The Butcher's Masquerade, Chapters 25-29

was I thought this would be harder. That's what she said. Welcome to spoil Me. Welcome to the show everyone. I am Natasha. Thank you very much to Jackie for commissioning this episode. So I'm just going to start at the beginning here because I need some direction there. This is like this section, it's a bit muddy in every sense of the word. So let's just start first of all with Samantha and her proposition for signet. You guys, my favorite thing about this is the fact that Carl doesn't

even say anything. He just starts laughing because like it's so patently absurd, and Samantha just seems utterly confident that this is gonna go the way that she wants. The plan is I take your body over, which will of course kill you, but you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that I'm alive and doing my thing on your behalf in your body. Remarkable, Frankly, I mean when I was thinking about, like, oh, she can help me, I don't even know that I gave it enough thought what that meant.

And I'm not sure if any of you out there listening had your own theories already or not, but I like it was. I think she had. Samantha had specifically said something about like she can help me get my body back, or she can help give me a body or something like that, but I honestly I don't remember. I just feel like I remember her saying she can help me, and uh, sorry about that. That's my that's

my dog's caller being very loud. But I just fully expected it to be something where she can like put me in touch with a person who knows the kind of magic that can do a thing, or she can like grant me a favor with her magic that does you know the idea of it just being like I'm gonna fully take your body over and you'll be fine with that, right, of course, this is what it is. And of course Samantha just doesn't see what the big

deal is or why. And it makes me so sad because, like, as Donut says later, Carl is sort of like, I wonder what she's even the goddess of, And Donuts says, she's the goddess of unrequited love? And Carl, how do you know that? And she says, because I asked Carl, Which it's just another great illustration of like, in a

lot of ways, how self absorbed Carl is. It's he's just so constantly zeroed in on what matters to him and his own plan, and he has a real blind spot when it comes to seeing other people as like fully capable, trustworthy, or competent or able to come up

with their own ideas. You know, Like he's just run into this with donat a number of times now where he hasn't included her in the plan and then is like genuinely surprised Pikachu face when she doesn't go well, and it's like you're not even treating her like she's part of this. So the fact that he hasn't even thought to ask Samantha, what she is goddess of or really anything about herself. It's sort of reminding me of

the way things were initially with Katchya as well. Donut engages with other people, and it's part of what works

for her charisma. It's the act of asking questions, being genuinely interested in the answers, and responding with more questions because you are indicating to a person that what they are saying matters to you, you know, And it's just a really like there is something about this that really rings true for me in terms of my evolution as a person, because I used to be very much like Carl, where I just didn't really engage with people and I found it difficult to give a shit sometimes, And you know,

I mean, like, if I'm being real, it's like a weird thing. Especially as a person who has a lot of empathy, you wouldn't think that this would be such a stumbling block. But empathy and really caring about the details of other people's lives are not really the same thing. Like I can want you to not suffer, I can want you to get everything that you need as a person, but also not really want to hear about your vacation

or go to your birthday party or whatever. And I really lived in this place where other people in large par often I just wasn't very interested. And I've kind of turned a corner at some point in my life where I've become much better at being interested in other people and engaging with them. And so my husband, who is still very much in a lot of ways in the headspace that I used to be in, and the way that he kind of just refuses to engage or is very difficult to engage, it stands out a lot

more to me than it used to. And I start to realize just like I was like this, you know, And I don't really know when the change in me began to occur, But no amount of telling me that you should care about what's going on in their lives would have done anything. It was something that I had to eventually just begin to give a shit on my own. I just don't think that anyone pointing it out that it would have helped or made any difference whatsoever in

my attitude. I think it's just something that happens, like as you get older, you just start to hopefully if you're like learning lessons. I think you begin to grow less self absorbed because you are simply experienced and seeing more of life and beginning to understand the variety of experiences that are out there. So anyway, it's you know, you see this all the time in different like scenes with Dona where she's just like, so, what's going on

with your hair? You know, and like, yeah, it can be a joke, it can be treated as just a punchline, but she's actually like still talking with them and asking them, And that's kind of part of what's like, even if it is a joke, you're noticing someone and seeing them, and even if they can sense that you're doing it in a joky way, as long as you're not being like demeaning about it, I don't think a lot of folks are really going to react badly to that, you know.

So anyway, I just think it's nice how well characterized they both are. That we can see very specific moments that I like that I feel are so in character in so many different instances and settings and moments in conversation, and it's just consistent every time. So anyway Holger is talking, they start talking about like this this guy who got zapped by a spell that he cast too close to

the tree. He says, the fools used a lightning attack near the all tree, which I was glad that immediately ava targets brought up, because if I'm not mistaken, it's called the all tree in that too, right, they're not wrong about that, Feel free to correct me, guys. But I really could swear. And evidently, if you cast a spell against a person who has like the forest in their blood, and they are standing within like a few

hundred yards, I think it's like fairly far out. I'm trying to let's see a few hundred meters, so like, yeah, pretty much, if you cast a spell against them, the trees will absorb the attack and then send it back out at you, and it evidently kills the outcropping of trees,

but they come back. It takes a few months. So I appreciated that as like a sort of ceiling to how the because it would be one thing if it's like it affords unending protection and nobody can cast a spell near you at all if you're buy one of these trees, that would be a little bit too overpowered. But the fact that it can only they defend you the once and then it's got a very long kind

of cool down period. I like a lot. And Carl notes that, like, this has to be a new addition, because the hunters wouldn't be so stupid as to do this right near this tree if they had run into these trees before. So this has got to just be something that they have come up with this season in particular. And I am like anytime that there is something that feels different than previous years, I am my antenna are

starting to go up a little bit. And like, I recognize that every time this happens, it's not necessarily going to be significant at all. There are just we're going to change things up to keep it interesting. We're going to change things up because like you need to keep your viewers engaged and keep them guessing, you know. So

I'm not trying to attribute too much meaning. I am just noting it and sort of filing it away mentally so that if something else turns up a little later that makes me go, hmm, I'll remember, yeah, and then there was this too, Because there is a part of me that is sort of suspecting is too strong a word, but is sort of wondering, is there anything about the changes that feel like they're leaning toward attempting to help crawlers in a specific way or fuck with them in

a specific way. There's just a lot that I feel and be clues to things later, and I am trying to keep track of it all. So there's the mention also like donut asks if it also protects the high elbs even though they're the bad guys, and Clint is like bad or good doesn't matter. The trees aren't smart. They just sense that if you have forest blood or not, and they respond the way they respond. So it has

nothing to do with taking sides. It's just about you being kind of part of them, which makes total sense to me. So there were three of these guys that came in, and two of them got zapped by that repeat spell, and the other is still alive and being saved by Signet for the sacrifice for her own spell to work. So the first corpse they come across is

Hunter the talent. I am asking a lot of questions as I'm reading this about how their names work, because there's a whole conversation later that Dona is having with Carl about the naming conventions for these people and the fact that like it. You know, if you're naming her future Hunter or future Huntress or whatever, that you know you're setting her up for a life that goes in a certain direction. And I really it wasn't until they started talking about it in this way that it even

occurred to me that these were their real names. I was fully treating all of this like they were their user names and not their actual given names. I thought given names were for the crawlers, you know, like it. Just like I said, it just never entered my mind, not even for a moment. So I'm very curious about

y'all and if you thought the same thing. And I don't know if it's just because of the fact that, like I'm so used to things being sort of video gamy, but the idea that this guy is actually named the Talent is wild to me. So Carl goes to loot the talent, and he's got seventy five thousand pieces of gold on him, which is way more than anybody else they have ever come across. And then when they love the next corpse, that person has no money. So I

don't I feel like this has to mean something. Maybe this guy was supposed to be sort of in charge of their party and the leader, you know. He mentions later about how like these guys are the leaders, are given the best gear out of everything. But I kind of feel like there's got to be more to it

than that. I just don't know what it is. I mean, the idea of like, oh, maybe they were specifically paid to come after these two, well, like, of course we already know that that people are being paid to come in and take on taking these two down. We've already run into that with that other hunter, So that's not even really a revelation of any kind. And I don't think that would be what's going on here because that's not like a surprise. So I don't know what this means,

but I feel like it means something. Dona also says that this guy has some kind of credit shit and we need to go buy something with it before they cancel it. And I am very curious how much attention they're paying and whether or not they see when this thing goes into their possession, and or if this is some kind of trap, because like, the thing about the setup here, as we find out when we talk to Future, is that these guys were given first crack on purpose.

Like Carl asserts, they knew you'd fail, that's why you were allowed to do this, And it's sort of like a pitiful moment because she just doesn't even argue and instantly begins to sort of deflate and knows that he is right. And there's a strong sense of I knew that, I just hoped you wouldn't figure it out. But I just like was wondering if these guys are being set up to go first because everybody knows that you'll fail. Is it possible that you're being loaded down with stuff

to fuck our friends up on purpose? That doesn't look harmful. Carl is doing this very careful looting method in order to avoid booby traps and stuff like what he did to Maggie May. But if they know Carl did that himself, then they might be wise to the fact that he is going to be looking for that, and so they'll find a new and exciting way to booby trap him and something like this might work. I don't know, I genuinely, it's like because of the way that they are able

to cheat, it's hard to know. We had that whole other like catapult thing in the last chapters that had bits of like, you know, they were clearly techn there was clearly technology attached to it that did more than anything this dungeon is supposed to have in it. And I don't ah the a card like this, it could very well be booby trapped in some way and technically be a cheat, and not even something that I would have been able to predict because of the fact that

they are going outside of the parameters on purpose. So I guess what I'm saying is we'll just have to wait and see and let's see. Oh right, this has When Samantha I guys the way that she approaches her, I gotta say, I love the bear breasts. It's good a bold statement. There's something about the it's good. It

was just such a funny way to say it. And this whole thing again, the narrator with this voice, he does such a great job, and she's like, you know, I experimented with women for a little bit, and I gotta saying you fine, And then of course has to like circle it back with the guy that I'm into really likespresss like yours. King Blaine loves some perky like that not too big, just perfect. He's sure to stop banging my mother once he sees my new body. Can

you imagine? Can you imagine? There is a book that is often posted under There's a fantastic Facebook page, and I think she also does Instagram called Uppity Negress, and she is a black woman who does a lot of social commentary stuff and in her comments she will always

post a link to a book she wrote. I think it's called Decentering Men, and it's just basically the assertion correct assertion, in my opinion, that women are social to center men in everything, and that learning to detect that in yourself is a major reprogramming of your brain and low key like a life skill that needs to be learned. This is a book that I think Samantha could really use because evidently pretty much everything she does is about

trying to find her way back to King Blaine. And this man is not worth it, and no man is worth it, and if he's fucking your mother, you just better turn around and walk away or I just can never respect you again. And obviously like sing that, there's no question of course she's not doing this, and she tries to tell Samantha, I'll find a way to give you back your body once we're done with our thing, And as Carl puts it, it's painfully obvious that she

has no intention whatsoever of helping Samantha. And Samantha's not a fucking idiot, and she knows this, But she doesn't really have other options, so she's going with it and agreeing to assist them on simply the off chance that maybe there is something that Signet can do. And that's just a very sad position to be in it. It's like the idea that I literally have no better options than even though I can see right through you and tell almost immediately that you are less than uninterested in

helping me. What am I supposed to do? Like? Go where? Do what? Talk to who? Of course you're like the only option I have. What a shitty spot to be in. I really like, as absurd as Samantha is being here, there was a part of me that still felt like bad for her, you know what I'm saying. And but she's like participating in all of this with a good attitude, I will say later on, because as much as she's grumbling about it, for the most part, she's pretty like

still fully going all in. And I sort of wondered if knowing that maybe Signet is like not being honest would cause her to get very half hearted about it all, and that's not really what happens. So I'm sorry. I just saw the chat. Eduardo and Sarah im are here. Hello to you both. Yay. So the trap skill that Carl has, he uses that to detect traps around them, and there's a moment where it loves up and the whole place lights up like crazy, and he sees that

there are even more than he had realized, and let's see. Oh, there's a conversation between him and Signet where she says, if they just waited, they would have gained control anyway, and they wouldn't have had to kill my mother because I think actually she was considering stepping down based on

some things that my mother said before she died. And the curse that she's got regarding whether like water can touch her at all or anything is getting Carl's attention in this scene because she's crying, but the tears aren't actually touching her skin, and then when she turns her head they fly off like there's like really strong centrifugal force or something. The Naiad Kingdom wasn't very big the Naiad people had fallen to anarchy. The Usurpers occupied the castle,

no longer maintaining it or the kingdom. They were so obsessed with the idea of being free that they lost sight of what it meant to actually run a government. Like with most of these stories and quests, this is probably some bullshit political cartoon and they were making a statement about something I didn't care and yeah, definitely, definitely about something. So they make this plan and Signet is

going to use Samantha as a distraction. Carl is going to be strapping one of those sound alarm thingies that plays a song to Samantha's head and chucking it to distract them. And once we get into this later, it becomes pretty clear they probably didn't even need to put as much thought into this as they did, because everything is so organized and in such poor repair that they were on the verge of just losing the castle by

fucking default anyway. But first we have to deal with future huntress of the Skull Empire, who tries to say that they can't kill her because then the Skull Empire will hunt them down, and Donat is like, sweetie, do you think that if we don't kill you. They'll leave us alone. Is that what you're trying to say? And they, you know. She tries to then be like, but if you keep me alive, then the uh what do you

call thems? The mantises they aren't going to have the right to come in here yet, so keeping me alive keeps you from being attacked by them. And then as Carl is like, all right, I want you to heal her so that I can do my thing, he says, please, you can't do this. I'm a real person, not a crawler or an NPC. I'm a real person. And it gets interrupted this moment with the announcement that one of

the top ten crawlers has fallen. But if it hadn't, I wonder what Carl would have said in that moment, because the idea that you would try to appeal to a crawler by saying I'm not like you, I'm a real person is so fucking badshit. And the thing about it is that this is not un unbelievable, you know what I'm saying. There are plenty of people out there who would absolutely say some shit like this and be genuinely like, I don't understand why you're offended. They wouldn't

see it, they wouldn't get it. It wouldn't like so I like, what I am thinking in this scene is my instinct is were I going to write the scene, I would write it as something like I'm a real person, I'm not a crawler. And then she catches herself and she stops and realizes what she said. But the thing is, I would write this as a person who assumes other people at least have some kind of basic self awareness

that they just have to trigger somehow. And the way that Matt Dennman is writing this is people don't have that. Even like it's not even about like we need to access this awareness. There's no way to access it if they don't have it. And they don't And it really took me off guard for a moment. I was like, there was a split second of me going, this doesn't feel real, and then a second later I was like, no, this is. You see this every day? You see this

every day? What do you mean? There are so many people out there who even are part of a particular group, but they choose to like hold themselves as outside of it for whatever reason and behave is if they're not part of that group, and you see the results of that all over the place, especially in the United States with this latest election and how there are folks who voted for Trump, but they were themselves on social services or they themselves were a federal worker and now they've

been laid off and they're very surprised. Pikachu face about it this moment. It's just I think it's like it's really well written in that it feels absurd, but so do many actual real life people. They feel absurd. So anyway, they get distracted by the announcement that one of the top tens has been taken down. Future Hunter is like one hundred percent. That was raw, which I thought it was interesting that she assumes that with no real information. I would I kind of wanted them to press her

on that, but they don't. And the group that Langley was in who had been like really helpful on the previous floor, it's Langley and his whole group who are like gone, and evidently they had been going after Bogged and Roe, who is another crawler on the top ten. Well, he was like, I don't remember if he was on the top ten last time, but he's been on and off and he has a bunch of crawler skulls by

his name. So for a moment I was kind of like, Wow, they're going after another hunter or another crawler that's fucked up. But then hearing no, trust me. This guy had a bunch of skulls by his name, he was a crawler hunter himself, and they were just trying to get rid of him. I was like, Oh, okay, that tracks, and that's fair, but we don't know for sure that that's the guy that they got or that got them or whatever,

so let's get into this battle. He uh, the attaches the trap to Samantha throws her, and I love that this trap is labeled annoying. And then once she's thrown, the song begins to play and Samantha says, what is this wonderful song? Carl? It's called Wonderwall. Donut, Carl, you threw the wrong trap. And there's just like this ongoing thing of Carl really not liking Wonderwall and being extremely

irritated by it. The trap gets stuck in this particular place where it's inside event so it's one kind of unreachable to get it out, and two so much more loud than it would ordinarily be because it's being amplified by the echo of the events. So this song that he detests he has to listen to on repeat for

like hours and hours after this. And let's see, Samantha is there was like a moment where they had tried to give her a script that she was gonna say to help with the distraction part of things, and she just like, there's a bet between Donah and Carl whether or not she's actually going to even remember her line. Donut correctly determines that she will not be able to

remember it and bets a gold piece and wins. And I was sort of genuinely surprised that Carl even like it's I feel like this just ties in with Donah actually really understanding people and getting to know them, and so her understanding of Samantha's capabilities is more realistic than Carl's, you know. But anyway, like I said, it just feels on a lot of levels like they didn't need to plan for this as much as they did. Let's see, they had guards, but not enough to cover all the

entrances and exits. Once the arm went off signifying an invasion at the front door, all the poorly trained guards would move in that direction, leaving the rear air area of the castle undefended while Signet's amphibious assault team moved in. Even if noticed, there wouldn't be enough time for the alarm to be reset to tell the defenders where the real threat was coming from. The whole defensive system was

a joke. This was just an extra plot point in the Signet story and not meant to be a true obstacle. So as soon as he says this, I was just like, oh, because I really thought that this was going to be something I didn't I don't know if it was something that was sort of hinted at in previous chapters, that

this was like a complete joke. I knew that it was designed to likely be something that they would be able to get through and not you know, a player killer level of difficulty, but I thought it would be a little bit more of a chat and like it winds up being, but in a way that was different than what I was expecting. The flying paper soldier circled above while the others floated atop the slow current of the river next to me, misnading. The giant caterpillar hissed

worriedly Arison. The Ogre patted the hairy thing. It'll be okay, he said. The caterpillar hissed again. And this is when he's asking Arison, like, she can't even water can't touch her, So how exactly is she going down? And the Ogre is like, she will just watch and there is this shark that wraps her up and drags her down. Once she deep enough, she doesn't pop up no more. She needs air though has spell but if she go too deep she get the squish h how did she get

the curse? High Elf cast at the night Mom was deaded wait, I said, there was a high Elf working with these Niad guys. Yeah, the dissenters killed the Tsar and his family. They only did it because they had help from the sneaky high Elves. It stopped fighting between Elves and Naiad. But the Naiad are almost slaves now, especially after the nine tier attack. Most of the fishy people died, but there's a good number left. They still at the tee of twenty years. They got to ask

them for mission to do anything. Now, the n Iad regular folks are going wild like old days because the Castle people don't do no ruling or nothing, and the elves just really seemed to be like fucking up a lot of stuff, got their fingers in a lot of different pies, and they like almost to a degree that kind of makes me be like, are the elves actually

the bad guys? Because it feels like we're pointing at them so hard that maybe we're setting up a twist, or like Carl has pointed out that there's like a political cartoon that they're doing, and so it is quite over the top because of the point that somebody was trying to make when they wrote this whole plot. A few minutes passed with nothing happening, and then the castle alarm abruptly stopped, and Samantha says, I'm trying to wiggle my way out. I can hear fighting. There's a lot

of blood in the water. The river surrounding the castle started to bubble. A lightning bolt shot upward, coming directly out of the water. At that moment, I caught a glimpse of the defense team on the south shore, multiple earth signs standing there looking back at us. The ground shook. I exchange an uneasy glance with Arison. Look Donut said on Dongo don'nut said, pointing after Mongo calmed a body

loaded face down a naiad. Another appeared, then another missing ahead, but then two more bodies appeared, both of them the paper cutouts of Signet's battle squad. This is not good, Arison said, as Miss Nadine started chittering worriedly, and Samantha says, I think it was a trap. So he puts on the ring that allows him to breathe underwater, and uh,

let's see, oh, right here it is. There's tons of bodies that suddenly explode up out of the water, and Miss Nadine breaks away from Arison and just heads down the hill into the water, even though she can't swim. Arison is trying to stop her, and she winds up dying, which is like a bunch of people are super super

sad about later. And I was sort of wondering what the showwriters felt, because apparently the addition of this weird caterpillar thing has like boosted ratings some and so I wonder if, like losing Nadine is going to be a specific type of issue, or was this all part of a plan that they already had in place, or you know what I'm saying like, I don't know if this is going to be any particular problem or if it's

just something that they have learned to roll with. In the way these shows have to work, that there are some like unexpected what's the word, There are some circumstances that they just can't control. So at this point, Samantha is yelling about like how she almost has him, and Carl is telling her that he is going to teleport her back, and as she is saying no, no, I almost have him, the chapter ends and the next one starts with I have never claimed to be a smart person.

And this is very funny because you know, last section, I was like figuring out exactly how it worked that she could bring things back with her, but it did not occur to me that what she brings back might still be alive. And evidently it didn't occur to Carl either.

When Samantha said I almost have him, I should have waited a moment and asked what she was talking about, and she would have answered with the lightning shooting river monster that has taken over the throne room of for Freedom, And then I would have followed up that question with are you biting down on this creature right now, and so she pulls this fucking thing all the way to him.

And also Nadine the caterpillar is right there, and everybody goes flying when he does this, because it's just like he says that it feels like bouncing off a wet trampoline. When it croaked, both Samantha and beaverform Holger vomited out of its mouth, both of them unceremoniously splatting onto the dirt like a pair of quivering hairballs. The world did not freeze, nor did new music start. But I knew this creature was a boss even before I read the description.

I started to scramble back up the slope. I ducked as a multi branch lightning bolt ripped through the night, coming from the monster's eyes. The bolt sizzled above my head and slammed into the castle walls far behind me. And I'm going to be honest, my friends, this description was too long. There are times where it feels like the descriptions are very long, and that's part of the joke, is that they're really long. It goes on for you

know what I'm saying. This was one that felt too long by accident, or if not, by accident he misjudged the joke. But anyway, evidently these things have a tendency to show up somewhere and then just settle down and live there forever. So let's see Claude Sledgington the Fourth decided to make an appearance. At the last possible minute. The guards allowed him into the castle despite his reputation.

Area aps received a ten x constitution bonus. If they are rooted in place and they shoot lightning, they are notoriously difficult to kill or even move. Quad is an amphibian. This excuse me, Oh my god, this is a lizard class mob. It will inflict twenty percent more damage against you things to your extinction sigil. And yes, like with the dinosaurs, I know amphibians aren't really lizards. You can

complain about it to management. So this he winds up like swallowing a couple of people whole whole like hole and uh, Carl says he's gonna flip in your direction. Be ready, don't attack yet. He's saying all this to Donut, and Donut is like, what are you going to do? And Carl yells get off of it. Claude let out a new and mighty noise, not quite a croak, more like a reverse belch. He slurped up the unconscious form

of Hulger and Samantha. Once again, Miss Nadine launched herself at the side of the monster, her mandible things thrashing the necklace. Head of the creature struggled to turn toward the giant caterpillar, still oblivious of the ogre on its head. And he is just trying to sort of like dig his hand into it. And let's see, we can only attack its stomach, I yelled a second time, Samantha. It swallowed me again. Do not worry. I'll just kill him

from within. I really enjoy how Samantha remains constantly convinced that she is going to kill whoever, when she has proven to never be able to do any damage of any kind. So he casts protective shell. I was expecting the larger monster to bowl over to the side like a semi truck rolling over, which would hopefully expose his stomach.

That's not what happened. I was too close. The diameter grew with my intelligence, and I should have cast it while I was lower on the hill, so the angle of the sphere would have pushed him and not launched him straight into the air, so Arison is likely up there riding on its back, and he is like, I need to get out of the way as it's falling down,

and Doughnut sends up a fireball at it. The creature exploded in flames, his entire body catching a light as he landed atop the barely visible shield with a vicious splat. The line of trees stopped the monstrous descent. It roared indignantly as it came to a rest, face down like it was doing a handstand. Its legs scrambled against the sparking shield. It was stuck. Look at that. Carl Donut cried, fireball is awesome. I did enjoy this on her behalf.

I just appreciated it. It's very fun whenever one of them gets something new and it turns out to be rat as hell, you know, because there are like a fair number of abilities that they don't use that often that are very I'm sure, like cinematic. So it still hasn't fallen over, and so Carl is like, okay, magic missiles time, and then Mango goes for the open wound on it. Donut back flipped off the dinosaur, leaning perfectly on my shoulder, shooting one last magic missile just before

the dinosaur dove headfirst into the open wound. The smell the spell snapped off, and the trees acted like spring hinges, launching the amphibian directly at my position, like I was standing in front of a massive mouse trap. Doughnut was already gone. I watched in slow motion as the corpulent lizard fell toward me, Mongo's long tail sticking from the hole in its stomach. I mean, this is this is theater here, you know, this is what we want. Uh. I fell directly into the wound. It was no longer

on fire, but I couldn't see or breathe. I felt my neck getting rent open by a law as I was compressed further. It was Mango's back claw pushing off me as the goddamn dinosaur gleefully ate his way up and out the back of the monster. Now, I just want to say that this very much reminded me of

my dog Arwin. She just doesn't have any concept of the space around her, and she will frequently shove outward with her back or front legs and make very forceful contact with various parts of your body and not notice, care register it in any way nothing, And it is ceaselessly irritating and always painful. She has gotten me with a back claw, going at life like forty miles an hour right in the tit a couple times and I thought I was gonna fucking keel over. My husband has

gotten it in the nads more than once. It sucks, so I can only imagine when the creature is of Velossi raptor with that friggin like toe claw, how bad that must be. So he pulls his way out and let's see, I'm trying to find the spot. He comes out mango from the back of the monster, and Carl has to drink health potions and his gills are filled with like the guts of the thing, and it finally dies. But it fucking They don't get any kind of reward for this because they got to the boss before they

were given a mission to go to the boss. And for once, with Donut yelling this is an outrage, I fully agree. A lot of times I feel like she is being unreasonable or just you know, just doing her usual, Like I want more than that kind of thing. But This is one of those where I'm like, no, this is deeply fucked up, Like this thing was huge, you managed to take care of it, come on something something, So anyway, Clint got fucking torn apart. I was really

surprisingly sad to hear that Clint was dead. Nadine is dead, and let's see Karl is trying to take responsibility and talking about how it's my fault because I summoned to this thing up here, but Arison is like, it's not your fault because she was going into the water and would have drowned anyway. And Holger said, it's the thing

that killed HER's fault. Which they're all just being so recent noble about this, which I appreciate because a lot of times, you know, for the drama, we'll have people kind of decide to lay blame in ways that don't really make sense, and it can be very tedious. So I appreciated this. I'd toss Samantha over there almost ten minutes earlier, but I'd accidentally thrown her a little too far in the dark. While we made it, I spent time on the slope down to the water, searching for

untriggered traps and disarming them I needed. And this is when he does training his fine trap skill, which like levels up and he sees how many there actually are. There's a summoning trap, once triggered, will summon two town guards or minions to the location. Will summon two guards or minions from this floor. Only if you do not have minions or do not control a town, this trap

will misfire specific guards or minions. May be programmed at a sapper's table delay two seconds, target programable duration one time use, which potentially, yeah, we could do something with that. So there had been a whole thing where he was hearing the sounds of like other dinosaurs in the midst of an attack. So that's what he has sent Samantha to investigate. And she says, it looks like they got caught in a wheat thresher. One of the bears is just ahead. Another looks like a cookie that got a

bite taken out of it. There's just footprints, three toes, and she says there's pink feathers everywhere, and Carl is like, then that means kiwi and Samantha's like, if so. The way they've been killed doesn't look like the way mongo kills things. So Carl talks to Arison about this. I love Carl picks up a feather and the ai, this is a feather, it's pink, it's garbage. Fuck off with making me describe this shit? Do you want me to describe the dirt below your feet too? And Arison says,

sounds like big Tina. She wears a pink boa. She just a kid, Arison said, But she a big dinosaur, carries a wand but it runs out of Zapp's a long time ago, got anger problem. Doesn't like Ursine eats them all up, usually with the Mongolian says, but she runs away a lot and then gets herself into trouble before they find her. She usually the one that attacked that town down river that you staying at the other Dino's gotta go get her and bring her back out.

That's why I stay on this side of the river. She dangerous, She good at killing quest updy. So they've got to find out either why she is how she is and stop her or kill her way. They got to put an end to what Tina's doing, terrorizing all these towns all over the place. So Donut apparently was woken up by the Quest update and she was asleep outside a safe room, like I kind of thought the same thing, because Carl is asking her, like, what were you thinking doing that? And I had the same reaction

when it was mentioned that she's like fall. I think she's like on a tree branch or something, and she says something like because I was bored, And I really hope that it's like that's all it was, because I don't want to find out that there's something going on with like the restfulness of their beds. You know that they got there's these new beds. I don't know. So this is when Signett finally shows up and is like, we didn't need to lose all these people in this attack.

It wasn't worth it. I could have taken it by myself and not even involved you all, there's an algae infestation. The gods damn Confederates had stopped attempting to rule ages ago. It was barely a fight, and they get quest complete on part one. All surviving members of the assault like you twenty percent more then part two, Sarena's Signet's taken back her family's castle, only to find the place in

ruins and the Confederacy in tatters. Her people have regressed to a time before society taught the meeting everybody they meet, it's just rude. That shit's boring. We ain't going to make you have anything to do with reuniting or with our people. We're on the revenge track and we're going to fast forward. The true culprit are the High elves. Ear target is Serena, Signet's half sister, Queen Imogen, and she's gonna be at this butcher's masquerade party. Help Signet

kill Queen Imagen. Fair warning, this one won't be nearly as easy as the last reward. The contents of the Hialf Castle will become available to loot. There's a rumor they have something hidden that will protect one from Scolopendra's attacks. That plus a metric fuck tone of other good shit.

And Carl has the same reaction that I do to this quest where he is just like I don't really understand how the whole like how I can take out Imagen, who seems to be like the boss of this floor, like for the sake of this show that like, the ratings aren't very good when Imagen is sort of instrumental to whatever the people who are doing the krawl seemed

to be planning. It feels like he was explicitly given a quest that flies in the face of one or the other parties that he has to be cooperative with right now, and let's see, oh right, this is when we get We find out about the tattoos that Signet has, like some of them. All of these tattoos are from fallen companions, I asked, yes, Signet said, or fallen enemies whom we deemed worthy. I received my first one the night my mother was killed. That was the same night

that I met Edgar. And Donnut says, Wait, the tattoo there is clearly the same as mister Erison, and like they must not all be dead Guysnet says Eerison, a pollen and herman are ogres, but they were born in the day their progenitor fell, all three headed, a three headed nodling who died protecting me from agents of my sister. When a nodling dies, he splits into a new creature, depending on how many heads the original had. These new

creatures emerge as toddlers, but quickly grow. The original body remains, and we used that for the tattoo which is bonkers. I'm always a fan of like you kill them and they turn into something else as a story thing, and that's coming up in one piece recently with this slow eggman. So Donna asks, are the Nodlings what the Popov brothers are? And he says, yeah, they only have two heads, not three, and Signet says they can have from two to six. It took another hour for the tattoo to be finished.

By the time it was done, the sun was starting to peek over the distant horizon. The finished tattoo was small, maybe four inches long. We watched as the likeness of Miss Nadine took a tentative step on Signet's skin. The three headed ogre went to a knee before the newcomer and put his hand on her. She curled up afraid. Does she know who she is? I asked. She is not Miss Nadine. She is a blood and ink elemental, and she's a combination of the remains of who she

was and of my personal memories of her. She's like a living portrait painted with her blood. But she is not real, not in the sense you're asking. She is a facsimile, a loving memory. As I watched The caterpillar straightened and then formed into a young female chee wearing a long flowing skirt. She looked up at the ogre wide eyed. A small child she appeared peeking out from behind her skirt. Next to me. Holger gasped, it's Clint. She brought Clint with her. I but he's how he

was before he was changed. Look at all that hair. It happens sometimes, Signett said, softly, watching the new tattoo. The child Clint looked about wide eyed. She loved him so much that his memory lived within her. So when we drew the tattoo, she brought his memory, his memory with her, even though we didn't have his body. You guys, this is so sweet. I loved this so much, just seeing how much these people all like mean to each other,

even though they have no free will. And you know, it's like, it's really it's bizarre how they have made something that feels so genuinely touching for such horrible purpose, you know. And Holger says to Clint, I'll miss you, but you've got Miss Nadine with you here and wherever else you are, you're safer than we are, which is just devastating, just As the sun fully rosed, the wear Casters returned to the water, set on building a wooden dam around the entrance of the castle. We needed to

get to a safe room. I had my first appointment coming up. I couldn't remember exactly what I was supposed to do, but it was some bullshit and we didn't have time to get back to Point Mango. So saying that tells Carl like, we'll be in touch. I'll find a way to figure out where you are. And uh, he says, because she's saying like, we're gonna be hunting out worlders, and he says, to kill them as soon

as you find them, don't try to capture them. They'll be getting stronger by the day and soon they may be too strong to easily kick. She kissed me on the cheek before turning away, so they're very strong allies at this point. I feel like this is a real alliance that means something now. So as they're leaving, Donut says, you know that she wants to fuck you right, And I honestly wasn't getting that energy at all, But I

also can't help but understand what she's saying. He's like, well, they're making her feel that way if that is true, and she says, well, yeah, but like story arcs, you know, there's the night before the battle, and she's gonna be all feminine and sweet and they'll be candles and shit, and you guys are gonna fuck and it'll be very like dramatic and sexy, and afterward they'll try to kill you, because like that's always what happens, is if you have sex with a guest star, then the guest star has

to die. And he says, well, I'm not gonna do it, and she's like, no, you are not. It's too bad. Both Arison and Holger are both so hideous. That's the real problem. There's no other decent looking people in the party for the sex sacrifice other than myself of course. But yeah, I can't help but think that, like, probably

don't knows how this sort of thing goes. I think she's probably right, And I really wonder if, like the people who are actually writing this story are annoyed that she points out things like this, because it's like one if you're just saying, like, well, here's the trope, because tropes be troping, and you were absolutely going to just follow the trope and now you kind of feel called out for like maybe lazy writing, or just the fact that, like she's just said the whole thing, and now you

feel like, well, if everybody knows that's what's coming, and we just do the thing that they know is coming, then our ratings are gonna plummet. So we've got to change it up now, you know, Like I just am really wondering how the writers feel. In response to her saying this sort of thing, let's see, Zeen checked in and told me to hurry up. She warned I'd be transferred whether I was in a safe room or not,

which meant abandoning Dona in the wild. She was being unusually insistent that we hurry I took the hint and picked up the pace, which definitely to me is like there are people around. She cannot be out here by herself. They collect them things from Mordecai and we managed a good solid hour and a half of grinding. As we moved quickly, Samantha woke up bitch loudly. Her shouts attracted more mobs, all of which we easily killed. The town

finally came into focus. It reminded me of the very first town we'd found, but even smaller Carl donut get to the safe room be able to stop or delay the transfer. You have two minutes or maybe you never mind. I can't say that, just get there. The view counter, which had been relatively middle of the road since before the moment, the movement was sudden and jarring. Sorry, which I've been middle of the road since before the whole tattoo thing started. I skipped the line was suddenly spiked,

buried all the way to the right. The movement was sudden and jarring, like the folks on the intergalactic Internet were realizing something. Just after Zevi realized at whatever this might be, I thought entering Alukarta, and he's like, something's going on and is looking around, thinking there might be another crawler, And she says, I don't see any dots on the map. It's broken, and he says there's a protection spell. Go. So they run into a pub that's

an actual, real safe room. It was a fast food restaurant of some sort with nobody inside except a single bopka. Do you know who the mayor of this town is? It was raw, the tree guy said, but he's returned to the Earth. An evil woman is taking control with two beasts that kill indiscriminately. Mayor Lucia Marr. Where is she now? I asked, Ooh, who's that? She looks like my type of crazy, Samantha said, from my back, and

that's when I transferred away. Ah, so Dona is there, like she's in the safe room, so potentially they could actually, like, you know, she could be okay, but like you know, I mean, I just don't like. I just don't like the fact that she's there without him, obviously for like reasons I don't need to explain, and Carl is going

to be a wreck, and I don't know. I'm very excited to actually meet her though, I really really am, because I feel like I just feel like there is something going on with her that I don't necessarily think whatever it is, that we'll learn it and suddenly she won't seem like a bad guy. But I do think it will explain some stuff, you know. So I've got to wrap because I'm over time. But thank you guys very much for listening hanging out with me. Thank you

again to Jackie for commissioning this episode. I hope that y'all are appreciate our appreciating, are enjoying the coverage, and I won't be recording Thursday. I took the day off, so I will be seeing you the following week. So I hope that y'all don't miss me too much, and until then, don't do motherfuckers. That was an unspoiled network