Dungeon Crawler Carl, 42-45

am Natasha. Thank you very much to Michael for commissioning this episode. Michael, this has been so much fun. And this section. I listened to this while I was taking a walk with pippin the other night, and it was dark and I didn't get a chance to take him

until like probably like ten thirty PM. And I'm always very conscious when I am listening to an audiobook that's particularly funny that it might be extremely creepy to people when I am out in the dark laughing all by myself, I feel like, probably it comes across as unnerving, and so yeah, I just tried to keep behold of myself this time, but I definitely like more than once was cackling this whole vibe. I I'm just going to get into it. Let's just start so chapter forty one or

forty two. Sorry, they we pick up with them still in that green room sort of area, And the way that this works is like that they are able to see things but not be seen because it's all virtual, So they can like appear to be sitting in the seats that they will eventually be shown to the audience in and so watch the whole thing even though the

audience isn't observing them yet. And it's sort of like a fun way for this to be set up because I just like the fact that he gets the chance to get the measure of this guy before he's on stage with him, so to speak, because the other two dudes who get pulled on are obviously completely unprepared for who it is they're talking to, Like I'm not really sure there's a way to be prepared for who he is.

But I don't blame them for like handling things. I won't say as poorly as they did, because they're really I don't feel like they did. It's just that they were put in a position with a fucking maniac, so they were doing their best, and it does seem like there might be like just almost like they're they're not understanding the intent of the show, which is to be

mean spirited, so they're confused by it. Which is always something that I find fascinating is when a person just like can't conceive of the fact that somebody is just

trying to be a piece of shit. And so it's almost the tactic that people have taken to lately when they say, like, if somebody makes an offensive joke, pretend that you don't get it, and ask them to explain it to you, and all of a sudden, they're going to be a lot less eager because the whole thing is supposed to be it's funny because you share the same biases that I do. But now if I don't get it, then one clearly I don't share those biases, because otherwise the joke would have made sense to me.

And secondly, now you have to explain that you have these biases, and it makes you look like an asshole. So that's sort of what it feels like here, is that these guys are just like not getting what's supposed to be going on, and it's resulting in this weird energy because they are being led by the hand through it. And clearly that's part of what this fucking dude enjoys is the fact that like the dawning horror right of these dungeon crawlers as they begin to understand what it

is that he is setting them up for. So for Carl, he gets such a leg up sitting on the side and seeing exactly the way this guy operates so that he can go in there with a particular attitude. So the opening of this I focused on a group of humans sitting in the second row, hooting and screaming and laughing boisterously. There was a cruel air to their laughter. It was almost a tangible thing, like a black, malevolent

cloud that embraced the presence of the entire audience. I was reminded of that day when my dad and his friends broke my sling shot. They'd been firing rocks at squirrels laughing in a similar way. These humans in the second row were all male, and they were all about twelve or thirteen years old. It seemed the entire audience consisted of young, pre and early teen males. One of them was wearing a red shirt that said glurp on it.

Glurt glurp. The audience yelled, glurt glurp. Donut, I said, talking quickly, this crowd is going to be a lot different than the last one. They're all kids. I don't think they're the happy cartoon watching kind either. Carl, we've gone over this, Donut said. You sit there and look angry, and I do the talking, remember, and then they get the on air soon and we have this guy. No, you little cunts are gonna love today's surprise panelists here. Maestro had to bang some blimey mud skipper tail to

pull this one off. But nothing is too good for Maestro's piglets. Suck it, suck it, good piglets. Glurt blurt. The audience screamed, glurt blurt. I hate him so much. Oh my god, you guys. I look, I'm gonna I'm gonna preface this with something first. I want to acknowledge there is a ton of excellent content on YouTube, really really good stuff. Okay, I am not trying to say if you are on YouTube, then you are trash, because

that's just fucking idiotic. I actually kind of want to spend more time on YouTube in some ways because I feel like I have not taken advantage of everything has to offer, and there are so many independent creators on there that deserve more attention, and I just tend to watch like network TV, you know. So I just really really want to be clear that I am not trying to group in all YouTubers, because that's doesn't make any sense.

It's like acting like my podcast is the same as, like, you know, an NPR podcast like that doesn't even They're not even what you know. But when I think of YouTube, this is the reason I haven't done as much with it. This vibe is what I think of unfortunately, and I really feel like that I am not alone in that.

I really think that maybe this is a hurdle that YouTube has had to learn how to jump and navigate, because I cannot be the only one that sort of has this weird hang up and bias where I just associate the entire platform at it, like just off the top of my head, with this very juvenile, like cruel and mean spirited sort of energy. It's I think improved some the way that oh my god, Rob is in the chat says one hundred percent, don't let friends drink

from the algo stream. Yeah, this is That's kind of what has has been a bit of a stumbling block for me is that I don't know where to start in watching certain things on YouTube. To get the algorithm working for me, I would be going in blind and potentially set the algorithm up to show me more of something that I didn't like, and I don't know how

to undo that. Like, there have been a couple times where things have shown up on my feed and I have tried to figure out how to like click them and be like, don't show me anything more like this, and I can't figure out how to do that. I only wind up clicking through and starting to watch it, and then I have to remove it from my viewing history, which it seems like that's kind of the only way anyway.

All I'm saying is I think that the worst parts of YouTube are like this, and that this is like one of the first steps towards young men getting radicalized by maniacs that have no knowledge or information and yet have a platform. And it's such a fucking mixed bag, guys, because on the one hand, and I think that in part the fact that we don't need to have any

special education and we can still create content. Is one of the great things about the Internet that there is something beautiful about the fact that you can just share anything as long as you are able to put it out there, like if you have the right equipment to do it, anybody can do it. And it's part of what I love about podcasting that it is so open. But of course there's that double edged sword to it,

where then you get absolute fucking maniacs. And there was some I can't remember who it was, but it was some actor the other day and he was like a very He was not famous, but he was somebody that I saw in a weird little thing and I was sort of like wondering about what else he had done. And I saw a link to an interview with him, and I don't remember the name of the show. It was something like Ugly on the Inside, I think was

the name of it. And it was these two guys interviewing him, and I felt like I lost half my brain cells watching this, Like I think I got through about fifteen minutes, which is like admirable, frankly considering, and they the person that was being interviewed was the most intelligent one in the room for sure. The two dudes who run the show. It was like talking to like

it felt like they were like fourteen years old. And I was at least relieved when I went into the comments that everybody was dogging on these guys because apparently a lot of other people had followed this actor to this interview, and so most people were there for him, and they were just appalled by how bad the show was overall. And I did feel better about that, because there's nothing worse than watching something and thinking it is god awful and then seeing everybody hyping it up and

being like, what am I crazy? Is this gaslighting? Like, I at least felt better. Everybody seemed to be in agreement that these guys were complete fucking morons. But it's it's you know, part of having an open platform is that you get what you get. Rob says, the best thing you can do is use an alternative client like new Pipe, which doesn't auto play videos. I do not know what you mean, Rob, I didn't know that YouTube

auto played videos. Uh that I don't like that. And I also don't know what new Pipe is and why is it a client and not a platform. I have a lot of questions, Rob. In short, but let's get back to the book. So this dude, the whole point of this, we find out later, is likely that he and his brother are being given this show to keep them busy and out of their dad's hair, so to speak, because they are very privileged, spoiled brats. He stood about six and a half feet tall, built like a tank.

A line of earrings circled his left ear. He wore a hot pink silken shirt buttoned halfway up, revealing a hairy, well muscled chest covered in gold chains. I couldn't tell for certain, but I had the distinct impression he was only in his early twenties. I hated him instantly. To my right now sat two humans, two men about my age. Both were Asian, their ragged, bewildered look pegnam as fellow crawlers. One of them noticed us and point talking quickly to

his companion. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but it seemed like they recognized us. I waved, and they waved back, both of them bowing rapidly. They turned and also waved at the empty chairs to their right. There was someone there, but we couldn't see who it was. So here comes the Maestro this orc. So we have six guests today, two stupid lame guests, two VIP surprise guests, and then two more surprised guests surprise guests for are VIPs. Our VIP today are so hot. We are for the

very first time coming to you live. That is how hard I am working for you. And that really winds up biting him in the ass. If it weren't for that it were live, I think maybe things could have gone a different way. But when it's live, you just got to adjust and roll with things to a certain degree. And it, I think is is like where a lot

of his troubles end up coming from. So we see this set up with these people who have turned a corner and come across a bunch of those hornets and a couple of those lizards, and they have splattered the the hornet has splattered this like burning as acidic sort

of glop on a guy's face. There's three men and one woman, and these two dudes have been pulled directly out of that confrontation, and the Maestro is presenting them with like a situation that they have to deal with in order to potentially save one of their friends, maybe both of them, although that seems very unlikely and I was a little surprised, I'll be honest, I have to assume that this comes down to how much they were

willing to pay. But I was really taken off guard by the fact that the Maestro has the authority to do anything that affects the actual game. Because it's one thing to be able to interview people and to you know, kind of fuck with their heads or you know, make them do silly games on your show that are exclusive to your show. It's another thing entirely to promise them things that actually will like get them to dip in and out of the game itself and affect who stays

alive as a player. And I really wondered at first if he was just talking cash shit and couldn't do what he was saying he could do, And it seems like he can. So I am going to go ahead and like lump that in with the budget issues that we have been seeing with everything else, and just assume that, like we are so desperate for cash by now with this show that we are willing to throw in with these absolute ship bags just to make a fucking buck.

I have to assume that it's if I give you enough money, will you let me toy with your players, and that they just managed to have enough money, So the fellow with the acne scars is Lee June, and the bald fucker will just call Zang say hello meet. It took the two men a moment to realize that Maestro was talking to them. Hello, Nie June said, I don't understand what is happening. Okay, so let me catch you up since you're too stupid to figure it out.

You're on Deathwatch, a segment of my show. That means we just plucked you away from certain death. You're welcome. Before your plight was hopeless. Now you have a chance to survive. But we'll get to that in a second. You have been hit with a time freeze spell and it will run out just as this episode ends. We have a little game we'd like you to play to give you the opportunity to live past the next few seconds. We're gonna show you a series of scenes and you

have to guess if the Crawler survives or not. But before we begin, I want to know a little about you guys, and we get some background that the woman is Legion's sister, and that the other guy, Zang, is best friends with Lesion, so he sees her as his sister also, and the guy that they got hit with the goop is their manager. And what the Maester is trying to do is be like you are. You are going to have to pick between the two of them

more than likely. This is how it works. We're going to show you four scenes and we want you to guess the crawler's gonna live or die. If he gets correctly, you'll receive a teleport teleport point when we're done. For every point you have, you can spend it to save yourselves or one of your companions. The recipient of each teleport point will be immediately transferred to the closest safe room. If you decide to throw a point at old spooge face,

he will be healed, So don't worry about that. Ready, good, let's go. And at this point, Carl gets up to fucking leave and is like climbing up on the table that is blocking him, and then this voice comes through and tells them to get back in his seat. I love this. Carl just tells him, go fuck yourself, Carl, you're gonna get us in trouble. Doughnut said, you are ordered to sit. We have paid the appearance fee and

you will participate in the program. If you refuse, we are authorized to drop you into this ocean, drowning you both bullshit. I said, you're not boring and you're not the syndicate. There's no way they'd authorize that. We are not participating in this cruelty. Nothing happened for several moments. Donut jump up to my shoulder. You're gonna get us in trouble. She said again, this time more quietly. Crawler, Carl, this is Administrator Mukta. You are required to take your

seat or there will be consequences. I'll go on as many shows as you want, but we're not doing this one, I said, Carl. We will discuss this when you are done. If you do not participate, we will accelerate you. There are plenty of other crawlers to show on our program. This is not a bluff. Can that other guy hear me right now? No? He cannot. As long as I don't talk shit about you guys? Will there be consequences for what I say? As long as I participate, I mean,

they have paid for your appearance, nothing else. All right, tell him we want on the show now before this death watch segment ends. Carl, what are you doing? I'm the one who talks this time, I said so. At this point, these dudes have two teleport points and they have decided they have to decide who they're going to pick, and they are deciding to die together like they're trying to show a unified front. It's uh. The one of them sang is sitting save Lejiun and Lena, and Lejun

is like, no, we're not doing that. We stand together. A sour look passed across the Maestro's face. He said something, but it was muted. He paused, then nodded. A moment passed and the cruel smile reappeared on his face. We're

gonna do something a little different, Piglets. Our VIP guests have been watching backstage, and it seems like they have something to say that Maestro was playing this off like it was his idea, and I like, I didn't really get exactly the glurt blurt thing until here where he says, we're gonna show what these crazy assholes did to get free, but since they want to suck on it so bad, we're gonna bring them on early, and this is when they start chanting glurt blurp again, and I was like, oh,

because he told them earlier to suck on it, but now he's saying stuck on it for them. And then it just turns out that that's just sort of like the way that they say to like do anything is to suck on it. And I was like, I guess, I mean, the whole point is to be as like vulgar as possible to be shocking, right. It's it's so played, it's so embarrassing. It's very embarrassing. Hi, So Crawler Carl

and Princess Donut Piglets. You probably don't know this. These two just broke a record for the most watched second floor battle in the history of Dungeon Crawler World. That is very impressive and I don't feel like they get nearly enough credit for that. Say hello to my piglets. We want it on the game, I said, not bothering to beat the crowd, to greet the crowd. We want to play death Watch too. That's not how it works, Carl.

I knew you were a crazy mother. They have two points, let's use them to transfer me and Donut to that spot. I look at the crowd. Wouldn't that be cool? The crowd roared. People talk about how stupid you are, Carl, But I never realized you were this stupid. If you're feeling suicidal, then I leaned in, pointing my finger. No, you listen to me, poor boy. If you're gonna fuck with people like this, then at least make it fair.

They played your game and they won two points. You said they can use those points to transfer people away. I don't see why it can't be used to transfer people in either. It doesn't work that way. You're not part of the game. It's against the rules. Yeah, fuck the rules. I looked at the crowd. I think we should tell the rules to suck it. What do you think, clerk? Glurp, blurt blurt. The Maestro did not like his audience glurping

for someone else. Oh my god, I there. That whole line just speaks so many volumes on so many different levels, and is honestly like I, I have thoughts that I'll get to in a moment, and basically in his mind, Carl is like confessing, I don't want to do this, but I don't like this. You know, he's a fucking bully, and I gotta do something. I can't just sit here and watch these two guys get fucking like treated this way.

And then he suddenly like thinks about the fact that the next two guests that he can't see are going to be specifically aimed at him in Donut and he's like, oh, I bet I know who it is, and I was like, I think so too, And they do indeed turn out to be who we thought. But it's a different situation than you would expect. On television shows and in kids' books, they always repeated the bullies will back down when stood

up to mantra. That was utter horseshit. It always has been that only worked when the one standing up to the bully was stronger than them. The Maestro and I were not on equal footing, but my short confrontation and the production trailer taught me something important. I didn't need to be stronger than him. Donut and I or something better. We were expensive, and I really do appreciate. Bullies don't

back down when they're stood up to. What happens is if you are stronger than them, the bully simply realizes they pick the wrong prey. And they find somebody weaker

and they go after them instead. If you are stronger and you manage to stand up to them, usually that results in them being humiliated, and the person that they after you is going to get even worse treatment than they would have otherwise, because now the bully has something additional to prove, and if you stand up to them when you are not stronger than them, it just results in you getting even more of a beating than you

were about to get. Either way, they always are about their ego, their reputation, proving something to the people around them, and they get embarrassed really, really easily, which makes them really volatile, and they often will lose control of themselves, and that loss of control is inflicted on other people almost always. So, yeah, the bullies, Like he said later on, he says something about how they are very predictable, and I was like, that's a really good way to say it.

So the Maestro is fighting this, Carl basically does a double dog dare you You're too much of a pussy to do it. The Maestro looked so angry I thought he might actually cry. I suspected and hoped he couldn't do it. If I knew one thing about Boring. It was that they nickel and dimed everything. This Deathwatch segment probably cost a lot of money, and that was with regular low view crawlers. There was no way they'd be able to send one of the game's highest value streams

into danger like that. When people became red zone angry, they were in general unpredictable. That wasn't true with bullies. I knew this from experience. It was the opposite. With bullies, I knew exactly what was about to happen. I turned to Li Jun and Zang, who sat next to me, mouths agape, I quickly whispered, grab your sister and the other guy and run toward the troglodites and through them. Leave the sword. The lizards are really dumb and slow,

and their attention is on the hornets. You'll only have a few seconds, But Li Jun said, you wanted to trade places. The Maestro growled, you don't tell me what to do on my own show. Meet. He slammed down on the button on his table, and the two men to my right vanished. The words death Watch Extreme appeared on the giant display. The two men appeared back in the scene in the hallway caught between the hornets and the Troglodites. For a moment, everything remained frozen except the

two men. Zang reacted first, shouting, grab your sister as he reached down to pick up the fallen third man. Just as he moved to pick him up, the scene un The sister stumbled as the sword she was grabbing for was suddenly several feet away. Lejeune grabbed her wrist and pointed run, he cried. The three of them scrambled directly at the crowd of Trogoldites, who stood like turkeys watching the hornets. The monsters didn't care who their victims were.

Multiple globs of white spit shot out, splashing into the lizards, who in turn raised their clubs and charged at the bugs. Both groups of monsters ignored the four humans, who managed to slip away and add into the hall. The scene ended with Zang forcing a healing potion into the mouth of their companion before they slipped into a safe room. The video snapped off to a mix of jeers and scattered applause. The audience's reaction was subdued, as if they

weren't sure how to respond. I looked up at the Maestro, a huge smile on my face, glurt on that motherfucker, I said, it is very satisfying. I knew that he was about to be put through it because of this, but I I didn't care. I still was like, I don't know what he could do to Carl that would make that not feel worth it right now, because clearly Carl knows exactly the kind of bit he's dealing with. And so I just was like, I don't know what he can even pull out of his bag of tricks

that Carl won't be able to spin. If you've got that audience, that's the thing that's like to Carl's total advantage, you know. Plus, as he has mentioned, we are expensive. So they watched now him and the Elemental and Donah and everybody. I love, Donut saying to him, Carl, you scare me when you get that angry. Now he hates us. I don't like people hating us. Our followers are going to go down. Yeah, I don't think you need to worry about that. Look, Donut, the show isn't over yet.

See those two chairs. I think it's Do you think it's miss Beatrice? Maybe her and her boyfriend, or maybe it's miss Beatrice and Ferdinand. The way that she says her and her boyfriend is so insulting. Like, I get it, she was cheating like a motherfucker all the time. I get it, I do, But damn, donut do you need to act like he isn't right there thinking that he is her boyfriend? Also like cruel absolutely, And also the fact that she still seems to think Beatrice is alive.

I can't tell if she really believes it or if she's just in denial. I just you know, I can't tell. The Maestro At this point, Carl demands, were you ever a crawler? And He's like, of course, I wasn't a fucking crawler. My family was there when they created the crawl. If you get to the ninth floor, you're gonna learn all about it. And apparently it's related to the whole thing with her crown the Blood Sultanate. Are you guys part of the Blood Sultanate? Do I look like a

fucking noog out of you? My family's Skull clan has been victorious six times out of the last ten Faction wars top three. Every time, the pitiful Blood Sultan is almost always the first of the nine to get eliminated. You idiots have been dead since the moment she put on that crown. What about you? Are you gonna be on the ninth floor. I will be there. I was of age last season, but the stupid Squim conglomerate always plays Battle Roale, which doesn't have a faction wars or

Celestial Ascendency segment. But I will be there this year. I'm on my way to your stupid planet right now. I will be war leader Maestro of the Skull Clan. So if you're in then, and what happens if you get hurt? Do you guys really die? You think you could? Actually? The crowd went absolutely ape shit as the scene ended and the lights snapped back on. And I love that Dona is reading the room and adjusting her whole vibe

to match this like shitty attitude. Uh, next time, we'll kill that thing ourselves and send pictures to his mama. We'll tell her to what was it? Carl suck it? I said, glurt blurt blurt blurt. The audience cried, So they this is when he's like, I have two surprised guests, and it's Frank, you and Maggie My and it's interesting how different they seem to be. Frank isn't okay, clearly Maggie isn't either, but her not okayness is manifesting in a distinctly different way. Um. It was a recap of

Frank and Maggie's journey so far. I watched as the two player killers stumbled into the dungeon. They had someone with them, a teenage girl. It showed them coming into the tutorial guild. We watched as their guide, one of those floating brain mind horrors, sat the three of them down and told them the only way to survive was to kill other crawlers. The guide had a deep, rumbly voice,

unlike anything I'd heard before. It was terrifying. The teenager wept as the guide explained what had to be done. The scene switched to the girl on the ground, injured and crying. We hadn't seen what had happened. It looked as if she'd maybe been hit with a glob of bad lama lava. Frank was also injured, convulsing nearby as blood pooled around them. The woman, Maggie sobbed as she

went to her knees in front of the girl. Mom the girl said, it hurts, I know, baby, Maggie said, she reached down and to my utter astonishment, she wrapped her hands around the girl's throat. She choked her own daughter until she died. When it was done, Maggie leaned against the dungeon wall and wailed, this is so bizarre because Carl demands several times an explanation for why she felt like she had to do this, and he doesn't

ever get a straight answer. And I don't know what to think, because I could very easily be like, well, maybe she thought that maybe they didn't have like healing potion, and she thought that she had to put her out of her misery. But like they were looting everybody, there's no way that they didn't have some healing potions, Like really, Then we see them like go teaming up with another group, waiting till their backs are turned and ambushing them. Ivette

cried for them to stop. Rebecca and another man fled, and Frank chased them. It showed the man running directly into some plant mob thing I'd never seen before, and Frank finally tracking Rebecca down, cornering her. The screen split showing Yvette screaming while Maggie tried to calm her. One of the other men they'd shot wasn't dead. Maggie put a gun in Yvette's hand, told her to shoot the man to get the experience. The girl refused, As I expected,

Frank's entire backstory was complete, made up bullshit. I still didn't know if they were cops or not. I suspected they were either way. Rebecca w hadn't been some sort of human trafficker. She'd been someone like me, afraid, and at the end alone. She'd been betrayed and hunted down by a fellow human. I thought of the woman's naked, stripped bare body. I shook my head in disgust. I noted that Maggie's stealth ability worked like my protective shell.

It cast in a static semicircle and didn't move with them. That was good to know. And then we watch as they, like hunt other crawlers. Their teenage daughter does not participate. The best part is coming up, the Maestro announced, and this is when Carl is realizing, oh shit, it's the booby trap that he left for these two that got their daughter. He dropped it. All three turned to run.

A moment passed the dynamite went off, shrapnel blasted the three crawlers a Lama had and given those horrible injuries to the teenage girl I had. You didn't have to kill her. Why did you do that to get the experience? She would have healed your own daughter. Jesus, Fuck lady, you don't know, you don't know anything. You didn't get the whole story. She wasn't dead yet, she would have healed. Fuck you, you don't know what we've had to do to survive, survive.

Your daughter is dead, but it's okay because you got credit for the kill. I'm sure she'd be so fucking proud. Maggie leaped from her chair, pulling a black dagger that glowed with a purple halo. She lunged at me. I didn't flinch. Her jab passed harmlessly through my throat the drager. The dagger dropped away as Maggie cried out in pain, clutching her hand. You don't know, you don't know anything. You didn't get the whole story. What possible context wouldn't

make this make sense? I'm genuinely asking, like, I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I bet it does, But I really can't think of anything. I love this sort of thing because a lot of times, when you have these moments of somebody misunderstanding a thing because they don't have context, it can be like really easy from the outside to guess what the context is when something has been written kind of lazily. And I don't feel that way about

this at all. This does not feel lazy. I genuinely am like baffled, and I thought about it a lot. I read this last night, and I can't come up with anything like unless they had no healing potions, And even so, did she did she like say something like if I get injured, I'd rather you took me out than make me be come like you like, I can't. I don't even know. I don't feel like they would listen to her if they, even if she did ask

that she's a teenager. They're her parents, and they are responsible for her in a way that they clearly are willing to do anything for her, So what the hell? I don't know. Let's see, as far as I'm concerned, this is Carl. Any business I've had with these two has already been transacted. I'm sorry about what happened to your kid, but fuck you, Fuck both of you. She deserved better. We all would have been stronger together. Your game guide is a piece of shit. I turned toward

Frank and met the man's eyes. The man had changed significantly since the last time we'd seen each other. He looked away and down the fact that this game guide like this is something that has already come up, but that the type of game guides people get really seems to influence how they play the game, and I again bringing up the analogy for all of this just being like living in a hyper capitalist society. What you are told is the way to operate is a difficult thing

to shake. Even if you begin to learn that maybe it's not as simple as they said. It's still really hard when you don't know anything and you're coming into something as alien literally as this is, to not like take it seriously when somebody is giving you advice, you know. And it's also kind of fucked up because I'm assuming that advice paid off. Probably when they killed people, they got experience, you know, they like it did work to

an extent, I don't know. Oh Rob was in the chat and says there was the Chloricon de buff that prevented Carl from healing even with a healing potion. So there are contexts out there where a healing potion wouldn't work, that's true. Carl says something about how like she wouldn't die though she would have recovered. He doesn't even say give her a healing potion. He makes it sound like she would have recovered from this regardless of a healing potion.

And maybe I'm misunderstanding that. It's just the way that it sounded to me when he said it, and so like, it's difficult to know, obviously, but overall, the fact that who you get as a guide is like has such an effect. It's basically the equivalent of like your parents,

you know. And if you get somebody who decides to be really helpful and informative and give you all sides to things and let you choose your own method, it's going to be a really different game for you than somebody who tells you the only way to manage is to kill other people. It's just I don't like this. This is the reason I haven't had fucking children, guys. It's too big a responsibility. I can't handle it. My

anxiety will not allow me. And it's sort of ironic when I step back and look at some of the parents out there, and I'm like, I would definitely, at the very least do a better job than that person, which I probably would, but also, oh my god, I would just fuck up in other ways. I don't know. I don't like anybody out there who has decided it raise children. I don't know where you got the nerve. I genuinely don't like. It. Takes a kind of you could call it faith, you could call it arrogance. I

don't even know what to call it. But believing that you can raise a person, I just don't have it. Not for me, absolutely not. So anyway, m the Maggie says, I'm gonna find you. I'm gonna watch you die. You and the fucking cat oooooooo. The crowd said, like we were on an episode of the goddamn Jerry Springer Show. Don't bring me into this, Donut said, raising a paw in defense, I'm not the one who went all danger dingo on my own kid. The crowd screamed with laughter.

I had to hand it to her. Doughnut was oftentimes caught off guard, but she was highly adaptable. She knew how to read a crowd that was for sure, But as much as I disliked these two assholes, they weren't the real enemy. We needed to end this. This bullshit didn't serve any of us. So Uh Maestro keeps trying to like ask questions, why did you kill your own daughter? Carl? How does it feel to know you're partially responsible for the death of another human? Maggie said nothing but fuck you.

Frank didn't say a word the whole time. Donut would only talk directly to the audience, and I just grunted. It was obvious the orc wasn't good at asking interview questions, especially with a group of hostile guests. The crowd grew restless, Doughnut started making wise cracks. The Maestro tried to ask or something, and she just ignored him. She looked directly at the audience and said, I once watched a cocker

spaniel lick her own butthole for thirty minutes straight. That was more insightful than that question, and he eventually just gives up. We have parting gifts, are you piglets excited to see what we got for the crawlers? So he gives uh Carl a pair of boots and I had said earlier on that like, I didn't think Carl was ever gonna get boots, because like he gets a buff almost immediately for killing with his bare feet, and so I was like, oh, then you might not want to

like change your tactic. And that's exactly what he says here, is he's just gonna wear him in the safe room because obviously he has so many skills that are specific to the fact that he is fighting barefoot, and the gift is supposed to like set him off, but he just sort of is like, Ah, that's funny, and it's almost like the audience doesn't even really get the joke that was being set up. I love them. I hope they weren't too expensive. The Maestro took a deep breath

and gave me his best fuck you glare. He turned to Frank and Maggie. So Frank has a skill called find Crawler, which shows you any crawlers within five square kilometers. I don't think that's good enough. That is a legendary skill potion. Either of you drink that fucker down and it will upgrade your fine Crawler skill to level fifteen. That means you can put in any crawler's name and it'll tell you exactly where they are, no matter how far. Wait, can I drink this? Frank is the one with the skill,

Maggie asked. Oh yeah, that'll take you all the way to the top level of twenty if you have the right class. But if you take it now, it'll take you up to fifteen. No problem, I sighed, So are we done here? The Maestro seemed to be at a loss for words, pissed his gifts hadn't gone over well with the audience. Ah, thanks to my piglets. You know, the Maestro takes care of you fuckers. You know what

to do. The audience luke warmly glurp glurpt. Well, we probably won't be coming back on this show, pork boy, I said, standing up. But I imagine we'll see each other again soon enough. I look forward to kicking your ass all over again on the ninth floor, that is, if you're not too much of a puss to face me. Now. That that garnered a reaction from the crowd. As the show ended, and the crowd cheered final Happy to have something to holler about, I turned my attention to the

two crawlers sitting next to us. Frank continued to stare straight down a shell of a man. Maggie clutched the skilled potion to her chest, staring at me for the first time. The woman smiled. So we jumped to chapter forty four, in which Donah immediately is just like, I don't get why she killed her daughter, Like what was the purpose of this? And when they let's see, I'm trying to find the spot here it is. There's a moment where Donah asks him about Mordecai, saying like, she's

the one with the crown on her head. You don't have to stay with her. It's her crown, not yours. And she asks him about it, and he's just like, let's just fucking worry about that. When we get to it, Okay, she said, her voice small. She finally settled next to me, and she was asleep before I was. So there's something about this and the fact that Donut is anxious about

it that's really touching. And I do kind of wonder, like, you know, I've talked about whether or not she is in denial about b and I think it's interesting when Carl says she was going to update to a younger model and that he didn't want to tell her. Nobody needed to tell Donut that Carl was going to cadnap her. She just watched his internet browsing and was able to

put two and two together. I have a hard time thinking she wouldn't have put two and two together about B, Like, I have to think that she would have noticed something unless B didn't look for another animal from Like maybe she just talked about it with Carl, But even so, I would think she'd hear don't would hear? You know? So, I don't know. I'm just wondering how much of this

is just her burying her head in the sand. So we hear about some other guys who wind up in like a weird sort of sewer system, and they all get killed except for one dude who was left, and it showed the rage gentlemental tumbling into the hole. We watched the monster's health bar plummet, and then the monsters all experience denied, slammed onto the screen. The show ended with a MANI pausing at the scorched entrance to the third floor. She looked up into the air and raised

a middle finger before going inside. Hello, crawlers, keep up the good work. Everything is running smoothly. Now that we've reached the halfway point of the level, game guides are now able to instruct you upon some of the intricacies regarding the third floor and how the race and class selection process works. Be sure to visit your game guide prior to descending in order to make the transition more smooth effective Immediately, any nonsapient mobs who happen upon a

stairwell will not be disintegrated. Yes, we all just watched that rule get exploited on the recap episode. It was very clever and exciting, but it's not going to happen again. I figured that was how they were going to handle it, but I wasn't sure if there was like a way around it. Of course there is. The system AI has determined the proliferation of the brindled vespas is too aggressive, and we have had the number of these mobs and admin notice a new tab is available in your interface accounts.

There was only one item, creator's fee Karl's Jugaboom royalty one gold coin per kill current kills four. There was a button cash out. Now below that was a small line that I could barely read. There was no way to zoom in I had to squint count updates once daily two gold coins plus twenty five percent deposit fee, rounded up, deducted upon cash out. Funds not deposited are subject to forfeiture upon death. I swear to God, this is so funny. As a creator, it is like this.

This is part of why I stuck with Patreon, because they had a much lower fee when they first started, and I got in on the ground floor and they let me, as like one of the original creators to sign up with them, keep that rate even once they began to expand so dramatically as they have over the past few years. So I am literally never leaving, not as long as they let me keep that rate, because no place else will match it anymore. It does not happen.

And you know, even when you guys buy these episodes, I have to pay a chunk of that to PayPal for processing the purchase, and of course I have to pay for the platform that you're using to book the

episode as well. So it just it's taking all kinds of fees right off at the top, and it is really really agonizing, like it doesn't look like a lot, but it really adds up quickly, and it is so considering that I'm paying all of that off the top, and then I just have to pay my regular taxes in addition to it, I don't wind up with very much. I'm just saying, it's this kind of like tiny fine print too, about how like there's a standard like fee in addition to a percentage fee, and that standard fee

comes out every time. I had been hit with that kind of thing before where I didn't realize it and I cashed out and I was like, why is there like less than half of what I should be getting? And then I realized, like, I didn't see that fine So this is completely correct. So let's see, are we running? Are we hiding from Frank Q and Maggie May? No? That was my first instinct, but now that I've slept on it, I've changed my mind. That woman is hell bent on hunting us down, and we're going to have

to deal with it sooner rather than later. I don't know if they're coming now or not. I'd rather be ready than have her sneak up behind us. But how can we do that? They can track us and go invisible. Her invisibility is not nearly as powerful as I first though. We'll need to take out the local neighborhood boss and

get that map. It'll make our lives much easier. And this is when Zev turns up, and it turns out it was true that Zev warning them to run was what she had been penalized for, and they eventually decide that he had noticed simultaneous with her yelling, so they ruled it as not cheating, but they had to put her in a sort of purgatory for a lotle while.

And they find out that apparently the Maestro is part of a group of people that is in opposition to the party, and so the fact that he made this guy look like a complete asshole makes them very, very happy. And Carl is of two minds about this, because of course it's great that this has worked for him, but it also feels like I don't want to be doing anything to help the party, you know, like that also sucks. That show is awful. Zev, it's abusive, she nodded, and

I would like to apologize. Mukden should never have booked it. The show I had scheduled also caters to the younger crowd, but it would be a discussion regarding specific tactics. They do it in a creative, silly way. But to answer your question, Boren is not allowed to discriminate against syndicate member production companies. And she, let's see, there's some point where she mentions, uh, Mordecai is now authorized to tell

you about the third floor, but that's it. Is there any way you can tell us about the ninth floor where he's going to be. What I can say is every three floors are the same setting sort of. The third, sixth, ninth, and so forth are all linked in a way that will later become clear. What if all the crawlers die before the ninth floor, that probably isn't going to happen. We've never had a full player extinction before the ninth floor.

It happens on the ninth floor a lot, but not before. Again, I can't tell you much, but those floors are all all come into existence at the same time. You can only visit them in contact with the rest of the crawl But that doesn't mean they're not being utilized, which I thought was very interesting. I have been assuming everything is constructed as needed, but the fact that they're still

they're like already they're weird, you know. So let's see oh, right, now that the Meatal Lark storyline is completed, we can wait a day or two before focusing on the next story arc. How is this thing with Frank and Maggie going over? It has potential, but it's already tired. The grape you have with Prince Maestro is getting much more attention, especially with that pork boy snick that just showed up two hours old and it's already trending all over the

social media tunnels. Back up, What the hell is a pork boy snick? Ah? Yeah, I need to tell you about this. So you have had a similar phenomenon on Earth. Are you familiar with the concept of fan fiction? And she has to explain this to Donut in the context of Gossip Girl, and Donut freaks out. So a snick is kind of like a fan fiction. But it's a video. This is short and a little explicit. What was in the video? Was I in it? Donna asked, No, just Carl,

Karl and the Maestro. And let's just say Carl has the upper hand during the scene. Uh, who made it? So that's the interesting part. It's a bit of a mystery. It showed up just a few hours after your interview. Nobody knows where it came from, but it went very viral, very fast. The quality is flawless. In fact, it came out so fast and people think it's real. It's not right. Are you asking me if I fucked the orc? Wait, it's a sex tape with Carl and the Maestro, Doughnut said.

She practically fell off her chair laughing. It is a little funny, but the Skull Empire probably isn't going to find it amusing. They haven't reacted yet, not officially. It is it an insult, though, I asked, I'm not gay, but does it matter? The Tusclinge seem to be very open with, you know, weird stuff. Do people really care? It's not that you're right, most wouldn't care. But this is a prince of the Skull Empire, and that video is both graphic and humiliating. You two say things to

each other. Can we watch it? Don't ask? I want to watch it. That sort of thing has to happen all the time. I said that prince is such a cock womble. I can't imagine the intergalactic Internet isn't filled with stuff like that. Oh it is. This is different. The quality is so good, and it's just everywhere right now, everyone's calling the Prince pork Boy and Carl's naughty little Piggy.

You have to watch the video anyway, If the Skull Empire demands people stop calling him that, it's going to be just like the mud Skipper thing all over again. I absolutely cannot the fact that they're like, so this is reminding me of just AI and how you can make AI of people. And there are definitely a lot of like more accessible AI like image generators that now have particular rules set so that you can't make imagery

that looks like a person that exists. Because there was a really like ugly moment when Mey and the Stallion somebody made like an extremely convincing AI sex tape of her and it was circulating everywhere, and it like all that dropped and sort of blew up the same day that she was about to go out on stage, and she like wound up in tears on stage because it was just like it really got to her, you know. And so there's just I've I tried to use an AI the other day. I don't approve of AI imagery

unless you keep it entirely private. So I do it just to like create images of characters that I am trying to write about for my own personal inspo. But I don't think that I will ever share those images anywhere because AI steals. It's just the nature of it.

So this AI that I tried to use to create character images, I had to find the exact right wording or else it wouldn't make people at all, because it kept thinking that I was trying to make a real person, and I kept having to be like, this is for a fictional character, and then it finally would. But there's a lot of restrictions on that now. But this is what I'm assuming is sort of like at play here,

you know. So of course Carl is like, I hope that they're not going to be fucking gunning for us, and Zev says, there's just no such thing as bad publicity, and they are, you know, as long as you're not disparaging them, they're perfectly happy with this. And she said, besides, there's not much other governments can do to you, not until the sixth floor or if they spring for a deity sponsorship this season. But anyway, don't worry about anything

happening outside your floor. That's my job, Carl. I can't believe you hooked up with that guy, Donut said loudly, pushed at the door. She posted at the door. Hack get it. He sure squealed a lot, though her laughter trailed off into the hallway. God damn it, Donut. So she's just trying to set it up that everybody believes that he actually did, which is genuinely very funny, like

why not lean into it? Whatever. So this is when they hit a boss chamber that is very very upsetting to me, and I'm kind of relieved in a way that I have like pretty much run out of time by this point because I don't want to get into

the details of this very much. It's obviously like dog fighting, but with these dingoes instead, and they are just being abused and being left injured in their kennels, and you guys, animal cruelty is just something that makes me literally sick to my stomach, and it is so difficult like for me to even read about in a fictional setting. I

do not like it. It's a It's something that makes me want to stop watching things sometimes, even in like one piece in a very cartoony universe, when there are animals that are being like used in a like mean spirited way. I just get like, can we just please move on from this part of the story. So what they wind up going up against is a frenzied Gerbil, And clearly it's supposed to be eventually that the gerbil like lets lose these dingoes. But because Carl fed the dingo a

little treat earlier, it doesn't attack him. All of them, are you know what I mean? Like they all wind up being like friendly to him more or less. Frenzy Gerbil Level eleven neighborhood boss. And I'm not going to read this whole thing, but suffice to say he's fast, he's angry, and by the time you're done reading this, he's already halfway to your jugular. You might want to duck, which he does, and it goes right over his head. Carl, I can't help but think this boss has been placed

here for a very specific reason. What do you mean? Most of the cobalts were dead, but a few at the edges of the blast had survived. And this is when he opens the doors. The dingoes emerged and their dots are all white. One of the dingoes, the first one we'd fed, leaped out and pounced right onto Ralph. It happened quick, lightning fast behind us. The remaining coalbalts fell back as the other dingoes turned on their former masters, dropping upon them and ripping them apart savagely. The cobalts

weren't armed, and there weren't many of them. The barking, snarling dingoes finished them off in seconds and doughnuts like that was easy. And they're looking around and he is realizing that, like the music hasn't stopped, and he's like, I've got to be missing something. What is it? And she said something like, I guess I was wrong. The one eyed dingo who'd eaten Ralph continued to stand where he'd swallowed the miniature boss. He seemed frozen in place.

The creature looked at us and started to whine, it's a small rodent. Your feet are all nice and shiny, as Miss Beatrice used to say, time to pay the daddy tax. Wait, under what circumstances would she say that? At that moment, the dingo's head exploded. I hated it. I hated it so much. And the gerbil comes out and it's coming at them, and the gerbil bounced off the floor with a sickening crunch. I Mike tightened it

with all my strength and it was stunned. And he realizes, like, I have never gotten the stunned to work ever, So he thinks about punching it to death, and then he remembers what Donut said, if it makes you feel better, she was talking about you, you're the daddy. No, Donut, that does not make me feel better. That's the opposite of making me feel better. I placed my bare right foot upon the small monster. Sorry, Ralph, I said, I don't know how Beatrice could be talking about the daddy

tags to somebody else about Carl. How does that work? I I feel like I'm missing something here. Rob says. The key is definitely to not know enough about what you're getting into the first time around. Oh, Rob is talking about parenting. For a second, I thought you were talking about like dungeon crawling, and I was like, what all I want is a friend to live with. Laboon says Rob amen another one piece thing, guys, but like, yeah, justice for Laboon and for the Princess of Alabasta, not

to try and blow him up from the inside. There are so many animals in one piece that people just like punch the shit out of and I'm like, can we fucking not? You know? The upside is though, when they turn into our friends, it's so delightful and gratifying, so you know, pluses and minus is. But yeah, So that is the end of this section, and I don't think that I have that many less. Let me see, I have got four episodes left to record, right, No, five,

five episodes left. Oh wait, but only one more of this book. The other four episodes are for Carl's Doomsday Scenario Book two, so I'm going to be finishing this book on the next recording. Wow, this felt really short, but I'm looking forward to getting into the second one, so bring it on, all right, guys, Well, thank you all again for hanging out with me. I appreciate you all a lot. I hope that you are all enjoying the coverage. And until next time to the lou motherfuckers.

That was an Unspoiled Network podcast.