This Inevitable Ruin, Chapters 12-15

very much to Michael for commissioning this episode. Michael's here in the chat telling me that Dungeon Crawler Car got picked up by Peacock, So, uh, I guess that's gonna be a thing. I am really here's my I'm just going to address this like just for a brief moment, and then I'm just gonna get out of it and

go straight into the book. But my main concern any time that you are dealing with a storyline that is so anti capitalist is that it is going to be totally diluted and the messaging is going to be changed in such a way because it is making people uncomfortable and we have to like not give the prolls any fucking ideas. It's just, you know what I mean, that's something that I would be the most worried about, no

matter who picks it up. I feel like that's something that tends to happen, and I hope that they don't make that mistake because I genuinely that's the point, you know. So, but it's certainly what happened in my opinion with the Hunger Games. I felt like they just the whole point was not what they focused on, and it was very

frustrating to me. It was they It's just sort of the thing, though, is what appeals to the executives who want content is the flashy, bombastic story, and that is what they focus on adapting, and the actual like bones of it are way way less important than the spectacle, and so they fall into the very trap of the people in power in the property. So we'll see. But

let's get this bitch rolling here, shall we. So reminder that the last chapter ended with Carl, you know, being really emotional, finding out about everybody who had arrived to fight on his side, and the folks who were authors of the cookbook, and then we start chapter twelve with krawler Ikecha. If I could only see him again. It would change everything. I am jealous. Those of you with community, with friends, with family my kind are castrated and cast

out as such. I think my perspective is unique, so much different than the one who came before me York, who appears to have come from a hive, yet says he always felt alone his entire life. We are so different, but upon reading his words, I felt such kinship. I wonder did he survive. Those of you reading this, If you're ever free of this place, I pray you seek out the others who came before. It is a dream. Can you imagine? Together? There would be nothing. We couldn't

do nothing. And the community aspect is like literally what has been keeping Carl going, you know this, looking around at his friends and realizing that he that there are people that he has really grown to care about. It's h like this is what drives people who have something that they can look around and be like, this feeds me.

Are very lucky and not I don't enough folks have it, and I am not one at all, of course, with my job to say, like, the internet isn't real, but the internet does feed you in the same way that an in person community can feed you. They're very different things. And the support that he is getting here in the dungeon, it's really kind of awful to know that when in the before times, as he puts it, he was like so much more alone than he is now that things are so dire, And it's really how shit off and

will go is. It's not until things get extremely bad that folks feel the need to band together, and it has to be going extremely badly for everyone for that to happen. There be times where it's the opposite, where if it's you only going through something really tough, then

suddenly everyone disappears on you. I personally haven't really had that as something that like, you know, but I know enough people who have so Anyway, they're entering Princess Posse base camp and it says there's a red alert incursion into your territory. Enter the flag room to see the details and later on the fact that the AI handled it this way, their adjutant takes some It takes exception two. We'll get to this in a moment. The skeleton of a new building was in the process of being erected

around the shop up a small hill. A second larger building stood it was stone, but I couldn't see how big it was. It also was encased in metal girders. Multiple workers crawled over both structures. They were boxing the safe room, men protecting it. It appeared they were expanding the size of the other structure up the hill connecting the two. And I just want to mention once again in light of the airship that Louis got and then this with like metal girders, and he just scribes like

the smell of welding and burnt tar. Everybody has access to tools, abilities, and materials beyond what I was ever expecting. I really thought we were going to be dealing with a medieval style of warfare with magic, so it would be upgraded. It would definitely be more dangerous than actual

medieval warfare. But this is different. It's very much feeling like we're not too far outside of what it would be like if we were actually to have battles in our own streets, you know, where there's like, if anything, they're being given more resources than we would probably have a lot of us. And this is when everybody spots Karl and they begin to have very strong reactions to both him and to Donut of course they spot Carl first.

He's just very large. But there's this guy Penn, who's in level sixty two fortification engineer, And Carl looks around and realizes that like a lot of people have that one, and they all are at like a higher level. Everyone who's another class is still at sixty, but the engineers are leveling up because they've been doing so much let's see. Oh yeah, so this guy hugs him and gives him a kiss on each cheek, and I love donnu, Carl. Why does everyone kissing you all of a sudden. That's

like the third person in an hour. You're going to get mono. Oh that's funny. Everybody begins to do this like hup sort of chant, which very much reminded me of like the three strong men from I think Family guy that like right around on a unicycle, or maybe there's just two of them, you guys don't talking about anyway.

That's why I pictured here for a second. But uh, it's just a moment of everybody like thanking him in this way, and it is at first kind of weird and awkward, and then it becomes very powerful and inspiring, which is how that shit works. It feels very goofy at first, before you've really got rolling, and then all of a sudden there's something in it, you know, so we need to see the stronghold that I have to go back and help Rose that I don't have. Finally said,

Tippid is walking them through the camp. Everybody's waving at them. We're getting a lot of information in these chapters about things, and I'm going to be totally honest with you all. I am not keeping a lot of this straight. I am in a weird position here. Felt like whenever I cover books the way that I do, I know a

lot of folks won't have followed either that. There are plenty of people out there who also didn't really process everything, but the difference is that they don't have to explain it.

They don't have to be on camera talking about whether or not they understood, and so they can just let it wash over them and then move forward and read and things can just unfold, Whereas I either have to get it or I have to admit that I don't, and so I'm allowing it to mostly wash over me because I don't feel like the mechanics of everything are the most important or interesting part of the story. I do think they matter, especially in terms of the way

that Karl manages to bend the rules. The whole point of the way Karl operates is he figures out the way that things are supposed to work and finds a way around it. So in that respect, the rules are important so that we can understand the cleverness in breaking them. But I can still appreciate it in retrospect. I don't need to be able to predict it. I don't have to do that level of you know what I'm saying. So anyway, we had a few thousand of us choose

that fortification engineer race so they could build fast. It lets them level with construction. We have several alchemists who've been making the materials since we got here, and we have a solid staff who can enchant the walls. There's a Yank named Langrim who used to run the enchantment

guild here, and they really know what they're doing. And I'll say that the audiobook narrator pronounces it yank, and I just kept thinking that it meant like Southerners calling me a yank, for example, And that's not it's ye NK. So Karl asks what are the safe room rules, and he says, lots of small changes in a couple big ones. Once the fighting starts, it's going back to the blood

bar system, which I kind of like. So I'm looking forward to that second rule, no mercenaries inside guildhalls during the last two phases except for a small staff of up to nine people at a time. It means we have to build sleeping quarters for all these folks, and we won't be able to keep a reserve. And the orc adjutant of yours can clarify, but most of us

aren't getting into your guildhall once fighting starts. That was a big sticking point with some other teams, because the active crawlers can still use their regular safe rooms to

a point. With the blood bar. As for achievements and all that weird stuff, no, thank the Gods, we don't get that, just level modifications and messages, And I do really like the no thank the Gods that like probably the AI was just as snarky and irritating and shitty that he doesn't want to have to hear it or deal with it, and so it just being the mechanics

of things that makes a lot of sense. That he would just be like, yeah, I do not want to be thrust back into that kind of energy again, thank you. But no, all non NPC officers have safe rooms of their own, and they'll have built their strongholds around. One big exception is a Lemmig team, but we can talk about that later. This change will hurt the operatics and the Naga the most, both of whom are known for hiding rather than fighting. So yeah, if they do hide,

it's not going to be in a safe room. They're going to have to find a way to hide outside of safe rooms, which isn't impossible, but it's certainly more difficult and it's not going to allow the same sort of like complacence. So we have the mention of like, we've got to hit the nagas first yet again, and then starts to act weird and this is very funny.

So there is something that's like this big door that is really odd looking and it's battered, oversized, cumbersome door apprentice quality, and they're pulling the door open and Tippet says, once we get it open, we have to close it right away because and then it flies all the way open. Somebody yells she's out again, and it's the dinosaur Tina who's calling Mongo papa again. Audiobook narrator very creepy. The way that he does her voice, it's very it's like

very demonic. I hated it. And the two of them are like extremely happy to see each other, and then we go inside and see Kiwi, who is back in her form. I keep forgetting that Kiwi had been a bear and not a human. I don't know why. In my head it was that she had been a human.

But she is a bear, and she is really pregnant, and they you know, her and Mango when she was a dinosaur fucked a lot many times, So the chances of her being pregnant by Mongo specifically seem to be pretty much one hundred percent unless she was out here fucking anyone else. I don't see how she could have been. There weren't other male dinosaurs, so unless she fucked a bear after turning back, and I don't think there was enough time for her to get this pregnant, unless a

bear's just station time is way shorter. So what the fuck are those babies gonna look like? Are they gonna be dinosaur babies? Are they gonna be dinosaur bear babies like Barosaurus? What are we having? I I do not know what to expect, And I can't imagine if we have a bunch of fucking mangos and we have accelerated pet leveling, that is a very good slash dangerous slash

potentially volatile fighting force. This like, I don't know how many you can have either, I don't do they have, Like she's in bare form, So would she give birth to more than one at a time? Or is it just one? You know what I'm saying. I don't know how when it's when you're a dinosaur, you lay eggs. That's not how this is working here. But is it

possible that she's pregnant with more than one fetus? Is that why she looks so hugely pregnant because she's carrying a Essentially, bears have litters, but it's not a large number, you know. I feel like the max is usually like three, maybe four, not like with kittens or puppies where you can have up to ten even sometimes more. But anyway, Kiwi gives Mango a big hug and then turns away, and Mango does not seem to know what to make of anything. He's just really confused. Of course, Donut is

having uh. She says, if this turns into some weird furry porn thing, I'm going to lose my absolute shit. And oftentimes when Donut kind of throws a tantrum about things, it's like it's always a little funny, but the way she delivers the line will be sort of predictable in

a way that makes it slightly less funny. To me, I'll be honest that I'm going to lose my app shit is just so completely exactly how I would have phrased it myself that when she says it almost verbatim how I would have said it, I cracked up a little bit. I was just like, look, me and donutsy eye to eye a lot. But then there are times where I'm just like, girl, we are just fucking the

same person a little bit. So then we go to entering the Fortress of unyielding power and authority, which is called if you are going to turn it into an acronym, the FUPA, which I at first was told was short for fat upper pussy area. I have since been told it is fat upper pubic area and can also apply to men. I don't know if anybody is accurate on that front either way, because I don't think anyone's an arbiter of this sort of word, so I think it

can mean whatever. But uh, I, this just very much is the exact type of joke that I would expect the AI to want to lean into. So, oh man, I'm sorry, I just saw. Miss T says it applies to men, and Michael says, I had no idea there was another term that pupa applied to. I thought the joke was that it sounded ridiculous. Oh, Michael, you precious angel. I'm so happy to be here to tell you what fupa means and that it wasn't a gossip girl reference.

Miss T. I have intimate knowledge of a certain male fupa, which I love very much. And Michael says, I should have known Matt wouldn't have some puerile intention with his jokes, wouldn't. Yeah, so uh this, he says, well, were you going to change the name to because the AI got sick of them changing it back and forth and froze it on this one, and so Doughnut's annoyed about not being able to change it. And when he says, what would you have changed it to? And she says, I don't know, Carl.

Now I'm angry and I can't properly create when I'm angry, which I really need to put that one in my pocket. I can't properly create when I'm blank, and it's going to be any emotion at all. Florian had already put it in the chat, and in seconds there were dozens of animated responses. At least said it was hilarious and MANI was with Donut campaigning against it. Tran suggested calling

it the Foop instead. I could tell it was going to become a thing with half the people calling it one name and the other half calling it the other. I kind of like the foop, not because I really have an issue with fupa as a joke, but there's something about foop that it's so quick and so tidy. I just sort of like it as a as a sound. So I sort of want to just go with foop and may do. We'll see, So we step in. We stepped to the side as two NPCs rushed by Haullingwood

looked like bags of mortar. They were in the body of bugbears. But I knew there were some of my changelings.

There was another dot ahead. It was an elite. He had the pink glow around his name indicating him as a soldier Elite Herman the fleet Ogres Strongman level seventy Legionnaire, Princess Posse and he they go into the room and there's like this moment before stepping inside where he's on chat with Florin saying like, tell me about the scouting system, because they agreed to do all of this via message, and that way you know if there's anybody listening in.

Because there's this asumptions that spies are already in our midst, which is really sad to think, but unavoidable. I believe I think they're likely correct. It just makes me really bummed out because it's been such a show of unity. To know that probably someone's faking that is a real sad thought. Let's see, Ellie is off toward the Naga side. The beaver guys casters or whatever are talking. They're with that talking turtle guy. Have you figured out how the

peacetime incursions work? Yes, only those with the Scout endorsement can go over the borders without a pass. If they get discovered. They're immediately teleported back to base during the ceasefire and can't go stealth again until the fighting starts. If they hit a trap, it'll still go off and kill them. We only get eighteen scouts. That's what those

towers are for. We need full coverage. Build a tower and man it with a group of four or five folks with proper observation and ping spells, and we can keep the enemy scouts away. Already teleported out a dream scout and one of those octopus face fucks from the prism. I'll bet my left sack we're already infested with enemy spies. We got to get them towers up and do a full sweep and do it fast. And Carl says spamming traps too, And he says, I'm on it. But there's

an eagle guy who's gone subterranean. He wants access to

your trap. Table says he can prevent tripper spells. So this is when they step into the room and there's a mention from Carl that there's a smell of rock and moss of like you know, the outside, but there's also a really strong scent of sweat, which he finds weird, and I think that it is a result of this ogre freaking the fuck out, actually, and he is in pain and like kind of writhing, and he says, been waiting, Brother says, you good, supposed to do it already, been

fighting it tell Brother tells sorry. Dozens of little info boxes all popped up, popped up around the ogre, all at once, and that was when I realized he wasn't wearing magical gear at all. He was covered in explosive satchels, and he there's watch out, Carl, watch out in italics. And I'm not sure as I'm reading this, like what is that in italics? And it's the voice narrator is he says it in an odd voice. But I wasn't putting that voice together with she Maria. I was not

clocking what was happening here at all. So I'm really curious if you guys picked up on the fact that that italicized bit was her talking to him, because I definitely didn't. And all of a sudden, here comes a fucking orc who just mashes her battle axe into his head and kills him and then says, I can only do so much for you, And this is Baroness Victory aka that bitch aka Minu Fave aka Goals. I am so sorry, but I really if anything happens to her, I am going to be very upset. I love her

so much. And later on there's a point where Florin is like, I don't know if I should be terrified or in love, and I'm like, in love, Floren, you should be in love with her. You absolutely should. This bitch is absolutely clutch and is so fucking practical about everything. I live for this energy. You guys, you do not understand. Look, I am not trying to pretend that I can't be irrational about shit, Okay. I am not trying to pretend that I'm always measured and careful and reasoned in my

response to things. Everybody knows that's not true about me. Anybody who's met me for two seconds knows if you ice a cake and a color I don't like, I am going to be fucking pissed about it. And there's no reason nobody cares. It's nothing. But I am aware that I'm being silly. Okay. There is a type of person that lets their own weird baggage get in the way of doing things that makes sense in a broader sense that makes me crazy, and it's part of why

I am socialist. Is is it just actually the evidence all points to this is good for society and has been historically and is right now in other governments and other countries at all. You know, I am not letting the fact that socialism is a word that makes people curl up and die get in the way of seeing No. Evidentially this bears out, and I find it so annoying when people just get like triggered by these words that

cause them to completely close off. And this is a woman who is coming in here with the energy of like, I'm here to uphold the rules, and I don't care if you break the rules. I'm upholding them. It doesn't matter. I'm not like on your side. It looks like I'm on your side, simply because the people who most often break the rules are the guys in power who fucking suck.

And we can all agree that they fucking suck. But don't think that means I'm cool with stretching them for you, because obviously, if we're gonna do that, we're gonna have to hide it from her, which is interesting. I absolutely love this vibe, And I think upholding of the rules is not an inherently good thing, to be clear, because things being a law does not have anything to do

with the morality of it. So I'll be very curious as it all progresses to see where she draws that line, because it seems like she's pretty interested in morality in a way, in the way that she determines it with like honor. So where does she fall How egregious does a rule have to be for her to finally go, I'm not doing that. No, I won't uphold that. I feel like it's probably gotta be pretty bad. I there has to be, like you know what I'm saying. I'm just this. I just am very here for it. I'm

so into it. And here comes this moment she says that was an unlawful assassination attempt by Sensation Entertainment, and I will be calling foul. I will be filing a grievance against the Dream who now owned the entertainment company. They were exerting undue influence on one of their elites to affect faction Wars. Princess Doughnut. That was an admirable shot and it may have saved you all she uses her magic missile. I will file for you to get credit for the kill. The orc paused, looking up at

the ceiling. No, she suddenly said out loud, angrily, pointing at the ceiling. Absolutely not. That was clearly a foul by the corporate interest to purchase sensation, and if you don't like it, you should reread your own rules. In addition, you are out of line by not warning me he was being influenced. She paused again. I accept your apology, she finally said. She's running the fucking AI. I love

it so much. The AI is just like, mam, I'm very sorry, and she's like, yeah, the fuck you are sorry, Get out of my face with your sories and follow your fucking rules. I am just in heaven with this bit. I wish that she was in every scene from now on. So they go into private chambers with her, and here is when we get the notifications that are oh so distressing. So they step in and a bunch of fucking windows begin to pop up for them, tons and tons of notifications.

There's no organization to any of it, and Carl and Donut both are like unable to see because they're floating in front of their vision, so they're having to like get things out of the way and figure out how to organize it all. And he is beginning to see a bunch of stuff from what's called the spam folder. And I saw three little dots indicating someone was in the middle of typing a message in the Prism chat

and I realized it was coming from our side. Donut don't and Pristinadia needs to know how I feel about her portrayal, Karl. She knows, don't poke at anyone yet, do not her rumped. But she didn't send the message, so most of this stuff was useless, and everyone had started calling the list the spam folder. These were world chat messages not directed at us, hidden scale notifications, and dozens of other pointless game announcements. I blinked at the long,

long line of strange notifications. I read the most recent ones from just a few moments earlier. A sense of horror overwhelmed me. And I really like how this is written, because it is a slow reveal of exactly what's happening. At first, I'm just sort of like, wait, what, And then as he goes on, I'm like, oh my God, Like I just got complete goosebumps all over me. I was like, this is such bad news. Gloom rayth phase failed to activate. Mind Balance prevented activation. You're attempted disabled.

Mind balance was prevented by mind balance. Your mind balance has risen to level mind level nine. It had been level five just a few hours ago. I moved my eyes down the suppressed notifications page. My heart thrashed. There were hundreds of these entries, over and over again. There were pages of me attempting to cast something, and each time it got stopped. The Balance skill came from my new toe ring, though now it was trained up so much, I'd still have the skill minus five levels even if

I took the ring off. I didn't dare she Maria was trying to cast spells and activate skills without my permission. Oh my god, y'all. I like, you know, when he got that mind balance skill, I was like, that would have been real nice a little while back, and I didn't realize what a huge boon this is. Like, I mean, this is who is responsible for him getting that toe ring.

That's the AI, right, this is like the AI is like that, That's what would it have been like for Karl without that ah, that is so so scary, and Carl is remembering, now, watch out, Carl, watch out, and that she managed to break through for a second. So even though his level is increasing really rapidly because she keeps trying, she's slowly gaining the upper hand. If she broke through at all and spoke to him, you know,

like that is just really really worrying. And Mordecai he like contacts him and he's like, we need to talk. And Mordecai says, if it's about that presence, Rosetta caught me up and we're working on a solution. We have a few options, none of them pleasant. There's something that Carl says a little bit later that makes me think something about Katscha's rehab is like gonna have something to do with the she Maria thing. When we get we'll get there, I'll point it out. I don't know if

that's right. I might just be kind of misunderstanding it, but uh sorry, Michael in the chat says, when I was reading, I didn't clock it as she Maria, but the Jeff gives it away with his voice. But maybe if I hadn't read it first, I also wouldn't have realized it immediately. She Maria's voice is distinctive once she's kind of gotten talking, but just that little bit wasn't distinctive enough for me to really realize who it was. When it was revealed to be she Maria, my blood

went cold. And then she really is pretty awesome about victory. The female works of the Royal Family rock, the male one seemed to be pieces of shit. Agree, Ah, Henry is here or Henri I'm not sure, says I'll have to catch us on the replay. Just wanted to sail of the coverage. Ion't be here on the next live.

Thank you so much, thanks for coming. Michael says, we've heard how hard skills can be to level so it's going so it going to level nine within a day or two is pretty insane, exactly, And now we know why the AI said he needed the ring and didn't know how fucked he actually was. Jeff says, could She

Maria be intentionally training up his mind balance skill? It's funny you say that, Jeff, because there was a part of me that sort of wondered that also, And I can't decide like a part of me wants that so much to be true. Because I don't want Carl inhabited by a thing that's like just trying to completely take him over and run him. On the other hand, I don't see how it benefits her for him to have

it higher. So that's the main thing is that I don't think she Maria is is somebody who's thinking bigger picture. I think she is an NPC whose goal is exactly what it looks like. That said, the NPCs are behaving according to the AI, and so is the AI assisting in some of this happening the way it is. Perhaps it all kind of comes down to, like who is in the end really in control, And I genuinely I

don't know. I don't know there is. And there's a part of me of like, you know, we had that moment of meeting those gods when they were their shrines needed to be repaired and they were being given options of who's shrine to repair, and Carl is being talked to by two different gods who basically can like see Carl's mental illness and can see, oh, sweetie, you're not doing too well. Huh, you are in dire straits. Actually

I can help with that. And is it possible that she Maria knows Karl's going to be more susceptible to another kind of attack, and I won't survive if he doesn't survive, and so I have to level him up to get him there. It's possible. That's the thing is, like everything is sort of possible, but regardless, Carl's not in control of any of this. And that's the part that's so upsetting, is that you want to think the

best of it just for the fucking comfort. But if it's not, or if it is, it doesn't matter, because it's happening whether he likes it or not, and that is so upsetting. Ugh. Anyway, donuts, first question to Victory is your sister was she nice or was she a jerk? If the oork Woman was surprised by the odd question, she didn't show it, but she did appear to think about her answer. My sister Ugly and I once had

a very similar outlook on life. When she married into the royal family, she lost a lot of who she was. I suppose she was quite unhappy with how things had turned out for her. We had not spoken in a long while, but she did send me a message before she died, asking if I was planning on being an adjutant this season. She was going to the School of Pendra Club to meet up with the King and wanted to have an outing before the fighting started. Why do

you wish to know, Princess? You can judge someone based on how they talk about the dead And Carl messages her and says, what TV show did you get that from? And she says, I didn't get it from a show. I really want to know you picked her out and I need to know if we can trust her, and he says, we don't trust anybody, but something tells me she's okay, and she says, but you trusted sister, and is and look how that turned out, which a fair

It's an interesting answer. She doesn't say yes or no, She just shares facts and sort of is like, you can draw your own conclusions from the straight up information that I'm telling you, which is a very interesting approach, you know, and and the kind of thing that I you know, I'm not able to resist fucking editorializing. I would definitely be like, you know, I used to like her and then lately not so much. And she doesn't even go that far, although I do think that the

subtext is what you're saying that you know. So let's see. The shanty town is usually small and unimportant and doesn't usually form until after the fighting begins and the NPCs flee. It is now quite large and completely circles Lrocos, giving the NPCs extra layers of security. One you control. We have three town upgrade coupons. Can we use them for this? Absolutely? And with the new city defense system the AI created, you may be able to get something similar to what

they have in Loroccos. But you may also use the coupons for your base here, and that may be a better choice. The ORCS territory had the most rivers and lakes, including the large, fast moving river that eventually drained into Larrocos itself. The Rocky Peaks made their way into Rolling Hills, which was the area of the operatics in Pine number two. The body of the main body of the enemy is massing on your border here, Victory said. Initial estimates appear

there about one hundred thousand strong. And I love Carl has a moment of just complete dissociation here and she just ignores it as he's like panicing, going, wait, how many? And she stays on task because she is not one to be distracted by his panic. So, oh, sorry, Michael is saying, I would think regarding s Maria, I would think she wants more control because she would trust herself more than Carl to keep him alive. Her trying to activate gloom Wraith would have kept him alive but killed

everyone else in the room. Yeah, this is the thing. Is like, what she wants to do, whether or not it's to his benefit, is in his benefit in the most purely keep him alive sense, and not in as I have any interest in his well being kind of sense. So, whether or not she's doing this to try and level him up on purpose, the side effect is she doesn't care about anyone else around Carl, and thus he would have another whole kind of baggage to carry along with

having eaten Legion's eye, which is horrifying. Let's see, have you familiarized yourself with the ramp up? Now? This is the part that I found the most confusing. There are four phases. We're in phase one right now, the ceasefire. Then there's the ramp up, open hostilities and the peeling of loroccos. When the ceasefire ends, the ramp up begins. It lasts one hundred and eighty hours, which is such a strange measurement of time, you know what I'm saying,

Like you could just say, however many days. We're all in the same time zone here, so just say so many days. It's just a weird you know what I'm saying. I don't know anyway. There are no celestial summonings. Egress into enemy territory by non scouts is only allowed through narrow kilometer wide gates. Each corridor is at the same

spot and it's where the enemies are massing. And most importantly, offensive magic and teleport magic or skills will not be allowed during this second phase, which is fucking ben nanas. It's just offensive magic. Magic designed to cause direct harm. Magic are skills designed to transport you from one place to another. There'll be a suppression field. You can use such spells now, but the ability goes away the moment Phase two starts. The Wraith phase is an offensive skill,

not a spell, and it will work. It's a phase, not a teleport. Puddle Jumper will not work. The Gate of the Paraoh Gods will not activate. You both have multiple spells that will work, such as Torch and hole and wisp Barmer, but unfortunately many more that will not traps will work as long as they're not teleport or summon traps. They have to be static. You can't repurpose them as weapons or artillery ammunition. And the rest is correct. It is designed to force bloody hand to hand combat

and non magical artillery. During this time. You will be at a severe disadvantage. The other eight teams will have the numbers, and they're v astley superior weapons that they brought with them from outside. If you can survive this first week, then you might survive long enough to start moving offensively. This is such a bummer because like and

Karl has this exact same thought. Later, there had been all of this reassurance from Tippis that like, yeah, sure the mercenaries came in with their weapons, but they weren't able to choose races or spells or anything. And I'd rather take my thing over theirs any day. And I don't know if he knew about the ramp up, if the rules about it had changed, or if he knows, and he just really believes that they will get past the ramp up itself and it will be he will

have the opportunity to use those spells or what. But it does seem to me like there is they are really fighting an uphill battle here. What on your town? Can they attack that place during the ramp up? Yes, but if they capture it, they still won't be able to get into your territory or into Larroccos. They will attack if it's left undefended. I suggest treating with the

NPCs to help defend the town. The bulk of the enemy forces will be concentrated on you, and they won't want to commit a lot of resources to taking the ring, as they will automatically get it should you fall. It's a tactically important prize, but not during ramp up. And basically what she says is you're going to be facing a lot of people who aren't going to want to risk lives if they can help it. They are not going to want to do lots of little maneuvers against you.

They are going to want to have one big, decisive punch that takes you all out, using their superior numbers and their weaponry in one shot. These are not folks who have like military experience, and even the mercenaries are going to be people who often went up against unarmed opponents.

So they're mostly security forces and they aren't really going to be used to this kind of thing either, And that is at least an advantage for our people is they have been straight up in battle for fucking months now, so in that respect, our people and former crawlers have way more experience. And he says one hundred thousand was a lot of enemies. I'd once gone to a concert with twenty thousand people and I couldn't get over how many people that was all at one place at one time.

This was five times that. It was an insane amount of enemies. And I really appreciate that like mention of the concert, because this is something that got brought up for me when I was covering something in one piece. Marine Ford is this massive battle and there are so many people that just get laid out right and left, and yet they're keep being way more people to replace them. And at one point I was just like, we're all supposed to be on one island together, Like, how how

many people am I supposed to think are here? How would this work? And Florian, who commissioned that, like he commented something like, have you ever been to a huge stadium concert. Think about that number of people, and that really did help put it in perspective. The biggest concert I've ever been to was Renaissance Beyonce, and it was eighty five thousand people and it was stunning. I was

in the nose. I was literally three seats down from the furthest you could possibly get from the stage, and it was it was so overwhelming looking down and seeing how far away she was. You couldn't even tell that she was a person from that far away, Like the screens and everything were totally necessary to know what was going on, and it was just really it put it in perspective for me and thinking about like that being the number of enemies that you're facing down more than

that even who that's a lot. So Florian is talking about how they have built defenses and they're creating a no man's land, just like one of those areas that crossing is like really hazardous tons of traps and also people that can like snipe you, and if they break through, we'll have multiple fallback positions. Then once they're through, they'll be able to flank us until we get to the FUPA one hundred thousand troops on one side, ready to

pour over us like ants. Earlier, Tippet said had been a mistake for them to arm themselves with existing gear and not take classes and spells. I wasn't so sure about that anymore. This is when Louis katcha Batista, Samantha and a few others as it's put come into the room and Samantha is crying because Louis got married, and she tries to be like you, like, what did you

think I was gonna do? You should have told me you were getting married, And Ruby is like you said or not Ruby Bonnie Bonnie says, well, you said you would like pull her out of the way and jump into place at the last second. And Samantha's like, first of all, you're a little kid, so you don't know what you're talking about. And second of all, even if I did do that, that's no reason to not tell me. And this is when Doughnut's like, oh, it's just the

first wedding. There's a real one, like a bigger one later, and everyone's like, oh my god, don't know. Why would you tell her that? And I would love to give her some like really smart, clever ulterior motive for saying this, but I don't think so. I think she just blurted some shit out. So this chapter ends with like Bonnie talking about how Scarn and a few others are playing with the airship and Louis hired gremlins. We bought an upgrade for our door guns. I've patted the tiny gnome

on the head. You shouldn't have to think about that sort of stuff, the little girl gave me a chilling smile. I shouldn't have to think about killing out worlders. Why shouldn't I have they stopped thinking about trying to kill me? Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch. So final chapter is fifteen time until the ceasefire ends thirty three hours, and I really like there have been times where it has felt like we have all the time in the world, and this is definitely the timing of every thing is making

me feel very anxious. I would be sitting down and coming up with like a schedule for stuff because I would be so worried about getting everything done. And I have time blindness, so a schedule is sort of essential for me when there's many things to be done within a given period. We just have so many people that we have to get onto our team. We have got to level up our meatball guy. There's just a lot

and it's overwhelming, you know. So fifteen starts off with our friends watching it this weird rolling ball that is a mob and they're all like remembering the weird swine ball. But it's not that it's slower. It's not making the same kinds of sounds and it stinks in a different way this. There's a few new people in the mix

here with them as well. There's body, a level sixty big game spear hunter who's really kind of taciturn, And there's a couple of these dream elves who are not dream elves, they're just regular elves, but they're like really white skinned, and they are talking about getting a variety of different tattoos depending on like what group they wind up stationed with, and they've already gotten one that's like

a combo human cat tattoo. Donut is not impressed, and when she's like, well, what if you want to wind up station with somebody else, they're like, well, we have more skin. And she says something to Carl like is this what it was like when you first enlisted? And Carl is like, it kind of is which is weird because these guys are like a thousand years and they

are not behaving like that at all. Let's see, I was starting to come to the uncomfortable realization that everyone acting fairly human like was normal for the people of the syndicate, that the general citizenry of the galaxy as a whole were all similar to us in so many ways, despite their vastly different anatomies and cultures and environments. I didn't know what that meant, but the knowledge made me

feel strangely unsettled. It was the same feeling I had during the Iron Tangle, when I just knew I was missing something, something important, And I can't help but think that this is like because y'all are coming from the same seeds, like they're mining you for resources, and those resources are all coming from the same place, the same like little tiny AI computer chip basically. So it's that that, like, there's a similarity in the structure of the programming in there,

I think. But maybe maybe that's not it. That's just what my assumption is. So let's see, we were at the very edge of the map, humping down, humping down, Oh my god, ah, sorry, guys, hunting down one of the mob incursions into our territory Rolling Battle Formation Ball level seventy. Now it turns out that what we've got here are skanky skinkers, skank skunk Warrior. These things, long story short, are like what if skunk's stunk even worse than they do? And it's funny. Last night I was

out with my husband. We were taking the dogs home from the dog park, and we passed a skunk that was standing on the side of the road, and I had a moment of just like, oh shit, because I was really worried it was going to run out in front of the car. It didn't move, and my husband didn't even see it our dogs how and just kind of turned and watched it. But he didn't try to like jump out of the car or anything. But I do.

There's a point here where the AI says, I hope you have some hot hydrogen peroxide, soap and baking soda ready, And I actually do have like a little tupperware bin in my trunk that's got a huge bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a huge box of baking soda, and a I think it's just like a container of down dish soap and rubber gloves, because I have talked to so many dog owners that have their dogs have run into skunks, and you know, if you are out when this happens, the

last thing that you want is to get your dog into the car with you to bring home to deal with, like without having washed it down or anything. So it was just funny because this was all on my mind last night after passing that skunk and being like, well, at least I know I had stuff with me if something were to happen. But this is obviously way way more intense. First, before we get to we have Jamal.

You guys. Jamal. Jamal is a one of those guys that's made out of like a tattoo, and he is a hammerhead shark who's apparently quite fat, and Carl has made him these sort of crab leg like appendages with which to walk around, but Jamal insists on jumping on hopping, which always breaks them, and apparently has done this. This is I think the third time that he has done this, and he has a He talks in third person. The voice that he is given is almost a kind of

like Indian, a sort of sing song. I must give you an apology. I just did a little hop and then the metal pieces did break again. Jamal has so many stories to give, and Jamal is giving you all of them. And this dude is driving Donut really crazy because talking in third person, I love her saying I have very few pet peeves, which is just patently false. Donut. Let's be very very honest. First of all, you're a pet,

so all of your peeves are pet peeves. But also setting that aside, you get irritated by many things, so you know, stop it. Anyway, he talks about how he used to be an apex predator and now he can't even hop and how unfair it is, and oh my god, I'm so sorry. Michael in the chat says, Jamal refuses to stop trying to jump the shark. I hate you so much right now, Michael, get out. I'm about to boot you. I'm one step from booting you. Oh my god.

So we're leveling rend up here. So what Carl does is he almost kills a mob and then he just holds rend out to bite down on it. And this accelerated leveling up. When we say accelerated, I mean that shit. He is growing before our eyes. At first, he's so small that he literally fits in the palm of Carl's hand and is like a meatball size. By the end of all of this, he's like a bowling ball. I think,

maybe even a little larger. But of course we have the horrible effect of the stink attack, and we also meet He wore those little uh where is it? This mob looked like all the others, except he was maybe a little smaller. He wore a blue conical wizard hat with glittering star and planet patterns and little sparkles tinkled off the top of the hat. Fancy boy level fifty five skank skunk battle wizard. And there's a part in

this description. He's actually a lot weaker, but he has a lot of spells designed to get the warriors to do what he wants. Funny how that works, isn't it. In books and movies, the leader of a gang is almost always the physically strongest want but in reality, oftentimes it's the opposite. The leaders tend to be the richest, or they lead simply because of tradition. They tend to keep their power by engineering a situation where things would

get temporarily worse if they were gone. It takes a certain amount of desperation before people finally stop caring about their immediate futures and start looking at the long term. I just really there's a lot of sentences in the Kindle versions of these books that are highlighted, and mostly they're joke lines. They're funny lines, which I get. And then there's little gems like this that are not highlighted by anybody according to kindall, and I am just driven

mad by that. This is where it all happens, guys, in these little moments, and you just don't it's just the jokes that get you. Uh, this is bars right here. Oh my god, fucking Christ. Anyway, the horrible attack. Carl also gets to utilize a gloom rath here, which is super gross, and he thinks about the fact that this is what the rage elemental did to Yolanda and is

just disgusted. But uh, Doughnut gets hit along with Mango with this stink and it's so bad that everybody in it is vomiting and the people outside of it are close to vomiting. Jamal doesn't have any sense of smell left, and he's like saying, how grateful he is for that A little bit later on body. Meanwhile, I disabled the mobs. There will be suffering from our allies, but they will survive. We wait. That was by far the most words I'd heard from him. So, yeah, the stench is going to

last for three hours before it goes away. The only thing that they can think of to do is Mordecai is going to make a potion for Donut that dampens her sense of smell and taste. I'm worried about, like potentially this being something that disables them noticing that something's wrong. You know, like if you're so overpowered by the scent of this skunk thing, what if there's like a smell of smoke that would let you know something's on fire,

but you're not clocking it, you know what I'm saying. Anyway, I am running out of time, So we're almost at the end of this chapter, and I'm just going to really quickly hit the end of this. Uh. She's complaining about the skunk thing. Carl is saying, three hours and it's gone is way better than it would have been had you got hit by a skunk in the before times, to which She's like, I was an indoor cat that was never going to happen stop it, which she does

have a point. And let's see why isn't that thing affected when my poor mongo got sick. It's not fair. He's pretty resilient. Well, we should have let him collect the sample of myss for Mordecai. What do you think he wants that stuff for? Anyway, body appears on the trail, indicating he'd found the found the path to the safe room. He disappeared again. I am like really hopeful that Bodie's not somebody that we need to worry about. The fact

that he's just barely talking. Ah, I don't know, guys. Now, I'm now I'm like suspicious of everybody. Ellie says, I'm pretty sure I found all the artillery batteries on both sides, but I can't be one hundred percent. But we got a new problem. There's a nasty surprise. Ready. Remember when you said you wanted me to find out why the robot guys wanted pet leveling accelerated while I found out And uh yeah, So that's the end of chapter fifteen. So we've got some bad news coming up. Oh my god.

Michael says, there are people who say they don't get why people say they're anti capitalists Vibes and Dungeon Crawler Karl they must be joking. People who are not picking up on the anti capitalism in Dungeon Crawler Kral are the most media illiterate human beings I have ever heard of in my life. If you are listening to this and you don't get what I'm talking about, I don't

know what could be clearer. And if you've been listening to the podcast this entire time and you haven't gotten it by now, you probably should stop listening to this and just go do some basic research on the history of capitalism and socialism and it's effect on cultures and economies. I just don't really know how much clearer this man could be. And it's wilful. It's just wilful. If you don't get it, you're trying not to get it. That's all I can assume. All Right, I've got a wrap.

Thank you guys again, until next time to the Loom motherfuckers. That was an Unspoiled Network podcast.