This Inevitable Ruin, Chapters Christmas Day-22

am Natasha. Thank you Michael for commissioning this episode. I apologize for my outburst, but I also very much don't and stand by it. I just don't get it. I don't understand why it's not even referenced by him. I just want a moment where we just think about it at least. Okay, so maybe it hasn't gotten around to it.

But even when it's mentioned by I think Samantha, like, oh, they look like the guys on the cover of the books, there's no moment in Carl's head of like, oh, yes to open that, don't I It's like it's just completely what it feels like to me is that the author is sort of setting things up in such a way as to have him, at a moment of crisis suddenly remember that and then open and be touched by whatever his friends gave him, because he needs a boost in

that moment. And you know, I just feel like, if you want that, you really need to tell me why he hasn't opened it earlier, because Carl feels to me like somebody for whom this would be somewhat important. So much of the theme of these books, especially this one, has been centered around I realize now I've been lonely. I need people. Community is important. There's just not really a good enough reason that he wouldn't have opened this

gift yet. And if there should be, like if you want to delay it, you need to explain that, because otherwise it's just weird. It's just really weird. Not only is it weird that Karl hasn't done it, doesn't think about it, doesn't seem to even remember. It's really weird.

Donut hasn't reminded him to open them either, because like it was such a thing when he got his you know what I mean, and him missing Christmas and everything I don't understand all, Like, that's the best theory I've got is that like we're saving it for a moment, which, if that's true, cheapens that moment for me and makes it feel like you really had to contrive to get us here, or there's some other internal reason which could be true, but it doesn't at the moment, I've got

no information on that, so I'm just like, you know, I'm working with what I've got, and to me, this just doesn't make sense. I don't get it. So I wanted to start off with that and just get it out of the way because I am preoccupied by it, and since it didn't happen, I may as well get it out of the way, and that way I can continue on with the rest of what actually happened out

of the gate. So we start off with the kind of flashback to the conversation between Carl and Orin when Carl got transported to speak to Orin after the interaction with Paully or Polly's shadow. Really is the more accurate way to say that, And it's very fun to like read this now that we have a little bit more information. But he asks, you know, did Polly make it into the dungeon. Oran says no, and honestly, I don't know whether to believe him on this or not. I don't

see why he'd tell Carl the truth. There's just like, as far as I can see, there's not really a reason to be honest with Carl that I know of, Like there's no rule that says that he can't lie to him, or you know what I'm saying. So Also, I don't know if Orin would even be aware if Polly made it into the dungeon or not, would he know or you know what I'm saying. So I don't

know whether to believe any of this. But we get to see Carl with Lightning Low, the doggie that he can't pet, and he is really struggling through the knowledge of what this switch that he got given does and what to do. It's actually kind of crazy that we had the reveal of what this switch does and I've spent barely any time talking about it. But I think that is due to the fact that we had too much content packed into too little like podcasting time, and

Michael went ahead and like redid the chapter breakdown. So I think I'm gonna have a little bit more room to chat, and I think that will help a lot. And it's one of those things that I it's like, you catch you catch me in the wrong moment. Maybe I'm gonna be like, yeah, fuck it, you know, but I really tend to be a hopelessly hopeful person. To be honest, I just don't really ever believe the worst case scenario is going to happen. Part of why Trump

actually getting elected blindsided me. I'm not trying to say I'm always right by any means. A lot of the hopefulness just comes from privilege, if we're being honest, But I do have this innate faith that more people than not are decent, and that more people than not would do the right thing, and that as bad as things maybe it can and will get better because people care and will be willing to do something about it. Now that doesn't mean that were I in Carl's situation, I

wouldn't pull the plug. I've gotta be honest. I mean, right from the start. You may remember, when he first gets sent into the dungeon, there's that whole group of people that decide to just camp out in one of the safe rooms and let themselves die. And I said at the time, like that might be me. Actually, yeah, I am still kind of feeling like that's what I

would do. I don't know. I don't know. It's hard to say, mostly because there's like a huge part of me that has this deep curiosity as well, and so I feel like I just want to see what the dungeon's like. I just want to know. And it's so fun to me that there's a point as Carl is thinking about what this button does where he's like, I don't know, whatever I pick, whether i'd get to see what happened. And I feel like that in itself is

an indicator that he's not done. The fact that he is still even wondering would I get to see the outcome? But I want to know what happens. That to me indicates, Yeah, you're not letting go. You wouldn't have that in you if you were done, if you were ready to be done, and for all of this to be done. It's just that little yeah, but what would that be? What would that mean? What would you know? No, it wouldn't be there,

it wouldn't be like that. So he really struggles for a while because he's just like, this is too much power for one person. I have it in my hand to completely end everything, just me, my decision. That's not fair, that doesn't make any sense. He goes through everything, and he's very surprised to see that it's not just like a page with a button that's like in the world

and you press it. It's several tabs with all of this information that takes a minute for his brain to sort of translate it, and he screenshots all of that, which I'm very grateful for. I don't know how much of this is going to be of any import whatsoever, but it's just good policy, especially considering later what he decides to do having this info. I don't know how useful it will be, but it's possible will matter. The

interface didn't control the AI. Instead, it controlled the device they used to install the AI into the Primal Engine. After the AI was installed, the device remained physically nearby, but no longer had direct influence over the AI. Still, I had sense it kept a metaphorical eye on the AI and the computer it now called home. It had metrics such as physical location, temperature, and several other things I didn't understand. None of the numbers seemed to be changing.

Other than to fluctuate back and forth between two digits. So location interesting, there's something. It took me about ten minutes of searching to find the fuse page. It listed five benchmarks required for the fuse to blow, but didn't really say what they were. Only two were. The five were marked as conditions met, and there it was the button override conditions and activate fuse warning warning. And he has a moment of thinking, like, wouldn't this be kinder

to everybody if I did this? You know, they just had their Christmas party there with all their friends, and maybe ending it now is less horrible, But you know what it comes down to there is like you're not giving them the option. You're taking it upon yourself to decide. And that's the danger in this always. You know, I think there are times where a person has the right to decide on someone else's fate, but they are few and far between. And this is Banana's the proportion of this.

I mean, you know, if I didn't pres the button, could I use it for leverage? And He's like no, as soon as they know that's it, I'm dead, And I'm like, yeah, absolutely, could I set up some sort of dead man's trigger. They'd find a way around it. And what would be the point The fact I even had this power might be enough to cause them to trigger the fail save on their own. Should I pretend like I didn't have it? What would be the point at that? I could literally die at any moment and

this would all be lost. And he has a moment here the button was right there, one mental push. Do you remember the circus? That was fun, wasn't it? And I was kind of sitting here wondering why is that in his head? And then I remember that his mother says that when they're at the Grand Canyon, and I think it's supposed to have been her contemplating jumping off. And so it's just that feeling of like am I gonna do it? Am I gonna do it? He's like

encountered before, you know. And then he thinks about like the AI letting it happen, and he thinks that, well, no, it likes this, it's having fun. And then he goes, hold on, if that's true, it wouldn't let me access this to begin with. It must want to die. And then he comes to the conclusion it had to be a trap or a test I'd click the button and nothing would happen, or I'd die, or the solar system

would literally get destroyed. And this is when he thinks, would I even get the chance to know what happened? And he reaches out to Donut and says, are you doing okay? And she says when are you coming back? I miss you? Which is she just doesn't really often say that sort of thing. And it's just a moment, you know. I didn't know what I wanted to do. But that wasn't true, was it. I did want to hit the button. I wanted it more than anything in the world. My anger at the powers that made this

happen were bright, so bright. I miss you too, Donut, but not bright enough. I decided to look through the rest of the menus to see what else was in there, And just as I was about to say my goodbyes to the dog and get back out there, I saw it. It was an option at the very end of a list of twenty status notifications Disconnect Containment warning. This will disengage all metrics, all metrics and controls, including the fuse system. It will render the containment unit inert. The failsafe will

no longer function. Most controls will cease to function. I paused again. It was literally the only other button to press. I thought about Polly's warning, and now I wondered which of those two options he was warning me about. God damn it, this was a trap, too, wasn't it. I actually had three options, assuming the buttons did what they claimed, I could do nothing. I could press the fuse and die. Or I could relieve myself at the burden and press

the button to turn it all off. But if I turned it off, did that mean I would be freeing the AI? What did that mean? What did that look like? Who set this trap? Somebody built this menu? Which of those three options would hurt the syndicate the most? And which of those three options would protect my people the most? When I framed it that way, the decision was suddenly quite easy. Doughnut, I'll be back soon. I pressed the

disconnect containment button. Tire new interface blanked out, leaving nothing but the map Already, the little red dot over Earth started to grow. Welcome to the party, pals, I said, I don't understand this. Disconnect containment disengage all metrics and controls, including the FUSE system, and will render the containment unit inert. So why is the dot turning red or not turning

red but getting bigger? Like I understand that this means that he can no longer press the end of the world button, But why is it welcoming everybody to the party pals? Is it just ensuring that nobody gets out of this? You can't press the button either, It's not an option for you. Is that all he means? I feel like I'm missing something here. Jeff says. It means all the folks out in orbit can now come to

Earth and the Syndicate can't stop them. Seraphim says, the syndicate put puts artificial limiters on the AI they use for the Crawls to try and control them. He turned off all those controls. Both are both of those things true? Both what Jeff and Seraphim are saying. Jeff is saying, Now, oh maybe I'm wrong. Ms T says, the AI containment is what he turned off. No, I get that. I don't know what that means. Obviously that's what he did,

because disconnect containment. It's just like that's the wording they keep using, But it doesn't mean anything to me. Does that make sense? What does what does containment mean? Is that keeping the AI from connecting to other ais? Or like, you know what I'm saying, I feel like this doesn't seem that clear to me, and I'm wondering if I'm the only person who wasn't getting this. The fact that Jeff thinks that he was wrong now is a bit of an indication that maybe this was unclear to others too.

So that makes me feel a little bit better, Saraphim says. It means the AI isn't limited to just the area they want it to control and can expand its influence. Okay, so potentially can influence like everybody off planet. Also, can the AI get into the ships of people who are like orbiting? Is that where like I don't, I don't know how any of this works, you know what I'm saying. Anyway, Okay, we get a little breakdown of battalions here on the

Kindle version. This is not obviously in the audiobook version. One hundred and first Crocodiles one hundred and second, Bulwark Battalion one hundred and third, recom Lesionaires one hundred and fourth, Naughty Little Piggies one hundred and fifth scream Warriors one hundred and sixth, Bloody Leeches one hundred and seventh, White

Dragon Urban Defense, and each of them different. General Crocodiles is fluorin, but Bulwarks is tran Lesionaires is Bodie, not a little Piggies is Tippid, Scream Warriors is Jurgen, Leeches is Boomer, White Dragon is Lena. So Seraphim just wrote, Rafo, y'all have got to help me out here. I don't know what that means. Why would you say that, Why would I know what that is? Help a girl out? Oh,

Seraphim says, read and find out. Okay, Well, this is the thing is like I don't know what I'm supposed to get about it and what I'm you know what I mean. There are times where it's like set up in a way that it feels like I am meant to be going oh shit, because I know what it is and I don't want to miss an oh shit moment, But I don't know if I'm supposed to get it

or not. There's a lot going on in these books, and there are times where it's unclear to me, like if there has been given enough information already where I could piece this together if I were paying better attention, or if I understood the intricacies of certain things enough, or if it's like no, no, no, you don't know yet. It's fine, you'll get there, you know what I mean.

So we start off with in chapter twenty, Justice Lights entry about how he killed an NPC in anger and that it's the first time he's ever done that it really haunts him, and that to him it represents what being a crawler has done and changed in him. It's like a little microcosm, and it's just like, I really hope that my trap ideas and stuff at least help somebody. That's the only thing getting me through. And that's followed up by crawler Drakia, who she is writing? I'm saying, Drakia,

I don't know if it's a she. They write in the twenty second edition, Justice Lights was the eighth I don't know if you survived this, and if you did, I doubt you will ever have the chance to see these words. But if you're out there, I hope you're watching. Your traps have seen saved my life more times than I can count. I am working on a big one based on your seeking Fleschet design. We all make mistakes, we hurt those we haven't intended to hurt. These are

the tides of life. But in this case, it was not your fault. They put you here. You were a good, gentle soul. They turned you into a warrior. They are the engineers of this all force them to look upon you and see what they wrought. And yes, I agree, it's doesn't completely absolve anybody of responsibility for their actions, but I definitely think that it is a balm to know that, like, you've been put in an impossible situation and this doesn't make you a bad person. It makes

the situation completely inhumane and cruel, you know. So we get the summary of the battle rules. I'm not going to go over all of this again. And Karl arriving back at the UH the Princess posse, so he's yelling to Jurgen, who is very excited to see that he is still alive. Apparently it had been like going around maybe that he wasn't going to make it, and he is like reacting. Everybody is reacting to the fact that

the ceasefire has so suddenly completely collapsed. Justice, did you have the throne room prepared before it got locked in place. Justice Light it is done, and Justice Light being here after all of this is just so interesting. I cannot wait to Like, I don't know how much of everybody's story we're going to get, you know, but I really enjoy these little moments of Karl getting to interact with crawlers that he knows from the cookbook, and how surreal

that must be to him. He didn't acknowledge me any more than the others when we first met, except for a slight bow, one that lasted a little too long, long enough that Mordecai had spent a contemplative moment looking back and forth between me and the eagle creature. I think this is Mordecai clocking. Okay, they've communicated somehow, which like technically is correct, But like if I were thinking that, I know, I wouldn't be getting it anywhere close to

right how that worked. But I believe that the way the skylefowl work, that kind of bow would really mean something, and that Mordecai sees that the one winged eagle was shorter and stockier than most. His feathers were all black tinged with gray, and a twin tuft of feathers upon his head gave the impression he had horns, making him look strangely like he was related to Big Tina. I

just keep thinking about Sam the Eagle here, guys. I'm just it's I know that that's not like necessarily accurate to who to the coloring and everything that is described here, but saying the eagle, it's not like their horns. He has two tufts of hair that kind of give the impression of ears more than anything. But nevertheless, it's just I keep thinking about that. And Justice has been more like using the slugglows as assistants because they have just

no fear of getting blown up. His class title was strange. He was an origamist, and I have no idea what the hell that even meant. So I have to assume this is something regarding how intricate he can make his traps, because the whole thing with origami is folding in really complex ways to create from one single piece of paper a remarkably intricate figure of some kind, oftentimes an animal, but not necessarily so I'm thinking that it's something where he is able to fold like traps into each other,

or make multi level traps, something like that. I don't know. I'm fascinated by this though, so of course Doughnut finally comes running over. Had been really worried about Carls. That's like, why are you all covered in blood? And he, you know, can't explain everything now because we're kind of it's crunch time. But she can smell that cat food. She's like, why do you just smell like Ferdinand? And he says, I found some of his old cat food in the elf castle.

But in this section we don't get anything with that. So I'm really interested in that cat foods ill guys, what's up with it? I don't get satisfaction here yet. A lot of things, a lot of things I'm still waiting on now. I'm debating exactly how I want to talk about some of what's going on here, because here's the thing I don't. I am personally not somebody who is rivetted by discussions of battle formations or anything like that.

You know what I'm saying. It's difficult for me to feel like that would be interesting to listen to just me like repeating how all everybody is set up, anything like that. I feel like the better way to approach this is likely to just Okay, I'm going to discuss the form nations as they come up, you know what I'm saying, And it might just behoove me to like keep it in mind that this might be important, but

I'm not going to get too intricate with that. At this point, that's not even really as much of a thing. But I know that's like going to be going forward likely pretty important to a degree. So I just kind of wanted to address that as we go into it, because I don't have the kind of mind that can keep that sort of thing straight without visual reinforcement. And I'm not going to be making any It's okay, I

don't need to. I think that's a little excessive. A lot of people are in place and like ready, more so than I was expecting. I'll be honest, I was sort of feeling like, oh my god, are we screwed right now? You know, and it seems not. It's like, we definitely need more time to get certain things set up.

But it was a little encouraging to see not necessarily that some folks are ahead of schedule, because I don't feel like that's correct, but more that a lot of the team is prepared for an emergency when there is this sudden changing plans. Carl's teammates are more mobile and are more adaptable than I had been worried they'd be. And it just feels like he has got folks to really rely on, which I find just so deeply fucking comforting. Just the fact that there are folks out there who

are serious, who are capable. It's just nice. I just like this is so you know what I'm saying, Saraph Him says, if I recall correctly, Drakia was the crawler famous for making elaborate traps, so the showrunners screwed over by sabotaging one of her traps to blow up in her face. Right, Although again, I think Drakia might be a male. I feel like it's I do this because it ends with an A, and so I think that's

a you know, female name. But I feel like Drakia was a guy and that they've used he him pronouns before. Michael says, I don't think crawlers get to later floors unless they're ready for shit to go sideways at any time. True, but there is It's a very different thing to be in charge of a bunch of other people with that. It's one thing to personally be ready to go and

ready for anything. And I understand that like pretty much everybody that we're dealing with here is like a crawler, a former crawler, or we've got some like a pretty decent amount of npcason here as well, But it is just sort of an unknown quantity right now. How well is everybody gonna work together? You know what I mean? And it could be the kind of talent where being a survivor actually doesn't make you a good leader and it does the opposite, you know what I'm saying, depending

on what you're like. And I'm sure that we're going to run into somebody probably who isn't as much of a team player as we fucking wish, But as of right now, it just feels like so solid. So Samantha is being very difficult here, Louis is on his way in. I'm trying to find the bit here. We're on our way. Samantha sneaked your way onto the party planner. She's not

a designated scout. What should I do? Which if she's not approved as a scout when she hits the border, it will keep her from coming in, which means that there will be, as he puts it, a Samantha sized hole in the plane. And when he's like, you need to get off, she says, it's okay. Louie and I will crash together and he will parish you down into the woods with me, where we can build a log cabin and he can grow a beard. One that's all scraggly and kind of itchy, but it also smells like

a campfire. I'm sorry if that makes you jealous, Carl, which is the best way to end that fucking paragraph. And when Carl is like, no, Louis, you really got a dumper. I'm sorry, Samantha, but figure it out, she says, no, wait, Louis can just come back. It's a suicide mission. And I like Louis. I like him more than Charlie. I don't want him to die yet. And it's a moment of Carl being like, she's not stupid, she's genuinely worried

about him not better, you know. But she's sort of playing this off like I'm just so goofy, you know, and he has to be like, yeah, that's not exactly correct though. So Ellie is taking stock of the hardware they are working with, and she's like treby Chay's as far as the eye can see, why are they fucking allowed to have all this shit? Soldiers and mercenaries are mounted on zebra looking things like they're going to retreat or charge at any minute. I think the rocks they're

throwing are a cover for something else. Don't love that. Don't love mounted mercenaries at all, by the way, and by the time we'd reach the southern border of the ground would be mostly flat. The Harley Davidson was rode bike and wasn't great for this, and I decided to use the chariot for now. Next to me, Jamal rolled up and he's just like, oh, I can't wait to get into the mix, and he's not coming with him. He does not know this yet, but once he is informed,

he's very upset. And Doughnut tries to be the like, oh, you're actually going to be doing the hardest part, and I think it's only you that could possibly pull it off, and he's like, betch, don't play with me. I know what you're doing. Please do not play in my face with this, and she just goes well I tried and takes off, which a fair you know, if he collapsed

you he clocks you, it's fine. Then we have the fucking uh little castor guys that all come out like the dude has turned me back into his other form. It's a whole thing. Anyway. They are very young, and so all of them, it's like absolutely not. But I have a suspicion of probably going to get up to some shit. So I hope we've got an eye on them, a really clear close eye on them. Let's see. Mm hmmm. Splash Stowne took control of one of the transports and

drove it over as the other started piling in. I pulled out the six pack missile launcher and attempted to affix it to the chariot, but I received an error. You have used up your allotted armor options. Vehicle upgrade not allowed. This is the sort of thing where I'm feeling like maybe that Oregamist class could be useful, you know, if it's one thing, but it's actually five things and you managed to sort of just trick the system. That'd

be cool, be interesting. So the Dreams artillery started pounding our defenses at the southern front just as we arrived, and it's mentioned that like, this is a continual barrage that is not actually meant to break through. It is simply meant to exhaust everybody who has skills or powers, mages primarily that are going to be doing defensive stuff, tried and true kind of tactic. The list of active

protections for our side was literally three pages long. So far, other than the artillery and occasional bursts of sniperfire, there hadn't yet been a raid on our position that would fully test the defenses. I knew from Florin that the Northern Front was another story. They were pushing back wave after wave of mercenaries. So far, the enemy was utilizing their meager supply of unenthusiastic dungeon born in PCs to test out our defenses. It had quickly evolved into a stalemate,

a war of non offensive spells and counterspells. We had advantage of mages and knowledge, but they had numbers and superior firepower. And he has a moment later where he is just like, I can believe You've got to keep them out of here for a week. This is impossible, like a real how in the fuck am I supposed to? You know? And I feel him on that, because that has been the emotion I've been running up against every time I remember how this works. It's just like this

fucking sucks. This fucking sucks. I don't recall what, if any conditions would need to be met in order to end this sooner, but the fact that like Donut can't do almost anything because she is almost all her offensive abilities are magical sucks. Ass dude, I hate it. We

gotta figure something out. Let's see someone from Empress to Nadia's prison had prism had gotten him behind our position and found one of the escape tunnels, and had unleashed a powerful instant rivers square roll that had caused a ton of havoc. A few soldiers had leaped out of the trenches the water poured in, and they were immediately picked off by snipers from the enemy side. Despite the heavy fog, that scout, along with a total of six others, had all been captured or killed so far thanks to

our efforts. The scout from the Prism had not been a mercenary, but a Saccathian prince of some kind, one of Donadia's actual relatives. Pieces of the saboteur littered the battlefield now after he stepped upon a simple land mine trap when he attempted to flee, sucks to suck. So he sends out orders. If we captured an enemy and we could keep them alive but unconscious, then we would do so. The NPCs and the mercenaries born outside the dungeon were to be separated. There were spells that could

turn the NPCs to our side. The mercenaries had another purpose if they, if any, gave us trouble, or if it wasn't feasible or safe to them. My orders were clear, kill them, loot them using safe looting protocols, keep the body, report it to one superior officer who would passed the information back to base, where a group of those who preferred to stay out of the direct fighting were keeping

track of the big picture for us. I blinked at the wide, glittering expanse of traps twinkling through the fog of the no man's land between our position and the Nauga fortifications. Most of our traps remained intact and hidden thanks to Justice Light's protection spell. It was something he'd figured out a long time ago, but it had never grown into practice because it was thought it only worked

on alarm traps. Justice, along with a few other veterans, had dozens of tricks up their sleeves or wings when it came to safeguarding and hiding traps. This no man's land thing is really interesting to me. I know this is, you know, based on real jargon, and it says the enemy corridor into our territory was only about a kilometer wide, and then they keep saying only and I just that's quite wide to me. I don't know, what do I know? So I'm trying to like, there's so much packed in here.

It's very tempting for me to just like read word for word what's going on. But uh, you know, I have to kind of like make sure I'm just touching on some of the most important stuff. So a tank gets destroyed, they'd scored a direct hit. I sent out a quick order, but I saw Tran was already on it. Another moment of me being like fan fucking tastic. I love this so much. Entering the Princess Posse forward position defended by one hundred and second Bulwark Battalion. Battalion is

currently at ninety eight percent strength. I don't know how that's calculated exactly, I'm curious about that. Does that mean like that's how many people from the original battalion are still alive or is that about how their health has been affected or what? The back of my head continued to tingle with an odd sensation. I really don't like this. So he's got the he's got the fucking uh daughter thing on his back full and is walking around with it to the point that later on he gets soul

poisoning that he's dealing with again. And I understand his reticence to use it because he brings up that like they're in very close quarters at one point, and we've seen how intense the damages that he can do, and he would probably set off all the traps and kill so many of his friends. Like I totally understand, and I get it, But oh my god, do I fucking hate him just having to hold onto this really toxic ability until the ideal opportunity presents itself. It fucking blows.

It makes me so nervous. So let's see. Mages and soldiers with spears and bows and crossbows were spread evenly, all of them sweating and exhausted from constantly holding back the giant rocks, all were hunched over peering into the magical periscopes. That does not look comfortable. I thought, I put in a mental note to have the positioning adjusted. These guys would have to stand like this for hours on end. I thought that was an interesting detail. Not,

you know, it's such a small thing to mention. Oh, I don't know. It just sort of about my attention. Let's see a bunch of those robot read guys just pulled up in several trucks and are moving to the enemy trenches. I'd lost track of the invisible madness guys. There's over a hundred of them. And finally somebody yells out, guys, what is that? Is it another illusion? I don't think so. Someone else said there's a little back and forth about

buying things from pawnshops that are inevitably stolen. It's either that it was stolen, or it's that a very poor person hawked their stuff. They may be poor because they are an addict and they have hawked all of their stuff or keep doing that, or perhaps it's simply that they are struggling in general. But yeah, people will sell

things that are not stolen plenty. So this is when we see one thousand pets heading in direction Dumplin' juiced rot sticker behemoth level forty, suffering from the gurgles, suffering from insanity, suffering from eat your face off rabies, and fed a truck stop boner pill, and we find out

exactly how they are created. They can be fed something that keeps them from exploding, and they can be turned into pets, loving and faithful If given the opportunity to grow up, they get bigger and bigger and have a small amount of intelligence. When they get older, they have the same attack as the females and acid spray, which allows them to hunt and fight alongside you without having to worry about them blowing your kneecap off. What the reavers do is grab a bunch of babies and dole

them out to their warriors. The warriors or up their tummies, play fetch with them, and help them level up until they reach level forty. The rot stickers grow to love and trust their masters. Then the reavers lock them in cages, inject them with size altering sterroids, inflicted them with a bunch of nasty, contagious debuffs, and unleash them on enemy positions as biological seeking missiles. Oh and they also stop giving them the medicine that keeps them from blowing up.

A level forty rod sticker Behemoth packs the same punch as a stick of Goblin dynamite. This sucks, all about, all about sucks. Hate it the fact that they are contagious and will explode, spattering so many people with this contagious like this, I hate it. I hate it. Okay, So one of them exploded in mid air, showering gore over the trench. The rest crashed back down, disappearing back again behind the wall as thorns as thick as my

arm sprouted from the dirt encompassing them. I turned to see Tran skitter down the trench, his voice super naturally amplified. And I want to mention that trend is in the equivalent, as Carl puts it, of like if the spider legs that Odette has were paired with Ironman armor, which sounds awesome, Frankly, let's see, did you. A short moment passed and the dwarfs and gnomes started popping back up from the tunnels

fire in the hole. Someone shouted, and we all hit the deck again as the entire line of dirt in front of us exploded. I was physically lifted from the scaffolding and people called out all around as we crashed heavily. Down below. Mongo squawked in fear and rend started running in panicked circles as the sky went completely black. Back in place, Back in place, defend the line. The notification appeared across my interface, blinking, What is that? What is

that from? Is that automatic AI notification? It just feels so instructive. It's not saying the line has been breached. It's saying defend the line. It's it's just different, you know what I mean. It feels like orders, it's different. I don't know, I just sort of I just sort of noticed that. Let's see, there was the battle armor version which she wore. Now, yeah, the YadA talked about this already. Gurglers in the trenches and Elf shouted as

she rushed through the center of the trench. She rushed towards us, pursued by a group of about ten veterans who were all screaming towards us, blood spewing from their mouths and eyes. Someone cast a spell, filling that section with dirt. The wall of hear right in front of us. Another with a surrenderaled gore like flamethrower pushed me aside

and started baking the filled in section of dirt. A dozen arms and legs and claws emerged as the infected started pulling themselves free, only to be burned and melted by the powerful weapon. Fallen soldier notifications blinked across my interface. Fucking Christ. So the person who was using the flame thrower is named Kristin. She's a Crisper is her class, and she's like, that's a magical attack. What the fuck? They infected their pets before the magic band, so it's

an exploit. The moment I hear this sentence, I'm like, Victory is here, sweet, and I like that. It takes a second where before Carl realizes who it is, because I'm just like, no, this is just it's very much barreness, victory coated. That's her. And she says the factions had agreed many years ago to never use it again because it's so insidious. It's what caused the insanity and the rabies de buff. I'm not familiar with that fourth deep buff. So the fact that they agreed not to use it

and now they are. Is that also by agreement or is this something that this group is doing that is kind of breaking the unspoken rule. So let's see, we've got the leeches in place, Colonel Boomer said, chomping on his unlit cigar, ready to pluck some cheese sticks. And cheese sticks apparently is just like the thing we're calling them now. I find this extremely weird, but it's not

exactly like I'm mad at it. It's just more like, what I have to assume there is something about this that's like, what's the wording I want here that it's like there's another slang that sounds like cheese sticks, and we just went with this because it's like similar enough. But uh yeah, anyway, he was a grizzled old elf that had survived one of the earliest seasons of Dungeon

Crawler world. He looked like someone had taken the world's fattest bulldog, pickled it for about five thousand years, gave him elf years, and then shoved a cigar in his mouth. I would never have guessed he was an elf. He looked as solid as he was old. He had a voice to match Colonel and the Princess posse. This is a subordinate. His class of leggett led to some confusion, but allowed him to buff a large number of soldiers

at once. According to Tippid, the Old Man had been an outspoken critic of the Crawl for a long time. He was a tenor. He'd survived as a merchant before finally escaping. He'd been banned from the Crawl con years ago after threatened to fist, fucking orchest showrunner to death during a panel. Porthos had publicly distanced himself from the militant former Crawler after that, but apparently they'd been in

close contact the whole time. There was an active warrant for the Old Man's arrest after a deadly way station brawl a few cycles back, a brawl that had started after an argument about the Crawl. He'd killed someone and had disappeared into the ether. Bro sounds bananas, So just briefly, if you already saw this on the tiktoks, I'm sorry, but this felt for me like we're doing patent a little bit right with this guy. And I realized, like, as I'm thinking this, what do I even fucking know

about Patten m Am? I even right about this, so I go look him up on Wikipedia, and you know the fact that this dude is as grizzled as he is, swears as much as he does, is chewing on a cigar, It all feels like it follows, right. I still think that's likely what's happening. But man, yell, when you look up a fucking historical figure, especially it dude, the way

that it just never fails to disappoint, you know. Like, so dude, first of all, was like a wildly anti Semitic and basically it was like, I mean, I'll fight the Nazis because we're supposed to be like making things so that he essentially he was like, I'll fight the Germans because this is part of a larger plan for Europe. But the Germans are the only decent people in Europe, and Nazism really isn't a bad idea, is his thinking.

And it's the other thing that I was, like, I mainly focused on my video was he was forty eight years old and got into a relationship with his seventeen year old niece and everybody knew it. He openly bragged about it, His wife knew, his daughter knew. The girl moved to Europe with him and co hosted dinner parties with all of his friends. Everybody knew it was not even a secret at all, and yet his fucking biographers

are like, no, he didn't. He just said he slept with her because he wanted to feel virile because he was old, but he didn't actually do that. It was like a father daughter relationship. Really, No, that's what you wish it was, because you think he's a decent person, along with the anti Semitic shit. One of his biographers finished quoting him and said something like, clearly he had

become delusional. No, he was an anti semi and you just don't want to say that because it doesn't fit the tidy little picture that you're trying to paint of this man. It's just wild because when people are like, well, why didn't that woman come forward about how she was treated? This man literally told everybody, and historians are still like, now, that never happened. The women don't come forward because the man can literally say it himself, and you still won't

believe it. You still don't believe it. Girl killed herself days after he died, surrounded by photos of him. But they were a father daughter relationship. Get the fuck out of my face week week. These biographers should be fucking tard and feathered. All this to say, we are definitely going to be getting, like, I think, a more lovable, grizzled version of Patton that is sort of the myth that I believe exists in our minds and not the

actual asshole that he seems to have been. I just wanted to touch on it, though, because it really did feel like this is our you know what I'm saying. Sorry, I'm just seeing in the chat Michael talking about pawnshops, and let's see, I assume it's by agreement since we know they're all allied against the Crawlers. And yeah, I think that's likely true. Jefferson. Jeff Richardson, I almost told you. Jefferson says, cheese dick sounds like a Philly insult. It's

not even cheese dick, Jeff. It's cheese stick, like a mozzarella cheese stick. It's even less insulting than that. Like it's weird. It's just a weird one, Jeff says. He and MacArthur also had their own uniforms altered like fancy little Hitler boys. Fucking wild Jesus. So yeah, it's uh. Let's see, Michael says, the abuses of the church and of other people in authority positions were also known by people, and the most they did was tell people not to

leave their kids alone with them. Yeah, it's just remarkable that like biographers are faced with all of these facts. Their job is to tell based on facts, and they can still just editorialize wildly and be like, but that didn't really happen, get a different job. Okay, clearly you do not want to engage with this person on the level of them being an actual human being with flaws, and if you're not prepared to do that, you shouldn't

have this job. End of So let's see most of those pasty cousin fuckers from the dreamer cowards, they'll run if we get close to their chuckers. They'll have them surrounded with traps, so we gotta be careful. Your spy says, they have cavalry. Those of the cheese sticks you really got to look out for, especially now the Epitome household guard is in here with us. The Epitome family ain't stupid, and let's see, he wears the most ridiculous helmet you've

ever seen, really, donut ask. He does not get into details with this, but obviously she's going to be looking for that. They haven't moved since the tanks, since they were uncovered. I wonder if they're decoys. Ellie said she would take a closer look, but I told her to stay back. And finally, Tran said, Ellie watched at least a hundred of the madness go invisible and disappear, so they could be anywhere, likely sneaking in right now. There probably ain't that many of the real viceroys in here,

probably a bunch of the regular cheese sticks wearing the robes. Still, we need to find those creepy fucks. The ones that go invisible and sneak in are called the monkey wrenchers. A few seasons back, a group of twenty of them single handedly took the Dreadnaught and Naga castles during the first few hours. That's bunkers twenty in a few hours. Don't like it. I had no idea where the term cheese stick had originated. I'd seen a few fuck the

cheese sticks tattoos already. Do we have a good idea of who's in the trenches, Boomerass, tran nodded, and any fallback position three looks to be their officers in Hospital Corps. Trench two is mostly empty but has a few guards. Everyone else is in the first trench system, which isn't anything like ours. It's just a straight line with a few bunks. It's manned solely by NPCs and mercenaries. As far as we can tell, no Inner Circle officers from

any of the teams. Most of the banners of PRISM it might be all of the PRISM based on the numbers. I was expecting more Naga infantry, but I can see only one of their standards, and a smaller portion of Madness troops are also present, But the Madness marks are really from the Lennig team. They just took over. No orcs, no operatics, only a few reavers, and those were the ones with the pets. So Carl here is checking in

with the NPC team. They are prepared, and Brittany is in charge of them, and it's mentioned that he doesn't really know how that happened, but she has wound up managing them, being sort of the liaison. And let's see, Donut had gone stiff. She too was looking at the Nanga headquarters. I reached up in gave her a pet, and historically the Naga castle was almost always the first to fall. But as we've already assessed that the Whore

as she is called, is never harmed. She disappears hide somewhere the whole time, appears at the end completely unharmed, and nobody knows where she's hiding. If we wanted to get to her, we'd have to be very careful with how we did it. I am so deeply curious where she's hiding. That one's got me preoccupied a little bit

too much. It's the sort of thing I could see myself hyperfixating on and then like kind of losing the plot because I would start to be like, no, no, no, if we get her, that's going to change the tide of everything, which isn't necessarily true at all, but I would have myself convinced of it, Like it's easier for me to cope with a puzzle than it is like fighting in this way. I'm just you know, this is

not my wheelhouse at all. So it ends with Carl saying let's do this and Boomer's saying fuck yeah, And that is the end of chapter twenty two, so I can't wait to read more. Very very curious, worried. We're gonna lose people and it's gonna be awful, and I am not excited about that. For the record, anyway, thank you guys so much for coming and hanging out with me. Appreciate you all, and I will be seeing you next week with a new episode. Until then, to the lou motherfuckers.

That was an unspoiled network podcast.