The Gate Of The Feral Gods, Chapters 1 & 2

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Thank you very much to Michael for commissioning this episode!
These opening chapters show us a desert that is as awful as I was expecting, and there are a bunch of camel folks that have settled in a weird town and are getting stoned between their fights with the gnomes. Meanwhile, there's a bonkers quest that is going to require teamwork, and it seems like the team is going to suck balls.
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 four, The Gate of the
Paral Gods, chapters one and two. In these chapters, I

(00:26):
was dead on apparently r E the desert stucking balls.
I am very saddened to know that I was right,
though I didn't want this for anyone. Welcome to spoil Me.

(01:02):
Welcome to the show everyone. I am Natasha. Thank you
very much to Michael for commissioning this episode. Michael is
here in the chats as well as Rob and John,
so welcome, and our Zoo is also here. So you guys,
this is so odd. The start of this is feeling

(01:25):
it's throwing me off and I like it. Just to
be very clear, this is not a criticism, but everything
just feels really different than it did. And I am
realizing how used to certain things I've gotten, so when
any of it gets switched up, when there is a

(01:50):
when there's a way of playing a game like this
that doesn't feel familiar to me personally, I knew that
we would run into something like this sooner or later.
A lot of even though not a huge gamer, a
lot of what's been going on in the books, has
felt like, Okay, this is sort of like and I
can point to either a game I've played or a
game that I've watched Marshall play, but this is just

(02:15):
super unfamiliar territory to me, and because of that, I
feel more afraid. It's just there's no there's nothing to
cling to for comfort, you know what I'm saying. So anyway,
I am backing up here. Let's talk about the opening

(02:39):
time to level collapse. Fifteen days views, one point four
to three quintillion followers, seven quadrillion favorites, two point four
quadrillion leaderboard rank three, bounty eight hundred thousand gold, and

(03:03):
we wind up finding out that his bounty is doubled. Actually,
so this is a whole other issue that I, frankly,
at this point I'm not worried about because everybody is
spread out so far that I don't know. It's the
sort of thing that would it presented much more concern

(03:25):
to me when we were in the previous floor, But
now everybody needs everyone that they are actually able to
get in touch with to complete this one task so
much that I'm feeling more at ease the thing that
I would be worried about is once you've done your

(03:47):
thing and you've decided that you're going to like pitch
in and help somebody else, what if they just like
use you to get through whatever it is their assignment is,
then they decide to turn on you because now they
don't need you anymore, which would be really brutal, but
also would make sense. So for the time being, this
doesn't bother me too much, but I just, you know,

(04:09):
something in my the what's the word I want? I'm
keeping in at the corner of my eye. It's also
mentioned by Carl. It's not in his book, nor did
Mordecai mention that this was going to happen. And he's

(04:30):
sort of wondering whether this is something that's like new,
if it's been introduced in this game for the first time,
which it seems like they're doing a lot for the
first time. It seems to me like this is just
there is something about this game that, in comparison to
what we have heard in previous about previous games, reeks

(04:55):
of desperation to me. And this is something that feels
like it's playing into that something is something more is
going on, and I'm really wondering about this because you guys,
you know, there's been mentioned about how they're basically hemorrhaging
money and that they probably won't be able to stay.

(05:18):
And I'm talking about boring here that things have been
pretty bad for them and due to what happened with
the third floor I think it is, and the legal
troubles that they got tangled up in due to all
of these like boxes that they were supposed to send.
I am feeling like I'm just sort of wondering about

(05:45):
the sort of things that's been happening with us with
hedge funds and these like private investment firms that are
purchasing the most recent being like Joanne Fabric. And then
there was Red Lobster. Although it didn't happen. Red Lobster
didn't completely go under, but it was done strategically to

(06:07):
force a lot of them to close. What was the
other one that had happened recently? And I'm just sort
of wondering, like, are we gonna get mixed up in
that where we're trying to force this to fail or
something in order to scrape the very last of the
money we can out of it. You know, I'm just
I'm trying to think how that would really even work.

(06:27):
And I don't have a good idea, So this isn't
a well thought out, fully formed thesis or anything. It's
just sort of on my mind that it's like they
seem to be gunning for everybody who on average, the
crawlers are like more powerful than they're supposed to be.
At this point, there's more of them surviving every floor

(06:48):
than there really should be. And I am wondering if
they had wanted this whole thing to get done faster,
because they keep putting pressure on in a way that
feels like it's designed to fuck everybody. And then against
all odds, people managed to make it out and they

(07:09):
don't know what to do, so they have to pull
some extra shit next time. Well Michael just says, say, oh,
just open my candle copy. And I didn't realize I
was a Mac at the start. I don't remember when
I first read the book years ago. I've been listening
to the audio books since, and I just noticed that
when I opened it for this as well. Because I
hadn't purchased it, I didn't take a good look at it.

(07:30):
I just was worried that there might be spoils. Sometimes
maps do spoil things and it's not like a big deal,
but you know what I mean. So I didn't really
look at it. I just saw something that was like
an enormous volcano. It's not really I know what this is,
but you know, that's the best I got. Michael says
hedge fun guy bought Sears, gutted the company, so the
assets to his other companies for pennies, and bankrupted it.

(07:53):
That's right. This is like the way that we have
got things structured. Is me maniacal, you guys, because it's
not just that people can profit off destroying a company,
but that also this is like a thing with hospitals,
which it just frankly called me crazy. I don't think

(08:15):
should be allowed. And I brought this up recently because
there was an episode that h or a yeah, an
episode of Supernatural that I was covering with Rashaan where
it became very clear that, like she was trying to
she was seeing the signs that her hospital was going
to be closing and her husband had just had major surgery,

(08:40):
and she got told by everybody, no, no, no, don't
worry about it. We'll let you know, we'll keep you
informed whatever changes, and then she showed up to an
appointment and they were fucking closed down. Nobody let them know,
nobody told them anything, and it was gone shut, doors shut.

(09:03):
And then then the doctor that never even bothered to
contact them had the fucking gall to leave a voicemail
saying I've set up a new practice here if you'd
like to come follow me there, which like, bitch, are
you fucking serious? So anyway, I just hate this whole

(09:26):
I I'm just suspicious of it. That's all I do
want to mention y'all really really quickly. I'm sorry, I
may need to duck away for like a minute, because
it's looking like I am about to have a thunderstorm
that happen, and my dog's are in the backyard, and

(09:46):
as of right now, we don't really have a shelter
back there because it blew down, and so I may
have to run back there and just let them in
from the storm. I'm keeping my eye out so far,
it's just looking like it's going too but it's not.
It has not started yet, so forgive me if I
suddenly run away. All right, so they're able to chat

(10:08):
with Mordecai before they see him, and it turns out
that he has been made back into one of the
creatures that he originally was, but like a completely different looking,
different type of one. And also his wings are clipped,
which means that he can flutter short distances, but he
can't really fly. And considering this place is just all

(10:31):
open sky, it's a real tease. Like that's a very
cruel thing. I felt a bit of a way about that.
So Mordecai is like, I have been wondering where y'all were,
Like I'm here gathering intel and talking to a lot
of people. It took you long enough come to the
town that's hunched up against the northwest curve. And I

(10:54):
just want to say that I think it's kind of
fucked up that like being on one of these shows
means that they wind up behind everybody else who has
already entered the floor. I just, you know, the point
of like being on these shows is supposed to be
almost like a bit of a reward for being a
particularly fun crawler to watch, but then you get penalized

(11:15):
by not being able to you know what I'm saying.
I didn't like it anyway. Mordecai says, the class choices
keep getting better. We need to keep your constitution up.
You just lost ten points from losing your football who Loogan,
there's one that'll replace it and more glass Canon normally
forbids you from adding to your constitution upon level up,

(11:37):
but it comes with a plus fifteen constitution and it'll
increase your training speed on all spells. It doesn't increase intelligence,
but lowers the cost of all spells, which is almost
the same thing. So let's see Doughnuts character actor benefit
went up in power each time she descended, but it
still came with a risk. She didn't always obtain all

(11:58):
of the chosen classes benefits, and she picked it was
set for the floor. I chose it. Well, what'd you get?
I well, I got everything except the plus fifteen to constitution.
God damn it, I muttered, and immediately regretted it. I
had spit out more sand. So they're gonna have to

(12:20):
be a lot more careful with her. And also, speaking
on this, like in this area until they wind up
getting to the little town isn't a good idea because
there is just so much sand all over the place,
And it turns out later on that when it's storming
is actually when it's supposed to be sort of the
safest to be out there, which was not what I

(12:42):
was expecting. But uh but yeah, so let's see, there
are no tunnels at least, don't it said? I hate tunnels.
I wasn't so sure about that. My chat was filled
with people checking in with their surroundings. I minimized it
until we were someplace safe, but I saw a few
people mentioning tight claustrophobic tunnels. Batista was in one such

(13:02):
passage way. Allen Amani said they were on a round
floating island that was really a bunch of boats lashed together.
They were being pelted with a hailstorm and had taken
shelter in the hold of a cargo ship that was
filled with level twenty nine fish monsters, which I think.

(13:22):
I'm really torn, guys, A part of me, like, you know,
I hate a desert immediately that was my reaction. But
I think that I would choose the desert over that
being on an island that's boats really the instability and
the danger of like stuff being in the water as
well as being in the boats. Ah, I don't know, man,

(13:47):
that sounds pretty bad. And let's see. Oh this is
when he says minefield, which is another like Queue Donna
unleashed Mango who squawked with dismays at the driving sandstorm.
She casts clockwork triplicate on the pet and ordered the
two automatons to range ahead of us. With our limited vision,

(14:08):
they'd provide an early warning for both mobs and sand dunes.
So that's the minefield. Just have them walk out ahead
and they blow up in case they wind up touching something. Which,
by the way, if you guys are you know, have
an extra ten bucks to spare per month. There is
a foundation that I donate to monthly. It's only ten

(14:28):
bucks a month named a Popo, and it is an
organization that trains rats to find land mines that have
been abandoned in fields. And the rats are too light
to set them off, but they have incredible a sense
of smell that finds them more reliably than like any
other animal. And they have a zero percent casualty rate

(14:52):
with these rats, and they need you know, funding, and
I am just delighted because I get like the name
of the little rat that I'm answering and updates about
him and his picture, and it's just totally worth ten
dollars a month. So if you're interested, so uh, I
formed my gauntlet and hasn't hesitantly reached out to tap

(15:14):
the physical wall, warning you may not enter this quadrant
until your current quadrant's castle is liberated. And this is
the subterranean zone. Kachia can't see in there with her likeability,
but she says, I thought this was a mountain, but
it looks carved. I think there's a building under our feet.

(15:35):
And I took a bangersphere and rolled it down the slope.
It bounced a few times down the uneven ramp entered
the area as if the wall wasn't there, and just
kept going. It disappeared into the darkness. A moment later,
the ground rumbled with a distant explosion. I didn't hear it,
but I felt it in my feet. You have set

(15:56):
off a trap. Maybe next time you'll be more careful.
Which I'm glad that nobody else found up getting hurt,
or at least there wasn't somebody in his chat, you know,
because I just the idea that he accidentally set off
a trap, that maybe a bunch of people were very
carefully inching their way through. I just I don't even

(16:16):
want to think about it, and Katchi comes to the
conclusion that this is like Indiana Jones style traps, which
is interesting. So let's see. We abandoned the cave entrance
and continued on toward the town. We did see one oddity,
a twisted, burned out shell of metal on the ground,

(16:39):
and he tries to pull it into his inventory, but
he can't do it. We soon came to a tall,
curved wall made of sheets of metal, riveted, riveted together
that was so hard to say. The town is built
against the wall. There's an entrance that way. The knocker
was a mallet like for a giant drum. This time

(17:00):
Humptown banged twice to enter, and I was like, bang twice, Yeah,
all right, I get it. And it does indeed turn
out to not be a joke about hey, we're all
camels but hump because it's a brothel town. And it's
sort of surprising because Mordecai had been saying to Carl
about how like the viewers really judge crawlers who go

(17:23):
to bitches and penis parade, but he also in this
section says something like, if you really feel the need,
I recommend not going to one of those guys. One
of the changelings. So it was feeling very much like
Mordecai was straight up anti any sort of engagement with
the NPC's via sex in any way. But now he

(17:46):
has either like relaxed his stance on that or perhaps
is like feeling like they've been in the crawl so
long that like it's inevitable eventually people have needs, and
Carl is probably gonna, I want to do this, you know.
So anyway, they bang the door and then this giant,

(18:13):
this giant camel shows up that he expects to have
like an offensive accent but actually talks more like a biker.
And he realizes that it's giving Joe Cammel, which Joe
Campbell is one of the wildest, like the fact that
we allowed we'd just be crazy, y'all with the shit,

(18:36):
Like as time passes and we look back and see that,
like we thought that was a was a fine way
to advertise cigarettes, and that now the like it hasn't
even been that long, you know, Joe Campbell was still
a thing when I was a kid, and I'm only forty,
so yikes. And the description is that they are mighty warriors.

(19:06):
But if they aren't able to like wander and are
kind of stuck in place without a lot to do,
they can become pretty sludgy. And let's see, these local
drama dramedarians are locked in a three way stalemate with
the Bactrians and the Dirigible Gnomes. Any day now, this

(19:28):
smoldering conflict could boil over into an all out war,
a war they probably would not survive. In the meantime,
they're perfectly content to sit around, smoke weed and do
their best to drink all their problems away. So this
whole thing winds up obviously kind of being keen and
some other ways later on, which we'll get into. So yeah,

(19:53):
he tells them to come in, but then is like,
you guys need to pay a gold, drugs or pleasure,
and Carls says cash, grass or ass. Nobody rides for free.
So he gives him a blitztick and this dude lights up,

(20:17):
is like, yeah, that'll do. And then later as they're
walking past, Carl sees him showing off the blitz stick
to one of his friends and them snickering together, and
he realizes that this guy just fucked them up. It
was not real, this toll thing. It was just him
shaking him down. And it's funny to me how often
this happens, like them here and then the whole thing

(20:40):
with like the security of the Desperado Club as well.
And I can't help but wonder like he was filing
away the information about the Desperado Club for later use
that hasn't come up yet, So I'm wondering when that's
going to be some like a card he plays, and

(21:00):
is that something that he can use in this case?
It doesn't seem like this is. It seems like it's
well known that they do this shit amongst themselves, so
probably there's nothing to be done about it. But at
least it gives him a clue about what kind of
guy this is. You know, New Quest, stay out of
city Hall, find out what's in city Hall. It just

(21:23):
might be important. Reward. You will receive a silver Quest box,
and they decide that they are going to go and
find Mordecai. The town streets were laid out like a
set of nested semicircles like a rainbow. The residences dotted
the outer ring just inside the wall, interspersed with barracks

(21:44):
like buildings. The second consisted of shops and training guilds
with a large city hall building in the center. It
was the largest building in town, rising up to the
top of the fabric awnings, which all ran from the
top of the building to both the town wall and
the tomb wall behind it like an umbrella. Each individual
awning piece was triangular, like a jib on a sailboat,

(22:06):
but much much bigger, which made me think of sun sails,
which are a thing that you can, like, you can
put up for awnings in your yard or over your pool,
and they provide shade, but they're like a little bit permeable.
Just sounded like a similar idea. As we made our way,

(22:26):
the wind abruptly stopped, and just like that, dirty light
streamed in from the spaces between the fabric awnings. Suddenly
camels were everywhere. A group appeared, pulling ladders and climbing
the walls, unhooking the fabric. We had to step out
of the way as a group strode by on steampunk
like metal and spring stilts. The massive sails were pulled

(22:48):
up and placed a top city hall. The blue and
white stripes formed a pattern, making something between a minaret,
the onion towers atop Saint Basil's cathedral, and soft of
ice cream, only it was made of fabric, and he's like, yeah,
that's actually dope, which I also like this idea. It's
very practical, it's decorative. I mean I both of those

(23:12):
things are highly important to me, so I'm into it.
So then he sees that they are basically under a dome,
that the ceiling in this world is way higher than
in the other floors that they have been on, and
let's see, the city ended at a massive wall that

(23:35):
had to be over one hundred feet tall. Before I
had thought we were in a bowl. I realized now
I was correct, a bowl that sat atop a tomb.
What had the description called it? The Necropolis of answer, Carl,
This doesn't feel very dungeon like to me, Doughnut said,
looking up at the sky, and Carl's like, were you

(23:56):
complaining because you said you didn't like the tunnels either?
Something flew by high above. It was a giant bird
of some sort. It dove out of you past the
edge of the bowl. And I am going to assume
that there's a more sky follow here, or perhaps it's
like even an actual airplane. He mentions this later. I

(24:20):
don't know, they've got steampunk stuff here, so perhaps that's
not out of the question. So yeah, this is Mordecai
shows up and talks about how he's been clipped and
how this sucks. Let's see, Katya, you were close. We

(24:41):
are in a dome. They're calling them bubbles. The Necropolis
of Answer is a very high tower, and we are
on top of it. That bubble is bigger than it
looks from here. The ground and the sea are far
below us. You came in a few minutes late, so
you missed the first announcement. But there's going to be
another announcement explaining the floor's rules in a couple of minutes.
Let's get into a sea the safe room I almost
said sea foam, and get some food and listen to

(25:03):
what they got to say, which just I'm glad that
they're repeating the announcement. It's just again annoying that like
they're here and they don't get it. Should just be
an automated thing that as soon as you join the
floor you get your own personalized, triggered explanation of how
the floor works when you join. It shouldn't be that

(25:25):
you could even miss the announcement about the rules. That
shouldn't be how this is built. Just some fundamental issues
I have with this. So they go to a bar
called the Tow. There's a one place that's got this
telescope on top. There's another one that's got a like

(25:46):
a weird little cart on a what do you call it,
a tracked cart, like a mini tractor dragging a rickety wagon,
stacked and possibly high with branches. They laughed as they
bounced to the whole town smelled of smoke and oil
and dirt. And this is when they get to Hump Street,
where there are changelings, and he remembers that a bunch

(26:08):
of people in the book, the cookbook had called them
changelings thieving, backstabbing whorees. Which, yeah, if you can change
your appearance like that, there is just basically unlimited opportunity
for fucking people over. So sorry, Michael says, I was

(26:30):
almost impressed with movie and video game traps and ancient tombs.
Those ancient pastors knew how to build traps the last
and hundreds of years later, and everything still works, even
the vine ropes. And yes, I'm sure Born will take
your complaints about fairness into account for their next dungeon.
I hope. So borrant, please see me on your next
uh whatever. I don't know enough about office speak, John

(26:55):
says the camel tooe. I didn't even think of that.
Oh my god, how did I not even think of that?
I hate you all so much, so I know how
the floor works, and we're already screwed. So with the
extra three days, I suspect we might be in for

(27:16):
a nasty surprise. You're stuck in a quadrant with maybe
three dozen other crawlers. That's it. Everyone I've seen so far,
other than you guys, is so underpowered. It's a miracle
they made it this far. And what's worse, you've got
to use them to help you storm the Nome Castle
to get to the stairwell. And he says, well, we

(27:39):
need to find the place, Carl, and Mordecai is like,
it's up there, and he points it and it's like
this speck in the sky and Carl, of course, it's
just like, oh awesome, super best news. So then they
get the announcement. We are so excited for you to

(28:00):
enjoy this new and exciting level. We have just over
one hundred and seventy eight thousand of you joining us,
which is just you guys, that's like the population of
the county that I'm in in Texas, Like that's nothing
and that's everybody left. Yikes. The last floor was somewhat

(28:21):
of a mystery, and finding out how it worked was
part of the fun. This floor is a little different.
The layout is not so much a secret, and the
rules are pretty simple. There are over four thousand castles
on this floor. Every single castle contains a single stairwell.
No two castles are the same. There are a total
of eleven hundred and seventy two bubbles. All of you

(28:43):
are inside one. There is about one hundred and fifty
callers per bubble. Every bubble is different. Every bubble is
split into quadrants, land, sea, air, and subterranean. Each quadrant
has a single castle. Your mission is to find the castle,
raid it, and take the throne room. Once the throne

(29:04):
room is occupied or the quadrant's boss is killed, the
castle is considered conquered. The stairwell is also located in
the throne room, so no need to be scrambling around
worried about not being able to find it. Take the castle,
take the stairwell, but there's a small hitch in order

(29:24):
for your stairwell to actually open up and be passable,
all four castles in your bubble must first be taken.
The land, sea, air, and subterranean castles must all fall
in order for you to proceed to the sixth floor.
Once you've taken your own castle, you may traverse outside
your quadrant to lend a hand to your fellow bubble buddies.

(29:47):
Once all four castles are taken, the bubbles popped, and
you may proceed outside of the bubble area if you wish.
You may not enter other bubbles until they are also popped.
Some of these castles aren't as easier to crack than others. Also,
the second round of sponsorship bidding is underway, So this sucks.

(30:10):
There's so much about this that sucks. First of all,
the fact that you can't help anybody else or get
help until you have done your thing or they have
done theirs blows. Also, the fact that some of the
castles are much trickier than others means that, like, if
you are in a particularly bad spot, you just kind

(30:31):
of have to sit and wait and hope that the
other places are having an easier time of it. It's
basically like the worst nightmare of being in a group project.
If you are in a group project that works for everybody,
and by works for everybody, I mean one person agrees

(30:55):
they would like to do all the work and does it,
then no problem sucks for that person. But also, if
you're like me, you'd rather do the work yourself, then
trust your bullshit classmates to do it properly, so you

(31:19):
don't even really mind that much. And if you don't
like doing the work, then you don't have to do it,
and so it weirdly winds up A lot of the
time if a group project is set up a certain way,
not that bad. But what happens sometimes is you get

(31:39):
a teacher that's wise to the fact. This is how
group projects mostly go, and rather than just let nature
take its course with everybody's personality doing what they do best,
they try and force the issue by establishing some kind
of method by which they are guaranteeing everybody in the

(32:02):
group participates in the project equally, which is the kiss
of death and makes it suck. I get why the
teacher wants to do this this way, but I'm gonna
be honest. If you set things up that way, just
don't have there be a group project just to have
everybody do their own assignment. Let's just you know, like

(32:27):
so anyway, I hate this. I hate it and the
fact that like your bubble can pop and you can leave,
but if they're not popped, then you can't go into theirs.
But is it possible to like see into theirs? Can
you watch somebody who desperately needs help and you're not
able to get in there and help them, because that

(32:48):
would fucking blow too Morob says man, I'm very glad
to be shot of group projects in school. Group group
projects are enough fun. Yeah, it's like I'm not trying
to say that group projects are always trash, but you've
got to have a really special group of people and
you've got to have an idea for a group project

(33:11):
that is like truly lends itself to being collaborative in
a way that a lot of them don't. And it's
just it's just, look, I just I don't trust other
people to get their part done. I really don't. I
never have. I hope to someday be the kind of
person that does a little bit more, but I'm still not.

(33:34):
And mostly my fears surrounding that have been born up
through my life so I don't even really apologize for
my mistrust because the fact that I don't trust other
people has saved my own ass. So anyway, Mordecai also
is like, by the way, everybody here is fucking incompetent. Again,

(33:59):
that could suck, or they could just take your instruction
because they realize that you are so much higher power
than them that maybe you know what you're doing and
they won't fucking argue. The danger is when you've got
people who don't know what they're doing, but they don't
know that they don't know. That's when you really it sucks.
And people think that they are like capable and you

(34:22):
just have to like watch them with their ego run
off and try and accomplish something impossible, you know. So, Carl,
what's the back? Say? This is IMMANI. It's the rigging
that runs from the mass to the back of the boat.
There are different kinds, Ellie, there are twenty of us,

(34:45):
and not a one of these old farts has ever
sailed a boat. Can you believe that I told them
not to put me in meadow Lark? I would have
been better off and one of the more expensive old
folks home surrounded by rich old codgers who grew up
on boats. No, the system is giving us a sailing tutorial,
but it doesn't tell us where the things are. How

(35:05):
are we supposed to pull the boom bang when we
don't know what it is. This thing is more complicated
than those trains Inmani. We need to figure this out quickly.
There are rocks everywhere. What spinnaker? Wait, we don't need
that part yet, Carl Jesus, you guys need to be careful.
Sailing a boat isn't something you can figure out on

(35:27):
the fly. It takes months. Inmani, we would have had
an MPC helping us if Ellie hadn't iced him. Ellie,
he was being suspicious. We're on our way back to
the island. If we crash, we crash. There are boats everywhere.
We have our pick I. The fact that she killed
the NPC that was supposed to tell them. This is

(35:49):
such a real thing. Like that happens in games, and
it's always if you save along the way, then you
can just go back to a previous save and it's
not so bad. But if if you didn't save, then
you have to make that Like I had this happen
once where I killed somebody. I didn't realize that they
were like a person, that it would be a problem,

(36:11):
and I hadn't saved within the last hour and a half.
I'd been playing like all afternoon. And then you have
to make that choice of like do I want to
try and figure this out without this person or do
I want to lose an hour and a half of playtime?
And it fucking sucks. They can't even go back. That's
not fair. They should be able to undo. So astro

(36:38):
Paw not as good as astral hand because there's no
thumb to manipulate and hold things, but there's more force
to it, especially at higher levels, and it can be
used as a weapon. She can grow claws on it
at level five, and at ten she can make the
paw a lot bigger. At fifteen, her skills and abilities
will translate directly to the paw. That's a big deal
since her regular swipe is pretty strong. There's a similar

(37:00):
spell we might might want to get for you, astral fist. Anyway,
she can manipulate items at a distance as if she
were physically touching them. Distance grows with the level up.
At level one it's about ten meters and he says, Donut,
you'd finally be able to knock that vese off the
shelf at home, and she says that thing was a menace, Carl,

(37:22):
it was haunted, And I really wanted him to ask
her more about that. I really really do. Haunted is
a strong word. What does that mean? And you, guys,
this is reminding me of something that I had seen
the other day. There's a cartoonist out there who had
done like a little comic where there's a cat staring

(37:47):
off into space and the owners are joking about, like,
oh my god, she just stares at nothing all the time.
And then the next panel, there's like a bunch of
ghosts standing there that the owners just can't see, and
the cat is staring at them. And there's a movie
coming out, a horror movie called good Boy, and it's
a story from the dog's perspective about an owner haunted

(38:13):
by supernatural entities. And I do and do not want
to see it. I'm very curious. I'm like, my main
concern is, hey, can we make sure that the dog
doesn't die before we watch it? Can we? Just like
that's all? I just really because I've heard it described

(38:36):
as heartbreaking and Honestly, if that heartbreaking is because the
dog dies, I'd rather not. I just don't want to
do it. I can't, I couldn't take it. But if
the heartbreaking is like from something else, then you know,
potentially I could put up with it. It just all
really depends on the context. So I'm sorry, Michael says,

(38:57):
I hope the twist at the end is that the
dog was attacking the roomba the entire movie. Oh my god.
So okay, okay, okay, I'm sorry, guys, I'm all over
the place this episode. But there are so many like
weird little things coming up. These chapters are odd. So
they go back into their personal space and the fucking

(39:18):
bot is still working on cleaning all the blood up.
It's not done yet, which is insane. Frankly. Carl has
gotten all kinds of achievements due to his interaction with
the God, which it's I'm not going to go through
all of them. A lot of them don't really have

(39:40):
like great rewards. It's just like, oh, this should be funny,
or now you can worship Grol. But then there's one
that he gets a legendary deity box, which is awesome.
And then smushed for daddy. I wondered about this. I
almost said something last episode about it, and I just forgot.

(40:02):
It wasn't even that I thought about it and was like, ah,
that's probably nothing. I just actually forgot about it. But
when he got stepped on, I had a moment of like, oh,
is this like great or terrible? I couldn't decide if
it being a hoof would make it so that it
wasn't as good, you know, and if the AI would

(40:23):
just sort of be like, never mind, it's not for me.
And ultimately that is mentioned. But I was thinking that
if it didn't work for the AI, that it simply
wouldn't come up. And I was tooper wrong about that,
and he gets stepped on like a lot, you know.
So while this wasn't the pink, fleshed suppleness of a

(40:45):
human shaped foot that crushed your fragile, wet body, it's
nice sometimes to switch things around, you know, just to
test the boundaries of your own limits. When one experiments,
oftentimes one finds new and ways to get that rush.
While fun, it wasn't quite the same. You probably don't

(41:07):
realize how lucky that is for you. Reward you've received
a platinum spicy box. I do believe I understand how
lucky that is for him. Actually, I think I fully understand.
And then hail Mary, you initiated an attack that caused

(41:29):
more than one hundred casualties more than one hundred kilometers
from your current position, which gets him a gold sniper's box,
and then extinction event. With a single attack, you killed
every last member of a non unique species on a
dungeon's floor wall monitors. You've received a platinum assholes box.
And then he winds up getting a tattoo on his

(41:52):
face and it's very small, but it's like a lizard's foot,
and it's meant to be an indicator he caused an
extinction event, so people who do not like lizards will
be instantly like, yo, what's up? Nice appreciate it, and
then lizards do. I think it says like twice as

(42:14):
much damage, something bonkers like that, and I was like,
that is wow. I hope we don't run into them,
but we're in a desert, so I kind of probably
we will. Lizards love deserts man like you know. Anyway,
and he gets a silver fanbox for having the most

(42:36):
switchovers during a battle, which I'm kind of wondering if
that's like the camera going between other people and him,
you know, if people were so interested in what was
happening with him that the camera kept having to move over.
But it may have nothing to do with that. That's
just what came to mind because of it being a

(42:57):
fan box. I was thinking that it had to be
related to like the views somehow. So let's see, don't
have received the least box as though she did receive
a platinum that wasn't too smart? Was it? Box? For
attacking the province boss, which is amazing. And scrolls of

(43:19):
water breathing come up a lot, and it's very clear
like this is something that's probably going to be necessary.
They just keep showing up. Donut. I am a cat.
Cats do not swim, Cats do not go in water.
It is unnatural and it's not gonna happen. And Mordecai
texts her, don't say that shit out loud, and she's like,

(43:42):
I can't say it in chat, and he says, your
chats are still protected if I'm in on it, I'm sorry, guys,
it's not raining, which is what I was worried about.
But apparently they're very they're playing very aggressively. So anyway,
I didn't know that chats with Mordecai were still protected.

(44:06):
I think that's a very interesting like ripple ripple wrinkle.
Other people who don't have managers then aren't able to
protect their chat at all. Right, it's just him being
a manager that allows that. I look, I'm not trying

(44:30):
to shade Carl Ordona at all, but Odette getting them
to make Mordecai a manager is paying off so intensely
that probably somebody had to have figured out that she
recommended that they do this right, and that's why she's

(44:55):
getting targeted with like censorship, and they're trying to take Mordecai.
He just presents such an advantage. I really, I really
feel like the game shouldn't work this way. I'm not
mad at it that they are exploiting a huge I

(45:18):
don't even want to call it bug because it's meant
it's how it's meant to work, but like, it just
seems to me if having a manager can make or
break you so completely, But most people don't even know
what that is and wouldn't it wouldn't occur to them.
I mean, how the fuck is anybody why why make

(45:41):
it function this way at all? So anyway, I'm just
I think about this a lot whenever there is something
that happens that puts a person in a hugely advantageous
position that ultimately has nothing to do with them. You know,
it's not to do with their actual skill or with

(46:04):
their ability to negotiate with people, or talent being like
greater than others. It's just something that's like you almost
want to call it dumb luck, or perhaps just advice
from somebody experience that other people don't have access to,
but like it's making me think of something that I

(46:25):
held a lot of resentment over for a long time,
and I won't lie. I still do, but it's like
different now because I've taken Harry Potter down off the air.
It's up for patrons, but other than that, it's not
up anywhere. When I started covering Harry Potter with Rashawan,
it became very quickly one of my most successful shows
of all time. And Rasham was totally unspoiled and didn't

(46:48):
have she had no knowledge of any spoilers, which for
Harry Potter is just like practically impossible to find, and
so she was just perfect for it, you know. And
then this guy started a show called Potterless, which was
basically the same idea. It was somebody who was completely unspoiled,

(47:09):
reading the books for the first time and going through
them a few chapters at a time. And he accidentally
this was not him that did this. It was a
mistake via Spotify. His show was going up just as
Spotify began having podcasts on their platform at all. They

(47:30):
didn't used to do that when they first started, and
the Potterless wound up on Spotify's front page, four podcasts
in like a predominant spot locked by accident on that
front page for over a month, and thus that show

(47:54):
fucking took off, and that guy wound up getting souper
like podcast famous. But his content, in my opinion, wasn't
even that great, and he was very snide. Because the
thing about me and Rashawn that worked so well is
that Rashwan was very snide, but it was balanced by me,

(48:15):
who at the time still was very in love with
Harry Potter. I have grown out of that with JK.
Rowling being a monster and had begun to see the truth,
but at the time it was just feeling like our
show is better, it's just straight up better. But that
man is making more money per month now than I
make in half a year, and it's just purely a

(48:37):
fucking accident because Spotify didn't even intend for him to
be there. And I think about that all the time
as just like when we try and act like everything
is down to skill, that you get what you deserve
if you work hard enough. It is a lie. It
is just a lie. It's not like that factor has
nothing to do with it, but it definitely isn't the thing.

(49:02):
Luck is more of a thing than hard work, and
I really do believe that. And it doesn't mean that
I don't want to work hard, because I still fucking
I put out more podcasts than anybody out there period.
Like you could just come at me with anybody. I've
done more. That's it. So I work very hard, but
I also make the equivalent of like fourteen dollars an hour,

(49:27):
and that is before health insurance and you know, all
of the things. And there are just times where I
get very, very salty at the fact that there are
podcasts out there that had some stroke of luck like
that and then wound up making money that I just
can't imagine, and I know that that's just very unlikely

(49:51):
to ever happen. And you know, in some ways that's
a blessing because I know that it can come with
weird fandoms and stuff and things get really big. But
of course I also would like to be able to, like,
you know, not worry about paying for my neurologist every
three months because it's so expensive. So anyway, I couldn't

(50:16):
help thinking about that with Mordecai and just he poses
such an advantage on such a number of levels, and
something like keeping their chat private is huge. That's a
big deal. That's like that they could still do that.
I mean, this is a fucking game changer in my opinion,

(50:37):
that they're going to have the ability to keep their
chat private using him. In what who else does Ellie
and Niemani have theirs? I don't know how many other
managers there are in the game, but I feel like
that's just enormous. So anyway, let's see what about flying

(51:01):
spells and items? Yes, lots and lots, but potions. If
you'd saved one of the bench upgrade coupons, then maybe
I really need two upgrades. Otherwise we'll have to do
it another way. He said this loudly. He was really
talking to our sponsors, which I am not remembering how
much the upgrades cost, but I was wondering if maybe,

(51:24):
now that Kacya is a real part of the team,
she did make you know, five hundred thousand gold because
of killing Hecla. She had to spend twenty five grand
on that bot, But like, how much can this cost?
Maybe Katcha could spring for it. Perhaps I do agree
that we should just wait and see if a sponsor
comes through, so definitely still do that, but failing that,

(51:47):
she might be able to manage it. So then Donuts'
final Platinum box contained another magic book, a spell called
wall on Wall of Fire an escape bell I can't
read the day, guys, an escape spell ten meters wide,

(52:07):
two meters high wall of fire that lasts fifteen seconds
at level one. A common spell, powerful, but it's also fire,
and fire tends to spread when the magic goes away.
If it's cast on something flammable, it stays on fire.
I've seen it one hundred times. Fire gets out of
control very easily, and that's unfortunate. Yeah, that's rough. It

(52:32):
could potentially be super useful with the combo of explosions
with Carl's you know, explosives. If something could be done
with that, but yeah, Katchia opened her boxes next. She
received several more of the water breathing scrolls, and in

(52:53):
her survivor's box, she received a skill potion that she
was forced to drink right away. It raised her catcher skill,
which she'd been training relentlessly up to level eleven, which
is nice. He gets healing scrolls, a useless magical shirt,
which I was wondering about why it was useless? Is

(53:14):
it that he isn't able to wear it? I know
that he can't wear pants, but he's he hadn't like
not allowed to wear a shirt, and a handful of
water breathing scrolls. But I also received one more invisibility potion.
Mordecai says, that's an easy but expensive potion to make.
Some of the materials for it are rare. It's good
that you're getting them. It's like once you start getting something,

(53:37):
you're more likely to keep getting it. I said, that's
absolutely right. He agreed, And sometimes things like those water
breeding scrolls are not so subtle hints about what you
might find on a level. See how those antidote potions,
KOCHI receives. That means we have lots of poisoned dealing
monsters and traps on this floor as well. Good thing
both you and Dona are immune to poison. How wonderful

(53:58):
for you, Katcha said dryly. I did like that line.
Got she's really she's warming up. I like it. So
let's see, at the moment, we had about six hundred
and fifty thousand gold between the three of us, and
that was before I opened the rest of my boxes.
So he gets a in his sniper's box, he's got

(54:21):
twenty five Surefire crafting items. A Surefire adds the guided
status to any projectile, powered or not. It may be
utilized on a vast array of crafting tables. If added
to an arrow or bolt, you must choose a target
prior to unleashing the weapon, and the projectile will seek
that target. If added to a trap, additional options become available,

(54:44):
such as target any healers within range, or target anyone
who thinks it's okay to put mayonnaise on hot dogs.
If added to a powered weapon, such as an explosive
based rocket, targets may be assigned during the crafting process
or upon firing, but not both. Note this upgrade alone

(55:05):
does not add range to the projectile, which is important
because for a minute I did think, oh, sweet, you'll
be able to just get anybody, and they're like, no, no, no, no no.
I really like the idea of being able to just
target people who just have different opinions than mine. So yeah,
anybody who just like stands on one side of the

(55:28):
aisle with their car over there but their hand on
the cart's handle while they fill up the other side
of the aisle looking at something on the target them,
I really hate that and I think they should all die.
So I'll do that. Then the platinum spicy box enchanted
toe ring of the leprous bandit. So, uh, there's a

(55:54):
whole story here. I'm not going to read this entire
thing because frankly, the ring and views the following the
sticky feet benefit the super Spreader benefit. Once every six
hours for dexterity times two seconds. You may walk upon
a non horizontal surface such as a wall or ceiling.
Gravity will not change. So leave your beer on the

(56:16):
ground and make sure you tuck in your shirt, and
then super Spreader. You've been given the power of every
plague rat. You may pass any active debuffs onto a
target of your choice once per hour. This does not
remove the d buff from yourself, which is interesting and
very curious about that once per hour is pretty frequent.

(56:41):
I would be using that a lot, I think. I
just like the idea of it. Misery Loves Company is
what it should be called. So this is when he
gets the Platinum Assholes box and it's the tattoo on
his face. Cause lizard class enemy is to deal twenty

(57:02):
percent more damage. Any wall monitors will deal one hundred
and fifty percent more damage. Right, okay. Wall monitors specifically
might not be as much of an issue in the
desert area, but might be in the tunnels. So you
may only hide this tattoo with a cover up sleeve,
which I'm assuming is something that he can pull over

(57:22):
his head. Probably So then Legendary Deities box and it's
a potion which winds up being like the most expensive
thing in his inventory, and when Mordecai gets a look
at it, he's literally trembling. Don't take this now, save it.

(57:48):
This potion adds plus five to any spell or skill
of your choosing, and Kytch is like we've seen things
that do like plus five before or even like three
whole skill levels, and he's like, yeah, but this one
lets you choose. You know, this is a whole different
ballgame when you can pick legendary skill Potions that max

(58:11):
out skills are also valuable, but they are only available
for a limited number of skills. The cheat code potion
is also precious. It is plus three to a random skill. However,
it has a short shelf life, meaning he has to
take it immediately. With this, he can save it. He
can now train one of his skills two fifteen, take
the potion and raise it to twenty. It is quite

(58:32):
simply the single best item of loot he has received
since he entered the dungeon, not including the pet biscuit,
Donna said, not including the pet biscuit. Mordecai agreed. I
fully agree Donna was right to mention this. So he mentions,
how like my powerful strike is thirteen, and he's like, yeah,

(58:55):
but that's because you have equipment that buffs it up.
We need something that's actually without any of your stuff.
And you know, we're gonna have to sit down and
hammer out the math and figure out exactly what is
going to be to your greatest advantage here and they
ask Ellie what she got in her deity box, but

(59:18):
she says a spell book called Gropple Big Ice Storm.
Most powerful spell I have, but I'm kind of scared
to try it. It costs fifty man a long cool down.
Talk soon because Imani crashed the boat. Mordecai says, that's
a war spell, so tell her to be careful because
we're stuck in a fucking snow globe. They are trying

(59:42):
to figure out if there's any other people that had
been on their group chat that are in this bubble,
and Katya had reached out to the daughters but nobody
answered her, which, yeah, Eva is still alive, and in
her chat there are eight crawlers I can see nearby,
but I don't know any of them, and they're all
in the low twenties. We sent out a group message.

(01:00:05):
I received only one reply, a human named Gwendolen Duet.
She was a level twenty seven, boring old fighter. I
love that. Oh hey, bomber guy, looks like we're neighbors.
All these dumbasses I'm stuck with don't know what they're doing.
Me and the other two folks in my team are
the highest level here we rolled land and rolled something

(01:00:25):
called the Singing Castle of the Mad Dune Mage. There
are giant snakes, giant spiders, and these half human half
scorpion punk rock guys with no shirts and nipple rings
running around all over the place. Plus bird things carrying chainsaws,
though we haven't fought them yet. We haven't checked out
the castle up close, but it's a big and there
are four levels of walls. Do you have a Desperado club?

(01:00:49):
There are three villages, not including the castle, and I
heard one of them does, but this one doesn't. I
don't have access anyway. I'm a proper fucking lady. I
got a club Vanquisher Ring. There's a coral reef ringing
the island. You can see it from the shore. I've
seen sharks and jellyfish. Don't know where the sea castle is.
You see nothing on the water surface yet. Don't know

(01:01:10):
about the tomb, but there are lots of entrances we
can't get into. It looks like it's amaze inside, and
I'm kind of thinking that maybe the castle is underwater.
I feel like that would make sense. It might be
if anything in the coral reef. I'm just thinking about

(01:01:31):
the Little Mermaide Disney version where you know, everything is underwater,
and coral does make up a great deal of the
structure of their kind of buildings. So they have to
take naps, get their buffs and whatnot, set up, do
foot care, YadA, YadA, and let's see he's I forgot

(01:01:57):
about the I have the biggest library in town. I
can be anything you want, honey. Oh my god. I
found the house I was looking for and knocked on
the tall door. The thing stood only about five feet tall.
It was like a person wearing one of those body socks,
no nose, no eyes, just a blank mannequin. If it

(01:02:18):
didn't have the white dot of an NPC, I would
have clabbered it. Scarn level three changeling juvenile, and he
changes into like an eight year old boy wearing the
same clothing as Carl, because apparently he's been instructed to
look as familiar to the person that he's speaking to
as possible to set them at ease, which is very interesting.

(01:02:41):
And the fact that he has like no features is
it's a very fun idea. I really like this as
a concept. So Carl asks, do you mind if I
look through that telescope, and immediately it's like, oh yeah, absolutely,
And he had been very monotone and weird. But once

(01:03:02):
Karl asks for this specifically, he gets extremely excited about it,
and he says Flint says, I'm supposed to ask for
a gold coin. He says. Orphans can only get by
if they use their towns to take money from people
dumber than them. We had a village, but the Gnomes
bonded it. Most of us died, but the Drumedarians took
us in. Not many kids lived. Ruby lived, but Flint

(01:03:24):
says she's destined to spend her life in weird shit alley,
which is fucking grim. Why did the Nomes bomb you,
Flint says it's because Gnomes are short, little assholes who
deserve nothing but to be trampled to death and be
ripped apart by faral geese, ah, I said. Coming onto
the roof, so he looks through the thing, is able
to see the the castle and actually see a lot

(01:03:51):
of information about it, even though he's far away, which
he hadn't been expecting. Say, I'm trying to find the spot.
It looks like a floating junkyard. It used to be
bigger but some of it broke off and fell into
the water. The Wasteland Castle appeared to be a jagged edged,
almost rectangular island ripped straight from the ground. There was

(01:04:15):
so much going on with the thing it was difficult
to focus on the whole. If the scale was correct
in my head, the island was approximately the width of
three football fields. Hundreds of ropes and chains and other
strange items hung from the bottom of it, twinkling in
the light. Also attached to the side were dozens of
different flying machines of various sizes, from single tiny person

(01:04:38):
from single from tiny single person hot air balloons to
bus size floating boats. And that's pretty fun. I'm very
excited about this. And there are you know, some explosives
that he zooms in on that are very unstable. Did
they drop one of those knock knock bombs on your

(01:04:59):
old village? Which yep, it was a long time ago,
though I don't remember. If Flint says the Nomes are
bomb dropping cowards, he says, anyone who uses a bomb
as a pussy I live Carls just like yeah. Well,
Flint says, they don't know what the Bactorians have. But
here in hump, tell me have something that makes it

(01:05:20):
so the Nomes don't bomb us. The Gnomes have a leader,
guy who's really mean, but we have something he wants
to keep safe, so he doesn't bomb our town. They
still attack anything outside the walls. That's why Flint and
the others only go go out right after the storm,
when the wasteland is over the water. But do you
know what they have hidden in the town hall. I
don't know. I'm not allowed to go over there. I

(01:05:41):
know it eats mushrooms and that's the end of the chapter,
so I don't know what that means, but I am
very curious. Oh okay, Michael says, probably the shirt isn't
as good as his shirt of troll healing he has on. Gotcha.

(01:06:01):
Rob says I'd never thought about Mayo and hot dogs
before that, and Michael says Japan probably does it. Japan
loves Mayo target the essos who think it's okay to
bring their baby to a movie. Honestly, yeah, like, I'm
so sorry. I know it's tough with kids, but find
a sitter, dude, just go get somebody, jesus. Rob says

(01:06:23):
Japan also makes hot dogs covered in hash Browns, so
they're definitely known for wild and potentially delicious hot dog cuisine.
I really hate you for telling me that, Rob, because
now it's like all I'm gonna be able to think about.
I love hash browns so much, you know what, I
don't think there's like a potato based food that I'm
gonna have an issue with. I can't think of one.

(01:06:44):
I just you just can't go wrong. Man. God really
loves us for giving us potatoes. Like people say this
with beer, but to me, it's potatoes. Yeah, there's there's
no way of cooking potatoes that I'm gonna be like,
I'll pass. I can't think of a single one. So anyway,

(01:07:07):
I've got a wrap. Thank you guys again, and until
next time to the Loo motherfuckers. That was an Unspoiled

(01:07:44):
Network podcast