Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
covering Dungeon Crawler Carl book What is This? Seven Yes,
seven chapters eight, nine, ten, and eleven. In these chapters,
we have a kind of wedding, a pre wedding, a
first wedding, and also Carl gets very emotional when he
finds out everything that's been going on behind the scenes,
and he still doesn't even know everything yet. Welcome to
spoil Me, Welcome to the show everyone. I am Natasha.
Thank you very much to Michael for commissioning this episode.
Michael's here in the chat with me as well as
Sarah and Jeff. Hi, Jeff and Rob. Delighted to have
all you guys today. So this section is a real
combination of highs and lows, and there was a point
that we will get to. I was reading this for once.
I was not listening to the audiobook. I was reading
on my kindle and I got I was sitting next
to my husband. I got to the spot and I
stopped and looked at the ceiling to like not cry,
you know that, Like I'm keeping my tears in my
eyes right now, I'm not gonna let them fall. And
they fell anyway, and he like looks at me and
is like, are you okay? And I'm just like really
sad part and then everybody arrives and it was like,
how dare you make me feel so sad and then
feel so hopeful like it's just a rollercoaster, and I,
as somebody who doesn't enjoy feeling resents it and I
hate you, Matt Denneman, so go fuck yourself. So chapter eight,
Dona is explaining about how the she's like planning on
singing at the wedding. She's talking about Mango being a
ring bearer. It turns out the whole way that this
is going to work is really different than the traditional
type of like Western American wedding that she's expecting. And
Carl tells her at this point to like put on
her glasses so that she can see if there's any
change lanes around, because she wants to make He wants
to make sure that they don't get tricked, because they're
going into all of this assuming that the NPCs are
on their side, and I think he pretty much does
trust that they are, but he's not an idiot. It's
always good to just what is it they say? Trust?
But verify. Oh my god, Sarah em says this at
the same time. Perfect. So they go out into the
center of this funnel so that he can see a
lot more of the rings and the architecture and everything,
and he is surprised at the fact that things look
more clean and more lived in than he was expecting.
It not as high. Was flooded and a lot of
it has been drained out since then. But as we
find out, there came a point where Juice Box was like, no, no, no,
leave the rest of this flooded. This is actually helpful
to us us and Jeff says, I hate that trust
woul Verify was a Republican slogan I parroted by Ronald Reagan.
Everything sucks always if you go back far enough. That's
just like the rule of life. My interface is beeping
with others getting recruited. The numbers were slowly, slowly rising.
We had just under three days to get them all,
which for the number of people they're talking about is
that's a lot that they have to I don't know
if we're gonna make it, and that's really worrying. I
don't you've got to make so many people. Sergeants to
be able to get them to recruit. And I'm not
sure what kind of other power that comes with, you know,
like how dangerous is it to do that? I really
don't know, but I want The over city had a
wooden floor that had seemed downright rickety. In some places,
the hunting grounds were jungle and had a solid physical ground. Hell,
there was a deep river running through as supposedly, if
one spent too much time digging up there, one would
break through and fall into this area. It was all fake,
but still it was important to know how it all worked.
And he talks about like the dwarf Arif is saying,
you know, not all of the rings completely circle the city,
and that there are some that are homes, there's some
that's a college. There's an area that's like an outer
ring that's sort of a shanty town that's big enough
to ring everything. And let's see, we had water up
to fifteen for a bit, and now it's only up
to level three, just enough to cover the highest tower
of the castle. Anybody who wants to take that castle's
got to learn how to swim. And he like Carl's
looking and says about just jumping down the center, which
I always appreciate because, like you know, I don't think
anybody has ever gone into a big, old fashioned building
that's got like one of those staircases that circles and
that hasn't looked down and been like, what a great
shortcut to just jump down the center. And of course
that would definitely be on my mind here. And this
is when a Reef says there was another season where
they did do that, and Carl says, oh, another season
and realizes that like, not only is a Reef referring
to himself as an NPC, but he is referring to
the game the way that people who are not NPCs
usually do, and explains, I think I'm new, so I
don't have memories of the others, like not everybody does.
Some NPCs I think are different from each other. But
there are definitely NPCs who remember dozens of seasons, like
my uncle, and that was really interesting. There are so
many varieties of everything, you know, and there are I
think that's part of what I have found a little bit.
It's not, I say overwhelming, but not in a way
that's like a negative exactly. It's more that like it
contributes to this feeling like a larger world and feels
like there's a lot of potential for things that I
can't predict to happen later. But the the idea that
there are so many different types of NPCs. We've got
different crawlers who are still indentured. We've got crawlers who
are indentured with different types of deals also, and the
indentureships have different rules depending, Like there's so many like expectations,
rules and laws that we have to work within, and
different types of awareness and scope that we have to
function within. And that's the way it works. You know,
that is how the world is. But when you are
like encountering it in something like this that you instinctively
want to keep track of everything, it's definitely there's been
a few times where I've had to tell myself, Okay,
I can't get distracted by this because I don't know
what I need to know. When I know it, I
just have to trust that, Like the only reason to
really track anything is to try and predict what's going
to happen, and to a degree, I don't want to
do that. There are sometimes where I like to try
and figure things out, but it's like nice to just
also let stuff happen, so it's fine, So let's see.
I thought of Harret, the cookbook author of the sixteenth edition,
who'd made Waking NPCs up his life's work. I thought
of his final heart wrenching entry in the cookbook, and
I wondered if he'd managed to survive, And if he had,
was he watching this right now? Probably not. If he
was alive, he'd likely still be working in the dungeons somewhere.
He'd wanted to be a game guide. I didn't know
if he'd made it, and I can't remember guys I
have heard. I feel like we heard from Harrot out
in an epilogue at some point, but I genuinely can't recall.
So anyway, there's because there's a bunch of people later
that we see as well. And keeping track of everybody's
names is another thing that I'm gonna have to work on,
because there are so many folks that are getting added
into the mix now that we have seen their names
in entries from the cookbook. But I have never felt
any real inclination to keep track of who's who really,
you know, So now it's going to matter a little
bit more. And I am like, oh boy, because I'm
never good with that, but we're gonna try. Let's see.
He's uh. Juice Box says, they're different kinds of us.
Some shop keepers are different. Some of the patrons are
also different. The hands of Outworlders are everywhere when you
know what to look for, and at this point a
reflake when it's mentioned that Outworlders are no longer immortal.
He pulls his sword and he says, I will take
my revenge against Architect Houston, the leader of the madness,
a viceroy Outworlder. He caught my brother as he attempted
to sabotage their fortifications. They say my brother was tortured
before Juice Box infiltrated and ended his suffering. And Dona
is that the guy Juice Box decapitated during the pre
production meeting, which I appreciate that being mentioned, but good
love it that was one of his surgeons. The Dwarf said.
Nobody has managed to get into Houston's operating theater. That's
what they call his lair next to the throne room.
I really you, guys, if you aren't aware of this,
It's something that I've mentioned on so many of my
podcasts that I will lose track of where it's been
mentioned and where not. But I personally have a really
hard time with anything involving like medical torture, body horror,
that kind of specific type of horror movie, and the
fact that like that's one of his surgeons and his
lair is called the operating theater. I think this is
gonna be somebody I'm gonna really really hate dealing with,
and I hope y'all are prepared for me to just
be squigket the fuck out when the time comes, because
I just don't like it. It's hard, it's a It
comes up a lot in various things that I cover,
and there are times where I can sort of just
breathe and get through it, and then there are times
where I just completely lose my shit and I can't
take it. It really depends, and I'm not sure. I
think it depends partially on like my mood at the time,
which is not helpful. But I just have a really
it's too close to like the reality that we still
live with the way that we use medicine and the
way that many things have been discovered utilizing people with
no agency to experiment on, and it's just it really, really,
really really gets to me in a way that few
other things do. I can watch a slasher movie all day,
I don't that just does not you know, monster movie. Fine,
but when it comes to not us torture, but the
torture that is being done with the veneer of But
it's for the good of humanity oftentimes, you know, that's
the shit that I cannot or it's for your own good.
We're torturing you to make you better because there's something
wrong with you. Like, oh, hate it, hate it, hate it,
hate it. Rom says, would be helpful for us to
give you a content warning when you're going to have
a chapter with Houston in it. I don't think so.
Probably I appreciate the thought, but I don't think it will.
It's just one of those that I have to deal with,
you know. Sorry, Michael says, what about the Halloween episode
in Community where Troy and abb had got combined into
one super being. That's uh, they're just wearing flight suits
that are sewed together. So it really does not That
one doesn't get me at all. But uh, it's a
good episode though, we're only more awesome. So then the
nagas come up and we find out that like a
sort of a weird thing about the Nagas that first
of all, they function a lot more as like phantoms.
You know, they they're high on stealth, they do poison,
they do assassination, and like infiltrating them is a lot
harder than anybody else, even Juice Box, who's like pro
at this, does not try to get in there anymore.
And also Carl is like he has some information that
he has gathered that basically amounts to the fact that
the Naga seem to be sort of trying to just
keep the memory of their original like roots alive for
the sake of it. Seems to be almost like a
tourism gambit. I'm trying to find the bit here where
Uh yeah, they were basically LARPing the olden days, dragging.
I thought it was mostly for fun, but after reading
between the lines, I was starting to realize their continued
participation was a pr stunt, a way to keep people
interested in Naga history, which would drive tourism. And this
is an interesting idea. Like everything in the end in
the Dungeon is about making money, but the like using
it in this way to make money feels like something
that's definitely likely in our world as well. You know,
I wonder this sometimes about even things like Epcot Center,
where you've got little country areas that you can visit,
and are there people from those countries who are actively
invested in making those areas like appealing as possible to
drive folks to visiting. Like how does that? I have
to imagine, right, But anyway, the current leader was a
real life crown princess. I didn't know what her name
really was. In the old days, her identity would be
kept a secret. And there's a whole thing about like
how many children she's supposed to have. And I'm not
getting into all of this because it's just horrible, But basically,
there was only one time that one of these princesses
had had all of the female offspring to like kill
all off all of the males, and she is the
one who was deemed the sepsis horror. So good for her,
I don't know, I really that seems that seems pretty
solid to me. Despite the Naga team getting their just
kicked every single time, she'd never been killed, not once.
They'd have their throne room taken, usually at the great
expense of actual poor NPCs and mercenaries, but the Sultana
and her guard would be gone, only to reappear at
the end, safe and laughing. The problem was, these Nagos
weren't NPCs who believed in the story built around them.
They knew who I was, and they would know how
important it would be to me to get them out
of the game. And now that the protections were off,
I had no idea if they would keep the whole
Sultana charade up. And I'm going to assume that if
you want to keep the tourism thing going, you're going
to try to keep the sultana thing up. You're going
to try and prove something by maintaining that and trying
to handle Carl. Want to have your cake and eat
it too. I Am going to be interested to see
how that shakes out. I really wonder about where it
is that they always manage to escape to and come back,
because it almost feels like there's a secret area that
they only know about. And if we can find that,
maybe we will have part of our solution already. You know.
So Carl gets approached by somebody who gives him a
big kiss, and it's like you saved me and my
Heidi and for that, you get a kiss. The ground
remained wet and slimy, and the excess of dead sharks
littered the map. The floor contained the massive Piccadilly theater,
surrounded by bars, including a few true safe rooms, And
I feel like these theaters might come in handy. We
have to deal with a lot of people. You know,
we're gonna have like huge groups that we need to
plan with. And obviously this will mean that you have
to come up with like versions of plans, because there's
gonna be something that's very public, and then there's gonna
be like the real plan that you keep to yourself.
But we're dealing with tens of thousands of troops, and
while we do have that group chat, I have to
assume that many people, it's probably gonna be tricky. And
there's also an energy to actually physically gathering people in
one space and talking to them that you don't get
in a group chat. That will hype people up, you know,
So I could see us using this in the near future.
Let's see the Desperado. It turns out also, we find
out later it's open, but it's not allowing any people
in any crawlers inside it all at first, Carl thinks
that it's because of the whole demon thing, but we
find out that that is not actually the case, that
it's all crawlers. So this is when we see juice Box,
who at first hunger hammy level thirty nole. And you know,
as much as I know that Juice Box is a
shape shifter, I am still not prepared whenever somebody turns
out to be Juice Box. So you know, she jumps
on Louis and starts kissing him and I'm like what
what And then it's like, oh, yeah, it's juice Box
changed to her human form, and I'm like, done, Natasha,
fucking stay stay with us, okay, girl, Like yeah, I'm
not great about this. So there's also the reminder that
the level that we see when she's in her human form,
when she's in her nole form, later when she's in
her blank form, like there's no saying what level she
actually is. Everything that we see in her descriptors are
part of the charade, you know. So this is kind
of a weird scene. So first off, Juice Boxes, like, Carl,
you didn't do what I wanted. We wanted everyone to
be protected, and I was kind of surprised that she
came at him with this energy because I was just like,
you had to know that wasn't going to happen, right,
And to her credit, when he's like, this was the
best we could do, she immediately lets it go and
just says it'll have to do. But I was like,
you know, still kind of going. The fact that he
managed to get what he got is a miracle. I
feel like you should be acting a lot more impressed
slash grateful that he pulled off what he has pulled off.
But you know, she hasn't got time for being grateful,
and I have to respect that to a point. And
there's also this like, you know, Louie is here and
he has not really reacted to Juice Box at all.
Like the fact the mention of them getting married in
the last section, I already was like pointing out the
fact that it seemed pretty He wasn't excited is the
that feels like the mildest way to say it. He
just seemed to freeze up, and that freeze continues here
in a way. That's like got donut in his chat going, Louis,
you have got to start talking to her. She thinks,
like from your reaction that you don't even like her
anymore and she's super excited to see you, and I
was like appreciating donut. Donut is very much functioning according
to the like, of course you love her, so now
you have to show her that you love her now. I,
of course am not of the opinion that he loves her. However,
I you know, Carl a couple times is just like,
you know, you don't have to do this, And I
just really wanted to be like Carl, Look, I understand
that you're trying to you're trying to give him agency
here and keep him from being pressured in a particular way.
And I really love about you that you care in
this way, but this is a fake wedding in a
fake world to an NPC, he has to do this.
I am so sorry. It's just not a negotiable thing.
It's we've killed people, We've killed actual other human beings.
This is fucking nothing. It's fine, And I appreciate that
Louis gets with the program and immediately it's just like no, no, no,
I do have to do this, because like if we
were gonna have to browbeat him into it, I was
going to be really irritated when he had taken on
killing Sisternez at the end of the last book, so
that Carl and Donut don't have to shoulder that, and
then he's going to bulk at like this wedding. You know,
I just I can understand in theory, but in practice
I just did not have any patience for it. So
I'm glad in the end that this kind of winds
up being a non issue. But he really has to
like work to get his enthusiasm up to a point
that makes juice Box less self conscious, because it really
like what Donut is saying about how juice Box is
feeling self conscious and awkward is definitely true. The way
that she like kind of she jumps in his lap,
she's kissing him, and then she sort of like backs
away and slips out of his lap and takes a
seat by herself, and it's just like the body language
is very much her going, oh maybe this isn't you
know what I mean? So the shantytown is an issue.
There is a mayor there who stabbed somebody named Theora
in the back. The opponent cheated. We can't touch this guy,
I sighed, So Ferdinand Bingo Cowboy. Are any of the
outworlders coming into the regular city into the roccos. They
are starting to there's not much here for them, but
still they come mostly to Scout and the whole thing
with Ferdinand. Later. This guy he really sucks, and like
not in a fun way, you know what I'm saying.
He sucks in a real way. He may be a
cat and some of the ways in which he sucks
may be funny even but it's not. It's not fun,
you get what I mean. Like, I just ah, I
hate him a lot. I hate him a lot, But
we'll get there in a second. So it turns out
that he has like all of the controls, so he
can't be killed because they need him. He was given
power over the controlling system, including the city defense. The
ELF says it was a workaround to allow us to
participate because the cat isn't really an NPC but of
the same stock as you. If he dies, we lose control,
so he must be kept safe. And also he keeps
telling everybody that he's Donut's fiance, and Donut is disgusted
by this. I will say, I'm quite proud of how
Donut has just completely dropped any affection for him of
any kind. You know. There comes a point later where
she's just like, I don't know what I used to
see in him, and I was like, good for you, girl,
This is growth. Everybody has a friend who was into
somebody that they We were all puzzled, what the fuck
is the draw? I don't get it. You know, it's
gotta be something chemical, like what the fuck? And it
probably was chemical? It probably was. But let's see, Drick
is the guy. He's a Valtae infected elf, and he's
the one that we're going to have to deal with.
And later on when we see him, Ferdan's like on
Drake's head and Drix's just walking around with him on
his head, really not looking happy about the arrangement. But
it is what it is. So let's see. She thinks
it's important we need them on our side. If this helps,
I'll do it. If they turn against us or screw
this will help. We need each other. Plus you love her, right, yeah,
sure of course. Okay, then, but don't tell us, tell her,
and don't be outcarl about it. Be romantic. Louis was
shaking and sweating. His five player killer skulls looked so ridiculous,
so out of place over his head that I felt
angry every time I saw them. And then he says,
can you just turn into something else for like a second,
because she'd been kissing him as this old male knoll,
which he is not into. She turned into a mix
between Taylor Swift and iggyp Then a cheerleader suit formed
on her body. Who's this supposed to be? Is this somebody?
I genuinely couldn't There are some of these, like when
the description is made, I'm like, Okay, I'm getting the
pop culture reference here, but this one I couldn't. Like
is this from Heroes? We were just talking about, you know,
but I don't know if that's her or not. And
at this point they are talking about like the Diggers
and they are Dwarmin automatons. So we jump to chapter
ten and we're approaching the Desperado Club, and this is
when we find out that they are not allowed inside.
And finally he gets the name of the new owner
named Hamed, and Carl has to like try not to
react and let anybody know. This is not secret, like
the cookbook is secret, but it is secret in that
he has access to things that you know our secret
within the game, and Hammon was the real name of
the night Worm, the leader of the Guild of Suffering,
husband to the late Astroid and father did the strippers
Damascus Steele and Anaconda, both of whom were still supposedly
somewhere in the club hunting him, hunting their own father.
All of that had to wait. And I do appreciate
every time Carl says something like, we have so much
to do because there are a lot a fucking plate
spinning right now, and I like, just getting all of
the people registered to your company, that's such a huge
task in itself, that all this other shit whenever he
listed out him just like, oh boy, I don't know
if we're going to be able to do this, dude,
So fucking Ferdinand. He wore a gold chain around his
neck with a small jeweled charm and what appeared to
be a circle of white, thin paper tissues wrapped around
his head. One end sagged pitifully about to fall off.
It was like he'd attempted to recreate the turbine using
literal toilet paper. And apparently he has the same interest
in hats that Donut has. Whether this is organically occurring
or it's because he knows Donut loves hats that he's
trying to love hats. I don't know. But the way
that Carl bribes him into turning over the town later
is by offering him a bowler hat, which has an
ability that Donut later is like, we better get that
shit back because I want to drain it on my
little cushion for my Tiara. And also I don't even
have a bowler hat yet, so you know, and I
am wondering if that's going to actually turn out to
be more of an issue than we would think it
would be, because he seems to be a pain in
the ass in ways that you wouldn't expect, and it
also in the ways that you would definitely expect. It's,
you know, so let's see, I'm trying to find this bit.
The Princess Posse has made a trade request with Team Retribution,
and I love Carl just reaches over, puts the hat
on Ferdinand's head and it automatically resizes, and immediately Brittany
pulls out a mirror so that he can look at
himself and be like, oh shit, and he says, I'm
a very handsome boy. More than once which I need
this energy little bit more in my own life. I
need to start saying something like this in the mirror.
I gotta come up with the right tone, because just
like I'm a very beautiful girl, it doesn't quite you know.
Maybe just I'm a very pretty girl, you know. I'm
thinking about the way that somebody would speak to a cat,
to a pet, and aren't you a pretty girl? You're
a very pretty girl. That's the vibe. So probably I'll
go with that, but I feel like it could just
help perk me up a little bit, you know. I
don't know. I see it. The ELF's mouth turned upward
in an unreadable expression. It was like a mixture of annoyance, exasperation,
and panic. This elf, I don't think was prepared for
how it was gonna be. So the level on By
the way, Juice Box, when she's in her blank form,
says one twenty, which I kind of feel like might
actually be accurate after all, But I don't know. It
seems that being in her blank form is the true form,
So I feel like maybe that's actually right. But we
don't know, and he doesn't ask, But I think otherwise,
what would be the significance of going to her blank
form for the wedding because she's going to be her
true self for this, because of the symbolism of it,
you know, And that makes sense to me. And it
turns out that the way that these weddings work is
that you get married and then you sign divorce papers
and you have thirty days to file the papers, and
if you don't, then you're really married. You've decided to
stay married, and you have the bigger, more purposeful wedding
that's like the kind of celebration we're used to weddings being.
So it's basically a sort of a thirty day trial
period where you can return, no questions asked. And I
love this idea. I think this is fucking great because
evidently they're mostly arranged marriages, so we have to make
sure that people can like get along decently, and I
really enjoy that. I think that's a fun setup. And
just having the papers and like either of you can
file them if you feel the need. Yeah, I like it.
And so that means that this little ceremony is really simple,
really short and just you know, doesn't require every all
the planning and performances and whatnot. The doughnut had been
talking about and the fact that like there's a second
wedding a full month later. It just feels so far
off to Carl that he's sort of like, yeah, we'll
see about that. I mean, I don't even need to
think about anything that far ahead at this point, which
I agree with. I do love Louis just saying I
wish my mom was here. He's a good boy, let's see.
I hope Samantha won't be too mad. She missed the
first ceremony, and I was really like wondering about her
throughout all of this. There's no mention, and I don't
know what to expect about her finding out about this,
because it's like she has had a crush on Mouie,
but she's talked at times like they are actually together,
and then other times she's talked about him like she's
like going to hook up with. Like Samantha is so
deluded that I can't keep track of what she believes
at any given time, and it seems like whatever she
believes changes depending on what allows her to be the
most unhinged at a given moment. So I'm just not
really sure at all what to expect. So then we
get a message from Florin. Mate, I am about to
blow your fucking mind. You need to get your ass
to the headquarters. We've secured the safe rom so you
can use the doggy door. There's a large group of
people here who would really like to meet you. And
we had seen at the end of the last book
all of these people arriving, but I still wasn't thinking
that it was going to be them yet. I think
that what I was expecting was like there would be
a fucking hold up and those folks wouldn't be able
to arrive until we were like mid battle, like Gandalf
coming on the third day, you know what I mean,
Like that sort of thing, which, as much as that
sounds fun and dramatic, isn't super helpful. Like you, it's
helpful at the moment of crisis when you've already lost
so many people that you think you're gonna like really
actually lose, And that isn't helpful in the scheme of things,
So I'm glad that's not it. I also want to
mention that, like at the time when I was recording
that ending, I mentioned them sneak and like, how is
this going to work? Because I was misunderstanding how all
of this was functioning, and I forget who it was.
Somebody in the discord had to explain to me, No,
this is legal. They are just having to fly under
the radar as they are wanted as terrorists now, so
that's why they're hiding. But the way that they are
joining the Princess Posse is valid and above board. And
the whole thing is basically like, we just have to
make sure to get in there before they can catch
us under this other warrant they have for us and
stop us from participating, because once we're in they can't
do anything about it. So I was kind of getting
mixed up on how all this worked, and yeah, so
that was definitely helpful. So let's see, I'm trying to
find This is the part where we go to Tippid,
who we meet later in the present. Tippid the man said,
it's Damien. I'm not your attorney. You're in a zero
zone and you have some lingering injuries that need to
be repaired. It's brain lesions or something. I don't know.
You need to get straight to a Viceroy system to
get it repaired. I've already arranged for transport. It's going
to cost a good chunk of your pension. But I
don't see what choice you have. Tippid blinked, and he
realized his hands weren't really bloody. The man in front
of him wasn't his attorney. That had already happened. That
was Solar's ago. I'm never getting out of here, Tippett said.
He looked at his hands again. Why were they so clean?
The man, a hair covered human, smiled at him. He
smiled the way a merchant would smile, a merchant who
was forced to deal with a customer. He despised. No, oh,
that's not true. You did it. You fulfilled your contract,
game Guide, Poisonous Guild, occasional city Guard, perfect marks. You
didn't negotiate post release healthcare unfortunately, and some of the
physical injuries to your body persist. So when you're outside
the dungeon environment, this will happen. But you're free. You're
going home. Home. Where is that? There's an organization and
not for conquests that helps destitute former crawlers and employees
get their footing after transition. It's pretty new, but the
syndicate has donated some money to the cause. Once they
start getting press. I've taken the liberty of letting them
know you're coming. They're sending someone to accompany you to
the viceroy system. He's a former crawler himself. What about
the key? They let you keep it. You negotiated an
extra season just so you could have it. It's yours,
and we don't know what the thing is with the key.
The Viceroys, they called themselves, their chief surgeon, had a
spell that cooked your brain. It made your teeth fall out,
It made the liquid in your eyeballs turn to acid
and then explode over your own face. That was what
had happened to rosaline. He could still hear Horatio's cries.
The other man hadn't understood what was happening, why Tippod
was leaving him behind. He remembered the feeling of the
jewel burning out as he stuck the key into the
door of the notification. Horatio had a wife an older child.
They both survived and had already taken a deal at
the end of the tenth Horatio had held on in
hopes of getting a better deal, of making a life
for them. When they finally got out, Tippid had nobody yet.
He'd chosen himself and he yanks the key off and
throws a tom and says I don't want it anymore,
and then we get class Poisoner Race Crest BIRTHRCE Crest
top level ninety six Dungeon Exit took deal at the
beginning of the twelfth floor, worked as a game guide
and guildhall instructor in the Poisoner Guild before exiting. The
Dungeon was forced to spend the entirety of his pension
plus take out an additional loan to repair the extensive
damage to his brain. Eventually retired to a Crest system
to work for a waste management company. And this is
the part, guys, it's too real, you know it just
it's I will never understand people who are not for
universal healthcare. It just will never ever make any fucking
sense to me. It's not just a weird selfishness about
not wanting to spend money on people in general. It's
also you shooting yourself in the foot because you don't
want to admit that there's going to be a day
when you need care because you think you're invincible, or
that I took such great care of myself that I'm
going to be okay, Like it's just weird and this
sort of thing where he has sustained damage in the dungeon,
but he is made to pay for the damage. I mean,
how many people out there are saddled with hospital bills
after being beaten up by ice agents? What about the
people who have had tear gas sprayed point blank into
their eyes? You know, like we don't unless you are
able to get the resources to file a lawsuit, unless
you're able to get eyes on a go fund me,
good fucking luck, you know. And it's it's just really gross.
And so yeah, this got me and I just sat
there for a second like gathering myself because I was
just straight up crying. Ah, I hate it. So chapter eleven,
we have Samantha here. It doesn't seem like anybody's told
her that Louis has gotten married. Still haven't dealt with that.
Tran had gotten an upgraded wheelchair, but I hadn't had
a chance to see what Katchya built for him. And
I was like, goddamn it, because I really want to know.
I do hope Juice Box and Louis get time for
a honeymoon. It's sad they got married and then had
to separate, right away. I must say I am surprised
she just let us take control of the other city
away from Ferdinand. If the bad guys can freely enter
that shanty town once the truce is broken, it's just
going to be a liability. It has a separate defense system.
In the meantime, we both have something that's going to
give all those assholes a huge headache. It's a good
deal for both of us. And this is when she
gets the notification that her sponsorship has been canceled due
to a conflict of interest. Our first clue that we're
about to meet them and it's going to be auctioned off,
so we'll see who gets it. I am very curious
about that. We entered the meadow Larks safe room and
just like that everything changed. Sorry, I just saw a
bunch of chatter. But William just said, can they even
be sued? They can be, but it takes like I'm
I am not going to get fully into it because
it will sidetrack me. What it takes to sue them
is so extensive. Uh, It's it's an uphill battle that
a lot of people are not willing to take on
for understandable reasons. I stopped dead. As I entered the space,
I stared at the two crests standing there, a woman
and a man. Mango jumped all around them, peeping with
excitement at meeting someone new. The man stood there grinning stupidly,
while the woman scowled at the dinosaur on the mini map.
Their dots were purple, the same color as the dots
of the hunters on the sixth floor, but they had
a pink outline indicating them as troopers for the Princess Posse.
Rosetta Doughnut exclaimed Carl, Look at Rosetta Thiagara, what are
you doing here? The name over her head blazed, Rosetta
thag Crest Barnburner, level sixty colonel in the Princess Posse.
This is a subordinate. The name and description surprised me
so much that it took me a second to finally
examine the second stranger standing there. This was also a crest,
but he was noticeably older. I uh, I felt myself
stagger when I read his name, like I've been physically pushed.
Tippid Crest, Liquid Dervish, level sixty colonel in the Princess Posse.
This is a subordinate. How I repeated. My legs felt weak.
I met eyes with the man. Are there more? I
was asking two different things, and I saw he could
tell what I meant, what I really meant. A few more,
He said, not a lot of us available, unfortunately. Florin grunted.
If just a fifty thousand former crawlers count as a few,
then yeah, it's just a few. Holy shit. I swallowed
and I held my hand out to Tippid. The man
stepped forward and he pulled me into a hug. And
I just love this moment so much, especially after the
last thing with Tippid acquiring all this debt and you know,
there's the mention of the scar and everything. Getting to
see this moment is just so fucking satisfying. It was
like the exact antidote I needed after that last section
where I was just like I felt wrung out, you know,
And I really love Nobody knows why Carl knows who
these people are, and nobody understands why they're acting like
they are best buds forever. At one point, Floren dms
him like they're acting awfully familiar, do you know, And
Carl just does a very bare like headshake thing, and
Floren drops it instantly, Donut, wouldn't you know what I mean?
Floren has experience in keeping your fucking mouth shut, obviously
due to the work he does, so yeah, he knows
when to just drop something. But uh, I have to
imagine it is sort of like, well, what the fuck
is going on? You know what I mean? When you
see this from people that to you are total strangers
and you would expect are to Carl also, and this
uh true. And Michael in the chat says, to be
fair to Donut, she clearly knows something's up to, but
she doesn't say anything. And yeah, I should say like
when I say, Carl, uh, don't wouldn't drop it? I mean,
like when she asks a question and you just try
and signal. I don't feel like she's good at picking
up the hint. But she doesn't have to ask here
because she can see something is up and she's just
trying to like take cues from Carl in a way
that definitely indicates growth, you know. So yeah, it's just
a really ugh. I really appreciate Florin in these chapters,
like this whole start of this book. He feels very
reassuring to me, and it has me a little worried
because I'm like, now I'm worried about something happening to him,
because I feel like I'm putting all of my planning
eggs in the florin basket, and that's probably not super
smart to do, you know. Uh. Vanapin says, we know
about Tippic coming at the end of his chapter. It's
in the last line in the status. Oh yeah, it
didn't like it doesn't matter though, you know what I mean.
That isn't the same as seeing this moment, just knowing
that he's coming. It's like not, yeah, it doesn't irrelevant.
So this is when Rosetta walks up to him and
she tells, like the AI, this isn't an attack, it's
a self correcting measure given in the spirit of camaraderie.
And she just smacks him in the head and Tippod
grins and shakes his head in a way that to
me feels like there there was nothing behind that slap
that's more than it looked like. It's almost just her
being like, you fucking idiot, and him laughing because he
knows what she's irritated by, and she like pretty quickly
asks about the remainder of the toraline route and the
tattooing ink and all of that. So I believe that
it's just about her having been waiting for him to
fucking put two and two together about what he was
supposed to do with these items, and that he hasn't yet,
which I guess I would also deserve a smack in
the head because I don't know either, like you know
what I'm saying, like I don't know. But she tells him,
give me the rest of the tore ling, give me
the ink, give me that credit chit that you got
from that dead pig, and I need three million gold
and access to your bomber's studio and your safe room.
And then she turns to Donut and says, you don't wander.
We have to purchase some things from the Bobka and
I need your charm to get the best price. And
Donut's getting her dander up, and Rosetta seems to like
clock it just in time and be like, if that's
okay with you, war lord, you have the highest charm
out of all of us. And this is when Donut
looks at Carl looks at them and realizes like Carl
has got his eyes full of tears and is like, Okay,
something's clearly up. Fine, I'll play nice and I suppose
that'll be acceptable. I do like this version of you.
You're much more confident than you were on television. You
were giving me Charlotte vibes. But now you're a straight Samantha,
not sext a'll hit Samantha, sex addict Samantha. But you know, bald,
what does that even mean? See? It's great. So we
get carl hearing the story of how everybody has wound
up here, and doctor Porthos, who being the one who
created the organization, and I just really love all of
this to show that it's a small start that manages
to get to a place like this. You know, one
person deciding that he's going to establish an organization do
something to help, and yes he helped. It did not
mean that Tippett doesn't have to take out a fucking
loan to pay for his health care. He isn't able
to magically solve everybody's problems, but he's doing something and
it has added up over time to where we are now.
And I just really love the hopefulness and the like
sort of implication of have patience. You know what, I mean,
I don't know. I just like this a lot. Michael says,
I actually never watched Sex in the City. Samitha always
kind of clueless in that show. No, I think she's
referring to her being like what does that even mean?
Just like an impatient, straightforward you know, whereas Charlotte would
be like, yeah, deaf, sure, uh huh. Samantha would just
be like, what the fuck are you talking about. It's
not really the clueless part, but I get why you
would think that. Michael. So we had to scatter when
they accused us of being terrorists. I don't know where
he is. Are they gonna swoop in and arrest everyone?
I hope they try. Now we're in the game, there's
nothing they can do. They'll wait till we get out
to try to arrest us, which Rosetta, of course, is
not anticipating. They're making it out of the dungeon, so
it's not really something that they are worried about. I
don't know what to think, Like, part of me is like,
maybe you will get out and then what and I
don't maybe who knows. I don't know. I don't know
how much of this book series will take place. Purely
in the dungeon either, Like, it feels like there's got
to be some things that break past it. But how
does that happen? We'll see eventually. I guess all released
crawlers were now automatically citizens of the Syndicate and given
access to Inner System Primary Zone, which came with free
healthcare and guaranteed housing. When Tippet was released, he wasn't
afforded any of that. Mistress Mistress Tiatha says that citizenship
perk is only for new crawlers and they'll still bleed
dry on taxes. Us old guard are going to get
extra fucked when we were released. They tell us we'll
be full citizens, but I don't believe it. The rich
folks sure like getting their faces up on the screen
and they're donating to some charity, but the moment a
scruffy former crawler shows up in their home system looking
to settle down, they'll fight like hell to prevent it,
mark my words. And she is not wrong on any
count whatsoever. This is one of those moments of like
two things can be true. You can work towards things
being better and it can get actually better, but there
can actually still be a bunch of bullshit keeping it
from being as better as it could be, you know,
just fucking the way it works. And then there's the
open into like Pacifist Network did not have nearly as
much support. I could tell there was so much more
Tippett wanted to say, and I hoped I would get
the chance to learn it all. The whole incident with Pauli,
the residual and the body of a homeless man had
been just one of several actions that had caused authorities
to finally start to crack down on the nonprofit. And
even when I managed to get the protections turned off,
they still came. I was again overwhelmed with emotion. And
this is when we find out that everybody that came
in for our team is sixty and got to choose
a non permanent race and class, which is not what
the mercenaries coming in are getting. But the mercenaries were
they are going to be I think somewhere in the
neighborhood of like one hundred and twenty thousand, something enough
to make us a little less elated with our fifty thousand.
If the fifty thousand is incredible, sure, but you know
the one thing is that the mercenaries are allowed to
bring in their weapons. And at first this seems like
what no fair, but Tippid points out like, actually what
they wound up negotiating isn't as good a deal as ours.
My fucking spells are a lot more effective than their rifles,
and I will take these over that anytime. So that's nice.
You know, we've got a lot of people who are
just going to be using like regular fucking weaponry, and
they're going to be up against people who can do
It's gonna be almost like the like trained army versus
guerrilla warfare kind of energy. You know. If we get
to face the factions one at a time, i'd say
no problem. But since they're working together, we got a
bumpy entry ahead of us, that's for certain, especially for
the first week. Still, we're lucky they didn't let them
choose a race in class. They'd be much stronger. And
it ends with Okay, let's get to the base and
meet up with the team, and that is the end
of chapter eleven. So and I should mention too that
Michael has put a new chapter breakdown in the spoil
Me Planning channel on Discord, So if anybody wants to
see it. It's there, and so yeah, I'm following that
new breakdown and Michael says much less rushed this episode exactly.
It definitely is nice to have some room to spread
out and talk about everything in depth, especially moments like
this that are so emotional. You know. It's just Carl
has been really on this precipice for a minute now,
and having friends has been the one thing keeping him tethered,
and he just has really started to understand the value
of community and the virtue of like looking back and
seeing that he was lonely in a way that he
didn't even really understand when he was experiencing it, and
so now there being a bunch of people who not
only had his back, but who came before him and
who have been out here making moves on their own
the whole time. There's just something really really wonderful about
knowing that you're not the only one who's outraged about
something and doing something about it and making risky moves
and who is willing to put it all on the line.
And I feel like this is the exact kind of
in flux that he needed to keep himself from really
starting to like spin out in despair. And it's something
that I also like. There have been a few times
where I have started to feel like, are any of
us going to like when push comes to shove, really
like handle business when when it comes to town And
I live in an area where I haven't encountered ICE
at all and I haven't seen them being active, but
I'm sure it's coming, and then I'll see, like people
sharing on in Instagram and TikTok these protests in all
these different states where ICE isn't yet, but they're trying
to put in like a detainment facility where a warehouse
had used to be, and everybody is just like, you know,
getting very fierce in town hall meetings and they're protesting
and blocking the construction vehicles from getting onto the property,
and eventually it was dropped and they're not building the
detention center there after all. And it's just so encouraging
to see people fucking doing something, you know, because it's
very easy to feel like Americans have gotten so comfy
that we don't want to risk anything, and also to
feel like they know that we can't risk things because
they've got us under their thumb with how incredibly expensive
it just is to live anymore and putting our livelihoods
at risk and stuff. But there are folks out there
who are in possess where they can do that, and
it just really can be like nourishing, I guess is
the word. I want to see it out there and
be like, Okay, people are not everybody is a piece
of shit, because you really can't get in the headspace
of feeling that way, you know. So yeah, it's a
real moment sometimes of needing these like little victories and
little bits of we have to do it in these
small burths, but it can be done, and small bursts
are how it starts, you know, the way that who
began this organization it was only able to do so much.
And now look we've got fifty thousand crawlers coming to help.
So that is it's a it's a big country and
that makes it unwieldy and ungainly, and we can't handle
things here the way that they do in France, you know,
where their entire country is the size of Connecticut. So
it's going to look different, but that doesn't mean nothing's happening.
All right, I am going to wrap up. Thank you
guys again so much for listening. I hope that you're
enjoying the coverage. Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I
just saw. Williams says. What was crazy to me It
is how many people in the Facebook groups want to
pretend these stories aren't political anything to not realize they're
the bad guys. And yeah, that's one of those things
that it's just like you. If you don't see the
politics in these books, that's you trying not to see.
That's you being purposefully obtuse. You don't want to and
that's a you problem. And I'm not even gonna argue
with you about it because it's so patently obvious that
anyone having to explain to you is wasting their time.
If you can't see it, there's no point talking to you.
So I won't bother. Matt Denoman's anti capitalist, says who
says Matt Denneman for eight books. But you know whatever,
All right, guys, until next time to delude motherfuckers. That
was an Unspoiled Network podcast