Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
Speaker 1: covering Dungeon Crawler Caral chapters one through five. In these chapters,
Speaker 1: everybody gets smushed like bugs inside of buildings, which sounded
Speaker 1: pretty terrible until I get to hear what the other
Speaker 1: options were, and then I'm like, I think I'd prefer
Speaker 1: being squished like a bug inside of a building. I
Speaker 1: don't feel like I would be good at this game
Speaker 1: at all, at all, at all. Welcome to spoil Me,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show everyone. I am Natasha. Thank you
Speaker 1: very much to Michael for commissioning this episode. And Michael
Speaker 1: is here in the chat and he left a long
Speaker 1: comment here that I really wanted to share with you guys,
Speaker 1: so he says, I'm hoping you'll enjoy this series. Lit
Speaker 1: RPG is kind of a hard sell for a lot
Speaker 1: of people, and I get why it's mostly wish fulfillment
Speaker 1: stuff because the real world sucks. Most of it is
Speaker 1: just dumb fun and to paraphrase Felicia Day, it's like
Speaker 1: cotton candy, easy to consume and then it's gone. But
Speaker 1: in my opinion, Dudgeon Crawler Karl is a step above
Speaker 1: since it avoids most of the cringiest tropes of the genre.
Speaker 1: It has a lot of puerile and juvenile humor from
Speaker 1: the AI. But I'm a teenager trapped in a forty
Speaker 1: five year old body, so I love it. Travis Baldry,
Speaker 1: Jeff Hayes, and Andrea Parsnow are in my pantheon of
Speaker 1: amazing narrators. Okay, so first of all, I have read
Speaker 1: some RPG before, and I definitely see what you mean
Speaker 1: with it just being like kind of difficult sometimes, and
Speaker 1: it really varies. I have had times where I start
Speaker 1: reading and I am just like, nope, no, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I just cannot do this. Is this is like almost pathetic,
Speaker 1: how desperately cool I am supposed to think this person is?
Speaker 1: And then there are times where I am like so
Speaker 1: sucked into. There's a series called Pixel Dust I think
Speaker 1: is the name of it, and it's like there was
Speaker 1: supposed to be another book, but there are three that
Speaker 1: are written, and I tore through those pretty quick a
Speaker 1: few years ago. It's been a while since I read them.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if those exactly count. I think they do.
Speaker 1: But it's basically a sort of like party that develops
Speaker 1: through a server and they don't know each other in person,
Speaker 1: but eventually they begin to uncover something that leads to
Speaker 1: them needing to know each other in person. And it's
Speaker 1: a whole thing. And I really really enjoyed that one,
Speaker 1: and I was so like, sort of bummed when I
Speaker 1: looked into it. And it's been years and there hasn't
Speaker 1: been another one, So there have been versions of this
Speaker 1: that work really well for me. So and yeah, the
Speaker 1: whole energy of this book from the start, first of all,
Speaker 1: I just want to address, like this narrator is gives
Speaker 1: a particular energy right off the top that very much
Speaker 1: is giving Putty from Seinfeld. I don't know if that
Speaker 1: is going to mean anything to some of you. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, Seinfeld's a pretty famous show, so most people
Speaker 1: are probably gonna get what I'm talking about. But Putty,
Speaker 1: who is played by Patrick Warburton, it's different than say
Speaker 1: he's giving Patrick Warburton because Patrick Warburton has this particular voice,
Speaker 1: but the inflections that he gives when he is like
Speaker 1: in Emperor's New Groove or in oh my God, what
Speaker 1: is the other thing that I was just thinking, there's
Speaker 1: another property, oh oh, when he's Brock Samson and Venture Brothers.
Speaker 1: That voice is a really different inflection than Putty, and
Speaker 1: this guy was feeling like that for me so hard.
Speaker 1: Instantly it was like the first four syllables and I
Speaker 1: was like, what is Puddy doing here? What? Which actually
Speaker 1: kind of works because just like the way he's described
Speaker 1: as being a pretty big dude, feels like that falls
Speaker 1: into the right imagery in my head. Oh oh, Michael
Speaker 1: says the narrator very much just trying to emulate Patrick Warburton.
Speaker 1: If I recall, it's kind of how he pictured the
Speaker 1: main character. Okay, I love it. Then that's great because
Speaker 1: I started listening and I had to stop and I
Speaker 1: put in an earbud in my husband's ear and was like,
Speaker 1: who is this? And he's just just like Putty? And
Speaker 1: I was like Putty. Yeah. So this the energy of
Speaker 1: these first five chapters for me is very much like
Speaker 1: Hunger Games meets ready Player one. And for the record,
Speaker 1: ready Player one gets a lot of shit, and that's
Speaker 1: all fair. I covered Ready Player one for Unspoiled book
Speaker 1: Club and I'll tell you what, kids, people really expected
Speaker 1: me to hate it, and I just couldn't hate it.
Speaker 1: I had such a good time, like all of the
Speaker 1: criticism that gets levied at it is one thousand percent fair.
Speaker 1: But it just didn't matter to me, And that is
Speaker 1: a rare thing, you guys, know, Like there are some
Speaker 1: stuff I can't I get hung up and I just
Speaker 1: can't get past. And it was just Ready Player one
Speaker 1: never seemed to feel like it thought it was real deep.
Speaker 1: It always seemed to be fully aware of exactly what
Speaker 1: it was and just did that very enthusiastically. And I
Speaker 1: respect when something is just like, no, this is going
Speaker 1: to be like, as Michael is saying, a nostalgia bomb,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be that, it's gonna be wish fulfillment.
Speaker 1: It is going to be like every nerd who wishes
Speaker 1: that he could like capitalize on all the useless trivia
Speaker 1: they know. Like the whole vibe of it felt so
Speaker 1: weirdly self aware even as it was ridiculous, that I
Speaker 1: just couldn't hate it. So when I say that this
Speaker 1: is Ready to Player one meets Hunger Games, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: both of those are kind of good things. But like
Speaker 1: I said, I don't disagree with any of the criticisms
Speaker 1: brought against Ready Player one. It's just that, for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: I was able to smooth sail right on past him,
Speaker 1: and it just didn't drag me down at all. Happened sometimes,
Speaker 1: you know. So anyway, the opening of this the transformation
Speaker 1: occurred at approximately two twenty three am Pacific standard time.
Speaker 1: As far as I could tell, anyone who was indoors
Speaker 1: when it happened died instantly. If you had any sort
Speaker 1: of roof over you, you were dead. That included people in cars, airplanes, subways,
Speaker 1: even tents and cardboard boxes. Hell, probably umbrellas too, though
Speaker 1: I'm not so sure about that one. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1: You guys who were inside, probably warm and asleep and
Speaker 1: dreaming about some random bullshit. I'm jealous. You're the lucky ones.
Speaker 1: You were just gone splattered into dust during the transformation.
Speaker 1: And you know, normally, when somebody is like you were
Speaker 1: the lucky ones, I'm like, oh, jerk off in the corner.
Speaker 1: But honestly, this, once you get to reading, I was
Speaker 1: sort of just like, yeah, I don't know, I think
Speaker 1: he's right. Actually, I think that sounds fair. So we
Speaker 1: get this fun little background where he talks about how
Speaker 1: he wound up outside in boxers pink Croc sandals that
Speaker 1: barely fit a leather jacket and holding a cat named
Speaker 1: Princess Donut to the Queen Anne Chunk and apparently like
Speaker 1: worth a ton of money. This cat won a cat
Speaker 1: show like every fucking weekend. I am very, very interested
Speaker 1: in what the Queen Anne Chunk is going to be
Speaker 1: turning into because it seems pretty clear to me, like
Speaker 1: it's a gamble. Who knows, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But I already right away as soon as he was like,
Speaker 1: this is you know my situation. As I wound up here,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, okay, so you were inside chasing
Speaker 1: this or outside chasing this cat. If there is one
Speaker 1: thing I know, it is chasing animals that have run
Speaker 1: out of the house at odd hours of the day
Speaker 1: in pajamas or other inappropriate clothing. I had to chase
Speaker 1: Pippin across the street the other day, and it was unfortunately,
Speaker 1: like the middle of the afternoon, and I was in
Speaker 1: my pajamas and that's never a good look. But you know,
Speaker 1: especially these days, I just felt like such a slob.
Speaker 1: But this bitch ran out because somebody else's dog was out,
Speaker 1: and so he went to chase their dog, and so
Speaker 1: I blame them, really but uh yeah, I like the
Speaker 1: whole way that this starts off. I enjoy this bit.
Speaker 1: He had a girlfriend named Beatrice who goes on a
Speaker 1: trip and doesn't tell him that her ex boyfriend's going
Speaker 1: to be there. I figured it out pretty quick when
Speaker 1: I saw the picture of her sitting on his lap
Speaker 1: on Instagram. I don't like drama, and I don't deal
Speaker 1: well with it. Whether she was actually cheating on me
Speaker 1: or not, it didn't matter so much. She lied, so
Speaker 1: I called her up and I told her we were done.
Speaker 1: I really admire this. This is the sort of thing
Speaker 1: where I'm like, I there are times where I get
Speaker 1: really frustrated and I'm like, just talk to each other.
Speaker 1: You know. This is one of those times that, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, there is nothing that you could tell me
Speaker 1: that would make this be okay. Like you can't just
Speaker 1: sit on the lap of an ex and not tell
Speaker 1: me that they're there, no heads up text. Hey, I
Speaker 1: didn't know he was gonna be here, but I arrived
Speaker 1: and it turns out they invited him and they didn't
Speaker 1: tell me or warning that, Like, Hey, so he just
Speaker 1: dumped some girl and I'm gonna be in his lap
Speaker 1: on a photo because he wants to make her jealous,
Speaker 1: but there's nothing going on. I swear not that that
Speaker 1: would be believable, but at least it would be an
Speaker 1: attempt to explain a thing away, you know. But it
Speaker 1: just there's nothing about this that for me feels inappropriate.
Speaker 1: His reaction, I think that's exactly how you want to
Speaker 1: handle somebody who starts to like toy with you like this.
Speaker 1: I'm just too old for it, you know, Like he's
Speaker 1: cutting it off at twenty seven. I feel like he's
Speaker 1: doing really well because a lot of us put up
Speaker 1: with too much shit for too long, until we finally
Speaker 1: start to get to a point in our lives where
Speaker 1: we're like, life's too short and I don't need to
Speaker 1: waste time on somebody who's decided to pull some bullshit.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Donut has all of these like ribbons and
Speaker 1: a whole bedroom dedicated to her trophies and her catbox
Speaker 1: and all of this stuff. I never considered myself a
Speaker 1: big fan of cats, but if we're being truthful here,
Speaker 1: I like Donut. That cat did not give two shits
Speaker 1: about anybody or anything, and I could respect that. If
Speaker 1: Donat wanted to sit on my lap while I was
Speaker 1: blasting away on PlayStation, and she sat on my damn lab.
Speaker 1: If I tried to pick her up, she hissed and
Speaker 1: scratched and jumped right back up there, and then she
Speaker 1: looked at me with a squished face that said, what
Speaker 1: are you going to do about it? I'd been tempted
Speaker 1: more than once to throttle the thing, but I'm not
Speaker 1: an asshole. Plus I could respect the little monster's tenacity.
Speaker 1: Some of my buddies would give me crap about it,
Speaker 1: and he spending all this time with a fuzzy cat
Speaker 1: that was probably worth more than I would make in
Speaker 1: a year, But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed having that
Speaker 1: ball of fuzz sitting in my lap. So what happens
Speaker 1: is Beatrice had no smoking rule, and he decides just
Speaker 1: to give her the finger after they break up that
Speaker 1: he is going to smoke like crazy inside the house,
Speaker 1: and he decides to crack the window a little bit,
Speaker 1: and Donut, for some reason, decides at that moment, after
Speaker 1: never having done this before, it seems, to jump outside
Speaker 1: onto a tree, and I think that this points to
Speaker 1: she knew something was up. Like all I could think
Speaker 1: was this cat was aware that some shit was about
Speaker 1: to go down. She fucking knew how don't know doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter at this point, but it just felt. I
Speaker 1: felt very strongly about the significance of her doing it now,
Speaker 1: of all times, when she's never done it before. And
Speaker 1: of course he has a moment of just being like, fine,
Speaker 1: fuck her, I'm gonna leave her out there now. I
Speaker 1: think he says exactly what temperature it was, but uh yeah,
Speaker 1: he says it was well below zero, which was unusually cold,
Speaker 1: so probably she would have frozen. It always depends on
Speaker 1: the animal, but you know, if she's a cat that's
Speaker 1: used to being inside and cared for, I don't see
Speaker 1: her doing super well outside on her own. There's also
Speaker 1: the possibility of her being able to find somewhere to
Speaker 1: hunk her down and stay warmer. So she may have
Speaker 1: been okay, but you don't want to take that risk,
Speaker 1: especially like as he puts it, I'm not an asshole.
Speaker 1: I definitely have a kitten that runs outside all the time.
Speaker 1: She has finally learned how to get down off the
Speaker 1: roof by herself, because she's learned how to crawl down
Speaker 1: trees and not just up them. But she I have
Speaker 1: gotten to a point where I do have to like
Speaker 1: leave her outside sometimes because trying to chase her she
Speaker 1: will go where there's no following, and it makes her
Speaker 1: stay outside longer if I chase her. So if I
Speaker 1: just go out inside and pretend like I don't even care,
Speaker 1: eventually she's at the back door crying to be let in.
Speaker 1: So that's my tact that I take, But especially when
Speaker 1: it's cold out, she wants to come in pretty quick.
Speaker 1: So also, there is a neighbor named Missus Parsons who
Speaker 1: apparently always makes complaints about noise and stuff. So the
Speaker 1: cat screaming out there, I really think the cat did
Speaker 1: this to save him. I would like to give her
Speaker 1: that credit that she knows what's going on. She jumps
Speaker 1: outside because she can tell. And then she stands out
Speaker 1: there screaming basically, get the fuck out of the house.
Speaker 1: Get out of the house, get outside. You can't be
Speaker 1: inside the house anymore. Come outside. And he's just like, God,
Speaker 1: why is this cat being so cranky? And she's just like,
Speaker 1: I'm saving your life, you piece of shit. So Missus
Speaker 1: Parsons has her head stuck out the window and she's
Speaker 1: talking to him when the building gets smashed flat and
Speaker 1: it cuts her head off. There. I have been coming
Speaker 1: across a few too many things in media that I'm
Speaker 1: covering lately where somebody's head gets cut off by a window,
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you what, It's got me really fucking
Speaker 1: paranoid these days. I really have been sort of like,
Speaker 1: maybe I just don't ever want to stick my head
Speaker 1: through a window for the rest of my life. It
Speaker 1: had the building was there and then gone, but it
Speaker 1: hadn't disappeared. It was like the building was a massive
Speaker 1: tin can that had been crushed by a giant cosmic boot.
Speaker 1: Wind rushed at me and it was instantly dark. The
Speaker 1: street lamp just to my left was gone. The buildings
Speaker 1: all around me were gone. The cars on the street
Speaker 1: were gone too. Everything was gone except the trees and
Speaker 1: the bicycles and the bike wrecks and Marjorie Williams moped
Speaker 1: that was still booted by parking enforcement. I could barely
Speaker 1: see anything except in the distance thanks to the lack
Speaker 1: of buildings. A fire burned, there was utter complete silence,
Speaker 1: and he says where the cars were parked on the road,
Speaker 1: car shaped indentations of dirt appeared as if they'd been
Speaker 1: pulled down toward the center of the Earth being ripped
Speaker 1: directly through the asphalts, and then he sees Missus Parson's
Speaker 1: head by his feet. This is one of those things
Speaker 1: where it's such an unbelievably surreal image that I try
Speaker 1: and think sometimes when I'm reading things, how would I
Speaker 1: have reacted in this particular situation. I really have nothing
Speaker 1: on this one. I genuinely have no earthly idea what
Speaker 1: the fuck I would do. I mean, he says that
Speaker 1: he feels like he wants to throw up, and immediately
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, okay, I could do that. I
Speaker 1: could throw up. We could do that. That feels like
Speaker 1: a reasonable next step. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: a person speaks. And what's fun about the audiobook is
Speaker 1: that they do voice effects whenever it's the system speaking
Speaker 1: to make them sound more electronic, and so it really
Speaker 1: helps to like differentiate things, and I like it. I
Speaker 1: think it works really well. Surviving humans take note per
Speaker 1: Syndicate Rules sub Section five forty three of the Precious
Speaker 1: Elemental Reserves Code. Having failed to file a proper appeal
Speaker 1: for mineral and elemental rights within fifty solars of first contact,
Speaker 1: your planet has been successfully seized and is currently being
Speaker 1: mind of all requested elemental deposits by the assigned planetary Regent.
Speaker 1: Every interior of your world has been crushed, and all
Speaker 1: raw materials organic and nanimate are in the process of
Speaker 1: being mined for the requested elements. Per the Mind Material
Speaker 1: Reclamation Act, along with sub Section thirty five of the
Speaker 1: Indigenous Planetary Species Protection Act, any surviving humans will be
Speaker 1: given the opportunity to reclaim their lost matter. The Borent Corporation,
Speaker 1: having been assigned regency over this solar system, is allowed
Speaker 1: to choose the manner of this reclamation, and they have
Speaker 1: chosen Option three, also known as the eighteen level World Dungeon.
Speaker 1: The Borent Corporation retains all rights to broadcast, exploit, and
Speaker 1: otherwise control all aspects of the World Dungeon, and will
Speaker 1: remain in control as long as they adhere to Syndicate
Speaker 1: regulations regarding World resource reclamation. Upon successful completion of Level
Speaker 1: eighteen of the World Dungeon, regency of this planet will
Speaker 1: revert to the successor a Syndicate Neutral Observer AI myself
Speaker 1: has been created and dispatched this planet to supervise the
Speaker 1: creation of the World Dungeon and ensure all the rules
Speaker 1: and regulations are properly followed. So first of all, the
Speaker 1: fact that like it's oh, you didn't you didn't file
Speaker 1: your claim for your own resources, and you get to
Speaker 1: get your resources back if you want, but you have
Speaker 1: to fight in this game show to do it. This
Speaker 1: is some of the whitest shit I ever heard of
Speaker 1: my life. This is like real colonized, and I'm kind
Speaker 1: of loving it because this is just what the shit
Speaker 1: that you know what, I'm not gonna do this. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna wait and see what happens later because it might
Speaker 1: be more relevant. But you guys, the way that we
Speaker 1: handle resources on native lands to this day, we act
Speaker 1: like all of our bullshit and underhanded dealings is in
Speaker 1: the past and that now we've learned our lesson and
Speaker 1: it is the biggest scam in the world, the way
Speaker 1: that we have found ways to like continue to exploit
Speaker 1: these people and pat ourselves on the back like we
Speaker 1: are like making reparations anyway. I just the combination of
Speaker 1: just you should have filed for your matter. And also
Speaker 1: there is an Indigenous Planetary Species Protection Act, but this
Speaker 1: is what the act does, which is like doesn't feel
Speaker 1: real protect to me, my God. The first level of
Speaker 1: this dungeon will open approximately eighteen seconds after the end
Speaker 1: of this announcement. First level will be open for one
Speaker 1: human hour only. Once entrances are closed, you may no
Speaker 1: longer enter. If you enter, you may not leave until
Speaker 1: you have completed all eighteen levels or if you meet
Speaker 1: or if you meet certain other requirements. They don't say
Speaker 1: until you're dead. They should, but they don't. They just
Speaker 1: say certain other requirements, which is hilarious. If you choose
Speaker 1: not to enter the World Dungeon, you will have to
Speaker 1: sustain yourself upon the surface of your planet, and this
Speaker 1: may be the last communication you receive during your lifetime.
Speaker 1: All previously processed matter and elements are forfeit. However, you
Speaker 1: are free to mine and utilize any remaining and naturally
Speaker 1: a Korean resources for your own benefit. I don't even
Speaker 1: know exactly what falls under that category what counts as
Speaker 1: previously processed matter and elements? Like what it sounds like
Speaker 1: to me is basically anything that's been manufactured is ours,
Speaker 1: and you guys can go mine brand new or but
Speaker 1: if it's been built already, that shit's ours, which is
Speaker 1: I mean, really, what other option is there? At this
Speaker 1: point that to go into the dungeon, and they describe
Speaker 1: the number of entrances to each level, and that they
Speaker 1: will always decrease by half starting with one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand, and each lower level will have a longer
Speaker 1: period of reclamation. It is recommended you immediately find and
Speaker 1: utilize the tutorial guild. Multiple tutorial tutorial guilds will be
Speaker 1: seated throughout the dungeon on levels one through three. So
Speaker 1: at this point, Carl is realizing that he is going
Speaker 1: to freeze to death. It's below zero outside. He has
Speaker 1: no pants on, he doesn't even have proper shoes on.
Speaker 1: And he hears a trumpet blast and he looks and
Speaker 1: sees this thrift store that has been smashed to the ground,
Speaker 1: so it's no longer there, but the space where it
Speaker 1: had been a spotlight pops up. I saw an additional
Speaker 1: spotlight appear about a mile away. I saw a few
Speaker 1: more littered throughout the city. Even from this distance, I
Speaker 1: could feel the warmth radiating from the brightly lit hole
Speaker 1: in the ground. So he heads to shelter, which I'm
Speaker 1: not mad at. Dungeon floor one time to level collapse
Speaker 1: five days start of chapter two. So he heads down
Speaker 1: there and he doesn't hear another soul. Doughnut, of course,
Speaker 1: is with him, and the stairs go on quite a ways.
Speaker 1: They're carved and like have this pattern. It says could
Speaker 1: have been fish or maybe demons. The almost Asian looking
Speaker 1: carvings gave me an uneasy feeling. These stairs weren't here
Speaker 1: just a few minutes ago. The whole thing is made
Speaker 1: of buildings and cars and people of the world. Who
Speaker 1: did this? How did they do this? So he finally
Speaker 1: gets to the bottom, there's a door and a box
Speaker 1: pops up into his site. So what we're getting is,
Speaker 1: you know, the player view in a video game, and
Speaker 1: he has to learn how to control these boxes and
Speaker 1: options and stuff with his mind and learn how to
Speaker 1: navigate them only by thinking about them. So this winds
Speaker 1: up taking him some practice a little bit later. But
Speaker 1: this is a rendition of Kua Tin, the dominant species
Speaker 1: of the boring system and principal owner of the Borran Corporation.
Speaker 1: Make sure you recognize these guys. There'll be a test later.
Speaker 1: Was that last part supposed to be a joke? I
Speaker 1: don't think so. I don't think so. I just don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know, so he opens the door and U
Speaker 1: fucking Donut bites his hand and he gets greeted a timer.
Speaker 1: Four days, twenty three hours, and forty eight minutes. Crawler
Speaker 1: number four thousand, one hundred and nineteen Princess Donut Level
Speaker 1: one Race Cat class not yet assigned. You have been
Speaker 1: designated Crawler number four one hundred twenty two. You have
Speaker 1: been assigned the crawler Carl. You are assigned the race
Speaker 1: of Human. You are currently level one. You may choose
Speaker 1: a new race and class as soon as you descend
Speaker 1: the third floor. Your stat points have been assigned based
Speaker 1: on your current physical and mental profile. See the stat
Speaker 1: menu for more details. Congratulations, you've earned your first achievement.
Speaker 1: Crazy Cat Lady. You've entered the World Dungeon accompanied by
Speaker 1: a cat. Ah isn't that sweet? Reward? You've received Bronze
Speaker 1: pet Box New Achievement Trailblazing, Crazy Cat Lady, you are
Speaker 1: the first Crawler to have entered the World Dungeon accompanied
Speaker 1: by a cat. You must really love that thing to bed.
Speaker 1: You're probably both going to die a horrible death at
Speaker 1: any moment, or maybe not. Look at the prize you
Speaker 1: just received. Reward. You've received a legendary pet box, and
Speaker 1: it goes on like this early adopter, empty pockets, Why
Speaker 1: aren't you wearing pants? Unarmed, combat lone or all? Because
Speaker 1: he came down alone, is one of the first to enter,
Speaker 1: has no pants on, doesn't have any weapons, all of
Speaker 1: these things. And I really enjoy the way that this
Speaker 1: is done in kind of like real quick succession, because
Speaker 1: when you start a new video game, this is how
Speaker 1: it feels. They give you all kinds of achievements for
Speaker 1: doing all of the most basic shit, to the point
Speaker 1: that it feels annoying almost that you're getting these achievements,
Speaker 1: even though you get little prizes for them. You want
Speaker 1: to play the game. Can you fucking leave me alone
Speaker 1: a little bit? You know, like I do. Start to
Speaker 1: get very irritable about it. Later on, every time you
Speaker 1: have an achievement, it's like a fucking parade should be
Speaker 1: thrown because they start to get so far apart. But
Speaker 1: at first you're just like, you know, ah, shut up.
Speaker 1: So he sees a sign that says dad tutorial guild
Speaker 1: with a lot like an arrow pointing out an alley.
Speaker 1: I stepped into the new achievement, fall into an obvious trap,
Speaker 1: so lights flip on, and there is this like Bonker's
Speaker 1: contraption that a Goblin is steering Goblin murder Dozer contraption,
Speaker 1: a Goblin built steam powered machine designed to mow down
Speaker 1: and slaughter unsuspecting dungeon crawlers. I hope you're up to
Speaker 1: date with your tennis shots. And he gets a description
Speaker 1: of the types of goblins, the engineer, their levels, YadA, YadA, YadA,
Speaker 1: And I love that the engineers the in cells of
Speaker 1: the Goblin world. They have a hard time finding a date,
Speaker 1: which makes them extra angry. If there are any females
Speaker 1: in your party, they will attack them first. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I'd like the fact that Carl is just like, how
Speaker 1: can they make these jokes? Like, you know, he's asking
Speaker 1: the right questions right away and we actually get real
Speaker 1: answers to them. So the uh, let's see. He finds
Speaker 1: the tutorial guild and he goes to the door and
Speaker 1: it's closed and there are the two level gob the
Speaker 1: two two level goblins. Oh my god. The two level
Speaker 1: two goblins seem to give up on waiting for the
Speaker 1: bulldozer to negotiate the tight turn and hopped off and
Speaker 1: started jogging toward me. From behind the door. I heard
Speaker 1: the rattling of chains and turning of locks. What do
Speaker 1: you want you moms ain't allowed in here? You know that. Hey,
Speaker 1: this is a tutorial guild, the things that I was
Speaker 1: supposed to go in here. You're a crawler. Wait, by
Speaker 1: his left tip. We opened up and I didn't even notice.
Speaker 1: I must have slept through the announcement. Nobody tells Mordecai anything.
Speaker 1: There used to be a newsletter. It was delivered every
Speaker 1: few cycles, reliable as can, but then it just stopped.
Speaker 1: Budget cuts. I'm guessing they were always cutting corners. I
Speaker 1: thought we were opening for another two years. So eventually
Speaker 1: he tries to say, you took too long. Too long,
Speaker 1: I can't open if there's already mobs outside. I took
Speaker 1: too long. And finally, as the one comes up behind him,
Speaker 1: he loses his temper, and long story short, he beats
Speaker 1: the shit out of it and kills it, stomping on it,
Speaker 1: and it's one glance up at the bulldozer, which it
Speaker 1: stopped to pick up the second goblin. Relieve me of
Speaker 1: any potential regret. Hey, hey, stop, you can't come in here,
Speaker 1: he was saying, his back now turned donut he was
Speaker 1: talking to the goddamned cat. So he's like, you were
Speaker 1: going to fucking let me in there? It's clear, but
Speaker 1: for five seconds, so according to you, like you don't
Speaker 1: you can let me in when the mob isn't right
Speaker 1: here right, And then he when he gets in, he
Speaker 1: gets achievements for being in the guildhall, He gets stats
Speaker 1: on Mordecai, and he starts asking him, of course, about
Speaker 1: how all of this works. Now, for the interest of time,
Speaker 1: a lot of this I'm going to sort of gloss
Speaker 1: over because it works the way that a video game
Speaker 1: mostly works, and I don't think that I need to
Speaker 1: explain a lot of that. Even if you're not really
Speaker 1: a gamer, I think you are going to know the
Speaker 1: basics of all of this. There are baddies, some of
Speaker 1: them are, and our non playable characters. They don't have
Speaker 1: a lot to do with the actual plot, and you
Speaker 1: just deal with them and then you move on. You
Speaker 1: can't kill them, you can't affect them in any real way.
Speaker 1: Then there are ones that you do have to interact
Speaker 1: with our bosses, you know all this stuff. And he,
Speaker 1: after getting inside the fucking doughnut, knocks over this creature's
Speaker 1: mother's ashes and takes a shit in them, which is uh,
Speaker 1: that sounds right, That sounds pretty much on brand for
Speaker 1: a cat. So Carl Dodger's back outside. Briefly, the whole
Speaker 1: top of the machine was nothing but a fur lined,
Speaker 1: recessed hole with benches running the length. The ceiling was
Speaker 1: much lower than the long main hallway. When I stood
Speaker 1: my full height, I could reach up and touch it.
Speaker 1: I rushed forward and grasped onto the regular goblin. The
Speaker 1: creature barely weighed anything. I picked him up and he grunted.
Speaker 1: In surprise, he unsuccessfully attempted to hit me with his stick.
Speaker 1: With all of my strength, I threw the goblin forward.
Speaker 1: He rocketed out of the passenger area of the dozer,
Speaker 1: sailed directly over the head of the engineer, and crashed
Speaker 1: onto the tunnel wall, then bounced back, landing directly onto
Speaker 1: the spinning front blades. Oops. So then the one that's
Speaker 1: left is oh, yeah, this is the one that he kicks.
Speaker 1: That's right, You're in my world. Now. You need to
Speaker 1: speak my language, you weird green piece of shit. To
Speaker 1: my surprise, the goblin grinned. I could tell he understood me.
Speaker 1: You're not speaking your language. You're speaking Syndicate standard, you
Speaker 1: idiot slave. They programmed it into your brain. Do you
Speaker 1: really think you'll survive past? As he was distracted by
Speaker 1: his own soliloquy, I leaped forward, snatched the pot off
Speaker 1: his head, and clabbered him with it. The goblin stumbled.
Speaker 1: I smacked him again. He careened off the side of
Speaker 1: the tractor. His health bar appeared after I had smacked
Speaker 1: him the first time, but it was still well in
Speaker 1: the green. His knife went flying, so he starts to
Speaker 1: sit up, and then I jumped off the murder dozer,
Speaker 1: aiming both feet towards the chest and stomach of the
Speaker 1: still recovering god goblin. I'm not sure if I mentioned
Speaker 1: this earlier, but this is important information. I stand six
Speaker 1: foot three inches in away, about two hundred and thirty pounds.
Speaker 1: What I'm getting at is I'm a large dude. The
Speaker 1: goblin was small, and he hardly had any mass at all.
Speaker 1: The effect of me jumping onto him from high above
Speaker 1: was like someone smashing a fat jelly doughnut with a sledgehammer.
Speaker 1: Ea iso gross, yeah, oh my god. In the chat,
Speaker 1: Michael is saying this is like Lyndon beating on a
Speaker 1: bunch of six year olds in the tournament from the
Speaker 1: Cradle series. I love that comparison. So at this point,
Speaker 1: he realizes that there's a problem with the dozer, and
Speaker 1: he has just enough time to get back into the
Speaker 1: guild and slam the door before it explodes, and Mordecai
Speaker 1: is like, what the fuck was that these walls should
Speaker 1: not shake like that? And he has to explain to
Speaker 1: Mordecai is like, oh shit, that would definitely have killed you,
Speaker 1: So good thing you were in here. So finally we
Speaker 1: get to the training and we get the explanation of
Speaker 1: what exactly the deal is with this world, and we
Speaker 1: find out that Mordecai used to be a being on
Speaker 1: a planet that got dropped on like this and he
Speaker 1: made it to level thirteen. Now he doesn't make it out,
Speaker 1: but he is still alive. So like, evidently if you
Speaker 1: get to a certain point, he gets down to floor eleven.
Speaker 1: That's what it is. Once you descend to floor ten,
Speaker 1: you're given several options to exit the dungeon. The deeper
Speaker 1: you go, the better those options are. And I thought
Speaker 1: that was really interesting that there are different ways in
Speaker 1: which you can negotiate your way out, and so he's
Speaker 1: been working for them, and they change his form according
Speaker 1: to whatever the theme is of the dungeons that they
Speaker 1: are doing for this particular season of the game. And
Speaker 1: all of this works very similarly to the Hunger Games,
Speaker 1: where you're being watched almost all the time, except for
Speaker 1: in bathrooms, which I think probably is going to be
Speaker 1: important at some point. You can have followers views like
Speaker 1: view numbers, and the more followers and fans you get,
Speaker 1: the more likely you are to get patrons, and they
Speaker 1: give you good, rare shit that you wouldn't get otherwise.
Speaker 1: But you have to really make yourself stand out in
Speaker 1: terms of personality and style for them to notice you.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's like the Hunger Games with it
Speaker 1: being a sort of popularity contest. I have no doubt
Speaker 1: if we had been a little further along in our
Speaker 1: development of social media by the time she wrote those
Speaker 1: the concept of views and fans would be absolutely like
Speaker 1: integrated into how the game worked. It wasn't, but that's
Speaker 1: definitely the energy of the games. So we also find
Speaker 1: out that there are worlds seeded with humans that are
Speaker 1: basically allowed to ripen until it's time to harvest them,
Speaker 1: and he like the there's I think, he says, like
Speaker 1: nine other human seeded worlds. But I have to imagine
Speaker 1: that a lot of like the way social media works,
Speaker 1: is them preparing us for the concepts that come out
Speaker 1: within this game. Like it just feels like that would
Speaker 1: be the way to say this up, you know. Sat
Speaker 1: Michael says he actually race changed during his Dungeon crawl
Speaker 1: from his original sky followers to a changeling, otherwise his
Speaker 1: form wouldn't change with the dungeon. Oh okay, I missed that,
Speaker 1: thank you. So he also says guild masters prepare for
Speaker 1: years for each new Dungeon world. I've been preparing for
Speaker 1: this longer than you've been alive, and he describes all
Speaker 1: the stuff that he has learned about pop culture and stuff,
Speaker 1: which again it's very much giving ready player one and
Speaker 1: the group Borrent is evidently like really really powerful. When
Speaker 1: he brings it up, Mordecai gets real shifty about the
Speaker 1: way he talks about them and the tone he uses,
Speaker 1: and he's like, they're not always watching like actively they
Speaker 1: could always be, but plenty of people talk about them
Speaker 1: because they're like the people sponsoring this, so they're not
Speaker 1: looking all the time. But you just don't want them
Speaker 1: to zero in on you if you are on camera
Speaker 1: and you say some off shit about them. I think
Speaker 1: the wording he uses is they will accelerate your experience,
Speaker 1: which I assume means that they will give you some
Speaker 1: things to fight that are like above your level. So
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make sure because I'm like already running
Speaker 1: out of time. I only have fifteen minutes left. He
Speaker 1: learns how to use the controls identify the creatures that
Speaker 1: are around him, even corpses. It will tell him like
Speaker 1: who that was and what level they were, and YadA YadA.
Speaker 1: I grumbled a bit about that three in intelligence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I never did do great in math, but I never
Speaker 1: considered myself a slobbering idiot. And then he thinks about
Speaker 1: his friend Billy, who is an idiot who had come
Speaker 1: out of a bar and peed on a the cops
Speaker 1: bicycle while the cop was giving someone else a ticket
Speaker 1: for drunken disorderly. But Mordecai says, intelligence told you the
Speaker 1: bike belonged to a police officer. Wisdom told you not
Speaker 1: to urinate upon it. We all have a wisdom stat
Speaker 1: but it doesn't appear on that list. It used to
Speaker 1: but they discovered changing one's wisdom greatly changed their personality,
Speaker 1: so it's no longer adjustable. I thought that was pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: I like the the differentiation between wisdom and intelligence. I
Speaker 1: believe that games like there are plenty that do do that,
Speaker 1: but yeah, that is like intelligence. Being able to just
Speaker 1: look at a thing and tell what it is is
Speaker 1: very different from being able to determine the best course
Speaker 1: of action now that you have that basic information. So
Speaker 1: the first level of the dungeon was off limits to
Speaker 1: live viewers, so these stats wouldn't move until I descended
Speaker 1: to the second floor. That really surprised me. I figured
Speaker 1: that the first level was going to be the one
Speaker 1: that was the most like ridiculous to watch, sort of
Speaker 1: the way that when you watch like America's Got Talent
Speaker 1: or something, they would often show I don't know if
Speaker 1: they do this anymore because it's been a long time,
Speaker 1: but like, for so you think you can dance, for example,
Speaker 1: do you get to watch a lot of the auditions,
Speaker 1: And sometimes they will show you auditions that are particularly good,
Speaker 1: and they will also show you the ones that are
Speaker 1: really really cringey and terrible. And I've always felt so
Speaker 1: like kind of conflicted about that because a lot of
Speaker 1: times the ones that they show where somebody is really terrible,
Speaker 1: it can feel like really exploitative. But also, these people
Speaker 1: showed up here knowing that they might get on TV,
Speaker 1: and they signed away the approval to do that, and
Speaker 1: so they opted into this knowing eyes open, you know.
Speaker 1: But a lot of times there's a feeling of like
Speaker 1: this person didn't fully understand how humiliating this is going
Speaker 1: to look, you know. So I just really thought that
Speaker 1: like the first level and seeing all of the people
Speaker 1: who wind up getting like weeded out almost immediately would
Speaker 1: be a really big part of getting into the first season.
Speaker 1: But I almost think that maybe it's too much blood,
Speaker 1: Like you lose so many people so quickly that the
Speaker 1: cameras can't keep up, and maybe it's not that fun
Speaker 1: to watch, and it's just sort of like sad, I
Speaker 1: don't know. So he says, you need to kill with
Speaker 1: style and excitement. Maybe come up with a catchphrase. I
Speaker 1: managed to accumulate almost thirty million followers and four patrons.
Speaker 1: That's the only way I survived once I hit the
Speaker 1: second floor. Watchers from across the universe had the ability
Speaker 1: to tune into any crawler. They wished Warrant would continue
Speaker 1: to air highlights. So the longer I survived, the better
Speaker 1: my chances are getting featured. Anytime someone watched me for
Speaker 1: just about eight seconds or so, it counted as a view.
Speaker 1: This stat didn't help or hurt me, but it was
Speaker 1: a good indicator of how interesting I was. You might
Speaker 1: not like it, but pay careful attention when I tell
Speaker 1: you this. Obtaining patrons is crucial to your survival. There
Speaker 1: is plenty of great loot in the dungeons that will
Speaker 1: help you survive, but the best loot comes from benefactors. Patrons.
Speaker 1: Views lead to followers. If you're being followed, it means
Speaker 1: the viewer has bookmarked your crawler ID they can look
Speaker 1: it on you whenever they want. Following leads to favorites.
Speaker 1: If you're favorited, that's a good thing. It means the
Speaker 1: viewers are getting live updates on your stats and condition.
Speaker 1: They get notifications if you're fighting. If someone's favorited you,
Speaker 1: they really want to know how you're doing. Viewers only
Speaker 1: get a certain number of favorites, so consider it an honor.
Speaker 1: But ultimately it's all about the patrons. Lots of favorites
Speaker 1: will always lead to patrons. Patrons are usually organizations, not individuals.
Speaker 1: They'll see someone has a lot of favorites and they'll
Speaker 1: sponsor you. It's an advertising thing. They sponsor you by
Speaker 1: purchasing boxes for you. There are dozens of types, and
Speaker 1: each box has six quality tiers. Bronze, silver, gold, platinum, legendary, celestial.
Speaker 1: Most patrons can only afford or are willing to send
Speaker 1: you silver or gold. Bronze tends to be crap. Some
Speaker 1: of the richer patrons may send you platinum, though the
Speaker 1: cost has got to be astronomical. A bronze benefactor box
Speaker 1: is better than a plain gold adventurer box. A benefactor
Speaker 1: box may contain items from the patron's home world. You'll
Speaker 1: never find a pulse rifle or automated power armor in
Speaker 1: any sort of box in the world Dungeon, but it's
Speaker 1: possible to get from a patron and then he brings
Speaker 1: up toilet paper and Mordecai toilet papers. Complimentary restrooms are
Speaker 1: liberally populated throughout the map. It's the only place the
Speaker 1: viewers cameras can't follow. The last Dungeon warrant managed didn't
Speaker 1: have rest areas, and the crawlers were pissing and crapping
Speaker 1: all over the place. Crawlers lose viewers when they're shitting
Speaker 1: in the middle of a hallway. It's gross. I really
Speaker 1: love that that is specifically mentioned. Bathrooms are important, and
Speaker 1: I love that even when we have just decided to
Speaker 1: set aside all humanity, we are still not going to
Speaker 1: be completely uncivilized and have some fucking bathrooms. Thank you.
Speaker 1: So we spent the next several minutes going over a
Speaker 1: few other menu items. Uh, and Mordecai is like, you
Speaker 1: know what your proficiencies and things are actually like kind
Speaker 1: of above average. You're starting from a pretty decent place.
Speaker 1: He You know, we go through a lot of the
Speaker 1: menu stuff. A lot of this I felt like really
Speaker 1: didn't need to be gone through. It's fine, but it
Speaker 1: just seemed a little bit redundant to me. And we
Speaker 1: find out about how like when the stairways populate to
Speaker 1: getting downstairs, they are hidden and eventually they are guarded
Speaker 1: and you have to get through certain bosses in order
Speaker 1: to pass through. The levels that are finished are like
Speaker 1: they get smashed, so you are crushed in those as
Speaker 1: you would have been into building. If you don't find
Speaker 1: your way out in time, which is pretty rough, and
Speaker 1: the guild areas are the areas like there are also
Speaker 1: rest spots where you are safe from being attacked, and
Speaker 1: you also can like recharge your stat bars and stuff.
Speaker 1: But and you can basically like stay there and not leave.
Speaker 1: But once the place closes, you will die. And I'll
Speaker 1: say right now that I probably would find myself holed
Speaker 1: up in one of those rooms and just chill until
Speaker 1: the place crushed me. I would rather that than be
Speaker 1: like run over by a goblin steam boiler machine. I
Speaker 1: don't know, that's just mehm. So are you stuck here
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life? No, this is my
Speaker 1: last tour. Once this nightmare is over, I become a
Speaker 1: full citizen. I receive a moderate stipend, and I'm free
Speaker 1: to make my way in the universe. Will you go
Speaker 1: back to your home planet? No, it's not open to me,
Speaker 1: he said. It's not open to him in such a
Speaker 1: way that makes me feel like the fact that he
Speaker 1: took the deal with these guys means that he's like
Speaker 1: persona non grata. And I may be wrong about that,
Speaker 1: but there was just a vibe to it that it
Speaker 1: didn't seem to me like it was I am not allowed.
Speaker 1: That's a different thing to it's not open to me.
Speaker 1: Felt like technically I could, but that wouldn't be good
Speaker 1: for me, you know. And we find out that, like,
Speaker 1: there's eighteen levels and nobody has ever made it all
Speaker 1: eighteen levels, not one time. Level thirteen is the deepest
Speaker 1: anybody has ever gone, which is pretty upsetting. So let's see, Oh,
Speaker 1: here it is your inventory. This season, Born's trying something
Speaker 1: a little different. Last season, it was slop based. It
Speaker 1: allowed one to carry multiple items, but limited in capacity
Speaker 1: and had weight limits. This season, each crawler is given
Speaker 1: a dimensional inventory and AI cataloging system. Basically unlimited storage,
Speaker 1: and if you can physically lift it off the ground
Speaker 1: by yourself for about four seconds, you can put it
Speaker 1: in your space, no matter how big it is. The
Speaker 1: only rule is you can't store living creatures. They will
Speaker 1: immediately die. Also, the storage is time locked, so food
Speaker 1: doesn't go bad. That's a big one. We had an
Speaker 1: issue last season with crawlers starving to death watching thousands
Speaker 1: of lethargic, unmoving players as they waited for the timer
Speaker 1: to run out. Yeah, it was no good, so Born
Speaker 1: fixed it. This uh idea of like if you can
Speaker 1: pick something up no matter how big it is, and
Speaker 1: you can store it. I just keep imagining, like, you know,
Speaker 1: a pretty decent sized rock and you just like open
Speaker 1: your inventory and just drop it on somebody, depending on
Speaker 1: how you are situated. It seems pretty convenient. You know.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that we'll get better objects and rocks, but
Speaker 1: to start off with, based on the things that he
Speaker 1: finds in the boxes that he opens, a rock is
Speaker 1: pretty that feels on brand to me. So let's see. Oh,
Speaker 1: when he finds the legendary pet box, Mordecai kind of
Speaker 1: freaks out and it's just like Jesus Christ, I can't
Speaker 1: believe you got that right when you walked in, And
Speaker 1: generally is like there is a good amount of stuff
Speaker 1: in here for you already. So I really enjoyed a
Speaker 1: couple of these. Some of these jokes are like a
Speaker 1: little plaid, and some of them really cracked me up.
Speaker 1: There is I'm trying to find the spot here. It
Speaker 1: is okay, new achievement, you've killed a mob. You're a murderer.
Speaker 1: He probably had a family. The way this guy delivers
Speaker 1: these is very funny. New achievement, you've killed in our
Speaker 1: mom with your bare fucking hands. Holy crap, dude, that's
Speaker 1: kind of fucked up. New achievement. You've killed a mob
Speaker 1: a higher level than yourself. You're getting the hang of this.
Speaker 1: Don't let it get to your head. New achievement potophilia.
Speaker 1: You've used your bare feet to crush and kill an opponent. Hey,
Speaker 1: that's my fetish. Seriously, keep doing it. You'll be rewarded.
Speaker 1: This will help reward You've received a gold shoe box,
Speaker 1: which eventually we find out has a toe ring in it,
Speaker 1: and he's mad about it. But I would guess that
Speaker 1: toe ring might be even more beneficial than shoes, because
Speaker 1: that is a gold shoe box. So I feel like
Speaker 1: that shit must be doing some But yeah, so he
Speaker 1: says Mordecai. You can only open boxes in safe areas.
Speaker 1: The safe rooms will always appear on your map, even
Speaker 1: if they're within the fog of war. If you haven't
Speaker 1: visited in an area, it won't show specifics of the
Speaker 1: hallway even if it's in range. The fog of war
Speaker 1: covers places you haven't yet visited. Don't forget. The level
Speaker 1: itself is going to collapse on your head. After a
Speaker 1: certain amount of time. The only way to survive is
Speaker 1: to keep moving deeper. We have ten loop boxes. That's
Speaker 1: a lot, but not a crazy amount. Usually people come
Speaker 1: into the tutorial with two or three. You can hoard them,
Speaker 1: but when you decide to open them, you can't pick
Speaker 1: and choose which ones. It's an all or nothing thing.
Speaker 1: There's no real tactical reason to hold onto them since
Speaker 1: you can't sell a transfer unopened boxes. And it's important
Speaker 1: to note that while it's possible to receive unstable or
Speaker 1: damaged loot, you'll never receive outright cursed lout. But that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean everything is safe to try on. Always read
Speaker 1: the descriptions before you activate or wear something. Always, always,
Speaker 1: no exceptions. And I am not looking forward to the
Speaker 1: first time that he just puts something on without fully
Speaker 1: reading it, because I feel like that is going to happen.
Speaker 1: So the Uh Bronze Pet Box has pet biscuits, scroll
Speaker 1: of Heel Critter, The Bronze One's Bronze Adventure has Potion
Speaker 1: of Healing Times too common, fingerless gloves, Bronze weapon box,
Speaker 1: toad cudgel a stick, Bronze weapon box poker. It was
Speaker 1: literally a fireplace poker, a wrought iron stick with a
Speaker 1: screw on point at the end. I would swear that
Speaker 1: in the audiobook he says a wooden stick with a
Speaker 1: screw on point to the end, because I was sort
Speaker 1: of shocked that anything used for fire had would. I
Speaker 1: don't know if this has like been corrected or if
Speaker 1: I'm remembering wrong in the audio book. It does not matter,
Speaker 1: but it just caught my attention because I had intended
Speaker 1: to comment on it. Poison antidote times two, crawler biscuit
Speaker 1: times one hundred torch times twenty silver goblin box dynamite
Speaker 1: times five lighter goblin pass. It flew and smacked up
Speaker 1: against my left inner forearm. I could feel it burning
Speaker 1: against my skin like I was being branded. The pain abated,
Speaker 1: and my jacket was otherwise undamaged. I don't know what
Speaker 1: that means, and he doesn't ask. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: this that it just happens to him and we just
Speaker 1: sort of brushed past it. I'm hoping that this means that,
Speaker 1: like goblins are just going to leave him alone, but
Speaker 1: I feel like that's way too easy. Gold apparel box
Speaker 1: and chant night gaunt, cloak of Stoutness, enchanted troll skin,
Speaker 1: shirt of pummeling beside me. Mordecai gasped the moment the
Speaker 1: two items appeared. I hope that was a good thing.
Speaker 1: And then the toe ring and then legendary pet box
Speaker 1: pet biscuit times five hundred. So we find out that
Speaker 1: the pet biscuits do different things to your animals, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it will make them dangerous and they will be
Speaker 1: teleported out as long as you are in a safe zone,
Speaker 1: which is why it's so important to only feed them
Speaker 1: these when you're in a safe zone, because otherwise they
Speaker 1: don't get teleported away and you potentially will get hurt
Speaker 1: by whatever is being done to them because they'll be
Speaker 1: transformed into different creatures or whatever. Also, they are so
Speaker 1: attractive to pets that if you pull out more than
Speaker 1: one at a time, they will just eat all of them,
Speaker 1: So you've got to be really careful about using them.
Speaker 1: And he's like debating because he finds out it's ten
Speaker 1: pieces of gold per biscuit that maybe, let's see, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to find that it is it. I feel like
Speaker 1: it's more gold than that. Uh, if you feed it
Speaker 1: to her, Oh no, it's worth a couple thousand gold.
Speaker 1: Oh that's a lot damn enhanced pet biscuit worth a
Speaker 1: couple thousand gold. So he's standing there deciding if he's
Speaker 1: going to feed it to donut or not, and she
Speaker 1: just attacks him and fucking tastes it, and as soon
Speaker 1: as she does, she turns into a mass of flesh
Speaker 1: and splatters, and he's like, well, what the hell happened
Speaker 1: to her? And Mordecai looks at her and is like, oh,
Speaker 1: she's transforming. She didn't tell a port a way, so
Speaker 1: whatever's happening to her is and considered something bad. But
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to wait. It's probably like five or
Speaker 1: ten minutes, and that's how chapter five ends. And I
Speaker 1: was so like, come on, I want to know what
Speaker 1: the cat's turning into. I can't decide what's like for
Speaker 1: the best, because ideally, in my opinion, the cat turning
Speaker 1: into something that can be mounted is best. You can, like,
Speaker 1: you know, ride a little horsey down these hallways. That
Speaker 1: does mean that the cat takes on most of the
Speaker 1: risk in stepping on things or whatever. But the cat's
Speaker 1: gonna be running around anyway unless you plan to carry
Speaker 1: her in a little papoosca or what do you call it?
Speaker 1: On you so she I don't think would allow that,
Speaker 1: so she'd be at the same risk anyway. I suppose also,
Speaker 1: of course, becoming something like a fire breathing dragon potentially
Speaker 1: very helpful. Maybe if she turned into something that you
Speaker 1: couldn't ride but that could carry stuff, maybe you get
Speaker 1: more storage. Uh yeah, I don't know, Like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of possibilities, and I feel like
Speaker 1: maybe I'm not even thinking big enough, Like could she
Speaker 1: turn into a straight up car? Could she turned into
Speaker 1: a bulldozer? You know, I know that's not animal ish,
Speaker 1: but maybe it's not restricted to that. I don't know
Speaker 1: what the options are that'd be nice. I feel like,
Speaker 1: just ride a bulldozer right through everybody. Oh god, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: Michael is leaving so many comments that I've missed. You
Speaker 1: might be good at this game. Thinking of inventive ways
Speaker 1: to use system mechanics is the court to anyone trying
Speaker 1: to break the game and become op. Regular pet biscuits
Speaker 1: are just food treats. He got the enhanced with just
Speaker 1: a special one, right, because well he got both. He
Speaker 1: got regular pet biscuits in the first box, the bronze box,
Speaker 1: and then he got the enhanced ones in the legendary box.
Speaker 1: The most people would think catgirl something that can be
Speaker 1: mounted due to the genre. Oh my god, I should
Speaker 1: have known not to phrase it like that. That's my
Speaker 1: own fault, So your supposition is especially funny. I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, if I were a cat and I was
Speaker 1: in this position, what I would want to be done
Speaker 1: to me? And it's tough because I think most cats
Speaker 1: would be like, I am already the ideal perfect killing machine.
Speaker 1: There needs to be no alteration to my being. I
Speaker 1: am one with death, and I feel like they would
Speaker 1: just reject it. But you know, I think, what if
Speaker 1: she got wings? That would be something that would not
Speaker 1: necessarily be super useful to him, but would be really
Speaker 1: helpful for her, potentially avoiding certain types of traps. Of course,
Speaker 1: then she might be more vulnerable to other types of traps.
Speaker 1: If she were able to fly in, he could ride
Speaker 1: on her back. Perfect. If she's like spat acid, maybe
Speaker 1: the thing is finding out that sort of thing. How
Speaker 1: do you find it out without getting hurt in the process,
Speaker 1: because there's no take back seats. It's not like you respawn.
Speaker 1: If you get killed, you just die. That's it. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so okay, I'm going to wrap this up, but yeah,
Speaker 1: this is These are very promising first five chapters. I
Speaker 1: had a really good time reading these, so I hope
Speaker 1: that you guys enjoy the coverage and let me know
Speaker 1: what you think and if you're I saw some people
Speaker 1: talking in the books channel on the Discord about reading this,
Speaker 1: but a lot of it was thankfully covered with spoiler tags,
Speaker 1: and then we wound up making a spoiler channel in
Speaker 1: the discord, So anybody who's listening to this, if you
Speaker 1: want to talk spoilers very much and make fun of
Speaker 1: something that I said that I'm super wrong about, or
Speaker 1: be gleeful that I got something right and didn't realize it,
Speaker 1: that is the place to go. I always put the
Speaker 1: discord link in these the show notes so you can
Speaker 1: head there. There's a no spoiler channel for those who
Speaker 1: are following along with me who want to talk to me,
Speaker 1: but the spoiler channel obviously I am not allowed in.
Speaker 1: So that is just for y'all to commiserate with one
Speaker 1: another about how much smarter you are than me, which
Speaker 1: you know, it's really cruel and you guys are sick,
Speaker 1: but what can I expect? All right, everybody, thank you again.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed and until next time, did alone. Motherfuckers,
Speaker 1: that was an unspoiled network podcast.