This Inevitable Ruin, Chapters 31-34

show everyone. I am Natasha. Thank you very much to Michael for commissioning this episode. William is in the chat and is asking miss the lie, but loved your thoughts on Carl, the ring and the Empress. How many times this donut had to save Carl from himself? Now, yeah, good question. And there's a little moment in this too that I thought was funny. We have William, Nehua and Michael and Saraphim in the chat. Delighted to see you all.

So this is an interesting section because we've got now this major threat looming that isn't but only Carl knows that it isn't. And I've been looking for some way that Carl could have an advantage over all of the other players, you know, and not the other players, but his enemies specifically. And I was really just uncertain where

it could come from and feel believable. And I'm not sure how much of an advantage this is because like what I would depend on if I were in his shoes would be Okay, So everybody is about to just like give up on fighting because it's going to be their last moments alive, and so they're going to spend their time fucking getting drunk, you know what I mean? Like, are people going to pull back from the battle itself because it's all about to be over and they have

better shit to do? Alternatively, it could be like I'm going to go even harder because now there's nothing remaining, so fuck it if I'm gonna die anyway. I don't know, and I don't know if like Carl knowing that this is not going to happen, is this something that could be detected by somebody that, like he doesn't seem as worried as everybody else is what does he know that

we don't know? Would that even be that big a problem? Like, you know, I'm genuinely asking, because I keep coming up against this, like folks can be very unpredictable in their reaction to stuff. I'll think that, you know, there's only one logical way to respond, and then somebody you'll do some shit and I have to be like, oh right, everybody's not me, first of all, and isn't drawing from

the same experience I am. And second of all, everybody isn't logical either, not pretending that I always behave logically by the way, but just saying. And then of course we have the fact that like Bro winds up getting killed despite things, it's who. There's a lot of implications here,

So let's start. Let's begin with chapter thirty one. And it's like, the thing about this section of the book I think that's just a little bit overwhelming to me is the fact that I thrive on the dialogue, and because it's so much battling, it's tons of descriptions, it's tons of explaining the positioning, what kinds of weapons somebody

is using versus others. We're also introducing a lot of new characters this book, because it's people that we haven't actually met in person, and a lot of like Red shirts for lack of a better way of saying it. And so I think that this is beginning to sort of wash over me at this point, and I'm trying

to remember. I feel like, Michael, was it you or somebody in the discord maybe that was asking like, how did you feel about this book in comparison to Battleground, which is the up till recently, like the most recent dressden Files book, we just had twelve months come out, and twelve months, in my opinion, is way better than Battleground was. Michael says, I think that was rob okay,

and sorry Michael. He also says I'd be trying to hit the Desperado Club or Club Banquisher to grab some beers, eat carbyist sugariest crap they have, and maybe swing by the Bitch's room to try to check out Snail Trail in her Mom's act. Snail Trail is just so awful. I hate it so much. And I haven't read the new Butcher File, the new Dress and Files books yet.

I lo Butcher Files. Loo. Yeah. So I will try not to give spoilers for Battleground, but I will say both Peace Talks and Battleground I found really lacking, and it definitely feels going back and reading them over again in the context of the greater series, like Butcher was off his game when he wrote them. Setting that aside, there's a lot of inconsistencies to me in character behavior, things that it seems like he just forgot about, you know.

But setting all of those issues aside, the biggest difficulty for me and the block to getting into the book or remembering the book in much detail. For Battleground, Peace Talks, there's a lot more dialogue, and that's part of why it's more memorable to me in certain ways. Battleground is this like balls out fight from almost start to finish in a way that began to bleed together for me, pun intended, and it was very difficult to sustain. The kind of relentless is the word that I use a

lot when I talk about that book. That relentless onslaught of enemies and death and near misses and descriptions of buildings falling and descriptions of people dying, and descriptions of you know, baby carriages turned over in the street with a bloodstain inside, and just like it's a lot of awful things packed together thrown at you in a way that feels like there are times where that kind of thing really can work, where, for example, Fury Road is a movie that as soon as you sit down, it

feels like you have already hit forty miles an hour, and then you get to like one twenty within ten minutes, and the movie never drops below one twenty again, and then it's over and you're just exhausted at the end, but you're also like, that was incredible, what a ride. Oh my god, let's go again. You know. One of the best movies I've ever seen, period and an example of when relentlessness works, but you gotta be really careful

with it. And I feel like I'm reaching a point in this book where the relentlessness is starting to overpower me, and I am finding myself having to rewind a lot. I am just completely glazing over missing sections and having to go back descriptions of things that I'm like, wait, why is that happening? I must have missed something even

though I was listening. But there is so much being told to me that it can't track it all, and I'm really struggling with like whether or not this is something that's like truly a narrative problem, or if it's just a me problem, it's certainly possible it's just a me problem. And for other people this works really well, and I think it's just a matter of like what you prioritize when you're reading and what you like, you know.

For me, my favorite Dress and Files books are like twelve Months in Ghost Story, which are two of the ones that most people seem to not like because they have the least of Harry broiding out and beating the shit out of people, and the most of him being really introspective and not being able to use his magic

the way he used to. And I am all about the introspection and the long overdue conversations between characters and the getting to see something that you wouldn't otherwise have seen because these circumstances are so specific and minded to make you be here now, you know. And so I am very much I really love the Dress and Files books, But I am very much in the minority in terms of overall audience regarding what I like about the series. You know, it's really not about Harry being a badass.

That's not what I'm there for, and that I know is like a minority opinion. So I think Dungeon Crawler Carl. I won't say it has the same demographic because like the Dress and Files fandom has been very male dominated from the spaces that I've seen, and Dungeon Crawler Carl has felt like, I have seen just as many women

fangirling out as men in online spaces. Granted I haven't been in as many because I'm unspoiled, but I feel like maybe the appeal is the fighting for a lot of people, and so perhaps me being like this is just too much of this is not an opinion that is going to be shared by many other people, and so I just want to like put that out there at the top that like the way that I feel about this so far, I understand I might this might not be a very popular opinion. It is an opinion.

It's just preference. You know. This is not me saying that this book is less good, because this book is clearly very carefully thought out. It's not like it doesn't feel sloppy. There's nothing about this that is seeming like the authors sleep walking through it in some of the ways that some books that I just mentioned might feel. But it's just not really appealing to what I care about as much. So, William Jones says, there certainly is

a ton going on. It works for me because as I reread these books almost religiously, I also wonder about that aspect is the way that I'm covering the books. Sometimes it can do a property big favors. Sometimes it just makes it more difficult for me to absorb everything,

And it really can depend. There are times where a lot of action and me stopping to talk about it works though, where it's almost like I would have missed XYZ in the action if there hadn't been this moment where we actually like stopped and talked about it chapter by chapter. So you know, I don't want to say that tons of action doesn't work for coverage, because that's not necessarily true. It's totally dependent on circumstance and the

story itself. But I can't help but wonder with this book, if maybe, like plowing through the front end of it in a way that I might while I was reading it for fun and by myself versus reading it for coverage, might it might hit different for me doing it that way, you know. And it's just like breaking it into these sections that makes it feel like it's all kind of slowed down some and a little bit of a slog.

I'm gonna say it, just like there. It's weird because I don't really feel like it is entirety, but because there are these moments that there are wonderful things happening that are so exciting and new and people showing up that we are finally getting to meet, and insights and things, and you know, but it feels like those moments are

peppered in amongst the rest being really really heavy. So it's like a fruitcake where you've got the real, real, like dense cake and every now and then you hit a bright piece of lovely fruit or nut, but you've got this really intense cake surrounding it and you get full quick. Jeff says in the chat, Hi, Jeff, I like it better than the last moment, mostly because I hate the card mechanics. That is fair, battles like this get overwhelming, but that's kind of how battles are in reality,

so I understand why it's happening. That said, I would love more flashbacks or gentle meditations to break up the horror the card mechanics. I completely get why you feel that way, Jeff. And honestly, like I kind of thought I was gonna feel that way in the last book, but because the AI wound up like sidestepping so much of the card mechanics, I actually I felt like we escaped what I thought it was going to be, Like

I thought it would be way worse. But uh, and yeah, this being how battles are in reality, Like, I won't argue with that. I just don't necessarily want to read about that. But it, you know, it's the sort of thing where it's like, definitely not arguing that it's not realistic. It's just more like I don't like it that's just

gonna happen. So saying all this, I am not going to get into detail, as I have said many times already this book, about each of the moves that are being made, because I just don't think it's necessary or important. If it turns out part of it was necessary slash important, I'm certain that will be brought to my attention later and I can reference it when I have to if

I have to. But at this part we get a little bit of information about the Reavers, which is the name of these dudes in uh, oh my god, you guys. You know, the one that everybody's so excited about is getting redone that I think is like overrated. And these guys. It's sort of interesting because, like in this, the reavers

are like barely human beings anymore. I knew the reavers were all robot with just a little bit of biological brain left over hidden somewhere inside their robot shells, and they could shapeshift, sort of something about nanobot sized individual machines all coming together to make one. These mercenaries were somewhere between more robotic than those weird nebulars and certainly a lot scarier. And this is when we get the descriptor, which starts with the AI being like, Okay, look, these

guys really shouldn't be here. They don't fit the aesthetic. I've already told them that we're not doing this next floor. They've proposed some updates that I've rejected. They already know about it. I also made sure they were only allowed to come in their light armor, because if they came here with everything, that would be y'all'll be fucking toast to understand why a perfectly normal person this cracked me up. Guys,

I'm not gonna lie. Why a perfectly normal person would want to slowly turn himself into a robot whose sole purpose is to invade planetary colonies, shoot innocent civilians, and spend all day believing he's a fascist, fighting patriot of industrial capitalism. You have to first understand where these guys

come from. Blah blah blah, tough childhood and the pollution show, shadow of the behemoth reaver moons, where most of the physical goods in the galaxy or manufactured blah blah, drug street gangs, eighty percent taxes, boohoom my mommy is a hooker, no way out, et cetera. You know the story, I am so sorry. But if that isn't just like absolutely it's it's so it's such an unkind way of saying everything, but it isn't even really leaving anything out. It just

feels like, no, that's actual, pretty fucking good summation. But also the AI goes on to really be like these dudes specifically that are here, though I don't want you feeling like these guys are like the product of circumstance that you should, you know, be sorry for them, because these are dudes who have opted in repeatedly, and so if they're here, they've really decided to do this thing, and they are different. And let's see. Gunny here was

once known as mister Jake Tordokai. His designation changes each time he's deployed. At this moment, seconds before his four hundred cycle journey to gain Reaver citizenship comes to a permanent and abrupt end at the draws of a pist off, confused child soldier, he is known as X two. He has twenty three enhancements to his body. We might as well add a bit of context. Gaining citizenship comes with profit sharing and additional financial benefit, but is a pain

in the ass. You lose your biological form to get your foot in the door. The first upgrade is free. Anything else, There's only two ways to do it. You can pay for all of it yourself, which is pretty much a non starter. Or you can work for the reavers for free. They'll feed you, house you, and you get all the healthcare you want. That plus one more upgrade in exchange for a three cycle deployments worth of work.

And the work ain't easy. All that to say, these guys have been fighting a lot longer than you have. This isn't their home turf, and they're not used to Option three enhancement zone fighting techniques, but they should not be underestimated. So yeah, what an odd thing to drop in here. I am really curious about exactly what the like process is front Denneman deciding what types of creatures he's going to include in the dungeon, because I could very much see it being sort of like whatever catches

my fancy, I'm just throwing it in. I really like this thing that I just found out about going in, you know, And I don't know if there's more of a process to that, more of a method I would I'm not mad if there isn't. To be clear, if he's just throwing shitting because he thinks it's fun, completely valid and I'm enjoying the ride, so go ahead, But uh, I'm just curious about it. And let's see. At this point, more of the fan shaped shield started popping up in

front of me. As I tried to see what the hell was going on. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Victory had appeared standing on the far corner of the building, quietly observing. A moment later, and she was joined by a second adjutant. I didn't RECOGNI eyes. This was a strange, antlered alien type I'd never seen before. All I could see was Tina's head popping up from the smoke and her shield going up and down, just

like the wall protections of the castle behind us. For a moment three Tina's appeared someone having cast an illusion, but it was immediately dispelled. And the idea of like it going up and down and just being all over the place because people are just fighting at the base of the issue, you know what I'm saying, is very

anxiety inducing to me. I was pleasantly surprised that by the end of this section Tina does not die, because I was sort of wondering, I'm still not certain she's making it to the end of this book, even but I was actually worried about her in a way that

surprised me. So a bunch of people pull their cards and start summoning these creatures and what not, and then Donut yells that there's somebody behind Carl, and he turns around and beats the shit out of this guy to a degree that has one of the death Cult leader guy saying, holy gods, that's really nasty and I just, uh, you know what, We're gonna put a pin in that and come back to it, or just remember this moment. Also, I do want to mention the death cult leader guy

Carl thinks is another iteration of Jesus. And as soon as he was like, oh it was a death cult leader guy, I just immediately pictured Jared Leto Jared Letto. Look, guys, you know I have mentioned many a time how being canceled that's not real. There are so many people out there accused of such horrible things and they are still getting work. And Jared Letto is a perfect example of one of these people that I don't understand how he is still being cast. He's not a great actor. He's fine,

but he's not great. He hasn't been in a lot of hits recently, Like look at his filmography over the past few years, and it's been a lot of fucking stinkers, and he has been accused of a lot of really really gross behavior, including having like kind of a cults of his own. I firmly believe that Jared Leto is being cast in things because he's got dirt on somebody. I really believe that I'm not being cute. I think there has to be something like that going on, because

otherwise I do not get it. And every time he turns up in something, it'll be something that I was otherwise interested in at the start of the trailer, and then his face appears and I immediately I am just like, oh,

never mind, and I just completely clock out. I don't have any interest anymore so, and I know I'm not the only one with that response, So that's part of why I'm just like, how are they not seeing the results at the box office that people don't want to, like, you know, watch things he's in, and they're still putting him in stuff you can't talk about how it's about the bottom line because it doesn't work with him. I

don't get it. NEA's got a bunch of laugh Ebojis Jeff says worst part of Blade Runner twenty forty nine A son that's seen it. It makes me wonder if former female colleagues like Claire Danes will work with him. I don't like, no idea what's going on there, man, but it's weird, and every now and then there'll be somebody like this who you just seem to not be able to get away from. And you're like, they have a really good agent or something because they are not talented enough.

This is how I felt about Shilah Boof also, and he actually wound up sort of disappearing, but for a minute he was in everything, and I was like, why he's not a great actor. He's not particularly attractive, he's really ordinary looking. He doesn't really have a lot of screen presence. I was just sort of like, what that's the appeal? And eventually he just sort of, you know,

dwindled and died. And I keep wanting that to happen to Jared Leto, and he's old enough now that I'm just like, if it hasn't happened yet, he's just gonna wind up getting too oled to cast for certain things and I just have to wait for the natural process of Hollywood. But I had hoped it would happen before that because of who he is as a person. So anyway, this is just a this is immediately who I pictured here in this moment, and this is when Jamal appears.

This fucking dude. He disappeared into the chaos, only to appear a moment later, rising out of the smoke like he'd somehow managed to jump without legs, a squirming mercenary in his mouth before disappearing again. Get it, Jamal, good for you. And this is when he gets the hingle about some trap beginning to activate. Somebody was arming a ton of automatons, all with equipped satchel explosives explosives. I checked my map, making sure this wasn't one of our guys.

It wasn't. That half of the battlefield was all purple dots, along with a few of the reanimated mages. I scoffed, you motherfuckers. Might be experienced, you might be battle hardened,

but you're in my playground now. So Carl warns everybody to brace and he casts Tripper, which very much delighted me because this was an ability that when it appeared, I was sort of like, that is that could be really helpful, but it could also bite you in the ass so bad, and like, I just want to see it be used in a really exciting way, and this really fit the bill. The explosion when it came was

bigger than I was expecting. One moment my map was a convoluted mess, and then we were all knocked off our feet, everyone but me and a few others with steady buffs. Still, it felt as if i'd been kicked in the chest by a horse. I took a blast

of heat damage, but not much. Wrend blew across the roof like he'd been punted, disappearing back behind me and over the far edge, which he's fine, but I definitely had a moment of like, oh no. The smoke that covered the battlefield seemed to get sucked into the explosion, and in the moments after everything suddenly in view, it seemed the world was paused. And I want to mention my ear drums were blown out, and even though I didn't want to admit it to myself, I was getting

used to the feeling. There was something comforting about that specific kind of pain. That's not good. Nope, nope, not good, not good. Oh boy. Anyway, all the cyborgs were on the ground, overwhelmed and struggling. The entire area where the automatons had been gathered was nothing but a crater, and all the cyborgs in that area were just gone. A sizzling, metallic torso landed heavily on the roof behind me. I

couldn't hear it, but I could feel it. Most of The veterans were also on their backs, though miraculously, my feed said none had died in the blast. Tina was on her back, health in the red, all her shields gone. I could see she was crying out, but I couldn't hear. I imagined she was crying for her mother, which is awful. And he just doesn't have the emotional moment here with this that I wanted. It's just an observation and then he moves on to the next thing. I was just like, oh, bro,

you are just so not okay. It's just not okay. The current crawlers were the first to get to their feet, and in a situation like this, he who recovers fastest wins. They moved to finish off the defenders. Our men and women crawled over the remaining cyborgs like an army of ants. In moments, it was done. And this is when Donut is like, everybody, watch out for the mages because they are gonna be worms coming out of them, so don't get got by these fucking worms. The death Cult leader

is sitting next to him and he says something. Carl's like what, And he says, I said, I could really use a nice refreshing drink right about now want to join me, which I think is meant to be like a kool aid joke, I think, but uh yeah, you know, one of those. And then we get an alert from Donut that last mage is fleeing and it's Lonnie and Carl acted daughter's kiss jumps off the second story and lands on him and it kills him. So that's a

wrap on that. So then we jump to Rosetta who's messaging with Karl and is like, the door disappeared, but they can use it again. We're going to have to pull the safe room away from the castle and have permanent guards on it, or else just kill the entrance completely,

which might be better. And he is like, I just don't want to lose access to Mordecai in the safe room, so you know, And he says, since they can only bring a limited number of NPCs into their own safe room, they can't do a full scale invasion through that door, but we do need to isolate it. We need to get back on that now while we decide what to do. None of that is going to matter if we don't beat these assholes back. But for the next few minutes,

focus on helping Louis open the roof. We were cleaning up after the attack, resetting our defenses and looting the bad guys before the main force would be on us in ten or fifteen minutes. They probably wouldn't march right into us now that their beachhead was closed off, but

we had to be ready. We had more defenders appearing by the moment, including Boomers one hundred and six Bloody Leeches, along with the scattered one hundred fourth members of the Naughty Little Piggies who'd come running the moment we were attacked. Florin said he was pretty sure Prince Stallwar of the Skull Empire was with them leading the charge. In some ways, I wish we didn't have these pauses between fights. The ups and downs felt too jarring. I didn't like having

to think about what was going to happen. I just wanted it to happen, which I really do understand that it's the kind of thing he's thinking about, Like, we just need to get it over with. These breaks are absolutely crucial to be able to set up your traps and barriers and whatnot. Though, dude, like, thank God for them, you know. So this is when Samantha arrives, looks around and it's like, oh my god, did you have another party without telling me? Ah, Samantha, I really have been

missing you. Where you been? Girl? I need you to get it up on this fighting a little bit more. So we start thirty two, Mordecai saying, you do need to destroy the bait shop and do it now. They can just drop a nuke through that door and be done with it, which was what I had actually been thinking way back when we first find out about the door, and I had a moment of like, oh my god, are they just gonna you know, because they put guards

on it. I think it's Beaumo and Sledge. But all I could think was like, guards aren't going to do shit if they just decide to put an explosive in there and really like a big one, which they haven't done, and I'm not sure why not if they just don't

have access to something like that or what. So, Mortchai points out, like, we have lost almost all of our mages, so it's not like there's enough protections remaining that we can really protect ourselves in that way, and they could still try that if we don't get rid of this doggy door or yeah, the bait shop itself. So the Orc prints had come riding in some giant creature that looked like a cross between a hippopotamus and a yak.

Decked out and glittering opalescent armor covered with feathers, The Orcs all wore flags on their backs like they were feudal Japanese warriors. The flags were black vertical rectangles with a shimmering silver Orc skull in the center. It made it easy to distinguish the Orc troopers from the others. The Bone Clan of the Skull Empire seemed to favor larger sized mercenaries. While the Orc team looked powerful, there weren't that many of them compared to the others. There

were only one thousand or so. As far as we could see. It appeared all of the Operatics were also out there, along with the healthy mix of everyone else. It was no wonder Florin had been forced to fall back, and Tippett, who was looking at this with Carl, is just like, well, we are absolutely fucked, aren't we. And Carl's like, were you supposed to be bringing hope with you when you came? And He's just like, we just didn't want you to die, all along keeping you company.

This is when Doughnut clocks that that's not Prince Stalwart, and it turns out it's their father who barren. His victory is his sister, and she's really startled because he isn't supposed to be in the mix anymore. He doesn't really do this sort of thing, so let's see, his appearance was probably a very last minute decision. It's news to me Russ hasn't participated in faction wars in quite a long time, since he was a pret himself. I wonder if he's sober, which is an interesting question. This

is more or less likely if he's sober. I'm not sure which way the uh you know that influences things. So donat who's using the size up. She's looking at him and like he's seventy eight. His main weapon is a whip, and he has like dozens and dozens of spells. I don't even understand this. She calls him a copy dog instead of a copycat, which I did enjoy that

little joke. I thought that was fun. And Tippin says he likely has a ring of divine suffering for the stats and the levels that come with charging the ring and a necklace of indelible woe for the spells uh. It trades out a random spell of your own for a spell of a targets. If you kill the target, it'll be one of their five highest level spells. Like the Divine Suffering Ring, it only works on crawlers and

people like me. It's not all that useful unless you're a complete psychopath with a bunch of spells you can't afford to lose, or you can't afford to lose. Sorry. They agreed to stop using it because combatants were farming crawlers to power it up and it was a little messy. And Carl says, and the Divine Suffering Ring is any better, and he says, it's a long story, but trust me, the necklace is worse, much worse. And I'm really curious about exactly why that is, like what, you know what

I'm saying, very very curious. And also I'm worried that this is going to be something that Carl decides he wants, like, I don't need you getting any more divine horrible artifacts, sir, Please don't. I just really hope he doesn't. I know that he says like they agreed to stop using it, but apparently Rose, like you know, still here with the results of it. So maybe he's not wearing it and it's just that the results are permanent. I'm not sure. So Donut sat on the counter with a Guildhall Bobka

animatedly going back and forth about purchasable base upgrades. Rosetta was with her, but she had a look on her face that suggested she was about to throttle the cat. Tippitt had told her about King Rust's presence, but she hadn't shown any outward reaction at all. She'd called Donut over and insisted we spend the last of our pooled

money to defend the base. And so, yeah, there had been this moment where tippd has a reaction to the fact that Rust is here and is like, oh God, I need to tell her, indicating they definitely have some sort of history between them. And then there's this thing with Donut that I think is interesting. Donut had that determined, smug look on her face that meant she was going to get her way, and if she didn't, she wouldn't

shut up about it. So Donut, this is something like Carl later points out that when she's on the battlefield she manages to like get serious, you know, for donut, but one on one her stubbornness was growing, her snippiness was ratcheted even higher than usual. And I think that it's basically like a coping mechanism. Here's my theory. She is having to be so focused and perform so completely when she is on the battlefield as a leader that

it's exhausting her. And so when she has her downtime, you know, it's like she doesn't need to keep putting on a show in that way anymore, and maybe is getting a little high on her own supply as well. Where you can start. If you know you have people who are following you and who are willing to do what you tell them in a battle, you can start to feel like you just deserve to be listened to

at all times and obeyed. I don't know, but there's also a part of me that's like, is it simply that she can act like a little bit of a child here because the stakes aren't as high, it's like safe to do it, and so she can't sustain this like impressive leader persona all the time. And this is when she's allowed to just be kind of petulant and immature. I don't know. I don't know, but anyway, there comes a point where she starts to like pull rank and is telling uh Rosetta like, you know, if I said

that it's happening, I'm higher rank than you. If I say it's fine, it's final, and Carl has to be like Donna. They came here to help us, Please don't be a dick to them. There's also a mention of the Slugglos and Justice Light and that Imani went into the room that most of the Slugglos are like living in right now, and she doesn't want to talk about it, but she said that she would never go in there again.

I don't know what's going on there. There's a mention here something especially horrific had happened to Justice Light during his indentureship, and it had changed him even further the incident when he lost his wing. I didn't know the story, but I did know it had turned the somewhat morose but proud skyfowl into a quiet, strange, obsessive, compulsive creature. He had a few strange ticks, always moving his head back and forth like he was hearing things. He muttered

to himself a lot. So there's this like piece of artwork that he's working on where he's folding paper and sewing it to another piece of paper, and Tippets says, it's a like calming thing. That's just sort of nonsensical to be doing something with his hands. That's you know, it's sort of monotonous in a way that is kind of meditative, is how I am imagining it. But I am not so sure. There's something about this that feels like this dude's making something and it's just that we

don't get it yet. That's my theory, is that this is something more. I don't know. So I'm trying to jump ahead a little here because I do have so much to cover, and I'm like, forty minutes in already, h oh, right here it is, donut. Are we sure we trust this guy? He's obviously on stand. Carl says, I trust him with my life, and she's like, yeah, but you're trusting all of ours too, and he's like,

hopefully it won't get to that point. And I kind of wanted to be like, it does feel like it's kind of already point Carl, but you know I called after Rosea. I get ready to close off the safe space, but send out a five minute warning to everybody so they can grab stuff if they need it and wait until we're out too. Donut buy the hanger upgrade. We're almost out of money, Carl. She then gasped with delight as the Bobka emerged from the back of his little area,

dragging several rolled up banners. So yeah, she agrees, and she know she's a little bit of a brat about it, but she eventually winds up going along and Russ is coming at them wanting a parlay, so they go out to meet him. And the way that this works is that Doughnut wants the plan is to basically make this guy so angry that he does something stupid, and Carl has the nerve to say something like people who are angry make mistakes and Donut mutter something that he can't hear.

But I like to think she's like, yeah, no, fucking shit, dude, look in the fucking mirror, Like Carl, I'm bro I don't know how to tell you this, dude, My god. He gets a message here from Florin, who is talking about uh, we stopped the armor in its tracks, and then warning Louis to seer clear of these weepers because they're more high tech than they had anticipated the bad news. The guys you're looking at most certainly know they lost the whole regiment and aren't going to wait to get

sandwiched between you and the one oh first. So try to keep them talking as long as they as you can. I have caught you, Bautista, with what's left of the one oh fifth, and they're keeping the west end opened up at the very least they can keep an open

corridor of retreat into shantytown if you get overrun. So as they approach the Orcus adjutant appears a grick syst named Juan Shing Jinks, not Quanching, a similar type of creature as Juanching Jinks, but taller and thinner, and they get all of these messages that Carl has to turn off. And as they're approaching, there's Colonel Tippett saying has anyone seen? And then the chat cuts off because of the way this parlay works, and I was just like, oh, man,

has anybody seen who? What's going on? My first thought was Rosetta and then I kind of dismissed it, but as it turns out, I shouldn't have. He can't even DM Donut while they're in this parlay bubble by the way, So as I come forward, they notice that this orc is like crying, laughing, crying. There's a sense of despair and they're trying to figure out, like, what is going on with this dude. It's like he's also enraged. He

wasn't just crying. He was angrily muttering to himself, saying things to his adjutant and then putting his hands against his own face in an odd woe is me gesture. As we watched, he looked up into the air and shook his giant fists. It was like a caricature of someone having some sort of psychotic episode, and He's like, what the fuck? And Victory's like, I do not know.

I guess you're gonna have to find out. And Donut launch us into her little spiel that she's about to do, where it's like we're gonna poke and prod at him and make him annoyed. And the way that the audiobook narrator does her voice is this very like affected, irritating, slightly higher pitched, more nasal voice than she normally has, and unexpectedly Rust just kind of like gently stops her and is like, hey, stop, no, no, we're not We're not doing this such a like kind of dial down

way that she actually does stop. And Carl has also taken so aback that he just like lets this guy keep talking in a way that I don't think Carl ordinarily would have done. It's just that he is so caught off guard at the attitude being not at all what he was anticipating, that he really just doesn't know how to respond and he's not even sure if it's like for real. So he's like, did they show it

to you? And Carl's like, what, they haven't shown us anything, And he says, my daughter has taken control of one of my cruisers and the whole crew they thought they were following orders. They didn't realize that she was, like, you know, suborning them. Basically, she has just sent out a message that she is planning on taking the station with the failsafe and activating it, and a reaction will take place in the system Star and we will all die. And Carl just starts to laugh so hard, which as

much as it feels very unhinged. I mean, I really can't blame him, can you, considering what he just went through deciding whether he wanted to flip the switch or not, and he knows that now this simply will not work. But nevertheless, to realize that maybe if he hadn't deleted it, like this could still if he weren't me to wear now and he maybe didn't have time to do it,

like how all this could have gone, you know? But yeah, So this entire like situation is everyone believing that they are about to die within about five hours, I think is the amount of time it is going to take until she reaches the destination. And it's it's so I really really wonder what people are going to make of the fact that Carl is like aware it's not going

to work the way everybody thinks. That's the part that I'm the most curious about, because I feel like I would I would be I don't know how many people are going to get this information when he goes back to his side. Is everyone they're going to have been updated? Are they all going to have found out about this or is it this sort of thing that like only they know and they could kind of keep to themselves

until such point as they decide to reveal it. In that case, it would be only Doughnut that really knew that. He wasn't as worried about it as he maybe should have been, were it not for some other secret ingredient here. You know, I marched the Horde here to end this forest once and for all. There's glory in dying in battle. And you might not believe this, but I respect you, Karl. My sons do not see it, but you have bested

them multiple times. You have a warrior's heart. In another time, there would have been honor to face you in battle and die. Instead of learning from their mistakes, you have succeeded in just making them more angry, and they act like petulant children. I came here to protect my family. If we are to suffer further humiliations, at least he who casts the shadow will be me and not my children, who have won long lives in front of them and

Carl's like apparently not, since they're all here. He looked sad, utterly defeated. That moment my wife was killed, I should have he trailed off. And this is when Doughnut chimes in, and she's like, is this even real? This isn't like some elaborate trick, And he doesn't even answer her, and he says something about how his system will devolve into chaos because the galaxy will be impacted by this system

going down. The reavers will be fine and will likely take advantage of the sudden power vacuum war will break out. It will be the single most devastating disaster in all of history, and this affects us. How was my immediate reaction? But I choked it back. I wanted to keep him talking, so instead I asked them why is she doing it? She feels she's protecting the galaxy from an even worse fate.

She believes the current system aies insanity, is contagious and will spread to the Center system if it's not dealt with, And Carl's like, so will it, And he basically says, it's the sort of thing that's like, technically maybe possible if every single bit of circumstance were to line up exactly right, but so incredibly unlikely that I don't think it's a threat, And apparently neither does anybody else, because they had the chance to pull this veil safe and

they didn't take it. Let's see. All the analysts say it's not even remotely possible, but she is convinced. Both the most stubborn and most superstitious, she's the most like her mother. So Dona is like, so are we still going to battle or not? Like what are we doing here? And He's like, well, honestly, it depends on you. If you want to go to battle, I will certainly do that. If I were younger, absolutely I would. We have you.

Bet it will hurt, but we have you. And even if you managed to knock us back today to hold out until the next phase, you still wouldn't have won. Stalwart has done well building this army. Despite the obstacles this season, We've managed to accumulate the largest collection of war mages ever assembled. We can kill you now with the help of the other factions, or we could have waited until later and done it on our own. You would have been annihilated and it would not have been pretty.

And if not us, that lunatic architect Houston has been using this season's rules to open up his full arsenal. He sighed almost wistfully, and he met my eyes. I can admit this. Now, he's the only living creature in this universe I fear, which I think is entirely valid. I think he's like a villain that I find particularly upsetting on a level that I haven't with almost anybody else, So that tracks completely for me. And then he says,

I want you to send my daughter a message. I want you to ask her to stop on behalf of the people of Earth. I doubt she'll listen, but maybe. And Don'nut's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on, She's just gonna press a button. Carlon had more safeties on his bank account. How is this possible? The security on a satellite is impenetrable. The satellite itself has a fail safe that will cause it to explode should anyone

unauthorized attempt to break into systems. Gull Empire manufactures the satellites. We build back doors into everything so they can't be used against us. This was a secret until my daughter announced it to the whole galaxy. I'm afraid that stock certificate you own carl is losing significant value by the moment, which is wild that she decided to show their hand on that. I guess why not your whole family's here. You think you're about to die? What do you care?

But it is very, very funny. Why doesn't the AI stop her? Doesn't it have the system in quarantine? She's out of zone? The AI controls the tunnel gate because the controller must be in orbit of the game planet. The security system in orbit around the second planet is deliberately staged well out of the system's control. They should have kept the old style gates active. Anyway, the AI couldn't control those, the MUDs would never have gone bankrupt.

So this confused me a little bit because, like, you know, we have that moment when Carl removes the thing I can't even remember what it was called, and he sees like this sort of stain spreading across the map, as if to indicate the influence of the AI is spreading. Evidently, if that is happening, no, like other people haven't detected it yet, I don't know why not. But yeah, I don't know. This whole thing is is. There's so much

to this that I'm having trouble keeping track. So if anybody feels like explaining it to me, like I'm five, please feel free. Uh let me get this straight. You want me to talk to your daughter. You have millions upon millions of citizens, including children, on the surface. If she backs, I can't stop whatever happens next down there,

but they will be safe. And this is when Carl says that he doesn't really speak for humanity, but the idea of sacrificing the rest of my people in exchange for the deaths of all of you plus causing war doesn't seem like a bad trade off to me, which is fair. Does that also mean there won't be any more crawls? There will always be crawls. We might miss a season or two while the galaxy settles, but there will always be crawls. There is nothing anybody can do

to stop that. And this is when Carl says, then what exactly do we get out of helping you? And then we have a smash cut to Rust walking away. So there's been some negotiation that happened that we don't actually get to see. So Seraphim says, my guess would be he turned off the system that would alert them that AI's sphere of influence was changing when he turned off all the safeties. Okay, Michael says, my guess, just because the AI can now influence doesn't mean it has

to exert that power. It's keeping it under wraps. Plus Seraphem's thing, okay, fair so donuts. First question, of course, is like is he telling us the truth? Is? Are we all about to die? We have to go back Mongo's all alone and immediately messages Zev, who is like, yes, it is true, and Carl has to DM her and be like, don't react out loud to me saying this, but it's not gonna work. We have to behave as if we think it is gonna work and get him

to withdraw. I'll make the plea to his daughter even though I think what I do, She'll definitely still push the button, and she's, of course like, how do you know it won't work? And he just says, call it a hunch, and she's like, uh, is that the right word for something that's fucking enormous when it's like the solar system. But the way that she is trusting Carl is wonderful. I really really appreciate that they have this level between them, and I returned my gaze to King Rust.

The large orc continued his slow plod back to his side, now flanked by a pair of massive Orc guards. I was glad he'd come instead of his son. I still plan on killing the old Orc, but he seemed so much more reasonable than his child. This last minute reprieve was almost too good to be true. And that's when Rosetta appeared in a movement so fast she'd clearly been

practicing it. She flipped in the air, landing on the back of the yak behind the king, tossed the whip around the neck of the king, and yanked the head flew from his body like a popped champagne cork. Yeah, so then all his people charge yikes, yikes. Now look, am I mad at Rosetta. No. I have a feeling he did something pretty fucking horrific for her to be this careful about getting at it. I don't know what she knows about any of the negotiations at all. I

suspect nothing. I am really curious once she finds out, if she does, if she if she survives long enough for Carl to be like, here's what was going to happen, if she's gonna be like, oh shit, sorry, or if she'll be like I did what I did, I said what I said. I stand by no apologies. No regrets. I kind of feel like it's probably the second one, but uh, it's just such a special circumstance right now, you know, I can't tell. Also, like do kings rust

do kings? Do king rusts? People know about the fail safe thing either, I don't know what anybody knows, so everything is very dependent on other things, you know. But uh, I can't lie. I really was impressed with her pulling this off. And he's not a warlord as well, so like I had a moment of thinking, oh, this could be a game changer, that he's already dead, and then I realized, like, not really, it's you know, he's not high level enough for this to be like a decisive thing,

which is a shame. Oh well, with that, guys, I'm going to wrap up and be like within an hour for the first time and god knows how long. So pretty cool. I think I appreciate everybody coming and hanging out with me. Thank you Michael again for commissioning this, and I hope that you all are enjoying the coverage. Until next time to the motherfuckers. That was an Unspoiled Network podcast.