Carl's Doomsday Scenario, Chapters 6-8

I am Natasha. Thank you very much to Michael for commissioning this episode. Michael is here in the chat today, delighted to Hattie, delighted to be back. It was so funny because when I came back to recording last week, I thought I was going to get another one of these, and I was dismayed to see that it wasn't until the week after. So very very pleased, you guys. This

world is wild. I really think it was okay. So I was about to say that a certain thing was a really good idea, but I kind of want to take it back, because like every time I start to really give the author total credit for certain things, I have to remember that it's highly likely this is something that was done in a video game, and that actually it's not originally his idea because it's so heavily based

on video games. And I just want to be very clear that this is not me being like, oh, if you didn't come up with a completely original idea, then it doesn't count and it's not yours, because I don't mean that at all, Like I am a firm believer in that there are no new ideas, so it's fine,

you know. But what I had been going to say was the overall like I don't know if I want to say dynamic, but that every three floors things like change up in a certain way, and that there is a pattern to them, but one that might be difficult to detect if you don't if you're not informed of it beforehand, or if you're not keeping track. I think it's a really nice way to keep things interesting, to keep us engaged, and a little bit like looking forward

to the next level. We're always going to want to be like, well, I want to see what's next. I want to find out where we're going. Like that's always going to be an aspect of just a floor that we have not yet explored for sure. But the difference is that when you have an idea of what a floor might be, like a little bit of a hint,

it really makes you that much more invested overall. And anyway, this world that we have been dumped into has just got so a whole different vibe than the previous Dungeon levels did, and I couldn't help but be like almost overwhelmed by it. You know, there's just so much going on.

There are so many new things. There are so many I honestly want to like stop and think about what it might be like if we were going to enter this level without the help that Mordecai gives them, and whatever future help he winds up giving in addition to what he gives here, even though, as Carl does point out, he's very very late and should have chimed in with some advice earlier on, except he got fucked up. So I just like I feel like Mordecai is so instrumental.

I cannot help but feel a little bit like anybody who doesn't have a Mordecai right now is they've got to be, if not out right straight up screwed, they've got to be at such a disadvantage that they've been given some other way of getting information, right, Like, I just can't imagine trying to navigate all of this without especially considering the dangers in some of the things that Mordecai told him in the previous section where he's explaining, like,

you don't want to be in certain places at night. This place might be even more dangerous than the other area is during the night. You know, like there's there's it seems like a much higher level of risk in all of this. And if you don't have anybody coming through and warning, you know, you're just going to get absolutely flattened almost instantly. I would think. It's Uh, I'm just wondering if there are other means that have been implemented via the game to give people some of this information.

So anyway, chapter five begins with Mango almost doubling in size, and I am so excited to see exactly how big

he's going to get. My assumption because he says that they he obviously can see Mango has been based on the raptors in Jurassic Park, So my assumption is that he's going to wind up like around eight feet tall, nine feet tall, I'm not sure if that's like I'm sort of estimating based on my memory in Jurassic Park, because they were definitely taller than the people and they sort of walked with a weird like their heads low to the ground. So it's difficult to say, but I

feel like they were taller. Not that much taller, though. But Mongo's progression in all of this is so adorable and so like charming because he trusts Doughnut so much and is this is what leads to this whole thing here. So first we get a new achievement. It's elementary. My dear crawler, You've received a quest, puzzles and intrigues and mysteries. Oh my. If you want to survive in this world, you're gonna need to be more than just a pretty

sword swinging barbarian. Some quests require brute strength, yes, but sometimes you also got to use your noggin. So Donut gets an earth Hobby potion. Per Subsection twelve fifty sixty of the Indigenous Species Protection Act, this particular reward is required by the Syndicate government to be awarded to all crawlers who have chosen a domestic class. Taking this potion is optimal. However, it may not be sold or transferred

to other crawlers or entities. Upon drinking this, you will immediately obtain a level three scalability in a unique Earth based hobby. The benefit is chosen at random. However, you will not receive a skill that you currently have. This could be something like parkour, jiu jitsu, or you could get fucked and receive some useless crap like stamp collecting

or kombucha brewing. Don't get your hopes up. The fact your planet was filled with so many boring assholes with inan ridiculous hobbies tips the scale way out of your favor, and Carl laughs and says, was this some bureaucratic attempt at preserving Earth culture? It didn't make sense, yet at the same time reminded me of some bullshit the military

would enact. And I found that concept really really interesting, that it's like required to be given to a certain class, a domestic class, and that it's like, like, I don't I can't imagine why that would be. And his explanation is the best that I can think of. I mean, I feel like it can't be that, but I also feel like, how else would you explain it, you know, Michael says, everyone else has their own game guys. We

don't know how good they are compared to Mordecai. That we can guess he's a step above based on Odette, But for general info about a level and well known danger spots, most decent game guys should be able to give that info. The non manager game guides also have access to the Dungeon newsletter, which Mordecai lost and he became a manager. If you'll recall, yeah, I did forget about that, the Dungeon newsletter. I don't really remember how

much he used that. I'm sure it's a disadvantage to not have access to it, but I have I've forgotten if that, it's been mentioned very much by him. So this uh, when she Mordecai not Mordecai, sorry, Carl, he is thinking this over. Donut gets a caller for Mango, so that shows up him as an orange dot on the map. And then she finds a spell a spell it's her spell book in a mailbox. I swear to God, Donut, you better have read the description first. Oh, relaxed, Carl.

Watch she waved her paw and Mongo, who was currently running in circles around the prone form of Mordecai suddenly split into three. Now there were three of them running in circles. One of the forms squeaked in concern, jumped upon the counter and started growling at the other two forms. A moment later, the other two also jumped on the table. The first one cried out in fear and ran, running

to hide behind Donut. The other two looked at one another, then jumped down and resumed circling Mordecai like a pair of sharks. Please tell me that's an illusion. They're real, Donut said, Isn't it great? They only last for a minute. It's an expensive spell too, it costs twenty six points.

It's called clockwork triplicate. I can only cast it on spells and minions though, so no clockwork Carl and we get her levels here, which I had noticed in the kindle book were highlighted by a lot of people, and it occurred to me as a really good idea for being able to go and check that, So I went ahead and highlighted it as well, because I'm a follower.

So Dona in the previous section had gotten a cat tree, and she asks him to put it together and light her candle, and he does not feel like putting it together, and he puts it off, and I kept I'm gonna it would be very funny to me if this book ends and he still hasn't assembled it, because like that would be accurate to life in my experience. I am actually I normally can be pretty good about that stuff.

But I will say that two weekends ago, I finally decided to get out this set of drawers that I had bought that they're just plain white rolling drawers that slide under a desk. I ordered these, I think in August of last year, but when I went to look up the assembly, I was so overwhelmed by how complicated it was. And when I read the reviews it had so many people being like assembly fucking sucked and took

me forever that I kept putting it off. I finally pulled it out in two weekends ago, and I was like, I'm going to do it. And one of the reviews was like, it did take me a couple of hours to do, and I'm like, all right, I can do that, my friends, it took me five hours. It took me so much longer than I even expected. I thought, I'm going to put this together and it won't even be that bad, and I'm going to feel like a real

idiot for putting it off or so on. No, no, you know what I was right to do, so I was very right and valid to not do it sooner. And it's great to have these drawers and I love them, but oh my god, I went through an entire season of this procedural I was watching just putting it together. It was insane. Anyway, So he opens his box and he has a hobby potion and we wind up seeing

what they've gotten later and she gets scutellophilly. I don't know if I'm saying that right, which we find out eventually is badge collecting or no, we don't find out eventually. I looked it up. That's what it was. It's badge collecting, So who knows if that's going to be useful in any way. And Carl gets the Sesta Punta skill, which I looked up Sessa Punta, and it is a sport that's sort of like reminding me in pictures of lacrosse

combined with cricket. It's a weird like basket like contraption that you throw the ball with almost like a baseball kind of vibe. But that's why I'm going with cricket, because cricket also as a vaguely, weirdly baseball vibe. Anyway, I have to assume that the systapunta skill is going to come in a lot more handy than the badge collecting skill. But you know, I am interested in seeing

how these things happen, Michael says, Natasha spoiling herself. You know, it didn't even occur to me that I was spoiling myself. I didn't even like question it looking it up. But you might be right, Michael, maybe I shouldn't have Maybe I shouldn't have done it. When I finally get to this part in the books with my husband, I'm gonna ask him if he wants me to tell him and see how he responds, because like, yeah, I just I in my kindle, I literally can highlight the uh scpitalithhally word.

I can just press on it and it just pops up with a definition.

It was a collection of Louis Lemore books Westerns. My dad had an entire shelf of them. As a kid, I'd sneak one here and there and read the entire book in one night, hiding under the covers with a flashlight. This was a pack of eighteen books, all from the same series, the Sacket Family saga. I hadn't read any of these. I put the books into my inventory. My hands were shaking, realized, and I wasn't sure why. I

am so curious about this, guys. I am curious both about whether there's any significance to these gifts or if they are random. I am curious if his hands are shaking simply because this, like it brought up a memory of his father, and he's clearly got a lot like

there's triggers galore in his memories of his dad. I am wondering if it's possible that maybe the fact that this machine that distributes gifts apparently knows enough about you to give you something that your parent had when you were a kid, maybe that's just a little unnerving, because I feel like that would freak me out a little bit.

It's not even really like at this stage, I don't know if this would even bother Carl, because you know, you're in here to the death, and it knows like it's gotten to know a lot about you and exploited you in so many ways that perhaps this wouldn't phase you at all.

a cat. And I don't know if the candle is because Beatrice had candles and because she mentions that, or if it's just like, well, we want something that feels sort of luxurious and this fits the bill, you know what I mean the fact that they both got something that somebody close to them had, though I feel like it has to be on perp, you know. I am She's getting a candle which her owner, Miss Beatrice, had all over the place, and Carl is getting like a

book series that his father had. I feel like that's got to be significant somehow. But I'm really very very curious about how all of this, like if it means anything or not. So Donnut. She has managed to get to a point where her manna is refilling one point per twenty seconds, which is pretty quick, and so she keeps casting this clockwork spell, but it's not going up in experience, and they begin to think that maybe it's just because they're in a safe room and it doesn't count,

which I think makes a lot of sense. Honestly, it's a little bit cheating to just chill in a safe room and play with your spell repeatedly until you level up, Like that would be a very annoying bug or exploit pet, you know what I mean, something that they would have to patch, probably, So he decides that he's going to go play around with explosives for a little while. I moved my examination to my stash of goblin smoke bombs.

The apple sized bombs were just a bit too big for my slingshot, and their design didn't really allow me to break them down. I wondered if I should switch to a sling Frustrated, I put it all away. I had a lot of random chemicals and a load of black powder, but with my limited knowledge in chemistry, I didn't have the correct combination of items to make what was in my head. I needed to seek out a store that sold explosive supplies, or, better yet, find a

village of hobgoblins and raid their stash. It seemed they had higher quality stuff than the goblins. We were supposed to make our way to that larger settlement before it got dark, but I made the executive's decision to stay in the area and explore. I wasn't certain when night would descend, but we still had several hours before the next recap episode. Michael says, I was mostly kidding. I was too lazy to highlight the word and look it

up myself. No, I really didn't take it as like a criticism, really, but it was just sort of it just I didn't even think about it, you know, So It's an interesting question, and I wonder how many people read the book and didn't look it up right away, because I have to assume that this author was probably

figuring people would look it up right away. So I don't know whether I'm going to be interested to see how this pays off, and whether or not it's something that I would have enjoyed the payoff more had I not known. You know, We'll have to see. And then Michael says, gamers don't call it cheating. We call it utilizing the system to its and being smart, you know, in terms of what the player the gamers are actually doing.

If a game is designed to make it so that you can do a thing, I don't fault you for using it, just to be clear, like I think it does sort of defeat the purpose of playing a game is to have a good time, and to me, the idea of just sitting in a safe room and doing a thing over and over until you level up, it doesn't sound fun to me. So I would argue that it's just not really in the spirit of why I

would want to be playing a game. But I also know a lot of people don't approach approach gaming like that, and in Carls's scenario here his Doom'sday scenario. He is, you know, this is a life or death situation that is meant for entertainment, and it wouldn't make any sense for them to make this any easier or to make it that boring to watch. So I'm just saying in

terms of like thinking of the design from that standpoint. Yeah, So Mango is the one when they decide to go out and hunt some clowns, he is the one who clocks this weird Lemur thing. And I was so pleased that Mango's like able to zero win and be useful almost instantly. These things had some sort of stealth ability. The moment I saw him, his dot appeared on my map. He was overlooking the street with the dead crawlers, his back to us a trap. I could only see one Lemur,

but I had no doubt there were more. So they decide to go back and try and sneak up on him, and he don't. It's like, I'll take him out, and he says, do it silently, and then she just jumps out. She crossed the roof walking low. Huh. I thought she'd managed to be a lot quieter than I thought she could be considering her. She jumped to the center ceiling beam and landed right behind the Leamur. Even from here I could hear the little charm on her collar jingle

as she landed on the roof. In this silence, it was as loud as a damn church bell. Her backside armor also clinked loudly onto the beam. Mango, deciding he wanted in on the fund, screeched loudly. The Leamur turned looking over his shoulder just as Doughnut pounced. She somehow managed not to fall off the edge and into the

street below. So she slashes this thing open and it falls, and then Mango jumps on it and begins to feed on him, and Doughnut jumps down, and it's just like, hey, well it took care of that, didn't I, And like, honestly she did. Even though the thing she made noise at the end, it doesn't seem like it really mattered all that much. And he said, we're gonna need to do something about that bell of yours. If you want to be stealthy, you're too fragile to do stuff like

that without planning it out. I need to make a good example, for my child, Carl. He's not your child, Donut, He's a pet. We don't put our lives in danger for our pets. I regretted it. The moment the words came out of my mouth, Donut looked as if I'd slapped her. I suddenly felt like an enormous asshole. Mongo ripped off the painted skull, revealed the dead Leamur's own skull, ew Donut said, looking horrified. The look of hurt had disappeared just as quickly as it had come. Carl, do

you see that? It's disgusting? Yeah, that's really gross, I said, happy for the quick change of subject. The human skull hat covered a secondary skull with a pair of baldous, bloodshot eyes. The thing had no fur or skin on its head at all. It looked even more scary without

the skull hat than it did with it. So this moment is so odd because he says something that clearly hurt her, and then they immediately are distracted, and it feels like purposely distracted, Like there's a sense for me almost of her trying to smooth things over by distracting him and mentioning like do you see that I don't know if I'm giving her the credit here when it really is just her being a little bit add and just like, you know, getting immediately noticing this thing and

having no choice but to say out loud, look at that, that's crazy. But you know, a part of me did sort of wonder, like this is something that I have been kind of bad about in my past, where somebody will have said something shitty and I will know that they didn't really mean it, and I will dance right past it almost like it didn't happen, And it doesn't really work to like settle anything, because it festers. I remember what they said. It's not like it me doing

that erases that they said it. But it does smooth over a potentially awkward moment, which is all I'm immediately concerned about, is like I would like to not be uncomfortable right now. I would like to not be awkward with this person. And you know, this is part of.

I really there's a moment later where he calls her partner, and it feels like a real moment where they are like making eye contact and okay, partner, you know, and it's sort of supposed to be I think a bit of a bomb to, you know, to make up for this moment here. I don't know if it does, if she understands. It's just very funny because like, he definitely risked his life for Donut a lot, and she is

a pet, but she's not anymore, you know. I feel like he would have risked his life for Donut even if she hadn't been made to talk and become a full fledged member of his crew. I think he would have risked his life for Dona anyway. I just think he would. I don't even know that it would be a choice. I feel like it would just be this instinctive move on his part. And I often think about, like what kind of scenario it would take for me to decide, like I didn't want to take the risk

if it came to saving Pippin. And it's like a really difficult call because that if something were to happen to him, I would be so devastated. I genuinely don't know what i'd do. So I feel like, because I know so deep in my guts that it would kill me to lose him, I probably would risk my life because it feels like it's risking my life either way. Does that make sense? So anyway, Carl, you're wrong and a liar, and you guys need to talk about this. And when he says it was true, wasn't it? Don't

know what was different? She was more than a pet. I don't know if she knows that, though, Like you may want to say that to her and be like, I'm not categorizing you in that, and you know that right, because I'm not so certain that she gets that the way that things are right now, you know, she definitely has a little bit of trouble fully understanding their current situation. And there has been so many like I'll say, so

far in this book, it hasn't happened. But in the previous book there was a lot of talk of like once we see Beatrice again, or once we go home, or you know, as if all of this were just a temporary thing. So I'm not sure she does know that, according to him, she really isn't a pet anymore. Michaels in the chat and says, to quote Stephanie Beatrice from Brooklyn nine, that's rosa. Everybody. I've only had this dog for a day, but if anything happened to him, I

would kill myself. It was, yeah, I would kill everybody else in this room and then myself, I'm pretty sure. Is how the quote goes. Which accurate. Yes, accurate. And that is one of my favorite like turnarounds because at the beginning of that episode, a friend of hers pet had died and she didn't get why he was so upset and was like, it's just a dog, what's the big deal? And he was horrified that she didn't get it.

And then she winds up with this puppy for like an hour, and then immediately it's like, oh, oh, I see what was going on there? Yeah, no, I am so sorry. That is tragic. So let's say let's see this shit, okay. So we have the closing in on a lot of these Lemurs. They come across the corpse of Grace Bautista, killed by former circus Lemur, and there are three in total, and one of them is a

treeish creature. All of them appeared Asian, maybe Filipino, all had the same last name, all were level eight, all killed by lemurs. None of them had any inventory, meaning some of their group were probably still alive. So he yanks this anklet off. Whoever had Whatever had transpired here had happened quickly. These three were sisters or close family members, and all three had died at the same time. I

shook my head, fuck this game, and let's see. Her facial features remained human, but she'd been bent over and hunchbacked, with an extra set of limbs erupting from her back. I am so curious what advantage this gave for her to choose it, you know, like I'm just a lot of questions about I'm looking forward to meeting another crawler of weird races and finding out the reasoning behind why they chose what they chose. But anyway, so I love

this enchanted anklet of the fallen oak. And one would think anklets enhance the beauty of feet like toe rings do, but they are excessive, jangly distractions that make you look too garish. And when I say it this way, I'm delivering it in what I remember from the audio book, one would think anklets enhance the beauty, but they are jangly distractions. It's delivered in a very much like the AI is just let you know, please don't put it on.

And I found that very funny at turning out that like he's got a very specific taste and he, you know, he's I'm saying it wants a certain like sleek aesthetic. I kind of get why you wouldn't like a jangly, garish distraction. I understand this. So there's another one, and I would let's see it has a constitution buff. You need it, I'll put it on my back legs so nobody will see it. It appeared in a blink, forming

around her rear left ankle. It was a fourth the size of that it was before, and remain hidden in the tufts of fur. She shook her leg a few times with distaste. Thankfully, the little beads barely made any noise. If we kept her hair brush buff active, her constitution was now seven. It was still much too low for

my tastes, and she gets a skilled double tap. If I hit the monster twice with the same attack, the second hit might do critical damage and they kill a bunch of lemurs as they crossed the street and head out, and they're looking out over the circus, and there's a sign Grimaldi's World of Freaks Admission one gold coin, No children or those with weak constitutions allowed. A line of illustrated ten foot tall images stood on either side, showing

the freaks and other attractions. One of them was the Ogre creature, with the Overcity's strongest citizen written above it, the over City's fattest woman, Garth, a two headed chrogolodite, and Tiny the amazing fire breathing knoll, which I have to assume we are going to meet all of these guys. There was one peculiarity, a tall l like horned woman covered head to toe and tattoos, sarena signet and her amazing battle squad. But someone had painted a large circle

around the poster, crossing out the image. Wanted trader was written above the sign. As we watch, one of the clowns walked by, pushing a wheelbarrow that appeared to be filled with animal skins. He paused at the sign, stripped down his pants and urinated on the poster. Well, damn, so this is when they are finally able to get in touch with Mordecai and he's just like, did you guys get to that other town yet? And they're like, oh, yeah, about that, we didn't go there. And he's like, okay,

you guys, you are not ready for a quest. You have got to get the fuck out. Go to the safe room. You are over your head. Once you get back, I will explain to you what a bad situation this is. And Carl is like, well, we were gonna head back anyway, but also maybe we wouldn't have done this if you hadn't passed out in your own puke. And it's clear like he does not remember this. Carl asked, you remember anything from today? Donut says you were drunk and molested.

Someone's grandma and I love her always being in all caps. She's a lot. So they're about they turn around and they're going to start heading back. When they realize that they are being boxed in. There are some other creatures here, and I think they're clowns. I'm trying to find the exact So dozens of lemurs and stilt clowns appear, that's right, and then a draft they start coming and it's like me thinking we're gearing up for all of these guys

to attack our friends. No, they're passing the like he calls it a steady progression. There had to be a thousand of them, and they're setting up barbed wire fences and like it's an organized thing that they are getting ready for. We're let's see. Uh here it is the animal cages that they placed at the edge of the walls. Roars and traills shook the massive pens. I was reminded of the craik Hairen boss we'd fought earlier. Yeah, fuck this, we're out of here. Let's go. I looted a second

big top ticket and hunk of clown meat. I'd eyed a group of ten limes one street over. They howled and pointed, but didn't move to pursue. Run, I said, We turned and bolted down the street, not bothering with the alleys. The safe room was only four blocks over. Did you see my magic missile can set things on fire?

Now now my spell? My spell hit level wham. Half the street where we've just been standing exploded, sending us both flying forward and he Later on, when it doesn't look like they're being pursued, it is like, I think they just assume that had to have killed us, which makes sense. And I'm also curious exactly what it is they're attacking with because he calls the magical mortars, But I'm like, is this something that he could make? Like does magical mean that only somebody with magic abilities can

fuck with it? Or can only somebody with magical abilities take it apart? Maybe only somebody with magical abilities could build it from scratch, but even if you don't have those abilities, you could still use them. I'm just thinking because he is just you know, so the whole thing with his explosions skills feels like he's leaned into that a lot, and this might be something that he could

uh take advantage of. So they have fallen into this weird basement and at one point, Doughnut hops up because she's like, I need to get line of sight, so I need to make this whole a little bit bigger in order to get us out by using our or using my puddle jumper spell. And when she jumps out, she spots uh signet Now real quick, I just want to talk about Miss Beatrice's tramp stamp as it's called tramp stamp. I do not care for this turn of phrase.

I don't like this term. But it's just an something that when you say tramp stamp, everybody knows immediately where you mean, because saying something is on your lower back doesn't quite fully capture because a tram stamp is like more than just lower back. It is also directly above your ass crack. That's how I imagine it. Bee's tattoo was a faded Persian cat on her lower back, surrounded by weird, uneven wisps. The cat it was based on was Princess chonk, a Lot Donut's long dead grandmother and

Bee's childhood cat. The awful tattoo looked like a stoned ewalk. I never understood why she'd gotten a tattoo in a place where the only ones you'd see it were people smashing her from behind. I've made the error of jokingly mentioning that once and the e walk part, Yeah, that had been a mistake. This is the sort of thing that, like, I get why wondering about the placement, Like sometimes people

place it because nobody's going to see it there. You know it's there and you like having it, but you also work at a job where maybe you aren't allowed to have tattoos or whatever, you know, so it's a

good like secret area. I personally wouldn't want a tattoo somewhere that it would be that difficult for me to see it because and I say this with experience, because I have a tattoo behind my ear and it's a crescent moon that curves around the back of my ear, and I can't see it, and I forget it's there all the time until people mention it to me. So anyway, I just really now, if I were to make a choice, I would not pick somewhere that I couldn't even see.

But also, it being a cat like a memorial tramp stamp is just a weird combo. I do kind of like the more information that we get about b and her personality, the more it just seems like she is a person who does not understand different boundaries and why people don't crisscross them in certain ways. She's just she really just does seem like kind of a weirdo, and I'm sort of into it, even though she seems like

a bad person. Anyway, So they get teleported up and we get the introduction Serena signet half Niad, half high Elf Summinar level sixty. This is an elite. The high Elf King Finnian, leader of the Leana sector of the hunting grounds, was such a horty bastard. It was said

he betted women from over five thousand different races. Most scholars agree this has to be an exaggeration, considering his hair lip and obsession with knitting, but nonetheless, at least one of these twists did take place, resulting in the unique combination of half Naiad half high Elf. Considering the Niad Confederacy's tendency to drown outsiders and the high ELFs inclination to hunt down and murder any mongrel child of the late king, signet here has probably had its tough life.

This is a fairy class NPC. Creatures of this class inflict twenty percent more damage against you due to your goblin pass, and we get a description of elites. I won't get into that because I like that was pretty obvious.

And as Karl is looking at her, he realizes that he is getting a boner and starting to fantasize and instantly contacts Mordecai and is like, shit, what do I do, she's charming me, and Mordecai is like, she's not charming you if you can talk to me about it, but break your pinky, just don't rip your finger off, and do it as fast as you can and o negate the effect, which does work. When he says she's a Naiad or a sucubyss, Donut is like, no, she's not.

It says she's half nye Ad, an elf, and that she's an elite, and Mordecai, holy fuck, get the hell out of there. Do not get involved in whatever she's trying to rope you into. We're sorry to have bothered you, I said, while Donut and Mordecai talked in the chat. We need to head back now. So what winds up happening here is she wants to get them pulled into this thing between her and her former family, and she

can still sort of charm. It doesn't work on Donut, but it does work at first on Mango, and he reacts well to her trying to pet him, until Donut hisses, and then Mongo reacts and hisses as well, growls as well, my bad, not a hiss, and she says, be it, dear, Sir Carl, you seem like a strapping lad. Please keep those mold lions off of me while I organize my battle squad. I usually have this part done before I have to face them. Your presence distracted me, so it's

only fair. Besides, if you run, they will take you down. Now, we find out a little bit later that like the hold that she had over him, prom would have resulted in him sacrificing his life because she basically said, protect me from them. And also he was intended to be a sacrifice because she needed his blood to create this little like summoned army that she uses. So the fact that this she can only cast it one time and it doesn't work, means that, oh it's canceled for tonight entirely,

which really must suck. So this is when we meet the mold lions, and there were there was a fun plan in place here where what he does is he gets Donut to use her confusing fog, he uses protective shell, and then he has her used second chance. So the

confusing fog messes with the sight of the lions. When he makes the protective shell, it's like a hard surface that jams back the lions and like pins them, and then second chance, after he kills one of them by literally yanking its heart out by the way, she is able to reanimate it and get it to kill the other ones along with Mongo. He's trying. He's not as much help as he thinks, but you know, it's good practice, I guess. And then she uses clockwork triplicate on the

new zombie and honestly, it's just awesome. It's really really cool. I loved this whole fight, and it's like just just intricate enough to feel like a really great concept and just simple enough that I didn't glaze over as it was happening and just sort of tune out like I sometimes do when it comes to fights. So yeah, I just I really really liked this whole thing. He and Doughnut both level up. And let's see. She says, my spells are blood magic. They require a proper sacrifice to work.

I choose the sacrifice to cast a spell, and my lovelies, take the blood and form. You've got blood right here. I indicated the six dead lions and I was like, nah, bro, it was you, and he clocks that pretty quickly. So let's see, I usually catch something, catch something. The bigger the better. I'm not allowed to bleed the sacrifice myself,

otherwise I just would have killed you. I have to capture something and then capture a second different something and put them together so they fight, guess which one is going to lose, and then cast my spell on the loser before they receive their first injury. The moment they're dead, battle squad arises. How powerful they are depends wholly on the quality of the blood. And I found that really really interesting that like, depending on who it is affects everything.

It's like we got to work with good ingredients here. Oh, Michael says in all caps, Yes, that is so important. When fights get too complex, I tend to tune out too. Matt Dinneman, Will White, and Brando Sando are some of

the best at writing interesting fights. Would I will agree with this with the caveat that Will White did start to lose me in that final book because the fights went on a long time and I did start to kind of be like, all right, Bud, And I don't know if there was really a way around that, But for the most part, yes, I don't think. Have I read Matt Dinneman, I don't remember if I have, and Brando Sando's fight scenes are a weird. I'm like, I go,

I'm so hot and cold on Brando Sando. Sometimes I feel like it hits just right, and sometimes I'm sort of like, what are you doing? And that was kind of how I reacted to a fight at the end of Lost Metal, which I just finished covering with Miles a few months ago. It just it was a fight that felt like there was no excitement to it, even though it should have been exciting and impressive. It felt very like inert and lifeless. Oh my god, Matt Deneman

writes the book your covering, says Michael with a laugh, EMOJI. Hi, I'm Natasha and I'm very smart and professional. Welcome to my show anyway, moving on, I only have seven minutes left, so let's see. Why are you attacking them? I asked. My home is over there. I moved in because it's close to the vine and the circus can no longer move from their spot. I have refreshments. If you'd like to join me for an evening drink, I will regale you with the sad tale of Signet the Bastard and

Grimaldi the Man. She loved. I would love to talk more about this with you later, but only if you promise not to try to sacrifice us, and she says, well, you guys have thought so well that I'd actually rather you help me than anything else. I'll meet you right here an hour after sundown tomorrow night. So they go back into their safe room and Mordecai yells them about

being suicidal idiots. Carl is like, dude, you were fucked up and like completely bailed on us, and it seemed like we were kind of under a constraint here with the quest. We didn't really know how to handle it. Mordecai apologizes and is like, but I still would have told you too, and he's like, well, would have done doesn't really help us since she fucking didn't. After I was coaching, I told you to stay away from the elite, but did you listen. No, you made a fucking date

with her. And this is when he brings up something that's very, very fascinating to me. There are thousands and they can and do freely travel between the urban floors. There's also a more scripted aspect. Think of it as a soap opera or cereal. All of these stories activated with the opening of the third floor. Every season, they have multiple storylines pop up at once, like in September when all the new shows that come out on television.

There are also a few running stories that have been spanning multiple seasons, but that's all on the ninth floor. Elites are never naturals. They are designed, printed, and then imprinted with the memories needed for them to act out their drama. As far as they're concerned, this is their real world. But that's how it is most of the other mobs. No regular mobs are autonomous. Once they're set loose,

what they do is up to chance. Elites, your quest with this circus and this signet woman is a storyline, a drama created for the viewers by a team of writers. It will play itself out whether or not you get involved. It will have its own show and team working on it,

and they will be protective. And basically what he says is if you get involved in a storyline and start to fuck it up for them, they will not hesitate to take you the fuck out to preserve their story because they have put all kinds of work into this and this is their job, and you just wander in like a fucking idiot and decide to like mow everybody down or you know, something, to be impressive and level yourself up really quickly. Like you think of yourself as

the reason that this game is on camera. They are here to see you. But when you are in one of those people's orbit, you're not the main anymore. They are and you're the red shirt. So all of a sudden, it's much more dangerous for you unless you are able to like stay within the lines of their drama and make it way more interesting and do something, which is

what I expect is going to wind up happening. That they will get involved, but they will also like amp it up, and they are going to have to keep that into consideration to get the drama juicy enough that even though maybe things aren't going quite according to plan, it's so compelling that they'll be left alone. You know. That's what I'm sort of looking forward to potentially. I

love the Donut. It's just like, wait, so when we talked to her, we're on a whole other TV show, and I love for Mordecai just being like I cannot believe everything I just said, and that's what you zero went on and I'm like, Loki, that's all I heard. Also like I get what he's saying, and honestly, all of that is very pot but like I did definitely

go oh, that's an opportunity. Huh. And then here comes Donut with the same takeaway basically, and let's see, that's part of the fun for the viewers, seeing how Crawlers crap all over the producer's hard work. It's like taking Jason from a Friday the Thirteenth movie and tossing him into a late season episode of Jane the Virgin just to see what happens, which absolutely laid me out because I am covering Jane the Virgin for or another spoil me show. And honestly, the idea of Jason showing up

and that is hilarious. There goes a real soap opera type show. It is such a blast, and it's really really funny. Highly recommend So Carl's like, well, if we're aiding the narrative, they might actually help us, and Mordicai's like, yeah, but it's such a risk. Why would you fucking even do it? And I was like, you know why, you know why, because they can't resist. They're already in it, it's too late, so we get then an update on

a bunch of the other crawlers. The TV shows up and the hecla of Brunhild's daughters chooses an Amazon, which she's basically just way more muscular, wider and taller and looks like a professional bodybuilder. And let's see the next few groups of crawlers I didn't recognize, and a few groups aren't done with their selection, the announcer said, but just about eighty percent of the crawlers have opted to remain human, and I, as well as Carl, was very surprised.

And we find out that actually most human beings do not change most of the time. And when he stops to think about it, he's like, yeah, I guess that makes sense, because like you're giving up something of yourself, especially when the whole world is over. It feels like you're like, this is all you've got left of your life, you know, is this body that you brought with you.

So I could really understand that. I feel like I definitely change it up, just because I've been dissatisfied with my body since I was like eight years old, and so I just I probably would, you know, But I could see it, but anyway, Oh, let's see. Uh they prayed, played a brief history of the primal race and showed another human from many seasons ago who'd chosen the same race.

They showed him flying through the air with white, wispy angel wings, wielding a massive sword made of lightning as he charged a humanoid demon the size of a goddamned football stadium standing knee deep in a lake of fire. What the hell is that that? My boy is a divine guardian, a country boss. He's guarding a firegate, an entrance to the thirteenth floor. Holy fuck? Yeah, is that the guy who made it to the thirteenth floor? No, but he was a famous crawler. He's from before my time.

He died a minute later. The next time you're with your friend Odette, you should ask her about him. I couldn't help but wonder about that. Felt like he was sort of laying that at her feet a little bit h interesting. So Carl has this moment of just like, I do not know how the fuck we're ever going to face something like that, And to that, I say, shut up, Carl and stop thinking ahead. This was just one of the prime examples of just like you don't need to know how you're gonna do it, because that's

not your concern, that's none of your business focus. You are here right now. And Lucia, the one with the two dogs, they stay dogs. She turns into this monster and she becomes during the day, a human who is let's see, I'm trying to find that a cleric magic user warrior combo called black Inquisitor General. Let's see here it is. While she was in her woman form, her magic ability was doubled. Spells cost half as much, but her strength was cut in half. While she was sporting

herd de holy shit face, it was the opposite. Spells cost more, but she was twice as strong. She also now walks with a limp, no more running on walls for her her right leg, and just her right leg had transformed from a human limb to that of a hairy goat, to complete with a cloven hoof. As she emerged from the Guildhall clumping on her new leg, even

her two dogs look freaked out by the transformation. And I was kind of wondering, like, doesn't that seem like it would alienate viewers, And Mordecai says I don't know. I bet she's got more power than anybody in the game right now, because there's a bunch of fine print that makes that a real, the really strong choice. So I'm moving forward to eventually meeting Lucia. Lucia, however you want to say it. So then we get the welcome

to the third floor. A couple announcements. Bathroom penalties have been removed, but there are restrooms everywhere, so please fucking don't. We are already seeing much interest in the sponsorship program, and while the program doesn't officially get underway until the fourth floor, potential sponsors now have the ability to put in early bids. Therefore, remember to be as entertaining as possible. Finally, many of you are discovering new abilities and spells and

wish to try them out. We urge you to do so. But this is just a general warning that any attempt of violence against non combatant NPCs should be avoided. While this practice is technically not against the rules, the Barrent Corporation wishes to keep the citizenry as safe as possible. As a result, we have a else did the experience

counter for citizens down to zero? In addition, city guards have been given a slight boost in stats, and Carl asks about, like, what's the deal with the NPC warning, And I couldn't help but think, like, is it possible that the NPCs are I just keep thinking about the fact that they're clearly having budget issues this time around, and that maybe they're doing this to protect people who like hadn't originally been going to be part of things, and they had to convince them no, no, no, we

need bodies in the towns, We need this to look more populated, and we don't have the money to just keep making people. So if we promise nobody's gonna hurt you, will you just fucking come and sit at the bar and like tell him about the quest for the letter from your boyfriend or something I don't know, I don't know, just to throwing something at the wall and then let's see. We spent some time talking about the day and some

of the things Signet had said. She'd mentioned Grimaldi had turned into something called a vinev, which led to a long, yawn inducing conversation about plants and parasites and mind control. Mordecai counted on his fingers, giving me and Dona a long list of ways to deal with each kind of plant based monster. This apparently was a subject of great interest to Mordecai, not apparently to Carl, and I'm worried that later on he's going to regret not paying closer

attention to that. But you know, it's hard to say. He calls it yaw inducing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he wasn't paying attention. So I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. And then Mordecai is like, go to sleep and get up early because it's a big day tomorrow, a day for the history books. It'll be the first time you two do exactly what I I tell you to do. And that is how the chapter ends, which is pretty great. All right, everybody, I

have to wrap this up. Thank you again so much Michael for commissioning this. This has been super fun. No idea what it is that Mordecai is going to tell them to do, but looking forward to it, and I will see you on Thursday with a new episode. Until then, to the Loo, motherfuckers. That was an unspoiled Network podcast.