Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
Speaker 1: covering Dungeon Crawler Carl Book five, The Butcher's Masquerade, chapters
Speaker 1: seventy three through seventy six. In these chapters, nothing goes
Speaker 1: how I thought it was going to go. I was
Speaker 1: continuously surprised in a number of ways that I will
Speaker 1: get into. I apologize early. Welcome to spoil Me, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show everyone. I am Natasha. Thank you very
Speaker 1: much to Jackie for commissioning this episode. Jackie, I do
Speaker 1: not think you're hearing the chat. I think you're unable
Speaker 1: to come to these usually, but you are very appreciated.
Speaker 1: I know that for a minute it was just Michael
Speaker 1: commissioning these, and I'm sure that he appreciates not being
Speaker 1: the only one. So when I said that, I apologize.
Speaker 1: It's a funny story, you guys. Remember how I mentioned
Speaker 1: in the previous episode how there can be parallels with
Speaker 1: things that I am covering and they'll both have like
Speaker 1: a similar plot thing going on. Well, this isn't really
Speaker 1: the same thing. But I had a spreadshe I have
Speaker 1: a section in my phone for the spreadsheets for what
Speaker 1: I am supposed to read for the week. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if, like I believe that it was another
Speaker 1: book that had like the same chapter numbers. I misread
Speaker 1: and I was short two chapters. Today I had I
Speaker 1: read what I thought was up until the point, and
Speaker 1: then today I had a doctor's appointment, I had a
Speaker 1: bunch of admin stuff I needed to deal with, so
Speaker 1: I didn't have the time to do my normal reread,
Speaker 1: which I try to do every single time. I almost
Speaker 1: always do. But I was telling myself, it's okay, you
Speaker 1: just listened yesterday. You'll be fine. And then about forty
Speaker 1: minutes before the recording was supposed to start, I was like,
Speaker 1: let me just double check that I didn't like short
Speaker 1: myself an episode. I shorted myself. I think I said
Speaker 1: two earlier, three I shorted myself three episodes. I don't
Speaker 1: know how I fucking did it. And so I read
Speaker 1: as quickly as I could, and I got about three
Speaker 1: quarters of the way through chapter seventy six and it
Speaker 1: was time to record. So I am starting this recording
Speaker 1: allegedly four through chapter seventy six, but I actually don't
Speaker 1: know how the chapter ends yet. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: be doing that live on camera, and I hope that
Speaker 1: you guys can all bear with me, because like I
Speaker 1: don't normally, you know, I really don't know how I
Speaker 1: did this because usually if I make any mistake in
Speaker 1: any direction, I overread a little bit, usually under reading
Speaker 1: when I want to keep reading, especially I want it.
Speaker 1: I was like, I stopped myself after checking.
Speaker 2: And was like, oh, that sucks.
Speaker 1: I really wanted to keep going. I don't know how
Speaker 1: I fucked up so bad. So I'm just gonna put
Speaker 1: it down to like the holiday like brain gremlins, and uh,
Speaker 1: that's just gonna be my excuse is continually holiday brain gremlins.
Speaker 1: And so thank you all for your bearing with me,
Speaker 1: and I will accept some thoughts and prayers during this
Speaker 1: trying time. So all right, let's begin. This is so
Speaker 1: you guys, I'm I'm gonna jump ahead like a little
Speaker 1: bit here in just talking about what happens with Signet
Speaker 1: because I really didn't know what was going on. I
Speaker 1: when I say don't know what was going on, I
Speaker 1: mean that Carl is thinking about how he is going
Speaker 1: to do something and it's going to be a pretty
Speaker 1: drastic choice because they have to break the seal. But
Speaker 1: he doesn't there's nobody that he wants to do it
Speaker 1: to or you know, make do it, and so he
Speaker 1: is rapidly reaching this conclusion that the other members of
Speaker 1: his party is. He is reaching out and being like,
Speaker 1: please take care of Donut. It's very clear whatever he
Speaker 1: is about to choose to do is going to be
Speaker 1: suicide for him, and they know that it will be.
Speaker 1: And yet I was still not realizing that he intended
Speaker 1: to literally commit suicide. Do you get what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I thought he's gonna like go for imagen or something.
Speaker 1: He is going to do something that breaks the seal,
Speaker 1: and his death is a guarantee, but it is a
Speaker 1: side effect of his attempting to do Instead, it seems
Speaker 1: like he was planning to do precisely what it is
Speaker 1: that Signet winds up doing. Maybe I'm wrong about that,
Speaker 1: but that's sort of what it felt like to me.
Speaker 1: And Signet's decision here and using herself as this sacrifice
Speaker 1: is really honestly quite moving. You know, she has not
Speaker 1: been a character that I've been all that invested in.
Speaker 1: I have found her abilities interesting. The things that she
Speaker 1: has been involved with, like in terms of the tangential
Speaker 1: characters are that are in her party are interesting. I
Speaker 1: think that it's probably a pretty difficult needle to thread
Speaker 1: as an author to create a character that is simultaneously
Speaker 1: not a huge bore to read about, but that one
Speaker 1: can believe is a huge bore to watch on screen,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. So he manages to make me
Speaker 1: not just like dread any time that signet showed up.
Speaker 1: But I didn't expect, if I were to see her
Speaker 1: death in this book, to be this moved by it,
Speaker 1: and I really was. I really just didn't. The manner
Speaker 1: in which she decides to sacrifice herself and the revelation
Speaker 1: that has come for her right beforehand. It's very much
Speaker 1: giving Westworld, you know what I'm saying. If you haven't
Speaker 1: watched Westworld, later seasons are very I would just say,
Speaker 1: watch the first season and you're probably pretty much good.
Speaker 1: But the second season isn't bad. It's just that the
Speaker 1: first season is so good, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I really it was like such a great
Speaker 1: note to hit And I'm wondering if the AI was
Speaker 1: like aware, you know, that this would be a choice
Speaker 1: that she would make or could make, Like how much
Speaker 1: are the people who run the show able to influence
Speaker 1: her as things are happening. I am assuming that as
Speaker 1: she's being told the reality of her situation, that they
Speaker 1: just can't do anything because she's in the palace and
Speaker 1: so that's off limits to them that you know, as
Speaker 1: Carl had said before, do not fuck with the main event.
Speaker 1: So I think that they were just sort of forced
Speaker 1: to sit and watch this happen. And that is very funny,
Speaker 1: you know, not funny for her, not funny in her death,
Speaker 1: but funny that like things just spun so wildly out
Speaker 1: of their control that they ended up here and everything
Speaker 1: that they had planned just blew up in their face.
Speaker 1: You know. Michael says, you were wondering if this was
Speaker 1: a heist movie where everything that was going wrong was
Speaker 1: actually part of the plan. Nope, everything was going wrong,
Speaker 1: and the basic human kindness he showed to signat and
Speaker 1: the changelings is what saved his ass. I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: I was wondering if this was a heist movie where
Speaker 1: everything that was going I would say I think that
Speaker 1: I was pretty much a like certain that's not what
Speaker 1: was happening, because there was just an energy to it.
Speaker 1: But I yeah, I'm a big fan anytime that it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: being a person circled around and paid off, because like frankly,
Speaker 1: it's very rare that that isn't what happens. Being a
Speaker 1: person pays off most of the time, and even in
Speaker 1: the times that it doesn't pay off in quotes where
Speaker 1: you get bit in the ass by somebody who is
Speaker 1: scamming you or who takes advantage of you, even then
Speaker 1: you can at least sleep at night knowing that you
Speaker 1: were still trying to do the right thing and the
Speaker 1: other person and screwing you. It may suck, and you
Speaker 1: may wind up, you know, like screwed over by them,
Speaker 1: but that isn't because you made a decision that was
Speaker 1: cruel or selfish or thoughtless. It is because you were trying,
Speaker 1: and I think that's still worth something. Sarah fem says
Speaker 1: he did do a good job. You can get why
Speaker 1: most people don't care for watching a sign that story,
Speaker 1: but her interactions with Carl are great, and so we
Speaker 1: see the best. I think it's also a case of
Speaker 1: their control over elites is limited. They can write new
Speaker 1: directives into their scripting, but they have enough free will.
Speaker 1: It only truly works if they don't know what's coming
Speaker 1: from outside them. Yeah, I agree. Jeff says, I can't
Speaker 1: imagine enjoying a TV show that gets derailed by some
Speaker 1: crazy AI. I can't decide, Jeff, because, like, imagine this
Speaker 1: happening today where a TV show is airing that is
Speaker 1: being controlled by AI, and there are many people watching
Speaker 1: who are being exploited by whatever the fucking crazy system is,
Speaker 1: and it all begins to go completely off the rails.
Speaker 1: There's going to be some shadn Freud in there, for sure,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's not exactly that I enjoy the show.
Speaker 1: I enjoy the derailing. As soon as I begin to
Speaker 1: hear through the grapevine that it looks like the showrunners
Speaker 1: have lost control over their pet AI, I'm probably tuning in.
Speaker 1: I'm probably gonna want to know, because, like frankly, this
Speaker 1: is what I am hoping is going to happen with
Speaker 1: like the AI bubble. In the United States, we are
Speaker 1: having these weird, rapidly expanding server you know, server farms,
Speaker 1: and all of these programs and little like functions added
Speaker 1: to our phones to search engines, to websites, to our
Speaker 1: software that we use in our business, and everything is
Speaker 1: sort of behaving as if there's nowhere to go but up.
Speaker 1: But a lot of this stuff doesn't work properly. I
Speaker 1: want to watch it fall apart, and I know that
Speaker 1: it's probably, unfortunately due to how it is being implemented,
Speaker 1: going to affect a lot of people badly and that
Speaker 1: will likely learn very little from it. But I can hope.
Speaker 1: I don't know. So we start off with another note
Speaker 1: from from Crawler Carl. It's not you know, it's to
Speaker 1: his other group members, party members, and he's talking about
Speaker 1: the the attempt to try and charm Ferdinand and make
Speaker 1: him do whatever it is that Donut wants, and that
Speaker 1: we have to use charm animal, which they have her
Speaker 1: blood for, which is great. They brought him into fight Donut,
Speaker 1: We're going to make them eat that decision. And later
Speaker 1: on Ferdinand winds up getting like tossed in such a
Speaker 1: way that he is in the building that transfers to
Speaker 1: the ninth floor. So we are not done with him yet,
Speaker 1: and I have to be honest, I'm kind of glad
Speaker 1: he had some interesting things going on for him. And
Speaker 1: I don't think that, you know, donuts charisma is not
Speaker 1: going to be as high once she doesn't have the
Speaker 1: little boosts that she's getting, right, now, I don't know
Speaker 1: if he will be as acquiescent to her, but we've
Speaker 1: got some time for her to build it up before
Speaker 1: she gets to the ninth floor, so it's possible. And
Speaker 1: I am I'm sort of hoping that maybe as much
Speaker 1: as they tried to turn this whole thing into like,
Speaker 1: let's watch Donut's heartbreak as she fights her long lost love,
Speaker 1: maybe there's a weird way that this can all turn
Speaker 1: a corner and actually like work out for her. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know, So let's see, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to jump ahead here. Okay, So we had Imagen. She
Speaker 1: comes in, everybody gets locked into the room because she
Speaker 1: is here, which actually affects her as well. She has
Speaker 1: like makes a move at one point to leave and
Speaker 1: realizes that she can't, which I don't know how I
Speaker 1: missed the fact that it would also work on her,
Speaker 1: but uh. She sees Ferdinand and is like, get over here,
Speaker 1: and he says, I am locked in this on this
Speaker 1: floor because you came in, so I can't, and she's like,
Speaker 1: we will discuss this later, which no, we won't. And
Speaker 1: this is when she turns and begins her little confrontation
Speaker 1: with Imagen. And or no sorry signet and as this
Speaker 1: is like as this conversation with dialogue that is pretty
Speaker 1: like this is not me like throwing shade on the writer.
Speaker 1: I think it's meant to be. It's a little tropy,
Speaker 1: and that's fine. Katcha is checking out what imagen stats
Speaker 1: are and she says something Imagen about how you know,
Speaker 1: are you even going to hate me enough to kill
Speaker 1: your lover and damn yourself? And everybody is like really,
Speaker 1: and I think it's Louis that is like, wait, are
Speaker 1: you banging her? I never even thought of the fact
Speaker 1: that Imagen might assume that, and it makes some sense,
Speaker 1: but you know, it caught me very much off guard too,
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering if there are going to be other
Speaker 1: people later who assumed that they were sleeping together just
Speaker 1: based off of this, even though it wasn't like probably,
Speaker 1: I have to imagine there's like nothing in the uh,
Speaker 1: the film that could suggest that they were sleeping together,
Speaker 1: like off camera at all. That would be on camera.
Speaker 1: I would have to think, I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know how it works with this show, because like you know,
Speaker 1: we had that thing in the first book where what's
Speaker 1: his name decided to pee in the hallway and it
Speaker 1: summoned that creature and they zeroed right in on his
Speaker 1: dick with no problem whatsoever. So I'm assuming that if
Speaker 1: they are having sex in like in the dungeon, that's
Speaker 1: just going to be part of the programming, and that
Speaker 1: they aren't pulling the camera away for that, like why
Speaker 1: would they. So she then like says to Carl that
Speaker 1: I know that you have people out there and that
Speaker 1: you're trying to fuck things up, and Carl immediately is like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, and he tries to tune in to tell
Speaker 1: his people outside to run for it, and he gets
Speaker 1: warning this crawler is deceased. They have been removed from
Speaker 1: your address book. I really felt for him in this moment,
Speaker 1: finding out that this dude, Gideon specifically, is dead and
Speaker 1: realizing that the blood down images front is because she
Speaker 1: killed him. Oh it sucks. And you know, there's like
Speaker 1: a bunch of things. I want to emphasize how much
Speaker 1: is happening all at once, and I imagine that this
Speaker 1: was probably a difficult thing for the author to juggle.
Speaker 1: If you are attempting to show us both what a
Speaker 1: person is thinking, what is happening externally, and what is
Speaker 1: going on with other characters via a chat system, and
Speaker 1: those other characters aren't necessarily even in the same place,
Speaker 1: so those are also separate storylines that we're sort of
Speaker 1: getting updates on. It's a lot to keep track of, that's,
Speaker 1: you know, And I feel like it's done well enough
Speaker 1: that it's quite clear throughout it. I never really feel
Speaker 1: like I don't know what's going on any more than usual,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So let's see. This is
Speaker 1: when Floren comes up and Carl says, are you okay?
Speaker 1: I'm okay. Katcha was right. It looks like her, but
Speaker 1: it ain't. It's her twin. I can tell it's not
Speaker 1: really her either. If he was worried about what happened
Speaker 1: to her, her sister, it's not right there using her
Speaker 1: body like that. We gotta do something about it. Floren
Speaker 1: was a lot more fucked up about this than he
Speaker 1: was letting on. It was obvious, but he was doing
Speaker 1: his best not to let it show. Good for you,
Speaker 1: I thought, And yeah, Florin just keeps impressing me like this,
Speaker 1: combined with the way that he took a beat and
Speaker 1: like realized that something with Lucia was not right. I
Speaker 1: am delighted. I am pleased very much with Florin and
Speaker 1: am like low key, you know, can he be somebody
Speaker 1: that takes up more space going forward, because I would
Speaker 1: definitely be here for that. So he has to tune
Speaker 1: back in with Samantha, who really thinks that she that
Speaker 1: he screwed her out of getting to kill some guards
Speaker 1: because they're dead already, which is like a combo. Of
Speaker 1: of course he didn't do that, And also you couldn't
Speaker 1: have killed them anyway, Samantha, you don't know how to.
Speaker 1: You can't do that. So then up on stage, Ellie
Speaker 1: and Amani finished up. You are no longer muted, You
Speaker 1: may now cast spells, you are no longer peace bonded.
Speaker 1: You may now access your inventory, And Samantha says, okay,
Speaker 1: I pulled out the soul crystals, but there's a problem.
Speaker 1: The other two on the left side are already pulled out.
Speaker 1: They're still here here on the floor. The person who
Speaker 1: killed the guards took them out and turned off the
Speaker 1: protections of the ballroom already. So we are not the
Speaker 1: only ones with a plan, as it turns out, And
Speaker 1: we have this moment where Carl is realizing I've got
Speaker 1: to get a grip on what's happening now, because clearly
Speaker 1: I thought it was just us about to like fuck
Speaker 1: with shit, and you know, trying to look around and
Speaker 1: see who's moving and what is happening. The soul crystal
Speaker 1: for the goodwill interface has already been taken away. It's
Speaker 1: still working because of the cap, but whoever was here
Speaker 1: tried it anyway. And all of the Mantises or all
Speaker 1: of the guards, she says, they're severed heads are sitting
Speaker 1: right there, so it's definitely Mantis's that killed them. And
Speaker 1: he says, take those two crystals from the left and
Speaker 1: put them back into place, do it fast, and do
Speaker 1: it now. Then get ready. So it makes some sense
Speaker 1: why Vra looked up at that censor that had been
Speaker 1: turned off and didn't really like say or do anything
Speaker 1: about it, because that is working to her advantage at
Speaker 1: the moment. And let's see, I Ron her mother had
Speaker 1: an alternate plan. They were still filling the castle with
Speaker 1: the nymphs de Wata slash Circe gave the hunters back
Speaker 1: their magic ability and was waiting for her daughter to
Speaker 1: get someone to break the seal. If Samantha shoved the
Speaker 1: soul crystals back into the slot and effectively blocked the
Speaker 1: hunters from using their magic and inventory again. It wouldn't
Speaker 1: stop them, but it would be all the more difficult
Speaker 1: for them to prepare for the inevitable breaking of the
Speaker 1: seal or to cause it. So Eva I had sort
Speaker 1: of wondered if Eva was like teamed up with Ra,
Speaker 1: you know, because she just seems like that kind of
Speaker 1: idiot who is just going to go for like it
Speaker 1: wouldn't really make sense in the long run. But Eva
Speaker 1: would be so sure she could double cross Ra eventually,
Speaker 1: and Ra would be so sure that she would be
Speaker 1: able to kill Eva that I could see the two
Speaker 1: of them like actually kind of working together for a minute.
Speaker 1: But that is not what's really happening. She just has
Speaker 1: an object that is going to allow her to escape,
Speaker 1: and so she's keeping an eye out for when things
Speaker 1: begin to really go down. So let's see, Imani says.
Speaker 1: Most of the crawlers outside are getting forced down this stairs.
Speaker 1: The brambles weren't supposed to get this far into the
Speaker 1: Elf territory for hours, but I think they're reacting to
Speaker 1: the elves trying to beat them back. The elves at
Speaker 1: the border who were fighting them have retreated to defend
Speaker 1: the castle, and now the brambles are chasing them. So
Speaker 1: another thing that is not going according to the plan.
Speaker 1: And later on, once the actual palace disappears, they have
Speaker 1: come up like within one hundred feet of the walls
Speaker 1: of the palace. It's really really they are close. And
Speaker 1: this is when Carl begins to come to the conclusion
Speaker 1: that he is going to have to do something really drastic.
Speaker 1: As he is figuring this out, he is warning Samantha
Speaker 1: that the goddess is going to be coming for her.
Speaker 1: She's in the form of a flaming mantist giving birth,
Speaker 1: and do everything you can to keep her away from
Speaker 1: the control panel. If you can stop her from giving birth,
Speaker 1: she'll go away. I believe in you, and Samantha just
Speaker 1: says you do, which sounded very sincere, like she genuinely
Speaker 1: just needed somebody to believe in her. Oh, Samantha, you
Speaker 1: are such a little weirdo. I do enjoy her. So
Speaker 1: we get an update from Sledge. Shit's going left outside,
Speaker 1: Prudence winds up dead. He says that they're like way
Speaker 1: too many mantises, and then like at the last second,
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, the mantises turned out to be changelings
Speaker 1: were good. I really enjoyed that moment of just thinking like,
Speaker 1: hold on, hold on, we're fucked, and then surprise, I
Speaker 1: closed my eyes for just a second and pretended like
Speaker 1: everything was all right. The world had never ended. My
Speaker 1: mother and I had never left Texas. I was outside
Speaker 1: right now, sitting in the shade of a tree I'd
Speaker 1: planted years before. Everyone here, all my friends I never
Speaker 1: met each other under these horrific circumstances. Doughnut was fat
Speaker 1: and happy, sitting in her cat tree somewhere warm, growling
Speaker 1: at a cocker spaniel. I had never heard the water
Speaker 1: running through the pipes or gone down into the basement
Speaker 1: to investigate the noise. I had never found the note
Speaker 1: followed by my mother a minute later. So when he
Speaker 1: talks about that river that's in his mind, I'm assuming
Speaker 1: that it's like this running water thing just sort of
Speaker 1: amplified within his memory and the trauma of this. Because
Speaker 1: I haven't connected the running water with her suicide. I
Speaker 1: thought that she had hanged herself for some reason. I
Speaker 1: had it in my head because I think in the
Speaker 1: basement was why, Because a lot of times houses don't
Speaker 1: have like exposed beams or anywhere to hang, like except
Speaker 1: for in the basement, so I always sort of that's
Speaker 1: my go to. But yeah, we just don't really actually
Speaker 1: have that many details about this, and I keep making
Speaker 1: all of these assumptions about it, you know. So this
Speaker 1: is when he tells Donut like, go on and do
Speaker 1: your performance and don't forget Ferdinand. I have a plan,
Speaker 1: and we know that the plan is supposed to be
Speaker 1: that he is going to do something bonkers, and he
Speaker 1: is telling her to do her performance to distract her,
Speaker 1: which the way that she would just never recover. I
Speaker 1: don't know what she'd do, honestly, Guys like, I really
Speaker 1: I don't it would h I don't even want to
Speaker 1: see it. And this is when Signet comes up to
Speaker 1: him and is like that, Empress, do Nadia told me everything?
Speaker 1: That there are people watching, that there are folks controlling it,
Speaker 1: that my family was never real. And the tone of
Speaker 1: all of this is not like, are you going to
Speaker 1: saw me out of it? Is this like a lie?
Speaker 1: Is she fucking with me? Tell me it's not true.
Speaker 1: By the time Signat comes to speak to him, it
Speaker 1: feels like she has already accepted this that maybe there
Speaker 1: are some things that weren't really making sense to her
Speaker 1: in the view that she had of the world, and
Speaker 1: now that she's gotten this information, some details and clues
Speaker 1: are kick clicking into place, and so it seems like
Speaker 1: she really is fully turned the corner here. And this
Speaker 1: is when he is talking to her about, you know,
Speaker 1: having Tina do her recital because it's what she wants,
Speaker 1: and Signet is like, that's not what she wants. She
Speaker 1: wants the same thing that I want and what I
Speaker 1: think you want. She wants her mother back. And Carl
Speaker 1: thinks to himself, how the hell did she know that,
Speaker 1: which is a good question. I don't know who knows
Speaker 1: what about his mother, but it doesn't seem like anybody knows,
Speaker 1: so I have to assume this is like info that
Speaker 1: got fed to her from external sources somehow. And yeah,
Speaker 1: he's like, but her mom is here, it's Kiwi And
Speaker 1: she's like, yeah, she's fucked up, man. This magic thing
Speaker 1: affected her mind and she has what she wants but
Speaker 1: can't see it. You need to get her to see it.
Speaker 1: And at this point somebody just says, this is wonderwall
Speaker 1: and this guy starts to play the song and I
Speaker 1: love somebody shared in the discord the other day there's
Speaker 1: a real trend happening right now with people learning to
Speaker 1: do bookbinding and rebinding favorite books to make them look
Speaker 1: really elaborate and have them be kind of special edition style.
Speaker 1: And somebody rebound the first Dung Crawler Carl book with
Speaker 1: the Wonder Wall song playing over as they did the
Speaker 1: binding and everything, and it was just such a great
Speaker 1: little bit. And it's also theirs Doughnuts voice just yelling
Speaker 1: this is my song, and the actual art that they
Speaker 1: did for the cover and everything is just beautiful. So
Speaker 1: this is when something happens to the floor. It's a
Speaker 1: real weird The entire building shook. Everything not in the
Speaker 1: room flickered but came back. I looked down at the floor, shocked.
Speaker 1: The floor tiles under our feet had shattered like windshield glass.
Speaker 1: The floor tiles were just gone in several places. A
Speaker 1: terrible stench filled the room. Turning and mixing and spinning
Speaker 1: colors pressed against the invisible shield of the floor. It
Speaker 1: was white, gore and green bug parts. Realized we were
Speaker 1: looking the hunters were looking upward while we were looking down.
Speaker 1: Their attention was focused on the back left corner of
Speaker 1: the room, but to me, the ceiling there looked intact.
Speaker 1: The hunter ballroom was on the second floor and we
Speaker 1: were on the fourth. The explosion had occurred between us
Speaker 1: on the third floor. That had been a soul crystal
Speaker 1: going off. I realized it must have been a small one.
Speaker 1: It had blown apart the floor under us and the
Speaker 1: ceiling above the hunter ballroom, exposing the illusion. Yet the
Speaker 1: good Will ballrooms still worked, and Samantha just students in
Speaker 1: to say that was my bad. I tried to go big,
Speaker 1: but I think I lost too big. I had to
Speaker 1: use the soul crystals. All of them blew up. Dewata
Speaker 1: is still here, but she's knocked out. I didn't know
Speaker 1: I could do that. The babies are still coming out,
Speaker 1: but there's no room, so it's like we're in a
Speaker 1: sausage press. I swear to god, that is so gross, Samantha.
Speaker 1: It's like I thought if I like stuck the crystal
Speaker 1: in my mouth and went up there and chomped down
Speaker 1: on them. Samantha, sweetie, what do you do it? That is?
Speaker 1: You cannot say that Samantha isn't a team player. This
Speaker 1: bitch is willing to do what it takes. She will
Speaker 1: fucking do it. Is she gonna do it? Well? Maybe,
Speaker 1: maybe not. Is she going to follow your instructions almost
Speaker 1: definitely not. Is she going to remember crucial details and
Speaker 1: information that you know are absolutely clutch. No, she probably
Speaker 1: won't even listen to you tell them to her the
Speaker 1: first time. But that does not mean that she isn't
Speaker 1: like committed in her own way. And that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that she can't improvise. Girl will fucking improvise for sure.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know what, I respect it. I get
Speaker 1: irritated when it feels like people are just being very stupid,
Speaker 1: and to a point, Samantha certainly can be very stupid.
Speaker 1: But you know, she's going at like full effort a
Speaker 1: lot of the time, even when it feels like she's
Speaker 1: slacking on certain things. It's just because you know, she
Speaker 1: has to select where her effort goes, and her effort
Speaker 1: goes in different places than where we think it should
Speaker 1: necessarily go for certain parts of the plan. I always
Speaker 1: respect effort. I always do. So, you know what, appreciate you,
Speaker 1: Girley appreciates you. Sorry, I'm just looking at the uh
Speaker 1: the moment when Signet just eats the acorn that's actually
Speaker 1: in the true like fallen from the tree that's hanging
Speaker 1: above them, and how like when I was first reading this,
Speaker 1: I got so confused. But it causes magical fervor, which
Speaker 1: we did hear that this is what the reaction is
Speaker 1: to eating one of these things way earlier. And this
Speaker 1: is when he's like realizing what she's about to do
Speaker 1: and says, who's your sacrifice? And she says, your companion,
Speaker 1: Donut has a powerful torch spell. I can do this
Speaker 1: without her help, but if you could ask her to
Speaker 1: cast it using my moon rays as the source, it
Speaker 1: will make this much more worthwhile for you and my family.
Speaker 1: And that tentacle faced buffoon of a woman said something
Speaker 1: else to me that you weren't going to survive this
Speaker 1: evening because she'd been looking forward to meeting you on
Speaker 1: the battlefield. She was sad you weren't going to survive
Speaker 1: because she'd been looking forward to meeting you on the
Speaker 1: battlefield outside of Loroccos I want a favor from you, Carl.
Speaker 1: I want you to show her exactly how real my
Speaker 1: family is. I want them all to see, which they
Speaker 1: wind up getting transported to the ninth floor, so perhaps
Speaker 1: he is going to have some of them as bat
Speaker 1: back up in the end. I'm wondering if they will
Speaker 1: turn into don't like, will he wind up with these
Speaker 1: tattoos on him somehow because they can't just stay. I
Speaker 1: guess they can just stay. I guess it's part of it.
Speaker 1: The fact that Princess Donadia is like being this kind
Speaker 1: and sweet and stuff to their face is when evidently
Speaker 1: the whole thing is going to be meeting him in
Speaker 1: battle later. It's just the weirdest shit, like it just
Speaker 1: requires a type of compartmentalization that is bonkers to me.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know. So at this point, Donut
Speaker 1: takes her charm potion manages to completely take over Ferdinand's
Speaker 1: will basically, and he joins the party, which I just you, guys,
Speaker 1: I laughed out loud when we get this notification. He's
Speaker 1: turning to Donadia and being like, that's my bird up
Speaker 1: there about Donut, like what? And then we get her
Speaker 1: singing her song All Eyes on Me, and it's done
Speaker 1: in the audiobook with actual music, and he actually like
Speaker 1: sings in Doughnuts voice, and he does a pretty solid
Speaker 1: job of making this like nonsense, The nonsense lyrics feel
Speaker 1: like poetry more than simply like nonsense. And it's genuinely,
Speaker 1: like really sad like there's just a feeling to it
Speaker 1: of her mourning this owner that loved her. She thought
Speaker 1: that used to you know. It just feels so melancholy.
Speaker 1: And Carl says it was one of the most beautiful
Speaker 1: things I'd ever heard. She sang them with such sad longing.
Speaker 1: It felt as if a hand had reached into my
Speaker 1: chest and wrenched at my heart. Hod Damn Ellie said,
Speaker 1: she's getting good. The spell did exactly what the title implied.
Speaker 1: Everyone in the room, without even realizing, was now affected
Speaker 1: by a minor charm, even the hunters and crawlers and
Speaker 1: the queen. The charm wasn't that useful, but it was
Speaker 1: perfect for this occasion. It focused everyone's attention on a
Speaker 1: subject of the castor's choice. And then we get a
Speaker 1: little bit of a change in the music, and this
Speaker 1: is when Tina comes out. The spotlight had a blue tint,
Speaker 1: washing the room in warm moonlight. The glowing of Signet's
Speaker 1: skin tripled in intensity, and everybody is zeroed in on Donut,
Speaker 1: except for Vra, who is like, she just turns in
Speaker 1: time to see signet glowing and is starting to be like, wait,
Speaker 1: hold on a second, let's see the what do you
Speaker 1: call it? What Tina is wearing the Boa, That's what
Speaker 1: I was looking for, is like washed and refreshed, and
Speaker 1: the Wand is recharged and she's, you know, doing these
Speaker 1: little twirls. It was another charm spell, another performer's trick.
Speaker 1: The audience, already heavily focused on the dinosaur, were now
Speaker 1: enraptured by her. They weren't forced to stare like zombies,
Speaker 1: but the Wand cast a spell called the Recital, which
Speaker 1: had the effect of making everyone happy. It made them
Speaker 1: feel as if they wanted to be there, that they
Speaker 1: wanted to watch the stage, that this was something they'd
Speaker 1: been looking forward to. It filled me with warmth, with hope.
Speaker 1: I felt tears form in the corners of my eyes,
Speaker 1: and I just really like this little moment is despite
Speaker 1: the fact that it's loaded with magic and there is
Speaker 1: a plan in place that's unfolding, and it's not just
Speaker 1: what it appears to be. I take comfort in knowing
Speaker 1: that when it comes to Donut planning it out, that
Speaker 1: to a point, it is just what it appears to be.
Speaker 1: If you get what I mean that Like, it's not
Speaker 1: simply the what's the word I want? There isn't like
Speaker 1: the cynicism of we have to make it as good
Speaker 1: as we can just to keep people's attention. She wants
Speaker 1: saying it as good as she can't because she likes
Speaker 1: to do that, you know, and I love that. So
Speaker 1: this is when Carl tells Sledge to get ready and
Speaker 1: do it. Vra sees Signet and like points her out
Speaker 1: and is realizing something's happening, and he tells Sledge, you're
Speaker 1: going to be trans flurred to the knife floor with
Speaker 1: everyone else. Ferdinand and the cat will go and he
Speaker 1: might be a problem, so watch him. There might be
Speaker 1: zombies attacking you. None of the Faction Wars guys will
Speaker 1: be allowed to touch you, so hopefully you'll all be safe.
Speaker 1: You're gonna feel really sick for a full day, but
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a lot of people around who'll protect you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for doing this, and thank you for taking
Speaker 1: care of Donut. I'll never forget what you've done for
Speaker 1: us tonight, and Sledge just says, Nola Bomo beat my
Speaker 1: Frogger's score, and Carl very seriously, I'll unplug the machine.
Speaker 1: The moment we get back, put in your inventory, dude,
Speaker 1: because you can plug that shit back in. I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: cover your bases. And Mango had a crab costume that
Speaker 1: had fallen around his neck. Kiwi was covered in white
Speaker 1: paper mache bubbles ringed around her neck like an oversized
Speaker 1: pearl necklace. One of the costumes, a piece of seaweed
Speaker 1: fell lazily from the ceiling where it had just been
Speaker 1: accidentally cut in half, and Carl tells Brittany to get
Speaker 1: away from the backstage area. Donut says ready, whenever you are,
Speaker 1: and Nimani says everyone to the right of the room,
Speaker 1: move left, look at the floor tiles, and move to
Speaker 1: a place where the floor is solid. He hands over
Speaker 1: the knife to Signet. She says, protect your family and
Speaker 1: watch over mine, and then calls out to image in.
Speaker 1: I only have two regrets. I never got the chance
Speaker 1: to say goodbye to Grimaldi, and then I won't be
Speaker 1: the one to kill you. Today. We're going to leave
Speaker 1: my mother and I. We were going to go to
Speaker 1: an island and leave all this behind. I think about
Speaker 1: it all the time and slits her own throat and again,
Speaker 1: you guys, I was so distracted by all of the
Speaker 1: things happening here that I didn't know this was like
Speaker 1: the way that she was going to do this. I
Speaker 1: should have because like, what else did I think was
Speaker 1: going to happen? But yeah, it's it was just a
Speaker 1: really great little surprise from the ceiling. Every acorn on
Speaker 1: the upside down tree fell at once. There was no
Speaker 1: warning or reason. They all hit the ground like little gunshots.
Speaker 1: The floor rent open and Signet plummeted from sight, getting
Speaker 1: pulled into the nothing as image and grabbed at her
Speaker 1: as if to stop her. And we hear somebody calling
Speaker 1: out for Sameiths saying that they are coming, which I
Speaker 1: wonder how they're coming, And we don't really hear Samiths
Speaker 1: like react to that, so I don't know if she
Speaker 1: heard it, or if she's just ignoring it or what.
Speaker 1: But this is when Karl puts on the ring of
Speaker 1: divine suffering Mark's Vra and then pulls out smoke, curtains
Speaker 1: and a lot of things. As the next chapter starts,
Speaker 1: many many things happened at once, and the velociraptors attack
Speaker 1: Vraw and it is so friggin satisfying. Guys. I love
Speaker 1: this so much. And also so here comes fucking Samantha
Speaker 1: as well, yelling at rot remember me, bitch and chomping
Speaker 1: down at her now like Samantha's got silicone teeth, so
Speaker 1: I'm imagining that like biting down does not really do anything,
Speaker 1: but it's the thought that counts, you know. Again, I
Speaker 1: respect effort. Let's see Tina roared and also leaped off
Speaker 1: the front of the stage, but the moment she did,
Speaker 1: she vanished. She was now the sole occupant of attendant
Speaker 1: ballroom B, not including the surprised workers and animal handlers,
Speaker 1: which we couldn't see. An elf suddenly appeared, landing on
Speaker 1: the stage, only for Tina to reappear for a moment
Speaker 1: to chomp him in half. Sucks to suck. A lot
Speaker 1: of the hunters are escaping, but many are also dying,
Speaker 1: not as many as we would like. And Lucia is
Speaker 1: like freaking out and cowering. Immani is like messaging Karl
Speaker 1: and being like, we have got to get the fuck
Speaker 1: out of this room. What is even happening right now?
Speaker 1: Do Wata is on the map below them and not moving,
Speaker 1: And the tattoos that came off of uh signet are
Speaker 1: heading for Imagen, A massive tena sized hammerhead shark slammed
Speaker 1: into the ground. No longer floating like it usually did,
Speaker 1: it flopped angrily about, rolling over and through hunters and
Speaker 1: dinosaurs as it started to angrily chomp at nymphs, only
Speaker 1: some of whom were actually in the same room as it.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of confusion translation where it's just
Speaker 1: you know, who's here, who's not here? Who can I
Speaker 1: actually affect? Why are things going like they usually go
Speaker 1: one way, but now they're going a different way because
Speaker 1: signet isn't actually here, So what was sort of fueling
Speaker 1: that magic isn't really the same as always. And there
Speaker 1: is this red lightning that strikes everybody at the same time,
Speaker 1: and Carl's health drops down and he staggers. Vra has
Speaker 1: her arms and legs ripped off. Both dinosaurs also bled
Speaker 1: from multiple wounds. One of VRA's compound irons compound eyes
Speaker 1: had been punctured and shattered like a bee's honeycomb, and
Speaker 1: she just says how and Carl says, Kiwi back to
Speaker 1: the stage, quick Mango finish her off for me, make
Speaker 1: it hurt, and Kiwi says goodbye to Mango In a
Speaker 1: very conscious way, which it doesn't seem to me that
Speaker 1: Mongo is as conscious as she is that this is
Speaker 1: a goodbye. It seems like she's really the only one
Speaker 1: that really gets it here and let's see. He looks
Speaker 1: around for another target for his ring because now Ra
Speaker 1: is dead, and he takes his ring off, and then
Speaker 1: he yells at to Samantha, if I don't see you again,
Speaker 1: thank you, and she says, are you breaking up with me?
Speaker 1: Is it because of Louie? So there's a lot to
Speaker 1: unpack there that I won't be I'm gonna leave that
Speaker 1: suitcase sealed shot and I hope that you guys all
Speaker 1: understand we're just leaving that there. And he has to
Speaker 1: tell her also that signet is in the nothing, which
Speaker 1: Samantha had been hoping to get her body and can't now.
Speaker 1: But she spots something and it's like wait, hold on,
Speaker 1: hold on, hold on, and she just like rolls off
Speaker 1: for a second, and he starts to hear a child crying,
Speaker 1: and there's this awful moment where the form of Clint
Speaker 1: as a kid is like cowering because he was one
Speaker 1: of her tattoos. This got me, guys like him just
Speaker 1: being thrust into this. I felt so bad, and Nadine
Speaker 1: is trying to like protect him, but neither of them
Speaker 1: really knows what's going on. Karl is able to get
Speaker 1: their health back up with a potion and they wind
Speaker 1: up getting like yanked away. But it was just definitely
Speaker 1: a second of like, oh my god, you know. And
Speaker 1: there's a naiad on the ground and it says Princess
Speaker 1: Lunette incomplete flesh golum, which Signet had said, me and
Speaker 1: my mother are going now, but evidently she left her
Speaker 1: mother behind. And I don't know if she knew that
Speaker 1: was gonna happen or not, you know, or maybe it
Speaker 1: being a memory she just meant, actually me and my mother,
Speaker 1: this is just the memory of her, you know. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he let's see the breathless Nadine pointed to the
Speaker 1: prone form. Signet wants you take the golam she took
Speaker 1: memory with her just left body. Helps him Antha find
Speaker 1: a pulp mancer and Carl or Samantha is so excited
Speaker 1: and it's just like yes, yes, yes, take the take it,
Speaker 1: take it, take it. We'll figure it out. And he says,
Speaker 1: we'll figure this out when we meet up with you
Speaker 1: on the ninth and she just says fuck that she
Speaker 1: rows up off the ground, floating magically, and she shot
Speaker 1: off like a rocket, blasting down through a hole in
Speaker 1: the floor. So excuse me, but what she could do
Speaker 1: that she's been keeping that under wraps, I guess I
Speaker 1: And I'm assuming that when she says fuck, that she
Speaker 1: means I'm not staying in this fucking building. I'm not
Speaker 1: waiting till the ninth floor. I think that she got
Speaker 1: out of there so that she wouldn't get transferred with
Speaker 1: everybody else. That's my assumption, So excuse me, Sorry, guys.
Speaker 1: And there's this whole thing here where Ferdinand gets like
Speaker 1: backhanded by Imagen. She's real mad at him, and then
Speaker 1: he winds up like hitting the ground and disappearing. And
Speaker 1: Kiwi is up on stage with Donut, and Donut pops
Speaker 1: one of the bubbles around her neck and there's a
Speaker 1: potion ball inside. Kiwi staggered and then stood to her feet,
Speaker 1: having been transformed from a dinosaur to an earths sign.
Speaker 1: It happened even faster than I thought it would. The
Speaker 1: bear stood to her height, naked except the remaining paper babbles.
Speaker 1: She looked at her paws in surprise, the other raptors
Speaker 1: all roared as one their white dots all turned red. Tina,
Speaker 1: upon seeing the transformation of her mother, roared, then roared again,
Speaker 1: and then she's calling out, mom, where are we Mommy?
Speaker 1: And again the audiobook narrator managing to do this like
Speaker 1: growling sad call for mom. Remarkable. That is not an
Speaker 1: easy thing to pull off. And that completes the quest
Speaker 1: for the recital. And then we have the room freezing
Speaker 1: Boss Battle cage fight extreme. Four teams enter, one team leaves,
Speaker 1: four teams enter, one team leaves. The AI's voice shrieked,
Speaker 1: absolutely giddy with excitement. And you know in corner one,
Speaker 1: all of these people in corner two, the last remaining hunters.
Speaker 1: In corner three, Queen image in level one country Boss.
Speaker 1: Her forces had been whittled down to almost nothing, but
Speaker 1: her elite fighting squad is still in good shape. She
Speaker 1: may be down and shunned by her goddess because she
Speaker 1: just threw the worst PARTI since Alexander the Great took Persepolis,
Speaker 1: but she is still strong, powerful, and really really pissed off.
Speaker 1: And there is a Corner four DWATA level two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty immortal. She can't be killed, but if you
Speaker 1: can manage to talk her into some sort of birth control,
Speaker 1: she'll be knocked out of the ring. Amazing. So this
Speaker 1: whole thing, guys, it's so what's the word I want?
Speaker 1: It is so chaotic. There's so much to talk about
Speaker 1: here that I'm having trouble deciding because it gets to
Speaker 1: a point where I feel like I've got to read
Speaker 1: all the text, but I don't want to just read
Speaker 1: the you know what I mean, that's not a podcast.
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to figure out exactly what needs to
Speaker 1: be mentioned specifically. I slammed onto my I slammed onto
Speaker 1: my magic protection spell lights swirled around me and they
Speaker 1: it just is like a moment of complete bedlam, with
Speaker 1: them killing as many of these friggin nymphs as they can.
Speaker 1: And they had all been like in mid air, and
Speaker 1: they're falling as well, and Imagen has the furthest to
Speaker 1: fall and it lands like a friggin meteor. The icons
Speaker 1: of Hunters started to get xt out as they splattered
Speaker 1: against the ground. When the castle had teleported away, it
Speaker 1: had taken the sub basements with it, so we had
Speaker 1: further to fall than I had originally thought I savagely
Speaker 1: ripped at another mantis as a lightning bolt thick as
Speaker 1: a tree ripped through the air, possibly aimed at me,
Speaker 1: but it dissipated before hitting home, instead crisping dozens of
Speaker 1: mantises who all exploded into mist. This is the energy
Speaker 1: of a lot of these upcoming paragraphs where it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, we've got smoke bombs, we've got lightning, we've
Speaker 1: got all kinds of like like weird abilities being mixed
Speaker 1: in with these tattoo creatures that are still like in
Speaker 1: the mix here and there. And let's see my feet
Speaker 1: hit the ground, landing amongst a knee deep pile of
Speaker 1: dead bugs. I couldn't see a goddamn thing. A velosc
Speaker 1: of raptor with the bloody remnants of a lobster costume
Speaker 1: dangling from her neck, sailed over me, pouncing on something
Speaker 1: I couldn't see. They'd reverted to red tagged mobs, and
Speaker 1: I was just like, oh, I forgot about that. That
Speaker 1: makes sense. Like that definitely gave me a little moment
Speaker 1: of panic. So blood misted in the air. I could
Speaker 1: barely breathe, and I coughed as I trudged forward. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine there being so much blood that it's literally
Speaker 1: like making it humid and hard to breathe? Like, I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry, but that is its fucking vile. I can't
Speaker 1: even picture that. That is so gross. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: A Velociraptord lay on the ground, injured in the fall. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I thought, as ellieised it. I'm so sorry. We couldn't
Speaker 1: save all of you. That sucks. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: he did as much as he could fucking do. I'm
Speaker 1: not blaming him at all, but yeah, that would bum
Speaker 1: me out too. I headbutted the mantis, caving its head in. Huh,
Speaker 1: I thought, as I started to lose consciousness. I didn't
Speaker 1: know I could do that. Just before the sleep took me,
Speaker 1: I was violently ripped, violently ripped awake by a mass heel.
Speaker 1: It was donut and the fucking Dmitri and Maxim are
Speaker 1: like friggin' going for it, and it's you guys. The
Speaker 1: double Crawler sland into the ground next to me as
Speaker 1: a flaming mount spun away. Blood showered over me. I
Speaker 1: miss my cat, Dmitri said, just before he closed his eyes.
Speaker 1: That's so sad, you guys that got to me. Ugh,
Speaker 1: only five hunters remained. I could hear the roar of
Speaker 1: Florin's shotgun. And this is when Kotcha comes up and
Speaker 1: is like, we need to fucking get over there and help.
Speaker 1: And he's like, I don't know how I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: able to get in there. There's all these dead bugs.
Speaker 1: So she gives him the beanie that has the I
Speaker 1: Need my Personal Space spell on it, and then Donut
Speaker 1: comes up to him and is like, hey, check it out.
Speaker 1: That love vampire thing. All these elves are in love
Speaker 1: with me. And he's like, oh shit, that is amazing
Speaker 1: because I have little heart icons over their head. How's
Speaker 1: your potion countdown? I'm ready, she shouted, take it now.
Speaker 1: Red lightning zapped the entire area, shocking us. All. This
Speaker 1: was stronger than before. More crawlers blinked and disappeared. All
Speaker 1: the remaining elves under Donuts control dropped dead, leaving her defenseless.
Speaker 1: I really was like disappointed that we didn't get to
Speaker 1: see more action with these elves, but I suppose they
Speaker 1: basically served their purpose. I guess I don't know. So
Speaker 1: right here, right here is where I was able to
Speaker 1: read up to before I had to start recording. So
Speaker 1: now we're going to get into actual lively territory. Guys. Okay,
Speaker 1: so are you ready for it? It looks like it's
Speaker 1: gonna be just about the right amount of time for
Speaker 1: me to be over by ten minutes on this recording,
Speaker 1: which is freaking par for the course for me. So
Speaker 1: it's fine. The laundry Day spell couldn't hurt the God.
Speaker 1: The only way it would actually remove the armor off
Speaker 1: of God was if she trained it up to twenty,
Speaker 1: which she wouldn't ever be able to do as she
Speaker 1: was maxed out at fifteen. But that was okay. She
Speaker 1: didn't need to remove the armor off of God. She
Speaker 1: just needed to remove it from a person. The God
Speaker 1: was the armor and it would remain intact. She just
Speaker 1: needed to remove it off the person underneath. And all
Speaker 1: we needed for that was the spell to be at
Speaker 1: level fifteen. I'd been worried we'd have to remove the
Speaker 1: gods in vulnerability. Tin, who'd written the twenty first edition
Speaker 1: of the cookbook, seemed to think that that was the case,
Speaker 1: but after further research, it appeared that spells designed to
Speaker 1: target the drivers of soul Armer and not the gods themselves,
Speaker 1: would still work. I'd been planning on using this on
Speaker 1: Groul the next time he showed himself. But we couldn't
Speaker 1: always choose our battles, which is true words never spoken.
Speaker 1: The spell cast the deity screamed, and little white soapy
Speaker 1: bubbles appeared everywhere. Dewata transformed into an antlered bear. It
Speaker 1: screamed at me and lunged before it dissipated into nothing.
Speaker 1: Do Wata has returned to the halls of ascendancy? White
Speaker 1: soapy bubbles really from laundry day? I suppose right? Oh
Speaker 1: this game. The form of Circe Took, stripped of her protection,
Speaker 1: sopping wet and covered with bubbles, stood to her full height.
Speaker 1: The giant mantis woman chittered in rage, I don't need
Speaker 1: the protection of the god to She never finished. Before
Speaker 1: I could strike, a dozen of her own children fell
Speaker 1: upon her. The wave of bugs rushed her, slicing and
Speaker 1: cutting and ripping. They screamed as one, piling onto her
Speaker 1: as if enraged. Circe Took died, shrieking my name. Why
Speaker 1: did they kill her? Is that just what mansus? Babies do?
Speaker 1: Just eat their mommy? Is that a thing like with spiders?
Speaker 1: That's horrifying. Oh my god, we didn't have time to celebrate.
Speaker 1: Yet another area attack swept through the pit, this time
Speaker 1: even stronger than before. Donut cried out and fell from mongo.
Speaker 1: Her health zeroed out. Her cockroach skill activated, saving her.
Speaker 1: I swear to God, this doughnut or this cockroach thing,
Speaker 1: we need to get like a double up on that,
Speaker 1: because she wouldn't survive another one of those.
Speaker 2: You no shit.
Speaker 1: The spell did more damage each time. As it was
Speaker 1: that last attack had killed all the remaining bugs. Team
Speaker 1: four eliminated a single hunter remained. Forty something crawlers remained.
Speaker 1: The elves were mostly dead. I didn't see any raptors.
Speaker 1: Imagen remained in the far corner of the pit, two
Speaker 1: hundred feet away, screaming as we poured arrows in rocks
Speaker 1: and shot gum blast in to her. I saw the
Speaker 1: hunter's dot on my map and I moved in. It
Speaker 1: was Zabit. He pointed at me and shouted something I
Speaker 1: couldn't hear. He blinked and disappeared, using an invisibility potion
Speaker 1: or skill. I moved to chase him, but I stopped dead,
Speaker 1: remembering his armor. That belt, nice tri asshole, I thought.
Speaker 1: I cast tripper. I don't remember the belt.
Speaker 2: What's the belt?
Speaker 1: Bam? Multiple landmine traps went off. Zabat instantly reappeared, his
Speaker 1: body having been torn in half by his own trap,
Speaker 1: which he'd set seconds before Team two eliminated. Guys, I
Speaker 1: don't remember this. I'm so sorry. Because I'm pressed for time,
Speaker 1: I'm having to kind of ignore the chat and I
Speaker 1: just looked over and there's so much chatter here. So uh,
Speaker 1: that is just apologies, guys. During the explosion, the light
Speaker 1: flashed off the ceiling, revealing the twisting and turning brambles
Speaker 1: growing absurdly fast, closing in from above. That doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like it should be allowed. The brambles are coming in here,
Speaker 1: I say, coming in here. There's nothing here anymore, there's
Speaker 1: no building. Jesus. I hesitantly moved to the hunter corpse
Speaker 1: and I quickly looted him. I didn't get the drop
Speaker 1: shield or case of visibility potions. I assumed they were
Speaker 1: still in a prize box, but I received multiple trap items,
Speaker 1: too many to sort through now. Carl Donut cried, there
Speaker 1: aren't any elves left, just imagen. We turned to help,
Speaker 1: but I skidded to a stop. Oh no, no, I said,
Speaker 1: seeing the body on the ground. It was Gwendolen Duet Gwen,
Speaker 1: the tattooed First Nations woman who'd been instrumental in our
Speaker 1: survival on the previous floor, aw with the cool tattoos.
Speaker 1: She lay dead, surrounded by elves and bugs. At her
Speaker 1: side was the body of Clayton. The Knock Knock joke guy.
Speaker 1: Tran was still there, still alive, dragging himself away, screaming
Speaker 1: his legs were gone. I read a scroll healing him.
Speaker 1: His legs didn't not grow back. Oh that sucks, heave.
Speaker 1: Florin cried, firing his gun. Imagen atop a pile of
Speaker 1: corpses lit up as she was pelted with arrows and projectiles.
Speaker 1: They were coordinating their attacks, half of them firing on
Speaker 1: the two and four of the beat, the other on
Speaker 1: the one and three. Arrows, rocks and other non magical
Speaker 1: bolts slammed into the insanely powerful boss. Her health was
Speaker 1: in the red, almost gone. She had a stuttering shield
Speaker 1: spell like a strobe light like. She kept casting it
Speaker 1: over and over again, but it kept getting overwhelmed by
Speaker 1: the sheer amount of crap getting thrown at her. This
Speaker 1: is great everybody working together. We're all zeroed in on
Speaker 1: the one boss. This is what we should be doing.
Speaker 1: At elon Musk, Imogen stopped casting her spell. As she
Speaker 1: fell to a knee. A black, sizzling nimbus shone around her,
Speaker 1: similar to Bianca's aura. Her hands crackled red lightning attack.
Speaker 1: Someone shouted. I spied Brittany on the ground, screaming. Louis
Speaker 1: and Furas lay side by side. Both were unconscious but alive.
Speaker 1: I hadn't had time to reinstall michistera, but I pulled
Speaker 1: a Hobgoblin disco ball your jacket, I shouted at Brittany.
Speaker 1: As I tossed the ball, it arked and landed against
Speaker 1: the side of Imagen's heads, splattering multicolored gou everywhere. She
Speaker 1: barely noticed. She was screaming something incomprehensible. Her health was
Speaker 1: almost gone. Too slow, I thought, too slow. The lightning
Speaker 1: spell cast, but it came out as a single bolt
Speaker 1: attracted to the clump of spreading butterflies. The bolt slammed
Speaker 1: into the summoned creatures. That's not what I had intended
Speaker 1: to happen. I'd meant for the butterflies to seek out
Speaker 1: the disco ball and overwhelm image in But this worked too.
Speaker 1: The mess of butterflies exploded over our heads, barely ten
Speaker 1: feet away. Doughnut, mango, Brittany and I went flying in
Speaker 1: different directions. My ear drums shattered, and everything plunged into silence.
Speaker 1: I slammed into a large, heavy corpse, a hunter, a dreadnaught,
Speaker 1: missing half his face. Flaming bits of stuffing were everywhere,
Speaker 1: falling like embers. This time, the unconsciousness took hold, and
Speaker 1: I felt myself slipping away, as if I were falling
Speaker 1: into a tunnel, as if I was getting pulled into
Speaker 1: a rushing river. As I passed out, I watched the
Speaker 1: shadow of Bianca, the goat dragon fly right over me.
Speaker 1: Prepatente on her back, screaming silently. He jumped off the mount,
Speaker 1: a bubbling potion in each of his hands. The terrible
Speaker 1: stench of burning flesh overwhelmed the room as I finally
Speaker 1: slipped away, Winner quest complete, the vengeance of the daughter.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, guys, Prepatente coming in like a fucking
Speaker 1: g It is so funny how he was like a
Speaker 1: friggin kindergartener when we first met him, and now he's
Speaker 1: out here just like on a friggin vengeanceick like the
Speaker 1: Angel of Death. I'm here for it. Delighted that he
Speaker 1: at least has Bianca, He's not alone, you know. Dom. Well, well,
Speaker 1: well ah, that was fun. I enjoyed doing that live read,
Speaker 1: so I guess it all worked out. I appreciate everybody's
Speaker 1: patience on that, and I hope that you guys are
Speaker 1: enjoying the coverage. So I will be doing the last
Speaker 1: chapters of this book in twenty twenty six, and it
Speaker 1: will be live on Patreon, not on crowdcast. So everybody
Speaker 1: just be ready for that transition as we move to
Speaker 1: Patreon live for all of this stuff, and I really
Speaker 1: hope that I will see you all there, so stay
Speaker 1: tuned until then.
Speaker 2: To glue, motherfuckers.
Speaker 1: That was an unspoiled network pat