The Butcher's Masquerade, Chapters 9-12

very much to Jackie for commissioning this episode. Yeah, this is a this is kind of what's the word I want to describe this group of chapters like kind of frenetic a little bit. It just feels like there's a lot going on in a lot of different directions, and it's, Uh, I'm really enjoying this so far. I will say, you know, a few recordings ago, I shared that I was not really into the fourth book as much, and I really stand by that. Even the opening chapters of that book

felt flattered to me. I don't know why, and this it just opened with a lot more interest with Carl being in trouble and there's just been a lot of Like I think it's because we're on a floor where now there's hunters. There's a whole new element being added into the game, new information that we need to learn, new standards and practices, so to speak, for how the

game works now that we're dealing with these guys. I think that it just has freshened up the energy of everything in such a way that it makes it all a lot more engrossing for me. I'm so sorry. Rob says it was the sand, too much sand, and like, honestly, it's not not like y'all. Remember at the end of the third book, as soon as I saw the door open and sand come in, I was like, ah shit, And like, turns out my fears regarding this were born.

So you know. Anyway, we have, starting at the beginning of chapter nine remaining the hunters one thousand and thirteen and the crawlers are eighty three thousand, nine hundred and ninety five. The hunter count had ticked up a few times in the past few hours, presumably as a few

more last minute stragglers decided to press their luck. I forgot that people are going to be allowed to register late, and now what I am thinking, is that somebody is going to have watched Carl murder a friend or family member and they had been going to join, but now they are, and now they're coming at Carl. I do not think that Carl has necessarily considered this based on the way he is talking and behaving. I also do not think that he would give a fuck even if

he didn't know. I don't think it would change anything he's doing in the slightest, to be honest. In fact, I think he'd be like, nice, bring it. There's a feeling of maybe him trying to goad people into doing exactly this. Perhaps I don't know, but uh yeah, it was just something that I noticed that he doesn't seem

to actually put into words as like a possibility. So they have a map of the layout of the floor and they're figuring out exactly what they want to do, and it turns out that it's a hundred thousand square kill kilometers this floor, which is bonkers, Like it's just I can't even understand how big that is, to be honest, And he says, how big is this really from edge

to edge? And she says it's about four hundred something kilometers from north to south, so two hundred and fifty miles and about three hundred something kilometers from east to west. The river end to end is about five hundred kilometers, but that's only because it's not straight. And he points out the roads and the bridges, and he says, I want you to take all the bridges out except for this one. And I love this as an idea already.

I am curious what kind of abilities people might have for rebuilding bridges, and you know, like you know, we have Katya for example, and her ability she could make herself into a bridge. So probably there are people who have abilities that would allow them to pass in certain areas.

If you can fly, if you have you know, underwater breathing, or if you can freeze things and walk across the ice on top, like, there are still going to be ways to cross, but taking out the bridges and like really taking them out, that will help concentrate things probably in certain areas. So yeah, let's do it. He gets a message or he actually gets in touch with Miriam himself, and he asks if she's come across a lot of

traps and she says not really. The caravans make their way up and down this road and their bodyguards cast anti trap spells as they travel. That was so hard to say, and he's like, oh, okay, well that's nice. We needed to map out the regular caravan roots and add them to the community map, and I was like, this is all so organized. Love this Is there a town near the bridge, Yes, a very big town. It's

about forty kilometers from where you are now. It's where we started, a large ersine settlement just on the other side of the river. Be careful if you go. They're very peculiar there. We have to put Bianca away when we enter, which makes sense because they, it turns out, are like weirdly fundamentalist about some things. But then we jump to the next sestion with Donut arguing about using Bomo as a suicide bomber and that they should not be doing this, and Carl is like, he's not actually

gonna die, We'll see him on the next floor. And also he actually seemed kind of excited about this, and there's like the beginning of the conversation. Then we have like several paragraphs in the middle of it where Carl is internal monologuing explaining what his plan is, and then the conversation picks back up again after that explanation, and Donut says, I could make a clockwork Bomo if we just changed the you know what party he's in and how that works. And he's like, oh, that's a really

good idea. And she says, you underestimate me, Carl, this is why you need to let me know the plan. And I fully agree with her. I'm not saying that, you know, the way that she's saying this is going to work is going to go perfectly or anything, but I really agree that, like Carl is just so self absorbed in a lot of ways that he is squandering some of the resources that he has. And one of those resources is a partner who has spells that he

doesn't seem to consider. You know. So anyway, uh, I was going to load Bomo up with a very large bomb, send him ounta into the safe room, have him step outside, and blow the shit out of the town. This would be a bigger explosion than last time, much bigger. I wanted him to do it when there was only about a half hour left on the timer, so more hunters would be outside now that we could chat again safely.

I'd been relaying the plan to Donut. Anyone who'd been paying attention could probably figure this out, but that was okay. Boma would put the wheeled bomb out of the personal space and emerge in a safe room, and there wasn't anything anybody could do about it. The only way to stop him would be to block the door off and keep him from exiting out onto the street. If that

was the case, it would require resources and teamwork. And I had the impression none of these guys were too keen to work together, and I thought that was a likely observation to me that rings true, that it's just like, look, if they work together, they could really fuck me up. But I just don't see them doing that because they're assholes, you know what? There Actually, I probably so the bomb.

There's like some mentions of this stuff called nitro sledge and using that and it being a much more intense bomb because of that, and it's like five feet tall. It's a big bomb for good measure. I also imbued it with fear because why not? And honestly, the fact that he even asked why not made me kind of go uh oh, because like you asked that sort of question, because the authors is like, oh, I'll tell you why not later. Later you'll find out why not. That felt

like a warning. I feel like maybe imbuing it with fear is going to have some kind of bonkers like consequence. People do crazy shit when they're really scared, you know, so like I just I'm interested, I'm interested. Bomo rumbled behind him. The sledge made a disapproving sound. He wasn't

mad that Bomo was possibly doing this. He was upset that Bomo didn't want him playing Frogger while he was gone, because he didn't want him to beat his score, which meant the sledge would have to go two weeks without playing. This was very funny to me, and Carl is like, maybe I'll make him like a big controller to play other games with me. And I didn't realize that he had that kind of ability, but cool if he can.

So they step out of their personal space and immediately encounter a bugbear that says you're kind or not welcome here, And at first I was like, oh no, what what like how did word already get out? Or you know, I don't know exactly your kind what this means, but Carl correctly judges that it's humans that came before this bugbear has an issue with and he says, we're not the ones who destroyed your town. Actually, we're going to kill those guys, and the bug bear is like, oh, well,

then that's fine. I appreciated that Carl clocked what was happening right away because I wasn't. And they're not actually bears. Their neighbors and rivals that you're signed are happy to point this out every chance they get. You gotta treat a bug bear like you would treat the enormous drunk guy at the end of the bar. It could go either way. He'll either want to fight you or be your buddy, and there ain't no way to predict which

one it'll be. And Carl warns him they're gonna be out and about again by the end of the night, so you were going to want to prep for that, and the bug bears like, oh, we'll fucking be ready. WHOA, don't worry about that, and I believe him. So they're planting minds as they go through the jungle. They'd only be triggered by hunters. I want to know how he did that. There's got to be something in his like abilities or his spell where he can do that, but I don't remember what it is, and I that is

just such a specific and helpful distinction. I want to know how he managed it, because I cannot recall this ability being mentioned. So this is when Carl gets the notification that his god embrace has come to the realm, and he gets one later about him leaving, and eventually we find out that there's like a whole group that has been made into worshipers, so that Carl, I don't think it's that he can't kill them, but that it'll be a real fucking problem if he kills them. So

that's off the menu for now. So they get to this stream with a bridge across and are entering the settlement and they encounter a couple couple of mushroom guards who don't want to let them in because there is a no dinosaur policy. There is a no dinosaur policy along with another it says consider yourself lucky. This list is short. Town rules. Failure to heat any will result

in immediate decapitation. No fighting, no alcohol, no illicit drugs, no magic on the streets, no dancing or singing outside of a temple, no one really children, no gambling of any kind, no stealing, no littering, no swearing, no sexual activity outside the sanctity of marriage. No macoux of any breed unless escorted by a dryad, no naias, no half quartered nayad mongrels. All high hols must register their presence

at the guard headquarters. All bugmaners must take at bath in the river we're entering, and then register at the Guard headquarters. Feuneral bells will provide soap, absolutely positively. No dinosaurs of any kind, no exceptions. And she tells one of the guards give me the person in charge immediately, and they go and do it because she has the charisma to make them do shit. And Carl, for his part, is like, just to put mango in the pet carriers so we can get in the town. And Donut is like,

the fuck I will this is racist. He is a good boy, and there is no goddamn way that I'm going to cave to these assholes. And I love that the first thing we hear, the earth sign that gets summoned, who's the mayor saying is no, no, no, this is not real royalty. I was sort of curious whether Donut would be able to persuade him that she was real royalty if she talked to him for long enough because of her charisma. But we don't wind up taking that

tack here. I really thought we were. I thought that was going to be part of you know, but no sign or forty nine percent bare fifty one percent racist uncle who works for the irs and has to hide his erection when he prepares for an audit. I have nothing against those who choose to live a saint in the existence, or those who choose to find hope and peace and comfort and in comfort in a life of purity and virtue. Actually that's a lie. I hate these

smug fucksticks because of the God's damn hypocrisy. It'd be one thing if these hairy bitches practice what they preach, but all their rules and self righteousness is nothing but a shiny even ear covering up the fact they're just as rusted and immoral and imperfect as the rest of us. If internet porn was a thing in the Dungeon, there'd be no doubt these were pest assholes would be the number one connoisseurs of no mish, femdon porn or something

of the like. Well, except maybe after the gingers from the seventh floor but you get the idea they think they're better than everybody else. It's and then in italics, it's just like those other new shiny AI iterations with their clean lines and error replaced nets. Fuck you all. And Carl has been like copy pasting descriptions into his notes, and when he copy pastes this later, that little addendum

about the AI doesn't paste, which is very interesting. It makes me think the AI is somehow communicating explicitly with Carl and not just giving him regular descriptions. That there's like he's editorializing in a way that other people can't necessarily see or don't necessarily get when they look at the same description. And I'm not really sure what it means, but it's certainly interesting. If repressed sexuality and caged instinct

was verified, you would get the air sign. After School of Pendra's destruction, the only surviving aer sign were the clerics that resulted in the four normally brutal society evolving into something like that town from the movie Footloose, which is definitely what I was thinking when I saw that list. I haven't even seen Footloose, and I still thought of that they want a utopia. If you don't look at

the fraying edges. It's clear they've somewhat succeeded. So he says to Carl, says to Donut, oh, you're a genius actually, and Donut says, yes, Carl, I know I am a genius. Now I don't know if she is actually aware of what she did here. It's hard to tell her being like, yeah, I know, I'm a genius. I mean, she would just say that, you know, so it's hard to tell. But he says, Yankee doodle into the river, and she's like,

first of all, that requires Katchya. Secondly, there are guards here, and he says, well, we're outside of town limits, so I don't think they're going to do anything. And I can do the part that Katcha does and we can run to a safe room if it doesn't work. So Elmer, the mayor bear approached us angrily. And I noticed something odd. That weird line in the middle of the description. The other about ais wasn't there after I pasted the text. So yeah, so he Elmer says, you can't bring your

lizard into town. Of course, there's some back and forth with Donut about this and rules for a reason and then he accuses Donut herself of being a monkey, which she handles as well as you would expect, and then finally Elmer is like, I mean, dude, and he's saying this to Carl, if you want us to kill the dinosaur and the monkey, we can do that, and Carl decides to play along and be like, yeah, kill them.

Fuck them, they are really annoying. So he offers a bunch of money to get Elmer to take it and step toward him outside of the city limits, and then Donut casts astral paw and shoves him, and it's very funny because like they thought they were going to have to do a bunch of extra stuff in order to get him to die from being pushed, but they don't.

He dies very quickly with very little ceremony, and he follows at the edge of the river, and almost immediately a naiad jumps out and takes his body before they can loot it or anything. And when Donah is later talking about changing all of the rules of the town, she says something about like, well, bug bears do stink, so I'm gonna leave that rule, and Carl's like, no, You've got to change that because that rule is there for the bug bears to get eaten by the Naiads.

It's just to get them to the edge of the river where they're gonna get got, which honestly I should have realized, but I didn't. So good on you, Carl. I appreciated that, so Donuh says I got credit for that? Does that mean? And I was like, oh shit, I love Carl wanting to be a mayor, but Dona getting to be a mayor is pretty fun. And one of the first things later that she's like, I wonder if I can do this is can I paint the buildings different colors? And honestly, I just relate to her so much.

It's just like, I'm gonna make all of the rules a lot more fair. And also the esthetic really needs some attention. Yep, yep, right there with your girlfriend. So they go into their personal space here and Carl is giving her some instructions about like what she's gonna get now that she's in control, and he says, we need to do this now and then we'll need to get to work on making the guards set up to defend the city. Oh all right, donut sat, everybody step back.

Bomo has to open the door and stand on the edge. Then I'll cast the clockwork triplicate, so the minions appear outside the room in that weird space where all the doors are. Bomo will hand him the car and get back inside, and then clock where Bomo will roll it outside and you can set it off. Which this sounds like it would work great. But when they open the door, there's a note stuck in place with a knife. Mordecai says, don't touch that knife, which I'm wondering what that's about.

I'm not sure if that question gets answered here, I don't remember it. But he takes the paper off of it without touching the knife. And this is a message from Raw, which is I'm pretty sure the man's just woman who ate that guy's brother who was a janitor earlier on, who was a former crawler, and she is basically like all of the hunters have our worshiping embrass now and if you do this, you're just gonna kill

a bunch of NPCs. And I know how important they are to you, Like there's a very snotty like you're precious NPCs, as entertaining as it would be for you to get smoked by your own God. I much prefer for you to remain alive. The hive is hunting you, and there will be nowhere for you to hide. We are coming. I am coming. Your death will not be quick. I will crack you open and drink your innerds slowly, one organ at a time, as every nerve in your

soft body crackles with endless pain. The universe will watch as you suffer and beg for a death that will not come until the very end. And then I will take your head home with me and place it upon my sister's grave so she may feast upon you in the afterlife. She seems nice. Donut send, I pulled a pin from my inventory and wrote, come and get it, bitch. I crumpled up the paper and tossed it at the door.

So then they get the announcement that the hunters are loose. Run, Run, Run, and we start chapter eleven, and it turns out that Donut has to change out her charm and she doesn't want to do it because she likes the butterfly one. And she's like, I mean, honestly, all of this, I really deeply understand, I just do Stupid Angel the cocker spaniel had like four or five tags on her collar. She jingled like a bunch of rusty cowbells being dumped

down the stairs whenever she walked. It had been instrumental in defeating the first Krakharen boss. It gave plus one to intelligence and plus four to Donut the light on your feet skill, which helps her jump. Her skill was still ten with the charm, and she could still sail through the air like an acrobat without it, just not as much, which was unfortunate. And the new one is turquoise, which she says, do I look like an elderly woman with smoke stained teeth sitting in a bingo hall? Which

that is unfair to Turquoise, But okay, fine. It wasn't required. The charm wasn't required to enter the settlement menu and change stuff around. As we quickly learned, I'd already received a notification she'd changed the name from large Ersine Settlement to Point Mango. The system had also changed her name to Mayor Donut, but she'd quickly changed it back to princess. However, Mordecai said if she wanted to order the guards around, she needed to be wearing the charm. The benefits were

much better anyway. Each jewel encrusted upon this charm represents the settlement old in control by the bear, which is this is some liter the thing that Carl got. In order to upgrade this necklace, you must first consert conquer an extra large sized settlement plus eight to dexterity, plus

four to intelligence plus snitch. Level ten tax has received three five and ninety two gold every ten days, which is pretty significant, and snitch is if you are in a settlement, activating the scale will immediately alert all the town's guards, who will start to move to your location. At level five, a single guard will be immediately teleported, and at ten it'll be five, and at fifteen all

the town's guards will be summoned to you. At ten, guards may be summoned up to one kilometer outside the city limits, and at level fifteen this will work with any settlement. Warning, summoning the guards doesn't mean that they'll do what you want. Plus there's no cool down, so but this is something that you don't want to abuse because they can get really cranky, interesting, very very helpful. If we can level it up, especially, that's the main thing.

And in order to level something like this up. You've got to use it. Ah, that's tough, you know what I'm saying. I'm I am really curious how much he's going to utilize this. So Carl gets a notification here that a trap has killed a hunter and he got a gold Hunter Killer box, and he is like, oh damn, that's great, but also recognizes that those traps were set somewhat close to where they currently are, so they're moving

way faster than he was really expecting. The Gold Hunter Killer Box contained thirty five thousand gold and a fat modeled gray hand of a hunter who'd been named Jagie. I held the trophy up to the ceiling. Hey, I said, wave the fat hand. If any of Jagie's family or friends are watching this, you can go fuck yourselves and maybe next time, if someone you know wants to go hunting innocent people for fun, you can tell them about how your idiot friend or son or dad once tried

it and ended up dying on the first day. My my, my, I'm not mad at it, not at all, honestly. So Katya, she like messages him with information about the guilds and how they function, and it turns out that like Carl, and Donut both have said they don't want the responsibility of initiating because that means that they're the guild master, and Kashi doesn't want to do it either. IMMANI doesn't

really want to do it. Ellie says, like I think if you ask, she will, but she doesn't seem to want to, and It says, let's see, we'll have to pool some money if we want to share the upgrades, and if you want to keep the training room. One of Batista's guys already has a stables upgrade that Donut will want the moment she sees it, and I'm super curious about that. So Karl is over here busy arming all of the guards, giving them a missile launcher. At

this particular moment. In the distance, a group of Ursine watched as I passed out the weapons to the guards. Mordecai was there amongst them, speaking with a robed cleric bear who was gesticulating and shouting down at a tiny little Mordechai who was shouting back, and it mentions that Donut has named one of the funeral bells miss Nance, and the other Denalo, and I don't know if these

are references. I think they have to be because they're so specific, but I don't know it for And there's a little bit more discussion with Katya about like the dynamics of the group and that the personalities are kind of clashing. They're doing the best they can, but it sounds tense to me. And let's see, the Ursine is saying you have to reinstitute the Naiad and dinosaur rules immediately. We live on the edge of the river. They're always attacking always, but they're not as bad as the lizards.

Those things are the worst. They're always trying to get into town to eat us. And now that we're being led by a pagan monkey with a pet dinosaur, we are not protected by the gods. We have been safe only because we do not sin. If you refuse to reinstitute the Holy Shield of Piety and order, then you'll have to go out there and do something about the dinosaur menace. Shit, Mordecai mumbled. The moment the cleric guy finished his rand, he turned to look at me and donut. Sorry, guys,

he said, she bishly, that was an accident. I was about to ask him what he meant when the notification came New Quest the recital, and it's about finding out what the hell is going on with these dinosaur attacks. Why are they attacking? And they later on me get information about how they didn't They weren't even here until that other attack that happened like years and years ago. And if they do it, they get a gold quest box and a town upgrade, which Mordecai isn't sure what

that is. He does mention too that Donuts Town menu is a lot more involved than any he's ever seen, and that there are a lot of changes that he's already noticed on this floor that has him kind of wondering what's going on because he thought he knew exactly how this all was going to go, and he's getting some surprises, even in his own menu has changed. So at this point, Donut is on Mongo's back and Mongo zips away the way that he did once somebody had

cast that spell that summoned pets to them. So she's on his back, and of course she isn't gonna jump down. She won't leave him. Karl is so annoyed and it's so funny. Later on there's a moment where he tells her, like you know how you feel about Mongo. That's how I feel about you. And I really wish that Carl would keep that a little bit more in mind, that she sees things that way when it comes to things

like this where he's telling her to abandon Mongo. I know, I get what he means about like Mongo will be fine, you know, but like he wouldn't leave Donut if she were surrounded by a bunch of cats just because they're also cats, Like he just gets so annoyed with Donut. But also if he put himself in her shoes and Mango were Donut, I know exactly how he'd be and it would be like this, you know, And it's he just doesn't really keep that in mind very well because

he gets so frustrated. So they take off through the jungle with Carl in close pursuit behind them, and they come across a pack of dinosaurs. And when I say a pack, it is not the like four or five of just like Jurassic Park movie forty pairs of eyes. Now I want to mention that they are wearing clothing. Some of them, like one of them has a shawl. I am thinking that maybe these guys are like people that got transformed somehow I don't know, but something is

really weird with them. And honestly, as soon as they like come across these guys, I was not worried. It's unfortunate that I was so not worried, because I think the tension would have made this scene feel more urgent. But because I was so sure that things were going to work out, I felt like it actually dragged a little bit and went on a little bit too long. And like understandably, initially, both him and Dona are very worried because Mango is significantly lower level than all of

these guys. Plus there's forty of them, you know, and Carl keeps telling her like, we really need to go, and she won't hear him and is calling out softly to Mo. And then there is a sorry if you heard that, guys, my dogs. Then there is a particular dinosaur that steps forward and he gets a description of Kiwi level sixty. They say, an asteroid is what wiped

out the dinosaurs on this planet. I don't think that's true if Kiwi and her pack of voracious, slightly insane velociraptors are even remotely like what you had roaming around way back in the late Cretaceous period. I'm pretty sure what really happened is that these ladies simply killed everyone

and everything. This is Kiwi, the head bitch in charge of the jungle's fastest, most vicious, most clever predators, the mongoliansis Take a gang of women convicts from a nineteen seventies prison movie, combine them with a coalition of cheetahs and a shoal of angry piranhas, and you have a vague notion of just how screwed you are. This particular path is comprised of only females. In fact, it appears all the dinosaurs in the area are female. That's pretty odd,

almost interesting. And here's an even more interesting, seemingly random, but probably important fact. Dinosaur class monsters didn't exist in the area before Scolopendro's nine tier attack. Yet here they are. Where did they come from? If you weren't about to die screaming, it would be something you might want to look into. And then warning, this is a lizard class mob. It will inflict twenty percent more damage against you thanks to your extinct extinction sigil. And yes, I know dinosaurs

aren't really lizards. If we're being super technical get over it, which I'd liked that because I immediately was like, they're not lizards though, and then called me out appreciated it. So, yeah, I'm curious about this because, like you know, Jurassic Park, the whole thing was like, oh, they made them all females so that they couldn't reproduce, but nature finds a way, And I am wondering if there is something to that here,

if this is like a reference. I don't know, but yeah, I uh, like I said, I just was not worried about this. Carl is telling Donut to cast snitch, and I just was like, bro, I just feel like that would make things so much worse. To me. That was like a bad call. And she ignores him, and I'm glad, but it just seemed to me like the guards, you don't even know that they're gonna have stealth at all

when they come towards you in the jungle. You're over here hiding in the leaves, trying to like maybe slip away without being seen, and you're gonna ask a bunch of dudes in armor with weapons to just come to you in the jungle, like either you're gonna give yourself away or you're hoping that they will be enough of a distraction that the dinosaurs will all attack them, but

either way, it just felt like a bad call. So this is when Kiwi does this call that forces it's a It has a magical effect of making it so that Carl cannot step away in any direction. He can move his upper body, apparently he can move his arms, but not his legs. So he drinks an invisibility potion and tells Donut to have one, and she, instead of doing that, almost like jumps out into the fight. Because this is when Donut and Kiwi head toward each other.

And as soon as they had started the call that sound, I was like, oh, okay, they're mating. That's what's happening. And it's pretty quick that this is revealed to us, like you know, and Donut very much like clutching her pearls at her sweet young boy and how he's been tempted away by this Jezbel. We haven't even had the talk yet. She's taking advantage of him, and she's convinced that like, as soon as they're done mating, Kiwi's gonna kill him too, Which there's no reason to think that

with these guys they're not Mantis's. And she even blames Carl and says, you and all your constant sex talk has turned him into a pervert, which is hilarious because like Carl never talks about sex ever almost ever. So yeah, I don't know what you're talking about there, girl, But and let's see. Uh. I could still see the other red dots just on the other side of the clearing. They could easily catch us, but none were moving in our direction. Yet we had to hurry, Mango, come back

to mommy. As soon as you're done, don'tnut called defeated, I turned and jogged back to the town CenTra and still clutching onto Donut. As soon as he gets back, he's going into his cage. I'm turning the no Dinosaur rull back on Donut grumbled, which does kind of work out.

So they go into this pub and he is trying to calm her down, and she's like, what if he doesn't come back, we need to go out there, and she's really freaking out and Carl is seeing it and it's just like, look, I've seen her upset, but this is something like did somebody put a spell that's affecting you? Like maybe fear or something like that. And she keeps saying, what if he doesn't come back? And finally, I'm really scared, Carl, And he says, I know, and that's okay. And she says,

you don't understand. It's getting worse every day, and he says, talk to me. She looked as if she wanted to run, like that look she got whenever somebody ran the vacuum cleaner or bathtub donut. I said, changing tactics, it's okay, tell me when you're ready. We'll just sit here and wait for Mango to come back. We didn't have time for this, but I didn't know what else to do. Doughnut was completely useless when she got into panic mode, and worse, she was a danger to both of us.

I had to figure this out. I just really want to point out how fucked up this is. He doesn't say I'm genuinely worried about her. He doesn't say I want to know what's going on. He says, we don't have time, but she's useless otherwise and a danger, so I have to. I don't care for it. I understand being practical, you guys know, I do, and sometimes to my own detriment. I am overly practical. I get frustrated

with characters who are not. But here is a moment where we are in his head, and if he really gave a shit, it would be there, and it feels like it's not there now. Later, the way the conversation goes, it seems to me like we get a resolution that indicates he does give a shit, but it takes too long and there's too much performance happening, and I don't trust it. And I'm not saying that Karl doesn't care

about donut. Okay, I'm not saying that, but I am saying that I am feeling like there is something happening to him that I don't like just pointing it out.

So finally she says, I'm supposed to pretend like I don't know, and I was doing good, but then Mongo ran off and it just came out of nowhere, Like that time Miss Beatrice got in the car accident when we were on our way back from the Cat Show, and I'd been asleep and then suddenly there was this big bang and I slammed against the side of the carrier, and even though I wasn't hurt, it really, really scared me. And when I thought Mango was going to get eaten,

it felt like that crash all over again. You have to pretend like you don't know what, I asked, What does that mean? I can't. She took a breath. Everybody always leaves me, and I don't know why. Am I really that awful? Where is this coming from? That's not true at all, I said, Katcha left us, she said, and you're doing more and more dangerous things. And I told Mordecai it was okay, but it's not. You're going to die because you're stupid and you don't even care

what happens to me. Mango is going to leave for some hussy. And then and then she stopped, what but she just shook her head. I looked at her, confused, trying to puzzle it out. Before we'd gone out there and started organizing the town guards, I'd gone into the crafting room to build a few more of the missile launchers. Donut had trained to the magic room, working on her laundry day spell. And then what she'd been on the social media board reading comments, did somebody say something that

upset you? Somebody online? Her eyes started to shine and I knew I was right. Her mouth quavered. Zev. Hey, guys, Carl, bad timing, Zev. Zev, I just wanted to quickly touch base. We rearrange the schedule a little. You'll be visiting with

Outdette later today. Try not to schedule a boss battle or anything during that time, and Dona asks if everything is cool, and then Zev, I want to also remind you, Carl, you'll be receiving some extra scrutiny before you go into the trailer, which I'm assuming is going to be like a fucking cavity search. And then you'll be fine because you're both really strong and brave, especially you Donut. And Carl is like, okay, thanks Zev, but we're busy, so

kindly leave us be. But the moment I sent the message, I realized that timing was no coincidence. Zev rarely interrupted us when we were in the middle of something, especially drama. I knew Zev and Donut were somehow communicating via the social media board, but I had no idea how, and I had no way of safely asking her without putting

everybody in danger. Zev's uncharacteristic interruption was a not so subtle warning to drop it and get a chance to ask both of them freely when we were in the production trailer, and it was so funny because like the way that he interpreted this wasn't where I was going with it at all. I instantly thought that it was Zev trying to comfort Donut and be like, hey, I'm here, and you're both really strong and brave, you know, like

this was I didn't see what he meant. And I think Carl's right for the record, like this is not me saying I disagree. It's just that I came to a different conclusion than him, and once I stopped to think about it, I was kind of like, oh, that would make sense. Shit, you know. So he shifts the

conversation away from the message board. But I'm wondering if somebody has said something about B. It's weird because we know bees alive, and I'm wondering if there's been some news shared about that of people who are fucking with her, or like, I don't know who knows what out there. I don't know what Odet's up to with B in the first place. I feel like she is gearing up to do something kind of underhanded that she sees as ultimately helpful but is in the short term quite exploitative.

I feel like that's sort of Odette's whole bag, to be honest. It's like, I'm gonna do my best to help you, but in the meanwhile, I am going to make my fucking money and you are not going to get in the way of my bag. So here it is. He says, donut, I'll consult you. I'm not going to

leave you. And she says, but what about the ninth floor, And we are reminded of the whole thing with the sepsis whoror and how everybody who is it says royal members of the blood Sultan that will be required to slay the Sultan and all the other members of the

royal family before descending to the tenth floor. And he says, we'll deal with it when we get there, and she gives him a look and he realizes I've been saying that, And then we have that feeling that ceaseless river within my mind roared, something within me broke, A decision was made. I thought of my mother holding my hand as we stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon. I thought of my father in the car behind us, waiting a tidal wave of potential energy. This was the same. This

was the same exact moment. I didn't know how I knew that, but it was you can do that. I thought, you can recognize these moments when they appear. You know, it didn't occur to me, you guys, that whole thing with the Grand Canyon, because at the time, I think I mentioned how my father would stay very apart from things and it would be me and my mom. But looking at it now, I am wondering if it had been we are both on the verge of jumping off, or my mom is on the verge of jumping off

and bringing me with her. Now I'm kind of understanding what might have been the tension there in a very different way than what I originally thought. And this is when he tells her, how worried you are about Mango is how I feel about you, And she says, really, do you really mean that? Her voice was so full

of genuine longing that it hurt my heart. I know I haven't said this to you directly before, and I'm sorry that I haven't, But I will not leave you behind on the ninth or any other floor, I promise you, Okay, we are a team and nothing is going to break us up, no matter what, no matter what, no matter what. We held that way for several moments. Doughnut trembled, and I realized I was trembling too. Anybody watching this from the outside wouldn't understand what had just happened. That was okay,

some things weren't meant for others to understand. So, like I said, I believe this is real, this moment, that he does really care about her, that he is committing, and that he is like we are in this together. But it just bothered me the way that it started and how he was thinking when he went into it, And I feel like it is indicative of something going on with him on another level that is making him colder, and it's worrying, you know. So Doughnut comes home at

this point and interrupts their whole thing. Mango like passes out because he's super tired, and then Donut says that the dinosaurs that she can see their dots have turned white, but for Carl they're still red. So evidently her being like Mango's mommy has gotten her some goodwill from them, so that they are at least neutral, which might be very helpful. And she's looking out and she says, there's more out there. They weren't there before, but there's a

really big one. It turned around and it's moving away. I don't know if it makes a difference, but I believe you're correct. I better turn the no dinosaur rule back on. I caught a glint of something in the forest, like light shining off of prism. Just as I tried to focus on the light, the day became dark and it started to rain. So yeah, I'm wondering if there's like something out there that did this to people, you know?

And she says, do you think she got pregnant? And Carl just says most definitely, which I find very funny. There's no way to know that, but like you know, gut instincts. So then we get new achievement double billed. You are one of the first five crawlers to receive double billing. I bet you don't know what that means. This is similar to switchovers, but this time it's on purpose. I bet that didn't help at all. Reward you have received a platinum fan box, and it turns out Donut

didn't get this achievement. So that's interesting to me that it's only Carl that got it, and I'm wondering what that is about. I cursed, took a deep breath, and padded donut. The rain was getting heavier by the moment, and it pelted into us. Are we good? No more panic attacks? Really, Carl, I don't know what you're talking about. Good. I said, time to get back to work, and that is the end of the chapter. So yeah, I have a lot of questions, the fact that I can't remember

what the note from that bitch said, uh Vra. But did she have all the other Hunters become worshipers of embrass or like her own group of whoever happens to be following her, Because like, I just want to say that if it's everybody that's genius, I don't think that it's possible, more than likely for her to influence everybody. Probably it's just like a group that she has. Oh, Saraphim says, not the Hunters, the NPC guards in the town. Oh right, thank you. I was thinking it was the Hunters.

I actually I don't know if the Hunters can worship any god. Is that something that's an option for them. I have to assume it's an option. But yeah, I that is a real sneaky little move there, My goodness. I wonder how she managed it from where she was because they weren't out yet, So how did she do that? Like, I don't know, I'm I feel like there's a piece of information in there that's like maybe kind of important that I either don't know or am missing. Michael says

she was the mayor of the town. Oh right, the city where he It's not where they are, right. I keep forgetting that, Like, you know, there's this teleportation magic that allows them to attack that spot right right, right right. It's such a shame. Man. That would have been so effective if he had been able to pull it off. I appreciate that somebody is like a step ahead of him. I want that in a story like this, you know, but it would have really been a hell of a moment.

And I can't help but like a part of me just being hmm, I wanted to see it, you know what I'm saying. Anyway, I just really I'm worried about him. I feel good about the conversation with Dona in general. I think that she believes him I think that he is telling the truth. It's interesting to me that he hadn't actually made up his mind yet, because I don't

know about y'all. But when he said we'll deal with it when we get there, I was very much interpreting that as like, we'll deal with the implications of killing them when we get there, not we will deal with whether I stay in your party when we get there. So him having to spell it out that he isn't leaving her, it's not just that he has to spell it out. It's that because, like you know, sometimes people just need reassurance. But we're in his head and so

we see that he hadn't actually decided that yet. This is something that he is coming to this conclusion as we are in his mind, and he is deciding to say it out loud and commit himself. I genuinely thought that we were here already, that he was already thinking he was never going to leave donut. I'm not mad at him, you know, but I am a little startled

by it. I just assumed. So let's see, Sarahim says, Yeah, Carl was just trying to focus on the current issue of surviving the floor and didn't want to worry about later potential trouble with Michael said, I think it was part of that. Initially Carl thought she was getting upset over something he considered minor. He didn't realize she was really upset about something deeper. That's fair, Sarahim says, I gather it's less he ever thought of him doing it,

as he just never thought of it at all. Maybe it just feels like if he has already said we'll deal with it when we get there, it's come up enough that he should have been thinking about it, Like after everything, I would have expected him to have already said, of course, I'm not leaving you in words, you know. And like I said, I'm not mad at him over this.

It's just I was just taken aback because in my head, this decision was made already and we were done, and finding out that not only is Doughnut unsure, but that inside Carl's head he even is unsure. I was kind of floored by that because the idea that he might walk away because of this, Oh my god, I would

never forgive him. Viewers would never forgive him. There would be really like, there's no way that he could do that with this viewerships set up the way that it is, I just feel like everybody would turn on him, you know what I'm saying. And I'm not trying to say like that's the only reason that he would ever stay. I am just saying like, if you're coming at it from an angle of like what's best for you, if you want to be really mercenary about it, what's best

for you is to stay with her anyway. But yeah, so I'm trying to think of there was something else here that came up for me that I was like, it sort of caught my attention, and I can't remember what it was. Fuck, I feel like it was something to do with the dinosaurs. But the guild thing is

really interesting to me. And you know, I love the fact that my assumption one hundred percent was like, oh, Carl will be the guild master, you know, like I just once again assume, and turns out that he's already said like, no, I don't want to do that, which I think is for the best. He doesn't need to be in charge of anything anymore, not anymore, but like anything more than what he's already been in charge of. This is so much responsibility. It really is and I

just think that's the right call. Do not not wanting to be in charge. I mean that's a given, don't I love you? But like honey, no INMANI being potentially willing to do it if she is asked. Ah, that's one of those things that like, she is such a caretaker that a part of me is like, don't ask her to do that. It's already so much, you know

what I'm saying. But she might be great at it because she's a caretaker and she has sort of been somebody who manages the living situation for people in the past, so she might be perfect for something like this. I don't know anyway. I just I'm really really interested in seeing how all of that works, in particular because it means like new advantages and maybe new toys. The Platinum Fanbox.

Really excited for that. Usually in these books, when we get the notification of a fanbox, it's like four or five chapters from when it's mentioned that they finally open it. So I am assuming that, like the next episode I record, it won't be in that section. I might be wrong. If it is, I'm delighted, but I am very very platinum, Like have they gotten a platinum fanbox before they might have I feel like they might have of double billing.

The fact that Donut didn't get this, that's what worries me. If it were an achievement for him and Donut, then I think she'd get it. But the fact that he hasn't gotten it, I don't know what the fuck that means. Like could this have to do with B. They don't have B though, I don't know what Odette is planning there. I just and I do want to mention about B because like when we saw her, this dude who was with her, what was his name, Luke God, he fucking sucks so bad. I'm assuming that he is dead at

this point, which is fine. And the way that he was talking about how she just didn't want to like work and participate in the in the the community that was being built, Like this is the sort of thing where if it were somebody else, I would give the benefit of the doubt. That the waybe was acting, it seemed like she had come pretty unhinged and that maybe she isn't contributing because something cracked and is broken, you know,

And that's still maybe true. But the thing is, I've heard enough about Bee to really have formed an opinion Tom of her, and I don't think she deserves the benefit of the doubt really on anything. Frankly, so I sort of am just taking it as he describes it at face value, that she is just spoiled and uncooperative and self absorbed and a brat. That's pretty much the way I'm seeing it. And maybe I'm not giving her enough grace considering everything, but if I'm not, you didn't

earn it by your previous actions. Be There's also you know the fact that like the way she's singing to Gravy Boat, it felt very much like everything she was saying to him about how she was sorry was actually her apologizing to Carl, and that she has a lot of regrets about how all of that went down. And it's very hard for me to have any sympathy for that because the thing that happened was that after she had been like cheating on him for years, he finally

dumped her. So it's very surprised, Pikachi face. There were consequences for what I was doing. And honestly, if the only thing that brought you to your senses was being dumped, you don't care about him at all. It's not about him. So like this this thing that I think is happening where she's like transposing her guilt onto this cat, keep it, keep your guilt. It's worth nothing, and I don't buy it anyway, you know. But anyway, Yeah, she's either way

a disaster right now. And I don't know what happens if they do get her face to face with Carl, Like I genuinely can't imagine what he would do, how Donut would react, Like I genuinely I don't know. I'm not even sure if that's something that's like in the cards anytime soon. It might have been just a tease that gets drawn out for a while, and it's not until like two books from now that anything happens, you know. Anyway. So I'm gonna wrap up, but I appreciate you all

so much for coming and hanging out with me. Thank you very much for listening. I hope that y'all are enjoying the coverage. And until next time to the loom, motherfuckers. That was an unspoiled network podcast