This Inevitable Ruin, Chapters 28-30

commissioning this episode. Y'all. I really thought too, just to like point this out, a lot of these books so far have been around like a number of chapters, so that I would be maybe about halfway through by now. Not only am I not quite halfway, but because Michael readed the breakdown and we are going to be going a little bit more slowly with it all, there's a

lot more to go. I think it's something like another like twelve episodes, and so I know that there is so much more to happen, but we are in such dire straits that I'm like, what more is there to be done? Aren't isn't it? Aren't we in crisis? Mode. Yet this isn't climax, you know what I mean. So chapter twenty eight we start off with Donut griping about the fact that now Carl is the party leader, and she tries to say, like, I'll be able to tick back up and take it back, and he's like, that's

not how that's gonna work. She tries to say, like because of my cloak, and he's like, no, the cloak's an enhancement. It's not going to stay. It's not the same. We then have this bit with Wrend, who is trying to I had forgotten to mention the like rhino mercenary

that Rend is set to guard. Rend is explicitly told do not eat him, but once we rejoin him, he is trying to eat him, and he does succeed in eating this creature's boot, which Carl says something about like we'll try and find a replace, and I was just like,

good luck, because this dude has very specific feet. Granted, all the creatures around here are very specific, so you know, and I'm sure there's probably somebody with a weird cobbler skill, but yeah, so this guy, the way the AI describes him is it's so sad because basically what he says is like, this is a dude who was like, you know, ashamed because he had fucked up a previous assignment and is had been like making up for it by guarding

Princess Dnadia and was like getting some of his confidence back, and then you came in and completely spanked him, and now his confidence is in the toilet again, and I was just like, Oh, that sucks. His entire squad was killed during an unfortunate incident at the Desperado Club that you may or may not have been partially responsible for. I don't think he was at all responsible for it. I don't you know, maybe don't have open holes into

the nothing in your casino? How about that? How about that? Anyway, So his name is Toya Tolm Me and him and Carl have a conversation about like where he can do the most good, and Carl gives him the option of, like you can guard this place, you can go back to our other spot. And it's like, you know, I see in your stats that you are able to protect buildings, and he mentions something about the shield for this place, and Carl's like, wait, what you had a shi up,

which it's understandable that he is confused by that. But honestly, the thing that I was like thinking here was very much that it almost sounds like he's trying to like fuck with the guy. I know he's not. I understand this is a real question, but if you're already sensitive about the fact that you fucked up, this question could be taken very much as a challenge, you know. And

when he's like, oh, all right, you know what? Because he says the castle is too big for me, but Warler Donadia insisted she had me keep a shield going, and it tired me, so I could only do it in spurts. I was resting when you arrived, which is how you got the jump on me. I am shamed. Okay, change of plans. I'm sending you to shantytown, he nodded solemnly. I will accept my exile. It's not an exile. We

need your talents and we're stretched thin. Hang on, I jumped to chat and he talks to Lee June, which correct me if I'm wrong. But is this the first time he's talked to Lee June since the eye incident? I don't I feel like he must have talked to him sooner, but it's not a moment that we get to see, and that surprises me. I really thought it was going to be like if this, if he finally spoke to Carl, you know, we would be there for it,

and we're just all business. It's a weird moment that I was sort of waiting for something to be awkward or odd about it, and nothing is. So Lee June is like, hey man, so we've got, you know, a lot to do. We're going as fast as we can, but we are definitely spread thin, and if you have some people to send to us, that'd be great. And Carl says he's gonna send a mercenary and he's like just one and he's like, yeah, Floren's getting hammered. So I'm sorry, but we might not be able to spare

anybody else. And then the Gin is like, okay, fair. Also, somebody has been looking for you, real weirdo. And we find out that this is Agatha and she is like a danger now in a way that we hadn't been. And Zev chimes in here, I've gotten a warning. This is coming directly from the Syndicate Council Prime Minister Glory himself, messaged me the Prime Minister, and Carl understandably to me, is just like, oh another warning. Yeah, come on, guys, what am I I'm meant to worry about this right now?

Do you see that? They're like there's a one hundred thousand army coming at us. And as that was like, no, no, no, seriously, I get that you usually do the I'll just do what I want, but I need you to hear that this is different. And he says, okay, but last time we talked about her, you blithely assured me that she was nothing to worry about. And now all of a sudden, she's such a threat that I have to like outright ignore her if she speaks to me, are you serious?

Like come on? And she says, look, I don't get what's happening with this either, but I think enough has been going on to threaten some of the higher ups. Considering Stockade and now Donadia, everybody is growing a bit more tense. And the Prime Minister was very urgent with this message, so and says, we'll try to intercede if she approaches, but if we're not successful, you need to

just ignore her. The AI supposedly removed all its protections of the residuals, and they're all pretty much dead except this one. It seems to have a soft spot for her, kind of like it has for you. And this was interesting to me. The fact that the AI likes her for some reason. I wonder why, you know, the AI like the Aiking Carl is also interesting because I feel like we all just sort of put it down to the foot fetish thing, and I just that's not it. It

can't it just can't quite be it. I don't believe it, and I do not believe that the AI is into Agatha's feet. I would be willing to bet she has neary shown her feet once in this dungeon, you know what I mean. I'm just really interested in what all causes the AI to be like, you know what, I'm going to give this person, specifically a break, you know, so sorry, Michael says it has the same soft spot for her as it has for Carl. Her trip to

the floor could not have been easy. Yeah, when we were in her POV, she says something about how like usually residuals don't get past for four if it was like a really early floor. Uh. Sarah Fis is pretty sure Agatha has been her who's been talking to the AI about what's really going on, and Tony's just trying to and hire Tony. She's told me much. Perhaps, yeah, maybe it is her, which would be It would be so interesting because like when we're in Agatha's POV, her

goal is to end everything. I don't know if she has any awareness of what Carl's button was that he was given by Paulie. I am certain that if he told her that she had like disabled that and had

no access anymore, she would be pretty pissed. But I'm not even sure if she's aware, because it seemed like she was not from the same team as Polly, and her assumption was that the opposing team doesn't have the same objectives that her team has, and hers seems to be basically like just complete annihilation of beings, you know.

So yeah, I don't know, I don't know. He also asked about Luciamar, who evidently is simply not responding to messages anymore, and then Zev says, do you know one of her dogs ate Mukta back when she still had two dogs. It was horrible. Mukta was an ass and a party member, but nobody deserved that. I can still hear the screaming. I laughed out loud. The fact that zeb is relaying something that she finds traumatizing and Carl literally laughs in her face is disturbing, genuinely, And I

understand his position here. I understand that, yes, we might like Zev at this point, and we might see that Zev is also a victim in her own way, but she is still part of this system and so he doesn't have the same sympathy, and that is completely fair.

But I still did get a bit of a chill off of I laughed out loud, like I, you know, especially considering that, like Zev has watched family members get tortured to death as we have eluded, so she's got some trauma anyway, and watching that happen had to have been triggering as fuck. But uh, I'm sure Carl is just like, I've seen a whole lot worse than that every fucking day, So crime a river and that is

totally fair. I'm just I'm just saying. So he mentioned something about like I don't have time for that roundtable, by the way, and she's like, it's not optional. So I don't know what to tell you, and he just says whatever, so he lets it go, but you know it's gonna happen. And he is thinking about Agatha for a while, just like, what does it mean that she's looking for him? What could it be that she? Like? What kind of threat could she actually pose? That they're

so concerned about me contacting her at all? And let's say I'm trying to find uh I didn't know what their true goal was, the why of it all, and why and how the two types of residuals were different. Nobody seems to know the blind spot was so so dangerous.

The fact the leader of the entire syndicate was sticking his nose into this was telling something had changed since the end of the previous floor regarding their understanding of the residuals of And he then starts naming the syndicates two different residual types, the Apothecary, the go people from the Plenty, the Open Intellect Pacifist Network, those crazy weirdo nebulaars. How even Odette and those were just the parties I

knew about. They all wanted something different. It was like trying to solve a blank puzzle while half the pieces were missing. And some of the pieces that were there were decoys, which is a very good metaphor that I think is quite effective as a descriptor. And of course he has to put this aside for a moment. Warning, A throne room you own is currently occupied by Madness enemy forces. If you don't return to claim this throne in six hours, this castle and the associated land will

be ceded to the Madness. So let's see. I sent the mercenary for the Dream out and told him to start walking back to his territory. This wasn't some grand Machiavellian plan. I didn't know what was going to happen after we left. There was no way we could defend land that wasn't attached to our main force, not yet. If we let the viceroys take it, they'd own three

sections of land. I didn't carry either way, but I imagined none of the other members of the block would be huge fans of letting that happen, and by making the Madness mercenary sit in there, it would at least force the other leaders to make a decision. So yeah, cause I was like surprised that he just didn't seem to have very much urgency when he got this notification and in this I was like, oh, okay, so he's having

them try and like stretch themselves a little bit. I had the impression none of these leaders liked each other very much, so hopefully this would sew a little discord. I looked at Donut ready too down, who are we getting next? And he says, it's a blob hunting season, So we jumped to twenty nine. Toyotomi can't fit in the party planner, so we had them grab their transport

and head straight to the border with Shantytown. There were five similar vehicles minus the armour plating parked behind the castle, and we had them take them all. We had the mercenaries head northwest toward the border of Shantytown. There they would enter the city and move into Posse territory by

bypassing the Naga territory altogether. There were a handful of guard outposts between here and there, containing NPC guards and mercenaries that were now on our team, and we'd had the pick, we'd have them picked up along the way.

I worried about the integrity of Shantytown. We had a full battalion parked, but the town was shaped like a literal doughnut that could be attacked from just about any angle if and when the attack came, it would likely be from several places at once, which it never occurred to me what a disadvantage the doughnut shape was in that sense. But yeah, stopping and think about it, I'm like, ooh, that is that is really tough. Like if it's round,

that's bad enough because you can just be surrounded. But now you can be surrounded and they can come at you from inside, which I don't know, man, maybe we got to figure out a way for this whole thing to be a different shape. Is there a way to do that? Like, can we use Katcha's abilities to like construct things to make some sort of barrier in the middle that will be difficult to get through. I'm not it might just not even be worth a trouble, you know.

I don't know, but you know, it's Uh. It was just an interesting point that he made, and I was just like, I've never even thought about it like that. None of the enemy had bothered attacking the town just yet, likely because they figured it wasn't necessary. Entering shantytown would open themselves up to getting attacked by Lorocos defense system without a way to fight back as long as we were still in the game. Plus, the town's rules were different,

which this is interesting. There's no throne room. They could only take it by killing me the moment we were defeated. Lorocos would open up if the block truce remained in effect, and they could just raise the entire town like they usually did. Still, the town was a nice, juicy target

that bordered every slice of the pie. That was the reason that I was sort of like, maybe we should put the energy into like blocking out the middle somehow, you know, But like, ah, it all depends, and there's gonna be angles that I haven't thought of, of course. So this is when they enter their personal space, and Doughnut is like, should we use this entrance for a

sneak attack? And I love that. She's like, we can call it the bamboozle, which is such a good name, and uh, He's like, the thing is that it's a double edged sword if we do that. But they find a way to block it, we have no way back in, which really sucks for us. And we have a reminder here about the blood bar because it surprised me again that like Doughnut doesn't get any credit for that kill because Mango's her pet, so I just thought there would

be some but evidently not. She's only allowed a half hour in there, and Carl goes in. The first thing, of course, that he wants to do is step across his like resting matt thing and clean off the cleaner Bot give an angry beep at all the mud and blood we were trailing on the floor. Cleaner Bot. Look, I had sympathy for you initially, but you literally have one job. And normally I don't like that phrase because people will say it when it's just not true. But

for you, it is true. You literally have one job. Now, is there something cleaner Bot wants that we could give it to sweeten the deal? I'd be willing to tip. What is it you want, cleaner Bot? What? What is a treat for a vacuum a little roomba? What is what is something that he would like? I'll play the game, you know, but I don't want to hear from you. They just the fact that they are covered in blood indicate something went very wrong for them or very right,

but either way, it was trauma. So just keep it to yourself. There's also the mention when he picks up Rent to put him in like the cleaning thing, that he is super heavy and that he won't be able to lift him soon, which considering how strong Carl is, like, you know, he has all of these different things that

have caused him to have this unnatural strength. If he can't lift Rend, who is only up to his knee, bro is made of like cement or something, you know what I'm saying, Like damn, So I love the description of him in the cleaning like booth looking at Carls so mournfully out the glass. There are some dogs who love to get baths, and I'm still trying to figure out if there's a way to like trick my dogs into liking it, but so far I haven't found the

trick of it. I think part of it is that my one of my dogs, Pippin, he doesn't like like machine sounds and noises, and so when we turn the shower on, I think the noise of it just kind of freezes him out. But it is weird because both he and Aarwin love water, so that's not the issue. Anyway, He's going through a bunch of messages and is just kind of overwhelmed at how many notifications he's getting. This

is something that also has me concerned. You know, it would be really really easy to overlook something when there are so many things to keep track of. And I wish that there were some kind of enhancement that he could get to his ability to multitask, like the focus thing later but permanent, you know, because I could see

this being the weak spot. And there comes a point later where he's talking to somebody and it's mentioned that that person's eyes are blinking in such a way that they are clearly like composing a message, but they're also talking to Dona as they do that. I don't know if any of y'all has ever tried to, like, say one thing while typing another thing. It is not easy, and the fact that this person is capable of that is kind of bonkers. And I definitely got preoccupied with

thinking about just like, how are they doing that? And is this a function of just getting used to two different communication methods and it just, you know, a thing that seems super hard to me. You just learn to adapt or you fucking die. And so they've adapted, or is it because of the way that their bodies have been changed being in the dungeon for the messaging system to work. Can they split their attention like that? Like

really interested? So there's some mention here. Boomer was salty about us not pushing to take the Naga castle, and I didn't blame him. That would have been the safest and smartest play, especially considering the additional NPCs we'd potentially gain. I didn't care for now. The retreating enemy forces were scattered through Naga territory, and without a spy in their midst, I wasn't sure how they were handling it. I could see the positions of the new troops, and the system

allowed us to give them orders. Tran was handling that. I don't want to read like because there's there's a lot here about where everybody is positioned, et cetera, et cetera, And as usual, there are times where I feel like it's not interesting for me to recount that, so I'm going to skip over some of this. I reveled in the rare moment of silence. I thought about what happened when we confronted Di Nadia. I'd seen my father and myself at that moment. You're scaring me Doughnut had said,

I still needed to process it. I never got the chance. Yeah, this is this is the thing, you know, he's being he's being overwhelmed. I hate this for him, I really really do. Donut. Did you open your nineteen fourteen box yet? I got a spell book called war Crime. It's bleeding and crying and it's disgusting. Can you imagine you guys? Oh my god. I the fact that Carl doesn't even like check for his again, what is it that you got? It might be super useful. I would be opening my

shit like as soon as I could, you know. But uh, he's just he's got a lot on his mind here. So this is when Florin comes in and is like, all right, they're really pulling out the big, big guns at this point, very literally, this is them throwing everything they've got. Have Louis drop what he has to protect our retreat, but you should reroute the one zero sixths

to the castle. And this was followed by literally hundreds of trap notifications, meaning they were already rushing past our first line of trenches and then home base anti air battery. A silent alarm is triggered home Base Anti air Battery has been destroyed, and then Tippett is saying enemy in the base, enemy in the base, and Carl is just like, wait, what the fuck is going on? And he's like, it's got to be sabotaged, right, Like how did they get

past the centuries? It had to be somebody that was already on the inside. So Donut finds the door. It's actually one of the rock guys. What is it, bomo a door for the safe room from the Reaver team. They're doing what we were going to do. They're sneak attacking us using the safe room door the bamboozle. They're in the castle. So what car Garl realizes is that they purchased a doggy door upgrade and if you have one of those, you can go literally you can use

it to connect to anywhere that you've already been. And if they had ever been in the bait shop, which they would have been, that they can get right inside. And he's wondering how long the door's been there, which is a good question because like, I'm assuming it just appeared, but there's no reason to think that, And if it's been there, they could have been coming in and fucking

with shit. The whole time, which is what I think might have been going on with the worms, but it's it's not entirely clear how exactly that got started, So that's my assumption, but we don't know yet. And this is when he sees somebody named reed Gun when he uses ping, who is labeled as dead but who is moving around, and he is outside an area where there's blue dots, and then they all turned to x's around him, and Carl is just like, how could he be dead

but still standing? And he comes to the conclusion brain worms really quickly. I'll be honest, y'all, I fully thought this was going to turn out to be a necromancy spell. I don't think that we've really seen much in the way of like crawlers having necromancy. We've seen abilities and individual spells, but necromancy is like a crawler skill. Isn't something I feel we've run across before, if I'm not mistaken.

So as much as I was sort of like, we've never seen that, it's a like I thought, maybe okay, somebody has it that we didn't realize, you know, and not that this is a crawler obviously, but that maybe there was I don't think that reanimation would be considered an offensive spell necessarily. It depends, I'm sure, on like some of the parameters around it. So that's what I was thinking, was that this was just somebody undead and

being controlled like a puppet. And when he said brain worms, I was like, oh, because he went in a totally different direction with the thought process, and he turns out to be right quite shortly. But uh yeah, I definitely was not on the right wavelength for this at all. You know, Sorry, I'm just like, there's a bunch of chats. Saraphim says, Donut has her second chance spell, but pretty sure the map labels undead as monster slash NPCs, not players.

Oh maybe, uh and yeah, like her second chance spell. That's sort of what I meant when I was saying, like, we've seen there be like individual spells that can do certain things, but we've never seen a necromancer like a class, you know what I mean, somebody who specializes in that. So I don't know if that's even a thing or if it's more like a crawler was Most crawlers would not have the stomach to use necromancy. When it's like probably I'm going to have to reanimate dead friends, you know,

fellow crawlers. I don't know. It seems like it'd be very useful, but you'd have to have a particular practicality about you that somebody, somebody like Westerface could have eva, you know, a viciousness where you don't care. But and depending on how good you are at it, it would be terrifying in a case like this, where you could just reanimate so many of the enemy and have them turn from the inside. So when I was thinking that it was an undead thing, I was really really worried

in a different way. Then it turns out I needed to be, because what I was thinking about was stale, how many people could they turn? How many dead are there now that they can use? And instead, what we need to worry about is how the valve Tae can take anybody and or like override their regular body functions so that they do things that ordinarily that body wouldn't be capable of, and they can jump from one body

to another fairly easily. If they don't care about the body they are in, they will beat the shit out of that thing, doing what needs doing, and then bail, you know, so by no means, am I trying to say this is less scary, but it's different. And I just was fully going down a certain track and I was glad that it gets cleared up within sentences of me, like coming to that conclusion, you know, so sorry. The seraphim says, I could also see someone like lee Na

being fine with it. She's terrifyingly practical. Yeah, that could that could work. Rob says, oh please, an aspiring necromancer must have excellent elocution and a spirit of nobility, and like me, Pisces. This is a wandering in reference for those who are not aware. Pisces, what what? What a great guy? I enjoy him. Pain in the ass, but kind of a pain in the ass in a way

I can appreciate. So Carl, coming to this conclusion, begins to send out the messages to everybody about about like this person is listed as dead, but they are like, go handle this, and he is seeing another one that's coming in a human crawler and bucket boy, the young crocodilian medic dragged between them, a former crawler, a yank screaming in pain. I cross red friends. The names of all three with the casualty list, the one on the left. He was a crawler. He was a level fifty eight

human named Charles Andrew. He was also a class called an Armored Mage. He was listed as dead and I just you know, they don't know what's going on here. So all I could think for a second was that Carl. You know, we've had that moment of like Louis being afraid of him and saying, you get wilder and wilder looking around the eyes, and I'm just waiting for you

to fucking snap and kill everybody. And all I could think in this moment is like, is everybody gonna assume it's finally happened because Carl just launches himself at this guy and beats him to death, and like he's already dead, so, you know, but the worm comes out, It's quite quickly apparent what Carl's doing and why. But for a moment, I was just like, oh no, it could very easily be taken out of context and he would look like he has really gone off the deep end entirely, It's

finally happened, you know. So the worm comes out, he stomps on it, and achievement flashed, but I waved it away. I always want to know what the achievements are. I am not mad that we're not dealing with it right now. I totally write call, but I want to know. I really do. So, yeah, he lets everybody know, like you need to start cross referencing everybody around you with the casualty list and double check whether or not they are

still actually alive. Rend at this point, tries to eat the guy and Carl says, no, we don't eat our own. And I really don't know if it would have harmed Rend to eat a body that had been brought back with a valet tape, where I'm like, I don't it doesn't count as undead, I don't think. But there could be like a you know, there's a gray area there. I don't know. So anyway, an ominous message appeared on my local feed fall back defend the castle, Defend the castle,

defend to the death again. Is this the AI? Is this the AI like giving instruction here? I'm just it just appears. It just appears, you know, this is my question. It's like not coming from anywhere specifically, it's not labeled like warning. It doesn't have the tone that I'm used to. So this is when he says unleash Tina, and chapter

thirty starts. In the heat of it, one learns who they really are, what they really want, their greatest fears, but worse, much worse, oftentimes, one also faces their greater greatest desires. Bear for me, they are the same, and it is my devastation. Stab stab stab. Priestly, I just want to say that it's not your greatest desire, it's just the greatest desire that was forced upon you now that you are in this like hellish situation. Please do

not believe that this is really who you are. But I know it's like too late for that, so I'm so sorry. Rob is giving an important waffle update in the chat right now. We're talking about waffles before we started. If you would like to know participate in these waffle conversations, you should come to the lives and you could really get in on some interesting tater tap waffle chat, et cetera. So we are trying to pull it together here at the start of chapter three, but they have definitely been

caught off guard. We knew that everybody hadn't had as much time as we wanted to get things ready, and even as much time as they were supposed to get wasn't going to be enough. But this all is adding another wrench into the works. Let's see, our most crucial platoon of Home Defenders, the Beefy Boys, sof were half dead. This was the squad which consisted of mages whose sole purpose was to make certain all the wallbuffs and bass

shields were always topped off, which fucking sucks. And one of the people who's been like ganked, that was his specialty. And there's a mention here about like all of the buffs and the shields and everything, but that pulse guns can still do damage. They can still, you know, get through a lot of this stuff. And Doctor Bones is like, I can't wait for that fucking magic to turn back on. And I'm like, yeah, dude, it's been like what a day. It hasn't been a full day, and already I'm just

like this sucks. Oh my god, how are we even going to get there? Honestly, it's as much as I am so delighted at all of these outside folks coming in, it still doesn't seem like enough at all, not even remotely. All of this was just the initial attack. They were softening us up for the main force which was hauling ass toward us from the north. They'd simply bypassed Floren

and the one oh ones fallback position. The enemy hadn't had left enough troops to occupy our main forces, but the bulk of them would be on us in about half an hour. So he gets in touch with Louis and he's like, we got to we finished the inside repair, but we have to get outside to manually fix it. And the door to the hangar is on top of the castle, which is super dangerous to go up there, so this is not something that they're going to be

able to fix anytime soon. And I just remind her, Like he is getting in touch with Louis, then he's talking to Tippet, then he's giving orders to bucket Boy, and it's like boom boom, boom boom, a million things happening at the same time, and Dona is using her ability to see through like invisibility to tell them where to aim, which is hugely helpful. But it's not, as Carl puts it, They are just keeping us busy, that's

all it is. This isn't even like, you know, it feels for us like we're fighting for our lives and we are. But this isn't even like the bad part yet. And he had said unleashed Tina at the end of the last chapter, and I'm waiting and it still hasn't. She's still not there. And then we get Rosetta. I need backup. I need edifice explosion suppressed and suppression inside the castle. They got to Lonnie, who do we got?

I don't care if it's not your specialty. To the safe room exit, And there's a dude named Hue who takes off, And then there's a crawler who attempts to leave and he gets got attempting to go and help Rosetta. And she is the one who tells him about Wannie, and she's like, he's systematically turning off the interior protections. He's got a fucking warm in his head. I just hate this for him. I know they volunteered to come

back in. I knew that this was going like that these people were going to die, a lot of them, and that they knew that. But it still just sucks, after everything to still die in here. I hate it. I hate it so much. And let's see, I'm trying to find the the here it is Lonnie knew about just justice light and our last line of defense. We had to get him and fast. I don't know if I'm supposed to know what that means, but I don't. If I'm not, that's fine, And even if i am,

maybe don't tell me. I don't know, but I just wanted to point out, like I don't know if I'm supposed to get what he's reading or or what he's reading what he's saying here Sarah and says, Rafo, what

is it? What does that again? Read? And find out? Right? Okay? Yeah, Michael says it sucks so bad for the ones that died before they could even fire a shot at the enemy, and they came in willing to lose their lives for the chance to strike a blow against someone responsible for this hell hole, and they never got it exactly, Like everything just hasn't gone according to I'm sure the image in their heads that made this worth it to them to do to risk, and probably even if they had

known this was how it would go, they would still have come. But it's just it's not fair. It's just simply not fair. So this is when Donut is He says something about how the compromise. Mages are what we need to focus on. And Donut says, I could have told you that you can smuggle them anywhere, and they can crawl in your ear, kill you, and take you over in just a few seconds. It's absolutely disgusting, but

they're quite good allies. When they're on your side. You can fit like five of them in your mouth at once. Which I know that she is referencing a thing that she had done, but I don't remember how it went. I feel like at one point somebody described Doughnut getting a scritch on the chin. That was like not a scritch,

forgive me. It was like one of those things where I saw the comment way after it had been left and meant to like address it on the show, and then completely forgot all about it, and I this just reminded me of it. And I can't even recall exactly what it was that is meant to have happened, but this is clearly pointing to that. And ooh, Michael says, they're all dungeons fibers, so they probably didn't have any illusions about what was going to happen, but it still

makes my heart hurt for them. Exactly. Rob says, I can't remember it, and proceeds to remember it pretty much exactly, but I don't remember exactly why she was bringing them inside. Like I remember, it was to get it away from get the show away from uh oh my god, b what's the bee guys? So for the Valletite to take it. But I don't remember Borrent, thank you everybody, But I don't remember exactly how she got in touch with him

or set this up or anything. So that's what I mean, is more like the uh background information and exactly how this worked. Ooh, Rob says, and I think it was because the Bloom is going after zev if I recall correctly, and doubtless you're probably right. I didn't remember that part specifically, but uh, Borrent is the company. The fish Nazi party was the Bloom, right. So let's see a moment later, splashtwe in doctor Bones high fives. They took out an

invisible MRK. I just love Doctor Bones out here high fiving, just to mention. And we have a bit of back and forth here of Doughnut chatting with all of the people down here in the trench, especially Splashtone about their personal lives and Splash Stone, it turns out is married to Snail Trail, which is something that I will never

say again in my life. And it's very fun because it's sort of like a light moment and Carl tries to be like, can we focus please, and I'm just like, Carl, I don't know if you even met like the folks who work like this, but trust me when I say, you can absolutely chit chat while focused as fuck. It's not a problem. And obviously it is the way that like Doughnut copes and from the way that Splashy is reacting,

he copes like this also. And then we find out pretty shortly that this is all part of a buff that Imani was giving everybody to get them so that they were focused. And it's like makes you kind of manic acting, you know, And she says something about how like it doesn't seem to be affecting you, maybe because of your mind focus. But then later she's like, oh, no, it is affecting you. It's just all internal with Carl,

not chatty at all. Now, what he's focusing on here is he we sends a message back, I'm sorry, Carl, it's too dangerous. She will stay here and that's final. She's just a child. You just ordered the Gnome and the changeling children to stay out of the battle. So why is Tina different? Now? Look, I'll be honest, y'all. When Carl called leash Tina, I was like, really because I really kind of thought she was going to get the same protections in exactly the way that Kiwi is saying.

And of course, why is Tina any different? Well, you know, she's a velociraptor. That's how she's different. So I get that, but I don't really, like I have been having mixed feelings about keeping the kids out of this fight the whole time. And oh, everybody is saying she's a t rex. I completely forgot. I completely forgot she's an actual t rex. Uh yeah, Like, why is she any different? Is so disingenuous? Come now, come now, Kiwi. However, Carl is like really

having a moment of like struggle internally about this. He feels like she has a point, and maybe the fact that they need Tina so bad and they're you know, trying to use her in this way makes it worse, not better. And then he says, I thought of Asher of his mother hugging him after she'd poisoned our father, and he starts to write, Kiwi, she'll be fine. We buffed her. She will all die if she doesn't come out.

And then I realized survival had more than one meaning, more than one meaning which I definitely respect this point of view, I really get it. And just as he's about to send a different message about like we'd have to push out without her, Donut just yells, get Tina out here right now, My goodness, what's taking so long. Don't make me send Mango in there to drag her out. Do it now, And before Kiwi could even answer, someone to my left shouted duck as the giant doors behind

us flew open all the way. So this is such a I this is the shame of the fact that we have just been in the heat so quickly that we haven't had conversations. But like Donut has had no problem with the children being involved. You know, she was also the one that was like fine with Bonnie coming on board the party planner as a scout and Louis as well, and she was saying, you know, she's hundreds of years old, it's fine, and Carl's hang up here.

It's like I can't decide about it. I can't decide if it's like understandably, if it's him clinging to an ideal that is just not reasonable right now, or if this ideal is like the whole point and why doesn't Doonut have that same struggle? And I think that maybe this will be a bit of a break between them, not like a break in their friendship, but him and Donut have been on the same page with a lot of big decisions and a lot of the approach to things.

They have had arguments about details, but in the end they both seem to feel similarly on a lot and I am wondering if this is going to turn into a bit of an issue that Donut is much more willing to sacrifice children than Karl is and where that's coming from. Exactly why is she? Because like I'm framing it as why is she prepared to sacrifice children? Making it sound as if we're just putting the children on

a fucking guillotine. But they are in PCs, and that is not meant to be Oh, they're just NPCs, But what I mean is because of that, they are much older than they look, and I feel like maybe they get to have some agency in all this. Maybe treating them like children is unfair to them because you just, you know, leave them as sitting ducks and they don't what happens to them in the end anyway, if other people die and they get if our side loses, then

they die anyway. So is it more kind to let them participate in something that is so awful but make their own choice, or is it more fairer to protect them and treat them like actual children. I don't know, because I don't I haven't spoken to these NPCs enough to be able to tell what's going on in their head and how they feel about certain things. And uh, yeah,

I don't know. Rob says, Apart from the significant moral issue, part of the reason why we prosecute and have war crimes is that it makes our enemies less likely to resort to similar or more likely to surrender than fight to the death. Given that the other side doesn't really have children in the equation, it's somewhat asymmetrical, which is a real albatross around the crawler's necks. Yeah, and it's just like the lack of clarity around are like how

much like children are these quote children? Really is a particular spot to me that I keep getting hung up on because if they are remembering previous crawls, if they are sort of awakened enough to really understand what's happening, and that previous experience is compounding in their minds in the way that experience adds up to more agency as

a person. That's what age is, right, It's that you have lived through enough and your brain has developed to a certain point and you can start to make you can start to make choices with like more of a comprehensive understanding what the consequences of those choices will be. And it's just really tough to say here. I really don't know. I like, honestly, if I'm being real with you guys, practically speaking, of course, let the kids fight if we're just going to be practical. But I don't

want to just be practical with this. I actually really do want to think about the ethics of it. And I kind of think that I come down on donut

side anyway. I think that it is like as NPCs, there's just a whole different thing going on with them, and treating them as you would regular human children isn't accurate likely, you know, like, I just think it's probably not really what they're like, and I think maybe this a lot of this is coming from Carl's own baggage, having to like see and experience horrible shit as when he was very young, and he's just trying to keep that from happening to other kids, which is totally admirable.

But they aren't normal, you know, They're just it's a very special specific case here, So I don't know. I kind of flip flap back and forth, but I feel like I come down on Donut side mostly, not entirely. It's not I feel like I could be argued either way if it were compelling enough, but uh. Sarah Fim says, I'd sigh mostly but Donuts so long as the kid wants to fight and isn't being forced. Rob says, interestingly,

I'd side with Carl. Henry says Donut's a child, so she sees no problem with other kids fighting like she does. Saraphim says, give said kids a job that lets them help while keeping them as far from the front line as plausible. It's just tina as well a fucking t rex. Rob says, the NPCs are facing a genocide, so I wouldn't begrudge them fighting, but also I don't think I could order them slash use them as soldiers willingly. That's the thing, is like, it's not just I will let

you fight. He is saying, unleash Tina like she's a weapon, which she is, but it is very dehumanizing. She's not human, but she's a person. But you know, I don't know, I I don't know. And it's interesting as well that when Donut is just like, get her out here, she shows up immediately, and it doesn't seem that Kiwi is trying to argue with Donut at all. She's just trying

to argue with Carl. Later, Donut says something about the fact that we need to talk to everybody about the fact that they're not like just obeying our orders right away, and hm, god, it's just Donuts really on a track here. It's interesting to see her begin to be like, no, we have to be organized, and you guys have to fucking listen. I shouldn't have to repeat myself. I mean,

I don't think that's unfair. You're a warlord and we're in war, and yet I was just like, damn, Donut, you know, so Tina comes out and literally just like chomps on this invisible spot that causes a guy to explode because he had been setting up some sort of gun. He was invisible again, and this is when Donut jumps on. Mom goes back. She uses her headset and she lands on the says landing atop the front of the castle

behind us, just above the door, and she shot. She shouts, God, Comrades, there are over one hundred bad guys on the other side of that building. They think they can just drop out of the sky and land in our base. Some of them are warmheads who killed our friends. Are we going to let that stand? I don't think so. We got to kill them, and we gotta do it fast. Alpha Squad card reserves to the roof. Everyone else with cards saved them for the main four. Let's show these

cheese sticks what the Princess Posse does to trespassers. Tina sick em all around me. Cheers rose as everyone jumped to their feet and started to shout. I exchanged a look with Amani, who was staring at Donut open mouthed. Comrades, She's been hanging out with Rosetta too much. The warnl lored thing suits her. Imani said she sounded a little sad. I felt it too. Tina finally noticed the mass of enemies at the bottom of the hill, who had started

to panic fire their weapons at her. One of the shields on her fizzled out, then another, The giant Alisaurus waved her wand indignantly let out a howl, and she surged down the hill, her pink tutu flapping in the wind. For the posse, Donut roared and as one we charged. So yeah, I just don't know. Look, if Tina dies, which is certainly possible, I'll be interested to see donuts

reaction to that. I don't know. I really this is such an odd question, and it's just a it's a much more loaded question than it would be in a real Earth war with Earth regular children, you know, where it's very simply absolutely the funck not. But you know, there's also going to be times where it's like, if one person could sneak through this pipe and set this trap,

we could solve this entire problem. But the pipe is too big for an adult, you know, Like, there's a lot of horrible scenarios that I can think of that would make it seem like we have no choice. And that's the question, is like, you always have a choice, it's just one of the choices is shitty. That's not the same. Is it not existing? But where is Carl's obligation? How much does he need to like maintain his belief in the humanity of the NPCs and prioritize that above dissolve, Like,

what's the word I want? I was about to say dissolve, but that's not the word I want. How much does he prioritize that above potentially losing what is worth sacrificing. It's more than about the kids, It's about a precedent. You know. I just can't decide how I feel about it, guys, I really can't. I don't know anyway, I you, guys. I'm like, I just know we're gonna be seeing some

deaths of people that I like. I'm really thinking that. Like, Emani's on the chocoling block, and it's been such a weird journey with her where I have never disliked her or anything, but she has been so standoffish for so long that I feel like I'm just starting to get to know her and growing to really like her. And of course, like her abilities are so helpful and I really don't want to say goodbye to her. It could

be Ellie. We haven't seen her a lot. It feels like she's kind of been out in the mix a lot more. I won't even consider Donut. I don't think Matt didn't him in would do it. I honestly, this is one of those things where it's like, if he killed Carl, what a choice that would be? Can you imagine like if he actually I'm not talking about like, oh, a near death now, I'm talking about like dead and the series ends without Carl kind of rad Actually, however,

I just there's no way doning. It's simply not an option. I just don't see it. And I don't mean this as like I would never tolerate it. I mean, as an author, it's suicide, right like you just can't it's not no anyway. All Right, I gotta wrap up. Thank you guys again for coming, Appreciate you, and until next time to the lum motherfuckers. That was an unspoiled Network past