This Inevitable Ruin, Chapters 8-11

Thank you very much to Michael for commissioning this episode. Michael's here in the chat with me as well as Sarah and Jeff. Hi, Jeff and Rob. Delighted to have all you guys today. So this section is a real combination of highs and lows, and there was a point that we will get to. I was reading this for once. I was not listening to the audiobook. I was reading on my kindle and I got I was sitting next

to my husband. I got to the spot and I stopped and looked at the ceiling to like not cry, you know that, Like I'm keeping my tears in my eyes right now, I'm not gonna let them fall. And they fell anyway, and he like looks at me and is like, are you okay? And I'm just like really sad part and then everybody arrives and it was like, how dare you make me feel so sad and then feel so hopeful like it's just a rollercoaster, and I, as somebody who doesn't enjoy feeling resents it and I

hate you, Matt Denneman, so go fuck yourself. So chapter eight, Dona is explaining about how the she's like planning on singing at the wedding. She's talking about Mango being a ring bearer. It turns out the whole way that this is going to work is really different than the traditional

type of like Western American wedding that she's expecting. And Carl tells her at this point to like put on her glasses so that she can see if there's any change lanes around, because she wants to make He wants to make sure that they don't get tricked, because they're going into all of this assuming that the NPCs are on their side, and I think he pretty much does trust that they are, but he's not an idiot. It's always good to just what is it they say? Trust?

But verify. Oh my god, Sarah em says this at the same time. Perfect. So they go out into the center of this funnel so that he can see a lot more of the rings and the architecture and everything, and he is surprised at the fact that things look more clean and more lived in than he was expecting. It not as high. Was flooded and a lot of it has been drained out since then. But as we find out, there came a point where Juice Box was like, no, no, no,

leave the rest of this flooded. This is actually helpful to us us and Jeff says, I hate that trust woul Verify was a Republican slogan I parroted by Ronald Reagan. Everything sucks always if you go back far enough. That's just like the rule of life. My interface is beeping with others getting recruited. The numbers were slowly, slowly rising. We had just under three days to get them all, which for the number of people they're talking about is that's a lot that they have to I don't know

if we're gonna make it, and that's really worrying. I don't you've got to make so many people. Sergeants to be able to get them to recruit. And I'm not sure what kind of other power that comes with, you know, like how dangerous is it to do that? I really don't know, but I want The over city had a wooden floor that had seemed downright rickety. In some places,

the hunting grounds were jungle and had a solid physical ground. Hell, there was a deep river running through as supposedly, if one spent too much time digging up there, one would break through and fall into this area. It was all fake, but still it was important to know how it all worked. And he talks about like the dwarf Arif is saying, you know, not all of the rings completely circle the city, and that there are some that are homes, there's some

that's a college. There's an area that's like an outer ring that's sort of a shanty town that's big enough to ring everything. And let's see, we had water up to fifteen for a bit, and now it's only up to level three, just enough to cover the highest tower of the castle. Anybody who wants to take that castle's

got to learn how to swim. And he like Carl's looking and says about just jumping down the center, which I always appreciate because, like you know, I don't think anybody has ever gone into a big, old fashioned building that's got like one of those staircases that circles and that hasn't looked down and been like, what a great shortcut to just jump down the center. And of course

that would definitely be on my mind here. And this is when a Reef says there was another season where they did do that, and Carl says, oh, another season and realizes that like, not only is a Reef referring to himself as an NPC, but he is referring to the game the way that people who are not NPCs usually do, and explains, I think I'm new, so I don't have memories of the others, like not everybody does.

Some NPCs I think are different from each other. But there are definitely NPCs who remember dozens of seasons, like my uncle, and that was really interesting. There are so many varieties of everything, you know, and there are I think that's part of what I have found a little bit. It's not, I say overwhelming, but not in a way that's like a negative exactly. It's more that like it contributes to this feeling like a larger world and feels like there's a lot of potential for things that I

can't predict to happen later. But the the idea that there are so many different types of NPCs. We've got different crawlers who are still indentured. We've got crawlers who are indentured with different types of deals also, and the indentureships have different rules depending, Like there's so many like expectations, rules and laws that we have to work within, and different types of awareness and scope that we have to function within. And that's the way it works. You know,

that is how the world is. But when you are like encountering it in something like this that you instinctively want to keep track of everything, it's definitely there's been a few times where I've had to tell myself, Okay, I can't get distracted by this because I don't know what I need to know. When I know it, I just have to trust that, Like the only reason to really track anything is to try and predict what's going to happen, and to a degree, I don't want to

do that. There are sometimes where I like to try and figure things out, but it's like nice to just also let stuff happen, so it's fine, So let's see. I thought of Harret, the cookbook author of the sixteenth edition, who'd made Waking NPCs up his life's work. I thought of his final heart wrenching entry in the cookbook, and I wondered if he'd managed to survive, And if he had, was he watching this right now? Probably not. If he was alive, he'd likely still be working in the dungeons somewhere.

He'd wanted to be a game guide. I didn't know if he'd made it, and I can't remember guys I have heard. I feel like we heard from Harrot out in an epilogue at some point, but I genuinely can't recall. So anyway, there's because there's a bunch of people later that we see as well. And keeping track of everybody's names is another thing that I'm gonna have to work on, because there are so many folks that are getting added into the mix now that we have seen their names

in entries from the cookbook. But I have never felt any real inclination to keep track of who's who really, you know, So now it's going to matter a little bit more. And I am like, oh boy, because I'm never good with that, but we're gonna try. Let's see. He's uh. Juice Box says, they're different kinds of us. Some shop keepers are different. Some of the patrons are

also different. The hands of Outworlders are everywhere when you know what to look for, and at this point a reflake when it's mentioned that Outworlders are no longer immortal. He pulls his sword and he says, I will take my revenge against Architect Houston, the leader of the madness, a viceroy Outworlder. He caught my brother as he attempted to sabotage their fortifications. They say my brother was tortured

before Juice Box infiltrated and ended his suffering. And Dona is that the guy Juice Box decapitated during the pre production meeting, which I appreciate that being mentioned, but good love it that was one of his surgeons. The Dwarf said. Nobody has managed to get into Houston's operating theater. That's what they call his lair next to the throne room.

I really you, guys, if you aren't aware of this, It's something that I've mentioned on so many of my podcasts that I will lose track of where it's been mentioned and where not. But I personally have a really hard time with anything involving like medical torture, body horror, that kind of specific type of horror movie, and the fact that like that's one of his surgeons and his

lair is called the operating theater. I think this is gonna be somebody I'm gonna really really hate dealing with, and I hope y'all are prepared for me to just be squigket the fuck out when the time comes, because I just don't like it. It's hard, it's a It comes up a lot in various things that I cover, and there are times where I can sort of just breathe and get through it, and then there are times where I just completely lose my shit and I can't

take it. It really depends, and I'm not sure. I think it depends partially on like my mood at the time, which is not helpful. But I just have a really it's too close to like the reality that we still live with the way that we use medicine and the way that many things have been discovered utilizing people with no agency to experiment on, and it's just it really, really, really really gets to me in a way that few other things do. I can watch a slasher movie all day,

I don't that just does not you know, monster movie. Fine, but when it comes to not us torture, but the torture that is being done with the veneer of But it's for the good of humanity oftentimes, you know, that's the shit that I cannot or it's for your own good. We're torturing you to make you better because there's something wrong with you. Like, oh, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it. Rom says, would be helpful for us to give you a content warning when you're going to have

a chapter with Houston in it. I don't think so. Probably I appreciate the thought, but I don't think it will. It's just one of those that I have to deal with, you know. Sorry, Michael says, what about the Halloween episode in Community where Troy and abb had got combined into one super being. That's uh, they're just wearing flight suits that are sewed together. So it really does not That one doesn't get me at all. But uh, it's a

good episode though, we're only more awesome. So then the nagas come up and we find out that like a sort of a weird thing about the Nagas that first of all, they function a lot more as like phantoms. You know, they they're high on stealth, they do poison, they do assassination, and like infiltrating them is a lot harder than anybody else, even Juice Box, who's like pro at this, does not try to get in there anymore.

And also Carl is like he has some information that he has gathered that basically amounts to the fact that the Naga seem to be sort of trying to just keep the memory of their original like roots alive for the sake of it. Seems to be almost like a tourism gambit. I'm trying to find the bit here where Uh yeah, they were basically LARPing the olden days, dragging.

I thought it was mostly for fun, but after reading between the lines, I was starting to realize their continued participation was a pr stunt, a way to keep people interested in Naga history, which would drive tourism. And this is an interesting idea. Like everything in the end in the Dungeon is about making money, but the like using it in this way to make money feels like something

that's definitely likely in our world as well. You know, I wonder this sometimes about even things like Epcot Center, where you've got little country areas that you can visit, and are there people from those countries who are actively invested in making those areas like appealing as possible to drive folks to visiting. Like how does that? I have to imagine, right, But anyway, the current leader was a real life crown princess. I didn't know what her name

really was. In the old days, her identity would be kept a secret. And there's a whole thing about like how many children she's supposed to have. And I'm not getting into all of this because it's just horrible, But basically, there was only one time that one of these princesses had had all of the female offspring to like kill all off all of the males, and she is the one who was deemed the sepsis horror. So good for her, I don't know, I really that seems that seems pretty

solid to me. Despite the Naga team getting their just kicked every single time, she'd never been killed, not once. They'd have their throne room taken, usually at the great expense of actual poor NPCs and mercenaries, but the Sultana and her guard would be gone, only to reappear at the end, safe and laughing. The problem was, these Nagos weren't NPCs who believed in the story built around them. They knew who I was, and they would know how important it would be to me to get them out

of the game. And now that the protections were off, I had no idea if they would keep the whole Sultana charade up. And I'm going to assume that if you want to keep the tourism thing going, you're going to try to keep the sultana thing up. You're going to try and prove something by maintaining that and trying to handle Carl. Want to have your cake and eat it too. I Am going to be interested to see

how that shakes out. I really wonder about where it is that they always manage to escape to and come back, because it almost feels like there's a secret area that they only know about. And if we can find that, maybe we will have part of our solution already. You know. So Carl gets approached by somebody who gives him a big kiss, and it's like you saved me and my Heidi and for that, you get a kiss. The ground remained wet and slimy, and the excess of dead sharks

littered the map. The floor contained the massive Piccadilly theater, surrounded by bars, including a few true safe rooms, And I feel like these theaters might come in handy. We have to deal with a lot of people. You know, we're gonna have like huge groups that we need to plan with. And obviously this will mean that you have to come up with like versions of plans, because there's gonna be something that's very public, and then there's gonna be like the real plan that you keep to yourself.

But we're dealing with tens of thousands of troops, and while we do have that group chat, I have to assume that many people, it's probably gonna be tricky. And there's also an energy to actually physically gathering people in one space and talking to them that you don't get in a group chat. That will hype people up, you know, So I could see us using this in the near future.

Let's see the Desperado. It turns out also, we find out later it's open, but it's not allowing any people in any crawlers inside it all at first, Carl thinks that it's because of the whole demon thing, but we find out that that is not actually the case, that it's all crawlers. So this is when we see juice Box, who at first hunger hammy level thirty nole. And you know, as much as I know that Juice Box is a shape shifter, I am still not prepared whenever somebody turns

out to be Juice Box. So you know, she jumps on Louis and starts kissing him and I'm like what what And then it's like, oh, yeah, it's juice Box changed to her human form, and I'm like, done, Natasha, fucking stay stay with us, okay, girl, Like yeah, I'm not great about this. So there's also the reminder that the level that we see when she's in her human form, when she's in her nole form, later when she's in her blank form, like there's no saying what level she

actually is. Everything that we see in her descriptors are part of the charade, you know. So this is kind of a weird scene. So first off, Juice Boxes, like, Carl, you didn't do what I wanted. We wanted everyone to be protected, and I was kind of surprised that she came at him with this energy because I was just like, you had to know that wasn't going to happen, right, And to her credit, when he's like, this was the best we could do, she immediately lets it go and

just says it'll have to do. But I was like, you know, still kind of going. The fact that he managed to get what he got is a miracle. I feel like you should be acting a lot more impressed slash grateful that he pulled off what he has pulled off. But you know, she hasn't got time for being grateful, and I have to respect that to a point. And there's also this like, you know, Louie is here and he has not really reacted to Juice Box at all.

Like the fact the mention of them getting married in the last section, I already was like pointing out the fact that it seemed pretty He wasn't excited is the that feels like the mildest way to say it. He just seemed to freeze up, and that freeze continues here in a way. That's like got donut in his chat going, Louis, you have got to start talking to her. She thinks, like from your reaction that you don't even like her anymore and she's super excited to see you, and I

was like appreciating donut. Donut is very much functioning according to the like, of course you love her, so now you have to show her that you love her now. I, of course am not of the opinion that he loves her. However, I you know, Carl a couple times is just like, you know, you don't have to do this, And I just really wanted to be like Carl, Look, I understand that you're trying to you're trying to give him agency here and keep him from being pressured in a particular way.

And I really love about you that you care in this way, but this is a fake wedding in a fake world to an NPC, he has to do this. I am so sorry. It's just not a negotiable thing. It's we've killed people, We've killed actual other human beings.

This is fucking nothing. It's fine, And I appreciate that Louis gets with the program and immediately it's just like no, no, no, I do have to do this, because like if we were gonna have to browbeat him into it, I was going to be really irritated when he had taken on killing Sisternez at the end of the last book, so that Carl and Donut don't have to shoulder that, and then he's going to bulk at like this wedding. You know, I just I can understand in theory, but in practice

I just did not have any patience for it. So I'm glad in the end that this kind of winds up being a non issue. But he really has to like work to get his enthusiasm up to a point that makes juice Box less self conscious, because it really like what Donut is saying about how juice Box is

feeling self conscious and awkward is definitely true. The way that she like kind of she jumps in his lap, she's kissing him, and then she sort of like backs away and slips out of his lap and takes a seat by herself, and it's just like the body language is very much her going, oh maybe this isn't you know what I mean? So the shantytown is an issue. There is a mayor there who stabbed somebody named Theora in the back. The opponent cheated. We can't touch this guy,

I sighed, So Ferdinand Bingo Cowboy. Are any of the outworlders coming into the regular city into the roccos. They are starting to there's not much here for them, but still they come mostly to Scout and the whole thing with Ferdinand. Later. This guy he really sucks, and like not in a fun way, you know what I'm saying. He sucks in a real way. He may be a cat and some of the ways in which he sucks may be funny even but it's not. It's not fun, you get what I mean. Like, I just ah, I

hate him a lot. I hate him a lot, But we'll get there in a second. So it turns out that he has like all of the controls, so he can't be killed because they need him. He was given power over the controlling system, including the city defense. The ELF says it was a workaround to allow us to participate because the cat isn't really an NPC but of the same stock as you. If he dies, we lose control,

so he must be kept safe. And also he keeps telling everybody that he's Donut's fiance, and Donut is disgusted by this. I will say, I'm quite proud of how Donut has just completely dropped any affection for him of any kind. You know. There comes a point later where she's just like, I don't know what I used to see in him, and I was like, good for you, girl, This is growth. Everybody has a friend who was into somebody that they We were all puzzled, what the fuck

is the draw? I don't get it. You know, it's gotta be something chemical, like what the fuck? And it probably was chemical? It probably was. But let's see, Drick is the guy. He's a Valtae infected elf, and he's the one that we're going to have to deal with. And later on when we see him, Ferdan's like on Drake's head and Drix's just walking around with him on his head, really not looking happy about the arrangement. But it is what it is. So let's see. She thinks

it's important we need them on our side. If this helps, I'll do it. If they turn against us or screw this will help. We need each other. Plus you love her, right, yeah, sure of course. Okay, then, but don't tell us, tell her, and don't be outcarl about it. Be romantic. Louis was shaking and sweating. His five player killer skulls looked so ridiculous, so out of place over his head that I felt

angry every time I saw them. And then he says, can you just turn into something else for like a second, because she'd been kissing him as this old male knoll, which he is not into. She turned into a mix between Taylor Swift and iggyp Then a cheerleader suit formed on her body. Who's this supposed to be? Is this somebody? I genuinely couldn't There are some of these, like when the description is made, I'm like, Okay, I'm getting the pop culture reference here, but this one I couldn't. Like

is this from Heroes? We were just talking about, you know, but I don't know if that's her or not. And at this point they are talking about like the Diggers and they are Dwarmin automatons. So we jump to chapter ten and we're approaching the Desperado Club, and this is when we find out that they are not allowed inside. And finally he gets the name of the new owner named Hamed, and Carl has to like try not to

react and let anybody know. This is not secret, like the cookbook is secret, but it is secret in that he has access to things that you know our secret within the game, and Hammon was the real name of the night Worm, the leader of the Guild of Suffering, husband to the late Astroid and father did the strippers Damascus Steele and Anaconda, both of whom were still supposedly somewhere in the club hunting him, hunting their own father.

All of that had to wait. And I do appreciate every time Carl says something like, we have so much to do because there are a lot a fucking plate spinning right now, and I like, just getting all of the people registered to your company, that's such a huge task in itself, that all this other shit whenever he listed out him just like, oh boy, I don't know if we're going to be able to do this, dude,

So fucking Ferdinand. He wore a gold chain around his neck with a small jeweled charm and what appeared to be a circle of white, thin paper tissues wrapped around his head. One end sagged pitifully about to fall off. It was like he'd attempted to recreate the turbine using literal toilet paper. And apparently he has the same interest in hats that Donut has. Whether this is organically occurring or it's because he knows Donut loves hats that he's

trying to love hats. I don't know. But the way that Carl bribes him into turning over the town later is by offering him a bowler hat, which has an ability that Donut later is like, we better get that shit back because I want to drain it on my

little cushion for my Tiara. And also I don't even have a bowler hat yet, so you know, and I am wondering if that's going to actually turn out to be more of an issue than we would think it would be, because he seems to be a pain in the ass in ways that you wouldn't expect, and it also in the ways that you would definitely expect. It's, you know, so let's see, I'm trying to find this bit.

The Princess Posse has made a trade request with Team Retribution, and I love Carl just reaches over, puts the hat on Ferdinand's head and it automatically resizes, and immediately Brittany pulls out a mirror so that he can look at himself and be like, oh shit, and he says, I'm a very handsome boy. More than once which I need this energy little bit more in my own life. I need to start saying something like this in the mirror.

I gotta come up with the right tone, because just like I'm a very beautiful girl, it doesn't quite you know. Maybe just I'm a very pretty girl, you know. I'm thinking about the way that somebody would speak to a cat, to a pet, and aren't you a pretty girl? You're a very pretty girl. That's the vibe. So probably I'll go with that, but I feel like it could just help perk me up a little bit, you know. I don't know. I see it. The ELF's mouth turned upward

in an unreadable expression. It was like a mixture of annoyance, exasperation, and panic. This elf, I don't think was prepared for how it was gonna be. So the level on By the way, Juice Box, when she's in her blank form, says one twenty, which I kind of feel like might actually be accurate after all, But I don't know. It seems that being in her blank form is the true form,

So I feel like maybe that's actually right. But we don't know, and he doesn't ask, But I think otherwise, what would be the significance of going to her blank form for the wedding because she's going to be her true self for this, because of the symbolism of it, you know, And that makes sense to me. And it turns out that the way that these weddings work is that you get married and then you sign divorce papers and you have thirty days to file the papers, and

if you don't, then you're really married. You've decided to stay married, and you have the bigger, more purposeful wedding that's like the kind of celebration we're used to weddings being. So it's basically a sort of a thirty day trial period where you can return, no questions asked. And I love this idea. I think this is fucking great because evidently they're mostly arranged marriages, so we have to make sure that people can like get along decently, and I

really enjoy that. I think that's a fun setup. And just having the papers and like either of you can file them if you feel the need. Yeah, I like it. And so that means that this little ceremony is really simple, really short and just you know, doesn't require every all the planning and performances and whatnot. The doughnut had been talking about and the fact that like there's a second wedding a full month later. It just feels so far off to Carl that he's sort of like, yeah, we'll

see about that. I mean, I don't even need to think about anything that far ahead at this point, which I agree with. I do love Louis just saying I wish my mom was here. He's a good boy, let's see. I hope Samantha won't be too mad. She missed the first ceremony, and I was really like wondering about her

throughout all of this. There's no mention, and I don't know what to expect about her finding out about this, because it's like she has had a crush on Mouie, but she's talked at times like they are actually together, and then other times she's talked about him like she's like going to hook up with. Like Samantha is so deluded that I can't keep track of what she believes at any given time, and it seems like whatever she believes changes depending on what allows her to be the

most unhinged at a given moment. So I'm just not really sure at all what to expect. So then we get a message from Florin. Mate, I am about to blow your fucking mind. You need to get your ass to the headquarters. We've secured the safe rom so you can use the doggy door. There's a large group of people here who would really like to meet you. And we had seen at the end of the last book all of these people arriving, but I still wasn't thinking

that it was going to be them yet. I think that what I was expecting was like there would be a fucking hold up and those folks wouldn't be able to arrive until we were like mid battle, like Gandalf coming on the third day, you know what I mean, Like that sort of thing, which, as much as that

sounds fun and dramatic, isn't super helpful. Like you, it's helpful at the moment of crisis when you've already lost so many people that you think you're gonna like really actually lose, And that isn't helpful in the scheme of things, So I'm glad that's not it. I also want to mention that, like at the time when I was recording that ending, I mentioned them sneak and like, how is this going to work? Because I was misunderstanding how all of this was functioning, and I forget who it was.

Somebody in the discord had to explain to me, No, this is legal. They are just having to fly under the radar as they are wanted as terrorists now, so that's why they're hiding. But the way that they are joining the Princess Posse is valid and above board. And the whole thing is basically like, we just have to make sure to get in there before they can catch us under this other warrant they have for us and stop us from participating, because once we're in they can't

do anything about it. So I was kind of getting mixed up on how all this worked, and yeah, so that was definitely helpful. So let's see, I'm trying to find This is the part where we go to Tippid, who we meet later in the present. Tippid the man said, it's Damien. I'm not your attorney. You're in a zero zone and you have some lingering injuries that need to be repaired. It's brain lesions or something. I don't know. You need to get straight to a Viceroy system to

get it repaired. I've already arranged for transport. It's going to cost a good chunk of your pension. But I don't see what choice you have. Tippid blinked, and he realized his hands weren't really bloody. The man in front of him wasn't his attorney. That had already happened. That was Solar's ago. I'm never getting out of here, Tippett said. He looked at his hands again. Why were they so clean?

The man, a hair covered human, smiled at him. He smiled the way a merchant would smile, a merchant who was forced to deal with a customer. He despised. No, oh, that's not true. You did it. You fulfilled your contract, game Guide, Poisonous Guild, occasional city Guard, perfect marks. You didn't negotiate post release healthcare unfortunately, and some of the physical injuries to your body persist. So when you're outside the dungeon environment, this will happen. But you're free. You're

going home. Home. Where is that? There's an organization and not for conquests that helps destitute former crawlers and employees get their footing after transition. It's pretty new, but the syndicate has donated some money to the cause. Once they start getting press. I've taken the liberty of letting them know you're coming. They're sending someone to accompany you to the viceroy system. He's a former crawler himself. What about the key? They let you keep it. You negotiated an

extra season just so you could have it. It's yours, and we don't know what the thing is with the key. The Viceroys, they called themselves, their chief surgeon, had a spell that cooked your brain. It made your teeth fall out, It made the liquid in your eyeballs turn to acid and then explode over your own face. That was what had happened to rosaline. He could still hear Horatio's cries. The other man hadn't understood what was happening, why Tippod

was leaving him behind. He remembered the feeling of the jewel burning out as he stuck the key into the door of the notification. Horatio had a wife an older child. They both survived and had already taken a deal at the end of the tenth Horatio had held on in hopes of getting a better deal, of making a life for them. When they finally got out, Tippid had nobody yet.

He'd chosen himself and he yanks the key off and throws a tom and says I don't want it anymore, and then we get class Poisoner Race Crest BIRTHRCE Crest top level ninety six Dungeon Exit took deal at the beginning of the twelfth floor, worked as a game guide and guildhall instructor in the Poisoner Guild before exiting. The Dungeon was forced to spend the entirety of his pension plus take out an additional loan to repair the extensive damage to his brain. Eventually retired to a Crest system

to work for a waste management company. And this is the part, guys, it's too real, you know it just it's I will never understand people who are not for universal healthcare. It just will never ever make any fucking sense to me. It's not just a weird selfishness about

not wanting to spend money on people in general. It's also you shooting yourself in the foot because you don't want to admit that there's going to be a day when you need care because you think you're invincible, or that I took such great care of myself that I'm going to be okay, Like it's just weird and this sort of thing where he has sustained damage in the dungeon, but he is made to pay for the damage. I mean, how many people out there are saddled with hospital bills

after being beaten up by ice agents? What about the people who have had tear gas sprayed point blank into their eyes? You know, like we don't unless you are able to get the resources to file a lawsuit, unless you're able to get eyes on a go fund me, good fucking luck, you know. And it's it's just really gross. And so yeah, this got me and I just sat there for a second like gathering myself because I was just straight up crying. Ah, I hate it. So chapter eleven,

we have Samantha here. It doesn't seem like anybody's told her that Louis has gotten married. Still haven't dealt with that. Tran had gotten an upgraded wheelchair, but I hadn't had a chance to see what Katchya built for him. And I was like, goddamn it, because I really want to know. I do hope Juice Box and Louis get time for a honeymoon. It's sad they got married and then had to separate, right away. I must say I am surprised she just let us take control of the other city

away from Ferdinand. If the bad guys can freely enter that shanty town once the truce is broken, it's just going to be a liability. It has a separate defense system. In the meantime, we both have something that's going to give all those assholes a huge headache. It's a good deal for both of us. And this is when she gets the notification that her sponsorship has been canceled due to a conflict of interest. Our first clue that we're about to meet them and it's going to be auctioned off,

so we'll see who gets it. I am very curious about that. We entered the meadow Larks safe room and just like that everything changed. Sorry, I just saw a bunch of chatter. But William just said, can they even be sued? They can be, but it takes like I'm I am not going to get fully into it because it will sidetrack me. What it takes to sue them is so extensive. Uh, It's it's an uphill battle that a lot of people are not willing to take on

for understandable reasons. I stopped dead. As I entered the space, I stared at the two crests standing there, a woman and a man. Mango jumped all around them, peeping with excitement at meeting someone new. The man stood there grinning stupidly, while the woman scowled at the dinosaur on the mini map. Their dots were purple, the same color as the dots of the hunters on the sixth floor, but they had a pink outline indicating them as troopers for the Princess Posse.

Rosetta Doughnut exclaimed Carl, Look at Rosetta Thiagara, what are you doing here? The name over her head blazed, Rosetta thag Crest Barnburner, level sixty colonel in the Princess Posse. This is a subordinate. The name and description surprised me so much that it took me a second to finally examine the second stranger standing there. This was also a crest, but he was noticeably older. I uh, I felt myself stagger when I read his name, like I've been physically pushed.

Tippid Crest, Liquid Dervish, level sixty colonel in the Princess Posse. This is a subordinate. How I repeated. My legs felt weak. I met eyes with the man. Are there more? I was asking two different things, and I saw he could tell what I meant, what I really meant. A few more, He said, not a lot of us available, unfortunately. Florin grunted. If just a fifty thousand former crawlers count as a few, then yeah, it's just a few. Holy shit. I swallowed and I held my hand out to Tippid. The man

stepped forward and he pulled me into a hug. And I just love this moment so much, especially after the last thing with Tippid acquiring all this debt and you know, there's the mention of the scar and everything. Getting to see this moment is just so fucking satisfying. It was like the exact antidote I needed after that last section where I was just like I felt wrung out, you know, And I really love Nobody knows why Carl knows who these people are, and nobody understands why they're acting like

they are best buds forever. At one point, Floren dms him like they're acting awfully familiar, do you know, And Carl just does a very bare like headshake thing, and Floren drops it instantly, Donut, wouldn't you know what I mean? Floren has experience in keeping your fucking mouth shut, obviously due to the work he does, so yeah, he knows when to just drop something. But uh, I have to imagine it is sort of like, well, what the fuck

is going on? You know what I mean? When you see this from people that to you are total strangers and you would expect are to Carl also, and this uh true. And Michael in the chat says, to be fair to Donut, she clearly knows something's up to, but she doesn't say anything. And yeah, I should say like when I say, Carl, uh, don't wouldn't drop it? I mean, like when she asks a question and you just try and signal. I don't feel like she's good at picking

up the hint. But she doesn't have to ask here because she can see something is up and she's just trying to like take cues from Carl in a way that definitely indicates growth, you know. So yeah, it's just a really ugh. I really appreciate Florin in these chapters,

like this whole start of this book. He feels very reassuring to me, and it has me a little worried because I'm like, now I'm worried about something happening to him, because I feel like I'm putting all of my planning eggs in the florin basket, and that's probably not super smart to do, you know. Uh. Vanapin says, we know about Tippic coming at the end of his chapter. It's in the last line in the status. Oh yeah, it didn't like it doesn't matter though, you know what I mean.

That isn't the same as seeing this moment, just knowing that he's coming. It's like not, yeah, it doesn't irrelevant. So this is when Rosetta walks up to him and she tells, like the AI, this isn't an attack, it's a self correcting measure given in the spirit of camaraderie. And she just smacks him in the head and Tippod grins and shakes his head in a way that to me feels like there there was nothing behind that slap

that's more than it looked like. It's almost just her being like, you fucking idiot, and him laughing because he knows what she's irritated by, and she like pretty quickly asks about the remainder of the toraline route and the

tattooing ink and all of that. So I believe that it's just about her having been waiting for him to fucking put two and two together about what he was supposed to do with these items, and that he hasn't yet, which I guess I would also deserve a smack in the head because I don't know either, like you know

what I'm saying, like I don't know. But she tells him, give me the rest of the tore ling, give me the ink, give me that credit chit that you got from that dead pig, and I need three million gold and access to your bomber's studio and your safe room. And then she turns to Donut and says, you don't wander. We have to purchase some things from the Bobka and

I need your charm to get the best price. And Donut's getting her dander up, and Rosetta seems to like clock it just in time and be like, if that's okay with you, war lord, you have the highest charm out of all of us. And this is when Donut looks at Carl looks at them and realizes like Carl has got his eyes full of tears and is like, Okay, something's clearly up. Fine, I'll play nice and I suppose that'll be acceptable. I do like this version of you.

You're much more confident than you were on television. You were giving me Charlotte vibes. But now you're a straight Samantha, not sext a'll hit Samantha, sex addict Samantha. But you know, bald, what does that even mean? See? It's great. So we get carl hearing the story of how everybody has wound up here, and doctor Porthos, who being the one who created the organization, and I just really love all of this to show that it's a small start that manages

to get to a place like this. You know, one person deciding that he's going to establish an organization do something to help, and yes he helped. It did not mean that Tippett doesn't have to take out a fucking loan to pay for his health care. He isn't able to magically solve everybody's problems, but he's doing something and it has added up over time to where we are now. And I just really love the hopefulness and the like sort of implication of have patience. You know what, I mean,

I don't know. I just like this a lot. Michael says, I actually never watched Sex in the City. Samitha always kind of clueless in that show. No, I think she's referring to her being like what does that even mean? Just like an impatient, straightforward you know, whereas Charlotte would be like, yeah, deaf, sure, uh huh. Samantha would just be like, what the fuck are you talking about. It's not really the clueless part, but I get why you would think that. Michael. So we had to scatter when

they accused us of being terrorists. I don't know where he is. Are they gonna swoop in and arrest everyone? I hope they try. Now we're in the game, there's nothing they can do. They'll wait till we get out to try to arrest us, which Rosetta, of course, is not anticipating. They're making it out of the dungeon, so it's not really something that they are worried about. I don't know what to think, Like, part of me is like, maybe you will get out and then what and I

don't maybe who knows. I don't know. I don't know how much of this book series will take place. Purely in the dungeon either, Like, it feels like there's got to be some things that break past it. But how does that happen? We'll see eventually. I guess all released crawlers were now automatically citizens of the Syndicate and given access to Inner System Primary Zone, which came with free healthcare and guaranteed housing. When Tippet was released, he wasn't

afforded any of that. Mistress Mistress Tiatha says that citizenship perk is only for new crawlers and they'll still bleed dry on taxes. Us old guard are going to get extra fucked when we were released. They tell us we'll be full citizens, but I don't believe it. The rich folks sure like getting their faces up on the screen and they're donating to some charity, but the moment a scruffy former crawler shows up in their home system looking to settle down, they'll fight like hell to prevent it,

mark my words. And she is not wrong on any count whatsoever. This is one of those moments of like two things can be true. You can work towards things being better and it can get actually better, but there can actually still be a bunch of bullshit keeping it from being as better as it could be, you know, just fucking the way it works. And then there's the open into like Pacifist Network did not have nearly as

much support. I could tell there was so much more Tippett wanted to say, and I hoped I would get the chance to learn it all. The whole incident with Pauli, the residual and the body of a homeless man had been just one of several actions that had caused authorities to finally start to crack down on the nonprofit. And even when I managed to get the protections turned off,

they still came. I was again overwhelmed with emotion. And this is when we find out that everybody that came in for our team is sixty and got to choose a non permanent race and class, which is not what the mercenaries coming in are getting. But the mercenaries were they are going to be I think somewhere in the neighborhood of like one hundred and twenty thousand, something enough to make us a little less elated with our fifty thousand.

If the fifty thousand is incredible, sure, but you know the one thing is that the mercenaries are allowed to bring in their weapons. And at first this seems like what no fair, but Tippid points out like, actually what they wound up negotiating isn't as good a deal as ours. My fucking spells are a lot more effective than their rifles, and I will take these over that anytime. So that's nice.

You know, we've got a lot of people who are just going to be using like regular fucking weaponry, and they're going to be up against people who can do It's gonna be almost like the like trained army versus guerrilla warfare kind of energy. You know. If we get to face the factions one at a time, i'd say no problem. But since they're working together, we got a bumpy entry ahead of us, that's for certain, especially for the first week. Still, we're lucky they didn't let them

choose a race in class. They'd be much stronger. And it ends with Okay, let's get to the base and meet up with the team, and that is the end of chapter eleven. So and I should mention too that Michael has put a new chapter breakdown in the spoil Me Planning channel on Discord, So if anybody wants to see it. It's there, and so yeah, I'm following that new breakdown and Michael says much less rushed this episode exactly.

It definitely is nice to have some room to spread out and talk about everything in depth, especially moments like

this that are so emotional. You know. It's just Carl has been really on this precipice for a minute now, and having friends has been the one thing keeping him tethered, and he just has really started to understand the value of community and the virtue of like looking back and seeing that he was lonely in a way that he didn't even really understand when he was experiencing it, and so now there being a bunch of people who not only had his back, but who came before him and

who have been out here making moves on their own the whole time. There's just something really really wonderful about knowing that you're not the only one who's outraged about something and doing something about it and making risky moves and who is willing to put it all on the line. And I feel like this is the exact kind of in flux that he needed to keep himself from really starting to like spin out in despair. And it's something

that I also like. There have been a few times where I have started to feel like, are any of us going to like when push comes to shove, really like handle business when when it comes to town And I live in an area where I haven't encountered ICE at all and I haven't seen them being active, but I'm sure it's coming, and then I'll see, like people sharing on in Instagram and TikTok these protests in all these different states where ICE isn't yet, but they're trying

to put in like a detainment facility where a warehouse had used to be, and everybody is just like, you know, getting very fierce in town hall meetings and they're protesting and blocking the construction vehicles from getting onto the property, and eventually it was dropped and they're not building the

detention center there after all. And it's just so encouraging to see people fucking doing something, you know, because it's very easy to feel like Americans have gotten so comfy that we don't want to risk anything, and also to feel like they know that we can't risk things because they've got us under their thumb with how incredibly expensive it just is to live anymore and putting our livelihoods

at risk and stuff. But there are folks out there who are in possess where they can do that, and it just really can be like nourishing, I guess is the word. I want to see it out there and be like, Okay, people are not everybody is a piece of shit, because you really can't get in the headspace

of feeling that way, you know. So yeah, it's a real moment sometimes of needing these like little victories and little bits of we have to do it in these small burths, but it can be done, and small bursts are how it starts, you know, the way that who began this organization it was only able to do so much. And now look we've got fifty thousand crawlers coming to help.

So that is it's a it's a big country and that makes it unwieldy and ungainly, and we can't handle things here the way that they do in France, you know, where their entire country is the size of Connecticut. So it's going to look different, but that doesn't mean nothing's happening. All right, I am going to wrap up. Thank you guys again so much for listening. I hope that you're enjoying the coverage. Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I

just saw. Williams says. What was crazy to me It is how many people in the Facebook groups want to pretend these stories aren't political anything to not realize they're the bad guys. And yeah, that's one of those things that it's just like you. If you don't see the politics in these books, that's you trying not to see. That's you being purposefully obtuse. You don't want to and

that's a you problem. And I'm not even gonna argue with you about it because it's so patently obvious that anyone having to explain to you is wasting their time. If you can't see it, there's no point talking to you. So I won't bother. Matt Denoman's anti capitalist, says who says Matt Denneman for eight books. But you know whatever, All right, guys, until next time to delude motherfuckers. That was an Unspoiled Network podcast