist and among others, has
this dilemma. Don't know that one. Cindy says, because juice
Box loves him, Samantha is vaguely obsessed, and I think
there's at least one more NBC who is into him,
although I could be wrong and let's see. Seraphim says,
I think this was them kind of messing with him
or trying to find a reason why some NPC would
end up like this, since clearly they aren't real people.
Miss t says, maybe he got the inkling that the
special ability is the only way she's in love with him.
Maybe he spoke that thought one time and the interviewer
got the idea from that. Maybe I just like there's
something about the fact that he thinks this and that
they're asking him, and it doesn't seem like there's a
basis that makes me feel like somebody is trying to
fuck things up with them, and I, I don't know,
I feel like the idea of like destroying something pure
from the Hunter Wraith. I don't know if that's something
that just occurs for Juice Box. If this also occurred,
like when it comes to Louis and her possessing him,
did that ruin something for him? Would it be the
same kind of thing, Like what if he found out
that she really was in love with him and that
it wasn't due to a skill? You know? And is
that better or worse if you already really don't seem
to like reciprocate. I also don't know if, like that interview,
we heard him say, I watched film of the first
time that I was like with her making her change
into all of these forms, and he was clearly quite
shaken by it, you know, and the fact that, like
he when we saw that moment, he was upset and
I thought it was purely I didn't see her as
a full person the way that I do now, and
it bothers me to know how how I was. But
now we have the added context of like him seeing that,
realizing that she was beginning to actually feel for him
and he was just like fucking around. That adds another
layer of like I not only didn't see her as
a full person, but didn't appreciate what was happening to
her as a result of my skill. So I was
manipulating her without even intending to, in addition to the
manipulation that I fully intended. You know, just it is
a real mind fuck, you know. Seraphim says, there are
ways for crawlers to influence in PCs. We've seen Doughnut
does it through her. Oh, I know that. I'm not
questioning whether this is something that happens. I'm questioning whether
he has this because, like the way she worded her
statement was just a little unclear. Cindy says, we also
have to remember that Louis is canonically and balding. In
the real world, he would be considered a loser. So
the idea that both with a sex style and a
shape shifting prostitute who could be anyone both love him,
I could see why he would have self doubt. That's
an interesting point. Michael says, it makes some sense he
knows he was treating Juice Box as a sex spot.
There was nothing about how they were interacting that would
explain why she was in love with him. If he
knew about how she saw into his soul, maybe he'd
accept it, but as is, he probably can't see why
other than some special ability that was probably reinforced by
Samantha's obsession. That's another really good point, is like there's
no context for him why this would have happened and
be so dramatic that she's willing to literally marry him,
and not evidently just for the allyship, but because she
really wants to marry him. And they have a conversation
later that leads to her like walking away from him,
and I'm wondering, I don't know if it's better to
tell him like, oh, yeah, I took on a form
that allowed me to see into your heart and fell
in love with how good a person you are. Like
I if I were with somebody that was able to
tell me that I would that would make me cry
and I'd be so happy, and I feel like it
would be something lovely for Louis also, But I could
also see not wanting to say that because it's like
kind of a scary thing to tell a person that
you literally were able to like pierce through all of
their layers of bullshit, and there's no there's no way
to level that ground. You know, you are working as
a shape shifter from like this place of being able
to do so much, and he can't match any of that.
So there's a weird power imbalance, but there's also the
power and balance of him being a crawler. Like. Yeah.
So anyway, that whole conversation is happening, and as it is,
Kiwi is giving birth and we find out, you guys,
this creature that's born is super weird looking. It is
indeed a combo of a bear and a raptor, but
it's like a it's much more mammal like and almost
sounds human as babies, which makes some sense later because
it's mentioned because of this mob's intelligence level, they cannot
be used as pets, So I'm wondering if they're going
to be able to just straight up talk. They are
called Earth Census legendary creature. These fuzzy little meat eaters
are going to be quite the handful when they grow up.
That's as much as we get other than that they
can't be pets, So this should be fascinating I am
extremely curious and the idea that like Mango, who is
in intelligent to a degree but not intelligent enough to
be outlawed as a pet, was able to sire these creatures.
Kiwi is a conscious being, so it makes sense, you know.
So they're gonna be this weird sort of in between
where I don't anticipate that they're going to have the
like the communication capability that Kiwi has, but clearly much
more than Mango will. So these things are just really
really ugly and like one of those I just keep imagining,
like baby chihuahuas, you know, Chihuahas are one of those
things that's like so ugly it's cute. It sort of
turns a corner weirdly. And I will say that the
conversation between Carl and Juice Box wraps up in a
way that I really like, where she says something about
how just knowing that people like Louis are out there
is what keeps her from doing the unthinkable, and she
saying like, I have a power inside me that I've
been afraid of. So evidently there's something with her that
like she can functionit up if she wants and actually
end things like she seems to have potentially the fail
safe within her. I don't know how that works, but
that sounds like what she's saying, and the fact that
there are people out there as good as he is
is what's keeping her from like completely losing hope. So
Carl says something later about like the inevitable ruin is bullshit.
It's just hopelessness by another name, and there's never no
hope until we're actually dead. And I really like Juice
Box being like, oh no, no, no, I'm not telling
you all this to tell you I'm hopeless. I'm telling
you all this to tell you that I actually have
a lot of hope I think, maybe even more than
you do at this point. And also I know what
Justice Light is up to, And later on she says
something like just wait and see it. I think you're
gonna like it. So I'm so curious what the fuck
that is? So okay, eighty three we go to Edgar
talking out what it is that's going on with Louis
and all of the weird rules that are in place,
and the strangeness of the overall situation with Tag being
inside him but like not in one specific area and
they're all brainstorming, and Victory and Fopsey show up as well,
which is helpful because we have to ask them a
few different things about like how the rules work, and
there's this whole thing. As they're like throwing ideas around
in the background, Samantha keeps saying I can fix him,
or I have an idea. Now. When she first says
I can fix him, I actually thought this was just
like a joke, because that's the thing that's supposed to
be what women say about dudes who are a lost cause,
and then they get themselves into these like awful one
sided relationships with men who could give a fuck and
will take advantage of them until they are broke or dead.
But as it continues and she pipes up again and
everybody's ignoring her, she finally actually like bites Carl on
the nose and tells him I have that body that
like flesh golm that I was going to be transferred into.
You can use that. And she is willing to give
it up, as she puts it, because Louis deserves it
more than me. And the reason she feels this way
is because she felt her child die in the pool
of acid. She says, which I don't know if that's
like or if this was a very beginning when they
did that big acid attack that was like kind of
the start of the battle. But regardless, she seems pretty
certain her child is dead and is fully like I
should have been looking for her and I didn't, and
it's because I was so distracted by all of this
other selfish bullshit. I am a bad mother, and this
is me trying to make up for the fact that
I ruin everything, which is what practically everybody in her
life has told her she does. And honestly, it's so
sad because like she goes on to ruin everything just
seconds later, and you know, I know, Michael, you have
said that you keep picturing Rebecca Bunch from Crazy Ex Girlfriend,
like that actress Rachel Bloom as Samantha, and it's very
fun because like there is a song in Crazy Ex
Girlfriend that's just you.
Speaker 2: Ruin everything, you stupid bitch, And that's the chorus of
the song, which she is singing to herself, by the way,
because she feels that she is a complete like waste.
Speaker 1: And it's a ballad. It's like a very over the
top power ballad, and she's in a floor length gown
as she sings it, and all I could think was
I want that, but with Samantha singing it please, and
they're just being like an awkwardly draped but empty floor
length gown like on the piano next to her. But
she doesn't have a body, so it's like the closest
we can get. Maybe she's got a little sequin beret
or something. Meanwhile, we'll get back to that in a second.
Victory and Foxy are talking about what the deal is
with Tag actually being one of these I can't want
to say androids, but that's not correct. What do they
call guys cyborg and that evidently it's like compromising the
It makes him and the Reavers like working together as
a monopoly, and it is undermining the faith in either
business being legitimate. It's also causing a lot of people
to wonder whether everybody in the dream is a cyborg,
which Juice Box says, on you know, uncertain terms, that
is not the case. But you know, I can understand
why folks who are in the real world might not
trust the NPC's word on that. So this conversation with
epitome Tag is also interesting because Carl is asking him
what he wants, and everything Tag is saying indicates that
he actually doesn't really know what's going on. He hasn't
been able to observe very much. Doesn't realize that like
they already nuked his castle, or that this other plan
that they had put in place is not going to happen.
I'm trying to find the spot where he says here
it is, we know what you're planning on doing with
the NPC team with the zu with the Zurzura spell,
which will take the city of Loroccos to the twelfth floor.
I will go with them, guys. I had completely forgotten
about this spell, by the way, it hasn't been mentioned
by name, you know. And I know that this is
how all this is meant like I remember, But still
still there's so much to keep track of. I'm not
even gonna be like ashamed of myself here. So we
can get this guy like kind of we can make
it so that he isn't aware of what's happening to
Louis temporarily as they attempt to do the thing where
they move the Louise what do you call it, they
have to do a heart and lung transplant, and because
that is coming from a being that has gills. They
have to also install a rebreather. And it's such a
weird line, y'all because when Mordecai asks Carl to pull
the rebreather out, Mordecai says something about or like, Carl is,
you know, reminding us that he got it off of
Loyda when he killed her, and so it's really small,
and he says to Edgar like it might be too small,
and Edgar says, not where we're putting it. And it
just made it sound for a second like he was
going to shove it up his ass, and I was
like what, But you know, it turns out it's still
very small area. It is just the wording for a
moment had me go like, wait a second, Wait a second,
what are we doing here? So this is like the
moment where Samantha ruins everything, You stupid bitch? Is her
talking to Carl, because he says this, her giving up
that flesh goul is very brave and strong of you.
That makes you a hero, Samantha. And I'm very proud
of you, she sniffed. I don't always mess things up right.
I'd like to think maybe I can be a good
influence sometimes and not someone who ruins everything, which is
what King Blaine said to me, and what my father
said to me and what my mother said to me
before they all cast me out. I used her, my daughter,
to get what I wanted. I ruined everything. It's okay
to be a work in progress. Donat said, thank you
for helping save Louis. She nodded. I may be a
neglectful mother. I may have had an indirect, possibly direct
hand in the death of Gayreun. But a girl can
find forgiveness, right, I sighed, you did not just fucking
say that out loud, and then system message Embres has
entered the realm. I will admit something, y'all. I totally
was like, gay runs familiar? What's that about? I completely
was like not putting it together until Embrace enters the
realm and does the quest update. And then I was like, right, right, right, right,
right right, because like I feel like if you had
a better memory and you instantly knew who that was,
you'd be like, oh shit. But I didn't even really
have time to say oh shit. It was me watching
Carl SAYO shit, going why why why are you so upset?
And then immediately being brought up to speed someone to
read what the update is. This so called Samith claims
she was part of my son's death. Capture her for me,
and I will personally handle the interrogation. Once I have
finished grilling her, I will cleanse this world in fire
to remove the stink of this murderer's presence. If she
is not within my presence in sixty six minutes, this
world will be destroyed in fire and lava and wrath.
So when he says grilling, by the way, it's italicized,
and I think he literally means that he will put
her on a grill, like he is a fire god.
And I don't think that's like metaphorical. I don't think
that's a turnip phrase, an idiom whatever. I think he's
literally going to, like have a grill and he will
put her on it. Now, I don't know whether that
would matter. It doesn't seem like she feels pain in
an ordinary way. So a part of me is like,
what can he even do to her? But he is
a god, so it's certainly within reason that he would
have something up his sleeve that we haven't seen anybody
else be able to do. Yet. You know, but later on,
Carl says something like, we're going to give Embrass what
he wants eventually, which is Samith, which surprised me that
he's saying we're gonna give him what he wants. And
I'm wondering if Samantha hears that, is she gonna feel
a way about it? Like what is she? What is
her suggestion here? You know what I'm saying. So let's see.
This is when Tran chimes in. Guys, there's a new boot,
very very large and pissed off looking god in the distance,
and we get the team quest. So let's see everything,
and everybody on this floor is going to die. This
is not something that can be stopped unless you managed
to kill Embers, which as we all know, is possible
but unlikely. So here's the quest part. You need to
win Faction Wars. You gotta do it fast, and once
you do that, get the hell out of here before
the world goes up in flames. This event supersedes any
other events, but Faction War's rules are still in effect.
Reward all survivors will be given one year off their
indentureship contracts should they accept a deal upon the next floor.
This is good for the first negotiation. Only all food
boxes will be upgraded with the Extra Toasty option, which
probably just means that things are going to come out burned.
But I will say that the first thing that I
thought of. There is a catfish place near me that
does fried catfish and hushpuppies and stuff, and they have
a they have two options, one which is fried and
the other which is burnt. And burnt is just that
they keep it in the fryer for twice as long,
and it's nowhere near burnt. It's just called that, and
when it comes to you, it's extra crispy and it's
super good. So perhaps extra Toasty is just extra crispy
and delicious, and maybe it's fine. Like maybe it's like
going to KFC and getting the extra crispy meal instead
of which is the only thing to do. By the way, honestly,
don't go to KFC, go to Popeyes. But like, if
you have to go to KFC, obviously get the extra
crispy option. Popeye's default is basically the extra crispy option.
So this is interesting because it feels like the AI
is really trying to help everybody, but not in a
way that's like I care about you. It's like, well,
I can't just let this god like kill everybody and
there's no more show, you know what I mean. And
also the fact that like technically it's possible to kill him,
so he's not invulnerable or immortal for some reason right now.
I don't know why some gods are and some aren't,
but it doesn't matter. It's fine. And let's see, I'm
trying to find the bit here. This will happen in
at least sixty six minutes, but your cremation may be
delayed slightly if Samantha actually shows up to the interrogation.
So that's what Karl was talking about. Later when he says,
then we'll give him what he wants in the hopes
of like buying themselves a few extra minutes because the
guy is distracted. So this is when Ellie is like,
you know, maybe we should start talking about whether or
not keeping this like possessed sext all head around is
actually worth it, and Samantha says, like, you never accidentally
triggered an apocalyptic event, Ellie. Samantha muttered, and while that
feels like something that you say with like this tone,
because it's so absolutely not correct because of the way
this game is, There's a part of me that's like, wait,
was there a time where Ellie accidentally triggered an apocalyptic event?
Because I feel like maybe there was, and I'm just
not like pulling it right now. I also want to
mention that, like the fact that Samantha says that she
may have had an indirect or very direct hand in
Gahiran's death, and there's the information from what's his niece
the God that starts in ch when he's talking to
Carl and says like, there's rot within the all Tree
and our mother and sister are fucked up from it,
and we have like the whole thing with School of Pendra.
I'm starting to really think that, like Samantha is School
of Pendra. I said that it is kind of a
joke before, and now I'm starting to be like, wait,
is she I don't know. There's also the fact that
like the Scavenger's daughter thing Carl starts to wonder is
that her child and Samantha is the Scavenger, But uh,
I don't. I feel like the fact that the warm
Mages were saying that they're going to be doing something
with the Scavenger's daughter. Then her child isn't actually dead.
If that's the case, and she's wrong about it, I
don't I eat, like there's so much, there's so much.
I'm really I'm going to be overtime here a little bit,
but that's like all we can do. So this is
when Carl has to yell to Kacia eat it now, now, now,
eat the orchid, and she is like, but I haven't
said goodbye. I have stuff in the safe room that
I really need, and I don't know what it is
that she's going to be leaving behind. I'm sure they
can get it to her eventually. But when she says
I really need it's italis And so I'm wondering if
there was something that she was going to use on
the twelfth floor and now she's gonna wind up there
without it, which sucks the best laid plans, as they say.
And Kachia says, I love you, I love all of you,
and later on Bautista is like, but wait where, And
I can't help but think that he's going to really
take it amiss that she said I love you to Carl,
but not to him. She didn't try and find him,
you know, what I mean, he just seems a little
prickly about this, and the fact that he fucking disappears later.
I don't know, man, something is he just out here
throwing a tantrum or what? I don't know. So this
whole thing, like it leads to everybody. Carl's ordering everyone
around to make sure that we get whatever we need
done within the time limit. And Carl says, he goes
out into the main chat if you're not in the roccos,
get your asses in here now. Justice Light says, tell
me what is happening. Carl says, in sixty five minutes,
embers will melt this entire floor. Justice says, Oh, is
that all? And I think Carl takes that as a joke.
But I kind of think that maybe Justice is really
saying this because he's got something up his sleeve that's
going to render all of this completely irrelevant. There's just
something there's something about this that doesn't feel like him
being sarcastic or funny. He doesn't seem to be somebody
who gets sarcastic. I feel like Carl is just not
being quite curious enough. I would really want to know.
But I also understand that he probably he knows. We
don't want to put this in writing and put it
out there like who knows, you know, and also just
wanting to respect the fact that Justice has his own
thing going on. But yeah, so I'm extremely excited for
whatever fucking Justice Light is going to do. So then
we get the system message forces from Team Retribution have
abandoned the throne room of the Dream and Carl says,
the moment we win, how long before the stairwells appear?
She says immediately, and Popsi says, actually, it's about ten seconds.
I love the fact that we have got two such
rule followers that Victory doesn't think she's misspeaking. But Fopsi
is so precise that she's just like, well, no, not immediately,
which I actually appreciate because when you're in a stressful situation,
ten seconds is a long time where you think nothing's happening,
you know. So I think that's actually a valid correction
considering seconds count in this fucking game. They really really do.
So let's see here it is, Batista, Wait, we are
not prepared. I need I thought, eat the fucking orchid,
I cried at Katcha. Okay, okay, I'm doing it, Kaya said,
And you know the fact that Kaya doesn't like reach
out to him. There's there's just really no indication that
she notices Batista is there thinks about him. Now, I
will admit that this is the same in terms of
donut as well, So it may not be anything. It
like doughnuts. Sad to not have gotten to say goodbye,
but she's not taking it personally. But again, Carl has
this moment with her where their head their foreheads are touching,
and she says, I love you, and I know that
even if she meant it romantically, she didn't really it
was it was also in just a big sense of like,
we're all in this together. But if I'm Batista, that's
gonna feel really like a slap in the face. Especially
they will show him the footage of that. There's no
way in an interview somebody doesn't like ambush him with
that moment, and I think that's gonna be a fucking issue.
I just really really want Batista to be somebody better,
and I don't think I'm gonna get it because of
some of his previous behavior being giant red flags to me.
But yeah, I don't know. Uh sorry, Jeff, says, if
my girlfriend fucked off forever without saying goodbye, definitely go
into hiding. Well, she's not fucking out forever. It's the thing.
I think she'd say, you know, it's not forever, but
it certainly it feels like it is if you don't
know if you're gonna live long enough to you know.
Cindy says, I never trust an addict who says there's
something I really need. That's an interesting point, Cindy, that
she might be just talking about a fucking drug. Jeff says,
I like to believe she's in love with Carl, and
Cindy says, hard disagree. I think their love is entirely platonic.
And I enjoyed that Jeff phrased it as I like
to believe, because that is in line with Jeff's being
a romantic a lot of the time in the chat,
whereas I am absolutely the opposite, and I often am like,
I really hope that this isn't a romantic thing, because
I just want them to purely be in support of
each other and for us to not need there to
be a love story in the mix. As well. I
think that if this book were written by a different
person approaching this a slightly different way, there would be
a lot more of the romance angle, and I'm really
grateful that there isn't, and if it's there at all
right now, it's highly up for interpretation, and there there
are times I will say where it feels like it's
not there, like I have. I'm not talking about this series,
but I covered recently Verity Vox and The Curse of Foxfire,
a really really fun book, and I was like taken
aback that at the end there's a romantic like subplot
that suddenly appears that allegedly we were supposed to have
seen it the whole time, and I was not seeing it,
and I was just like, this is completely out of
the blue. So I kind of hope that if there
is something, we get a little bit more concrete evidence
before it suddenly becomes a thing. If it's if it is,
But personally, I just don't need romance in my stuff.
It's like very rarely done. Well. My exception at the
moment is Heated Rivalry, which is just so romantic and
sexy and very good. So everybody, I'm only on episode
two and it's breaking my heart, but you know, you
can join me for that coverage next week. Anyway. Suffice
to say, Katchya eats the orchid and is now waiting
for the goddess who is fucking washing Jink's reminder, and
Donut rightfully points out that perhaps Washing Jinks is going
to wait until the last possible second to appear to
fuck everybody over because what does she care? You know,
So let's see, Donut wouldn't be able to leave until
after Katchya was whisked away. That was the price of
the crown of the Stepsis whore. Guys, I completely forgot
this as well. I know that this has been a thing,
but like the timing of it was what I had
forgotten and a part of me Also the fact that
Batista had been like, Carl's gonna kill you and take
the flower and give it to Donut is so bonker
out of line, and I'm sort of like, did he
just want to plant the idea in Koscio's head to
drive a wedge or did he really think Carl would
do that? And then seeing that Carl had no like
he's just telling her to eat it? Is that going
to make him happier? That Carl would never and clearly
demonstrates that he would never or is it just like, oh, sure,
mister perfect, he's not even going to be a bad
guy and try and steal it from Donut. You know
what I mean. There's so many ways to interpret a
thing somebody is doing when you already feel like you're
going to have bad faith over it. So sorry, I'm
just like trying to make sure I'm getting everything here.
Oh right, This is when Donut says, if you're planning
on using your head thrower thing, you won't be able
to take it off. Not if Embers picks Samantha up,
it'll just summon the God to you and will both
get burned to nothing. Remember when he was outside Surrendel
Gore's bubble, he melted the entire world, and he says,
it's okay, one problem at a time, and I was
just like, I understand that you got it. But just
in response to her being like he nearly melted the
world and Carl just being like it's okay, I was
just like, oh that is not adequate. So this is
when we do the whole transfer with Louis and warlard
Tag is aware just enough to realize some shit is
going on and so we need to distract him from
it so that he doesn't shut down the lungs and
heart while they're doing it, which results in my favorite
I think of Donuts interactions because there's been lots of
moments where she's insulting people and going off on a tear,
and like a lot of that is it's fun, but
it's not exactly like it's the kind of insults that
I would probably write as well, like just the sort
of it's not too surprising most of the time. But
what happens here is that it starts off as Warlord
Donut and then she changes her username to epitome Tag's
sexy mother, and she says, I can't wait for you
to come back to me, Louis. My hand is stuck
in the washing machine. Will you come help me? And
I lost my absolute shit, you guys, I lost my shit. Now,
for those innocents among you who don't get this joke,
I doubt there are many of you. This is a
reference to a common porn trope of a woman who
was like on her knees, bent over trying to fix
something in the dryer or the washing machine or the
dishwasher or under the sink or whatever, and almost always
is wearing a skirt, but not necessarily and some dude
comes in and sees her stuck in place and decides
to take advantage of her while she can't get away,
and that's the whole thing, and fucking donut referencing that here.
It just it got me. It really fucking got me.
I lost it. I was laughing so fucking hard, especially
because we have like the narrator every time saying epitome
tag sexy mother right before reading the line, you guys,
this is just hilarious. Change your name back this instant.
I will kill this fat loser right now, right fucking now,
you puerile, disgusting mongrel. How dare you? How fucking dare you?
I will starve out all of your kind? How dare me?
How dare you insult me like that? On this the
day of my grandchild's birth. And later on there's a
reference to her being like, I actually saw that joke somewhere,
which yeah, sure, I mean, like practically everything that we
joke about we've seen somewhere. That's just how jokes work.
It's okay, but uh yeah, this is it turns out
a pretty solid way of keeping him distracted until it
goes far enough that he just throws a tantrum and
decides to shut Louie's heart down. But he does it
just late enough that we are able to save Louis
after all. So yeah, this is just hilarious. You know what,
Fuck this, fuck this existence, fuck this life, and fuck
all of you. You don't deserve singularity, None of you do.
His heart has stopped. Edgar shouted shit, pull I yelled,
and singularity when he says we don't deserve it. Like,
the idea of it is that we are going to
have such advanced AI that it's basically a full human being. Right?
Is he talking about the AI of this game or
is he talking about the technology that he has been
using to keep himself alive? Is that I feel like
it has to be that the second one, But like
a part of me is like, was he sort of
interested in what's been going on with the AI and
like tracking that or I don't know. So eventually he
wakes up, but it's clear that he's like feeling really weird,
which makes sense to the rebreather. Again, Victory has warned
them what they're doing here is only going to work
in the dungeon, and if he ever gets out, the
deal he's going to have to make will be significant
in order for him to adjust all of this to
function in the real world. So that sucks. I'm really
curious what he's going to feel about the like having
a completely different body now, and is there going to
be a change to him because of a lot of this.
You know, there's a mention at some point I think
about like possibly something internally being very different. So anyway,
this is when Tag just like shuts the heart down
and kills himself, and the credit for the kill I
almost called it a suicide. I almost gave it to
that bucket boy kid. Oh my god. But it's going
to Mongo consider it a present for the baby shower
because they take the other heart the like you know,
the mechanical one, put it on the ground and Mongo
like tries to eat it. So the dream has been defeated.
All assets of the Dream have been awarded to the
Princess Posse. And then there were two. We had thirty
two minutes until the timer ran out, and this is
when Carl yells out Sledge its time, and we have
twenty one minutes until the destruction of the ninth floor,
and we say goodbye to Sledgie because he is beginning
to cast Zurzora. Oh my god, that is never going
to come out, right. I really we better see him again,
That's all I am saying. The entire funnel city of
Laracos and Chantytown was about to get transferred to the
twelfth floor, to the court of the Ascendancy. According to Rosetta,
most of the action took place in the actual halls,
which were placed on a green, fertile hill overlooking miles
and miles of fields of cotton. There were some magical
properties within this cotton field, but it was somewhere here
where the city would land, and it would be where
the NPCs would settle. The NPCs were untouchable until the
Ascendancy actually started, and in the meantime, with Juice Box's
squad of changelings, they could hopefully keep the gods at
bay should any rules change. And if the city happened
to squish any mortals when it landed and hopefully drilled
into the ground, it was going to cause some problems
because those squished would turn into undead monsters called children
of impute based on the sheer number of people we
were sending down there. Something told me it wasn't going
to be a huge issue. I am fascinated to find
out just how this went. I'm sure that we'll probably
get like a verbal update from somebody at some point
and Loroccos being like this funnel and he's saying hopefully
drilled into the ground, like hopefully it may just land
weirdly on its side, and I don't know what that does,
you know, And they're just really not sure what exactly
is going to happen to the mercenaries, if they're going
to be going into storage, you know, the changelings and
the thousands of NPCs who lived in Loroccos put the
Samariu plus the Samariu Dwarfs would move to the Ascendency.
Anyone else who'd moved to this floor from the sixth
would also move. We weren't certain about the strippers or
the slugglows, and as a result, they would stay with us.
They would go back to the safe room and move
to the barracks there. We had limited capacity, but there
were several crawlers who were planning on staying who could
take some in. Ferdinand would transfer to the twelfth Juice
Box would too, and with their transfer would come the
defeat of Team Retribution and the victory for the Princess Posse.
So that solves that problem, because I really was like,
how exactly are we going to make it work with
the two teams working together? If one has to die
and the solution is get everybody from the other team
fucking out of here. They have to leave last, you know,
but still that great solution. Over fifty thousand former crawlers
had come to help us, only about twenty eight thousand
were left, and honestly, that was higher than I was thinking,
Like I thought we were into the teens at this point.
So here we have Luciamar was here sitting on the
ground sobbing. Flora, Jorgen and Amani surrounded her talking. They
were trying to convince her to take a deal. I
hoped it would work. I think it probably won't, just
because it seems like we need to keep her in
the story to find out what's happening. But you know,
I hope it works too. I just think narratively it's unlikely.
And let's see, I gazed up at a group of mercenaries.
My initial instinct was to kill them. I could mark
them and I could kill them, raising my stats to
three hundred across the board just likely. Na I knew
a lot of people following my progress would be enraged
at me not doing exactly that, But he doesn't because
he knows that would turn him into somebody else, And
he has Lena to look at and realize, like, is
that who I want to be? Is that? You know?
Which is like weirdly lucky for him that he has
an example of somebody who is willing to do that
to look at and be like, oh, yeah, no, I'm
not interested. I don't think so I appreciate this. And
he winds up giving the ring to Donut to swallow,
which I assume we're just going to like keep doing it,
so technically nobody can get a hold of it unless
they kill her and like dig it out of her body.
But yeah, I don't see, like, is she just gonna
continually swallow it? I feel like there's going to be
probably some real awkwardness surrounding that. But you know, whatever
that says some logistics, we'll figure it out. So let's see.
This is when Ferdinand shows up and offers to have
one last roll in the hay with Donut before he
goes to the twelfth floor. She thanks him for saving her,
or helping to save her. Milk would not be transferring
to the twelfth floor. She would go back to her guild.
I did it, she said, I fulfilled my contract. I
still have to live out the season, but I can
leave after this. And like the hint of her fulfilling
her contract should have been a little bit of a
tip off to what's coming. But we get the Book
of Voodoo being utilized to its full potential, which makes
the AI very happy for fuck's sake. Finally, the book
had magically changed. Since it now should have been literally
thirty thousand pages, it was uh. I opened to a
random page crawler number Yadayada Asia as Si Hamami Carl,
thank you for helping us. I have lost so much,
but I still have not lost my hope. And below
that was a drawing in red ink. It was a
crude drawing of a lock and a key. Consuming this
page will give you a level ten lock pick skill
for a period of five minutes. So this is so cool,
Milk says, they're leaving the dungeon. These are all people
who made deals so I taught them how to remove
a skiller spell and painted onto a page. They each
did three, one for you, Carl, one for you Donut,
and one on their own entry page, which is now
a first come, first serve sort of deal in the
original book that anyone can use. The one for you
and Dona are personal for you. They permanently lose the
skill when they transfer it, and when you eat the page,
you only gain it for a short period depending on
the quality of the drawing. But each one should have
a personal note attached telling you how they're grateful that
you have saved their lives. And they may have unloaded
some of their gear. It's waiting in the guild for distribution.
I told them not to give all of it up
because some of the deals they may take will require
them to use their old equipment, which is sort of fascinating,
like why would that be? But who knows. So there
comes this moment of just everybody gathering around to cheer
them on and throwing like the equivalent of confetti and
making Loroccos beautiful again. And Dona is just like in tears,
and Donut says thanks for helping us murder the bad guys.
And bad guys who are still here. I hope you
go home and have your children, because you got really,
really lucky. They're not really going home, Milk whispered to me.
Apparently the embargo was still in place. Your warriors are
headed back to homecoming Queen. The other mercenaries, I don't know,
and Carl says, if their masters do send them back
in here, I think they'll end up regretting it, So
I guess we shall have to see. I don't know
how it is like with the mercenaries, you know, like
them being pulled out. They're tech like. I don't understand
why they're But this is all part of the weird
rule set as well, so let's see. Twenty seconds, Sledge
announced Juice Box I will be leaving approximately ten seconds
after every everyone else. I'm going to the twelfth, but
Justice Light and I are taking a long way. It's okay, Carl,
trust me, you'll like this one. And let's see. I
turned to see the Dwarf had finished building the statue
that had broken in front of the castle. The statue
was of Dwarf a goddess assault the vinegar bitch. I remembered,
now she was the now dead goddess of this place.
Paz had killed her during that fight at the end
of the previous floor, and the moment before everything flashed
and disappeared, my eyes focused on the giant axe, the
giant pick axe over the goddess's shoulder. So is that
what's possessed? Is that vinegar bitch still out here? Is
that what we're dealing with? System message? Both warlords Ferdinand
and Juice Box have left the realm. They have abandoned
their posts and forfeited. Team Retribution has been defeated. The
Princess Posse has one faction wars and here in the
text it just says congratulations, champions. But I must say
that the narrator added some editorial congratulations champions, and there
were real quotation marks around it, like the AI was
not impressed at all, which does make sense. But I
just wanted to mention it because I find it funny
that evidently that's just purely the way the narrator was like, yeah,
I don't think the AI would like this, so he
just decided to add his own little like razzle dazzle
to that moment. So oh right, sorry, Michael says, don't
it has the equipment that lets her eat magic items
and turn them to stats, and Seraphim says, yeah, it's
the same as Pony did with his ring, so the
ring is gone completely. Forgot about that, right, right, right,
right right? So yeah, I'm way over time. I've got
to go. I have another one starting in like five minutes.
But thank you guys again for joining me. Appreciate you all.
Until next time to the Loo, motherfuckers. That was an
Unspoiled Network podcast.