The Butcher's Masquerade, Chapters 73-76

not think you're hearing the chat. I think you're unable to come to these usually, but you are very appreciated. I know that for a minute it was just Michael commissioning these, and I'm sure that he appreciates not being the only one. So when I said that, I apologize. It's a funny story, you guys. Remember how I mentioned in the previous episode how there can be parallels with things that I am covering and they'll both have like a similar plot thing going on. Well, this isn't really

the same thing. But I had a spreadshe I have a section in my phone for the spreadsheets for what I am supposed to read for the week. And I don't know if, like I believe that it was another book that had like the same chapter numbers. I misread and I was short two chapters. Today I had I read what I thought was up until the point, and then today I had a doctor's appointment, I had a bunch of admin stuff I needed to deal with, so I didn't have the time to do my normal reread,

which I try to do every single time. I almost always do. But I was telling myself, it's okay, you just listened yesterday. You'll be fine. And then about forty minutes before the recording was supposed to start, I was like, let me just double check that I didn't like short myself an episode. I shorted myself. I think I said two earlier, three I shorted myself three episodes. I don't

know how I fucking did it. And so I read as quickly as I could, and I got about three quarters of the way through chapter seventy six and it was time to record. So I am starting this recording allegedly four through chapter seventy six, but I actually don't

know how the chapter ends yet. So I'm going to be doing that live on camera, and I hope that you guys can all bear with me, because like I don't normally, you know, I really don't know how I did this because usually if I make any mistake in any direction, I overread a little bit, usually under reading when I want to keep reading, especially I want it. I was like, I stopped myself after checking.

because I really didn't know what was going on. I when I say don't know what was going on, I mean that Carl is thinking about how he is going to do something and it's going to be a pretty drastic choice because they have to break the seal. But he doesn't there's nobody that he wants to do it to or you know, make do it, and so he is rapidly reaching this conclusion that the other members of his party is. He is reaching out and being like,

please take care of Donut. It's very clear whatever he is about to choose to do is going to be suicide for him, and they know that it will be. And yet I was still not realizing that he intended to literally commit suicide. Do you get what I'm saying. I thought he's gonna like go for imagen or something. He is going to do something that breaks the seal, and his death is a guarantee, but it is a side effect of his attempting to do Instead, it seems like he was planning to do precisely what it is

that Signet winds up doing. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that's sort of what it felt like to me. And Signet's decision here and using herself as this sacrifice is really honestly quite moving. You know, she has not been a character that I've been all that invested in. I have found her abilities interesting. The things that she has been involved with, like in terms of the tangential

characters are that are in her party are interesting. I think that it's probably a pretty difficult needle to thread as an author to create a character that is simultaneously not a huge bore to read about, but that one can believe is a huge bore to watch on screen, if that makes sense. So he manages to make me not just like dread any time that signet showed up. But I didn't expect, if I were to see her death in this book, to be this moved by it,

and I really was. I really just didn't. The manner in which she decides to sacrifice herself and the revelation that has come for her right beforehand. It's very much giving Westworld, you know what I'm saying. If you haven't watched Westworld, later seasons are very I would just say, watch the first season and you're probably pretty much good. But the second season isn't bad. It's just that the first season is so good, you know what I'm saying.

But yeah, I really it was like such a great note to hit And I'm wondering if the AI was like aware, you know, that this would be a choice that she would make or could make, Like how much are the people who run the show able to influence

her as things are happening. I am assuming that as she's being told the reality of her situation, that they just can't do anything because she's in the palace and so that's off limits to them that you know, as Carl had said before, do not fuck with the main event. So I think that they were just sort of forced

to sit and watch this happen. And that is very funny, you know, not funny for her, not funny in her death, but funny that like things just spun so wildly out of their control that they ended up here and everything that they had planned just blew up in their face. You know. Michael says, you were wondering if this was a heist movie where everything that was going wrong was actually part of the plan. Nope, everything was going wrong, and the basic human kindness he showed to signat and

the changelings is what saved his ass. I wouldn't say I was wondering if this was a heist movie where everything that was going I would say I think that I was pretty much a like certain that's not what was happening, because there was just an energy to it. But I yeah, I'm a big fan anytime that it's like, oh, being a person circled around and paid off, because like frankly,

it's very rare that that isn't what happens. Being a person pays off most of the time, and even in the times that it doesn't pay off in quotes where you get bit in the ass by somebody who is scamming you or who takes advantage of you, even then you can at least sleep at night knowing that you were still trying to do the right thing and the other person and screwing you. It may suck, and you may wind up, you know, like screwed over by them, but that isn't because you made a decision that was

cruel or selfish or thoughtless. It is because you were trying, and I think that's still worth something. Sarah fem says he did do a good job. You can get why most people don't care for watching a sign that story, but her interactions with Carl are great, and so we see the best. I think it's also a case of their control over elites is limited. They can write new directives into their scripting, but they have enough free will. It only truly works if they don't know what's coming

from outside them. Yeah, I agree. Jeff says, I can't imagine enjoying a TV show that gets derailed by some crazy AI. I can't decide, Jeff, because, like, imagine this happening today where a TV show is airing that is being controlled by AI, and there are many people watching who are being exploited by whatever the fucking crazy system is, and it all begins to go completely off the rails. There's going to be some shadn Freud in there, for sure, you know. So it's not exactly that I enjoy the show.

I enjoy the derailing. As soon as I begin to hear through the grapevine that it looks like the showrunners have lost control over their pet AI, I'm probably tuning in. I'm probably gonna want to know, because, like frankly, this is what I am hoping is going to happen with

like the AI bubble. In the United States, we are having these weird, rapidly expanding server you know, server farms, and all of these programs and little like functions added to our phones to search engines, to websites, to our software that we use in our business, and everything is sort of behaving as if there's nowhere to go but up.

But a lot of this stuff doesn't work properly. I want to watch it fall apart, and I know that it's probably, unfortunately due to how it is being implemented, going to affect a lot of people badly and that will likely learn very little from it. But I can hope. I don't know. So we start off with another note

from from Crawler Carl. It's not you know, it's to his other group members, party members, and he's talking about the the attempt to try and charm Ferdinand and make him do whatever it is that Donut wants, and that we have to use charm animal, which they have her blood for, which is great. They brought him into fight Donut, We're going to make them eat that decision. And later on Ferdinand winds up getting like tossed in such a way that he is in the building that transfers to

the ninth floor. So we are not done with him yet, and I have to be honest, I'm kind of glad he had some interesting things going on for him. And I don't think that, you know, donuts charisma is not going to be as high once she doesn't have the little boosts that she's getting, right, now, I don't know if he will be as acquiescent to her, but we've got some time for her to build it up before

she gets to the ninth floor, so it's possible. And I am I'm sort of hoping that maybe as much as they tried to turn this whole thing into like, let's watch Donut's heartbreak as she fights her long lost love, maybe there's a weird way that this can all turn a corner and actually like work out for her. I don't know. I don't know, So let's see, I'm trying to jump ahead here. Okay, So we had Imagen. She comes in, everybody gets locked into the room because she

is here, which actually affects her as well. She has like makes a move at one point to leave and realizes that she can't, which I don't know how I missed the fact that it would also work on her, but uh. She sees Ferdinand and is like, get over here, and he says, I am locked in this on this floor because you came in, so I can't, and she's like, we will discuss this later, which no, we won't. And this is when she turns and begins her little confrontation

with Imagen. And or no sorry signet and as this is like as this conversation with dialogue that is pretty like this is not me like throwing shade on the writer. I think it's meant to be. It's a little tropy, and that's fine. Katcha is checking out what imagen stats are and she says something Imagen about how you know, are you even going to hate me enough to kill your lover and damn yourself? And everybody is like really, and I think it's Louis that is like, wait, are

you banging her? I never even thought of the fact that Imagen might assume that, and it makes some sense, but you know, it caught me very much off guard too, And I'm wondering if there are going to be other people later who assumed that they were sleeping together just based off of this, even though it wasn't like probably, I have to imagine there's like nothing in the uh, the film that could suggest that they were sleeping together, like off camera at all. That would be on camera.

I would have to think, I don't know, I don't know how it works with this show, because like you know, we had that thing in the first book where what's his name decided to pee in the hallway and it summoned that creature and they zeroed right in on his dick with no problem whatsoever. So I'm assuming that if they are having sex in like in the dungeon, that's just going to be part of the programming, and that they aren't pulling the camera away for that, like why

would they. So she then like says to Carl that I know that you have people out there and that you're trying to fuck things up, and Carl immediately is like, oh shit, and he tries to tune in to tell his people outside to run for it, and he gets warning this crawler is deceased. They have been removed from your address book. I really felt for him in this moment, finding out that this dude, Gideon specifically, is dead and realizing that the blood down images front is because she

killed him. Oh it sucks. And you know, there's like a bunch of things. I want to emphasize how much is happening all at once, and I imagine that this was probably a difficult thing for the author to juggle. If you are attempting to show us both what a person is thinking, what is happening externally, and what is going on with other characters via a chat system, and those other characters aren't necessarily even in the same place, so those are also separate storylines that we're sort of

getting updates on. It's a lot to keep track of, that's, you know, And I feel like it's done well enough that it's quite clear throughout it. I never really feel like I don't know what's going on any more than usual, you know what I mean. So let's see. This is when Floren comes up and Carl says, are you okay? I'm okay. Katcha was right. It looks like her, but it ain't. It's her twin. I can tell it's not

really her either. If he was worried about what happened to her, her sister, it's not right there using her body like that. We gotta do something about it. Floren was a lot more fucked up about this than he was letting on. It was obvious, but he was doing his best not to let it show. Good for you, I thought, And yeah, Florin just keeps impressing me like this, combined with the way that he took a beat and like realized that something with Lucia was not right. I

am delighted. I am pleased very much with Florin and am like low key, you know, can he be somebody that takes up more space going forward, because I would definitely be here for that. So he has to tune back in with Samantha, who really thinks that she that he screwed her out of getting to kill some guards because they're dead already, which is like a combo. Of of course he didn't do that, And also you couldn't have killed them anyway, Samantha, you don't know how to.

You can't do that. So then up on stage, Ellie and Amani finished up. You are no longer muted, You may now cast spells, you are no longer peace bonded. You may now access your inventory, And Samantha says, okay, I pulled out the soul crystals, but there's a problem. The other two on the left side are already pulled out. They're still here here on the floor. The person who killed the guards took them out and turned off the

protections of the ballroom already. So we are not the only ones with a plan, as it turns out, And we have this moment where Carl is realizing I've got to get a grip on what's happening now, because clearly I thought it was just us about to like fuck with shit, and you know, trying to look around and see who's moving and what is happening. The soul crystal for the goodwill interface has already been taken away. It's still working because of the cap, but whoever was here

tried it anyway. And all of the Mantises or all of the guards, she says, they're severed heads are sitting right there, so it's definitely Mantis's that killed them. And he says, take those two crystals from the left and put them back into place, do it fast, and do it now. Then get ready. So it makes some sense why Vra looked up at that censor that had been turned off and didn't really like say or do anything about it, because that is working to her advantage at

the moment. And let's see, I Ron her mother had an alternate plan. They were still filling the castle with the nymphs de Wata slash Circe gave the hunters back their magic ability and was waiting for her daughter to get someone to break the seal. If Samantha shoved the soul crystals back into the slot and effectively blocked the hunters from using their magic and inventory again. It wouldn't stop them, but it would be all the more difficult for them to prepare for the inevitable breaking of the

seal or to cause it. So Eva I had sort of wondered if Eva was like teamed up with Ra, you know, because she just seems like that kind of idiot who is just going to go for like it wouldn't really make sense in the long run. But Eva would be so sure she could double cross Ra eventually, and Ra would be so sure that she would be able to kill Eva that I could see the two of them like actually kind of working together for a minute.

But that is not what's really happening. She just has an object that is going to allow her to escape, and so she's keeping an eye out for when things begin to really go down. So let's see, Imani says. Most of the crawlers outside are getting forced down this stairs. The brambles weren't supposed to get this far into the Elf territory for hours, but I think they're reacting to the elves trying to beat them back. The elves at the border who were fighting them have retreated to defend

the castle, and now the brambles are chasing them. So another thing that is not going according to the plan. And later on, once the actual palace disappears, they have come up like within one hundred feet of the walls of the palace. It's really really they are close. And this is when Carl begins to come to the conclusion that he is going to have to do something really drastic. As he is figuring this out, he is warning Samantha that the goddess is going to be coming for her.

She's in the form of a flaming mantist giving birth, and do everything you can to keep her away from the control panel. If you can stop her from giving birth, she'll go away. I believe in you, and Samantha just says you do, which sounded very sincere, like she genuinely just needed somebody to believe in her. Oh, Samantha, you are such a little weirdo. I do enjoy her. So we get an update from Sledge. Shit's going left outside,

Prudence winds up dead. He says that they're like way too many mantises, and then like at the last second, he's like, oh, the mantises turned out to be changelings were good. I really enjoyed that moment of just thinking like, hold on, hold on, we're fucked, and then surprise, I closed my eyes for just a second and pretended like everything was all right. The world had never ended. My mother and I had never left Texas. I was outside right now, sitting in the shade of a tree I'd

planted years before. Everyone here, all my friends I never met each other under these horrific circumstances. Doughnut was fat and happy, sitting in her cat tree somewhere warm, growling at a cocker spaniel. I had never heard the water running through the pipes or gone down into the basement to investigate the noise. I had never found the note

followed by my mother a minute later. So when he talks about that river that's in his mind, I'm assuming that it's like this running water thing just sort of amplified within his memory and the trauma of this. Because I haven't connected the running water with her suicide. I

thought that she had hanged herself for some reason. I had it in my head because I think in the basement was why, Because a lot of times houses don't have like exposed beams or anywhere to hang, like except for in the basement, so I always sort of that's my go to. But yeah, we just don't really actually have that many details about this, and I keep making all of these assumptions about it, you know. So this is when he tells Donut like, go on and do

your performance and don't forget Ferdinand. I have a plan, and we know that the plan is supposed to be that he is going to do something bonkers, and he is telling her to do her performance to distract her, which the way that she would just never recover. I don't know what she'd do, honestly, Guys like, I really I don't it would h I don't even want to see it. And this is when Signet comes up to him and is like that, Empress, do Nadia told me everything?

That there are people watching, that there are folks controlling it, that my family was never real. And the tone of all of this is not like, are you going to saw me out of it? Is this like a lie? Is she fucking with me? Tell me it's not true.

By the time Signat comes to speak to him, it feels like she has already accepted this that maybe there are some things that weren't really making sense to her in the view that she had of the world, and now that she's gotten this information, some details and clues are kick clicking into place, and so it seems like she really is fully turned the corner here. And this is when he is talking to her about, you know, having Tina do her recital because it's what she wants,

and Signet is like, that's not what she wants. She wants the same thing that I want and what I think you want. She wants her mother back. And Carl thinks to himself, how the hell did she know that, which is a good question. I don't know who knows what about his mother, but it doesn't seem like anybody knows, so I have to assume this is like info that got fed to her from external sources somehow. And yeah, he's like, but her mom is here, it's Kiwi And

she's like, yeah, she's fucked up, man. This magic thing affected her mind and she has what she wants but can't see it. You need to get her to see it. And at this point somebody just says, this is wonderwall and this guy starts to play the song and I love somebody shared in the discord the other day there's a real trend happening right now with people learning to do bookbinding and rebinding favorite books to make them look really elaborate and have them be kind of special edition style.

And somebody rebound the first Dung Crawler Carl book with the Wonder Wall song playing over as they did the binding and everything, and it was just such a great little bit. And it's also theirs Doughnuts voice just yelling this is my song, and the actual art that they did for the cover and everything is just beautiful. So this is when something happens to the floor. It's a real weird The entire building shook. Everything not in the

room flickered but came back. I looked down at the floor, shocked. The floor tiles under our feet had shattered like windshield glass. The floor tiles were just gone in several places. A terrible stench filled the room. Turning and mixing and spinning colors pressed against the invisible shield of the floor. It was white, gore and green bug parts. Realized we were looking the hunters were looking upward while we were looking down.

Their attention was focused on the back left corner of the room, but to me, the ceiling there looked intact. The hunter ballroom was on the second floor and we were on the fourth. The explosion had occurred between us on the third floor. That had been a soul crystal going off. I realized it must have been a small one. It had blown apart the floor under us and the ceiling above the hunter ballroom, exposing the illusion. Yet the good Will ballrooms still worked, and Samantha just students in

to say that was my bad. I tried to go big, but I think I lost too big. I had to use the soul crystals. All of them blew up. Dewata is still here, but she's knocked out. I didn't know I could do that. The babies are still coming out, but there's no room, so it's like we're in a sausage press. I swear to god, that is so gross, Samantha. It's like I thought if I like stuck the crystal in my mouth and went up there and chomped down on them. Samantha, sweetie, what do you do it? That is?

You cannot say that Samantha isn't a team player. This bitch is willing to do what it takes. She will fucking do it. Is she gonna do it? Well? Maybe, maybe not. Is she going to follow your instructions almost definitely not. Is she going to remember crucial details and information that you know are absolutely clutch. No, she probably won't even listen to you tell them to her the first time. But that does not mean that she isn't like committed in her own way. And that doesn't mean

that she can't improvise. Girl will fucking improvise for sure. And uh, you know what, I respect it. I get irritated when it feels like people are just being very stupid, and to a point, Samantha certainly can be very stupid. But you know, she's going at like full effort a lot of the time, even when it feels like she's slacking on certain things. It's just because you know, she has to select where her effort goes, and her effort goes in different places than where we think it should

necessarily go for certain parts of the plan. I always respect effort. I always do. So, you know what, appreciate you, Girley appreciates you. Sorry, I'm just looking at the uh the moment when Signet just eats the acorn that's actually in the true like fallen from the tree that's hanging above them, and how like when I was first reading this, I got so confused. But it causes magical fervor, which we did hear that this is what the reaction is

to eating one of these things way earlier. And this is when he's like realizing what she's about to do and says, who's your sacrifice? And she says, your companion, Donut has a powerful torch spell. I can do this without her help, but if you could ask her to cast it using my moon rays as the source, it will make this much more worthwhile for you and my family.

And that tentacle faced buffoon of a woman said something else to me that you weren't going to survive this evening because she'd been looking forward to meeting you on the battlefield. She was sad you weren't going to survive because she'd been looking forward to meeting you on the battlefield outside of Loroccos I want a favor from you, Carl. I want you to show her exactly how real my

family is. I want them all to see, which they wind up getting transported to the ninth floor, so perhaps he is going to have some of them as bat back up in the end. I'm wondering if they will turn into don't like, will he wind up with these tattoos on him somehow because they can't just stay. I guess they can just stay. I guess it's part of it. The fact that Princess Donadia is like being this kind and sweet and stuff to their face is when evidently the whole thing is going to be meeting him in

battle later. It's just the weirdest shit, like it just requires a type of compartmentalization that is bonkers to me. You know, I don't know. So at this point, Donut takes her charm potion manages to completely take over Ferdinand's will basically, and he joins the party, which I just you, guys, I laughed out loud when we get this notification. He's turning to Donadia and being like, that's my bird up

there about Donut, like what? And then we get her singing her song All Eyes on Me, and it's done in the audiobook with actual music, and he actually like sings in Doughnuts voice, and he does a pretty solid job of making this like nonsense, The nonsense lyrics feel like poetry more than simply like nonsense. And it's genuinely, like really sad like there's just a feeling to it of her mourning this owner that loved her. She thought that used to you know. It just feels so melancholy.

And Carl says it was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever heard. She sang them with such sad longing. It felt as if a hand had reached into my chest and wrenched at my heart. Hod Damn Ellie said, she's getting good. The spell did exactly what the title implied. Everyone in the room, without even realizing, was now affected by a minor charm, even the hunters and crawlers and the queen. The charm wasn't that useful, but it was perfect for this occasion. It focused everyone's attention on a

subject of the castor's choice. And then we get a little bit of a change in the music, and this is when Tina comes out. The spotlight had a blue tint, washing the room in warm moonlight. The glowing of Signet's skin tripled in intensity, and everybody is zeroed in on Donut, except for Vra, who is like, she just turns in time to see signet glowing and is starting to be like, wait, hold on a second, let's see the what do you

call it? What Tina is wearing the Boa, That's what I was looking for, is like washed and refreshed, and the Wand is recharged and she's, you know, doing these little twirls. It was another charm spell, another performer's trick. The audience, already heavily focused on the dinosaur, were now enraptured by her. They weren't forced to stare like zombies, but the Wand cast a spell called the Recital, which

had the effect of making everyone happy. It made them feel as if they wanted to be there, that they wanted to watch the stage, that this was something they'd been looking forward to. It filled me with warmth, with hope. I felt tears form in the corners of my eyes, and I just really like this little moment is despite the fact that it's loaded with magic and there is a plan in place that's unfolding, and it's not just

what it appears to be. I take comfort in knowing that when it comes to Donut planning it out, that to a point, it is just what it appears to be. If you get what I mean that Like, it's not simply the what's the word I want? There isn't like the cynicism of we have to make it as good as we can just to keep people's attention. She wants saying it as good as she can't because she likes to do that, you know, and I love that. So this is when Carl tells Sledge to get ready and

do it. Vra sees Signet and like points her out and is realizing something's happening, and he tells Sledge, you're going to be trans flurred to the knife floor with everyone else. Ferdinand and the cat will go and he might be a problem, so watch him. There might be zombies attacking you. None of the Faction Wars guys will be allowed to touch you, so hopefully you'll all be safe. You're gonna feel really sick for a full day, but you're gonna have a lot of people around who'll protect you.

Thank you for doing this, and thank you for taking care of Donut. I'll never forget what you've done for us tonight, and Sledge just says, Nola Bomo beat my Frogger's score, and Carl very seriously, I'll unplug the machine. The moment we get back, put in your inventory, dude, because you can plug that shit back in. I'm just saying, cover your bases. And Mango had a crab costume that had fallen around his neck. Kiwi was covered in white paper mache bubbles ringed around her neck like an oversized

pearl necklace. One of the costumes, a piece of seaweed fell lazily from the ceiling where it had just been accidentally cut in half, and Carl tells Brittany to get away from the backstage area. Donut says ready, whenever you are, and Nimani says everyone to the right of the room, move left, look at the floor tiles, and move to a place where the floor is solid. He hands over the knife to Signet. She says, protect your family and watch over mine, and then calls out to image in.

I only have two regrets. I never got the chance to say goodbye to Grimaldi, and then I won't be the one to kill you. Today. We're going to leave my mother and I. We were going to go to an island and leave all this behind. I think about it all the time and slits her own throat and again, you guys, I was so distracted by all of the things happening here that I didn't know this was like the way that she was going to do this. I should have because like, what else did I think was

going to happen? But yeah, it's it was just a really great little surprise from the ceiling. Every acorn on the upside down tree fell at once. There was no warning or reason. They all hit the ground like little gunshots. The floor rent open and Signet plummeted from sight, getting pulled into the nothing as image and grabbed at her

as if to stop her. And we hear somebody calling out for Sameiths saying that they are coming, which I wonder how they're coming, And we don't really hear Samiths like react to that, so I don't know if she heard it, or if she's just ignoring it or what. But this is when Karl puts on the ring of divine suffering Mark's Vra and then pulls out smoke, curtains and a lot of things. As the next chapter starts, many many things happened at once, and the velociraptors attack

Vraw and it is so friggin satisfying. Guys. I love this so much. And also so here comes fucking Samantha as well, yelling at rot remember me, bitch and chomping down at her now like Samantha's got silicone teeth, so I'm imagining that like biting down does not really do anything, but it's the thought that counts, you know. Again, I respect effort. Let's see Tina roared and also leaped off the front of the stage, but the moment she did,

she vanished. She was now the sole occupant of attendant ballroom B, not including the surprised workers and animal handlers, which we couldn't see. An elf suddenly appeared, landing on the stage, only for Tina to reappear for a moment to chomp him in half. Sucks to suck. A lot of the hunters are escaping, but many are also dying, not as many as we would like. And Lucia is like freaking out and cowering. Immani is like messaging Karl and being like, we have got to get the fuck

out of this room. What is even happening right now? Do Wata is on the map below them and not moving, And the tattoos that came off of uh signet are heading for Imagen, A massive tena sized hammerhead shark slammed into the ground. No longer floating like it usually did, it flopped angrily about, rolling over and through hunters and dinosaurs as it started to angrily chomp at nymphs, only some of whom were actually in the same room as it. So there's a lot of confusion translation where it's just

you know, who's here, who's not here? Who can I actually affect? Why are things going like they usually go one way, but now they're going a different way because signet isn't actually here, So what was sort of fueling that magic isn't really the same as always. And there is this red lightning that strikes everybody at the same time, and Carl's health drops down and he staggers. Vra has her arms and legs ripped off. Both dinosaurs also bled

from multiple wounds. One of VRA's compound irons compound eyes had been punctured and shattered like a bee's honeycomb, and she just says how and Carl says, Kiwi back to the stage, quick Mango finish her off for me, make it hurt, and Kiwi says goodbye to Mango In a very conscious way, which it doesn't seem to me that Mongo is as conscious as she is that this is a goodbye. It seems like she's really the only one

that really gets it here and let's see. He looks around for another target for his ring because now Ra is dead, and he takes his ring off, and then he yells at to Samantha, if I don't see you again, thank you, and she says, are you breaking up with me? Is it because of Louie? So there's a lot to unpack there that I won't be I'm gonna leave that suitcase sealed shot and I hope that you guys all

understand we're just leaving that there. And he has to tell her also that signet is in the nothing, which Samantha had been hoping to get her body and can't now. But she spots something and it's like wait, hold on, hold on, hold on, and she just like rolls off for a second, and he starts to hear a child crying, and there's this awful moment where the form of Clint as a kid is like cowering because he was one of her tattoos. This got me, guys like him just

being thrust into this. I felt so bad, and Nadine is trying to like protect him, but neither of them really knows what's going on. Karl is able to get their health back up with a potion and they wind up getting like yanked away. But it was just definitely a second of like, oh my god, you know. And there's a naiad on the ground and it says Princess Lunette incomplete flesh golum, which Signet had said, me and my mother are going now, but evidently she left her

mother behind. And I don't know if she knew that was gonna happen or not, you know, or maybe it being a memory she just meant, actually me and my mother, this is just the memory of her, you know. Uh. And he let's see the breathless Nadine pointed to the prone form. Signet wants you take the golam she took memory with her just left body. Helps him Antha find a pulp mancer and Carl or Samantha is so excited and it's just like yes, yes, yes, take the take it,

take it, take it. We'll figure it out. And he says, we'll figure this out when we meet up with you on the ninth and she just says fuck that she rows up off the ground, floating magically, and she shot off like a rocket, blasting down through a hole in the floor. So excuse me, but what she could do that she's been keeping that under wraps, I guess I And I'm assuming that when she says fuck, that she means I'm not staying in this fucking building. I'm not

waiting till the ninth floor. I think that she got out of there so that she wouldn't get transferred with everybody else. That's my assumption, So excuse me, Sorry, guys. And there's this whole thing here where Ferdinand gets like backhanded by Imagen. She's real mad at him, and then he winds up like hitting the ground and disappearing. And Kiwi is up on stage with Donut, and Donut pops one of the bubbles around her neck and there's a

potion ball inside. Kiwi staggered and then stood to her feet, having been transformed from a dinosaur to an earths sign. It happened even faster than I thought it would. The bear stood to her height, naked except the remaining paper babbles. She looked at her paws in surprise, the other raptors all roared as one their white dots all turned red. Tina, upon seeing the transformation of her mother, roared, then roared again, and then she's calling out, mom, where are we Mommy?

And again the audiobook narrator managing to do this like growling sad call for mom. Remarkable. That is not an easy thing to pull off. And that completes the quest for the recital. And then we have the room freezing Boss Battle cage fight extreme. Four teams enter, one team leaves, four teams enter, one team leaves. The AI's voice shrieked, absolutely giddy with excitement. And you know in corner one, all of these people in corner two, the last remaining hunters.

In corner three, Queen image in level one country Boss. Her forces had been whittled down to almost nothing, but her elite fighting squad is still in good shape. She may be down and shunned by her goddess because she just threw the worst PARTI since Alexander the Great took Persepolis, but she is still strong, powerful, and really really pissed off. And there is a Corner four DWATA level two hundred

and fifty immortal. She can't be killed, but if you can manage to talk her into some sort of birth control, she'll be knocked out of the ring. Amazing. So this whole thing, guys, it's so what's the word I want? It is so chaotic. There's so much to talk about here that I'm having trouble deciding because it gets to a point where I feel like I've got to read all the text, but I don't want to just read the you know what I mean, that's not a podcast. So I'm trying to figure out exactly what needs to

be mentioned specifically. I slammed onto my I slammed onto my magic protection spell lights swirled around me and they it just is like a moment of complete bedlam, with them killing as many of these friggin nymphs as they can. And they had all been like in mid air, and they're falling as well, and Imagen has the furthest to fall and it lands like a friggin meteor. The icons of Hunters started to get xt out as they splattered

against the ground. When the castle had teleported away, it had taken the sub basements with it, so we had further to fall than I had originally thought I savagely ripped at another mantis as a lightning bolt thick as a tree ripped through the air, possibly aimed at me, but it dissipated before hitting home, instead crisping dozens of

mantises who all exploded into mist. This is the energy of a lot of these upcoming paragraphs where it's like, you know, we've got smoke bombs, we've got lightning, we've got all kinds of like like weird abilities being mixed in with these tattoo creatures that are still like in the mix here and there. And let's see my feet hit the ground, landing amongst a knee deep pile of

dead bugs. I couldn't see a goddamn thing. A velosc of raptor with the bloody remnants of a lobster costume dangling from her neck, sailed over me, pouncing on something I couldn't see. They'd reverted to red tagged mobs, and I was just like, oh, I forgot about that. That makes sense. Like that definitely gave me a little moment of panic. So blood misted in the air. I could barely breathe, and I coughed as I trudged forward. Can you imagine there being so much blood that it's literally

like making it humid and hard to breathe? Like, I'm so sorry, but that is its fucking vile. I can't even picture that. That is so gross. Oh my god. A Velociraptord lay on the ground, injured in the fall. Sorry, I thought, as ellieised it. I'm so sorry. We couldn't save all of you. That sucks. It's like, you know, he did as much as he could fucking do. I'm not blaming him at all, but yeah, that would bum me out too. I headbutted the mantis, caving its head in. Huh,

I thought, as I started to lose consciousness. I didn't know I could do that. Just before the sleep took me, I was violently ripped, violently ripped awake by a mass heel. It was donut and the fucking Dmitri and Maxim are like friggin' going for it, and it's you guys. The double Crawler sland into the ground next to me as a flaming mount spun away. Blood showered over me. I miss my cat, Dmitri said, just before he closed his eyes. That's so sad, you guys that got to me. Ugh,

only five hunters remained. I could hear the roar of Florin's shotgun. And this is when Kotcha comes up and is like, we need to fucking get over there and help. And he's like, I don't know how I'm gonna be able to get in there. There's all these dead bugs. So she gives him the beanie that has the I Need my Personal Space spell on it, and then Donut comes up to him and is like, hey, check it out. That love vampire thing. All these elves are in love with me. And he's like, oh shit, that is amazing

because I have little heart icons over their head. How's your potion countdown? I'm ready, she shouted, take it now. Red lightning zapped the entire area, shocking us. All. This was stronger than before. More crawlers blinked and disappeared. All the remaining elves under Donuts control dropped dead, leaving her defenseless. I really was like disappointed that we didn't get to see more action with these elves, but I suppose they

basically served their purpose. I guess I don't know. So right here, right here is where I was able to read up to before I had to start recording. So now we're going to get into actual lively territory. Guys. Okay, so are you ready for it? It looks like it's gonna be just about the right amount of time for me to be over by ten minutes on this recording, which is freaking par for the course for me. So it's fine. The laundry Day spell couldn't hurt the God.

The only way it would actually remove the armor off of God was if she trained it up to twenty, which she wouldn't ever be able to do as she was maxed out at fifteen. But that was okay. She didn't need to remove the armor off of God. She just needed to remove it from a person. The God was the armor and it would remain intact. She just needed to remove it off the person underneath. And all we needed for that was the spell to be at level fifteen. I'd been worried we'd have to remove the

gods in vulnerability. Tin, who'd written the twenty first edition of the cookbook, seemed to think that that was the case, but after further research, it appeared that spells designed to target the drivers of soul Armer and not the gods themselves, would still work. I'd been planning on using this on Groul the next time he showed himself. But we couldn't always choose our battles, which is true words never spoken. The spell cast the deity screamed, and little white soapy

bubbles appeared everywhere. Dewata transformed into an antlered bear. It screamed at me and lunged before it dissipated into nothing. Do Wata has returned to the halls of ascendancy? White soapy bubbles really from laundry day? I suppose right? Oh this game. The form of Circe Took, stripped of her protection, sopping wet and covered with bubbles, stood to her full height. The giant mantis woman chittered in rage, I don't need

the protection of the god to She never finished. Before I could strike, a dozen of her own children fell upon her. The wave of bugs rushed her, slicing and cutting and ripping. They screamed as one, piling onto her as if enraged. Circe Took died, shrieking my name. Why did they kill her? Is that just what mansus? Babies do? Just eat their mommy? Is that a thing like with spiders? That's horrifying. Oh my god, we didn't have time to celebrate.

Yet another area attack swept through the pit, this time even stronger than before. Donut cried out and fell from mongo. Her health zeroed out. Her cockroach skill activated, saving her. I swear to God, this doughnut or this cockroach thing, we need to get like a double up on that, because she wouldn't survive another one of those.

couldn't hear. He blinked and disappeared, using an invisibility potion or skill. I moved to chase him, but I stopped dead, remembering his armor. That belt, nice tri asshole, I thought. I cast tripper. I don't remember the belt.

growing absurdly fast, closing in from above. That doesn't seem like it should be allowed. The brambles are coming in here, I say, coming in here. There's nothing here anymore, there's no building. Jesus. I hesitantly moved to the hunter corpse and I quickly looted him. I didn't get the drop shield or case of visibility potions. I assumed they were still in a prize box, but I received multiple trap items, too many to sort through now. Carl Donut cried, there

aren't any elves left, just imagen. We turned to help, but I skidded to a stop. Oh no, no, I said, seeing the body on the ground. It was Gwendolen Duet Gwen, the tattooed First Nations woman who'd been instrumental in our survival on the previous floor, aw with the cool tattoos. She lay dead, surrounded by elves and bugs. At her side was the body of Clayton. The Knock Knock joke guy. Tran was still there, still alive, dragging himself away, screaming

his legs were gone. I read a scroll healing him. His legs didn't not grow back. Oh that sucks, heave. Florin cried, firing his gun. Imagen atop a pile of corpses lit up as she was pelted with arrows and projectiles. They were coordinating their attacks, half of them firing on the two and four of the beat, the other on the one and three. Arrows, rocks and other non magical bolts slammed into the insanely powerful boss. Her health was in the red, almost gone. She had a stuttering shield

spell like a strobe light like. She kept casting it over and over again, but it kept getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of crap getting thrown at her. This is great everybody working together. We're all zeroed in on the one boss. This is what we should be doing. At elon Musk, Imogen stopped casting her spell. As she fell to a knee. A black, sizzling nimbus shone around her, similar to Bianca's aura. Her hands crackled red lightning attack.

Someone shouted. I spied Brittany on the ground, screaming. Louis and Furas lay side by side. Both were unconscious but alive. I hadn't had time to reinstall michistera, but I pulled a Hobgoblin disco ball your jacket, I shouted at Brittany. As I tossed the ball, it arked and landed against the side of Imagen's heads, splattering multicolored gou everywhere. She barely noticed. She was screaming something incomprehensible. Her health was

almost gone. Too slow, I thought, too slow. The lightning spell cast, but it came out as a single bolt attracted to the clump of spreading butterflies. The bolt slammed into the summoned creatures. That's not what I had intended to happen. I'd meant for the butterflies to seek out the disco ball and overwhelm image in But this worked too. The mess of butterflies exploded over our heads, barely ten feet away. Doughnut, mango, Brittany and I went flying in

different directions. My ear drums shattered, and everything plunged into silence. I slammed into a large, heavy corpse, a hunter, a dreadnaught, missing half his face. Flaming bits of stuffing were everywhere, falling like embers. This time, the unconsciousness took hold, and I felt myself slipping away, as if I were falling into a tunnel, as if I was getting pulled into a rushing river. As I passed out, I watched the shadow of Bianca, the goat dragon fly right over me.

Prepatente on her back, screaming silently. He jumped off the mount, a bubbling potion in each of his hands. The terrible stench of burning flesh overwhelmed the room as I finally slipped away, Winner quest complete, the vengeance of the daughter. Oh my gosh, guys, Prepatente coming in like a fucking g It is so funny how he was like a friggin kindergartener when we first met him, and now he's out here just like on a friggin vengeanceick like the Angel of Death. I'm here for it. Delighted that he

at least has Bianca, He's not alone, you know. Dom. Well, well, well ah, that was fun. I enjoyed doing that live read, so I guess it all worked out. I appreciate everybody's patience on that, and I hope that you guys are enjoying the coverage. So I will be doing the last chapters of this book in twenty twenty six, and it

will be live on Patreon, not on crowdcast. So everybody just be ready for that transition as we move to Patreon live for all of this stuff, and I really hope that I will see you all there, so stay tuned until then.