The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, Chapters 24-26

If you'd like to get these episodes early AND ad-free, please go to https://www.patreon.com/unspoiled and become a patron, or just follow us as a free member for updates!
Thank you very much to Michael for commissioning this episode! 
These chapters are the ones where it turns out that the fallout after Katia kills Hekla is way less intense than I first expected, and we're just getting on with the damn thing. 
Thanks so much to you all for listening, and I will see you soon with a new episode!
Wanna talk spoilers? Join the Discord! https://discord.gg/rEF2KfZxfV

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
covering Dungeon Crawler Carl Book three, The Dungeon Anarchists Cookbook,
chapters twenty four through twenty six. In these chapters, absolutely

(00:25):
nothing that I expected as fallout after Hecklo's death actually happens.
It's almost bizarre how very much none of that happened.
I thought I knew, and now we're just I don't
know what to expect. Welcome to spoil Me, Welcome to

(01:05):
the show everyone. I am Natasha. Thank you very much
to Michael as usual for commissioning this episode. Yeah, so
you guys, like I really thought at the end of
the last chapter that we were about to have like
all out like confrontation, and what I was concerned about

(01:30):
are e the daughters not knowing about Hecklea's plan and
seeing Katya as a traitor. Did indeed come to pass.
That is real, but it's just not. What I didn't
see coming was how lacking in in any show of

(01:56):
real strength they are. They're angry at Kata, they hate Carl,
they have their whole like they're they're very much up
in their feelings, but they are not tough enough to
really come at them one on one, and they are
not organized enough and they do not have enough offensive

(02:18):
players to do the job, so like our guys, wind
up being able to pretty much flee on the train,
take the train, and the only person that they actually
have a real confrontation with is Sofa. Because Eva gets

(02:39):
picked up by a undead Hecla and chucked out a window.
We know she's still alive because Katcha says that Eva
is still in her chat, so it's not that she's dead,
it's just she's been sidelined for the moment. And all

(02:59):
I can think about is Maggie and her and Eva
and both of them being the type that they are,
and how much they probably hate Carl specifically or at
least his group as a whole, and if the two
of them find each other that is going to be

(03:19):
a very very upsetting combo. But no need to worry
about that right now. So I just thought it was
going to be like Melee, you know, and instead it's
actually kind of pathetic, And one sweet talk to Silfa,

(03:41):
she tells them that nobody is sticking with the daughters
because heck like, once Hecla dies, Eva becomes the leader
automatically by default through the AI system, I'm assuming because
she's got the highest stats. So nobody likes Eva, and

(04:02):
therefore once people see that she's in charge, they just
are fucking bailing. Which I really sort of expected that
maybe some of them wouldn't like Eva, but that there
would be like a number and maybe there still are,
but I sort of thought more of them were going
to want to be stayed with Eva in order to

(04:25):
get revenge on heckless behalf, and so even if they
didn't like her personally, they'd be able to sort of
set that aside in favor of vengeance, you know what
I'm saying. And it's just not going down like that
at all, And I'm not mad about it, just to
be clear, I'm disappointed, but not in the writing. I'm

(04:49):
disappointed in these women who let themselves get so dependent
on a central figure that once that person is taken out,
they have no idea what to do. It's genuinely embarrassing
and it's such a it's such a human thing, you know.

(05:12):
We have this bizarre idea and I don't know if
it comes from like our love of storytelling and myth,
but we just love the concept of like a hero,
the person who is the answer, the one person who
is brave enough, who is good enough, who is strong

(05:34):
enough to do the thing that nobody else can do.
And we will find ways to elevate random people to
this position because we feel like we need it. And
it's a very dangerous thing because it can result in
this cults of personality thing that we've got going on

(05:54):
with Trump right now, or it can result in constant dissilation,
and that then like losing your faith in humanity as
a whole, when really you wouldn't be losing your faith
if you saw people as human beings instead of these figureheads.
Or then there's like instances like this where they are
lying to themselves about who Hecla is, not looking at

(06:17):
the actual evidence, not believing the information from outsiders because
they assume that's like tainted somehow. And I like, I
haven't seen enough of how the relationship between Hecla and
the daughters worked, so I don't really know exactly what

(06:40):
Hekla has done to earn this loyalty from them, beyond
being a huge badass herself. You know, I really am
curious about some of the ways that she went about
convincing people that she cared so much because Sofa is
really Carl has to talk her step by step through

(07:02):
the thing. And I always am very saddened when a
person keeps insisting but they would never do that. There
are times where I'm like, you know you saying this
about how your husband wouldn't leave you with no notice
and not tell I believe that we can know folks

(07:24):
well enough to know that, you know, if Marshall just
didn't turn up after work today, I would know something
was very wrong because that's just not what he would do.
So in some cases saying so and so would never
do this is valid. But in a case like this,
where you don't have a personal relationship even though you
think you do, believing that you actually know what somebody

(07:46):
is capable of, is you telling yourself a story and
seeing how selfho was going to get used? Because I
believe Carl's version of what was planned is likely correct
what he thinks based on And there's a point where
Eva says, we weren't actually going to kill you, Katya,

(08:07):
we just wanted to rile his temper, and Silpha also
says something like you are crazy. You get mad over nothing,
at all, which I want to know. We've seen the
footage that's been edited to make him look bloodthirsty, but
I don't recall the footage that has made him look

(08:29):
like he has just a straight up temper issue, because,
if anything, Carl is like pretty well controlled in comparison
to a lot of people, So I don't know like
they're thinking that they can exploit his temper. I am
really curious, like where that's coming from. But when Eva says,

(08:52):
we weren't going to kill you, we just wanted to,
I don't believe her for a moment. She was just
saying that they absolutely did intend to kill her. Carl
thinks that they were intending to kill her, that he
was going to get enraged as Silfa for running, and
then because that's what was reported to them, right, I
think it's donah when he says, like where the fuck

(09:13):
does the fairy go? She says, she ran, and they
were thinking that Karl would blame her and he would
kill the fairy out of retribution for Katchia's death, and
then Eva or Hekla would have to kill Karl and
it would seem justified because he lost his temper, and

(09:35):
Donut would have nowhere to go, and they would be
able to take her. Donah insists that if they had
killed him, she would never have gone with them, that
she's just like, it's out of the question. I think
she would have. I Donah isn't totally honest about herself sometimes,
and I think she would have. But you know, that's

(09:56):
setting aside her having no ability to actually see these
phantom bolts, phase bolts, I think whatever they're called. So
ultimately the plan had been to sacrifice Silfa and probably

(10:18):
he's kind of wondering. I think Eva was set to
defend you, and maybe Hecla had been planning on sacrificing Eva. Also,
I don't buy that one. I could see suspecting it
because Hecla is Hella ruthless was sorry, but Eva being

(10:42):
willing to do the brute work that's too valuable. I
just don't really think Hecla would be willing to lose
a player that is really the only person taking any
pressure off her in terms of having offensive abilities. And

(11:02):
as Carl reflects, he's like the whole party was kind
of a mess. Like I think initially having all of
these healers was probably working out really well, but as
things went on, they were just not leveling up and
they weren't able to do the job. So that's part
of why she's willing to sacrifice Silfa is because she's

(11:23):
got too many healers and so you know, what's one
less we probably won't even notice. And finding out that
Silpha's got a couple of daughters here who are mages
is even sadder to choose to sacrifice somebody who has family.
I know that probably what heck is thinking is that

(11:46):
will get them even more angry at Carl and make
it feel like I did the right thing. They'll be
pleased with me as a leader for taking Carl out,
and I will have their loyalty even more locked down.
But it's just such a gross thing to do, Like yikes,
you know, Oh sorry, Saraha was leaving a bunch of comments.

(12:09):
Sorry Saramon, I didn't see any of them. I'd take
a number of them are more afraid of Eva than
they are angry with Kotcha and Karl. I don't think
they intended to kill Kotcha, but also wouldn't have cared
if the plan did end up with her dying. I well,
Heckla might not have had Katya dies on her list
of goals, Eva very much would have Yet that was
kind of what I was thinking was much more. It

(12:30):
was it was the official plan. We weren't actually going
to kill you. But Eva really doesn't like Kotcha, and
I think that she would have figured out a way
to make it so Katcha did die because she just
didn't want to deal with her anymore. Like she clearly
saw Kotcha not just as like a waste, but as
actively making things worse. So I think it was more

(12:52):
me assigning this to to Eva than to Hecla. I
could see Heckla being pragmatic enough to be to lose
even if it came to that in exchange for getting
access to Mordecai, even if it wouldn't be the ideal outcome.
I could see it, But I just personally don't think
it's worth a trade off. Mordecai is a huge advantage,

(13:14):
but that advantage is only something that's really exploitable if
you've got folks who can fight like other than just yourself.
I feel like you've got to keep Eva around for
for a little bit longer. So I don't know, it's
just it's it's not. I don't. I wish I knew
a little bit more about what Heckla's party was like,

(13:37):
and more details about what she was thinking and how
she was planning to approach things. For me, it just
doesn't seem like it's a good payoff because it's thinking
very long term when the short term situation doesn't seem good,
and I feel like you need to deal with that first.
But maybe having Mordecai would offset that in some sense.

(13:59):
I don't really know how that would work, though. It
would require such a complete overhaul of her party and
the way that people function within it. I don't know,
but maybe she would be down to do that. Maybe
they would find out, they would find more plans for,
like killing off party members to replace them with other people.
I don't know. But yeah, So like this whole beginning part,

(14:21):
it's like just a really quick confrontation with Eva. Eva
like coming and clockwork, Hecla stopping her, tossing her out
a window, then climbing on the car of the train
taking off, and eventually finding Silfa on the train. And

(14:44):
in the midst of all of this, poor Hecla is
Hecla Katcha is dealing with the shock of the whole thing,
because it's a lot, you know. She thought this woman
had done everything for her and it was all trick.
She thought that she had been left behind by accident
and it was on purpose. She thought she was doing

(15:05):
something because it was good for the group, and it
was actually her being a sacrificed pond that didn't matter.
And then she was going to try to kill Eva,
and she kills Hecla instead, like absolutely nothing was what
Katcha thought it was, and that fucking sucks. And I
really like the way that once they talked to Silfa.

(15:27):
I like the way it ends. He says, go to
your daughters, tell them what I told you, and that
we're sorry about everything, but that's not our fault. It
was fucking Hecla's. Hecla's fault. And she says she was
protecting us when she died. It automatically made Eva the
party leader. People don't like her. They're leaving the party.
Brinhild's Daughters is no more. We're nothing without Hecla. We

(15:49):
have hardly any equipment, we don't have a personal space anymore.
We all have sponsors, but most of us is the
same one as Hecla. The crab ranch, and they've never
sent us anything. We have nothing. What are we going
to do? Sounds like a you problem. Like It's not
that I don't have any sympathy, It's just that I

(16:09):
find it so unthinkable to allow myself into this position
where I have no options of any kind, you know,
And like the closest I've ever come to This was
my last marriage where by the time we decided to
split up, I had been unemployed for about seven months,

(16:33):
and I had no real money of my own, and
so leaving I had to like take money from his
paycheck essentially in order to leave, which felt really really pathetic.
And I had never thought that I was going to
allow myself to get into a position like that. But

(16:55):
I hadn't intended for the unemployment to last as long
as it did. There was a lot of things that
like coalesced into me, have like almost wanting to stay
simply because getting out was going to be so messy.
And we had thought about having me continuing to live
in the house and getting a job and saving up money.

(17:18):
And I started applying, and I must have applied to
like thirty places, and I kept getting interviews and I
kept getting promised you got the job, here's the start date,
and then I would never hear from them again. And
I remember there being this feeling of just like I
wouldn't be so desperate now if I hadn't let myself

(17:39):
relax the way that I did. And it sucks because
it feels nice to be able to relax sometimes and
to feel like you don't have to constantly be on guard.
But I've come to learn the world just doesn't really

(17:59):
the way that we have chosen to build our systems,
It does not facilitate anybody getting to feel safe. That's
the way that it functions is by exploiting your feeling
of not being safe, you know, and preying on the
constant fear of that and the constant desire for it,
which is what we see in this game with we

(18:21):
were going to make it down to the sixth floor,
we were going to make it down to the third floor.
All anybody wants is to get to a place where
they are safe, their families are safe, and they feel
like they can just live. But the whole way they
motivate us is by showing repeatedly that we cannot have it.
At least where we are. There's just this like fantasy

(18:42):
version of reality in the future somewhere that we could
have it if we got there, And it's just a
lie unless you break through to the absolute upper echelons.
And I can't help but think, you know, we have
this like question a lot of us with people who
are wildly wealthy. How much money do you really need?
Like when do you reach a point where you have

(19:05):
more money than I will ever make if I were
to live for seven hundred years, And you don't want
to get taxed at a reasonable rate because you're worried
about not having enough? What is enough? What does that
even look like for you? And a part of me
thinks these people are particularly afflicted with this fear in

(19:30):
a way that even somebody like me who lives with
it constantly can't quite understand. And maybe that is part
of why they are willing to do things that I
would never be willing to do, because that fear is
so strong in them for some reason, I don't know,
But anyway, it ends with Carl's saying to her, I

(19:53):
don't know. There's a whole train of people, and I'm
sure somebody would love to join up with you, but
it won't be us because we will never trust each other.
And it sucks because that's exactly what they want to happen.
It breaks my fucking heart. And I really liked that
moment is him simultaneously acknowledging we are falling into the trap,
but also that is reality, and I don't trust you

(20:16):
and there's just no way, you know. It is really
sad because this is the thing, is the system. Also
it praise on fear of insecurity and you know, lack
of safety, and it points your fears at the wrong

(20:38):
parties so that you direct all of that in the
wrong place. And it is so easy to fall into
it because even if you are not somebody who is
really susceptible to like basic bigotry like all the immigrants

(20:59):
are stealing our jobs, or trans people are sexual predators,
or you know any number of like the boogeymen that
get trotted out as probably where society is beginning to decay.
Even if you don't fall for that kind of horseshit,
you can still catch yourself looking at somebody who, if

(21:23):
you really look at the big picture, they are as
much a victim of this disastrous system as you are.
But you still fucking despise them in a way that
you can direct your energy toward, and ultimately it's like
not actually really helpful, but it feels good because it's

(21:46):
immediately true. Perhaps like somebody like Madison, for example, shitty
middle management, actually exploiting as if she is at the
top of the pyramid when she's nowhere near. She thinks
she's higher level than she really is, wants to be
higher level, wants to hurt more people than she even can. However,

(22:09):
Madison's a part of this whole thing and isn't really
real and is being used and played just like everybody else.
But she fucking sucks, and it's so easy to just
be like Madison is the devil. I mean, she's literally
been made into the devil to distract you from the
real devil, and it is extremely effective. And I'm not

(22:32):
mad at anybody who falls for it, really because like
I get it. You know, it's easier to point to
somebody that you know personally in middle management who makes
your life personally. Hell, of course, that is going to
be a much easier bad guy than a fucking shadowy

(22:55):
corporate CEO somewhere that you have nothing to do with.
It's just it sucks. It sucks how easy it is
to do this to us, and the playbook is so
transparent and it's so well read, like we all technically
know it, but we still fall for it even though

(23:16):
we know. And that's the saddest part. It's just anyway. Okay,
So Katcha asks him, how did you know about hecla
and he says, I've gotten pretty good at spotting that
sort of thing that wasn't true at all. If Odette

(23:38):
hadn't warned me, I'd likely be dead right now. I
don't really know. I guess Carl doesn't want to say
at this point. Odette warned me because if Donnah hears
that he had any inkling and that he shared it

(24:00):
with her, maybe she'll freak out. I think it's the
wrong move, though personally I think that like, there is
the possibility that Dona is going to hear or find
out somehow that he knew, and then there's gonna be
explaining to do I don't know. It just seems like

(24:24):
the more of this he continues to keep to himself,
the more it might blow up in his face later.
But that's like how I feel about all lies, honestly,
is just that is going to come back to bite you,
and it's up to you how long you're going to
give it to snowball before it fucking either shows up

(24:44):
and rolls you over or you choose to take control
of it and handle it yourself. You know, So maybe
it's nothing. I don't know. Rob says, I don't think
Carl can say that because is sharing that information illicitly.
Oh okay, yeah, I think you're probably right. It's so

(25:06):
hard because like you guys know how this is where
it's illicitly, but also we all know everybody does it
and we kind of half expect it. But that doesn't
matter because like the rules say, so, I think of
it as something that's like probably frowned on a little,
but it's not a big deal. But considering the way
that everything has been going with like them targeting Carl,

(25:26):
they're gonna use any excuse to fuck him. So, yeah,
you're probably right. So it turns out because he's really
bummed the whole thing with this, like first encounter with
even getting tossed and then getting on the train, the
biggest thing for him was grabbing kotcha or heckless body.

(25:46):
I'm sorry, I just keep mixing them up, you guys.
But they grab herglos's body and he's like determined because
they have to loot it, and some of the stuff
has to be looted by Katya apparently, like the key.
And once they actually get on the train and get moving,
he looks down and he realizes that a big portion
of her body is gone, like from her upper torso

(26:07):
up and he's super mad because there is that crossbow
that he really wanted to get his hands on. And
Katcha says, oh, you mean this, and she fucking looted it,
and he's just like, oh shit. And it's not something

(26:28):
that can be used by a man. This is a
wild weapon. So there's a whole thing with this goddess. YadA, YadA, YadA.
I don't care about it. This item may only be
wielded by a female. For every female in your party
up to thirty, this item's damage and firing speed is

(26:49):
increased by twenty five percent. That's fucking inside your Strength
plus level increases base damage one point five times more
than a standard crossbow. Plus fifteen dexterity when wielded plus

(27:09):
ten strength when wielded, casts birth defect on monster types
to generate or or birth additional monsters. And finding out
that Hecla had this girl power group because she had
a weapon that was superpowered by women presence is so

(27:34):
icky and like really just sucks. It really sucks. I
kind of love it. It's like it feels so correct
in a way, you know what I'm saying. There's just
something about this that I'm just like anybody who becomes

(27:55):
like a leader in a way like this, there's always
probably some kind of catch and like when you become
a leader in like of a large group like this,
you know, not when you're necessarily just the leader of
any party, because I think that people just wind up
in this position due to their stats and stuff. But
like what Hekla was doing in accumulating this following that

(28:21):
really speaks to like a personality type as well. But uugh,
just the whole idea of like it being so self
centered and just focused on upping her own weapons capabilities
and how apparently they didn't know that the bolts that

(28:45):
she had. It is like he hands one to Silpha
to prove what he was describing happened, so that she
could see its properties, and Silpa, it's not like she
recognizes the bolt and she just says, this could be
one of yours. You know, they aren't even aware. I
wonder how many other like stealth weapons she and Eva

(29:07):
have on them that they haven't shared with anybody. So
a little bit later, Uh, they run into Lee June
and I love him. You guys, the description of this
train car with all of this gore in it, is

(29:28):
really difficult for me to fully keep in mind. I
appreciate that the author continually reminds us that it's basically like,
there's enough there are enough inches of blood in the
bottom of the car that Silfoot could have been drowned
in it if Donut had kept holding her face in

(29:50):
it the way that she was when Silfa first came out.
It's just hard for me to fucking picture, you know
what I'm saying. And every time that they run into somebody,
they're completely like it's like somebody just dumped a bucket
over their head. Carry style. So I just like this

(30:12):
being mentioned every time because it does completely go out
of my head because it's hard for me to fully comprehend.
And yeah, Lie shun the Level twenty eight street monk.
He didn't carry any weapons. He didn't look much different
than before. I was glad to see he was still alive.

(30:35):
Your sister, Zang, I asked, suddenly concerned that he was
here alone. They are fine, he said. They are in
the cargo near the front, and we can't get to
each other until the train stops. We have been saved
again by you. I have come to pay my respects
and they bump so that they can chat, and Carl says,
I have to show you how to drive this train,

(30:55):
talks through the overall plan that they have and Lee
and brings up a station that doesn't seem to have
any ghouls at it. But Carl says, well, the thing is,
when they get to stage three, it looks like that's
when they head to twenty four. So even though there's

(31:16):
nothing there yet, it looks like that's like the final
stand and twenty four or thirty six, which is where
we're heading, at least we know what we're up against there.
We have some friends who are trapped all the way
at the end of the line. We're gonna save them
each and everyone. And then we have a little moment
where don't it is like I cannot believe we're saving

(31:38):
them to oh, my God, and he says, I won't
try if you guys don't think we should, Donut sighed.
She whispered something to Katya. They both started laughing. What
I asked, what's so funny? You're going to get us
killed one way or the other. Carl, Well, it might

(32:00):
as well be for a good cause, Donna said, I grunted. Well,
they do say I'm crazy. I really want to know
what she said. I don't think she just like I
don't think what she said to Carl is what she
said to Katya. And I'm kind of hoping for a
recap at some point that shows something going on in

(32:21):
Carl's own party that he wasn't aware of that you
know what I'm saying. There's just like, there's this this
is a question for me as well. We have the
whole thing with the footage that they share of Hecla's
death and the way that they frame all of that right,
And this happens a little bit later, but I'll talk

(32:41):
about it now. They have it be sort of like
a retrospective in memoriam of Heckla, showing her first days
and how she grew her posse, and they also show
how Katya is so mousey and timid, and that she
lets even do all the fighting and all of this stuff.

(33:03):
They're really setting up a narrative. And then eventually, when
it's the moment of Hecla's death, they do not make
it look like Katya had been going to try and
kill Eva and accidentally hit Hecla. They make it look
like Katya hits Hecla out of pure revenge for having
been almost killed. Katya is like, that's not the way

(33:24):
it went. They're making me look like some crazed, like
bloodthirsty person. Honestly, I don't think that this is a
bad thing for Katya, and I don't think it makes
her look bloodthirsty either. I think that many people would
be completely fine with they almost killed you on purpose.

(33:47):
Of course you're gonna want to kill them. I think
that this won't factor the way she's thinking it's going
to factor. And I also understand narratively, why would just
not include that it's accidental and try and make her
look a little bit more competent, you know, having it

(34:08):
be like she accidentally killed this insane badass that everybody
thought was low key untouchable. It's not as fun a
story as she did it purposely due to revenge. Of course,
that's like a way more compelling, you know, it being accidental,
As much as I'm fine with it as a reader
for this story, we don't, you know, It's not like

(34:31):
they played the footage of Eva mocking her the way
that she did, so there would have to be like
a sort of further humiliation of Katya before her trying
to kill Eva would even really make sense, and I
don't want that for her. I like the way this
is setting her up to look like she has fucking

(34:53):
started to take control of her life, even though it's
not really quite true. The way it looks it is
true in a way, and I prefer this version just
for her reputation. So I understand her feeling away because
I also definitely wouldn't like seeing myself edited to seem

(35:13):
like a different person, of course not, but I can't
help but think that this is probably an improvement for her.
And there's a whole thing later where I also kind
of wonder about what Carl thinks is going to be
the reaction to something that I'm sort of not sure
he's right about. So let's see, there was a rising

(35:36):
chorus of crawlers who found themselves trapped at the abyss.
If they had those hats, they could just step through
one of the thousand plus portals and teleport to a
train yard. But an increasing number we're finding themselves at
the edge of the pit with no way to escape.
I now suspect that there was only a single abyss.
I was starting to get a sense of how the
entire railway looked. The whole thing was like one of

(35:56):
those spirograph drawings. The train yards dotted the exterior edges
of the pattern, spaced at regular intervals. The colored lines
looped around, over and under each other, but all led
to a single point in the center, which was the pit. Katcha,
who studied them at more than anyone, continued to insist
there was something we were missing. I didn't care as

(36:17):
long as we knew how to get from point A
to point B. Now I'm not saying caring would help,
because you don't know what it is. So really, Carl's
approach of just I'm focusing on what I know is
the only thing to do. But the fact that she
has her suspicions, I am really worried about it. It

(36:39):
is I like of course, of course, there's something that
they're missing. I cannot imagine at like the abyss itself,
Like what is the function of this? Does something come
out of that? Eventually? It being at the center of
everything feels like there is a next step to that,

(37:01):
but I don't know. I don't know. So let's see.
We had to take the battered and half destroyed for
a million car all the way to the end of
the line and distribute as many of the hats as possible.
The trip would take a full day and would be
fraught with danger. If the train broke down, or the

(37:21):
line was blocked, or the power went out, we'd be fucked.
Surely there would be monsters crawling all over the line
and we'd have to plow through them all. It was
a terrible idea, and I knew Mordecai would have a
coronary if he knew we were thinking about this. Still,
what else could we do? We all agreed that was

(37:42):
the plan for now, unless someone came up with something better.
So he goes to station seventy five and he notes
a bunch of the daughters who just sort of like disappear,
and is thinking about the fact that the party being
no more, seems like it's for the best. We decided

(38:06):
to keep Katcha hidden while we unhooked the train, lest
someone's emotions get the best of them. I traded fistbumps
as I loudly exclaimed that I needed people's hats and
any keys they'd gathered along the way. My fellow crawlers
were standoffish at first, considering what had happened with Heckla
plus Donut and I looked like extras from a hell
Raiser movie. But once people learned about why I was

(38:28):
collecting the hats, a chorus went out. I'd been expecting
people to selfishly hold on to them, just in case
there was one last trick, or so they could sell
them later, but that's not what happened at all. People
worked together, they coordinated, they spread the word. In twenty minutes,
I had over seven hundred of the hats pile in

(38:48):
front of me, plus another fifteen colored line keys that
would also work for the portals. It was enough for now.
Hopefully it remained that way. Yes, I thought there is
hope for us, not a lot, but it's there because
he was definitely having an existential crisis over how ruthless
Heckla had been prepared to be and was just like,

(39:11):
is this who we fucking are? And the answer is like, partially, yeah,
you know, we are very flawed. And there are times
where I think Heckles's approach might be warranted, but I
think ultimately that kind of thing does tend to backfire,

(39:36):
you know, mostly though, because that kind of ruthlessness only
makes you feel like your decisions are so valid that
you get to be more and more cavalier about other
people's lives and sacrificing them. You know. I feel like
if the way that you broke the seal initially with

(39:59):
that of decision making and the intense guilt and sadness
that you felt at doing what you felt was really
required of you but also upsetting, if you felt that
way every single time, then maybe it would be sustainable.
But that's not how you feel every single time. You

(40:20):
start to get used to it, and you start to
even see it as not really that big a deal,
and that's where I think it starts to get really
like you're not a person anymore, you know. So Carl
is thinking, how like, yeah, there is hope for us,
and then Doughnut chimes in and instantly is like, we

(40:44):
should sell these we should sell all of these hats.
We would make three and a half million dollars, and
you know we and he's like that it'd look so
great on the show, collecting every hat, telling people that
we need it for this altruistic reason, and then fucking
selling them great idea. And then he says, we'd be
like Bee's cousin who pretended she had cancer and got

(41:06):
all that money on gofund me. I have a very
close friend whose brother did that. I think he raised
something like twenty four thousand dollars and he he's like
quintessential troubled kid, you know. So when I heard this,

(41:27):
I was sort of like, oh, wow, that actually really tracks.
He's one of those people that it's like, I actually,
even with all of that, I don't even think he's
a bad person. I think he genuinely is. Just like,
it's not like he stole twenty four thousand dollars from
one person. A bunch of people were nice and gave
it to me and I did what I wanted with it.

(41:49):
Who what's the harm? And it's he just has like
that kind of like very almost childish outlook about things.
But when like it is the sort of thing that
I know goes on. I know there are people out
there doing this, and it just makes me so sad because,
like it results in so many people being really gun

(42:10):
shy about donating the things that are legit, you know,
and they think that they're being savvy, when it's just
a trait with human beings that we mistake being suspicious
of other people for being intelligent, you know. I don't
like it. So as the train left, leaving the three

(42:34):
of us alone with a battered subway car, we spent
some time exploring the Strange Station seventy five. This was
one of the last major parts of the railway we
hadn't yet investigated, and they go through all of these
different areas and there's like all these ghoul corpses around
and also nol and hobgoblin bodies. I think as someone

(42:55):
was here already, all of them look as if they've
already been looted. I haven't found a single gold piece,
and I was sort of wondering if this was Lucian
mar I don't know there's because he says later, like
she was so pretty. I don't you know, she has
this like sometimes she looks terrifying and horrible, and sometimes

(43:17):
she looks really beautiful. And I'm really wondering about Lucilla
Mar because, like the way that Carl has talked about
her and the way that we've seen her on the show.
He has said how she's like clearly a psychopath, but
we know how this editing lies, and I'm wondering if
this is actually who she is. The reports that we

(43:40):
have been getting from people outside of the show seem
to support, but the show is saying in terms of
her coming into the Desperado Club and just letting her
dogs fucking attack a ton of people and then like
be mad that she got kicked out. So like, you know,

(44:01):
these stories appear to line up with what we think
of her already, but it's possible that we are being
misled somehow, maybe even on purpose, you know. And when
I say on purpose, I mean by Lucia Mar, not

(44:22):
just by the show. Is it helpful to her to
have the kind of reputation that she does, I imagine
it probably is. You know, Like, granted, she's like on
the leader board, she's incredibly powerful, but also she is
a woman, and she is by herself, She's got no party.
She's got her dogs, and maybe that is just one

(44:44):
of the ways to keep herself safe is to be
perceived as a complete, unstoppable maniac of a person. So anyway,
I'm just kind of wondering about her in this place
and whether she's part of what was going on here,
because we have heard very little about her activity on

(45:08):
this floor. There has been less talk of her than
there has been on the other floors, Like overall, I think.
So they let's see, they go into the bar the
Downward Dog. There were no rooms for rent here. There
was an entrance to our personal space. But this is

(45:30):
more like the local bars they had at the entrance
to the Desperado Club, meaning it wasn't a true safe room.
We couldn't open boxes inside the bar, nor were reprotected
from mobs. And there is a dude that is a
Shade Knoll passed out drunk on the bar, and we

(45:52):
have this like weird. So there's just a brief moment
where they're going into their personal spaces to get a
shower and Kachiaos don't track blood on the floor, as
Katcha called as we all tracked blood on the floor. God,
I can just hear my mother. Now, Katya, take off
your shoes. You're going to grow up and have a

(46:15):
filthy home. It turns out she was right, She laughed
as she tiptoed through the home and toward her space.
She still left dirty red prints on the floor. At
that moment, it hit me Kotchya was now and forever
a part of the team. Nobody needed to say it
out loud. We all knew while this would never be home,

(46:35):
this space was just for us and only us. Here's
my concern. She whitelisted the daughters. I don't know how
that works, and I really don't like that it hasn't
occurred to anybody to ask, because I don't know. It's

(46:56):
possible that since the daughters have broken up and are
not a thing anymore, it means the nobody can get
in because that party was the thing that was whitelisted,
and the party doesn't exist, so now put, maybe or
she whitelisted each individual from the party, in which case

(47:20):
every single one of them could get in here, which
is really worrying and we need to fucking do something
about that, especially considering Eva as the fuck out there still.
And it bugs me that it hasn't occurred to anybody, because,
like her, whitelisting them all had me twitchy as fuck

(47:41):
to begin with. But now this would be like one
of my first priorities. When we go back into the
private space, I would at the very top be like,
all right, we need to look at the white list,
we need to figure out how this works. And it's
not mentioned, and it's bothersome to me. It doesn't feel

(48:03):
like Carl, it doesn't feel like something he would forget.
So I don't know, it's just really on my mind.
It's on my mind. So let's see. Despite all the craziness,
neither Donut or I received anything except a handful of
Standard Adventurer boxes, and one of my achievements didn't have

(48:25):
anything to do with the battle new achievement mentally unstable
Clothing Hoarder, you have over five hundred of the exact
same stackable clothing item in your inventory, which I wonder
what that is. I'm assuming it's like something that the
monsters wear, and so he just luted so much from
all of these monsters that it's like, you know, goblin

(48:46):
shorts or something like that. Oh my god, sorry, Rob says,
Lusimar really does show up in the same way that
a ring wraith might show up, so it seems like
a thematically appropriate guess, Oh, that's funny. Kitcha's not incompetent
though MOUSEI but not incompetent, So I would assume that
that in this case, if she felt like it was important,

(49:07):
she'd take care of it, and maybe did just not mentioned.
If it's been taken care of, it should be mentioned.
If it's If it's been taken care of and it
wasn't mentioned, I think that's a big problem with the author,
because I can't be the only one that got fixated
on that, like that should be addressed explicitly. That is

(49:28):
a big depth in security that I think deserves a sentence,
you know. And then Robin says, hats oh it's I
didn't even think makes sense. Okay, So Katcha opens her
boxes and this is very fun. First she oh my god,

(49:49):
I forgot that, like because there's so much gore. Mango
is just living the dream right now, and they come
out to find him cleaning the floors, which if you
have a dog and you have cats, it's a real
mixed bag because like, on the one hand, it is gross,
but also I don't find cave vomit around the way

(50:10):
that I used to, and I can't help, but like,
just turn a blind eye because I'm glad to not
be cleaning up cat vomit the way that I used to.
I'm so sorry and it's horrible, but also thanks, you know,
it's just so. Katcha gets a dagger on the side

(50:32):
of her neck so that she can go into the
Desperado Club, which Dona is super excited about, and then
she gets a gold Savage Box for being a player killer,
but instead of coupons, it contained a skill potion that
gave her the Fine Crawler skill, which will be very
useful she achieved. She received an achievement for collecting the

(50:54):
bounty and a legendary bounty box, which was that five
hundred thousand gold. She also received an achievement for being
the first to collect a bounty, but it didn't come
with anything. Donut complained loudly about that one, and she
was right to do so that should come with something.
That's bullshit. I'm disgusted. That feels like the sort of

(51:17):
thing that, like in previous crawls, did come with the thing,
and they are cheap and didn't do it this time,
so yeah, don't like it. She got a platinum Slam
master box and it's because of all the momentum kills
that she did. And this is so funny. Who's Christopher Pally's,

(51:40):
she asked as she examined it. I don't know, I said,
taking the belt from her so I could look while
You'll never be as amazing, and it's the greatest, most
beautiful wrestler of all time, Christopher Allan Palli's. You will
look pretty snazzy when you wrap this bad boy around
your waist. I had to look up Christopher alan Pally's,

(52:02):
of course. I also looked up a thing that Heckla
said in the last section, where like something about there
are weird things inside of a cow's head, and it
turns out to be some Icelandic idiom, just about like
life is full of surprises, basically. But Christopher Alan Pally's

(52:23):
looks exactly without any reservation, as if somebody brought a
cartoon of Humpty Dumpty to life. It's uncanny. The man
seems to have no hair on his whole body. He
is spherical, His head is almost pointed so as to

(52:48):
give that egg shape, and he wears one of those
wrestling singlets that's like the pants with the suspenders. He
looks precisely like Humpty Dumpty. It's incredible. Actually, I have
never seen a person who looks so much like a cartoon.

(53:10):
It's I wouldn't have believed it. So anyway, if you
haven't gone and looked him up, do yourself a favor,
because it is going to stay with you. Plus five
strength plus five constitution plus the avalanche benefit. If you
hit a living creature with your body while you are moving,
the force exerted upon that body will be as if

(53:31):
they were hit by twice the mass your entire body
must be moving for this benefit to activate. You may
want to take this off if you plan on getting busy,
especially if you're on top. So yeah, I definitely agree
with Carl that they need to stick her to the
front of another train. She was mostly back to her
regular self. She was laughing and joking with us. I

(53:53):
couldn't tell if she truly recovered from the trauma of
the day or if she was just good at covering
it up. I suspected the latter. Either way, she'd grown
into one of the most powerful crawlers in the dungeon,
and I didn't think that had quite sunk in yet.
I agree it was earlier that day. Of course she

(54:14):
hasn't recovered, you know, like that shit's going to take
a minute. And it's also I think, going to take
like the story being circulated and feeling confident enough that
people really do know the truth, which will take a while.
I think it would bother me the number of folks
out there that still see me as a trader. Somehow.

(54:36):
There's a platinum fan box which she is still waiting
on for them to vote, and they talk about what
to do with the money, decide to wait for Mordecai.
We also had four free tables to purchase between the
three of us, and we needed to buy them quickly
since they leveled up on their own when the floor collapsed.
Let's see, when Mordecai returned, there would be one day

(54:59):
in fifteen hours life. Hopefully that was enough time, but
just in case, I collected everybody's free table coupons and
left them on his alchemy table. That way he'd be
able to buy them for us if we were otherwise occupied. Again,
my concerns about security here was this just being left
out like I don't think that anybody could get into

(55:19):
their space without them being I'm sure that there's like
something in place, you know, But I just it's on
my mind, and if it has been taken care of,
I really wanted to have been addressed. So then we
get the recap show the whole thing that I've already
described with Hecla, and then we have the moment where

(55:41):
Eva leaves the safe room as Katya is transforming, and
when Katya is done, Eva's gone, and she says, like,
Eva told me that she made the guardsmen angry and
had to leave town. But we heard Whativa said, That's

(56:02):
not what happened. We see the video of her just
literally leaving, like I think that shit was just a
ditch for sure. Then we get the new leaderboard. Carl
is number three, Donut is four, and Katcha is eight.

(56:24):
So yeah, Prepotente is number two, Luciamar is still number one,
and Ellie is not on the list at all anymore.
So let's see, oh right, and she points out that,

(56:47):
uh who is it because she says something about like
those why do those two guys get to be in
the same spot. I'm trying to find the spot where
she points out, because she says, like, if they're in
the same spot, then we should get to be in
the same spot too, We should both be number three.

(57:09):
I don't see who she's talking about. Who's both in
the same spot, gotcha? Grim Dimitri and Max and Popov
noddling illusionists and Bogatir. I wonder if they somehow combined
to be like the same being. That's interesting, if they
had been originally to different people and now somehow they

(57:31):
are a packaged deal in some way interesting. The announcements
weren't interesting. They were nerving the running speed of the
blister Ghules but increasing the running speed of creature suffering
from stage three DTS, which was pretty terrifying. And then

(57:52):
they get visited by zeb and it's pretty clear immediately
something's wrong the way she greets them with just periods, doughnut, Carl, Katchya,
mango hello. I was like, oh fuck. I thought maybe
she was gonna be like mad about the way that
Carl was constantly talking in chat and not and like

(58:16):
yelling at her. But it turns out there is something
more going on here. He mentions that she's still wearing
protective gear, and she says the dual layer system integration,
utilized for the initial capture and subjugation of the planet,
was supposed to be replaced by the pocket system at

(58:38):
the end of the third floor. When it didn't switch over,
people just thought we were being cheap. Turns out Hinter,
the company who normally rents out the necessary cores for
the integration, wouldn't allow us to use them at the
last minute. I don't know the details. It's confusing, boring
business stuff. I don't even understand it all. The bottom

(58:58):
line is I'm wearing this when I enter the dungeon
for the foreseeable future. Hinter, who rents out the cores,
very curious about this. It feels like some sort of
purposeful sabotage by somebody. But we don't have enough information

(59:19):
to really make any guesses on this. So she does
the whole like, congratulations to you guys. Cotchas now option
to go onto the interviews with you, so she has to,
and Donut says what about Mango, And she says Mango too, Donut,
But dungeon born pets are considered born property, so there's

(59:40):
no contracts involved. And I know that we're nowhere near
actually leaving the dungeon, but I definitely had a moment
of like, oh my god, so if they leave the dungeon,
they don't get to take him with them, which even
if he is born property, they might have let them
take him with them, but I don't know. I out it.

(01:00:02):
So there's the mention of how Katya has to up
her game when she's in the interviews and Carl says,
repeat after me, Katya, I want you to say, go
fuck yourself, Zev. But he notices Zev isn't like cheery
in response to this, and he's like, oh God, what's happening.

(01:00:25):
And she says there's another rep and wants to take
over your account named Loita, and I instantly recognize that name.
It takes them a little while to remember who she is,
but it's so distinctive that I instantly was like, oh
my god, that was Heckles's wrap and she the What
Karl is thinking is, let's see the outreach associates represent

(01:00:53):
the whole party, and since Katcha was in Reynhild's daughter,
she's making noise she should be the one in charge
of you three. The only only thing I have going
for me is you guys. Pulled in more money than
Hecla for interviews. Tell your bosses, Donut is right, we
only work with you. The last thing we needed was
some new asshole tossing us on shows like Maestros again,

(01:01:16):
especially one that probably held a grudge against us because
we killed off her client. Zev As annoying as she
could be attempted to keep us out of trouble with
these shows. It rarely worked, but she tried. Plus Donut
really liked her, and so did Mordecai. I gotta say, guys,
I don't know if Carl is thinking mercenary enough. I

(01:01:41):
don't know that Donut would have or Donut that Louita
would have a grudge against them for killing Hecla. She
might be like that. Whole party was doomed to fail.
It started to fall apart already. I wanted you, guys,
because you were clearly what was coming up next, Like
it was the writing was on the wall with them.

(01:02:02):
It might just be you bring in more money, and
so I want you as a client because I don't
give a shit about Hekla. I gave a shit about
the money, and you guys bring in more, and so
now I want you as a client, like he's got
some ideas that there's like a personal grudge here, and
I just don't know if that's actually it. And then
there's something very interesting where she says there's something more,

(01:02:31):
something that happened back at home a bunch of people.
I really can't talk about it. It's difficult for those
of us who aren't party members. I'm holding on the
best I can, guys, but I gotta go. I believe
in you keep doing what you've been doing. Oh yeah,
I forgot to tell you. They're gonna make your chats
public starting tomorrow for people who pay extra. So, first

(01:02:54):
of all, something happened and zev it sounds like there
was some sort of her tragedy, honestly, like somebody got
targeted in a particular way. I don't know, So that's awful.
The whole thing with her not being Bloom is a
huge factor in whether or not she gets to keep

(01:03:15):
them as clients, excuse me. And then the fact that
their chats are going to be public to certain people,
and like, even if it's not public to everybody, if
one of those people decides that they're going to set
up a feed where they just show everybody what the
private chats are. Everybody will see them anyway, you know
who knows how that works. But yeah, pretty fucking grim.

(01:03:40):
So I'm looking at the because of course, you know, guys,
I look at the actual text for this when I'm
going through it. But I listen to the audiobook for
the most part, and there is a whole little map
here with a bunch of like stations and lines. All
of this stuff is not something that can be included
in the audiobook very clearly, So this was interesting to

(01:04:01):
run across. That's funny. I'm over time already and I
haven't even talked about chapter twenty six. I am so behind.
But I'm going to summarize all of twenty six in
just a few sentences and try and talk about like

(01:04:22):
some of the details on this a little bit later. Honestly,
what's going on with this whole chapter is mostly this
tragedy surrounding Gary. There is a guy named Growler Gary,

(01:04:43):
who is the drunk bartender that was laying on the bar,
and he had been talking about how he tried to
leave the room and fight when a bunch of the
hobgoblins turned up and he couldn't leave. And there's a hole,

(01:05:05):
like you know, him potentially having died and come back,
and Carl is remembering that in the Anarchist Cookbook there's
a mention of how there are certain NPCs that are
indestructible because they have something that is key to actually
completing a major part of the game. They either have

(01:05:27):
an item or they know information and you have to
figure out exactly what that is. And eventually Carl begins
to realize that there is an activator on these train
cars that they are going to need to use that
requires the hand of a knoll, and he gets a

(01:05:50):
notification a little bit later that it's actually you must
use your left hand. So they have to get this
guy's hand and over and over and over because they
need to do it to a bunch of different cars.
So this poor dude, he's like talking about how useless

(01:06:12):
he is, and I love that. Katcha chimes in and
is like, hey, dude, don't say that about yourself. But
what happens later is Carl explains to him, like, so
I'm gonna just read this part because this is sort
of where it ends up. Gary only fought back the

(01:06:35):
first few times we were too strong for him. He
hid in the back of the bar each time, huddled
into the corner. The first time they killed him, it
was really easy because he was drunk. But when he responds,
he's sober, so they're not able to like sneak up
on him the way they had been before. And what
they keep doing is having Mongo just bite his head
off so that his hands are not injured. But yeah,

(01:06:56):
so he sees it coming now, I'm so, I said,
if you're sorry, then why are you doing it? Everyone
stop Mango wait, I'll tell you. You deserve to know why
we have to do this, and I explained it to him.
I told him exactly what we were doing and why
we were doing it. He stared up at me, wide

(01:07:17):
eyed and afraid as I told him, we'd have to
kill him ten more times. So you need growler, Gary.
Gary never realized that was the problem with those carts.
That was why they never went out. The hobgoblins took
their own carts instead, but they couldn't clear the crash
trains without the portals. Gary's not a driver, hadn't realized

(01:07:39):
it worked that way. He looked up at me ten
more times, ten more times. I said, and this is
to get the people who killed my friends. Yes, do
you have any alcohol on you? I do? Will you
give me someone it's done? Absolutely. He put the spear

(01:08:00):
down and walked back to the bar. He cracked his neck.
He looked over at Mango and said, do your best
to make sure it doesn't hurt. And it sucks because
it's not even like they could just chop his hand off.
They have to kill him because they need him to
respond so they can have another whole hand. Honestly, Gary
being this incredibly sanguine about it once he realizes what

(01:08:26):
it is is remarkable and I love this just as
Also a moment of him saying I like when Carl
later on says something about I don't think that you're
a coward, he uses I instead of talking about himself
in the third person. So that's just a nice little

(01:08:47):
moment of him feeling like he matters in a way
that the third person doesn't convey. You know, there's also
a message from Bautista in here. Somebody found this line
that's about five levels deeper than where the most of
us are. But there's a group down there from my group,
there's a gangway up one level to the Mindaro line

(01:09:09):
the gangway is still intact, but those wall monitors are
congregating near there. We'll have to fight our way up,
but I think we can make it. That only leaves
one more group heading towards the gruel line. I think
that's everybody. Carl, good work. Let me get this first
part done and we'll start working on getting you guys through.
Don't thank me yet. I have no ideas, the idea
if this crazy shit is going to work, and I

(01:09:31):
still have something very unpleasant to do, and this is
when we have to do the killing of Gary. The
plan was simple. It was a Carl plan, as Doughnut
called it. After talking with Batista, we learned there were
three groups of people trapped at the Abyss. Since the
colored lines all emptied into the massive pit at different heights,

(01:09:52):
coming into the giant crater from different directions, and since
the walkways that circled the pit's interior were now blasted
to hell, these groups couldn't reach each other. We had
to make three separate trips. We didn't need to drive
the train ourselves. We just had to get it started
and send it along. That was okay as long as
we got the train. As long as we got the

(01:10:13):
engine and scoop portal turned on, so everything it touched
went to the train yard, and we got the interdiction
car on the correct track. It would speed along the
line all the way to the end, scooping up everything
on the path and sending it to the train yard.
The stranded crawlers would stand on the tracks and allow
the train to hit them, thus also getting teleported to
the train yard. That is bananas. They have to find

(01:10:38):
a way to like, I mean, there's just so there's
a lot about this that I get what they're doing
and I don't really have a better option, but also yikes,
and of course you know he talks about all of
the things. If we scooped up everything, the crawler's waiting

(01:10:58):
at the end would be tossed face first into a
pile of crash trains and thousands upon thousands of ghoules.
It would be less dangerous to just throw them into
the pit. We came up with an alternate idea. We'd
send two trains down each track. The first would have
the portal turned into the abyss, so the crash trains
and all the mobs and ghules running up and down

(01:11:18):
the line would be hit by the portal and sent
directly into the pit. Fifteen minutes after the first train,
we'd send a second train through, but this would have
the portal turned to the train station. The crawlers waiting
at the end of the line would have to get
the hell out of the way of that first train.
Batista said, the tunnels opened up as they approached the pit,
and that wouldn't be a problem. This plan wouldn't work

(01:11:39):
if the track was broken. We had a contingency in
place for that eventuality. One I hoped we wouldn't have
to utilize, and I'm guessing they're probably gonna have to
utilize it. Katcha brings up some of the things like
what if there are people on the track that don't
know about this whole thing. How loud are they will

(01:12:01):
they hear them coming? And Carl is basically like, look,
we are doing our best here. We're getting the word out.
There's only so much we can do. I also have
a plan for the trains, like to make sound so
that they know. So I'm curious about that, and they

(01:12:21):
this is when they start like getting all of the
carts together, and he begins working with the batteries, which
this is a whole thing. From the very beginning of
him coming to this floor, there was like the batteries
that he or that the like something that makes batteries,
if I'm not mistaken, that cost a lot and he

(01:12:42):
had decided to go for it, and now it is
very much coming in handy, So that is going to
be something that is key to this whole thing, as
well as like having power. So yeah, that is a
summary of chapter twenty six. I feel like if you
guys think of anything that I really needed to mention
from that that I haven't, let me know, but I

(01:13:04):
feel like I got the gist because twenty six is
a lot of exposition of things that I don't need
to go into because you guys will know what I'm
talking about. You know what I'm saying. It's something that
I need to have explained to me as a first
time reader, but doesn't really need for me to repeat it.
So I think it's fine, but let me know. So

(01:13:24):
I got to wrap. Thank you guys again so much
for hanging out. Appreciate you all, Thank you Michael for
commissioning this one, and until next time to lue motherfuckers.

(01:14:03):
That was an unspoiled Network podcast