This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me covering Dungeon Crawler Caral chapters forty five through the epilogue. Discerning listeners may notice that it says chapters forty five through epilogue, but I already covered forty five in the last episode. There was a little bit of an overlap in the commissioned chapters.
It happens.
It's fine. Welcome to spoil Me. Welcome to the show everyone. I am Natasha. Thank you very much to Michael for commissioning these episodes. Michael is here in the chat along with Zoo and Rob, so welcome to both of you. Michael says Natasha paid the daddy tax a little early. I don't know what that means, is it? Oh? Is it? Or do you just mean I read that part a little early?
Okay?
I was just like, what, Yeah, the spreadsheet had forty five included. In the previous episode, it said whatever chapter through forty five, And it wasn't until today that I looked and I saw that the next episode it was listed starting with forty five through whatever. So I don't know if that was Michael's mistake, if that was Kandas's mistake because Candas does the spreadsheet. So but either way, I was like, I went and started at chapter forty
five because I didn't even think about it. And then I was like, wait a minute, hold on, hold on, but it's five. Fine, it's five. It's fine because you know, I'm at the end of the book, and there's always a lot to talk about in a recap when you have the entire book behind you. So it's probably for the best that this reading section be a little bit shorter because I'll have so much more to talk about. So let's this moment where Donut says, time to pay the daddy tax if it makes you feel better. She
was talking about you, you're the daddy. I asked everybody what the hell does that mean? And there was somebody on the discord who said that the daddy tax is essentially her saying, I've got to go keep him happy by fucking. So here I go to do my chore of having sex with the guy that I'm living with, which is so incredibly sad, Like there's just the vibe of that there are so many things that are insulting and distressing about it, and I can't tell you, guys,
how offended on his behalf I was. Once I realized that they were right, I'm gonna go and just double check who it was that posted that while I'm talking about this, But I just like the idea that she viewed fucking him as a chore, and that we know she was cheating on him with a few different people.
And considering the fact that, like Carl has had a really bullying father, I feel like there's maybe meant to be an indication here that being raised by people who did not seem to really care about him or put him first resulted in him being in a relationship with somebody who didn't really care about him or put him first. Time travel Dev on Discord is the one who explained it.
Thank you, Time travel Dev appreciates you. So I am like kind of wondering if Carl is going to be able to move past this, sort of.
Like it's the question that we all live with every day of our lives.
Though, right am I ever going to be able to break the cycle of what I have come to see as except behavior due to the way I was raised?
It's always the question.
And there are things that are toxic and abusive that feel comfortable and familiar to us because it's what we experienced when we were little, and the fact that they are toxic and abusive does not register because it feels normal.
It just is normal to us. And it's not until we're around people who had a more balanced and stable upbringing and they give us a look of horror as we related them something that somebody said during an argument that we suddenly have a moment of realizing, Oh, maybe the thing that I've taken for granted is being the normal human experience, isn't. And I just like, I've been on both ends of that, you know, talking to somebody
and sharing a story and them looking horrified. And I have had a few people that they have told like, for example, something that I did not grow up with was people throwing around insults during fights. So when a friend of mine tells me that her and her boyfriend Goanna fight and she says that he yelled at her that she's a fat, ugly slud, I in my brain am just like, well, that's it, right, that's the dumping thing. You just can't come back from saying that. But to her,
that's just the thing you do when you fight. He didn't mean it, Uh, uh No, Like for me, that's it, that's the fucking But we all draw our lines in different places and demand different things, and what we are raised to accept is part of what dictates where we draw the line.
So I always find.
It really kind of interesting to see where people's boundaries are because it is very telling, and we have to learn whether the boundaries we had as children still work for us as adults, and if they don't, we have to reinforce new ones, and that's always really really hard, especially if you attract people who treat you the same way that people used to. Now you have to establish a new boundary that they will bulk at, or you have to surround yourself with new people, which is also
very hard. Zeus says, I keep asking myself how complacent was Karl that he allowed this disaster of a relationship to carry on. And it's a really interesting question because like, how convincing was b that she was happy, you know, because she was the one cheating. And obviously if you're cheating them as much as Bee is cheating, you are not happy in your relationship. This is more than just
like I slipped up. This is somebody who is actively going out and living like a double life, triple life, And.
Why did Be not just leave?
It sounds like she had family that she could have stayed with, Like Be sounds like a spoiled brat, really, and honestly, I relate. I cheated on my first husband, not physically but virtually, and that was how I met Owen, And I should have left. I should have like we had talked about divorcing and we were in the stages of getting our belonging separated and stuff, but we were not actually divorced, and we hadn't fully separated. And I did not lead him to believe that I was seeing
anybody else. So in my mind and his, that's cheating. And I look back and realize I was a complete brad.
I was so.
Entitled and shitty. And this is not to say that he was an angel who was perfect, because he was a disaster, you know. But I could have just ended it, and I fucking didn't do that. And you know, this is the thing that happens when you are in a relationship for a long time. There's this inertia that becomes really difficult to fight against. Change is hard, and especially the older that you get and the more set in your ways, you get the more exhausting it is to
like start over again. It can be exciting, for sure, but it's really really tiring. It can be scary, and especially considering the like economic climate that we live in, people aren't making the kind of money where they can just go and get their own place. Most of us move in with people a little earlier than we maybe should for the sake of sharing rent, you know, Like that's a big part of why people move in together,
is the economic aspect of it. And I don't know, maybe both of them didn't feel like they could make it on their own, or things just were comfortable enough, But it's the sort of thing where I hold be
more responsible obviously as the cheater. But I also can't help but think that there must have been signs that Carl was missing either on like but either unconsciously or wilfully missing, because that's the thing that I feel was happening with my ex was that he knew and to a degree like kind of buried his head in the sand.
And I think part of that came from him being a little bit like, I don't want to carry the burden of the really like there's there's a type of relationship where this can happen, where one person wants the other to be much more active and engaged and give them more attention and you know, treat them as if they are a priority, and the other really hasn't got
any interest in doing that. And so when they begin to sense that the other is cheating, there's a weird sense of relief that like, now the burden is off me and I don't have to perform anymore because they're getting.
That somewhere and I don't have to worry about it, you know what I'm saying.
And people, I think would deny that, but I have seen it firsthand, both in my marriage and my parents' marriage, because again, we replicate the things.
That we know and have seen before. It's not great.
So this part of me is wondering if Carl was like a little bit lazy in his relationship and there were signs if he had been paying attention, and either he wasn't paying attention or he kind of had a feeling but also didn't want to be fucking bothered, because that's a real thing.
You know.
There's so many couples out there where they like barely have sex anymore. Because they just masturbate and get to their orgasm and that that's all they really care about, and the actual connection between the two of them isn't like a thing, and sex is seen as just getting you to an orgasm and not as like a bonding experience between two people.
And so like, you know, when it.
Gets to this place where she's saying the daddy tacks and she sees him as a chore, I mean, it's really that's like the whole thing right there, you know. Rob says, when I first read, I definitely pondered whether it was complacency, cluelessness, or an abandonment complex that allowed him to gloss over without really thinking about it much. Michael says, some people still and even a not very happy relationship, just because it feels easier than having to
start over somewhere else one hundred percent. This is also something called the sunk cost fallacy, where people feel like I've spent so much time in this relationship that if I start over now, it's like more of a failure. And it's called the sunk cost fallacy.
Because it's garbage. It's false.
There is nothing about the amount of time that you have previously spent with somebody that should dictate in any way what you do next based on your happiness and their behavior. Those things are not relevant to one another at all. It doesn't matter. I don't care if you're married and you have kids. Honestly, like if anything, being somebody who has children, I feel like even less so
is irrelevant. You should be more willing to leave at the drop of a hat because you have kids, because that is something that is going to weigh on them for the rest of their lives. My parents didn't break up until I was eighteen and had moved out, and I am still angry that it took them so long because I knew from like age nine that they didn't want to be together. It was so obvious, and they used me as the excuse to stay together. But I
don't believe it. I believe that they both just didn't want to change.
I didn't.
I don't think that it was for my welfare. I think my welfare was the rationalization that they used for their own desire to keep things the same, and the idea of like staying in something that is unhappy. Like I said, I've done it. I get it, but I didn't do it.
For very long, Like it.
Was I could only sustain it for so long before I really started to be like, what the fuck am I doing? Because I am a person who's more willing to change things dramatically in my life than average I think. Rob says, I've also seen in friends a whole well, I deserve this thing in their bad relationships. That one is a really tough one because, like I have struggled a little bit with that, but mostly have had a supportive family and have felt like I don't deserve this.
Like there are.
Times where I will be like, well, maybe it makes sense, you know, but mostly I don't struggle with that, and it's very hard to put myself in that headspace and like understand where somebody is coming from where they feel like that's acceptable. So, you know, there are some things that a friend comes to me for advice and I will feel like I can really put myself in their shoes and say something that they will understand in a
really like visceral way. And then there are things like that where I don't know what to say because that's about your self worth a human being, and that's a big fucking question. If you don't feel like you are worthy of better. Then there is something so fundamental that needs to be shifted in your thinking that that's that's not something I can say anything about.
You need to just go to therapy on that.
Michael says, I just finished watching Adolescents on Netflix.
Excellent.
The dad on that show reminded me of Carl A bit. Can't explain why without minor spoilers. Unfortunately, to quote the Perks of being a wallflower, people accept the love they think they deserve, which wasn't a happy quote.
Somebody commissioned me to watch.
The Perks of being a Wallflower. I feel like that's somewhere in the Spoiling Feed, but yeah, I mean, that's exactly it. So this is part of why people need to raise their kids with more self worth, because then they will hold the other people around them to a higher expectation on how they're treated. Any See, I told you guys that it was good that this was like a shorter section. So let's start with chapter forty six.
Where the dungeon.
Groans in response to Carl stepping on the guinea pig, which is the entire dungeon rumbled as if it was experiencing a small earthquake. My hud flickered. I felt dirty and sick. So this this is the AI orgasming, right, that's what's happening, like fully, Oh my god, it is horrifying. I hate it so much. Oh, Michael said, sorry for the spoiler. No no, no, Michael, I commit I watched it already. It's on the feed like in the distant past.
Don't worry about it. That was not a spoiler.
But yeah, this is just like I honestly, the experience of being made like being objectified by the AI, it's just funny. I can't help but just be like, yeah, I'm sure, it's very uncomfortable and horrible. Sucks suck, you know, I just can't. I can't be bothered by it. Dozens of red dots filled the hallways. These were newly generated brindle grubs. I watched as the white dots of the Dingoes continued to run toward the main artery hall, snatching
up and killing the grubs. They passed the Dingoes as a pack hit the main passage, and their dots disappeared.
I wondered what happened.
I wondered what would happen if they ran across another group of crawlers. Probably nothing good, at least not for the crawlers. That didn't occur to me. They're like, I get why he doesn't spend much more time examining that, because like, why would you There's no good to come up that. But I was a little bit startled when
he brought it up. I was like, oh my god, the idea of you saving yourself means this just reminds me a lot of something that was like I think screenshotted from Tumblr, and it was basically a person pointing out that when you tell girls at parties to watch their drinks and to make sure that like they are safe, rather than addressing the behavior of rapists, what you are really saying is make sure they rape the other girl instead.
And people don't think of it that way understandably, but like that's.
Not entirely inaccurate.
And this moment of like I made them our friends, would they ate the biscuits and now they're like on our side. It felt like a straight up victory until they took off and then he mentioned that, and all of a sudden I was like, oh no, Like I just never even stopped to consider that this would not mean the things are just friendly towards humans in general,
that it's just them. And there is something really saddening about the idea of like, like if they were to all be in a hallway, that the human beings would be ripped apart around them and not them. Like I'm wondering if Carl and Uh and Doughnut were to like be there when the human beings were attacked, when the other crawlers were attacked, if they began to defend those crawlers the biscuits, I have to assume like the effect of those would be negated and the Dingoes would go
back to seeing them as enemies. Right, I'm assuming that it's not so far as like we're going to be able to defend these people and that will lead the Dingoes to seeing that these are also friends.
Because I don't feel like it.
I wonder if you could give all of the other humans some biscuits and have them each feed the dingoes biscuit and then you could just like all be safe.
But again that's just me.
That's just ensuring that it's you and your group.
It's a you know, so it sucks. It sucks.
Michael says, it's one of those things where we're too small to address the larger issues, so we can only work to protect ourselves and those near us, right and well, and that's that's the argument, right, Like, we can address the larger issue, but we behave as if rapists are simply an inevitability in a way that is like really deeply fucked up, actually our expectation of that, And we could address the behavior as a larger issue systematically, but
it's just like we are very self defeating about it, and so instead we'll try to control women and their behavior instead of trying to address the way that men see women and try to control the men's behavior. It's just very funny to me, how anything that involves women at all, we are the only ones whose behavior is
seen as alterable. We are the only ones who are seen as actually doing something incorrectly, versus men who when they are rapists, it's much more like, well, that's like an instinctual.
Urge and not them being a.
Like a person who has been programmed by society to see women as objects and not living beings. You know.
But anyway, anyway.
They go over to the cobalt. Then there's a key. Master pen key opens the individual cages of both the fighters and the bait animals within the coalbalt fighting pits. This key is magically attuned to the coalbalt race. If you are not a Cobalt and attempt to use this key,
it will only work once before breaking choose wisely. So yeah, I definitely had a moment here of thinking it was going to say, if you're not a Cobalt, you can't use this key at all, and that it was going to be like, now pick your race, you know, like that it was key was going to be sort of trapped into a decision. And it turns out the reward room that they are in is for pets. Menagerie, you have discovered a.
Pet reward room.
From caterpillars who secrete vodka to basilisks who can turn mobs to stone, a good pet can make the difference between survival and the end of the road. Just remember what happened with Harambe. There ain't no zookeepers around to shoot the monsters ass If you bite off more than you can chew reward, you have a key. It opens only one cage. Figure it out, Einstein. So I love the fact that he also the AI says to both of them that it's like you tell them that I
said it was your prize. But Karl knows that they're just being fucked with, so he's like, yeah, I'll let Donut pick because whoever has the most charisma and the most strength is going to be the one that deals better with the pet, so it makes sense for her to pick the one that she vibes with the most. There's something called juvenile ribbon wing that looks like a parrot. The next was a green slime, then a rat, then a meatball with two legs and a mohawk called a
tummy acre. Of the first four, only the slime.
And the rat had white dots.
A row of equally pitiful animals followed looking up at us, including a white tagged brindle grub. Donut only had eyes on that last cage. It was a chicken dinosaur thing with pink, downy feathers. The monster coued up at the cat, making a chirping noise. The thing looked pitiful. I immediately saw why Doughnut liked it. It landed firmly in the it's so damn ugly it's cute category. It was probably seven inches tall. It stood on two legs and cocked
its head at me. The damn thing looked like a raw piece of chicken with a few random pink hued feathers attached to it. It had two tiny forearms instead of wings, and a long, ser serpentine tail. It was called mongoliensis. It was also red tagged.
Is it a boy or girl?
How can I tell? If it's a boy, I'm gonna call him mongo. If it's a girl, I'm naming her sissy. It looks like dinner, I said, I think we should get the brindle grub, give it a pet biscuit. See if it's dot changes to white. I sighed and pulled a pet biscuit out. I tried to toss it into the cage, but a blue force field appeared, blocking the treat. The chicken cried in outrage and slammed its head against the bars. You guys, I swear to God the what we find out later is that this is a velociraptor.
First of all, I will acknowledge to everybody out there who is yelling about this. I know velociraptors aren't real. The inclusion of them in some particular text was like a mistaken amalgamation of different bones from various animals apparently that were misinterpreted to be from one skeleton. And so this creature named a velociraptor was put into like one book and it was eventually found to be false and corrected, but not before the velociraptor entered into popular fiction via Jurassic Park.
And it became the thing.
I know, I know, I don't care at all. It's fine whatever, We're in an alien world here, a velociraptor is real here, Okay, we were mistaken and it's real. And I also want to register my profound support and delight for the fact that it has pink feathers. We are going to get a killing machine that looks like a flamingo, hopefully, and I, for one, am fully and one hundred percent behind it. You guys know how I feel about the color pink. I do not care if it is seen in a certain light. A lot of
people feel a way about pink. Feel whatever you want. Pink is the best color. And I'm sorry, That's just all there is to it. And a pink velociraptor donut, and I I just I am so sorry. But we are too much alike, and it's alarming that part where he's like, I can't believe you put that crown on, and she just says it's purple. I mean, yeah, yes, yeah,
all of it everything. I can't help it. The only thing is that she does things like impulsively in other ways that I would be very, very obsessive about checking first.
But you know I am.
I am very into this, and I love the fact that he is so cranky and basically the next chapters are just him biting her on the fucking face repeatedly despite her like her adoration.
There's really no other word for it.
Donut is devoted to this animal in a way that is like.
Also highly relatable for me.
I wish that you guys could see the way that I I am with my dog. Most of the time, I am sickening. Nobody likes it. Everybody rolls their eyes and deals with it. Like my husband is the most understanding because he loves Pippin also, but I know that, like when Sydney comes over, they are very much like Jesus Christ, because Pippin can do literally anything, and I am just like, oh my god, did you see that he took a giant dump.
He's so cute, like, I can't. I just there's just nothing to be done.
It's too late. My brain is absolute mush in his hands, in his little paws.
So the whole.
Attitude that Donut has about Mango from here on, I stan, I really just stand.
That's it.
M So they get like a timer that says they have thirty seconds, and he's like, all right, fine, because he's trying to talk her out of it at first, but he grabs it. Of course, it's like still angry. It continued to fight me, but it slowed down, eyeing the food and eats some of the food, but the dot stays red. It's not having any effect. I thought maybe, but it did seem like that would be a little bit too easy. The baby dinosaur, still in my grip, started screaming back at the cat while I tried to
keep myself from falling over with laughter. Doughnut hissed and swatted it lightly on the head. The small monster squealed indignantly and snapped again at her face. Male mongoliensis level one. This is a pet class mob. This pet has not yet bonded with a crawler. The stubborn and hot headed. Mongoliensis is not the type of pet to ever be tamed. The best one can hope for is mutual respect, and even then they still might try to eat you if
the fancy strikes them. While especially powerful, fast, and vicious when they are fully grown at level fifteen, getting them to level fifteen is about as likely as a cheerleader from West Virginia reaching her eighteenth birthdays of virgin They will immediately attack any mobs they see. They will fight to the death. Good luck, God, damn it, donut, I said, I knew we should have gone with the grub. I'm not going to have a disgusting bug as a pet, Carl. You can't even put a bow tie on a grub.
She's right, and she should be louder. Don't worry, Karl, Mango and I are practically best friends already, aren't we. Mango Mango shrieked at the cat. Chapter forty seven begins. One hundred and twenty four trillion views, two trillion followers,
two hundred and thirty four billion favorites. I wish I had a better understanding of how many trillions of people are watching, so that I knew what percentage of this there is because it feels high, but it may not be that high, although later on it turns out like for a second floor, they're kind of unprecedented in their popularity, so I guess it is high.
So the continuing.
Fallout from the Maestro sex tape, along with Donut getting her nose chopped over and over, seemed to be a winning combination in terms of views.
Zev was beside.
Herself with our numbers, which apparently were exceptionally good for the second floor. We received daily updates from the pr agent. The pet was playing well, Zev implored me to stop training with the slingshot. Nobody liked me using the boring slingshot, she claimed, not when I could toss a stick of dynamite instead. I ignored her advice and continued practicing with it.
I managed to get the skill up to five, and while the tiny stones did very little damage, they had the ability to knock the brindled Vespas out of the air. A single hit to one of the hornet's wings caused it to crash to the ground and make it unable to spit its acid. A follow up magic missile from Donut, whose skill in the spell had risen to eight usually killed them off. We didn't need to wander far when we had an almost endless supply of the Levely hornets
to hunt. I personally am very supportive of using a weapon like that requires so little in the way of supply. All you need is a small enough object to hurl with a slingshot. Granted, it's better if the thing is like weighted evenly ideally, sure, but you just aren't going to have a lifetime supply of sticks of dynamite. I get why people like that, but it's also a resource that you should be conserving for when it's necessary, and
something like this is smart long term. There's times where you do need to consider your crowd, and there are times where the crowd should be fucking ignored. And this and the final Star Wars movie is the other one, and those fans should have been ignored.
Miss t don't get mad at me.
I'm not bringing it up. I'm not gonna get into it. I won't talk any more about Rise of Skywalker, I swear, except that it was just like the most cowardly movie I ever to exist. But that's it.
That's it. I'm done.
I swear, okay, Mordecai can't tell them anything about it. He's just like, the first thing you just need to get out is the hostility, and once you do that, you can come back to me and I'll give you some more information. Donut coincidentally received a spell book of Heel Critter. I received yet another potion of determined value and a thousand gold coins. I wondered about that there seemed to be a reason why the system kept giving
these things to me. I drank it down, and I had a new sort and I had a few new sort options for my inventory, including a new history tab. I would explore all that later. It didn't tell me the monetary value of my individual items. And this is something again bringing up Stardy Valley that I didn't realize. Like Stardi Valley, if you get advanced enough, you can get stuff that makes it so that you can see
what things are worth from within your inventory. Otherwise, at the beginning of the game you have to go and try and sell it, and at the seller booth or stall or counter, then you can see what stuff is worth. My assumption about this is just that he has so much in his inventory that the game seems to think he is really going to be able to like do something with building money with this like that and the one thousand gold coins. I'm wondering if this is going to.
Be his thing.
Is like I'm appealing to foot fetishists and I am rich. That would be pretty good, could be worse. Right, I'm sorry, guys. Everybody in the chat is talking about the Rise of Skywalker, and I'm so sorry, Michael. I knew from that moment the movie would suck somehow.
The Emperor returned.
And Missus saying, Rob Rob, I can't tell if it sucks or I'm still having an ongoing hallucination about it. I love Star Wars as a kid and a young adult, and that honestly is what killed it for me. Michael says, I liked Rayan Vince so much from the first movie. So disappointed with their character arcs, especially Finn's. I'm not doing it, guys, but just know it's costing me. Just be aware that I am hurting inside. I'm hurting inside
and I'm not doing it. Okay, New Achievement didn't talk about the Rise of Skywalker.
Reward.
You don't have to hear me talk about Rise of skywalker, so he gets peta enthusiast. The ghost of Steve Irwin smiles down upon you. All Right, here we go, Mordecai says, here's the deal, and they're asking about race. You're gonna go down the stairs and you'll immediately find yourselves back in this room. You will first choose your race, then your class, and then you will distribute your stat points.
From there.
I will give you the information on class guilds, if applicable. Not all classes have guilds. How many choices will there be for race? A lot? It is unique every season, and that both of you will have a different pool of choices. I found that interesting that they each don't get access to all the same options as the other. The class choices will depend on your racial choice. You know how In every New Olympics they introduce a few new sports, usually ones associated with the host country. That's
how it is with classes. The base classes will always be available fighter, mage, Rogue, Bard, Cleric, etc. But there will also be additional more specialized classes available, including New Earth specific classes. What does that mean though, Earth specific classes?
I don't know yet.
I won't see the list till you do, but you will have an incentive to pick one of these classes. They like it when crawlers pick the new classes because it's good for ratings. The system AI, the system AYI and not warrant will give you some recommendations. These recommendations are generally good. However, they do not take into account
how these choices might affect your standing socially. So it might say it's best to turn into a rock monster, and I'd be badass, but also might tank my views exactly. I will also be allowed to offer limited advice. After class selection, your stat points will automatically distribute up to the race and class minimums, and you will be free
to distribute the rest as you please. However, you Donut can't distribute stats because of your enhanced growth buff You'll want to find something that comes with a boost to constitution if you can. Got it, Got it, I said, Donut, grunted assent. I don't like the fact that the only one that said got it was Karl and that Donut just grunt because I think Donut is not going to pick a class that has a boost to constitution.
I think Donut it's going to.
See the high constitution is like a worm creature and she's going to be like, oh no, and frankly I would also be that way, so I can't even really be mad about it.
But I am a little.
What was your class? I know you chose changeling. I chose Arcanists, which allowed me to explore several different magic schools. Certain classes can further specialize when they hit the sixth floor. It was then I chose the fire path. I was a changeling, fire mage arcanist. It worked out well for me. I ended up a few levels behind people who went straight to fire magic, but I could still wield other magics without a big penalty.
So you didn't pick one of.
The special classes for your planet. I almost chose a skyfoul class, something called a storm Commander, but Odette talked me out of it. My brother ended up picking it instead on her recommendation. I paused my eyes, immediately moving to the framed photo on the shelf. He'd mentioned his brother a few times, but I hadn't realized he'd been a crawler. I'd assumed he'd been lost during the planet's
initial collapse. Finally, there's the matter of the third floor itself, Mordecai said, making it perfectly clear he had no desire to go down that conversational path. I am so curious about this, like his deal with Odette, what happened. I can't tell if he is feeling like Odette gave them bad recommendation. She says later when they talked to her, I pushed him too hard, and that can mean a lot of things. You know, I don't know if he is the elder or the younger of you know him
and his breath. There's just so many unanswered questions there. It feels pretty clear, though, like because it says I noticed for the first time he cleaned up his chambers. His bed was made, the shelves with the picture of his brother, and the urn of his mother had been
straightened and dusted. So I think going into the third floor that like initially he was feeling rather hopeless about everything, and now that they are so high in popularity and they're making it to the third floor, that he is starting to get genuinely excited that he might be able to get out of this place. And so that's part of it, is like I'm going to put on a good face because I know more people are watching. I'm going to try a little bit harder, like with the
overall taking care of my space and myself. And also I am starting to have hope for the first time in a minute, which I really really hate because I am kind of concerned this means it will not work out for him. Like I have a very bad feeling about where things go with Mordecai, and at this point I have grown to like him so much that seeing him get ripped off and exploited more than he has been is gonna be hard. I just fully expect this is gonna it's not gonna work out for him.
And I don't know how, you know, Like.
I know I said I wouldn't talk about Star Wars, but this is the television show.
And Or.
Spoilers for and Or. If you haven't seen and Or, please skip the next thirty seconds because you sh should go watch it, and I don't want to spoil you. So if you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor jump ahead thirty seconds. If you have, then you're fine, But I beg you if you haven't, don't let me spoil you. Don't do that to yourself. You're only hurting yourself.
But you guys know in and Or there is this point where people think they are getting let out of jail, and then somebody spots a person they know on another level and it turns out they're being transferred to different sections and the other inmates are being lied to that there's a way out, you can be released, and it turns out no, you can't. They just like instill this false hope. But really they're just shuffling people around.
And that's kind of what I'm.
Worried is happening here, is that he is being told, you know, as long as they get through the fourth floor, you'll get out, and that that doesn't happen. He's just going to be somewhere else. I don't know, you know, I hate this. I hate this feeling because I just there's just this dread in me, you know, so oh
my god. Michael says, if Donut sees a class with a tiara and she's gonna pick it without a second thought, and Zeke says, or if it comes with the title like queen or empress one hundred percent, and that's miss t says, I wonder if the AI we use a legal word to make Donut more likely to pick it. That was also my feeling, like we have seen how much this stuff matters to her. As readers, we have gotten to know this about her. There's no way the
AI doesn't also know it. And if the AI wants to tempt you in a certain direction, I mean, it's gonna know just what to appeal to in your personality.
I really like, I'll.
Be honest, guys, it's basically marketing, you know, Like the AI is gonna do marketing to get you to pick what it wants you to pick, for whatever reason it wants you to pick it. And I am so susceptible to marketing. I really am. And I know this about myself, and I feel like I would fall for it.
I really would. Let's see.
I prefer to explain it when you get there, because there's a lot to take in talking about the third floor. It's not something you need to worry about just yet. And at this point, Mongo has tried to attack Carl, so he gets teleported away and they have to go and find him because obviously he is a hostile to them, and his attempt to attack them is not seen well by the safe room, so she runs out looking for him. God damn it, donut, I cried, running after the cat, don't go out there alone.
I do kind of enjoy.
That he's saying god damn it donat again without really being concerned regarding it being his catchphrase anymore. It seems like he's just sort of over it and has decided to embrace it. And I love the idea of people out there playing drinking games where they're just like, take a shot every time he says goddamn it, Donut. We eventually found the thing huddled in the main hall, crying like a baby, squawking at the top of his little chicken lungs. There you are, You're going to get lost.
Don't wonder like that, Donut cried, out of breath.
The dinosaur looked up.
The little shit looked like he'd been crying. His beady reptilian eyes grew giant when he saw us. He ran right to Donut, little arms out like a long lost puppy reuniting with his owner. It's okay, I'm here, mommy's here, Donut said. He rushed up and chomped her directly on the nose.
Oh bless.
We quickly learned that only one thing stopped the thing from trying to murder me In donut seeing another mob. If any sort of enemy came anywhere near us, the crazy chicken went absolutely ape shit. He screamed and snapped and tried to kill himself in an attempt to get to the creature. He was like a goddamn psychotic wolverine hopped up on bath salts. Other than his ability to inflict punishing nose chomps, the dinosaur chicken remained mostly harmless.
I was afraid to let him near any mobs, even simple brindle grubs, in fear he'd get himself stomped. But in the end, that's exactly what we needed to do. It was the recap episode that gave me the clue. We were only on the program for a few short moments, but I learned something important. The four eyed, orange hued host of the show mentioned that Mango was a pack hunter. That gave me an idea. You need to show him how to kill it. I'm gonna let him free and
you two kill it together. I gotta use my claws, don't I asked, yep, I said, She sighed, all right. Who knew being a mother would be this difficult? So Mango shoots out towards the level two brindle grub. Little dinosaur leaped into the air, slashing with his clawed feet and chomping down the health bar on the grub appeared, but it barely went down. Look, these guys are juicy on the inside, Doughnuts said, don't. There was no need for that, absolutely none. Do not say that ever again,
ma'am Jesus Christ. She rolled the grub over and cut with her claw along its stomach like she was unzipping it. The grub shuddered and died, spilling white goo everywhere. Mongo shrieked with joy and began to vigorously devour the remains, filling himself up so much his stomach bulged. Afterwards, the little dinosaur puked on the floor and then ate that too.
Good boy, good boy.
Mango Doughnut cried, honestly, yeah, And then he stands on it and he peas well. I feel like that really says it all. Can you imagine, guys, if it was like a thing for us as human beings to piss on a meal after we ate it, Like we just have our empty plate on the table and we just like climb up on the table and chili's and just piss on our plate, just to be like, yeah, I did that wild.
So Mongo, he.
Has taken direction and he manages to kill the second grub, just slicing it open with one foot, and then is immediately like, oh, I did it, I did it. Yay. By the time he'd finished all three grubs, Mango's dot turned from red to white. He still wasn't bonded, but he no longer attacked us. Actually that wasn't true. He's still attacked, but not as much. We didn't need the cage anymore. He followed us on foot, sometimes running ahead,
sometimes hopping sideways and lagging behind. If we approached an unknown mob, I had to stick him in back. I had to stick him back in the cage. However, he did not like that one bit. Despite killing a dozen grubs, he remained at level one. So they bring him back to Mordecai and he's like, you're on the right track, but the bad news is you need to hurry because if he isn't bonded by the time the floor collapses, he can't come with you. And then Carl ask can
we have more than one pet? And Mordecai's like long answer is like short answer no, but long answer is there are lots and lots of potential exceptions, and yes, you really can. It just always depends on the circumstances. We find out about a woman who brought fifteen goats with her and she's still alive and so are the goats, and I really want to hear more about that. I don't know why she isn't on the feeds more because
that sounds very entertaining. Guys, I worked at a goat farm for one summer, about three months, and that shit was one of the best times of my life. Goats are bonkers creatures. I don't even know, like I've just they're weird and I really love them, and I want to know a lot more about this woman. So Mordecai explains mobs that start out as pet class will always be level one, regardless of what they usually are, and they'll stay level one till they're bonded. Only then will
they start to level. Once they do start gaining experience, they will grow rapidly. He'll get physically more mature each level up. And Carl Asks is fifteen as high a level as he can get, and Mordecai is like, oh, not even close, but he just won't get bigger. How big will they get? I can't tell you, but that little cage isn't gonna work for much longer. You need
to do more than just bond. You need to teach him restraint or he is going to die and he might just take you down with him if he aggravates the wrong mob and any attempt at stealth is out the window until he learns to behave himself. I this is gonna be very interesting training an animal.
It's like, there's no.
Direct Every animal is very, very different and they're motivated by very different things. This is something I learned just having the puppies and all of their different personalities, and some of them responded so well to getting a treat. They wanted food and that was enough to get them to live to you and do anything. And then Pippin it's like, and I've heard that especially with like a husky mix, they are less receptive to training. But yeah, like food can get him, but he also will ignore
it until he's fucking ready, and it's infuriating. So I'm really curious to see how they try and pet or how they try and train this pet, because it's uh it requires the kind of patience and like consistency especially. That is the exact thing I'm bad at as somebody with ADHD, and I'm trying, I really am. And he's gotten a lot better with recall and stuff, you know,
because we'll take him on trails, off leash sometimes. Then I call him back and he's gotten much better at immediately coming back to me because I use very good treats. But it's taken a while, you know, So he gets teleported out again and they have to go and find him. We spent the next several hours trying to train him with dog commands attack, come, and lie down worked really well. Stay was another story. Donut was surprisingly patient, and so
he is extremely food motivated. That is really ideal. If you're trying to like train an animal and they are not food motivated, good fucking luck. Everything else is such a bigger pain in the ass, you know. After a full day, we managed to keep him from just outright charging. He'd snarl and squawk and hop up and down, but he wouldn't plunge head first until Donut said the command, which had somehow evolved from attack to sick em. When the timer was down to ten hours, we had to
start carving our way toward the stairwell. We didn't have a choice. Mongo still hadn't officially bonded with Donut, and I was getting pretty worried it wasn't going to happen. So finally they let him participate in the fights. In the hallway just outside the stair chamber, the same hallway we'd run through a few days earlier. Mongo rushed him to finish off a horn monster. The vespa grabbed at Mongo with his human like hand, capturing him. The mab
had been mostly dead, but not dead enough. It lifted the screaming and struggling chicken into the air and moved to toss him into its enormous toothed mouth.
Put Mango down.
Doughnuts screamed, flying across the hallway and slashing at the bug. I'd never seen her move that fast. She decapitated the monster with a quick slash, and all three of them fell into a heap on the ground. Karl, Carl, something happened, Doughnut said. A minute later, I see that it finally worked. Congratulations. On the mini map, Mongo's dot had turned from white to orangeh Wait, I can officially name him. Now, I have a new menu and everything. Mongo the mongoliansis Level
one pet of Grand Champion Best in Dungeon. Princess Donut has joined the party. Mongo's title has been changed to Royal Steed. We did it, We teamed Mongo. Mongo also jumped up and down next to the cat. He squawked with delight, waving his little arms, and then he bit Donut right on the nose.
I love it so much.
I really do this vibe too, of like immediately jumping in when she wasn't gonna do it again. Really, if I'm trying to do something for myself, I am so reticent.
I don't want to be a fuss. If it's on somebody else's behalf, I will be.
The biggest bitch you ever came across. And it's just really weird how I feel like a completely different person on somebody else's behalf For me, I'll be fine.
I don't need to.
I'm not going to send it back. I know it's practically raw in the middle, but I'll just eat the outside of it somebody else. I'm like, do you see what you fucking gave her? And I can't help that I just that's you know so clearly?
How me and Donut.
So the next section of this chapter Carl's thinking about the following floor and that time we'd caught Mordecai unaware he'd been drunk, holding onto that framed picture. This game, this terrible, cruel game, left scars that spanned centuries. I thought of the cheering crowds watching this all from the safety of their homes. You will not break me. Fuck you all, you will not break me. As we waited for the timer to hit six hours, I thought back
to that odd boss prize I received. I would have thought that defeating the boss in such a manner would have garnered me a better prize. The dungeon AI wasn't my friend, it wasn't on my side. I knew that, but surely I should have gained something good. I now had a tab labeled History. I clicked on it, and it was filled with pretty much the same junk I had now, but with the chopper and a few extra potions and scrolls and bits of things I'd use to
build other items. Curious, I clicked to sort it by value. I practically choked. Listed at the very top of my menu were three items I'd never seen before. I clicked over to make sure I didn't have them. Now I didn't. What the actual hell was this? Some sort of bug trans Tunnel seven c orator relay by Valtae Corp Inter Tunnel communication device Valtae Perso Shield Platinum Edition Tech based Personal shield mag thirty forty Valtae Corp Pulse Pistol Tech
based weapon. The first item had a red exclamation point next to it.
A warning popped up.
The system AI governing this program has deemed all non sanctioned and monitored communication device is illegal and will not work within the dungeon. You may own and sell, but any attempt to use will result in immediate disqualification. And then here comes Agatha, and all of a sudden it comes together. The cart when he put it in his inventory, registered these items, and he does not have them anymore because he gave her the cart back, which means Agatha
is in possession of a bunch of stuff. And she is the one who lit the fire that got everybody out of the building, which means this bitch is in on this somehow, she herself is an alien or she has been abducted. At one point and knows some stuff or God knows, And I think she lit that fire on purpose to get everybody out of the building to try and save their lives. And I think that she went down into the hall to demonstrate that it was safe for them all to go on their wheelchairs and everything.
And I think that maybe.
She is like not really supposed to be here for some reason, and that's why they are editing her out of the footage, because something about her is not in line with the way the game is supposed to be perceived, that she has like gotten here.
By stealth or by accident, I don't know.
So she turns up out of nowhere, and he has the moment of like, that's a weird coincidence that she pops up as soon as I see this stuff, which it is a weird coincidence. And I'm wondering if the AI is like trying to get him to put the pieces together, if it's like you know, or if she is aware that he's seeing these items and that.
Somehow draws her to him. I don't know.
And he says, you should wait ten minutes because she's about to go down the stairs to the third floor. If you go down now you lose six hours plus. I need to talk to you about that shopping cart. I can fix the wheel, I quickly added, because she looks at him and it's very clear like he should not say anything, and he says it's squeaking. They can hear you coming. No need to fix my squeak. Boy. Them critters already know I'm here. They just don't know
what to do about it. You worry about you, and I worry about me, which I think the critters know. Him here is about more than just like the mobs, and they don't know what to do about it, is about boring.
Something's up with her.
I don't know if she's a creature or what, but because you know, there are humans from other planets as we have heard, so she just might not originally be from Earth. And uh, then we get a message from zem or Zev. Sorry false alarm, I see you now. There was a brief outage in the feed.
It happened sometimes.
Oh really, there was an outage when she just rolled up. Is she creating the atage or are they just not wanting anybody to see her? Is that?
Are they covering this for some reason? I don't know.
It's been acting funky all day. Don't worry, It's nothing unusual. People are always complaining about it. I'm on planet and I still have feed issues. Christ I thought, what sort of bullshit was this? A week and a half ago, I've been planning on kidnapping a prize winning cat and then selling everything I owned in order to bribe my ex girlfriend to keep her from suing me. And even that was more drama than I'd ever wanted to deal with. All of this, with a skull empire and everything else,
it was just too much, too fast. How could we focus on surviving when we had all this other stuff to deal with. Come on, Donut, let's see what this third floor is all about. Do you think it'll be as exciting as the second floor? She asked, God, I hope not, I said.
Mongo screeched. Epilogue.
You do realize that thing is going to get you killed, right, Odette asked after the conclusion of her show. Donut was currently chasing Mongo around the studio. The little dinosaur kept running head first into the invisible wall and screaming. Lexis Odek's production assistant had given the small monster a bow tie to wear on the show, and he'd practically bitten off her finger. The tie had lasted about three seconds before he'd ripped it off. The taping had gone well.
We'd started off by discussing the whole thing with the Rage Elemental.
Then Mongo.
Odette had mentioned something about a magical pet carrier, which apparently was the Dungeon's equivalent of a poke ball. They were supposedly expensive, but it would allow us to put bonded pets into inventory without harming them. I didn't care how much they cost. If we could afford it, it was going to be our first purchase. No more shoving Mango in the gerbil cage and then sticking him in the bathroom so we couldn't hear his shrieks while we slept.
I'd known what was coming next. After the segment on Longo, I'd finally gotten to see a shortened version of the infamous pork Boy Snick. The mysterious creator had been very generous with my proportions. I've been half expecting the video to feature my feet. I didn't say it out loud, but I had a strange notion the system AI might have had something to do with the video. But if
it did, the video showed nothing to indicate it. In fact, it had clearly been produced by someone more interested in the Maestro than me, as he was the obvious subject of the video. I'm kind of wondering if this is boring or the party, like, if he was given permission to be an asshole because of this rivalry, why wouldn't they just like hop on that, you know, I mean, that would be a pretty smart move.
Really.
And the show Deathwatch Extreme Dungeon Mayhem has gone on hiatus. King Rust has been quiet. A spokesperson for the royal family has requested people stop referring to the princess as Carl's naughty little piggy, but so far nobody seems to be complying. I would personally like to assure King Rust I would never call Maestro Carl's naughty little piggy or poor boy, and I would like to encourage my audience
to never sink to that level. Again, It's Prince Maestro and not she held her hands out Carl's naughty little pay The audience shouted, followed by peals of laughter. This is.
I love it.
I love it. It's problematic. Oh well, and Carl makes it clear. I did not fuck him. If I were gonna fuck a dude, I wouldn't fuck him. You did challenge him to single combat, Yes, I did, and that offer still stands. I still don't know how any of this stuff worked, because you guys won't tell me anything, but I hope for the chance to face.
Him one on one. Glurp, glurp.
The whole audience was glurping. Odette shook her head in mock disgust. So Odette explains that the tummy acre is the thing that they really should have taken, because they're friendly, they're easy to work with, and they're rare and people like them and they're a very good melee creature. But Mongo's a good choice. He's a vicious fighter. This is when Mordecai comes up, and she just says, short answer is I pushed him too hard and he paid dearly
for it. Anyway, you're about to hit the all important third floor.
Do you really not know what you're gonna do?
I don't even know what choices are gonna be. And she says, whatever you choose, make sure it has a pathfinder or mapping ability, because finding stairwells is going to be crucial. Also make sure Donut goes first. That way you can tailor your class selection on hers. I would ignore the AI's advice on race, but take a careful
look at what it suggest for class. He brings up the Valtae Corporation, and she's sort of weird about it, and it's just like, hey, you know, if they're trying to talk to you, just be really careful about how you handle it. They're a parasitic life form. They do utilize human bodies, but their home world is aquatic and they much prefer water based hosts. So maybe something has taken over Agatha, or maybe she had been taken over
at one time and she remembers I don't know. And this is when we find out that he is a that Mango is a velociraptor. There's one last piece of advice I'd like to give you. It's just a suggestion. I don't know if morally this is a good idea or not, but this will greatly increase your chances of survival. It's something to look for during class selection. It's generally only offered to crawlers with high charisma, so if it's available, it'll be hidden somewhere amongst donuts choices.
The problem is if you.
Pick it, it's going to make someone very angry. And that is the end of the book. I am so curious. I really don't know whether or not this is the sort of thing that, like I should be able to guess from the context of what we have read so far, or if this is the kind of thing that, like I would need all kinds of other information in order
to make any sort of guess. You know, because the way that she says it's going to make somebody very angry, it sounds like there's a different backstory that we don't know about yet. And I don't know if it's like because my first instinct was like, maybe you could choose the type of creature that Maestro is. But I don't feel like it would end so abruptly there without telling us if it were something that's that relevant to what we've already read.
So I don't know, And then we get the end. It's over. Yo. New achievement. You read a book. You managed to make it all the way through.
Dungeon Crawler Carl book without throwing against the wall. Reward you get to read the next book and great news, folks. The next book has clowns and dead hookers in it. Here goes a joke that I'm very like, Okay, enough, edge Lord, can we just not do like hooker jokes.
That's all I'm asking.
They're people, they're people. Just you know, it's fine whatever. I just yeah, this is you guys.
You get it. You get it.
So the next book, Dungeon Crawler Carl Book two, Carl's doomsday scenario is already almost in its entirety commissioned. But there is a space between this book and that book because I was commissioned to cover Spinning Silver before Michael knew if I was going to like Dungeon Crawler Carl. So little break Spinning Silver, and then we're getting into the second Dungeon Crawler book. So just a heads up, everybody,
there's a break. It's about a month break, and I know y'all are going to miss me terribly, but I hope that you will be there for the second book. And thank you Michael for commissioning it, thanking everybody for being here in the chat. Appreciate you all, and until next time to the lou motherfuckers.
That was an unspoiled network podcast