Dungeon Crawler Carl, Chapters 1-5

very much to Michael for commissioning this episode. And Michael is here in the chat and he left a long comment here that I really wanted to share with you guys, so he says, I'm hoping you'll enjoy this series. Lit RPG is kind of a hard sell for a lot of people, and I get why it's mostly wish fulfillment stuff because the real world sucks. Most of it is just dumb fun and to paraphrase Felicia Day, it's like

cotton candy, easy to consume and then it's gone. But in my opinion, Dudgeon Crawler Karl is a step above since it avoids most of the cringiest tropes of the genre. It has a lot of puerile and juvenile humor from the AI. But I'm a teenager trapped in a forty five year old body, so I love it. Travis Baldry, Jeff Hayes, and Andrea Parsnow are in my pantheon of

amazing narrators. Okay, so first of all, I have read some RPG before, and I definitely see what you mean with it just being like kind of difficult sometimes, and it really varies. I have had times where I start reading and I am just like, nope, no, I'm sorry, I just cannot do this. Is this is like almost pathetic, how desperately cool I am supposed to think this person is? And then there are times where I am like so

sucked into. There's a series called Pixel Dust I think is the name of it, and it's like there was supposed to be another book, but there are three that are written, and I tore through those pretty quick a few years ago. It's been a while since I read them. I'm not sure if those exactly count. I think they do. But it's basically a sort of like party that develops through a server and they don't know each other in person, but eventually they begin to uncover something that leads to

them needing to know each other in person. And it's a whole thing. And I really really enjoyed that one, and I was so like, sort of bummed when I looked into it. And it's been years and there hasn't been another one, So there have been versions of this that work really well for me. So and yeah, the whole energy of this book from the start, first of all, I just want to address, like this narrator is gives a particular energy right off the top that very much

is giving Putty from Seinfeld. I don't know if that is going to mean anything to some of you. I'm like, you know, Seinfeld's a pretty famous show, so most people

are probably gonna get what I'm talking about. But Putty, who is played by Patrick Warburton, it's different than say he's giving Patrick Warburton because Patrick Warburton has this particular voice, but the inflections that he gives when he is like in Emperor's New Groove or in oh my God, what is the other thing that I was just thinking, there's another property, oh oh, when he's Brock Samson and Venture Brothers.

That voice is a really different inflection than Putty, and this guy was feeling like that for me so hard. Instantly it was like the first four syllables and I was like, what is Puddy doing here? What? Which actually kind of works because just like the way he's described as being a pretty big dude, feels like that falls into the right imagery in my head. Oh oh, Michael says the narrator very much just trying to emulate Patrick Warburton. If I recall, it's kind of how he pictured the

main character. Okay, I love it. Then that's great because I started listening and I had to stop and I put in an earbud in my husband's ear and was like, who is this? And he's just just like Putty? And I was like Putty. Yeah. So this the energy of these first five chapters for me is very much like Hunger Games meets ready Player one. And for the record, ready Player one gets a lot of shit, and that's

all fair. I covered Ready Player one for Unspoiled book Club and I'll tell you what, kids, people really expected me to hate it, and I just couldn't hate it. I had such a good time, like all of the criticism that gets levied at it is one thousand percent fair. But it just didn't matter to me, And that is a rare thing, you guys, know, Like there are some stuff I can't I get hung up and I just can't get past. And it was just Ready Player one never seemed to feel like it thought it was real deep.

It always seemed to be fully aware of exactly what it was and just did that very enthusiastically. And I respect when something is just like, no, this is going to be like, as Michael is saying, a nostalgia bomb, this is gonna be that, it's gonna be wish fulfillment. It is going to be like every nerd who wishes that he could like capitalize on all the useless trivia they know. Like the whole vibe of it felt so weirdly self aware even as it was ridiculous, that I

just couldn't hate it. So when I say that this is Ready to Player one meets Hunger Games, in my opinion, both of those are kind of good things. But like I said, I don't disagree with any of the criticisms brought against Ready Player one. It's just that, for whatever reason, I was able to smooth sail right on past him, and it just didn't drag me down at all. Happened sometimes,

you know. So anyway, the opening of this the transformation occurred at approximately two twenty three am Pacific standard time. As far as I could tell, anyone who was indoors when it happened died instantly. If you had any sort of roof over you, you were dead. That included people in cars, airplanes, subways, even tents and cardboard boxes. Hell, probably umbrellas too, though I'm not so sure about that one. I'm not gonna lie. You guys who were inside, probably warm and asleep and

dreaming about some random bullshit. I'm jealous. You're the lucky ones. You were just gone splattered into dust during the transformation. And you know, normally, when somebody is like you were the lucky ones, I'm like, oh, jerk off in the corner. But honestly, this, once you get to reading, I was sort of just like, yeah, I don't know, I think

he's right. Actually, I think that sounds fair. So we get this fun little background where he talks about how he wound up outside in boxers pink Croc sandals that barely fit a leather jacket and holding a cat named Princess Donut to the Queen Anne Chunk and apparently like worth a ton of money. This cat won a cat show like every fucking weekend. I am very, very interested in what the Queen Anne Chunk is going to be turning into because it seems pretty clear to me, like

it's a gamble. Who knows, you know what I'm saying. But I already right away as soon as he was like, this is you know my situation. As I wound up here, I was like, oh, okay, so you were inside chasing this or outside chasing this cat. If there is one thing I know, it is chasing animals that have run out of the house at odd hours of the day

in pajamas or other inappropriate clothing. I had to chase Pippin across the street the other day, and it was unfortunately, like the middle of the afternoon, and I was in my pajamas and that's never a good look. But you know, especially these days, I just felt like such a slob. But this bitch ran out because somebody else's dog was out, and so he went to chase their dog, and so I blame them, really but uh yeah, I like the whole way that this starts off. I enjoy this bit.

He had a girlfriend named Beatrice who goes on a trip and doesn't tell him that her ex boyfriend's going to be there. I figured it out pretty quick when I saw the picture of her sitting on his lap on Instagram. I don't like drama, and I don't deal well with it. Whether she was actually cheating on me or not, it didn't matter so much. She lied, so I called her up and I told her we were done.

I really admire this. This is the sort of thing where I'm like, I there are times where I get really frustrated and I'm like, just talk to each other. You know. This is one of those times that, in my opinion, there is nothing that you could tell me that would make this be okay. Like you can't just sit on the lap of an ex and not tell

me that they're there, no heads up text. Hey, I didn't know he was gonna be here, but I arrived and it turns out they invited him and they didn't tell me or warning that, Like, Hey, so he just dumped some girl and I'm gonna be in his lap on a photo because he wants to make her jealous, but there's nothing going on. I swear not that that would be believable, but at least it would be an

attempt to explain a thing away, you know. But it just there's nothing about this that for me feels inappropriate. His reaction, I think that's exactly how you want to handle somebody who starts to like toy with you like this. I'm just too old for it, you know, Like he's

cutting it off at twenty seven. I feel like he's doing really well because a lot of us put up with too much shit for too long, until we finally start to get to a point in our lives where we're like, life's too short and I don't need to waste time on somebody who's decided to pull some bullshit. So yeah, Donut has all of these like ribbons and a whole bedroom dedicated to her trophies and her catbox

and all of this stuff. I never considered myself a big fan of cats, but if we're being truthful here, I like Donut. That cat did not give two shits about anybody or anything, and I could respect that. If Donat wanted to sit on my lap while I was blasting away on PlayStation, and she sat on my damn lab. If I tried to pick her up, she hissed and scratched and jumped right back up there, and then she looked at me with a squished face that said, what

are you going to do about it? I'd been tempted more than once to throttle the thing, but I'm not an asshole. Plus I could respect the little monster's tenacity. Some of my buddies would give me crap about it, and he spending all this time with a fuzzy cat that was probably worth more than I would make in a year, But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed having that

ball of fuzz sitting in my lap. So what happens is Beatrice had no smoking rule, and he decides just to give her the finger after they break up that he is going to smoke like crazy inside the house, and he decides to crack the window a little bit, and Donut, for some reason, decides at that moment, after never having done this before, it seems, to jump outside onto a tree, and I think that this points to

she knew something was up. Like all I could think was this cat was aware that some shit was about to go down. She fucking knew how don't know doesn't really matter at this point, but it just felt. I felt very strongly about the significance of her doing it now, of all times, when she's never done it before. And of course he has a moment of just being like, fine,

fuck her, I'm gonna leave her out there now. I think he says exactly what temperature it was, but uh yeah, he says it was well below zero, which was unusually cold, so probably she would have frozen. It always depends on the animal, but you know, if she's a cat that's used to being inside and cared for, I don't see her doing super well outside on her own. There's also the possibility of her being able to find somewhere to

hunk her down and stay warmer. So she may have been okay, but you don't want to take that risk, especially like as he puts it, I'm not an asshole. I definitely have a kitten that runs outside all the time. She has finally learned how to get down off the roof by herself, because she's learned how to crawl down

trees and not just up them. But she I have gotten to a point where I do have to like leave her outside sometimes because trying to chase her she will go where there's no following, and it makes her stay outside longer if I chase her. So if I just go out inside and pretend like I don't even care, eventually she's at the back door crying to be let in. So that's my tact that I take, But especially when it's cold out, she wants to come in pretty quick.

So also, there is a neighbor named Missus Parsons who apparently always makes complaints about noise and stuff. So the cat screaming out there, I really think the cat did this to save him. I would like to give her that credit that she knows what's going on. She jumps outside because she can tell. And then she stands out there screaming basically, get the fuck out of the house. Get out of the house, get outside. You can't be inside the house anymore. Come outside. And he's just like, God,

why is this cat being so cranky? And she's just like, I'm saving your life, you piece of shit. So Missus Parsons has her head stuck out the window and she's talking to him when the building gets smashed flat and it cuts her head off. There. I have been coming across a few too many things in media that I'm covering lately where somebody's head gets cut off by a window, and I'll tell you what, It's got me really fucking

paranoid these days. I really have been sort of like, maybe I just don't ever want to stick my head through a window for the rest of my life. It had the building was there and then gone, but it hadn't disappeared. It was like the building was a massive tin can that had been crushed by a giant cosmic boot. Wind rushed at me and it was instantly dark. The street lamp just to my left was gone. The buildings all around me were gone. The cars on the street

were gone too. Everything was gone except the trees and the bicycles and the bike wrecks and Marjorie Williams moped that was still booted by parking enforcement. I could barely see anything except in the distance thanks to the lack

of buildings. A fire burned, there was utter complete silence, and he says where the cars were parked on the road, car shaped indentations of dirt appeared as if they'd been pulled down toward the center of the Earth being ripped directly through the asphalts, and then he sees Missus Parson's head by his feet. This is one of those things where it's such an unbelievably surreal image that I try and think sometimes when I'm reading things, how would I

have reacted in this particular situation. I really have nothing on this one. I genuinely have no earthly idea what the fuck I would do. I mean, he says that he feels like he wants to throw up, and immediately I was like, yeah, okay, I could do that. I could throw up. We could do that. That feels like a reasonable next step. And then all of a sudden,

a person speaks. And what's fun about the audiobook is that they do voice effects whenever it's the system speaking to make them sound more electronic, and so it really helps to like differentiate things, and I like it. I think it works really well. Surviving humans take note per Syndicate Rules sub Section five forty three of the Precious

Elemental Reserves Code. Having failed to file a proper appeal for mineral and elemental rights within fifty solars of first contact, your planet has been successfully seized and is currently being mind of all requested elemental deposits by the assigned planetary Regent. Every interior of your world has been crushed, and all raw materials organic and nanimate are in the process of

being mined for the requested elements. Per the Mind Material Reclamation Act, along with sub Section thirty five of the Indigenous Planetary Species Protection Act, any surviving humans will be given the opportunity to reclaim their lost matter. The Borent Corporation, having been assigned regency over this solar system, is allowed to choose the manner of this reclamation, and they have chosen Option three, also known as the eighteen level World Dungeon.

The Borent Corporation retains all rights to broadcast, exploit, and otherwise control all aspects of the World Dungeon, and will remain in control as long as they adhere to Syndicate

regulations regarding World resource reclamation. Upon successful completion of Level eighteen of the World Dungeon, regency of this planet will revert to the successor a Syndicate Neutral Observer AI myself has been created and dispatched this planet to supervise the creation of the World Dungeon and ensure all the rules

and regulations are properly followed. So first of all, the fact that like it's oh, you didn't you didn't file your claim for your own resources, and you get to get your resources back if you want, but you have to fight in this game show to do it. This is some of the whitest shit I ever heard of my life. This is like real colonized, and I'm kind of loving it because this is just what the shit that you know what, I'm not gonna do this. I'm gonna wait and see what happens later because it might

be more relevant. But you guys, the way that we handle resources on native lands to this day, we act like all of our bullshit and underhanded dealings is in the past and that now we've learned our lesson and it is the biggest scam in the world, the way that we have found ways to like continue to exploit these people and pat ourselves on the back like we are like making reparations anyway. I just the combination of

just you should have filed for your matter. And also there is an Indigenous Planetary Species Protection Act, but this is what the act does, which is like doesn't feel real protect to me, my God. The first level of this dungeon will open approximately eighteen seconds after the end of this announcement. First level will be open for one human hour only. Once entrances are closed, you may no longer enter. If you enter, you may not leave until you have completed all eighteen levels or if you meet

or if you meet certain other requirements. They don't say until you're dead. They should, but they don't. They just say certain other requirements, which is hilarious. If you choose not to enter the World Dungeon, you will have to sustain yourself upon the surface of your planet, and this may be the last communication you receive during your lifetime. All previously processed matter and elements are forfeit. However, you are free to mine and utilize any remaining and naturally

a Korean resources for your own benefit. I don't even know exactly what falls under that category what counts as previously processed matter and elements? Like what it sounds like to me is basically anything that's been manufactured is ours, and you guys can go mine brand new or but if it's been built already, that shit's ours, which is

I mean, really, what other option is there? At this point that to go into the dungeon, and they describe the number of entrances to each level, and that they will always decrease by half starting with one hundred and fifty thousand, and each lower level will have a longer period of reclamation. It is recommended you immediately find and utilize the tutorial guild. Multiple tutorial tutorial guilds will be

seated throughout the dungeon on levels one through three. So at this point, Carl is realizing that he is going to freeze to death. It's below zero outside. He has no pants on, he doesn't even have proper shoes on. And he hears a trumpet blast and he looks and sees this thrift store that has been smashed to the ground, so it's no longer there, but the space where it had been a spotlight pops up. I saw an additional spotlight appear about a mile away. I saw a few

more littered throughout the city. Even from this distance, I could feel the warmth radiating from the brightly lit hole in the ground. So he heads to shelter, which I'm not mad at. Dungeon floor one time to level collapse five days start of chapter two. So he heads down there and he doesn't hear another soul. Doughnut, of course, is with him, and the stairs go on quite a ways. They're carved and like have this pattern. It says could have been fish or maybe demons. The almost Asian looking

carvings gave me an uneasy feeling. These stairs weren't here just a few minutes ago. The whole thing is made of buildings and cars and people of the world. Who did this? How did they do this? So he finally gets to the bottom, there's a door and a box pops up into his site. So what we're getting is, you know, the player view in a video game, and he has to learn how to control these boxes and options and stuff with his mind and learn how to navigate them only by thinking about them. So this winds

up taking him some practice a little bit later. But this is a rendition of Kua Tin, the dominant species of the boring system and principal owner of the Borran Corporation. Make sure you recognize these guys. There'll be a test later. Was that last part supposed to be a joke? I don't think so. I don't think so. I just don't. I don't know, so he opens the door and U fucking Donut bites his hand and he gets greeted a timer.

Four days, twenty three hours, and forty eight minutes. Crawler number four thousand, one hundred and nineteen Princess Donut Level one Race Cat class not yet assigned. You have been designated Crawler number four one hundred twenty two. You have been assigned the crawler Carl. You are assigned the race of Human. You are currently level one. You may choose a new race and class as soon as you descend the third floor. Your stat points have been assigned based

on your current physical and mental profile. See the stat menu for more details. Congratulations, you've earned your first achievement. Crazy Cat Lady. You've entered the World Dungeon accompanied by a cat. Ah isn't that sweet? Reward? You've received Bronze pet Box New Achievement Trailblazing, Crazy Cat Lady, you are the first Crawler to have entered the World Dungeon accompanied by a cat. You must really love that thing to bed. You're probably both going to die a horrible death at

any moment, or maybe not. Look at the prize you just received. Reward. You've received a legendary pet box, and it goes on like this early adopter, empty pockets, Why aren't you wearing pants? Unarmed, combat lone or all? Because he came down alone, is one of the first to enter, has no pants on, doesn't have any weapons, all of these things. And I really enjoy the way that this is done in kind of like real quick succession, because when you start a new video game, this is how

it feels. They give you all kinds of achievements for doing all of the most basic shit, to the point that it feels annoying almost that you're getting these achievements, even though you get little prizes for them. You want to play the game. Can you fucking leave me alone a little bit? You know, like I do. Start to get very irritable about it. Later on, every time you have an achievement, it's like a fucking parade should be

thrown because they start to get so far apart. But at first you're just like, you know, ah, shut up. So he sees a sign that says dad tutorial guild with a lot like an arrow pointing out an alley. I stepped into the new achievement, fall into an obvious trap, so lights flip on, and there is this like Bonker's contraption that a Goblin is steering Goblin murder Dozer contraption, a Goblin built steam powered machine designed to mow down

and slaughter unsuspecting dungeon crawlers. I hope you're up to date with your tennis shots. And he gets a description of the types of goblins, the engineer, their levels, YadA, YadA, YadA, And I love that the engineers the in cells of the Goblin world. They have a hard time finding a date, which makes them extra angry. If there are any females in your party, they will attack them first. Oh my god. I'd like the fact that Carl is just like, how

can they make these jokes? Like, you know, he's asking the right questions right away and we actually get real answers to them. So the uh, let's see. He finds the tutorial guild and he goes to the door and it's closed and there are the two level gob the two two level goblins. Oh my god. The two level two goblins seem to give up on waiting for the bulldozer to negotiate the tight turn and hopped off and started jogging toward me. From behind the door. I heard

the rattling of chains and turning of locks. What do you want you moms ain't allowed in here? You know that. Hey, this is a tutorial guild, the things that I was supposed to go in here. You're a crawler. Wait, by his left tip. We opened up and I didn't even notice. I must have slept through the announcement. Nobody tells Mordecai anything. There used to be a newsletter. It was delivered every few cycles, reliable as can, but then it just stopped.

Budget cuts. I'm guessing they were always cutting corners. I thought we were opening for another two years. So eventually he tries to say, you took too long. Too long, I can't open if there's already mobs outside. I took too long. And finally, as the one comes up behind him, he loses his temper, and long story short, he beats the shit out of it and kills it, stomping on it, and it's one glance up at the bulldozer, which it stopped to pick up the second goblin. Relieve me of

any potential regret. Hey, hey, stop, you can't come in here, he was saying, his back now turned donut he was talking to the goddamned cat. So he's like, you were going to fucking let me in there? It's clear, but for five seconds, so according to you, like you don't you can let me in when the mob isn't right here right, And then he when he gets in, he gets achievements for being in the guildhall, He gets stats on Mordecai, and he starts asking him, of course, about

how all of this works. Now, for the interest of time, a lot of this I'm going to sort of gloss over because it works the way that a video game mostly works, and I don't think that I need to explain a lot of that. Even if you're not really a gamer, I think you are going to know the basics of all of this. There are baddies, some of them are, and our non playable characters. They don't have a lot to do with the actual plot, and you

just deal with them and then you move on. You can't kill them, you can't affect them in any real way. Then there are ones that you do have to interact with our bosses, you know all this stuff. And he, after getting inside the fucking doughnut, knocks over this creature's mother's ashes and takes a shit in them, which is uh, that sounds right, That sounds pretty much on brand for a cat. So Carl Dodger's back outside. Briefly, the whole top of the machine was nothing but a fur lined,

recessed hole with benches running the length. The ceiling was much lower than the long main hallway. When I stood my full height, I could reach up and touch it. I rushed forward and grasped onto the regular goblin. The creature barely weighed anything. I picked him up and he grunted. In surprise, he unsuccessfully attempted to hit me with his stick. With all of my strength, I threw the goblin forward.

He rocketed out of the passenger area of the dozer, sailed directly over the head of the engineer, and crashed onto the tunnel wall, then bounced back, landing directly onto the spinning front blades. Oops. So then the one that's left is oh, yeah, this is the one that he kicks. That's right, You're in my world. Now. You need to speak my language, you weird green piece of shit. To my surprise, the goblin grinned. I could tell he understood me.

You're not speaking your language. You're speaking Syndicate standard, you idiot slave. They programmed it into your brain. Do you really think you'll survive past? As he was distracted by his own soliloquy, I leaped forward, snatched the pot off his head, and clabbered him with it. The goblin stumbled. I smacked him again. He careened off the side of the tractor. His health bar appeared after I had smacked him the first time, but it was still well in

the green. His knife went flying, so he starts to sit up, and then I jumped off the murder dozer, aiming both feet towards the chest and stomach of the still recovering god goblin. I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but this is important information. I stand six foot three inches in away, about two hundred and thirty pounds. What I'm getting at is I'm a large dude. The goblin was small, and he hardly had any mass at all.

The effect of me jumping onto him from high above was like someone smashing a fat jelly doughnut with a sledgehammer. Ea iso gross, yeah, oh my god. In the chat, Michael is saying this is like Lyndon beating on a bunch of six year olds in the tournament from the

Cradle series. I love that comparison. So at this point, he realizes that there's a problem with the dozer, and he has just enough time to get back into the guild and slam the door before it explodes, and Mordecai is like, what the fuck was that these walls should not shake like that? And he has to explain to Mordecai is like, oh shit, that would definitely have killed you,

So good thing you were in here. So finally we get to the training and we get the explanation of what exactly the deal is with this world, and we find out that Mordecai used to be a being on a planet that got dropped on like this and he made it to level thirteen. Now he doesn't make it out, but he is still alive. So like, evidently if you get to a certain point, he gets down to floor eleven. That's what it is. Once you descend to floor ten,

you're given several options to exit the dungeon. The deeper you go, the better those options are. And I thought that was really interesting that there are different ways in which you can negotiate your way out, and so he's been working for them, and they change his form according to whatever the theme is of the dungeons that they

are doing for this particular season of the game. And all of this works very similarly to the Hunger Games, where you're being watched almost all the time, except for in bathrooms, which I think probably is going to be important at some point. You can have followers views like view numbers, and the more followers and fans you get, the more likely you are to get patrons, and they give you good, rare shit that you wouldn't get otherwise.

But you have to really make yourself stand out in terms of personality and style for them to notice you. So you know, it's like the Hunger Games with it being a sort of popularity contest. I have no doubt if we had been a little further along in our development of social media by the time she wrote those the concept of views and fans would be absolutely like integrated into how the game worked. It wasn't, but that's

definitely the energy of the games. So we also find out that there are worlds seeded with humans that are basically allowed to ripen until it's time to harvest them, and he like the there's I think, he says, like nine other human seeded worlds. But I have to imagine that a lot of like the way social media works, is them preparing us for the concepts that come out within this game. Like it just feels like that would

be the way to say this up, you know. Sat Michael says he actually race changed during his Dungeon crawl from his original sky followers to a changeling, otherwise his form wouldn't change with the dungeon. Oh okay, I missed that, thank you. So he also says guild masters prepare for

years for each new Dungeon world. I've been preparing for this longer than you've been alive, and he describes all the stuff that he has learned about pop culture and stuff, which again it's very much giving ready player one and

the group Borrent is evidently like really really powerful. When he brings it up, Mordecai gets real shifty about the way he talks about them and the tone he uses, and he's like, they're not always watching like actively they could always be, but plenty of people talk about them because they're like the people sponsoring this, so they're not looking all the time. But you just don't want them to zero in on you if you are on camera

and you say some off shit about them. I think the wording he uses is they will accelerate your experience, which I assume means that they will give you some things to fight that are like above your level. So I'm trying to make sure because I'm like already running out of time. I only have fifteen minutes left. He learns how to use the controls identify the creatures that are around him, even corpses. It will tell him like who that was and what level they were, and YadA YadA.

I grumbled a bit about that three in intelligence. Yeah, I never did do great in math, but I never considered myself a slobbering idiot. And then he thinks about his friend Billy, who is an idiot who had come out of a bar and peed on a the cops bicycle while the cop was giving someone else a ticket for drunken disorderly. But Mordecai says, intelligence told you the bike belonged to a police officer. Wisdom told you not to urinate upon it. We all have a wisdom stat

but it doesn't appear on that list. It used to but they discovered changing one's wisdom greatly changed their personality, so it's no longer adjustable. I thought that was pretty interesting. I like the the differentiation between wisdom and intelligence. I believe that games like there are plenty that do do that, but yeah, that is like intelligence. Being able to just look at a thing and tell what it is is very different from being able to determine the best course

of action now that you have that basic information. So the first level of the dungeon was off limits to live viewers, so these stats wouldn't move until I descended

to the second floor. That really surprised me. I figured that the first level was going to be the one that was the most like ridiculous to watch, sort of the way that when you watch like America's Got Talent or something, they would often show I don't know if they do this anymore because it's been a long time, but like, for so you think you can dance, for example, do you get to watch a lot of the auditions, And sometimes they will show you auditions that are particularly good,

and they will also show you the ones that are really really cringey and terrible. And I've always felt so like kind of conflicted about that because a lot of times the ones that they show where somebody is really terrible, it can feel like really exploitative. But also, these people showed up here knowing that they might get on TV, and they signed away the approval to do that, and so they opted into this knowing eyes open, you know.

But a lot of times there's a feeling of like this person didn't fully understand how humiliating this is going to look, you know. So I just really thought that like the first level and seeing all of the people who wind up getting like weeded out almost immediately would be a really big part of getting into the first season.

But I almost think that maybe it's too much blood, Like you lose so many people so quickly that the cameras can't keep up, and maybe it's not that fun to watch, and it's just sort of like sad, I don't know. So he says, you need to kill with style and excitement. Maybe come up with a catchphrase. I managed to accumulate almost thirty million followers and four patrons. That's the only way I survived once I hit the second floor. Watchers from across the universe had the ability

to tune into any crawler. They wished Warrant would continue to air highlights. So the longer I survived, the better my chances are getting featured. Anytime someone watched me for just about eight seconds or so, it counted as a view. This stat didn't help or hurt me, but it was a good indicator of how interesting I was. You might not like it, but pay careful attention when I tell you this. Obtaining patrons is crucial to your survival. There is plenty of great loot in the dungeons that will

help you survive, but the best loot comes from benefactors. Patrons. Views lead to followers. If you're being followed, it means the viewer has bookmarked your crawler ID they can look it on you whenever they want. Following leads to favorites. If you're favorited, that's a good thing. It means the viewers are getting live updates on your stats and condition. They get notifications if you're fighting. If someone's favorited you,

they really want to know how you're doing. Viewers only get a certain number of favorites, so consider it an honor. But ultimately it's all about the patrons. Lots of favorites will always lead to patrons. Patrons are usually organizations, not individuals. They'll see someone has a lot of favorites and they'll sponsor you. It's an advertising thing. They sponsor you by purchasing boxes for you. There are dozens of types, and

each box has six quality tiers. Bronze, silver, gold, platinum, legendary, celestial. Most patrons can only afford or are willing to send you silver or gold. Bronze tends to be crap. Some of the richer patrons may send you platinum, though the cost has got to be astronomical. A bronze benefactor box is better than a plain gold adventurer box. A benefactor

box may contain items from the patron's home world. You'll never find a pulse rifle or automated power armor in any sort of box in the world Dungeon, but it's possible to get from a patron and then he brings up toilet paper and Mordecai toilet papers. Complimentary restrooms are liberally populated throughout the map. It's the only place the viewers cameras can't follow. The last Dungeon warrant managed didn't have rest areas, and the crawlers were pissing and crapping

all over the place. Crawlers lose viewers when they're shitting in the middle of a hallway. It's gross. I really love that that is specifically mentioned. Bathrooms are important, and I love that even when we have just decided to set aside all humanity, we are still not going to be completely uncivilized and have some fucking bathrooms. Thank you. So we spent the next several minutes going over a

few other menu items. Uh, and Mordecai is like, you know what your proficiencies and things are actually like kind of above average. You're starting from a pretty decent place. He You know, we go through a lot of the menu stuff. A lot of this I felt like really didn't need to be gone through. It's fine, but it

just seemed a little bit redundant to me. And we find out about how like when the stairways populate to getting downstairs, they are hidden and eventually they are guarded and you have to get through certain bosses in order to pass through. The levels that are finished are like they get smashed, so you are crushed in those as

you would have been into building. If you don't find your way out in time, which is pretty rough, and the guild areas are the areas like there are also rest spots where you are safe from being attacked, and you also can like recharge your stat bars and stuff. But and you can basically like stay there and not leave. But once the place closes, you will die. And I'll say right now that I probably would find myself holed up in one of those rooms and just chill until

the place crushed me. I would rather that than be like run over by a goblin steam boiler machine. I don't know, that's just mehm. So are you stuck here for the rest of your life? No, this is my last tour. Once this nightmare is over, I become a full citizen. I receive a moderate stipend, and I'm free to make my way in the universe. Will you go back to your home planet? No, it's not open to me,

he said. It's not open to him in such a way that makes me feel like the fact that he took the deal with these guys means that he's like persona non grata. And I may be wrong about that, but there was just a vibe to it that it didn't seem to me like it was I am not allowed. That's a different thing to it's not open to me. Felt like technically I could, but that wouldn't be good for me, you know. And we find out that, like, there's eighteen levels and nobody has ever made it all

eighteen levels, not one time. Level thirteen is the deepest anybody has ever gone, which is pretty upsetting. So let's see, Oh, here it is your inventory. This season, Born's trying something a little different. Last season, it was slop based. It allowed one to carry multiple items, but limited in capacity and had weight limits. This season, each crawler is given

a dimensional inventory and AI cataloging system. Basically unlimited storage, and if you can physically lift it off the ground by yourself for about four seconds, you can put it in your space, no matter how big it is. The only rule is you can't store living creatures. They will immediately die. Also, the storage is time locked, so food

doesn't go bad. That's a big one. We had an issue last season with crawlers starving to death watching thousands of lethargic, unmoving players as they waited for the timer to run out. Yeah, it was no good, so Born fixed it. This uh idea of like if you can pick something up no matter how big it is, and you can store it. I just keep imagining, like, you know, a pretty decent sized rock and you just like open your inventory and just drop it on somebody, depending on

how you are situated. It seems pretty convenient. You know. I'm sure that we'll get better objects and rocks, but to start off with, based on the things that he finds in the boxes that he opens, a rock is pretty that feels on brand to me. So let's see. Oh, when he finds the legendary pet box, Mordecai kind of freaks out and it's just like Jesus Christ, I can't believe you got that right when you walked in, And generally is like there is a good amount of stuff

in here for you already. So I really enjoyed a couple of these. Some of these jokes are like a little plaid, and some of them really cracked me up. There is I'm trying to find the spot here. It is okay, new achievement, you've killed a mob. You're a murderer. He probably had a family. The way this guy delivers these is very funny. New achievement, you've killed in our mom with your bare fucking hands. Holy crap, dude, that's kind of fucked up. New achievement. You've killed a mob

a higher level than yourself. You're getting the hang of this. Don't let it get to your head. New achievement potophilia. You've used your bare feet to crush and kill an opponent. Hey, that's my fetish. Seriously, keep doing it. You'll be rewarded. This will help reward You've received a gold shoe box, which eventually we find out has a toe ring in it, and he's mad about it. But I would guess that toe ring might be even more beneficial than shoes, because

that is a gold shoe box. So I feel like that shit must be doing some But yeah, so he says Mordecai. You can only open boxes in safe areas. The safe rooms will always appear on your map, even if they're within the fog of war. If you haven't visited in an area, it won't show specifics of the hallway even if it's in range. The fog of war covers places you haven't yet visited. Don't forget. The level itself is going to collapse on your head. After a certain amount of time. The only way to survive is

to keep moving deeper. We have ten loop boxes. That's a lot, but not a crazy amount. Usually people come into the tutorial with two or three. You can hoard them, but when you decide to open them, you can't pick and choose which ones. It's an all or nothing thing. There's no real tactical reason to hold onto them since you can't sell a transfer unopened boxes. And it's important to note that while it's possible to receive unstable or

damaged loot, you'll never receive outright cursed lout. But that doesn't mean everything is safe to try on. Always read the descriptions before you activate or wear something. Always, always, no exceptions. And I am not looking forward to the first time that he just puts something on without fully reading it, because I feel like that is going to happen.

So the Uh Bronze Pet Box has pet biscuits, scroll of Heel Critter, The Bronze One's Bronze Adventure has Potion of Healing Times too common, fingerless gloves, Bronze weapon box, toad cudgel a stick, Bronze weapon box poker. It was literally a fireplace poker, a wrought iron stick with a screw on point at the end. I would swear that in the audiobook he says a wooden stick with a screw on point to the end, because I was sort

of shocked that anything used for fire had would. I don't know if this has like been corrected or if I'm remembering wrong in the audio book. It does not matter, but it just caught my attention because I had intended to comment on it. Poison antidote times two, crawler biscuit times one hundred torch times twenty silver goblin box dynamite times five lighter goblin pass. It flew and smacked up against my left inner forearm. I could feel it burning

against my skin like I was being branded. The pain abated, and my jacket was otherwise undamaged. I don't know what that means, and he doesn't ask. There's a lot of this that it just happens to him and we just sort of brushed past it. I'm hoping that this means that, like goblins are just going to leave him alone, but I feel like that's way too easy. Gold apparel box and chant night gaunt, cloak of Stoutness, enchanted troll skin, shirt of pummeling beside me. Mordecai gasped the moment the

two items appeared. I hope that was a good thing. And then the toe ring and then legendary pet box

pet biscuit times five hundred. So we find out that the pet biscuits do different things to your animals, and sometimes it will make them dangerous and they will be teleported out as long as you are in a safe zone, which is why it's so important to only feed them these when you're in a safe zone, because otherwise they don't get teleported away and you potentially will get hurt by whatever is being done to them because they'll be

transformed into different creatures or whatever. Also, they are so attractive to pets that if you pull out more than one at a time, they will just eat all of them, So you've got to be really careful about using them. And he's like debating because he finds out it's ten pieces of gold per biscuit that maybe, let's see, I'm trying to find that it is it. I feel like it's more gold than that. Uh, if you feed it to her, Oh no, it's worth a couple thousand gold.

Oh that's a lot damn enhanced pet biscuit worth a couple thousand gold. So he's standing there deciding if he's going to feed it to donut or not, and she just attacks him and fucking tastes it, and as soon as she does, she turns into a mass of flesh and splatters, and he's like, well, what the hell happened to her? And Mordecai looks at her and is like, oh, she's transforming. She didn't tell a port a way, so whatever's happening to her is and considered something bad. But

we're gonna have to wait. It's probably like five or ten minutes, and that's how chapter five ends. And I was so like, come on, I want to know what the cat's turning into. I can't decide what's like for the best, because ideally, in my opinion, the cat turning into something that can be mounted is best. You can, like, you know, ride a little horsey down these hallways. That does mean that the cat takes on most of the

risk in stepping on things or whatever. But the cat's gonna be running around anyway unless you plan to carry her in a little papoosca or what do you call it? On you so she I don't think would allow that, so she'd be at the same risk anyway. I suppose also, of course, becoming something like a fire breathing dragon potentially very helpful. Maybe if she turned into something that you couldn't ride but that could carry stuff, maybe you get

more storage. Uh yeah, I don't know, Like there's a lot of a lot of possibilities, and I feel like maybe I'm not even thinking big enough, Like could she turn into a straight up car? Could she turned into a bulldozer? You know, I know that's not animal ish, but maybe it's not restricted to that. I don't know what the options are that'd be nice. I feel like, just ride a bulldozer right through everybody. Oh god, I'm sorry, Michael is leaving so many comments that I've missed. You

might be good at this game. Thinking of inventive ways to use system mechanics is the court to anyone trying to break the game and become op. Regular pet biscuits are just food treats. He got the enhanced with just a special one, right, because well he got both. He got regular pet biscuits in the first box, the bronze box, and then he got the enhanced ones in the legendary box. The most people would think catgirl something that can be mounted due to the genre. Oh my god, I should

have known not to phrase it like that. That's my own fault, So your supposition is especially funny. I feel like, you know, if I were a cat and I was in this position, what I would want to be done to me? And it's tough because I think most cats would be like, I am already the ideal perfect killing machine. There needs to be no alteration to my being. I am one with death, and I feel like they would just reject it. But you know, I think, what if

she got wings? That would be something that would not necessarily be super useful to him, but would be really helpful for her, potentially avoiding certain types of traps. Of course, then she might be more vulnerable to other types of traps. If she were able to fly in, he could ride on her back. Perfect. If she's like spat acid, maybe the thing is finding out that sort of thing. How do you find it out without getting hurt in the process,

because there's no take back seats. It's not like you respawn. If you get killed, you just die. That's it. So yeah, so okay, I'm going to wrap this up, but yeah,

this is These are very promising first five chapters. I had a really good time reading these, so I hope that you guys enjoy the coverage and let me know what you think and if you're I saw some people talking in the books channel on the Discord about reading this, but a lot of it was thankfully covered with spoiler tags, and then we wound up making a spoiler channel in the discord, So anybody who's listening to this, if you want to talk spoilers very much and make fun of

something that I said that I'm super wrong about, or be gleeful that I got something right and didn't realize it, that is the place to go. I always put the discord link in these the show notes so you can head there. There's a no spoiler channel for those who are following along with me who want to talk to me, but the spoiler channel obviously I am not allowed in.

So that is just for y'all to commiserate with one another about how much smarter you are than me, which you know, it's really cruel and you guys are sick, but what can I expect? All right, everybody, thank you again. I hope you enjoyed and until next time, did alone. Motherfuckers, that was an unspoiled network podcast.