Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
covering Dungeon Crawler Carl Book five, The Butcher's Masquerade, chapters nine, ten, eleven,
and twelve. In these chapters, we've got traps that are
killing crawlers. We have got a town full of bug bears,
we have got a town full of other bears. But
of course the main event here are the dinosaurs and
you know that thing that happens. Welcome to spoil Me.
Welcome to the show everyone. I am Natasha. Thank you
very much to Jackie for commissioning this episode. Yeah, this
is a this is kind of what's the word I
want to describe this group of chapters like kind of
frenetic a little bit. It just feels like there's a
lot going on in a lot of different directions, and it's, Uh,
I'm really enjoying this so far. I will say, you know,
a few recordings ago, I shared that I was not
really into the fourth book as much, and I really
stand by that. Even the opening chapters of that book
felt flattered to me. I don't know why, and this
it just opened with a lot more interest with Carl
being in trouble and there's just been a lot of
Like I think it's because we're on a floor where
now there's hunters. There's a whole new element being added
into the game, new information that we need to learn,
new standards and practices, so to speak, for how the
game works now that we're dealing with these guys. I
think that it just has freshened up the energy of
everything in such a way that it makes it all
a lot more engrossing for me. I'm so sorry. Rob
says it was the sand, too much sand, and like, honestly,
it's not not like y'all. Remember at the end of
the third book, as soon as I saw the door
open and sand come in, I was like, ah shit,
And like, turns out my fears regarding this were born.
So you know. Anyway, we have, starting at the beginning
of chapter nine remaining the hunters one thousand and thirteen
and the crawlers are eighty three thousand, nine hundred and
ninety five. The hunter count had ticked up a few
times in the past few hours, presumably as a few
more last minute stragglers decided to press their luck. I
forgot that people are going to be allowed to register late,
and now what I am thinking, is that somebody is
going to have watched Carl murder a friend or family
member and they had been going to join, but now
they are, and now they're coming at Carl. I do
not think that Carl has necessarily considered this based on
the way he is talking and behaving. I also do
not think that he would give a fuck even if
he didn't know. I don't think it would change anything
he's doing in the slightest, to be honest. In fact,
I think he'd be like, nice, bring it. There's a
feeling of maybe him trying to goad people into doing
exactly this. Perhaps I don't know, but uh yeah, it
was just something that I noticed that he doesn't seem
to actually put into words as like a possibility. So
they have a map of the layout of the floor
and they're figuring out exactly what they want to do,
and it turns out that it's a hundred thousand square
kill kilometers this floor, which is bonkers, Like it's just
I can't even understand how big that is, to be honest,
And he says, how big is this really from edge
to edge? And she says it's about four hundred something
kilometers from north to south, so two hundred and fifty
miles and about three hundred something kilometers from east to west.
The river end to end is about five hundred kilometers,
but that's only because it's not straight. And he points
out the roads and the bridges, and he says, I
want you to take all the bridges out except for
this one. And I love this as an idea already.
I am curious what kind of abilities people might have
for rebuilding bridges, and you know, like you know, we
have Katya for example, and her ability she could make
herself into a bridge. So probably there are people who
have abilities that would allow them to pass in certain areas.
If you can fly, if you have you know, underwater breathing,
or if you can freeze things and walk across the
ice on top, like, there are still going to be
ways to cross, but taking out the bridges and like
really taking them out, that will help concentrate things probably
in certain areas. So yeah, let's do it. He gets
a message or he actually gets in touch with Miriam himself,
and he asks if she's come across a lot of
traps and she says not really. The caravans make their
way up and down this road and their bodyguards cast
anti trap spells as they travel. That was so hard
to say, and he's like, oh, okay, well that's nice.
We needed to map out the regular caravan roots and
add them to the community map, and I was like,
this is all so organized. Love this Is there a
town near the bridge, Yes, a very big town. It's
about forty kilometers from where you are now. It's where
we started, a large ersine settlement just on the other
side of the river. Be careful if you go. They're
very peculiar there. We have to put Bianca away when
we enter, which makes sense because they, it turns out,
are like weirdly fundamentalist about some things. But then we
jump to the next sestion with Donut arguing about using
Bomo as a suicide bomber and that they should not
be doing this, and Carl is like, he's not actually
gonna die, We'll see him on the next floor. And
also he actually seemed kind of excited about this, and
there's like the beginning of the conversation. Then we have
like several paragraphs in the middle of it where Carl
is internal monologuing explaining what his plan is, and then
the conversation picks back up again after that explanation, and
Donut says, I could make a clockwork Bomo if we
just changed the you know what party he's in and
how that works. And he's like, oh, that's a really
good idea. And she says, you underestimate me, Carl, this
is why you need to let me know the plan.
And I fully agree with her. I'm not saying that,
you know, the way that she's saying this is going
to work is going to go perfectly or anything, but
I really agree that, like Carl is just so self
absorbed in a lot of ways that he is squandering
some of the resources that he has. And one of
those resources is a partner who has spells that he
doesn't seem to consider. You know. So anyway, uh, I
was going to load Bomo up with a very large bomb,
send him ounta into the safe room, have him step outside,
and blow the shit out of the town. This would
be a bigger explosion than last time, much bigger. I
wanted him to do it when there was only about
a half hour left on the timer, so more hunters
would be outside now that we could chat again safely.
I'd been relaying the plan to Donut. Anyone who'd been
paying attention could probably figure this out, but that was okay.
Boma would put the wheeled bomb out of the personal
space and emerge in a safe room, and there wasn't
anything anybody could do about it. The only way to
stop him would be to block the door off and
keep him from exiting out onto the street. If that
was the case, it would require resources and teamwork. And
I had the impression none of these guys were too
keen to work together, and I thought that was a
likely observation to me that rings true, that it's just like, look,
if they work together, they could really fuck me up.
But I just don't see them doing that because they're assholes,
you know what? There Actually, I probably so the bomb.
There's like some mentions of this stuff called nitro sledge
and using that and it being a much more intense
bomb because of that, and it's like five feet tall.
It's a big bomb for good measure. I also imbued
it with fear because why not? And honestly, the fact
that he even asked why not made me kind of
go uh oh, because like you asked that sort of question,
because the authors is like, oh, I'll tell you why
not later. Later you'll find out why not. That felt
like a warning. I feel like maybe imbuing it with
fear is going to have some kind of bonkers like consequence.
People do crazy shit when they're really scared, you know,
so like I just I'm interested, I'm interested. Bomo rumbled
behind him. The sledge made a disapproving sound. He wasn't
mad that Bomo was possibly doing this. He was upset
that Bomo didn't want him playing Frogger while he was gone,
because he didn't want him to beat his score, which
meant the sledge would have to go two weeks without playing.
This was very funny to me, and Carl is like,
maybe I'll make him like a big controller to play
other games with me. And I didn't realize that he
had that kind of ability, but cool if he can.
So they step out of their personal space and immediately
encounter a bugbear that says you're kind or not welcome here,
And at first I was like, oh no, what what
like how did word already get out? Or you know,
I don't know exactly your kind what this means, but
Carl correctly judges that it's humans that came before this
bugbear has an issue with and he says, we're not
the ones who destroyed your town. Actually, we're going to
kill those guys, and the bug bear is like, oh, well,
then that's fine. I appreciated that Carl clocked what was
happening right away because I wasn't. And they're not actually bears.
Their neighbors and rivals that you're signed are happy to
point this out every chance they get. You gotta treat
a bug bear like you would treat the enormous drunk
guy at the end of the bar. It could go
either way. He'll either want to fight you or be
your buddy, and there ain't no way to predict which
one it'll be. And Carl warns him they're gonna be
out and about again by the end of the night,
so you were going to want to prep for that,
and the bug bears like, oh, we'll fucking be ready. WHOA,
don't worry about that, and I believe him. So they're
planting minds as they go through the jungle. They'd only
be triggered by hunters. I want to know how he
did that. There's got to be something in his like
abilities or his spell where he can do that, but
I don't remember what it is, and I that is
just such a specific and helpful distinction. I want to
know how he managed it, because I cannot recall this
ability being mentioned. So this is when Carl gets the
notification that his god embrace has come to the realm,
and he gets one later about him leaving, and eventually
we find out that there's like a whole group that
has been made into worshipers, so that Carl, I don't
think it's that he can't kill them, but that it'll
be a real fucking problem if he kills them. So
that's off the menu for now. So they get to
this stream with a bridge across and are entering the
settlement and they encounter a couple couple of mushroom guards
who don't want to let them in because there is
a no dinosaur policy. There is a no dinosaur policy
along with another it says consider yourself lucky. This list
is short. Town rules. Failure to heat any will result
in immediate decapitation. No fighting, no alcohol, no illicit drugs,
no magic on the streets, no dancing or singing outside
of a temple, no one really children, no gambling of
any kind, no stealing, no littering, no swearing, no sexual
activity outside the sanctity of marriage. No macoux of any
breed unless escorted by a dryad, no naias, no half
quartered nayad mongrels. All high hols must register their presence
at the guard headquarters. All bugmaners must take at bath
in the river we're entering, and then register at the
Guard headquarters. Feuneral bells will provide soap, absolutely positively. No
dinosaurs of any kind, no exceptions. And she tells one
of the guards give me the person in charge immediately,
and they go and do it because she has the
charisma to make them do shit. And Carl, for his part,
is like, just to put mango in the pet carriers
so we can get in the town. And Donut is like,
the fuck I will this is racist. He is a
good boy, and there is no goddamn way that I'm
going to cave to these assholes. And I love that
the first thing we hear, the earth sign that gets summoned,
who's the mayor saying is no, no, no, this is
not real royalty. I was sort of curious whether Donut
would be able to persuade him that she was real
royalty if she talked to him for long enough because
of her charisma. But we don't wind up taking that
tack here. I really thought we were. I thought that
was going to be part of you know, but no
sign or forty nine percent bare fifty one percent racist
uncle who works for the irs and has to hide
his erection when he prepares for an audit. I have
nothing against those who choose to live a saint in
the existence, or those who choose to find hope and
peace and comfort and in comfort in a life of
purity and virtue. Actually that's a lie. I hate these
smug fucksticks because of the God's damn hypocrisy. It'd be
one thing if these hairy bitches practice what they preach,
but all their rules and self righteousness is nothing but
a shiny even ear covering up the fact they're just
as rusted and immoral and imperfect as the rest of us.
If internet porn was a thing in the Dungeon, there'd
be no doubt these were pest assholes would be the
number one connoisseurs of no mish, femdon porn or something
of the like. Well, except maybe after the gingers from
the seventh floor but you get the idea they think
they're better than everybody else. It's and then in italics,
it's just like those other new shiny AI iterations with
their clean lines and error replaced nets. Fuck you all.
And Carl has been like copy pasting descriptions into his notes,
and when he copy pastes this later, that little addendum
about the AI doesn't paste, which is very interesting. It
makes me think the AI is somehow communicating explicitly with
Carl and not just giving him regular descriptions. That there's
like he's editorializing in a way that other people can't
necessarily see or don't necessarily get when they look at
the same description. And I'm not really sure what it means,
but it's certainly interesting. If repressed sexuality and caged instinct
was verified, you would get the air sign. After School
of Pendra's destruction, the only surviving aer sign were the
clerics that resulted in the four normally brutal society evolving
into something like that town from the movie Footloose, which
is definitely what I was thinking when I saw that list.
I haven't even seen Footloose, and I still thought of
that they want a utopia. If you don't look at
the fraying edges. It's clear they've somewhat succeeded. So he
says to Carl, says to Donut, oh, you're a genius actually,
and Donut says, yes, Carl, I know I am a genius.
Now I don't know if she is actually aware of
what she did here. It's hard to tell her being like, yeah,
I know, I'm a genius. I mean, she would just
say that, you know, so it's hard to tell. But
he says, Yankee doodle into the river, and she's like,
first of all, that requires Katchya. Secondly, there are guards here,
and he says, well, we're outside of town limits, so
I don't think they're going to do anything. And I
can do the part that Katcha does and we can
run to a safe room if it doesn't work. So Elmer,
the mayor bear approached us angrily. And I noticed something odd.
That weird line in the middle of the description. The
other about ais wasn't there after I pasted the text.
So yeah, so he Elmer says, you can't bring your
lizard into town. Of course, there's some back and forth
with Donut about this and rules for a reason and
then he accuses Donut herself of being a monkey, which
she handles as well as you would expect, and then
finally Elmer is like, I mean, dude, and he's saying
this to Carl, if you want us to kill the
dinosaur and the monkey, we can do that, and Carl
decides to play along and be like, yeah, kill them.
Fuck them, they are really annoying. So he offers a
bunch of money to get Elmer to take it and
step toward him outside of the city limits, and then
Donut casts astral paw and shoves him, and it's very
funny because like they thought they were going to have
to do a bunch of extra stuff in order to
get him to die from being pushed, but they don't.
He dies very quickly with very little ceremony, and he
follows at the edge of the river, and almost immediately
a naiad jumps out and takes his body before they
can loot it or anything. And when Donah is later
talking about changing all of the rules of the town,
she says something about like, well, bug bears do stink,
so I'm gonna leave that rule, and Carl's like, no,
You've got to change that because that rule is there
for the bug bears to get eaten by the Naiads.
It's just to get them to the edge of the
river where they're gonna get got, which honestly I should
have realized, but I didn't. So good on you, Carl.
I appreciated that, so Donuh says I got credit for that?
Does that mean? And I was like, oh shit, I
love Carl wanting to be a mayor, but Dona getting
to be a mayor is pretty fun. And one of
the first things later that she's like, I wonder if
I can do this is can I paint the buildings
different colors? And honestly, I just relate to her so much.
It's just like, I'm gonna make all of the rules
a lot more fair. And also the esthetic really needs
some attention. Yep, yep, right there with your girlfriend. So
they go into their personal space here and Carl is
giving her some instructions about like what she's gonna get
now that she's in control, and he says, we need
to do this now and then we'll need to get
to work on making the guards set up to defend
the city. Oh all right, donut sat, everybody step back.
Bomo has to open the door and stand on the edge.
Then I'll cast the clockwork triplicate, so the minions appear
outside the room in that weird space where all the
doors are. Bomo will hand him the car and get
back inside, and then clock where Bomo will roll it
outside and you can set it off. Which this sounds
like it would work great. But when they open the door,
there's a note stuck in place with a knife. Mordecai says,
don't touch that knife, which I'm wondering what that's about.
I'm not sure if that question gets answered here, I
don't remember it. But he takes the paper off of
it without touching the knife. And this is a message
from Raw, which is I'm pretty sure the man's just
woman who ate that guy's brother who was a janitor
earlier on, who was a former crawler, and she is
basically like all of the hunters have our worshiping embrass
now and if you do this, you're just gonna kill
a bunch of NPCs. And I know how important they
are to you, Like there's a very snotty like you're
precious NPCs, as entertaining as it would be for you
to get smoked by your own God. I much prefer
for you to remain alive. The hive is hunting you,
and there will be nowhere for you to hide. We
are coming. I am coming. Your death will not be quick.
I will crack you open and drink your innerds slowly,
one organ at a time, as every nerve in your
soft body crackles with endless pain. The universe will watch
as you suffer and beg for a death that will
not come until the very end. And then I will
take your head home with me and place it upon
my sister's grave so she may feast upon you in
the afterlife. She seems nice. Donut send, I pulled a
pin from my inventory and wrote, come and get it, bitch.
I crumpled up the paper and tossed it at the door.
So then they get the announcement that the hunters are loose. Run, Run, Run,
and we start chapter eleven, and it turns out that
Donut has to change out her charm and she doesn't
want to do it because she likes the butterfly one.
And she's like, I mean, honestly, all of this, I
really deeply understand, I just do Stupid Angel the cocker
spaniel had like four or five tags on her collar.
She jingled like a bunch of rusty cowbells being dumped
down the stairs whenever she walked. It had been instrumental
in defeating the first Krakharen boss. It gave plus one
to intelligence and plus four to Donut the light on
your feet skill, which helps her jump. Her skill was
still ten with the charm, and she could still sail
through the air like an acrobat without it, just not
as much, which was unfortunate. And the new one is turquoise,
which she says, do I look like an elderly woman
with smoke stained teeth sitting in a bingo hall? Which
that is unfair to Turquoise, But okay, fine. It wasn't required.
The charm wasn't required to enter the settlement menu and
change stuff around. As we quickly learned, I'd already received
a notification she'd changed the name from large Ersine Settlement
to Point Mango. The system had also changed her name
to Mayor Donut, but she'd quickly changed it back to princess. However,
Mordecai said if she wanted to order the guards around,
she needed to be wearing the charm. The benefits were
much better anyway. Each jewel encrusted upon this charm represents
the settlement old in control by the bear, which is
this is some liter the thing that Carl got. In
order to upgrade this necklace, you must first consert conquer
an extra large sized settlement plus eight to dexterity, plus
four to intelligence plus snitch. Level ten tax has received
three five and ninety two gold every ten days, which
is pretty significant, and snitch is if you are in
a settlement, activating the scale will immediately alert all the
town's guards, who will start to move to your location.
At level five, a single guard will be immediately teleported,
and at ten it'll be five, and at fifteen all
the town's guards will be summoned to you. At ten,
guards may be summoned up to one kilometer outside the
city limits, and at level fifteen this will work with
any settlement. Warning, summoning the guards doesn't mean that they'll
do what you want. Plus there's no cool down, so
but this is something that you don't want to abuse
because they can get really cranky, interesting, very very helpful.
If we can level it up, especially, that's the main thing.
And in order to level something like this up. You've
got to use it. Ah, that's tough, you know what
I'm saying. I'm I am really curious how much he's
going to utilize this. So Carl gets a notification here
that a trap has killed a hunter and he got
a gold Hunter Killer box, and he is like, oh damn,
that's great, but also recognizes that those traps were set
somewhat close to where they currently are, so they're moving
way faster than he was really expecting. The Gold Hunter
Killer Box contained thirty five thousand gold and a fat
modeled gray hand of a hunter who'd been named Jagie.
I held the trophy up to the ceiling. Hey, I said,
wave the fat hand. If any of Jagie's family or
friends are watching this, you can go fuck yourselves and
maybe next time, if someone you know wants to go
hunting innocent people for fun, you can tell them about
how your idiot friend or son or dad once tried
it and ended up dying on the first day. My my, my,
I'm not mad at it, not at all, honestly. So Katya,
she like messages him with information about the guilds and
how they function, and it turns out that like Carl,
and Donut both have said they don't want the responsibility
of initiating because that means that they're the guild master,
and Kashi doesn't want to do it either. IMMANI doesn't
really want to do it. Ellie says, like I think
if you ask, she will, but she doesn't seem to
want to, and It says, let's see, we'll have to
pool some money if we want to share the upgrades,
and if you want to keep the training room. One
of Batista's guys already has a stables upgrade that Donut
will want the moment she sees it, and I'm super
curious about that. So Karl is over here busy arming
all of the guards, giving them a missile launcher. At
this particular moment. In the distance, a group of Ursine
watched as I passed out the weapons to the guards.
Mordecai was there amongst them, speaking with a robed cleric
bear who was gesticulating and shouting down at a tiny
little Mordechai who was shouting back, and it mentions that
Donut has named one of the funeral bells miss Nance,
and the other Denalo, and I don't know if these
are references. I think they have to be because they're
so specific, but I don't know it for And there's
a little bit more discussion with Katya about like the
dynamics of the group and that the personalities are kind
of clashing. They're doing the best they can, but it
sounds tense to me. And let's see, the Ursine is
saying you have to reinstitute the Naiad and dinosaur rules immediately.
We live on the edge of the river. They're always
attacking always, but they're not as bad as the lizards.
Those things are the worst. They're always trying to get
into town to eat us. And now that we're being
led by a pagan monkey with a pet dinosaur, we
are not protected by the gods. We have been safe
only because we do not sin. If you refuse to
reinstitute the Holy Shield of Piety and order, then you'll
have to go out there and do something about the
dinosaur menace. Shit, Mordecai mumbled. The moment the cleric guy
finished his rand, he turned to look at me and donut. Sorry, guys,
he said, she bishly, that was an accident. I was
about to ask him what he meant when the notification
came New Quest the recital, and it's about finding out
what the hell is going on with these dinosaur attacks.
Why are they attacking? And they later on me get
information about how they didn't They weren't even here until
that other attack that happened like years and years ago.
And if they do it, they get a gold quest
box and a town upgrade, which Mordecai isn't sure what
that is. He does mention too that Donuts Town menu
is a lot more involved than any he's ever seen,
and that there are a lot of changes that he's
already noticed on this floor that has him kind of
wondering what's going on because he thought he knew exactly
how this all was going to go, and he's getting
some surprises, even in his own menu has changed. So
at this point, Donut is on Mongo's back and Mongo
zips away the way that he did once somebody had
cast that spell that summoned pets to them. So she's
on his back, and of course she isn't gonna jump down.
She won't leave him. Karl is so annoyed and it's
so funny. Later on there's a moment where he tells her,
like you know how you feel about Mongo. That's how
I feel about you. And I really wish that Carl
would keep that a little bit more in mind, that
she sees things that way when it comes to things
like this where he's telling her to abandon Mongo. I know,
I get what he means about like Mongo will be fine,
you know, but like he wouldn't leave Donut if she
were surrounded by a bunch of cats just because they're
also cats, Like he just gets so annoyed with Donut.
But also if he put himself in her shoes and
Mango were Donut, I know exactly how he'd be and
it would be like this, you know, And it's he
just doesn't really keep that in mind very well because
he gets so frustrated. So they take off through the
jungle with Carl in close pursuit behind them, and they
come across a pack of dinosaurs. And when I say
a pack, it is not the like four or five
of just like Jurassic Park movie forty pairs of eyes.
Now I want to mention that they are wearing clothing.
Some of them, like one of them has a shawl.
I am thinking that maybe these guys are like people
that got transformed somehow I don't know, but something is
really weird with them. And honestly, as soon as they
like come across these guys, I was not worried. It's
unfortunate that I was so not worried, because I think
the tension would have made this scene feel more urgent.
But because I was so sure that things were going
to work out, I felt like it actually dragged a
little bit and went on a little bit too long.
And like understandably, initially, both him and Dona are very
worried because Mango is significantly lower level than all of
these guys. Plus there's forty of them, you know, and
Carl keeps telling her like, we really need to go,
and she won't hear him and is calling out softly
to Mo. And then there is a sorry if you
heard that, guys, my dogs. Then there is a particular
dinosaur that steps forward and he gets a description of
Kiwi level sixty. They say, an asteroid is what wiped
out the dinosaurs on this planet. I don't think that's
true if Kiwi and her pack of voracious, slightly insane
velociraptors are even remotely like what you had roaming around
way back in the late Cretaceous period. I'm pretty sure
what really happened is that these ladies simply killed everyone
and everything. This is Kiwi, the head bitch in charge
of the jungle's fastest, most vicious, most clever predators, the
mongoliansis Take a gang of women convicts from a nineteen
seventies prison movie, combine them with a coalition of cheetahs
and a shoal of angry piranhas, and you have a
vague notion of just how screwed you are. This particular
path is comprised of only females. In fact, it appears
all the dinosaurs in the area are female. That's pretty odd,
almost interesting. And here's an even more interesting, seemingly random,
but probably important fact. Dinosaur class monsters didn't exist in
the area before Scolopendro's nine tier attack. Yet here they are.
Where did they come from? If you weren't about to
die screaming, it would be something you might want to
look into. And then warning, this is a lizard class mob.
It will inflict twenty percent more damage against you thanks
to your extinct extinction sigil. And yes, I know dinosaurs
aren't really lizards. If we're being super technical get over it,
which I'd liked that because I immediately was like, they're not
lizards though, and then called me out appreciated it. So, yeah,
I'm curious about this because, like you know, Jurassic Park,
the whole thing was like, oh, they made them all
females so that they couldn't reproduce, but nature finds a way,
And I am wondering if there is something to that here,
if this is like a reference. I don't know, but yeah,
I uh, like I said, I just was not worried
about this. Carl is telling Donut to cast snitch, and
I just was like, bro, I just feel like that
would make things so much worse. To me. That was
like a bad call. And she ignores him, and I'm glad,
but it just seemed to me like the guards, you
don't even know that they're gonna have stealth at all
when they come towards you in the jungle. You're over
here hiding in the leaves, trying to like maybe slip
away without being seen, and you're gonna ask a bunch
of dudes in armor with weapons to just come to
you in the jungle, like either you're gonna give yourself
away or you're hoping that they will be enough of
a distraction that the dinosaurs will all attack them, but
either way, it just felt like a bad call. So
this is when Kiwi does this call that forces it's
a It has a magical effect of making it so
that Carl cannot step away in any direction. He can
move his upper body, apparently he can move his arms,
but not his legs. So he drinks an invisibility potion
and tells Donut to have one, and she, instead of
doing that, almost like jumps out into the fight. Because
this is when Donut and Kiwi head toward each other.
And as soon as they had started the call that sound,
I was like, oh, okay, they're mating. That's what's happening.
And it's pretty quick that this is revealed to us,
like you know, and Donut very much like clutching her
pearls at her sweet young boy and how he's been
tempted away by this Jezbel. We haven't even had the
talk yet. She's taking advantage of him, and she's convinced
that like, as soon as they're done mating, Kiwi's gonna
kill him too, Which there's no reason to think that
with these guys they're not Mantis's. And she even blames
Carl and says, you and all your constant sex talk
has turned him into a pervert, which is hilarious because
like Carl never talks about sex ever almost ever. So yeah,
I don't know what you're talking about there, girl, But
and let's see. Uh. I could still see the other
red dots just on the other side of the clearing.
They could easily catch us, but none were moving in
our direction. Yet we had to hurry, Mango, come back
to mommy. As soon as you're done, don'tnut called defeated,
I turned and jogged back to the town CenTra and
still clutching onto Donut. As soon as he gets back,
he's going into his cage. I'm turning the no Dinosaur
rull back on Donut grumbled, which does kind of work out.
So they go into this pub and he is trying
to calm her down, and she's like, what if he
doesn't come back, we need to go out there, and
she's really freaking out and Carl is seeing it and
it's just like, look, I've seen her upset, but this
is something like did somebody put a spell that's affecting you?
Like maybe fear or something like that. And she keeps saying,
what if he doesn't come back? And finally, I'm really scared, Carl,
And he says, I know, and that's okay. And she says,
you don't understand. It's getting worse every day, and he says,
talk to me. She looked as if she wanted to run,
like that look she got whenever somebody ran the vacuum
cleaner or bathtub donut. I said, changing tactics, it's okay,
tell me when you're ready. We'll just sit here and
wait for Mango to come back. We didn't have time
for this, but I didn't know what else to do.
Doughnut was completely useless when she got into panic mode,
and worse, she was a danger to both of us.
I had to figure this out. I just really want
to point out how fucked up this is. He doesn't
say I'm genuinely worried about her. He doesn't say I
want to know what's going on. He says, we don't
have time, but she's useless otherwise and a danger, so
I have to. I don't care for it. I understand
being practical, you guys know, I do, and sometimes to
my own detriment. I am overly practical. I get frustrated
with characters who are not. But here is a moment
where we are in his head, and if he really
gave a shit, it would be there, and it feels
like it's not there now. Later, the way the conversation goes,
it seems to me like we get a resolution that
indicates he does give a shit, but it takes too
long and there's too much performance happening, and I don't
trust it. And I'm not saying that Karl doesn't care
about donut. Okay, I'm not saying that, but I am
saying that I am feeling like there is something happening
to him that I don't like just pointing it out.
So finally she says, I'm supposed to pretend like I
don't know, and I was doing good, but then Mongo
ran off and it just came out of nowhere, Like
that time Miss Beatrice got in the car accident when
we were on our way back from the Cat Show,
and I'd been asleep and then suddenly there was this
big bang and I slammed against the side of the carrier,
and even though I wasn't hurt, it really, really scared me.
And when I thought Mango was going to get eaten,
it felt like that crash all over again. You have
to pretend like you don't know what, I asked, What
does that mean? I can't. She took a breath. Everybody
always leaves me, and I don't know why. Am I
really that awful? Where is this coming from? That's not
true at all, I said, Katcha left us, she said,
and you're doing more and more dangerous things. And I
told Mordecai it was okay, but it's not. You're going
to die because you're stupid and you don't even care
what happens to me. Mango is going to leave for
some hussy. And then and then she stopped, what but
she just shook her head. I looked at her, confused,
trying to puzzle it out. Before we'd gone out there
and started organizing the town guards, I'd gone into the
crafting room to build a few more of the missile launchers.
Donut had trained to the magic room, working on her
laundry day spell. And then what she'd been on the
social media board reading comments, did somebody say something that
upset you? Somebody online? Her eyes started to shine and
I knew I was right. Her mouth quavered. Zev. Hey, guys, Carl,
bad timing, Zev. Zev, I just wanted to quickly touch base.
We rearrange the schedule a little. You'll be visiting with
Outdette later today. Try not to schedule a boss battle
or anything during that time, and Dona asks if everything
is cool, and then Zev, I want to also remind you, Carl,
you'll be receiving some extra scrutiny before you go into
the trailer, which I'm assuming is going to be like
a fucking cavity search. And then you'll be fine because
you're both really strong and brave, especially you Donut. And
Carl is like, okay, thanks Zev, but we're busy, so
kindly leave us be. But the moment I sent the message,
I realized that timing was no coincidence. Zev rarely interrupted
us when we were in the middle of something, especially drama.
I knew Zev and Donut were somehow communicating via the
social media board, but I had no idea how, and
I had no way of safely asking her without putting
everybody in danger. Zev's uncharacteristic interruption was a not so
subtle warning to drop it and get a chance to
ask both of them freely when we were in the
production trailer, and it was so funny because like the
way that he interpreted this wasn't where I was going
with it at all. I instantly thought that it was
Zev trying to comfort Donut and be like, hey, I'm here,
and you're both really strong and brave, you know, like
this was I didn't see what he meant. And I
think Carl's right for the record, like this is not
me saying I disagree. It's just that I came to
a different conclusion than him, and once I stopped to
think about it, I was kind of like, oh, that
would make sense. Shit, you know. So he shifts the
conversation away from the message board. But I'm wondering if
somebody has said something about B. It's weird because we
know bees alive, and I'm wondering if there's been some
news shared about that of people who are fucking with her,
or like, I don't know who knows what out there.
I don't know what Odet's up to with B in
the first place. I feel like she is gearing up
to do something kind of underhanded that she sees as
ultimately helpful but is in the short term quite exploitative.
I feel like that's sort of Odette's whole bag, to
be honest. It's like, I'm gonna do my best to
help you, but in the meanwhile, I am going to
make my fucking money and you are not going to
get in the way of my bag. So here it is.
He says, donut, I'll consult you. I'm not going to
leave you. And she says, but what about the ninth floor,
And we are reminded of the whole thing with the
sepsis whoror and how everybody who is it says royal
members of the blood Sultan that will be required to
slay the Sultan and all the other members of the
royal family before descending to the tenth floor. And he says,
we'll deal with it when we get there, and she
gives him a look and he realizes I've been saying that,
And then we have that feeling that ceaseless river within
my mind roared, something within me broke, A decision was made.
I thought of my mother holding my hand as we
stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon. I thought
of my father in the car behind us, waiting a
tidal wave of potential energy. This was the same. This
was the same exact moment. I didn't know how I
knew that, but it was you can do that. I thought,
you can recognize these moments when they appear. You know,
it didn't occur to me, you guys, that whole thing
with the Grand Canyon, because at the time, I think
I mentioned how my father would stay very apart from
things and it would be me and my mom. But
looking at it now, I am wondering if it had
been we are both on the verge of jumping off,
or my mom is on the verge of jumping off
and bringing me with her. Now I'm kind of understanding
what might have been the tension there in a very
different way than what I originally thought. And this is
when he tells her, how worried you are about Mango
is how I feel about you, And she says, really,
do you really mean that? Her voice was so full
of genuine longing that it hurt my heart. I know
I haven't said this to you directly before, and I'm
sorry that I haven't, But I will not leave you
behind on the ninth or any other floor, I promise you, Okay,
we are a team and nothing is going to break
us up, no matter what, no matter what, no matter what.
We held that way for several moments. Doughnut trembled, and
I realized I was trembling too. Anybody watching this from
the outside wouldn't understand what had just happened. That was okay,
some things weren't meant for others to understand. So, like
I said, I believe this is real, this moment, that
he does really care about her, that he is committing,
and that he is like we are in this together.
But it just bothered me the way that it started
and how he was thinking when he went into it,
And I feel like it is indicative of something going
on with him on another level that is making him colder,
and it's worrying, you know. So Doughnut comes home at
this point and interrupts their whole thing. Mango like passes
out because he's super tired, and then Donut says that
the dinosaurs that she can see their dots have turned white,
but for Carl they're still red. So evidently her being
like Mango's mommy has gotten her some goodwill from them,
so that they are at least neutral, which might be
very helpful. And she's looking out and she says, there's
more out there. They weren't there before, but there's a
really big one. It turned around and it's moving away.
I don't know if it makes a difference, but I
believe you're correct. I better turn the no dinosaur rule
back on. I caught a glint of something in the forest,
like light shining off of prism. Just as I tried
to focus on the light, the day became dark and
it started to rain. So yeah, I'm wondering if there's
like something out there that did this to people, you know?
And she says, do you think she got pregnant? And
Carl just says most definitely, which I find very funny.
There's no way to know that, but like you know,
gut instincts. So then we get new achievement double billed.
You are one of the first five crawlers to receive
double billing. I bet you don't know what that means.
This is similar to switchovers, but this time it's on purpose.
I bet that didn't help at all. Reward you have
received a platinum fan box, and it turns out Donut
didn't get this achievement. So that's interesting to me that
it's only Carl that got it, and I'm wondering what
that is about. I cursed, took a deep breath, and
padded donut. The rain was getting heavier by the moment,
and it pelted into us. Are we good? No more
panic attacks? Really, Carl, I don't know what you're talking about. Good.
I said, time to get back to work, and that
is the end of the chapter. So yeah, I have
a lot of questions, the fact that I can't remember
what the note from that bitch said, uh Vra. But
did she have all the other Hunters become worshipers of
embrass or like her own group of whoever happens to
be following her, Because like, I just want to say
that if it's everybody that's genius, I don't think that
it's possible, more than likely for her to influence everybody.
Probably it's just like a group that she has. Oh,
Saraphim says, not the Hunters, the NPC guards in the town.
Oh right, thank you. I was thinking it was the Hunters.
I actually I don't know if the Hunters can worship
any god. Is that something that's an option for them.
I have to assume it's an option. But yeah, I
that is a real sneaky little move there, My goodness.
I wonder how she managed it from where she was
because they weren't out yet, So how did she do that? Like,
I don't know, I'm I feel like there's a piece
of information in there that's like maybe kind of important
that I either don't know or am missing. Michael says
she was the mayor of the town. Oh right, the
city where he It's not where they are, right. I
keep forgetting that, Like, you know, there's this teleportation magic
that allows them to attack that spot right right, right right.
It's such a shame. Man. That would have been so
effective if he had been able to pull it off.
I appreciate that somebody is like a step ahead of him.
I want that in a story like this, you know,
but it would have really been a hell of a moment.
And I can't help but like a part of me
just being hmm, I wanted to see it, you know
what I'm saying. Anyway, I just really I'm worried about him.
I feel good about the conversation with Dona in general.
I think that she believes him I think that he
is telling the truth. It's interesting to me that he
hadn't actually made up his mind yet, because I don't
know about y'all. But when he said we'll deal with
it when we get there, I was very much interpreting
that as like, we'll deal with the implications of killing
them when we get there, not we will deal with
whether I stay in your party when we get there.
So him having to spell it out that he isn't
leaving her, it's not just that he has to spell
it out. It's that because, like you know, sometimes people
just need reassurance. But we're in his head and so
we see that he hadn't actually decided that yet. This
is something that he is coming to this conclusion as
we are in his mind, and he is deciding to
say it out loud and commit himself. I genuinely thought
that we were here already, that he was already thinking
he was never going to leave donut. I'm not mad
at him, you know, but I am a little startled
by it. I just assumed. So let's see, Sarahim says, Yeah,
Carl was just trying to focus on the current issue
of surviving the floor and didn't want to worry about
later potential trouble with Michael said, I think it was
part of that. Initially Carl thought she was getting upset
over something he considered minor. He didn't realize she was
really upset about something deeper. That's fair, Sarahim says, I
gather it's less he ever thought of him doing it,
as he just never thought of it at all. Maybe
it just feels like if he has already said we'll
deal with it when we get there, it's come up
enough that he should have been thinking about it, Like
after everything, I would have expected him to have already said,
of course, I'm not leaving you in words, you know.
And like I said, I'm not mad at him over this.
It's just I was just taken aback because in my head,
this decision was made already and we were done, and
finding out that not only is Doughnut unsure, but that
inside Carl's head he even is unsure. I was kind
of floored by that because the idea that he might
walk away because of this, Oh my god, I would
never forgive him. Viewers would never forgive him. There would
be really like, there's no way that he could do
that with this viewerships set up the way that it is,
I just feel like everybody would turn on him, you
know what I'm saying. And I'm not trying to say
like that's the only reason that he would ever stay.
I am just saying like, if you're coming at it
from an angle of like what's best for you, if
you want to be really mercenary about it, what's best
for you is to stay with her anyway. But yeah,
so I'm trying to think of there was something else
here that came up for me that I was like,
it sort of caught my attention, and I can't remember
what it was. Fuck, I feel like it was something
to do with the dinosaurs. But the guild thing is
really interesting to me. And you know, I love the
fact that my assumption one hundred percent was like, oh,
Carl will be the guild master, you know, like I
just once again assume, and turns out that he's already
said like, no, I don't want to do that, which
I think is for the best. He doesn't need to
be in charge of anything anymore, not anymore, but like
anything more than what he's already been in charge of.
This is so much responsibility. It really is and I
just think that's the right call. Do not not wanting
to be in charge. I mean that's a given, don't
I love you? But like honey, no INMANI being potentially
willing to do it if she is asked. Ah, that's
one of those things that like, she is such a
caretaker that a part of me is like, don't ask
her to do that. It's already so much, you know
what I'm saying. But she might be great at it
because she's a caretaker and she has sort of been
somebody who manages the living situation for people in the past,
so she might be perfect for something like this. I
don't know anyway. I just I'm really really interested in
seeing how all of that works, in particular because it
means like new advantages and maybe new toys. The Platinum Fanbox.
Really excited for that. Usually in these books, when we
get the notification of a fanbox, it's like four or
five chapters from when it's mentioned that they finally open it.
So I am assuming that, like the next episode I record,
it won't be in that section. I might be wrong.
If it is, I'm delighted, but I am very very platinum,
Like have they gotten a platinum fanbox before they might
have I feel like they might have of double billing.
The fact that Donut didn't get this, that's what worries me.
If it were an achievement for him and Donut, then
I think she'd get it. But the fact that he
hasn't gotten it, I don't know what the fuck that means.
Like could this have to do with B. They don't
have B though, I don't know what Odette is planning there.
I just and I do want to mention about B
because like when we saw her, this dude who was
with her, what was his name, Luke God, he fucking
sucks so bad. I'm assuming that he is dead at
this point, which is fine. And the way that he
was talking about how she just didn't want to like
work and participate in the in the the community that
was being built, Like this is the sort of thing
where if it were somebody else, I would give the
benefit of the doubt. That the waybe was acting, it
seemed like she had come pretty unhinged and that maybe
she isn't contributing because something cracked and is broken, you know,
And that's still maybe true. But the thing is, I've
heard enough about Bee to really have formed an opinion
Tom of her, and I don't think she deserves the
benefit of the doubt really on anything. Frankly, so I
sort of am just taking it as he describes it
at face value, that she is just spoiled and uncooperative
and self absorbed and a brat. That's pretty much the
way I'm seeing it. And maybe I'm not giving her
enough grace considering everything, but if I'm not, you didn't
earn it by your previous actions. Be There's also you
know the fact that like the way she's singing to
Gravy Boat, it felt very much like everything she was
saying to him about how she was sorry was actually
her apologizing to Carl, and that she has a lot
of regrets about how all of that went down. And
it's very hard for me to have any sympathy for
that because the thing that happened was that after she
had been like cheating on him for years, he finally
dumped her. So it's very surprised, Pikachi face. There were
consequences for what I was doing. And honestly, if the
only thing that brought you to your senses was being dumped,
you don't care about him at all. It's not about him.
So like this this thing that I think is happening
where she's like transposing her guilt onto this cat, keep it,
keep your guilt. It's worth nothing, and I don't buy
it anyway, you know. But anyway, Yeah, she's either way
a disaster right now. And I don't know what happens
if they do get her face to face with Carl,
Like I genuinely can't imagine what he would do, how
Donut would react, Like I genuinely I don't know. I'm
not even sure if that's something that's like in the
cards anytime soon. It might have been just a tease
that gets drawn out for a while, and it's not
until like two books from now that anything happens, you know. Anyway.
So I'm gonna wrap up, but I appreciate you all
so much for coming and hanging out with me. Thank
you very much for listening. I hope that y'all are
enjoying the coverage. And until next time to the loom, motherfuckers.
That was an unspoiled network podcast