Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
Speaker 1: covering Dungeon Crawler Carl chapters thirteen through twenty. In these chapters,
Speaker 1: we are having to deal with a lot of different terrible,
Speaker 1: new to us creatures, but also some very familiar creatures
Speaker 1: human beings, especially shocker cops who could have seen this coming.
Speaker 1: Welcome to spoil Me, Welcome to the show everyone. I
Speaker 1: am Natasha. Thank you very much to Michael for commissioning
Speaker 1: this episode. And Michael is here in the chat today.
Speaker 1: Oh and Dan came, Hi Dan again. Yeah. So this section, guys,
Speaker 1: is riddled with some wild stuff. I had a good
Speaker 1: time with this, and it feels like we are definitely
Speaker 1: heading in the direction I was expecting. I am going
Speaker 1: to point these things out as we go. But there's
Speaker 1: a constant through line that repeats that I think probably
Speaker 1: a lot of you are picking up on also. And
Speaker 1: it starts because I like, actually went back and I
Speaker 1: re listened to the beginning of the book with my
Speaker 1: husband the other day because I thought he would really
Speaker 1: enjoy it. And we've just gotten up to the part
Speaker 1: where we read the boss battle, but he hasn't actually
Speaker 1: gone inside yet, and so I'm kind of like, we'll
Speaker 1: see how he acts that. But something that Mordecai says
Speaker 1: is like, this is my last show, and after this one,
Speaker 1: I'm free to do what i want. After this, I'll
Speaker 1: be a fully fledged citizen. So I'm just going to
Speaker 1: put that there to reference a little bit later. Let's
Speaker 1: begin with chapter thirteen. So we start off with Carl
Speaker 1: and Donut heading towards the body of this other crawler.
Speaker 1: And it was a real fun moment because in the
Speaker 1: audiobook Lutible Corpse Crawler, Rebecca Rebecca W Level three killed
Speaker 1: by crawler Frank Q, and I love the line. I
Speaker 1: felt as if I was slack because that was almost
Speaker 1: exactly the reaction that I also had. It was sort
Speaker 1: of remarkable, actually, because I shouldn't be prepared for people
Speaker 1: to turn on each other, but I really thought that
Speaker 1: would take longer. I really thought that we would have
Speaker 1: our people turning on each other once we got past
Speaker 1: a certain point and there were fewer of us and
Speaker 1: we began to see each other as competing for resources
Speaker 1: in a more real way. I never thought it would
Speaker 1: happen this soon, and I should. I should have known better.
Speaker 1: I really should. And then to like re emphasize their cops.
Speaker 1: As we find out later, I mean, if you don't
Speaker 1: already know how I feel about police in our country,
Speaker 1: I don't like want to get into a whole thing,
Speaker 1: but I think that they are sociopathic trash who think
Speaker 1: they are better than the rest of the population and
Speaker 1: are on power trips and our bullies and our low
Speaker 1: key just like a tool of fascism, not even low key,
Speaker 1: it's high high key, fucking totally. So for the first
Speaker 1: people to turn on other human beings to be cops,
Speaker 1: it feels like absolutely correct, just dead on pun into it.
Speaker 1: So let us get into this because Dona, of course,
Speaker 1: at first tries to be like, I'm not to scare
Speaker 1: this guy. And there's an interesting moment here where Carl
Speaker 1: is trying to find Frank on his map, or not
Speaker 1: really Frank specifically, because I don't think you can do
Speaker 1: that unless they're in your party, but you can see
Speaker 1: blue dots and he's trying to see if they're any
Speaker 1: near him, And even as he's look he's wondering, is
Speaker 1: it possible for them to hide from me? Like I
Speaker 1: don't really know how this completely works, and they may
Speaker 1: be there, and I just can't tell, which is unnerving him.
Speaker 1: Christ another thing to worry about. A crazy asshole with
Speaker 1: a gun. I was suddenly, inexplicably reminded of that day,
Speaker 1: the last day I ever saw my father. You're a bully.
Speaker 1: You're a bully, and nobody likes you. It's why mom left.
Speaker 1: I was expecting him to get angry to hit me,
Speaker 1: but he never hit me, not once. The man just
Speaker 1: laughed and laughed, and that was enough. I don't need
Speaker 1: you to like me, but you will respect me. The
Speaker 1: memory came quickly out of nowhere. I didn't know why.
Speaker 1: Nobody had died that day, Nobody had been hurt at all,
Speaker 1: not physically. So the fact that this happened right after
Speaker 1: a crazy asshole with a gun leads me to believe.
Speaker 1: Because there's a point earlier where he mentions how his
Speaker 1: mother used to lock him in the basement to keep
Speaker 1: him away from his father and his dad's friends because
Speaker 1: they would drink and start to really act up. And
Speaker 1: my interpretation of this association is that his dad got
Speaker 1: drunk and had a gun and was fucking around and
Speaker 1: thought it was really funny and was trying to like
Speaker 1: establish dominance somehow in a moment and this is this
Speaker 1: kind of got to me a little bit. Guys, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna admit because my father was a similar type. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't want to call him a bully, because
Speaker 1: a bully is somebody who really enjoys this, and I
Speaker 1: don't think that my dad really did. But he was
Speaker 1: definitely the type of person who never actually, like physically
Speaker 1: lashed out, but would make it clear that he was
Speaker 1: having to strain himself, and so there was always a
Speaker 1: threat of violence in the air. And eventually once he
Speaker 1: did lose it. But I got myself behind a door
Speaker 1: and he broke the door in half. I don't know
Speaker 1: what he would have done if I hadn't gotten behind
Speaker 1: that door. And it was like the I don't need
Speaker 1: you to like me, but I will respect me in
Speaker 1: a vacuum. I actually think that's fair, you know. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's a great approach, but I could see
Speaker 1: why you would take it. But there are people who
Speaker 1: really seem to think that being liked means that you
Speaker 1: are somehow weak or compromising yourself. And I'm just really
Speaker 1: kind of fascinated at Carl's reaction to this moment, being
Speaker 1: this memory in combination with his mother trying to protect
Speaker 1: him from his father, who he admits here never actually
Speaker 1: did hit him, because there is something about the threat
Speaker 1: being there even when the action isn't there that is
Speaker 1: so much. It's so manipulative. It's a really different kind
Speaker 1: of threat and mental fuckery that I think a lot
Speaker 1: of men think. Because they're not hitting, it's not as bad.
Speaker 1: It's like excusable. Actually, maybe it points out what a
Speaker 1: good guy they are because they haven't raised their hand
Speaker 1: to you, and so all the other shit they're pulling
Speaker 1: is nothing because it's not like they hit you. And
Speaker 1: because the bar for men is on the fucking floor
Speaker 1: beyond the bar for men is a tavern in hades,
Speaker 1: they really often will believe that as long as I
Speaker 1: am not beating the shit out of you, I deserve
Speaker 1: a fucking cookie. So I'm just gonna be sitting here
Speaker 1: waiting for more info on his father and what that
Speaker 1: guy was like, because I feel like that's going to
Speaker 1: be informing some things probably, So anyway, the uh. There's
Speaker 1: a moment here where Dona is insisting that the woman
Speaker 1: was killed by a cocker spaniel with a gun, and
Speaker 1: he has to point out that like that she isn't
Speaker 1: able to even fire a gun because of her being
Speaker 1: a quadruped, and some imbecile with a gun doesn't scare me,
Speaker 1: and they shouldn't carry scare you either. So he tries
Speaker 1: to say, this guy doesn't scare me either, and then
Speaker 1: it made me irrationally angry. In fact, I think you're right.
Speaker 1: I want to find him if we can. Let's stick
Speaker 1: to the neighborhood. We'll hunt down the remaining red dots.
Speaker 1: Then we'll go back to the safe room and watch
Speaker 1: the premiere. You're not scared of that guy, really, no,
Speaker 1: not at all. Well, then you're crazy. I don't like
Speaker 1: you being crazy. I'm scared of him. We need to
Speaker 1: stay away from him. What if he'said one of those
Speaker 1: murder hoboes you hear so much about. Just two seconds
Speaker 1: ago you said, and I quote some in this cell
Speaker 1: with a gun doesn't scare me. Yeah, that's when I
Speaker 1: thought you were being a pussy. I didn't realize you
Speaker 1: were getting all Charles Bronson death wish on me. So
Speaker 1: that was interesting. Her just trying to, like, you know,
Speaker 1: get him psyched up because she doesn't understanding like the
Speaker 1: headspace that he's in. And it's funny because initially I
Speaker 1: think he was sort of just overwhelmed at how awful
Speaker 1: this is a woman being killed by another person. But
Speaker 1: the memory of his father comes back to him, and
Speaker 1: it seems like he is definitely feeling away about this
Speaker 1: man that is motivated by personal experience. So we go
Speaker 1: to chapter fourteen and we get the premiere of Dungeon
Speaker 1: Crawler World Earth. So first of all, these beings can
Speaker 1: like go virtually into the scene and experience it in
Speaker 1: a way, which is apparently not like super popular, but
Speaker 1: it is an option. Many viewers didn't like the VR versions,
Speaker 1: so they watched using a method where they had a
Speaker 1: bird's eye view and they could zoom in and out
Speaker 1: and angles and switch angles at a whim. We didn't
Speaker 1: have any of that. The show streamed on the center
Speaker 1: of the three televisions over the fast food counter, and
Speaker 1: there were there four just over four million when we start.
Speaker 1: This is not a good way to watch the show,
Speaker 1: Tally announced. As the title appeared on the screen, the
Speaker 1: screen jerked around like I was watching someone play a
Speaker 1: game on Twitch. The view kept randomly zooming in and out,
Speaker 1: sometimes focusing on nothing in particular, sometimes lights flash for
Speaker 1: no reason, And I thought that this was sort of interesting,
Speaker 1: the idea that, like the view that for whom it
Speaker 1: matters most, the players, that they are not granted a
Speaker 1: view of what's really happening. I feel like this is
Speaker 1: a metaphor that, you know, there's sometimes lights flash for
Speaker 1: no reason, zooming in on nothing in particular. It's feeling
Speaker 1: a little bit like we're trying to disorient you on
Speaker 1: purpose so that you don't know or sympathize with, or
Speaker 1: have like a plan, you know what I mean. Just Also,
Speaker 1: there is an orange hued four eyed lizard like creature,
Speaker 1: so it turns out that they are very alien like.
Speaker 1: I was sort of thinking that maybe the creatures would
Speaker 1: make themselves look like the creatures within the game to
Speaker 1: sort of be a cohesive theme for the overall like
Speaker 1: look of this season of the show. But it turns
Speaker 1: out that it is not how they're doing this. So
Speaker 1: there's the Squim Conglomerate Battle for the planet aarrol thousands
Speaker 1: of furry gorilla like creatures screaming and rushing into a
Speaker 1: battle against a group of similar creatures. Later, it showed
Speaker 1: a single heavily armored gorilla stick a spear into the
Speaker 1: throat of a smaller, gray colored gorilla riding a massive
Speaker 1: pig thing. The word winner appeared on the screen. The
Speaker 1: winning gorilla fell to his knees and appeared to start
Speaker 1: sobbing before the screen cut away. A round metal two
Speaker 1: but that looked like a barrel appeared on the screen
Speaker 1: for fifteen seconds straight. There was no sound. Tally said
Speaker 1: it was a commercial, which that's wild, But it's interesting
Speaker 1: to see these other creatures and the way their fight
Speaker 1: is done, because apparently there's like, you know, different ways
Speaker 1: that they will set these up. So that one was
Speaker 1: more of a colosseum and the oh my god, I'm sorry, guys,
Speaker 1: I'm losing track of where the spot is here it is.
Speaker 1: Next came a view of Earth. Music swelled, and they
Speaker 1: show all of these, like, first of all, diagrams of humans,
Speaker 1: and it's so weird, he says, a discussion of human
Speaker 1: anatomy with an enorm inordinate amount of time spent discussing
Speaker 1: discussing male testicles and female ovaries. And I was just like,
Speaker 1: you could just say testicles and ovaries. That was a weird.
Speaker 1: Why would you? Next came a long line of shots
Speaker 1: of Earth focusing mostly on urban areas. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: when he says, I still couldn't understand most of what
Speaker 1: the commentator was saying. I was sort of like, are
Speaker 1: the testicles and overaries going to turn out to be? Like?
Speaker 1: Is that going to be a hint that something else
Speaker 1: is going on here? And he just couldn't understand well
Speaker 1: enough to tell. And of course this is when they
Speaker 1: do the thing that also white people do about like Africa,
Speaker 1: where they'll show all of the worst parts of a place,
Speaker 1: and you know, I have no doubt that Sarah McLaughlin
Speaker 1: music is probably playing over this entire montage, but you know,
Speaker 1: they were cherry picking the shittier parts of the planet,
Speaker 1: and they even chose scenes from disaster movies. And I
Speaker 1: love how incredibly gullible Doughnut is. This is definitely it's
Speaker 1: kind of funny that she has this real like power
Speaker 1: in her own charisma and ability to talk people into stuff,
Speaker 1: but also apparently has like no ability to protect her
Speaker 1: herself from that regarding others. And so yeah, she's like,
Speaker 1: I didn't really, I didn't realize Earth sucks so bad,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, And he's like, that's not how it is,
Speaker 1: not his was the world is gone. They're making it
Speaker 1: look like they're the good guys saving us from ourselves.
Speaker 1: So then we see some of the other people coming in,
Speaker 1: thousands of people and there are like trampling one another
Speaker 1: to get inside because like, obviously it was the middle
Speaker 1: of the night for him, and so most of the
Speaker 1: people in his area were inside and asleep. But on
Speaker 1: the other side of the world, it's gonna have been
Speaker 1: the middle of the day, so more people are probably
Speaker 1: going to be outside. Also, in different climates, people are
Speaker 1: going to be you know, they won't have a roof
Speaker 1: over their head necessarily, and let's see and they okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's different groups of people that they show and of
Speaker 1: course eventually when things end, Dona is really offended because
Speaker 1: they weren't featured, and she felt like their boss battle
Speaker 1: was so awesome and intense that they definitely deserved to
Speaker 1: show up. And I think that she just overestimates how
Speaker 1: intense their battle was. You know, it's not a cinematic, frankly,
Speaker 1: to have like one dude also beating the shit out
Speaker 1: of like an old fat lady while a cat just watches.
Speaker 1: You've got ten people all shooting at once at a
Speaker 1: pile of mouths and eyeballs. That's a lot more interesting
Speaker 1: to watch, probably, But you know, Dona always thinks that
Speaker 1: she is the most fascinating thing in the room, so
Speaker 1: it's fine. I'm sorry if you can hear my dog
Speaker 1: drinking water like a maniac. So let me get another announcement. Uh.
Speaker 1: You'll be getting these announcements after each episode. A couple
Speaker 1: quick patch notes the firefinger spell should be safe to cast. Now.
Speaker 1: We fix the hallway bathroom bug, so if you open
Speaker 1: the door and someone else enters there, they will no
Speaker 1: longer explode. Sorry about that reminder, hallway bathrooms are personal
Speaker 1: spaces and can't be shared. We also fix the unlimited
Speaker 1: toilet paper bug. Now you're only getting one roll per floor,
Speaker 1: so if you waste it, you're on your own. One
Speaker 1: roll per floor when the floors can last for days
Speaker 1: and days. I don't feel like that's adequate, especially with
Speaker 1: the situation that people are going to be in eating
Speaker 1: God knows what you want to be prepared for more
Speaker 1: than that, in my opinion. We have a long list
Speaker 1: of fixes with a new inventory system for right now.
Speaker 1: The two big ones we've already patched are that you
Speaker 1: can no longer transport mobs to your inventory in order
Speaker 1: to kill them. Also, any momentum and item might have
Speaker 1: while it entered the inventory will no longer be preserved.
Speaker 1: It's now safe to extract items you put into inventory
Speaker 1: while moving at a high rate of speed. Remember this
Speaker 1: inventory system is a privilege and it's not meant to
Speaker 1: be used as a weapon. While we love and admire
Speaker 1: your creativity, any unintentional exploits will be patched, So if
Speaker 1: you find something that has an unintended feature, don't get
Speaker 1: too comfortable using it. And then she talks about how
Speaker 1: they're starting a new thing where if people go downstairs
Speaker 1: to the next floor too early, they will be put
Speaker 1: in stasis and they will be kept there until after
Speaker 1: other people get to go down. So even if you've
Speaker 1: got to the stairs first, technically you aren't going down
Speaker 1: until after the other people have art, So you aren't
Speaker 1: helping yourself at all. And not only that, the whole
Speaker 1: like the way that it all emphasizes viewership and patrons,
Speaker 1: you are going to lose a lot of support if
Speaker 1: you go into stasis, because people are going to lose
Speaker 1: interest in you. I really love this for a particular
Speaker 1: personal reason so I don't know how many people listening
Speaker 1: to this are also online creators. If you are, you
Speaker 1: are going to get exactly what I'm talking about instantly.
Speaker 1: But there is something that has happened over the past
Speaker 1: three years, I would say, really that has changed utterly
Speaker 1: the way that being an online creator works. I was
Speaker 1: making over one thousand dollars a month more than I
Speaker 1: am now in twenty twenty one, and a lot of
Speaker 1: that was due to the pandemic making it so that
Speaker 1: people had a lot of extra income that they weren't
Speaker 1: using on going out and stuff, and so they were
Speaker 1: throwing it at projects that were getting them through. But
Speaker 1: also we hadn't had this kick of inflation that we
Speaker 1: have had that has made so many people have to
Speaker 1: buckle down. And there's another thing that has happened, the
Speaker 1: change in how algorithms work, which has made it so
Speaker 1: that if you are a creator and a certain type
Speaker 1: of video explodes that you make. Let's say you're somebody
Speaker 1: who paints and you normally do a variety of types
Speaker 1: of painting and for whatever reason, this one video that
Speaker 1: you posted of painting a D and D miniature goes viral.
Speaker 1: Normally you have a wide variety of different videos that
Speaker 1: you post, but this one thing goes viral and that
Speaker 1: starts to be all anybody asks for. And when you
Speaker 1: don't post anything about like that's similar, your views drop
Speaker 1: and then your income drops. So what do you do?
Speaker 1: You start to do what the algorithm is pointing out
Speaker 1: people want, and doing mostly D and D miniatures, even
Speaker 1: though that's not really the point of what you were
Speaker 1: trying to do. It's not something you particularly enjoy. And
Speaker 1: not only do you have to do the thing just
Speaker 1: to get the views, but you also have to make
Speaker 1: sure that you're always posting, otherwise you fall off people's
Speaker 1: feed entirely. If people don't post for like, you know,
Speaker 1: a week at a time, the algorithm starts to deprioritize
Speaker 1: their posts totally, and it gets really really difficult for
Speaker 1: creators because they want to post a satisfying video, but
Speaker 1: they also have to make sure that their project gives
Speaker 1: them enough footage that they can make several videos out
Speaker 1: of it in order to cover that between time. So
Speaker 1: all of this to say that you have to be
Speaker 1: so careful how much you dole out, how well edited
Speaker 1: that is, and how satisfying it is to keep people
Speaker 1: wanting to watch you, and you don't get to do
Speaker 1: just what you are moved by anymore. You don't get
Speaker 1: to create based on what you are good at or
Speaker 1: what you enjoy. You have to create based on what
Speaker 1: the algorithm decides to show people. And it changes completely
Speaker 1: your relationship to your own work. It changes your relationship
Speaker 1: to your fans too, because people who have chosen to
Speaker 1: follow you don't necessarily see your work because once they
Speaker 1: follow you, you get buried. So it's like you stop
Speaker 1: having that relationship with people that recurringly show up in
Speaker 1: your comments, and it starts to be lots of strangers
Speaker 1: who are seeing your work for the very first time
Speaker 1: because this reeal went viral and it just popped up
Speaker 1: in there for you on TikTok, or it popped up
Speaker 1: in the real section on a Facebook. And this means
Speaker 1: that you don't get to foster the kinds of one
Speaker 1: on one relationships with fans that leads to them deciding
Speaker 1: to financially support you, whether it's buying your work or
Speaker 1: becoming a patron, a patreon or whatever. So it takes
Speaker 1: a lot of the like personal connection out of it.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot of the joy out of it
Speaker 1: for creators, and it makes it so that if you
Speaker 1: are not constantly creating and constantly posting, you disappear and
Speaker 1: nobody cares about you, or if they do care about you,
Speaker 1: it takes a while for them to realize why they're
Speaker 1: not seeing you anymore, and then they have to like
Speaker 1: opt into that, even though they already followed you, which
Speaker 1: most of them thought was them opting in. It doesn't
Speaker 1: work like that anymore. Now you have to click see first,
Speaker 1: or you know, any number of other ways that you
Speaker 1: can handle it. So it's really difficult because if you
Speaker 1: don't try to appease the algorithm, then your work begins
Speaker 1: to slide further and further under the radar. And I
Speaker 1: had I think, like thirty five hundred likes on Facebook,
Speaker 1: and I was getting an average of thirty five views
Speaker 1: per post. I was like, it was like one percent,
Speaker 1: half a percent. It was insane. They wanted to charge
Speaker 1: me to show my posts when that was supposed to
Speaker 1: be the point of their whole platform, And I just
Speaker 1: gave up on it, and eventually they deleted my Facebook page.
Speaker 1: I restarted it, but now I'm sort of feeling like
Speaker 1: there's no point because if they're not going to show
Speaker 1: anything anyway, then why am I going to waste my
Speaker 1: time trying to specialize in a platform like appeasing that
Speaker 1: platform when it's just such a vanishingly small number of
Speaker 1: people that are even going to see it. Well, I
Speaker 1: have basically almost entirely stopped using Facebook. I've post on
Speaker 1: there automatically from things, but I am not there creating
Speaker 1: for that, like platform and social media in general, I
Speaker 1: have sort of given up on I post so that
Speaker 1: people will see updates on stuff, but I am not
Speaker 1: really very engaged, which I know is like the antithesis
Speaker 1: of what people think our methods should be as online creators.
Speaker 1: But it's not valuable to me anymore because it doesn't
Speaker 1: show anybody or you know, Like, So what works now
Speaker 1: for me is to be in my discord or to
Speaker 1: post things like on the free level on Patreon to
Speaker 1: inform people, encourage people to come to Patreon and become
Speaker 1: a free level fan, because for those who don't know,
Speaker 1: you don't have to be pay to become a fan
Speaker 1: on Patreon, Patreon, dot com, slash and spoiled. You can
Speaker 1: sign up for free and I will post like updates
Speaker 1: there so that if you were missing all the updates
Speaker 1: on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, on Patreon, you're guaranteed
Speaker 1: to get those updates because you have specifically opted in
Speaker 1: and they don't mess with the algorithm. So anyway, all
Speaker 1: this to say, I really love that. Like the angle
Speaker 1: that this is all taking is so different with the
Speaker 1: Hunger Games. The way that they play it in that
Speaker 1: is very much based on like a Survivor TV show model,
Speaker 1: where you are like there's zooming in on you personally.
Speaker 1: There's a sort of like process beforehand where you're interviewed
Speaker 1: and people get to know you, and it's a small group,
Speaker 1: and there's like a type of it's out of your
Speaker 1: hands quality that you can appeal to the camera, but
Speaker 1: a lot of that stuff isn't necessarily within your control.
Speaker 1: And then here it's like it is a little bit
Speaker 1: more in your control, but it man's things of you
Speaker 1: that are unreasonable or unhealthy. So like you can't descend
Speaker 1: to the next floor without incurring a penalty of losing
Speaker 1: followers and going into stasis and then losing your lead.
Speaker 1: But what if you're really injured and you have to
Speaker 1: or what if you're cornered and the floor is right there,
Speaker 1: and that's the only way out. They want you to
Speaker 1: stay active and in danger for as long as you
Speaker 1: can to generate interest, regardless of what is best for you,
Speaker 1: just so that you can hopefully have somebody send you
Speaker 1: a fucking can of soup in the next floor. Like
Speaker 1: that's exactly what it feels like all the time to
Speaker 1: be an online creator, and it's like so exhausting, you guys.
Speaker 1: I am really lucky with the kind of support that
Speaker 1: I have on Patreon because it is a lot more
Speaker 1: stable than what many people have, but it still has
Speaker 1: flu Like I said, I'm making one thousand dollars less
Speaker 1: per month now than I was. That has caused me
Speaker 1: to have to make a lot of big adjustments in
Speaker 1: my life and have a lot of anxiety that I
Speaker 1: wasn't having a few years ago, and file for bankruptcy
Speaker 1: and you know, like there's just what when your income
Speaker 1: is up to the whims of people who are like
Speaker 1: just using their disposable income, it can be really tough.
Speaker 1: And it's sort of funny because like, I'm not really
Speaker 1: that much more at the whim of anybody than a
Speaker 1: lot of people in the workforce. I like everybody is
Speaker 1: at will in the United States, you could be fired
Speaker 1: for any reason. So there's an illusion of security to
Speaker 1: having a different kind of job, but really when you
Speaker 1: come down to it, it's not any more secure, like
Speaker 1: not really. So anyway, this like whole thing is just
Speaker 1: really it's very it's like obviously dialing things up to eleven,
Speaker 1: but it's really feeling very familiar in a way that
Speaker 1: is so depressing. And I could see this whole system
Speaker 1: being even more like punitive and targeted, and it would
Speaker 1: still feel very real to me because like there's you know,
Speaker 1: the whole thing with like oh well, Larrence listening, but
Speaker 1: they're not always listening, so you just have to be careful.
Speaker 1: The way. This is also a thing with algorithms. People
Speaker 1: were like not able to talk about Palestine. If they
Speaker 1: posted the word Palestine, all of their shit was getting
Speaker 1: shadow band. So that was when it turned into people
Speaker 1: just posting the watermelon emoji because those are the Palestinian
Speaker 1: flag colors, and that was like the way to get
Speaker 1: around your shit just getting completely taken because basically it
Speaker 1: was either the algorithm being like we don't want people
Speaker 1: talking about Palestine flat out because we're Zionists, or political
Speaker 1: shit makes people sad and depressed and disengages with the platform,
Speaker 1: and we don't want that. So it was just sort
Speaker 1: of like the certain language that you used. You had
Speaker 1: to be careful because they might not notice it, but
Speaker 1: if they do, it's going to really affect everything that
Speaker 1: you post from there on, and then you have to
Speaker 1: work from practically scratch to get your views back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and sorry, Michael Is in the chat. Mordecai referred to
Speaker 1: it earlier when you talked about how warn't changed things
Speaker 1: so people weren't starving to death pooping on screen because
Speaker 1: that isn't interesting to watch. Got to keep it entertaining.
Speaker 1: You can be fired for any reason, but your health
Speaker 1: insurance is dependent on your job, so you can't walk
Speaker 1: away easily. Exactly exactly, So I'm so sorry, guys. I'm
Speaker 1: like half an hour in and I've gotten like barely
Speaker 1: into this. I'm so sorry. But eventually we get to
Speaker 1: a spot where we're fighting slimes, which was very fun
Speaker 1: for me as somebody who had just recently been talking
Speaker 1: about playing Stardi Valley. So those are not great for
Speaker 1: him because he has a lot of exposed skin, so
Speaker 1: he can't fight those, and they have to turn around.
Speaker 1: I love that we are using the text chat and
Speaker 1: Donut has gone full boomer and is posting in there constantly,
Speaker 1: even though they can actually just talk to each other,
Speaker 1: and she's also doing it in all caps all the time,
Speaker 1: and he has to be like, can you please fucking stop?
Speaker 1: And eventually they go into Goblin territory. And this is
Speaker 1: such a like. The whole way that this works is
Speaker 1: so different from what I was expecting. So first of all,
Speaker 1: Donut's charisma is so insane that even though Carl initially
Speaker 1: is like pissing them off to the point that they're
Speaker 1: ready to attack him, despite him having this Goblin pass,
Speaker 1: she is able to immediately get everybody to chill and
Speaker 1: work with them, and he meets Shamanka level seven a
Speaker 1: fancy way of saying female shaman. Goblin Shamans are the
Speaker 1: leader class, second only to war chieftain or more rarely,
Speaker 1: Goblin warlord. They are without humor and are said, as
Speaker 1: part of their training to have to pick two of
Speaker 1: the following three actions in order to graduate Shamanka University.
Speaker 1: They have to fuck, cook, and or eat their own parents.
Speaker 1: Most don't pick cook, yikes. So Donut comes in and
Speaker 1: basically it starts being like, oh, sweetie, the piercings, really
Speaker 1: is this because they need to eat your parents? Like?
Speaker 1: What is going on? Is this a daddy issue? And
Speaker 1: gets this character the Goblin, to break down, and the
Speaker 1: way that she starts talking, I started to realize, like, oh,
Speaker 1: these beings don't want to be here either. The whole
Speaker 1: way that this is like set up. I kind of thought, obviously,
Speaker 1: we already know that Mordecai doesn't want to be here,
Speaker 1: but it feels like there is a family sort of
Speaker 1: tie between these people, as if they are actually related
Speaker 1: to each other, and not all of them individually playing
Speaker 1: parts like they're in a play. I can't leave the chieftain.
Speaker 1: He's terrible, soft even but he's still leader of my clan,
Speaker 1: my family. Even if I could go with you, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to leave this floor. If we climb
Speaker 1: down the stairs, we die. You get halfway down and
Speaker 1: your body just dissolves. I've seen it myself. I know
Speaker 1: where on the first floor there are smart mobs like us,
Speaker 1: and there are not so smart mobs. The floor collapses,
Speaker 1: but it is only you who dies when this happens
Speaker 1: for us, we go to sleep until the next dungeon opens.
Speaker 1: We will open our eyes and it will be the
Speaker 1: same as it has been, just another day. But one
Speaker 1: of these days, one of these days, we will wake
Speaker 1: up and we will be deeper. That's what they tell us.
Speaker 1: Kill the crawlers get better at killing, and you get
Speaker 1: to go deeper, and one day, eventually we will be
Speaker 1: so deep that the crawlers will never come and we
Speaker 1: will finally have peace. We will have peace and a
Speaker 1: place to live and breed and have our little ones
Speaker 1: run free and not worry about killing for survival. So hi,
Speaker 1: that's never going to happen. This is all Everybody has
Speaker 1: their little fairy tale about how eventually, if they just
Speaker 1: work hard enough, they'll get to the place where they
Speaker 1: don't have to worry anymore. It's the lie that we
Speaker 1: are all sold in the US, especially like I think
Speaker 1: there are other places where maybe this is something that
Speaker 1: can happen for you, and that's I'm so jealous, I
Speaker 1: can't even speak on it. But in the United States,
Speaker 1: you are never safe unless you reach a point of
Speaker 1: such incredible wealth that it's almost unthinkable for like the
Speaker 1: vast majority of us. When we talk about the one percent,
Speaker 1: it's like very literal. So you know, you can be
Speaker 1: somebody who is fairly comfortable and then guess what you
Speaker 1: get sick. You get the certain kind of sick, the
Speaker 1: wrong kind. I'm so sorry, but your savings gone. It's
Speaker 1: a wrap for you house. Good luck. I hope you
Speaker 1: already owned it by the time you got sick. Like
Speaker 1: there's just people really do seem to think if they
Speaker 1: reach a certain point that they are out of the
Speaker 1: reach of happenstance and circumstances like affecting them. And it's
Speaker 1: just a lie because everybody wants to believe that they
Speaker 1: have more control than they do, and that the people
Speaker 1: out there who are doing poorly are only doing poorly
Speaker 1: because of their own mistakes and not because the entire
Speaker 1: system is rigged from the start to fuck you. And
Speaker 1: it is so this entire like this this narrative that
Speaker 1: everybody is functioning within that eventually you get to a point.
Speaker 1: It's like he's been told if you get to level
Speaker 1: eighteen and nobody's ever gotten past thirteen, you know, like
Speaker 1: that's the metaphor. Man, it's so unlikely that nobody has
Speaker 1: ever done it, and yet we still act like it's
Speaker 1: a goal that is reachable and that we should throw
Speaker 1: others under the bus to achieve it, because that is
Speaker 1: what winds up happening later, is they decide that they're
Speaker 1: going to loot the place. It's so devastating, you guys,
Speaker 1: because like, when we get to that point, I really thought, man,
Speaker 1: he could just fucking take all their shit right now.
Speaker 1: That would be so fucked up. And then they literally
Speaker 1: do it, and it was like me sitting there kind
Speaker 1: of going, I guess you gotta do what you have
Speaker 1: to do. But I was thinking about how when I
Speaker 1: play video games, I often don't have the heart to
Speaker 1: do this sort of thing because I can't bear being
Speaker 1: this shitty. And it's like you can justify it to
Speaker 1: yourself by being like, well, it's the game. But like
Speaker 1: after she spoke like that, for me, they became a
Speaker 1: real like they became a real community. And so later
Speaker 1: when it's like, oh my god, there were children in
Speaker 1: there that we blew up, honestly, I feel like you
Speaker 1: should have felt like this already because whether or not
Speaker 1: that children were in there, you took all of their
Speaker 1: possessions that were worth anything. That's still affecting these children.
Speaker 1: They are still getting totally screwed by what you're choosing
Speaker 1: to do. But the truth is, it's not even about
Speaker 1: your choice. It's about the fact that you guys were
Speaker 1: pitted against each other from the beginning, which is the
Speaker 1: responsibility of the group that is in charge of this game.
Speaker 1: So you are seeing one another as the enemy here.
Speaker 1: And if you just didn't and decided that you were
Speaker 1: going to somehow manage to work together, this could maybe
Speaker 1: go a different way. But the thing is, if you
Speaker 1: can't leave the floor with that evapora reading into like
Speaker 1: the atoms of yourself, how much can you really do?
Speaker 1: What kind of change can you possibly affect? So it's
Speaker 1: just this fucking loop, you know. So let's see, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to find the spot here. He decides that he
Speaker 1: is going to trade some stuff for a some sort
Speaker 1: of contraption that he can ride, and eventually the only
Speaker 1: thing that they are prepared to trade for that they
Speaker 1: get very excited about is the meth from the bad Lama,
Speaker 1: which they know instantly as they taste it that it's
Speaker 1: made in the dungeon. I don't know how they can tell,
Speaker 1: but they do. And when they like, set this deal
Speaker 1: that you give us the thing, and we'll tell you
Speaker 1: where we got it. And so once they tell them,
Speaker 1: that's when all of them go hariring off after the
Speaker 1: bad lamas saying I fucking knew it. I knew they
Speaker 1: were holding out on us because apparently they've been over
Speaker 1: there before and for some reason, and the Lumbas just
Speaker 1: didn't want to do business with them somehow. This I'm
Speaker 1: trying to find here. It is two wheels, solid and black,
Speaker 1: made of some unknown material. The seat appeared to be
Speaker 1: an alligator's skull with white fur lining the top, giving
Speaker 1: the impression the skull was wearing an Andy warhol wig.
Speaker 1: The engine sat in the middle of the chest is
Speaker 1: thumbing a thumping. A hopper extended from the engine, opening
Speaker 1: up near the handlebars. I would have to periodically toss
Speaker 1: a lump of coal in there. What about the water?
Speaker 1: And how do I turn it off? It's a permacube,
Speaker 1: won't run out until you die of old age. You
Speaker 1: don't turn it off. Just let it run out of coal.
Speaker 1: Toss in a lump and it'll start on its own
Speaker 1: after a minute. We don't use the lesser demons to
Speaker 1: run our steam engines like some do. This is just
Speaker 1: as good, and the baby will outlast you. He slapped
Speaker 1: the side of the bike and the handlebars fell off.
Speaker 1: I really do enjoy this, so he is able to
Speaker 1: lift it and put it in his inventory, and it
Speaker 1: has to ask about the pressure, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: I'm sure all of this is going to come back
Speaker 1: to bite him at some point, but I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: worry about it right now. And the fucking like Lorelei
Speaker 1: has gotten high on this meth and is trying to
Speaker 1: like hook up with Carl, Donut says as amusing as
Speaker 1: I find it to watch Karl disappoint yet another woman,
Speaker 1: which is so incredibly devastating because we know that she
Speaker 1: was like around and maybe is telling me exact truth.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how he is able to shake
Speaker 1: that off so easily because I would be very, very
Speaker 1: distracted by that line. So did we just start a
Speaker 1: metha war between the goblins and the Lamas? Yes, we did,
Speaker 1: just like I planned. It went pretty well, don't you think,
Speaker 1: just like I planned? Get the fook out of here, Donut.
Speaker 1: I would love to believe you, girly, but we all
Speaker 1: know that you are full of shit, So it's fine.
Speaker 1: So this this is when he says, we need to
Speaker 1: loot everything and then we kill the chieftain. So what
Speaker 1: they do is put a bunch of like bombs, basically
Speaker 1: using this fun powder as they call it, on a
Speaker 1: cart that they roll into the boss room, and just
Speaker 1: as he rolls it in a huge, ugly goblin. My word,
Speaker 1: he was sitting down reading a book. Blow it, Blow
Speaker 1: it good. I jammed the button. There sure were a
Speaker 1: lot of babies in there too, Doughnut said, in the
Speaker 1: last moment before the blast. Were there really babies in there,
Speaker 1: like goblin babies? Oh? Yes, there were a bunch of them.
Speaker 1: I only saw them for but a moment, but they
Speaker 1: were quite cute. Some of them were wearing little oversized
Speaker 1: jackets like baby Yoda. Adorable. I think you hit that
Speaker 1: one with the cart. There were old ones and pregnant
Speaker 1: ones too. Did you see your level? We're both level eight.
Speaker 1: Now you're welcome. And he is just like absolutely losing
Speaker 1: it over this. He gets all of these achievements and
Speaker 1: he's like, I do not want to click on those.
Speaker 1: I don't even want to know, and Donut is like,
Speaker 1: I don't get it. They're fucking goblins. Why wouldn't you
Speaker 1: want to kill them? And she says, what kind of
Speaker 1: vile monster sticks babies in the boss room? M you
Speaker 1: know who? You know who? The workshop had been completely obliterated.
Speaker 1: All that was left was blackened rubble, and it looks
Speaker 1: like there is no like loot here because of how
Speaker 1: bad the damage is. We probably should have taken all
Speaker 1: of the coal from that pile, not just half of it.
Speaker 1: We're not getting to that dead boss now. I was relieved.
Speaker 1: I wanted that map, but not as much as I
Speaker 1: didn't want to go in there. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: see the dead babies and other goblins. I felt sick
Speaker 1: thinking about it. So then chapter nineteen, New achievement, You monster,
Speaker 1: and I love this. I know you would probably telling
Speaker 1: you about this is all the children mobs who die
Speaker 1: within this dungeon don't actually perish. They're transferred to a
Speaker 1: holding area where they're safe and treated nicely and gently
Speaker 1: until they can be reunited with their loving parents. Feel better.
Speaker 1: Good reward these past twenty seconds when your conscience started
Speaker 1: to ease, That was your reward. It was also a lie.
Speaker 1: That baby is dead, and it's dead because of you.
Speaker 1: You're totally going to hell, you've also received a bronze
Speaker 1: Assholes Box new Achievement War Criminal. You have killed more
Speaker 1: than twenty non combatants in a single attack. Ooh grim. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so much here that I was like, as soon like,
Speaker 1: as soon as he starts being like, they don't actually die,
Speaker 1: I was like, the fuck they don't. Don't you start.
Speaker 1: I didn't even think that the AI was going to
Speaker 1: tell him that it wasn't a lie. I just assumed
Speaker 1: it was a lie. And then when it's like reward
Speaker 1: that twenty seconds where you felt and I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: they are just going to say it okay. So they
Speaker 1: continue fighting these weird Ravioli things, and then they find
Speaker 1: another safe room and there's three million, five hundred thousand
Speaker 1: and ninety four left, so it's like dropped by four
Speaker 1: hundred and ten thousand people since or yeah, since the
Speaker 1: last time they checked. So there are cookies and doughnut eats.
Speaker 1: One and gets a plus nine to eight being parted
Speaker 1: with her. I received the other point two experience. So
Speaker 1: this is a little clue that I didn't pick up
Speaker 1: on later on. I knew it was significant when he
Speaker 1: pointed it out, but I didn't get why, and then
Speaker 1: when he explains it, I was like, oh, duh, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: So they have about six hours until the next episode,
Speaker 1: and he is getting some skill upgrades regarding handling explosives
Speaker 1: and getting more information when he picks things up, and
Speaker 1: I love that. Eventually, Donut gets an award that involves
Speaker 1: a tattoo, and she's just like, this is a disqualifying mark,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, girl, there is nothing to qualify for anymore.
Speaker 1: She really just seems to think that this is like
Speaker 1: an interlude and she's going back to her own life,
Speaker 1: Sweetie and Desperado pass. Holding a Desperado Pass negates the
Speaker 1: ability to obtain a Vanquisher pass. That was it. It
Speaker 1: didn't explain anything about what the hell that meant and
Speaker 1: enchanted Fay scale quadruped crupper of the fleet. Is that
Speaker 1: a fucking mouthful by the gods? Plus two to dexterity.
Speaker 1: It was my turn. I also received a ton of
Speaker 1: crap potions dyning in my lighter, smoke bombs, a couple
Speaker 1: more scrolls of confusing fog. I received no pants or shoes.
Speaker 1: I got the exact same items from the two asshole boxes,
Speaker 1: though my tattoo appeared on my goddamn neck. I couldn't
Speaker 1: even see it, but it burned as it was magically applied.
Speaker 1: It's a dagger dripping blood. Donut said, my word, it is?
Speaker 1: It is it ghastly And I have to mention that,
Speaker 1: like he receives no pants or shoes, and this is
Speaker 1: sort of reminding me again of the algorithm thing for earlier,
Speaker 1: where it's like you don't necessarily pick a thing, but
Speaker 1: it becomes like what you're known for, because that's how
Speaker 1: it goes viral. I wouldn't be surprised if Dungeon Crawler Carl,
Speaker 1: like the whole series, he just hasn't got pants because
Speaker 1: now he's the no pants guy. That's what people know
Speaker 1: him for. Like not that they they haven't started that
Speaker 1: part at where people are watching him obviously, but like
Speaker 1: I think that is how it's going to go for him,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be bad for his brand at
Speaker 1: a certain point to get shoes or to get pants
Speaker 1: or something. And that's exactly what it's like. You fall
Speaker 1: into something in the algorithm, and this is what you
Speaker 1: do now. This is your life now, even though you
Speaker 1: had no interest and didn't want it, it's what people
Speaker 1: were like connecting with for some reason that day, and
Speaker 1: now this is there's just no going back on it.
Speaker 1: So they go and take a nap. She's purring up
Speaker 1: against him and he gets woken by the next episode
Speaker 1: day two, and I love this donut has to go
Speaker 1: take a pee, so she leaves, and then as she
Speaker 1: comes running back in, she says, he's in the bathroom,
Speaker 1: the women's bathroom. The killer, the guy who killed Rebecca.
Speaker 1: W How surely I would have noticed it the moment
Speaker 1: I woke up. I'd gotten used to keeping one eye
Speaker 1: on the map. I was always looking out for others.
Speaker 1: Crawler Frank Q. That was him, all right, come on,
Speaker 1: I said. I pushed my way toward the side hallway.
Speaker 1: We met in the hall, the man stepping out of
Speaker 1: the restroom, smiling apologetically. We came to a stop just
Speaker 1: a few feet away from one another. And description of
Speaker 1: him sounds like a fucking cop. The he had three skulls.
Speaker 1: I knew exactly what the skulls were going to indicate
Speaker 1: before I focused on them. Crawler killer times three. I
Speaker 1: suddenly felt very cold. Sorry, I didn't mean to startle
Speaker 1: your cat. He had an authoritative voice. It's definitely a
Speaker 1: cop or some sort of law enforcement. They taught you
Speaker 1: to speak that way in training. This is a cat right.
Speaker 1: I thought if I slept in the bathroom, nobody could
Speaker 1: sneak up on me. I didn't realize the bathrooms in
Speaker 1: the safe areas were different than the ones out in
Speaker 1: the hallways. As soon as he said that, I was like, one,
Speaker 1: you are a liar, and two, if you think people
Speaker 1: can sneak up on you in here, then you don't
Speaker 1: know how the safe room works. And that proves to
Speaker 1: be true later on, which brings up another interesting issue
Speaker 1: that I want to talk about in a little bit.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he like, I thought it worked like the
Speaker 1: ones out in the hallway. So clearly that's how he
Speaker 1: has been like jumping people, I think is by hiding
Speaker 1: out in the bathroom. So Carl was right to worry
Speaker 1: about whether or not being able to see a blue
Speaker 1: spot meant that there was anybody there or not, Like,
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily going to be something that is a
Speaker 1: guaranteed way to tell. Let's see, if that was true,
Speaker 1: then we'd have been asleep when we'd arrived. So he
Speaker 1: uses his messenger to ask Donut and the thing that
Speaker 1: he has figured out how to do is use that
Speaker 1: messenger between party members without actually having to move his
Speaker 1: hands to quote type. So this is what we find
Speaker 1: out later, something that Frank has not figured out how
Speaker 1: to do. I never saw your dot on the mini map.
Speaker 1: You don't see the icons of sleeping crawlers. Have you
Speaker 1: ever met someone outside your party sleeping in a safe room?
Speaker 1: Their bodies become translucent if you touch them, your hand
Speaker 1: moves right through them. And as soon as you said that,
Speaker 1: I was like, and why would you know that? Because
Speaker 1: you tried to touch people who were asleep. That's interesting
Speaker 1: and not great, Like there was just a lot he
Speaker 1: says here, and then he immediately are you from Seattle?
Speaker 1: Like that's all within the one paragraph, with the transition
Speaker 1: into a whole new subject. And I think it's because
Speaker 1: he is realizing maybe if you over explain it and
Speaker 1: you you may give yourself away distract them with another thing,
Speaker 1: like the whole way that he answering questions, it's all
Speaker 1: highly suspect. My alarm bells were going off like crazy here,
Speaker 1: so he says, it's not what it looks like with Rebecca.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a choice. I can explain it wasn't
Speaker 1: just her. There were five of them. My partner got one,
Speaker 1: I got three, and you would not believe the thing
Speaker 1: that killed the fifth guy. Can you please put down
Speaker 1: your cat? Put me down? That's not what he meant.
Speaker 1: Donnu chill. That cracked me up. So they go into
Speaker 1: the other room allegedly to watch the show. But everything
Speaker 1: is very, very tense, so clean. The claim that Frank
Speaker 1: is making is that him and this woman worked for
Speaker 1: Customs Enforcement, which means he works for ICE. If you
Speaker 1: work for ICE, if you're listening to this, quit, If
Speaker 1: you don't want to quit, stop listening to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I don't want you. Like if you were for that organization,
Speaker 1: I don't know how you live with yourself. Like it's
Speaker 1: as simple as that. And there was this like warehouse
Speaker 1: of workers, and then when everything collapsed, it disappeared, and
Speaker 1: there were people who had been outside. Frank and his
Speaker 1: partner identified themselves, and everyone just started shooting at each other.
Speaker 1: Oh right, A bunch of immigrants who were working in
Speaker 1: a warehouse all had guns on them, Like, what are
Speaker 1: you fucking talking about? Like it just the story makes
Speaker 1: no sense. Five of the others for reasons, he said
Speaker 1: he couldn't fathom followed them in. He went on to
Speaker 1: recount a firefight in the hallway. It's the most far fetched,
Speaker 1: convoluted shit. It's absolutely goofy, and Dona is eating it up,
Speaker 1: like the way that she She's literally crying and talking
Speaker 1: about how like, I'm so sorry about your partner. He shrugged.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that he went up and grabbed a as
Speaker 1: soon as like, he says, I appreciate that with a shrug.
Speaker 1: I'm sort of like, I feel like you would be
Speaker 1: more emotional. And then he just goes and eats after
Speaker 1: telling this terrible story, like his whole attitude is wrong.
Speaker 1: Everything is wrong. He ate it and the plus nine
Speaker 1: point eight XP notification dinged over his head. Again. I
Speaker 1: knew that meant something, but I wasn't getting what it
Speaker 1: just I was picking it up from other things that
Speaker 1: he was full of shit. Since you guys eluded the
Speaker 1: ones you killed, I don't suppose you have any pants
Speaker 1: that might fit me in that bag of years. Sure,
Speaker 1: if you don't mind wearing the clothes of a dead man.
Speaker 1: So I love this. Carl is explaining via text to
Speaker 1: Donut while they're talking to this guy. His suspicions and
Speaker 1: that he is full of shit. I think there's somebody
Speaker 1: else in here waiting to jump us. So he gives
Speaker 1: Carl some pants. It's very clear from the jump that
Speaker 1: they're going to be too small. But the point isn't
Speaker 1: for him to give away something Carl can use. The
Speaker 1: point is to distract Carl while he changes so that
Speaker 1: this guy can jump him. So he thinks Carl meanwhile
Speaker 1: is using this as his ploy to get them to
Speaker 1: do their attack, so that they can defend themselves and
Speaker 1: will not defend themselves, let the room defend them. So
Speaker 1: and he tells Donut, We're like, they're gonna jump us,
Speaker 1: and when they do, I don't want you to fight
Speaker 1: back at all, Like you've just got to trust me
Speaker 1: on this. And I remembered it being mentioned that, like
Speaker 1: you can't do shit to each other in the safe room,
Speaker 1: like that was explicitly something Mordecai told them. So these
Speaker 1: guys don't know that. And I saw the blue dot
Speaker 1: appear in the bathroom hallway just as the woman emerged
Speaker 1: from around the corner. At the same moment, Donut leaped
Speaker 1: into the air with a panic yowl. As Frank pulled
Speaker 1: his weapon from his inva Andy and fired at the cat.
Speaker 1: The cat the woman pistol aimed directly at my head
Speaker 1: also fired. Donut landed on the table with the cookies. Carl, Carl, help,
Speaker 1: I'm here. We gotta go. We have less than two minutes,
Speaker 1: and we go to him talking to Mordecai. Monsters can't
Speaker 1: get into safe areas. What if I leave the door open?
Speaker 1: Won't they wander in? Oh, they'll wander in. Always close
Speaker 1: the door. If it's a mob, it'll teleport away the
Speaker 1: moment it attacks you. But they'll trash the place too.
Speaker 1: What if Donut doesn't turn into a monster, but she
Speaker 1: also doesn't recognize me. She sometimes bites people she doesn't recognize.
Speaker 1: Will she teleport away? No, it's different for crawlers. There's
Speaker 1: no violence and no stealing in the safe rooms. It's
Speaker 1: a strict, ironclad rule. You get three strikes. First time,
Speaker 1: you freeze in place for about one hundred seconds, while
Speaker 1: you get an automated lecture playing on playing nice. The
Speaker 1: second time it's for an hour. The third time you're
Speaker 1: stripped of all your gear and teleported into a mob.
Speaker 1: Nest I really want them to try this three times.
Speaker 1: I think they won't, but I would love it if
Speaker 1: they just like didn't get the fucking picture, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's nothing to be gained by trying again
Speaker 1: if you get frozen once. I don't see them doing
Speaker 1: in another time. But maybe they will. I and so
Speaker 1: like Dona is just like I don't understand how you knew.
Speaker 1: And he doesn't have time to explain to her about
Speaker 1: the whole thing with Mordecai. But yeah, so before he
Speaker 1: rushed outside, it took a precious second to examine the
Speaker 1: attributes of Maggie My, a white woman with close cropped
Speaker 1: brown hair, metallic pants and boots, a leather jacket similar
Speaker 1: to my own, though hers had both their sleeves. Maggie
Speaker 1: my level nine race human class not yet assigned. She
Speaker 1: had five skulls next to her name. Between her and Frank,
Speaker 1: they'd killed eight people eight. They both had the ability
Speaker 1: to go completely stealth. I doubted they had been sleeping
Speaker 1: in the bathroom. They'd likely heard that explosion from earlier
Speaker 1: and tracked us to the safe room. We left a
Speaker 1: wake of dead rotstickers, a literal path of destruction. Frank
Speaker 1: had said people turned translucent when they slept. Was that true.
Speaker 1: It wasn't true for Donut, but she was in my party.
Speaker 1: Maybe that they meant they had to sneak up on
Speaker 1: us and kill us in our sleep, but when they
Speaker 1: realized they couldn't, they'd gone to the bathroom to wait.
Speaker 1: We jumped outside and I plodded a path to the
Speaker 1: closest main artery. Why are we running? We can take them?
Speaker 1: I don't know if we can, I said. They both
Speaker 1: have guns. He's level eight, same as us, and she's nine.
Speaker 1: Getting to nine is heart, so she probably has a
Speaker 1: lot of skills. Besides, I really don't want to have
Speaker 1: one of those skull markers by my name. Even if
Speaker 1: they have it coming everyone else. We won't know that.
Speaker 1: We'll never get anyone to talk to us. But if
Speaker 1: we don't stop them, they'll hurt somebody else. I stopped
Speaker 1: dead in the hallway. I looked at the cat. It
Speaker 1: was a very undonut like thing to say, but worse,
Speaker 1: it was the truth. So he is like really struggling
Speaker 1: with this because he's right about the skulls next to
Speaker 1: his name. I think that there would be a lot
Speaker 1: of people that eventually are going to have that because
Speaker 1: they just couldn't help but defend themselves. So there might
Speaker 1: be some more like leeway later on, but I think
Speaker 1: early in the game it's probably a bad thing. And
Speaker 1: yet like they'll still try and get you because now
Speaker 1: you've seen their faces, you can warn other people about
Speaker 1: them if you make alliances, and if you see them,
Speaker 1: they're not going to get the drop on you again,
Speaker 1: like they kind of have to find you. Now I
Speaker 1: feel like maybe not really have to, but like they
Speaker 1: would have it out for you. It would be how
Speaker 1: I would interpret them. I would also be doing this
Speaker 1: just as a means of like giving myself some time
Speaker 1: room to breathe. So he takes out a smoke bomb,
Speaker 1: lights the wick and then adds it to the rats
Speaker 1: inventory that he just killed, and then he goes to
Speaker 1: pull it out and see and it remains lit. So
Speaker 1: basically what he is doing is booby trapping the rat
Speaker 1: because he knows that if they come across it and
Speaker 1: it hasn't already been looted, they'll probably just loot it automatically,
Speaker 1: because that's sort of what you do when you're playing
Speaker 1: one of these games, is you just loot everything you kill,
Speaker 1: and especially if you've got like an unlimited inventory, which
Speaker 1: skyrom you do not have, which sucks balls, but this method,
Speaker 1: I'm really curious, like how long it's going to take
Speaker 1: before it goes off, because if they pull it out
Speaker 1: and it's lit, it says emits a stinking cloud of
Speaker 1: billowing multicolor smoke that lasts for three minutes before dispersing.
Speaker 1: I don't know if like there's nothing about how long
Speaker 1: it actually takes to go off. Discharge imminent thirty four
Speaker 1: out of one hundred. Oh okay, so thirty four seconds left, right,
Speaker 1: that's what that means out of one hundred, Like it
Speaker 1: takes one hundred from when you light it and there's
Speaker 1: only thirty four remaining I'm assuming, which I kind of
Speaker 1: want him to take it out and let it go
Speaker 1: until it's five and then put it back. I really
Speaker 1: feel like we want it as close as possible because
Speaker 1: I can't help but think that Frank and Meg are
Speaker 1: suspicious types and that if they see you guys went
Speaker 1: through here and you didn't loot this corpse, they're going
Speaker 1: to feel like something is up and they'll throw this
Speaker 1: and they won't be injured by it. Oh sorry, they're
Speaker 1: saying durability, I think not time Rob says to build. Oh, okay,
Speaker 1: so then that wouldn't matter, all right. Well, I stand
Speaker 1: by the fact that I wanted him to like hold
Speaker 1: this until the very last second and then put it in.
Speaker 1: But and he's also really unclear on whether or not
Speaker 1: this is going to do to give him that skull
Speaker 1: next to his name after all, because this is a
Speaker 1: very passive way to kill them, but it's still sort
Speaker 1: of what he's intending. Is the game going to recognize
Speaker 1: that or not? And I also like, what if it
Speaker 1: only kills one of them, then they're going to have
Speaker 1: to know it was you. And I thought they had
Speaker 1: to come after you before, but I feel like after
Speaker 1: that they really have like a grudge. So I get
Speaker 1: doing it this way, and I don't think it's a
Speaker 1: bad idea, but I'm just really not sure if it's enough,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. And so this is when
Speaker 1: Dona asks him, how did you know he was lying?
Speaker 1: His whole story was bullshit. That Rebecca woman was a
Speaker 1: level three. He said they'd gotten into the firefight right away,
Speaker 1: but that couldn't be true. She had that Apple coret
Speaker 1: in her inventory that meant she'd gone to a tutorial
Speaker 1: guild and gotten her inventory turned on and then he
Speaker 1: ate that cookie and I saw he received nine point
Speaker 1: eight experience instead of ten, which meant he was in
Speaker 1: a party with someone someone alive. Also, he had his
Speaker 1: arm draped over the chair and I could see he
Speaker 1: was twitching his finger. He was typing into the chat.
Speaker 1: He hadn't figured out how to just use it with
Speaker 1: his brain. So I really loved the mention too of
Speaker 1: Rebecca and her level, because I didn't remember that, but
Speaker 1: that also would have been a clear giveaway. And just
Speaker 1: like the fact too that the woman was Asian, and
Speaker 1: so he decides that he's going to go into this
Speaker 1: whole thing with her having been like an immigrant working
Speaker 1: in a factory. Like it's just such a fucking racist
Speaker 1: approach to the story and everything. Just you know, I'm
Speaker 1: really really kind of eager to see them again, just
Speaker 1: because I want them to be taken care of, and
Speaker 1: I have a feeling that we're going to be dealing
Speaker 1: with them for a minute. I hate it. Uh, how
Speaker 1: is it that you're James Bond when it comes to strangers,
Speaker 1: But miss Beatrice could date three different guys at once,
Speaker 1: and you had no idea three different guys. Well, you
Speaker 1: were one of them. So two I guess. Then again,
Speaker 1: it's three if you count Angel's owner. This account is
Speaker 1: cheating when it's with another woman. There's so many human
Speaker 1: nuances I don't understand. I love it. His girlfriend was
Speaker 1: throwing it at everybody and he fucking had no idea.
Speaker 1: Oh Carl, sweetie, I really hope that you got a
Speaker 1: SDD checked recently because that shit yoicks. You were always
Speaker 1: watching those videos on your iPad with the two women
Speaker 1: rolling around and cleaning each other. Yeah, that's they were doing.
Speaker 1: Oh god. So I have a couple of announcements. First off,
Speaker 1: we want to assure everyone we have quashed all the
Speaker 1: bugs with the new toilets. Both the exploding issue and
Speaker 1: the unfortunate section issue with some of the units have
Speaker 1: been resolved. There's absolutely no need to be afraid of them.
Speaker 1: Those of you who have been using the hallway to
Speaker 1: relieve yourselves please stop. We don't want to have to
Speaker 1: start using punitive measures. A couple additional patch notes, We've
Speaker 1: already added support for the languages that we're missing from
Speaker 1: our library. So those of you who are hearing this
Speaker 1: and finally understanding what we're saying, for the first time. Welcome.
Speaker 1: You'll figure the rest out, I'm sure. Also with the languages,
Speaker 1: we have implemented full cross support for native speech, so
Speaker 1: now men are and speakers will understand English speakers and
Speaker 1: so forth. The Pharaoh rabies d buff is now curable
Speaker 1: with a health potion or a spell, and the contagion
Speaker 1: is no longer airborne. Sorry about that. New Zealand, we
Speaker 1: have removed the blender Fiend mobs. The mob's difficulty level
Speaker 1: appear to be too high. Their collective gets stronger each
Speaker 1: time they blend, and after working their way through a
Speaker 1: group of fifteen thousand crawlers in a single day, we've
Speaker 1: been forced to take actions to prevent a premature extinction.
Speaker 1: Event rest assured they will be reintroduced on a lower floor.
Speaker 1: The street Preacher neighborhood boss has been upgraded to a
Speaker 1: burrow boss. In addition, we have tweaked the strength levels
Speaker 1: of a few different other mobs, too many to mention here,
Speaker 1: so just be aware of that. One last note, a
Speaker 1: lot of crawlers are heading into the stairways prematurely. Again,
Speaker 1: it's your choice, but it's probably best for you to
Speaker 1: get as much experience as you can, and just so
Speaker 1: you know for later, we won't feature you on the
Speaker 1: recap episode if viewers can't tunnel into your feed. So
Speaker 1: if you hit the stairs three or forties before a collapse,
Speaker 1: you are going to miss out. That's it for now.
Speaker 1: Keep up the good work and kill kill, Kill. So
Speaker 1: this is something that I really want to address. We're
Speaker 1: at the end of the chapter here, they get on
Speaker 1: the bike and they start to drive away. But I
Speaker 1: think it's really purposeful that this author decides everybody's tutorial
Speaker 1: time was like maybe pretty different from one another's, and
Speaker 1: people are working with a different amount of knowledge. Mordecai
Speaker 1: has given our people enough that they know they cannot
Speaker 1: be attacked in the safe room, and so they can
Speaker 1: almost use it as a weapon against people who don't
Speaker 1: know that. If you are given a tutorial and somebody
Speaker 1: doesn't include information or you don't think to ask, this
Speaker 1: is actually what it can be like playing a real
Speaker 1: video game, because there are so many things that they
Speaker 1: don't give you instructions on how to use. You have
Speaker 1: to figure it out, or you can go to Reddit,
Speaker 1: or you can go to the wiki for the game,
Speaker 1: or you can there's tons of resources out there for
Speaker 1: finding the answers, but not everybody plays that way or
Speaker 1: knows that they're that information is out there. If there
Speaker 1: are people who like aren't as tech savvy, it doesn't
Speaker 1: occur to them. So there are so many ways that
Speaker 1: you can like have advantages over other players without actually
Speaker 1: intending to. It wasn't like you were trying to put
Speaker 1: them at a disadvantage. But you went to a wiki
Speaker 1: and you read up on a whole history of a
Speaker 1: certain thing and how it gets used later, and so
Speaker 1: now you know, if I get so much of this thing,
Speaker 1: I should keep it because I need that for like
Speaker 1: a really important potion. And they take forever to gather later,
Speaker 1: so I don't want to give them away when somebody
Speaker 1: else doesn't know that, And so they give theirs away
Speaker 1: because they're worth a lot of money, so they sell them,
Speaker 1: and then later on those things are like crucial and
Speaker 1: now they have to fucking find them again, and it's
Speaker 1: like a total pain in the ass and hours of
Speaker 1: play to go back into the game to do that.
Speaker 1: So what I keep thinking about is just how much
Speaker 1: this is like life, because we don't all get the
Speaker 1: same kinds of tutoring when we are young. We don't
Speaker 1: all have parents who have the same levels of knowledge.
Speaker 1: We don't all have parents who have the time to
Speaker 1: be as involved with us as others are. We don't
Speaker 1: have parents who for me, Like, my father didn't speak
Speaker 1: English and that was a huge hindrance for me. My
Speaker 1: mother had never graduated high school. I was in a
Speaker 1: situation growing up where my parents were trying to do
Speaker 1: the best for me because they knew their situations were bad,
Speaker 1: but they didn't know what they didn't know. So they
Speaker 1: were doing their best, but there was a lot that
Speaker 1: they missed because they just weren't given that themselves as children,
Speaker 1: and weren't. My mom had me when she was seventeen
Speaker 1: years old, she got pregnant, so I like was born
Speaker 1: to a fucking child and she did her fucking best,
Speaker 1: God bless her. But like, it's a totally different way
Speaker 1: of growing up if you have parents who are settled
Speaker 1: and have stable jobs and have their own like stable
Speaker 1: parents growing up, it's a totally different experience, and it's
Speaker 1: really mimicking that in some ways. Everybody comes in here
Speaker 1: in a different way. He came in from the cold
Speaker 1: with almost no clothing on, so he's at this weird
Speaker 1: disadvantage just because of how the weather happened to be
Speaker 1: that night. And then there are other people who are
Speaker 1: in a crowd and they get trampled just circumstantially because
Speaker 1: of how many people were out at the same time.
Speaker 1: And then this whole thing about all of the patches.
Speaker 1: I don't know whether or not players who are killed
Speaker 1: because of a fuck up in the coating if they
Speaker 1: can bring them back, because they clearly can do a
Speaker 1: lot with transforming you in this game. But I'm assuming
Speaker 1: this early on that you're not getting brought back if
Speaker 1: you are killed because of one of their fuck ups.
Speaker 1: That just sucks for you. And yet again, another thing
Speaker 1: they try and give you the illusion that you have
Speaker 1: control in the game. We're giving you tools, we're giving
Speaker 1: you instructions, you have this many goals, you know, like
Speaker 1: all of this stuff. We're telling you how to play.
Speaker 1: But then there's a million weird, fucked up problems in
Speaker 1: the code itself that they are aware of, and they're
Speaker 1: letting people play and just die anyway. They're fixing them,
Speaker 1: but like people are dying in the meantime and it's
Speaker 1: not like they're getting a second chance. It just sucks
Speaker 1: for them. That's just their bad luck and they you know, again,
Speaker 1: that's how it goes. We are told that we have
Speaker 1: the tools and control to do, but then life just
Speaker 1: fucking hits you sometimes. You know. I am like my husband,
Speaker 1: he got COVID and is like his whole brain chemistry
Speaker 1: changed and he is like a different person now than
Speaker 1: he was and he's learning to cope and his energy
Speaker 1: levels are finally improving. But it's been like three years
Speaker 1: since got it and he's just starting to feel slightly better.
Speaker 1: That was not something he had control over because we
Speaker 1: had a pandemic and we didn't fucking do anything about it,
Speaker 1: not really, And you know, like this shit just happens
Speaker 1: the whole like, oh, well, we've made it so that
Speaker 1: you can now like cure yourselves of this rabies thing.
Speaker 1: Sorry it's not airborne anymore. I'm just saying all of
Speaker 1: this is a really, really good metaphor, and I wonder
Speaker 1: how many people reading this really get it. Like I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to be condescending when I say that I'm
Speaker 1: but my concern is so much of the time, you guys, know,
Speaker 1: there will be properties that have the most in my opinion,
Speaker 1: overt narratives of like this is clearly an analogy for
Speaker 1: this and this is a metaphor for this thing, and
Speaker 1: then people will just not get it at all, even
Speaker 1: though they loved the series, bring up how it's like
Speaker 1: this thing that's happening in current events, and they're like, what,
Speaker 1: oh my god, why do you have to bring politics
Speaker 1: into this game, into this movie. And it's like, that's
Speaker 1: literally what it's about. What do you mean? So I
Speaker 1: am very very interested in like seeing if there are
Speaker 1: people out there who love this series and then get
Speaker 1: like mad about the woke mob coming in. But obviously
Speaker 1: for me, this is like my entire jam. This is
Speaker 1: what I love, So I'm into it. So oh sorry.
Speaker 1: Rob says, I wonder if Natasha ever listens to her
Speaker 1: own takes once she's caught up on a series. No,
Speaker 1: I have not. I never have, because if she doesn't,
Speaker 1: she ought to. It's so fun to have knowledge of
Speaker 1: what happens, and she is so clever. Oh thanks. Rom.
Speaker 1: Michael says they could absolutely make the game non lethal
Speaker 1: and still be fun to watch. People love watching Twitch streamers,
Speaker 1: and the viewing interface here is way better, but it
Speaker 1: is easier and provides more drama to let them die?
Speaker 1: Why spend more money. True Dance says the critique of
Speaker 1: capitalism is kind of the main theme of Dungeon Crawler. Carl, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm getting this sense, and Michael says, I don't think
Speaker 1: this is an accident by Matt. I'm pretty sure he
Speaker 1: put as much thought into the politics that can be
Speaker 1: interpreted from reading the series as you are getting out
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, I really like this can't And again,
Speaker 1: the way that everybody he talks to when he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: so are like when do you get out of here?
Speaker 1: Or like how does this work? And there's always sort
Speaker 1: of like eventually, I'll you know. He talks to Tilly
Speaker 1: at one point, and I feel like I kind of
Speaker 1: like skipped over that. But Tilly also describes how he
Speaker 1: wasn't a player in the game, that that's not how
Speaker 1: it is for everybody. Sometimes there are people who are
Speaker 1: like told that we won't mind your planet if you
Speaker 1: come with us and work for us, and so that's
Speaker 1: what he did. I'm trying to find the Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't like this. Last season's version of the game,
Speaker 1: they break the people into groups, tell them their loved
Speaker 1: ones will be safe if they kill others. Then everyone
Speaker 1: kills each other. They are safe, but they are not safe.
Speaker 1: Is better dead? Squim SAPs the planet dry. It leaves
Speaker 1: planet moves on, no more atmosphere. People live after the
Speaker 1: big fight, but they don't live, not really born. At
Speaker 1: least gives people a chance. Tally's people had a chance,
Speaker 1: and sometimes they come and offer to take people in
Speaker 1: exchange for not mining world. They came and I went,
Speaker 1: this was very long ago. He says, this is very
Speaker 1: long ago. Mordecai said, like, that was a really, really
Speaker 1: really long time ago. At one point, it seems pretty
Speaker 1: clear to me that whatever agreement they're signing up for,
Speaker 1: it's not like the timing of it isn't human time,
Speaker 1: which just is very troubling. I don't care about that.
Speaker 1: So Dan says, are you listening to the audiobook or
Speaker 1: the audio drama version? Oh, the audiobook for sure. The
Speaker 1: audio drama. I don't really love audio dramas. I totally
Speaker 1: understand their appeal, but they often feel just kind of
Speaker 1: goofy to me, you know, But this does seem like
Speaker 1: a good series to do that with. So if it
Speaker 1: were free for me to like, maybe they have a
Speaker 1: sample of it on audible. I don't listened to it
Speaker 1: just for the fun. Oh, Michael says, the audio drama
Speaker 1: is a lot more expensive, and I don't recommend it
Speaker 1: to anyone until they actually get into the series. They
Speaker 1: are goofy, but that's part of the fun. Well, and
Speaker 1: with this, I think maybe the goofy would work for it.
Speaker 1: But there was one that I listened to a while
Speaker 1: ago that was meant to be kind of like a
Speaker 1: serious procedural detective thing, and it really just didn't fit
Speaker 1: like the tone of what they were trying to do.
Speaker 1: But this I think it might work anyway. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm so far over time. I really have to rep bump.
Speaker 1: But I'm really enjoying this book so far, looking forward
Speaker 1: to listening to more of it with my husband also.
Speaker 1: And it was lovely to have y'all in the chat
Speaker 1: with me. Appreciate you all, Dan, Michael and Rob. Lovely
Speaker 1: to have you. And if you're listening and you're enjoying
Speaker 1: the coverage, I appreciate you. And don't like think about
Speaker 1: going over to patreon dot com slash unspoiled. You don't
Speaker 1: have to pay any money, but you can become a
Speaker 1: free patron, like I was saying, earlier and support me
Speaker 1: that way, and just like you know, it's helpful for me.
Speaker 1: It's just something you can do for creators across the
Speaker 1: board now, is just get on there sort of like
Speaker 1: feed by going and being a free Patreon member if
Speaker 1: they offer that, and it's just a way that they
Speaker 1: can get eyes on their work without having to depend
Speaker 1: on a algorithm to hopefully show you things. So just
Speaker 1: to thought, all right, everybody, thank you again and until
Speaker 1: next time to the loom motherfuckers. That was an unspoiled
Speaker 1: network pat