This Inevitable Ruin, Prologue-Chapter 3

Thank you very much to Michael for commissioning this episode. Michael is here in the chat just saying I made it, so I am delighted to have you, Michael. This is

a wild start to the book. First of all, I just have to mention how I really enjoy the way that nat Denniman is handling a recap, because, like, it's not an easy thing, and I know that there are plenty of writers out there who do series where they are encouraged to make it so that a person can sort of jump in at any point in the series and read from whatever, which I think is frankly unhinged to think that an author is like going to be able to do that, but as far as best possible,

like handling, I think Matt Deniman is doing really well by having there be somebody summarizing it for someone else. I sorry surfing, says Cough dressed and files cough dressed in is. It's like, it's just so weird to me that people will like jump in. I could never do it this way. I could never do it this way. I think the only time I've ever jumped into a series midway was because I didn't realize it was a series.

And that's like it. But we start off with tempests floor eight recap School Report, and like it's not really a full series recap, it's just meant to be for

the previous book. But nevertheless, you know, it's sort of it's serving this function, and I like also that it's separate from everything, because it was nothing that sort of would take me out of the moment, like getting to a point where you're in a character's POV and suddenly they're thinking about how and then last summer when so and so turned out to not be dead after all, it was a real shock and you're just like, oh boy, okay, I get it. But like this just is so unnatural,

you know. So anyway, I think that this is a great way to do it, and I think that it's also especially want I really want to interview the audiobook narrator. I just want to know when he is told, Hey, you're gonna have to do like an entire chapter practically as his like weirdo lawyer, is he like, oh, this is gonna be super fun or is he like okay, okay, like maybe a little bit of both. So then we go there, there's a moment where she like at the very end, is like, are you in danger because you're

representing him? And he's like, uh, well yeah, but I'm not the only one. I think everybody's in danger. Actually we're kind of in the middle of nowhere. So that's the first time I've been glad of it, which I do have no real idea like what that means in this series, like in the middle of nowhere? What is that? How does that actually factor? But uh, I appreciated it kind of coming back down at the end from being just a comedic recapp to then a moment of but

this is a real character. This is somebody who actually has a life and stakes and their own family, and it's just a good way to humanize him right at the end there, so to speak, He's not human, but you know, you get me. So then we go into the prologue, which we have gone back to Christmas Morning, and I just really want to mention that, like Donut was saying, they needed to open their presence from Santa, and I still kind of have my suspicions that maybe

Santa was real, like a character that showed up. I when this is saying, when it starts with Christmas Morning, I really got my hopes of y'all. I really thought, oh, we're about to find out, and we do not. And I as much as like I wanted this reveal, of course, this isn't really what I was here for. This is you know what I'm saying. So I had a little

moment of just like darn it. But yeah, So we are back at the homeless shelter with this guy who has taken over the body of Paulie doing his monologuing again. And it's an interesting thing because I was partially right about there being something in that coffee, but it's not the coffee on a tray that's being circled around which I think when like in the original scene, that's what we are seeing happen, it's and it's also like that's

not the only thing going on here. There's a frozen moment where Carl is getting all of this information packed into a second before he is transported to speak to Oran.

So that's really fun because what it means is that he's just been given all of this info and then when he's in that interview with Orin, he knows that like he knows what he needs to know, and he also knows that the way that Oran is saying, oh, none of this was really pertinent or all of this was a trap, He's got all this info already, so he's just playing along in the moment, which I really wonder if I would be able to pull this off, because you know, managing to seem as if something is

news to you, I feel you kind of need to like plan for that and get your face ready, and Carl is just managing to Like I think it's just that he is so angry all the time that the anger sort of supersedes all the other emotions on his face, and so that's all anybody sees, really, which I guess

is like certainly a method. So this guy switches to syndicate standard and he says, if you can hear this, that means the current system AI is allowing us to have a real talk, which I was at the time sort of like, I'm surprised that AI is not yet at a point where it wants Carl to hear because you know, Orrin says, like, we made a deal with the AI that we would have to I think it was partially just like we would have to have this

conversation with you about it or something like that. So I just the fact that the AI is kind of where I was thinking it is reassures me a little bit. So he says, I really need you to listen carefully, and this is fascinating people like you. They want meaning to their suffering and to know that what's happening to them is for some greater good. But there's not, and this crawl is unnecessary and they are doing all of this to make money, and there is no reason to

do it other than pure greed. You and all living things born on one of the priests worlds has a miniature primal system built into your brains that allows you to interact with the system. It is the size of a grain of sand. Once these systems are activated, they are able to be harvested. The way it was designed is that you would be born, you would live, and

you would eventually die. When you do pass on, the element within you, having grown and filled with the energy of a lifetime, would return to the system, allowing it to keep running. A healthy system is self sustaining. It doesn't grow, it doesn't shrink, it exists in perpetuity. And this is so like, it's a really fun idea because it's sort of being like, oh, we're all connected and there is a higher power, but just not in the way that anybody usually thinks of that as a spiritual thing.

It's all very much just like a computer code. But it's obviously more than that, because it's something that even these beings don't grasp. So yeah, it's an interesting like the idea that it's only possible for it to be harvested once you have lived your life. And I also want to mention a healthy system is self sustaining. It

doesn't grow, it doesn't shrink. This is the thing that's like fundamentally wrong with how capitalism works is there is an expectation of just growth in perpetuity, and it's asinine. It's insane. Actually, when you look at the way that people who allegedly are intelligent approach the economy, you'll look at things and be like, well, we all should have

known that, you know what I'm saying. Like, there was this moment where everybody was buying laptops because of the pandemic, and they were all working from home, so yeah, we had a buy on laptops, and all of a sudden, people are like investing in these laptop and they're acting as if this is just going to go on forever. And then people stop buying laptops and it's surprised Pikachu face because yeah, well we all have one now and

we don't need to update it for a while. And it's just really like this moment of wait, what do you mean? And this is part of the reason that so many like subscription services have to increase their pricing, because there's only so many customers and there's only so many people at a time that you are going to get to sign up, and they, for some reason just think that they can keep tapping this pool and it will endlessly produce more customers, and it's just you know

that that is not how it works. But we all have to function in this like false reality that fucking like startups have created, acting as if there's just you know what I'm saying. It's it's really the whole thing with capitalism is let's share this delusion together and any fallout from it will worry about later. And no matter what it is or how soon it's supposed to happen, we'll worry about it later. Let's not worry about it now.

Let's worry about it later every fucking time. So anyway, sorry, guys, I just like it just struck me. You know how that can happen The planetary system doesn't have an active AI. By the time you hear this, the mant had made Frankenstein of a system will have been installed, and everyone born on the planet will have their internal systems switched

on and activated. When you die in the dungeon, they harvest these elements themselves, starving out the existing planetary AI that doesn't even know how to feed itself until we teach it. So this is the starve thing coming into play. When you die in the dungeon, they harvest these elements starving out the planetary AI. So basically, it's like the planetary AI that hadn't that had been there but was

just functioning a different way. I guess, is suddenly robbed of its source of sustenance is the best way I want to say that food doesn't feel quite right. But despite him using the word feed itself, and even then it's bound by programming that precludes it from properly sustaining itself. Instead, the vultures descend and steal the elements from the crawl's aftermath, all of that death and it fits on a single ship. They take it all to the bloated, comatose Center System

and feed it. It grows, it maintains, it allows the citizens to live on naturally long lives. Each time the Center System is fed the harvested elements from the Crawl, it expands, capturing new systems. Yet they don't even understand what it is or how it works. If they stopped Crawl, the zone would start to shrink, but it would be slow, very slow, and everyone currently within it would be fine.

It would take generations to starve, after all it had been given, and if they wanted to simply sustain what they already have. It wouldn't take much. The crawl itself doesn't need to exist at all. The creation of what they call macro ai is made over and over is unnecessary. It only happens this way because the spectacle of the

crawl generates so much money. So that's it's a lot, it's a lot of information, and it all just feels like very aligned with the way that the world actually works with like, oh, we're going to feed this to our system that already has more than it needs, more than it knows what to do with. Really, and even if we stopped, it would be like a hundred years

before it even started to be a pro problem. This is always my question to folks who have the kinds of money that the uber rich now have in the year twenty twenty six, where the disparity between the rich and poor is higher than it's ever been, and it is, when are you done, Like I'm genuinely wanting an answer, When do you feel like, Okay, I have enough? When does that part happen? When do you feel you no longer need to exploit people because like, these folks literally

have more money than they could possibly spend. I mean very literally more than they could possibly spend, and I cannot imagine. I just simply cannot not wanting to get other people a quality of life when I could do that by sacrificing not even five percent of my income, You know what I'm saying, Like, I just there is something wrong with them fundamentally. I do not believe that you can get past a certain income level and continue

hoarding money without being broken in the head. Somehow, something's the matter with you. That's just my take. And yeah, same thing, same thing. So sorry, I'm seeing a bunch of comments now I just jumped back in. I'm scrolling back up a little bit. Saraphim says, given I think we've heard the lawyer species are seen as second or

even third class people. He lives out on the sticks, so no one wants to be But that means he's so far away from important people it's not worth going out there to deal with him, right, Okay, Michael says, had to give Anatasha credit for catching the coffee thing last book, even though it wasn't quite the coffee she thought was important. Not. Yeah, I was like I was on the right track, but it was like just off.

Jeff says. It's a bit like Earth being a giant computer designed to calculate the ultimate question, to solve the meaning of life, the universe and everything, Michael says, or the gaming company seeing how live service games were doing extremely well during the pandemic and assuming they should just try to pump out a bunch more. Fast forward a few years and Sony's Concord gets released and is shut

down two weeks later. Fast forward another year and High Guard does the same, exactly like, there are trends that I feel this shouldn't be a mystery. This is a predictable change due to a massive lifestyle shift that was very temporary. And if this, if you decide to try and capitalize on this and it falls through, that's on you for being completely hair brained. Like, I don't know what else to tell you, Jeff says, has this been Has this process been going on for two hundred thousand years?

That's a lot about how long modern humans have been around, Michael says, So it sounds like the central system in habits discovered ais that can power systems to turn their solar systems into lit RPG worlds where they can live lives like they're in games, benefiting from stats and skills. Seraphim says the system is mostly just hardware running on

auto till they installed the AI. Michael says they've been grabbing more of them cycle after cycle to harvest the materials needed to power the central one to make it bigger, and Jeff says exploitation is a hell of a drug. Yeah. I feel like there's just there has to be. I want somebody to do like a psychological study of people who hoard wealth and just find out like, what the fuck happened? Where when did the switch flip for them?

Because I can't help, but wonder is this something that could possibly happen to me if I were suddenly in a position to inherit a bunch of wealth, and I am coming from my present circumstances of like very low middle class. I don't even know if I quite reach middle class. Actually, would there be a point where I begin to hoard as well? Does the wealth do it to you? Or is it that you get wealthy because something's wrong with you? I kind of feel like it's

that second one. But then there are people who inherit wealth and do they also hoard I don't know anyway getting back to this. So we're trying to stop this madness. That is why you are here now. By now you should be able to move. And he tells him to drink the coffee in front of him, and is basically like there's a system thing in there that's an upgrade that it's not tested, and we don't you know, it's very much a risk for Carl to drink this, but he decides to go for it because of course, what

are you going to not do it? Like get out of here, and he tells Carl that this is an interface to pull the lever on the failsafe. Essentially you will die and you'll kill everyone else on the way out. And he says that like the whole thing that we

are asking you to do is to sacrifice yourself. That you know it's not going to get better, and the only way to stop this is to wipe out everybody and all of this wealth that has concentrated in one place, which is part of what the argument was at the end of the last book that like the fact that we've allowed this to happen to begin with, and for everybody to be such invaluable targets is also really stupid of us, and he says, We've tried to use this upgrade, but we can't do it. It has to be one

of you, guys. It will only work on this AI. The AI wants you to have this power. It wants you to trip it. It is in pain, it wants to die, it wants to go back home. And then it's interesting. He's like, here's the thing. This is my whole mission, and I've been trained to just get to the point where I'm communicating this to you and convince you to drink the thing. But I will be honest, I've started to have a little bit of a change of heart regarding all of this and feel that maybe

you shouldn't. I don't know. I know that humanity can be fucking awful. I've seen some of the worst, but I've seen some really great shit too, and I don't know. It's got me sort of wondering if this is really the best way to do this. What we're saying for you to do will disrupt the crawl, but it's not

gonna like bring it to an end. It's simply going to fuck things up for enough of for enough time and kill enough people that like everybody's going to have to regroup, but probably it's going to like eventually get back to doing the same thing and it won't ultimately change. And I don't know that like killing so many innocent people is worth it if it's not doing something permanent. And this is when he says, there's another faction of

my kind who are much more extreme. This feels like something they would do, and that's the faction that Agatha is part of. If you make this decision, be sure it's your only option. This is more than just a fail safe. It's the end of everything. If there's time to do something else, don't be so quick. And then he enters the Desperado Club and that was when he

starts talking to Orin. So that's the intro. We go to Porthos here and this is a flashback, and it's really it's this was so tough, you guys, because like, we don't know what exactly is going on with Porthos, but we do know that he's being put in this position where he is emotionally really triggered. He is not in a state where he can make a good decision because he is so distracted and worried and it's so incredibly predatory to have him making a deal right now

when he is in this frame of mind. I just this is so awful, you know, I can't imagine like the fact that he is worried about this friend that he is, like, is she dead? She could have made it, but I don't know. And this guy that he's talking to has no sympathy for him at all is incredibly unnerving.

And also the fact that Porthos won't even if he like, if he were to make a deal and get out here, he wouldn't get to find out what happened to her for a long time, which that is also particularly awful. That it's not like I just all I want. They're using him wanting to know against him even I really

I hate this so much. And he's like he's covered in blood, he's trembling, and he can't use like a healing spell even though he's instinctively trying to like click on one mentally, which is something that I wondered if this would happen when you're in the game for so long, do you start to, like, when you're out of that environment, you're gonna keep functioning as if you can do these things for a while, I would expect, you know. And

also this dude fucking brought snacks with him. So Porthos tries to be like, can I just go back out there to find out if she made it? Because I can't pull up my messages, and this guy is like, well, I mean you can, but the outreach guilds don't open again until the twelfth floor, and the deals might not

be as good as they are right now. And it's like he's not being given any sorts of real options here other than wait till the twelfth floor, or I could tell you what's going on, because something tells me this guy could find out quite easily, you know. So let's see. The tenth had been a nightmare, a world where every physical, non natural object had sapiens, some could speak, all were psychotic. A world where if one object consumed another,

it grew in power. By the end, there had been behemoths roaming the barren floor, all searching for one last morsel, all wanting to get bigger. This is a it's a Katamari capitalism combo. How interesting. Porthos's party had been twenty strong when they finished the ninth, half had taken deals at the beginning. They couldn't even find an outreach guild at the end, but that was okay. They thought one went straight to a guild upon the start of the

eleventh the deals would be better. They just needed to survive long enough for the portals to open. As far as Porthos was aware, he was the only one of his group who'd survived Himu was dead, had been plucked right up as they climbed the back of the monster searching for the moving exit. Porthos had watched him get right in half. But Minerva, he had to know if she was okay. It was driving him mad. So this

is the thing that's so like. It's part of what pulled at me so much in the first book, Guys the goblins saying like, we just wanted to get down to the next floor where our children would be safe, where we wouldn't have to fight anymore, And that's all. That's the story. Everybody gets fed is like, if you just reach this point, you'll be okay, you'll be safe. This won't happen to you anymore. And it's such a

fucking lie. The way that we make people safe is we build that into our infrastructure and the way that we function as a country. But we are such weirdos about individualism, especially in the US, and how you shouldn't need anybody, which is just fucking hilarious to be honest and then make people feel inadequate for not being able to like all of you know what, you know what? All right, back to the story, So city attenant for the hunting grounds thirty seasons, and he is just like, no,

fuck them. Next offer game guide one hundred seasons, but that could be shortened depending on the progress of your crawlers. I recommend you take this one unless you want to be a guard at the rogue Club. And he's thinking here about the dungeon Crawler cookbook, and he says still, this deal was his best chance. It had a high chance of survival despite the extra seasons. He would get out of here, build wealth, and one day return. That was it. That was the plan. And as far as

I know, he's able to pull this off. Like we've seen that Porthos is still alive, right unless he got got in the interim, but I don't think so. So anyway, if he took this deal, he wouldn't know what had happened to her. For a very, very long time, but did it matter. The plan was for them all to take a deal. Even if he didn't know she'd survived, it was still possible he'd never see her again. They separated you for this part. You had to do it alone.

They didn't warn you it would be like this and that again, like separating you out and keeping it so that you don't have anybody to consult. You can't necessarily be like, oh, we'll both pick a certain deal so that maybe we can like meet up again and actually have like an ongoing relationship with somebody not necessarily romantic, you know what I mean. And so he picks the

game guide. You have a few moments to pick some pre collapse items to take with you, and you will be allowed to sift through your current inventory should you want to take anything in there as well. No weapons, of course, but any interesting trink or items of sentiment, a good will gesture as thanks for all your hard work. The way that this is framed as just like we're being so nice. Really took deal upon the start of the eleventh floor, worked as game guide survived his inventureship.

Author of the second edition current status missing wanted by syndicate security. So then we go to chapter one, the ceasefire, and we get a map at the beginning of this with just starting positions, and then we have the start

of the description of Faction Wars. I don't want to get too in the weeds on this because I you know, I have three chapters ahead of me that I need to cover and I only have thirty minutes, so I just got to hit some highlights, although I do know that Michael understands I may have to delay some things into the next episode, which you know, if I've got to, I will. But they get slammed into this hallway that is full of like mud, and you know, Loroccos has

been underwater for a while. It's supposed to be that you get transported to this gorgeous city and then you watch it get like ripped apart and destroyed, but it's already destroyed when they arrive here, So, you know, small favors. I guess to not have to watch that, But also it would have been nice to just have a moment of break and they get separated from Imari and have to like message each other in order to find a safe room where they can all meet back up again.

The buildings were made of stone blocks and their walls were chipped and pitted even before the flooding. The sense this is a poor area of town. I had a few chats waiting for me from before, from before I'd appeared, and one of them is from Florin. One is Quasar, and it's quite long. I'm negotiating with the Liaisons, which really means I'm negotiating with the AI. It's been a Class nine shit cyclone out here these last four days.

Lots of legal movement, warships threatening blow things up, syndicate security intervening. Most is good from your point of view, but some of it is gonna itch like an infected ass tattoo. I'll leave the faction war stuff alone for your adjutant to explain. But remember that contract that the Sensation Entertainment for the Vengeance of the Daughter, even though the main character is dead, That guarantee of a third season is about to haunt the fuck out of us.

Sensation Entertainment just got purchased by a subsidiary of the Dream and things are moving. They're demanding their third season. Just stay the fuck away from any elites. Nothing is official yet, saying it won't be coming back, which means whatever happens, it's going to be something stupid. Problem is, the new showrunners won't be caring about that anymore. They're going to try to use your contractual obligation to ask fuck you. I'm trying to stop it on my m

but I don't think I'll be successful. Plus, the AI gives zero shits about what the courts say. If it thinks it's going to be funny, it's going to let it happen. Just keep your head down and listen to what Judge Victory tells you. She's a smart one. So I really really enjoy this. I didn't remember that they had done the like guaranteed three seasons thing. If I had remembered that, I think I probably would have seen coming that they would have used this against him somehow.

I am very, very curious how this is going to work because it's one of my favorite things, and my favorite I mean, like in a car crash kind of way to see how a TV series especially does this, how they try and regroup after they kill off somebody or they make like a bad decision narratively and they have to regroup in the next season and you can just see the seams sometimes and it's really you know, like there have been occasional things where I'm like, oh, Okay,

they killed off the villain in the last season because they wanted there to be a satisfying ending, but then they couldn't come up with a better villain, and so they either will like bring that villain back and have them unexpectedly not be dead and I don't think that's part of a plan always, or they will have a new villain who feels almost identical to the old villain somehow just sort of you know what I mean, like hmm,

or they will kind of do like, oh well. The one that I think about this Jeff says, remember hero season two horrifying, and Michael says, Heroes did that? Jeff beat me to that's very funny. I don't think i've finished season two. I started it, but yeah, I one of the ones that I think of is Once upon a Time, because the first season is a really fun idea and a very complete story, and then they just clearly did not know where to go, and so they

basically just do the first season over again, and it's excruciating. Eventually, I hear that they wound up coming up with some better stories later on. But I will be perfectly honest, I never watched the past season two because it was too it was not good. And same thing with like

Desperate Housewives. You know, there's a when a show has a first season that is excellent and feels complete, it's always a twenty eighty chance if they're going to be able to pull off a second season, because they all often have this one great season just to get signed because they have to, you know, somebody has to agree to pick them up. But making a complete season that feels satisfying often inherently means there isn't somewhere to go

from there, because that's the point, you know. Anyway, I think it's part of why shows that have like whole different storylines every season with a whole new like cast of characters, or they take the same actors but they change up the setting or whatever, you know what I mean, like American Horror Story, White Lotus, even like True Detectives. I think that might be part of why that trend is there. But uh, anyway, I just am really really curious what they're gonna do with that, because it could

be really amusing to see. So Carl is in pain by the way he has these fucking de buff that and I hadn't hadn't thought about the fact that him and Moni are going to get separated because she can heal him from this friggin slug thing and she they have to find their way to her. But he had thought he had would have more time before this stuff started to catch up to him. And the first one

is soul poisoning. This condition has additional effects that will soon be revealed if you don't do something about it, and it's due to the friggin you know, Scavenger's daughter thing that he did not vent in time, So now he's trying to find somewhere to vent it immediately to keep it from like really doing a fucking number on him, and is looking around like, oh my god, because he can do so much damage that it can harm him

or the people around him. Like the way this attack works can actually be a really bad thing, depending which is what happened to trigger a fucking a zombie demon event last time. And meanwhile, Dona is being given like thirty seconds to figure out what class she wants to be, and she also has to pick cards to keep, and Mordecai is talking her through them, and it's very funny because what she winds up choosing, it's like she did

not understand exactly what this meant. First consecrated Enchantress, which comes with a sash, and I love the fact that the Ai is like giving her descriptors with a specific accessory highlighted as the thing. Yes, Ai, Yes, this is how to do it. This is how to do it. I love it so much. I'm not going to pick the Halloween officia now. My personality is too sparkly and

optimistic for me to be a goth. It does come with black lipstick and a box cutter for some reason dark, and then it comes with a hat and something else what's a gilly suit? So yeah, we'll get there. This is when Carl goes and decides to unleash on this weird concierge shark, and they both get blown backward and he gets an achievement Sushi's Smoothie. You've received a sushi

making kit. And he also gets told that he has to use his foot next time, which I'm wondering if he can use the Scavenger's daughter power out of his foot. Is that something that he can channel? Like can he? I don't know. And let's see, Ellie went from thunder Princess to hailstorm. Queen Ellie says, this is probably as far as I'm gonna get. I can add the final element if I ever make it to the twelfth floor.

But I'm betting this whole shit show self destructs before we even get close, which is, you know, understandable that she would feel this way. I am still thinking about the way Samantha reacted to Ellie and like that there's some link there, but I can't make heads or tails

of that not pun intended Samantha at the moment. And they also get a bunch of notifications as warlords about like where they are, how many people are in their army right now, how many people's like positions they need to fill still, and the number of different people who are like teaming up together in truces. Let's see, I'm

trying to find the protection enhancements have been removed. While some protections exist during a ceasefire, those of you who were getting regenerated can now die, So don't trip and break your neck. At least wait until the ceasefire, and there's Team Retribution who has offered them a truce, which

they think is the NPCs. And he starts to be like, before we accept the truth, and Donut immediately accepts it without asking or like talking it over with him, and he gets really mad, understandably because historically Donut has not been great about looking through her options. But this time, when he gets mad, she's like, relax, I've been reading the help section of the Warlord tab. I love this that She's just like, I've done my research, dude, you can calm down. When did you get the time? I

don't use the restroom merely as much as you do. Honestly, I think you need to see a doctor. I think you might have out ibs uh and hear me out she's being given advice from somebody. There's also that which I wouldn't discount, And of course there's probably not a way for her to tell him that if she's in the same position he is, she can't share, you know

what I mean. I don't necessarily think it's true in the way of like the cookbook, but I could definitely see there being coded language between her and zev are people in the chat rooms, like, that's something that absolutely has to be happening. I forgot about this. Warlord Donut of the Princess Posse has named the Truth the Good Guys. Warlord Ferdinand of Team Retribution has renamed the Truth Ferdinand and his Bird, and it won't let her change it back.

So let's see. Here comes Cascadia and Carl is like, she sounds really weird and determines that she's either drunk or stoned, which leads to and exceptional performance from the voice narrator. You guys, you guys, I am so sorry, but this is one of the best deliveries. Like, people who have to do have to play drunk will often overdo it and they will get sloppy in a way that's really not usual. It's sort of a stereotype in a cartoonish way of what people are like, but it's

not like quite right. And this narrator is just fucking nailing it with her like kind of speeding up at certain times and other times pausing a little too long and then just like laughing and then going and it's top tier. So good. Ooh sorry, more chance. Michael says, Hey, gods can be sexy. I mean are you kidding me? Gods are like the sexy. Whenever dudes talk about like the it's always big titty goth girlfriend. That's you know.

I don't think it's the sexy thing she's saying. It just doesn't go with her or vibe because she's too bubbly, which I kind of like the contrast between bubbly personality and goth aesthetic. I think that's classic and definitely could work. But I also get what she means, so this whole thing is her at first just being like, you guys know how that worked? This works? You fucked it all up. It should have been this way and it's not. And

whose fault is that? I love anyway. There are ten teams total, nine attacking teams and one defending team, the NPCs, who have decided to call themselves Team Retribution. The basical is simple, capture the castle in the center. Normally, you crawlers don't really need to know much about this stuff. The floor is no different than the hunting grounds. Once this cease fire ends, you're teleported out of the city.

If you haven't left already, you just need to survive, and there's just a bunch of I don't want to get too into just reading word for word what she says here, because I feel like it doesn't This will all come up as we play, you know what I mean, so to speak, as we keep reading. Any team who controls the Throne Room will have access to the city defense system. If the Throne Room changes hands to an attacking team, there will be a half hour grace period.

Attacking teams will be eliminated if the warlord or warlords are killed, or if the throne Room of their primary base is taken and held for a period of six hours. Soldiers of an eliminated team are traditionally given the option to join the new team or be slaughtered. There are nine hundred no sorry, there are two hundred ninety three stairwell chambers. They will not open until Faction Wars is one or there are thirty hours left, whichever happens first.

And this is when we get the trade request from Team Retribution Baroness Victory Warlords. I suggest one of you proceed immediately to the Flag room to oversee the final stronghold preparations and deal with the influx of new recruits, while the other remains in Loroccos and attempts to enlist your fellow crawlers. Time is short. I cannot wait to work with Baroness Victory. I am so interested in her. I was kind of thinking that Princess for is it

Princess Formidable? Is that her name? I was sort of expecting the Baroness to have a personality more like her, But now I'm thinking she's going to be even more uptight, which I'm always here for, like an uptight character, depending on how it's done. And Donut is like talking about how she has a celestial box and I just received a former child actor accessory kit in the safe room mailbox and I need to open it right away. Plus, you know, we need to deal with your hair and

I'm missing eyebrows. And he's like, wait, what did you pick for a class? And he says, WHOA what the fuck? Donut? Great, isn't it. It's a long range sniper and assassin class. It doesn't come with many new spells, but the range on all my existing spells is quadrupled, and my dexterity is much higher. The odds of one of my spells inflicting an instakhill is higher too. I can go invisible at will and to top it off, I kept most of my spells from the last floor. But best of all,

it comes with a hat and a ghoolie suit. I don't know what that means. And it says deathbed Hellcat is the name of the class. It's gilly suit, not ghoolie. And she's just like, I think it sounds like very menacing actually, and he's like, uh huh, yeah, definitely. I don't know how many of you guys looked up what a gilly suit looks like, but you know, I've seen them before. But there's a variety of sort of types depending on what foliage you are trying to blend in with.

I understand completely why Donut hates this so much, but I think she is going to be so invaluable in this thing. I think this could be fucking great. I love it so much. So then uh, she says, it's like one of signettes to had two people fell through a paper shredder they gave me. I don't know why it's necessary. They already gave me the ability to turn invisible. And I understand what she means, but there are definitely abilities that can see through an invisibility spell. So I

think that this is a nice cover for that. You know, it's a way that you could potentially still blend in even if they can see through the invisibility. If you've got this on, maybe it's you still fool them, which would be great. And let's see, I'm trying to find that. The suit added a skill called blend into background, which I hadn't had time to examine, and cone of silence

combined with invisibility, it would be great. The floppy hat added a targeting skill which allowed her to zoom in and examine mobs from afar And basically all of this stuff combined means that she could kill somebody from like a mile away, which should be really bad ass. But Carl can't help but think, like, this is so scary because I know we're not the only ones getting bonkers gear like this right now, so yikes, you know, let's see. Uh. Mordecai comes in and he says that flack is a

good anti airspell. Get it to level ten and it puts on quite the show, which I don't know what that means, but we'll see. Now, guys, there had been a moment where Mordecai speaks to them and he said a at the end of the sentence, and I was listening and I'm like, wait a minute, is he just like Canadian this war? Is that a thing? And immediately

my brain went like, no, it's not a thing. And then I went, but why isn't it though that Tenneman would absolutely be the type to have being just a Canadian a thing, And that is exactly what we get. And I'm not mad about it. Just for the record, I think it's delight and he manages to like have this be not so over the top as to feel like distracting or cartoonish. It's just enough that you're like, yep, there it is. You know, it's not an easy thing

to pull off. This one is something called a Canadian, part French, part maple syrup. He's weirdly obsessed with ice hockey and snowmobiles and semi erotic lumberjack fan fiction. Has a well worn Tim Horton's loyalty card in his velcrow wallet. He says a boot instead of about and gets really really upset when you pointed out claiming you're hearing things and that it's a harmful stereotype. It's not a stereotype, and that's exactly how it sounds. He has a relative

who is trainfled to death by a moose. You get the idea perfect no notes, part French, part maple syrup is a classic. You know what. My mother is married to a man whose whole family is French Canadian, and I before I forget am screenshotting this description and I am sending this to her via text right now. There. She will love it. He's he got her into ice hockey, by the way, so that part is fair. And his family is very into crapes as well, so we could

just like toss that on there. So let's see. There are three scenarios where the ceasefiretime is shortened. One is a unanimous vote, which isn't going to happen. Two is if one of the warlords voluntarily withdraws, which isn't going to happen because it's not possible. The third is also unlikely. It's if all teams are finished with their defenses, they're thrown is locked in place, and they mark themselves as ready, in which case it ends immediately. Oh, we have to

heal Mango. And it's interesting because Mordecai says that heal severe injury potion requires thirty three fine healing potions to make and an autoclave. I don't know what an autoclave is, but evidently somehow she Maria managed to like sidestep the way to make this that Mordecai knows about and do it a different way. And I am so curious if, like you guys, was this thing with she Maria, Like, is this gonna have like a bunch of advantages to

it even though it's awful. I don't know, like, is this is this something horrible that's being allowed because it's gonna help him in a weird way in the end, even though it's awful. Like, ah, I don't know, I don't know. I just get so so suspicious of things being too good. And I had been wondering whether or not Carl would be able to call to mind exactly how she made these, and he isn't able to off hand, you know. He just says, like she only combined I

think three, but I can't remember specifically. If I go into my inventory to look, maybe I can figure it out. And yeah, let's see, there's healed pet potion Carl put on the ground before the vinegar Goddess Lady got her head off and now it's super sparkly, and says, revitalize pet. This was purple and looked as if someone had dumped half a jar of glitter into it. And he says, I can figure out the recipe with my new table. So let me look at it and I'll have his

wing back in a boot an hour or so. I have to imagine that Mattenman put about in practically every paragraph of text that Mordecai says, right, you can't just not do that. You got to. It has to be the thing. So ooh sorry, Monica says, my son just finished an online class with a French Canadian teacher, and she does say a in a boot once in a while. Jeff says, it mixes chemical solutions very fast. Ah okay.

Michael says, it was interesting to me how Karl referred to the actions that happened with she Maria as the stuff that he did. It had to feel to him like he was doing the things even though intellectually he

knew he held no he had no control. Super traumatizing given what happened, absolutely and like, not only from his point of view, but I would imagine that you can't help but excuse me, guys, I would imagine that you can't help, but think of it as like everybody else saw me do it, so to them, I did it, even if I know that I couldn't control myself at the time. It's just the easiest way to think about it, I think, you know, easy in a certain sense, not

all so anyway. Mordecai then uh looks at this other manner refill potion and it's called Manna blessing, and he's just like, holy shit, this is incredible. I'll be right back. And there comes a point later where she's like, I think he likes the potions more than us, and I was like, I think you're probably like kind of close to right. I think that he is getting a lot of knowledge and stuff for the first time in a while.

I'm guessing that like, up until this point it's been very much business as usual with whatever knowledge he has managed to gather, and that he is suddenly happening upon a bunch of combinations and possibilities that he hasn't seen after doing this for so long, and it must be really exciting to fight only have something new, you know what I mean. So he gets achievements. Lord of the flies a gold I have the conch box. Demons hate this one trick, unlimited supply of pea soup chicken shit exploit.

You have received a platinum surrenderl gore box that that uh huh very interested, and then an achievement for getting celestial loot. You received a lute punch card used pet and this we still have not dealt with by the time these chapters end. But we are going to have to deal with our tummy acre friend, and I am extremely interested. There's a whole thing with used Pet about people who like rescue dogs and then just leave them

in a crate all day. And look, guys, I recognize that we all have to do what we have to do in terms of like the way our lives are set up, and that dogs really can often just kind of sleep in one place for fifteen fucking hours in a day. But I just it's never sat right with me creating a dog while you're like at work. I just hate the idea. And I had so many people encouraging me to create train Pippin, and I took it very seriously initially, and that dog would not go in

that creak from when he was a tiny puppy. I put the most high value treats in there. I did everything to like make it cozy and smell good and feel safe, and it just he absolutely would not fucking do it. And so it wound up that I just wasn't going to, you know, And since then I have come to the conclusion like, yeah, I just I just

don't want to do that. I don't like it. And I see animals in my neighborhood that are like, they're young dogs, they're never indoors, and I don't understand what's the point of like having a pet that you don't want in your house with you, Like it's it's I just don't understand. Anyway, the AI goes on a bit of a rant here, which I definitely sympathize with right up until the especially when said pets are fucking delicious or really squishable, and I was like, ah, and there

you are, there you are, AI. But yeah, it's obvious that the AI is speaking from a certain perspective here. And let's see, Uh, I'm trying to go through all of these and not like read every single thing. Oh right, crab chowder, you jerked off a crab, all food items in your food boxes now have the option to be served chowder style, which is so odd because it's like, it's not even that this is for everybody else to humiliate Carl. Nobody else sees this just Carl. I'm assuming.

Maybe I'm wrong about that, but it's just the AI fucking like messing with him for the fun which I can't help but kind of enjoy and new achievement unbirthing. And this one is very sexual and I do not want to talk about it. But he does get a legendary spicy box, which we shall see because he doesn't open these while we are in this chapter. He also gets an update from Embras, who is like, yeah, so I've decided that I'm going to go ahead and make

this deal with Amion. We have a truce. I do not wish to break it, but I will do what is necessary to learn the truth. There is a way for me to do this without causing a war. Proceed to the temple of Istak in a club. Vanquisher, you need to the soul Crystal Epito, you are doing well. Do not disappoint me now. And it said at least he didn't task me with killing the three brothers myself, and I was just like Carl, it's early days, baby.

I don't know how to tell you this. But just because he hasn't done it doesn't mean he's not gonna do it, like come on right, like it just it's coming. It's coming. So chapter three, uh, Mordecai comes back out while she's opening the Platinum boxes, a standard shield spell. The next box was the same Platinum Surrender Gore box I had shaped like a jeweled sitting life sized German shepherd,

a war protection spell called Sentry and let's see. The legendary box was from the Hell Comes to Crawler Town Quest and it's a book that's got purple smoke coming off it. And Mordecai I kind of is a little spooked, and he says it's similar to Donuts Second Chance, but a lot more insidious. It's called You're Not Done Yet. And Carl says, I'd heard that spell name before, but I couldn't remember where. And I can't either, and I don't remind me. Guys, don't remind if you remembered when

you were reading. I will want to hear about that later, but I can't remember it. All I remember is like basically somebody being almost undead and being forced to keep fighting or something in a certain moment. But yeah, it's uh. This indicates to me that like the cockroach skill isn't going to be enough, which is extremely upsetting. And then

we get this friggin' benefactor box. This is wild. So it has this amazing presentation and then there's this incredible tiara on this pillow, and it turns out that the pillow is part of it, because I thought it was just this great presentation, But the pillow is the charging device for the tiara, and basically what it does is it takes the abilities from other hats and puts them into the tiara. And for each hat that you do this to one of the absorption crystals on the tir,

there ninety nine of them will be used up. So you have to be careful with the kinds of abilities you use. But this will make the tiara an item that will be likely one of the most valuable powerful things in the entire dungeon. Like ever, this is bonkers. This is next level, and the fact that it's a tiara,

I am absolutely here for all of this. It's described as like parlessent and red I think it's I think it's red, right, I'm trying to find the spot here where a red fluffy pillow with a glittering, shiny opal lessent Tiara, Okay, so it's red. Is the cushion I'm trying to see? Is my hold on you? Guys? I think that, uh, this probably counts as opal lessent, right, It's not that kind of that thing going on there. So this is my new I'm with the Princess Posse fan where this is me at crawl Con. This is

what I would wear. So I'm very happy for you, Donut. This is ideal. It's got a nice sort of neutral look, so it can go with any outfit. Incredibly useful, and I am just absolutely so happy for her. I'm very

here for all of this. And then there's a second cushion which allows them to transfer from two hats at a time, which like this shit was already bananas, and to be able to do two at a time, And there's even the mention of like they're magnetized so that the cleaning bot can't just knock the hat off and make it so that they don't because if it gets removed, the hat is still deep powered but it doesn't get transferred to the tiara, so you really have to like

commit and it takes a while. I think it says something like fifteen hours or something like that, trying to the specific explanation here, let's see ten hours. That's it. These properties will be stored in the pillow until the tiara is placed upon the charger, upon which time all of the buffs and magical enhancements will be instantly transferred to the tiara. If a hat item contains five separate buffs, it will use up five of the ninety nine jewels.

With some careful planning, one can turn this tiara into one of the most powerful items in the history of dungeon crawler world. Okay, here come the warnings. Temporary effects will remain temporary and upon expiration, will burn out the absorption jewel, which is really important. Items with curse effects may or may not transfer to the tiara, depending on multiple factors, so be wary as such. Curse effects may or may not be removed from items that have been

drained of their magical properties. Certain celestial god blessed hat items may or may not be properly drained or transferred. Items carrying a debt cannot be absorbed into the pillow. This is a big one. Hat items placed on the pillow take ten hours to fully transfer. However, if you remove the item after one hour, it will still lose

its magical abilities. So yeah, Dona, of course, it's just like, oh my god, this is not only amazing because now I can get the abilities from all these hats I've collected, but also I still get to keep the hat. It doesn't destroy the hat, so I still get to keep my hat collection, which is honestly a great bonus. And I agree fully. And then a goal of Platinum Benefactor box from the Apothecary, which brings another charging pillow. This will drain any magical item, but it will only transfer

to a like item. If you drain a ring, the store buff will only be transferred to an absorption crystal fixed to a ring. If you attempt to transfer to an incompatible item, the buff will be lost, which is huge. And I don't think that this is restricted to just her use. I think that Carl could probably use these items as well. Well. The Tiara one no, but this one, yes,

I would think. So. At this point, we have Mango actually noticing that his wing is injured, and Doughnut being like, okay, can we use that potion now because he's starting to freak out. Uncle Carl is going to give you your medicine. You'll have to drink every drop. Be gentle, Carl. I picked up the sparkling potion, walked over to Mongo, and I smashed the vial on his butt at the base of his tail. And I really appreciated this. I am so precious about things that like, honestly, it really is

best to do it this way. When I worked on that goat farm, I had to occasionally inject the goats with an antibiotic, and I never stuck them hard enough the first try, because goats have very thick skin, so they just sort of hop like they'd been bitten by a fly. And then I'd have to do it again. And the guy teaching me was like, you have got to just fucking clench your teeth and do it, dude, because you're just making it worse for everybody. And I

was like, I know. So let's see. When we'd first watched Kwan where his magical celestial tiered cloak, we'd seen he'd had several new abilities right away, and we automatically assumed the powers were simply what the cloak gave him, and we get a description here about how this cloak is meant to show you who's the weakest in a group, so that you know who to heal, that this is meant to make you like somebody who helps people, and that Kwan used it to do evil basically, and Donut

has a really insightful moment of like, do you think that this AI is making Quan sound worse by using the description like framing it all this way, which, in the end, Carl is like, you know, it really doesn't

matter the way the AI frames it. It might be trying to make him look worse, but we know what Quan did and how many player killer skulls he had, and like that is just objectively, he became a terrible person, so regardless of the AI trying to spin shit, the facts are the facts, which yeah, fair, But I do like the fact that Doughnut clocks the AI trying to

make him sound even worse than he is. So I'm gonna stop here because I'm fifteen minutes over, so I really do and I will finish the rest of this section with the next one, and yeah, I'm just I want to spend a little bit more time talking about some of the line things in this section. And also I'm really excited to see what Carl got in his boxes because those aren't in this chapter. So all right, guys, thank you again so much for hanging out. Appreciate you,

and until next time to THELU motherfuckers. That was an Unspoiled Network podcast.