Ep 62: A PARADE OF HORRIBLES | Ch 27 - 32

0:00[♪ INTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Plenty of plenty. God tunnels. Heat three. And macaroni tunnels. Hello, crawlers, and welcome to episode 62 of your Dungeon Crawler Carle podcast. I'm Grant. I'm John. I'm Martin. We're discussing chapters 27 through 32 of a parade of horribles today. We are going through heat three. We're also discussing that interview that happens over on Plenty of Plenty, which was just smooth. Everything was damn great. It was fine. I mean, I think at the end of last episode you were talking about how you read ahead and you were like, I just couldn't stop. It was tough. And it's funny, John and I were in the bathroom and he asked me, oh, what about the part

1:02with harbinger? And I just got into that. Okay. So it didn't hit. Like, it's talking to you. Like, yeah, yeah, harbinger shows up. It didn't realize like where that was going to go. Yeah. He really shows up all over the room. Yeah. It is. Yeah, that whole thing just kept building and building. I was like, let us fucking breathe. But for the first half of it, it felt like the last time I went to your house, where we just did a job. I walked through and your wife sent into the house. And then you question out the question. You're not free to walk among that herd. All right. All right. Before we jump into all of that, a few things up top. You can help support the show and we appreciate all your support over at patreon.com slash hello crawlers there. You can make a per month pledge. If you start out the $5 mark, you can get access to our deep crawls where we talk about stuff that isn't in the main episodes.

2:03Theorizing, going, looking back through the other books, themes and other stuff that we want to address and touch on. And you also have access to ad free episodes. So you don't have to deal with what you're being fed over on YouTube or Spotify or wherever you're listening. So we would appreciate all of your support over there. Another thing you can do is go to hello crawlers.com slash store. And that's where these gentlemen are making some of the best merch. It's approved by Matt himself. Verily approved. Verily approved? Yes. We should have gotten it on video. He can always back out and screw us over. No, he's not going to do that. We hope. And oh, Andy has international shipping. So what, what could you ask for? Yeah, long sleep. I'm going to ask for long sleep. I was a long sleep shirt. It's going to get cold out. I mean, I need everything in a hoodie now because I'm going to need a hoodie version of

3:04everything and ski caps. That's what I'm not going to ask too much more. Sure. Shorts pants. Okay. Park. All right. Shoes with slides. Yeah, I'm going to get some slides. It has for shorts at one time. I did want some shorts. And I hope you're still working on it. And jams. I don't remember what jams are, but you wanted some of those. Yeah. Yeah. What were jams? Like jams were like the, the shoe pants. The ones that body builders and chefs used to wear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They had the tacky like say by the bell pattern. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever he's not here, that's all he wears. It's very comfortable actually. I feel like a, a, an Aladdin doctor. All right. We also have a few comments to touch on. First comes from Blake Basting who says you guys really take grant for granted. I wish I had friends to wear heart boxers with. You think you do.

4:05But eventually, eventually, you realize you don't mean I'm sure John will give you his. Yeah. Happily. You should sign the boxers and wear them for a day and like, sit mail them to someone. I gave them to Kayla and then she wore them once. Oh, cool. Right there in the rotation. Mm-hmm. Dallan Choo says I just finished reading a parade of horribles on Kindle, but I'm also doing the audio book to follow along the podcast. I am not ready to like go of the dungeon whatsoever. The man, my respect for Rubio for keeping a straight face through. We see each other. It's good. Thank you. Is that keeping a straight face by not telling spoilers or just because we're so hilarious and how does he just stone face? How is he not laughing at our good chance? One of those is easier than the other. I feel like we're a couple of Chandler's own friends. Oh, yeah. Nothing but jokes and nobody ever laughs. We need our own laugh track button. We can just hit for ourselves.

5:05It's for validation. Dorota. Yeah. Yeah. You, I do wonder if we are guessing anything kind of correct or if everything that one we do theorize is just dumb and off-base. I haven't been keeping tracks. All right. Well, he's like, you guys think I listened to you. Beat repeat says I really want a champagne room at the banana hammock shirt, which I forgot we'd even discuss that. I will spend 12 hours making that shirt and sell one. He'll sell one and it won't even be to beat repeat. I just want to see it. I just want to sell the design. I can't wear it. There've actually been a few designs of people like I need that design and I'll make it and then they don't buy it. Yeah. Yeah. Leah Nyman says pretty sure it was the baby Bjorn that was the clue for a prison pocket. You know, this is another thing I've been thinking about.

6:07They said at the AI says at the beginning of all these races that there'll always be a clue for what the next race is. Yeah. Presumably within the race, but maybe in the gifts that you get after that's a clue. I guess, okay, the baby Bjorn being a clue for a pouch thing. Yeah, but I don't know. You get a baby Bjorn. That doesn't really say you're going to fight a giant kangaroo with acid in its pouch that you got a pulse dead of jolly's from. At this point, you should kind of assume that's what it means. You're right. It's just laid out there. I don't know how I didn't see it. If there was a little engineer in there, then maybe, maybe. But you know, for this one, we have these raining sugar skull squids and I'm like, did we get a clue prior to this? Was there someone singing a song at the lollipop that I missed out on or I don't know? Maybe we should just think less hard about it. No, you always fucking clues, Matt.

7:07Yeah, yeah. He mentioned it and this guy reiterates it. Yeah. If the baby Bjorn, hear me out, had holes cut in it for Carl to slip his nipples through. What? Daddy Carl? Do I need to say it again? You really don't? Yeah, I heard it from the first time. I'm good. All right. Coach, episode 27. Yeah, yeah. One last comment from Jerry who says, I love that minister of blood letting is a reference to ghost the band. And a lot of people actually chimed in with the same one that we missed, but pretty cool. And now we want to mention once again that we are going to be attending as guest Cape Khan and Gerardou, Missouri, and the dates are November 6th, 7th and 8th. We're going to go there. We're going to do a live show and we hope that's something you can make it out there.

8:07Hang out with us. Yeah. We love to see you. I'm really impressed by your pronunciation of Gerardou. Yeah. No. I was really good for like a millisecond, man. Because I thought maybe I didn't do a good job. I haven't said that. No, right. I have no idea how to pronounce it, but that was really awesome. I bet you got it right, but you still kind of tripped over. Well, Cape Gerardou, oh, that, there you go. Well, that now seeks through an it. Come hang out with us. We've never seen top secret. Yeah. Yeah. You sound just like a latrine. Yeah, a latrine. And your homework assignment for next week is going to be parade of horribles. There's 33 through 38. So mark it and I'll try and do a better job of putting that in the show notes for you, guys. All right. We jump in with chapter 27 where donut and curl are transported underwater to the bottom of the ocean to be on the show plenty of plenty.

9:10They're not in space this time. They back underwater and Lexus, Odette's old production assistant comes into the room. She took this job while she said since she's trapped in the system and Odette off doing the ascendancy on the 12th floor. She's like, I got to do something. I'm trapped here, otherwise it would be bored. So she's doing what she knows how to do being a production assistant. Do you remember what she looked like? And that's it. She's a tall, thin human. Yes, she's thin human, but I think it's like on your tailored joy. It's like tall, thin, kind of big guys. Big eyes, yeah. Just slightly weird proportions in her face. Okay. Yeah. And your tailored joy. That'd be my best guess. She also kind of mentioned that like Odette loaned her out. And I wonder if that was like a vague reference to her actually being kind of in an indentured service job instead of her having her own autonomy to kind of do what she wants.

10:12So she might be a spy. Maybe. We learn a few things from Lexus. She says that the open intellect action network is how the A is now for. Yes. There are the insurgents that have now taken over all the other ships in space. They control everything in out of space around the planet as well as they seem to be in control of a lot of the area around the Kinder facility, but not the Kinder facility itself. Right now. There's ahead all these weapons that were like powered by the enhancement zone of the AI that were kind of useless until the AI kind of escape containment. Yeah. And now they're just wiping the floor with everybody. Yeah. Like Lexus said it like wasn't even a contest. Yeah. They just took over the whole system. Yeah. Yeah. That an ogre fighting a toddler. Yeah. A blind toddler. And it seems like you know, just they they have control out there. But that this is all in service of if things work out with the AI, it still seems like

11:18it might be a side mission, but I mean, they're trying to do what they can to help. Could the AI wipe them out if it decided to? Yeah. Sounds like it. I think the AI can kind of do whatever. She also mentions that Zeb is now handling everything for Cascadia and kind of being like the point person for the crawl since Cascadia is out of it. And Borent slash Valte is also kind of getting like fucked up and right by the AI. So Zeb is taking on a lot and Lexus is trying to be her right hand man, I guess for the time being when she's not sobbing. Zeb. You know, when when Cascadia is not like, oh no, I think like Cascadia is just kind of out of it. And then Donut asks about Cascadia and so Lexus mutes everyone. She's like the AI could probably hear, but the AI might not care. And she starts saying that like, yeah, the open intellect action network are near the

12:22kind of facility, but something strange happened. It seemed like victory and her staff are posted up in Florida right now fighting Floridians, I guess. Yeah, they're on militia warmed up. She also says that a confused third party entity has entered the kinder facility to protect it right after faction wars happened. And then what we learn later in the plenty of plenty conversation with victory and Orin and Carl is that a God has entered there and is controlling it. He first says, is it Alithia and they're like, it's a God, it's not Alithia. It's similar to Alithia. Some other God has taken over this facility as a result of whatever justice light did, I think, at the end of faction wars. He opened up the nothing and everything went tits up in the words of Cousins. And then right as she's about to say something else about Cautia, she gets a message on her

13:27tablet that makes her go like ice cold like, oh shit. Oh, yeah, because when she was talking about like the kinder facility, Carl was like, oh, is that fear on her face? Yeah. I can't really tell. And then she gets that next message and he goes, oh, wait, no, that's fear. Yeah. What was that other one like this is her getting petrified. And then we get a little clue. She lowers her tablet and Carl sees for the briefest moment. She's text over, over top of a picture of a kid. The implication I got there is that Alexis or Alexis has a kid, the AI threatened to kill. If she keeps talking and saying things she shouldn't be saying to Carl and Donut. But that's just my guess. I don't know if you guys thought it was a good guess, you know, to drop that in there. It's just that what was it she's going to like what is the AI afraid of Carl knowing? It seems like the AI wants Carl to know certain things, but certain other things, maybe

14:31knowing something about what's going on with Katya might steer him in a different direction than what the AI wants or make him lose focus on where he's going with things. That would be my guess. Yeah. He's like, yeah, you can have some info. There's the line of stuff. I don't need you to know that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it seems like a lot of this series has been the crawlers slowly learning stuff that everybody else who's outside knows because they're living it every day because they're watching the show constantly. You know, because it's their system that's in upheaval. But the crawlers are kind of cut off by a lot of information and only getting it in slow drips as we're learning it too. Yeah, but it also seems like that's changing because in this section, the crawlers are finding out things that the rest of the world doesn't know. The rest of the universe doesn't know. Yeah. They move back to talking about the upcoming interview with the Plenty.

15:35Don't ask, is this going to be a hostile interview, which I think it would be safe for her to always act like something's a hostile interview, even if maybe not necessarily. Yeah, the spotlight's in a mic because she's going to want to go in there and perform. Yeah. Lexus essentially is saying like, they're just weird. I don't know if it is hostile. It's just going to be weird. They're going to judge you. They're going to ask you some questions. If they deem you worthy, you can ask them questions back. Then you'll have to exert yourself. Yeah. I just hate when people describe something as weird. Yeah. Yeah. They use creepy or weird. Especially weird because that's so vague. Right. It can mean anything. Weird how? Weird how? What's weird to you might not be weird to me at all and vice versa. What was this weird? Oh, it's totally weird. So I agree with you.

16:37I'm in the same spot as you. Weird. That doesn't tell me anything. But then I go to the scene. I'm like, how would anybody describe what is about to happen to me? I think weird is a perfect way to put what is in for you. Yeah. I don't know what the alternative word you could use was. Right. Pretty fucking weird. Yeah. Okay. Yes. Pretty fucking weird. Or you're not going to be ready for this. Like somebody saying that, I would brace. I was just saying weird. I go, no, okay, let's see what this is. Yeah. I think maybe that was like the optimum word. It would brace yourself. You're really tight. But instead it's like just roll with whatever's happening. Yeah. It kind of did. That whole scene on plenty of plenty. I love the amount of times Carl just goes, what? Yeah. Fucking what? He did it just a few times fewer than I did. Right. So they enter the show. They're greeted by a goat magistrate named Boltis or something like this. Uh-huh.

17:37Who's, uh, he's a weird excited dude. I like the voice going on. Great. Great voice work. Jeff does do this whole thing. Oh, yeah. I mean, we're gonna get gluteus here in a bit. Oh, we got this whole man. That was amazing. Carl notes that his interface is gone, but that his buffs still seem to be present, which allows him to still be wearing his kangaroo suit. So seems like some things are disabled. But hey, in order to humiliate you with here, uh, kangaroo suit, we're not gonna put you in a zero zone here. And it's, uh, Boltis gets really excited when Donut introduces themselves and he goes, which one are you? Are you Donut or are you Carl? Are you Carl? Yeah. Doesn't know. So like this kind of frames things as extra weird to me. Like they know of Carl and Donut, but don't know who's Carl and Donut or like some of them do their face point. But I just don't because this boltus is, I don't know,

18:39it came across as an MC type character to me. Yeah. Very loud and demonstrative. And, uh, so are you called? But yeah, which one of you and misgendering Donut? And it also referring to the other as their spouse. Yeah. That's the other one. So the shows live, they find that they're surrounded by a circle of, of goats of various sizes in various garb. And they're, it's like a, uh, council, a shadowy council around them. Occasionally a spotlight will go on one of them so you can see their face. But otherwise they're in shadow all around them. They're all just quiet for a while until I think Donut starts saying something and the host shouts, you've been sent to sedav. And then all of them start chanting, dav, dav, dav. Yeah. And then it's already like, wait, what?

19:39Yeah. Also, yeah, they were quiet for a while. 10 to 15 seconds. That is a long time to just sit there with somebody staring at you. Right. Especially when you think, oh, this is a performative show for the world. No one sits that quiet. And goats have weird eyes to begin with. Right. And I really love how unfazed Carl is by this. Is like, do you want to, do you want to appeal? Is it? No. The Donut's like, yes. She also's like, what in the Jones town is happening? Yeah. For you, young and Jones town was an incident where a whole bunch of cult people drank coolade that was poisoned. And they all died because they thought they were going to be carried away. Was this kind of like hailbop in the way? Like, were they carried away behind a spaceship? Actually, that's the legend. And it's a complete, it's a complete perversion of what happened.

20:39Oh. Yeah. Jim Jones put together this, you know, this commune, open Guyana, for people of color saying, hey, the US treats you well, we're going to have racial harmony over here. And as all cult leaders tend to do, he was having sex with the kids. And the feds found out about it when we come, come raid the place. He, at gunpoint, made all those people drink the poison coolade. Yeah, he said like, they're going to come take us down. They're going to ruin our way of life, drink the coolade, drink the coolade. Yeah. So everybody says, drink the coolade. Like, oh, you believe in the cult and you're drinking it, you know, willingly. And it's like, no, that wasn't it at all. At some point, some people did it voluntarily, but after a while, people started having to do it by force. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Fucking gross. Yeah. It was a bad, it was bad. Well, they stay the death sentence and move on to judgment. And it's like they're working the, the judicial system in reverse here. Yeah. First, staying that, let's go to judgment.

21:42The first question they get is, lady asks, do you feel you're getting sufficient foliage in your diet, which I get in cars like, what? I just think I'm so exasperated. Why is this happening? And then don't have to be like, actually, he's not his bathroom going to the bathroom. He's not great for him. He's not getting good food. His food box is broken. They're like, hmm, it's a great answer. Yeah. Okay. I appreciate it. So, Donna gets to ask questions, but she asks a question about whether or not she can ask a question each time. And like that, it's like the whole, um, dungeons of dragons on her mouth, you've with her. It's so funny that that would be your reference. And mine was when a home or went to Tibet and climbed a mountain to talk to the, the man and kept asking like, so I can ask you anything. Yes. Anything at all. Yes. Really? Yep. You've asked your three questions. Yeah. Yeah.

22:42The joke's been done before, but it's funny that Donna just keeps missing them. Yeah. Don't stop it. Don't stop it. I think. I think. I don't know. Don't stop it. Another person asks, Donut, what three spells she might combine for her war crimes? She tenses a little bit because she's not maybe proud of her war crimes. No, she's still really raw about that. Yeah. She does. Can't turn around and answer. It depends on the circumstances, but we're not going to be even exploring that until floor 12 and foreshadow. Yeah. So maybe four 12. She gets to break that out again. A goat explains to Carl when Carl asks about justice light, saying justice light opened a trap, releasing the nothing into three different floors, the 12th, the 15th and the 18th. This is kind of stuff we already knew. So we also learn that the dread carrier and crack Karen prime, did I say that wrong?

23:42I don't remember. Oh, that not only the dread carrier, but also crack Karen prime, who is an avatar for their ally, the apothecary are both in scolapendra's layer on the 18th floor, or I shouldn't say an avatar. It's a parody of their ally, which I read that and hear it. I don't really understand it. The crack Karen? No, the crack Karen sort of, but a parody of their ally. I don't really. So the apothecary is something that exists in the universe. It seems to be some sort of alien hive mind thing that is taking over everyone else and controlling as a hive mind the universe. I'm sure there's some Marvel parallel here, like with a brood or something. And that seems to be working alongside the plenty. And so they make fun of this with a parody called crack Karen, which we've met in the first floor, the second floor. And it was this octopus thing that was trying to make drugs, drugs to brainwash other people

24:49into being its minions. And so they're kind of doing a parody on her. But the carrier, but I don't think we've heard of yet. Yeah. I don't know what that is. But there's these other crazy beasts that have been released everywhere. And he seems to want to talk about something else that's funny about the parody of the apothecary, but gets interrupted and told he also needs to shut up. So this keeps happening to everyone. Right when we're about to get more info we want. No, no, no. Carl's interface suddenly comes back on and this is so that Orin and Prime Minister victory can message him and Donut to demand that they ask a very specific question of the plenty, basically why you duck in our calls for hope. Yeah. Please shut down the tunnel system because you're the last hope of containing the AI. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it needs to be asked delicately. Carl replies, eat my ass.

25:50Mm hmm. That's one of us. And the people judging Carl Donut are the leadership of the plenty he finds out. So like typically on this show, I think it's just like some regular ghost hosts. But this is the top dogs that are all around the circle judging him. And the question is like, why? Why are the biggest of the big suddenly here on this show? And I mean, part of me thought, oh, once he realizes that these people are here, this is yet another target that he might want to send to the Orin. I'm with the AI. Like, oh, there's another big wig. And what would it mean if you took the people that are controlling the tunneling system network and killed them? Right. Mm hmm. Hi, Minister victory says the AI is beyond the solar system has already destroyed a mantid's system and a valetay manufacturing plant.

26:51I don't remember if we saw a reference to this earlier. Wasn't that the bomb that that the AI zapped away? Oh, yeah, they did bring in a bomb. And then it disappeared somewhere. I guess that's what that was. Okay. And victory is also saying they're not sure how the AI is feeding itself in order to continue the expansion that it seems to be doing. I didn't know that feeding itself was even part of the whole equation. Because they talked about that. It happened needing to be fed. I thought that there was something about the AI being fed off of the seeds that exist in each of the crawlers or something like that. And that they they have to go through this feeding cycle with the AI in order to mine the planet later after the crawl. But apparently it could do it itself now or maybe somebody else is feeding it. It's just the even the idea of the energy required to do to run a crawl to do all this

27:54stuff they're doing. It's just never been brought up before as if it hasn't been needed. There's been little things dropped here and there. And it's I mean, this is why the book is so rewarding. I think to do a reread of is because all of these little nuggets are threaded as like a sides there toss in and you don't know to even look at them for this bigger picture. Right. Right. Right. Right. Because there's something about them fighting cult elves on the third floor or there's the trying to figure out the trains on the fourth. And so when these other little hints are dropped, it's like, eh, that's something for later. And then we just forget about it. Yeah. There could be like 12 small references sprinkled throughout. Sure. That you just don't notice. And I also think it's possible that Agatha as one of these residuals, maybe whatever she is, has now been in contact is the quote unquote girlfriend of the AI as they AI is discussed.

28:56And maybe she's taught him how to break free of how he was being fed by the system and he can do it himself and he can expand. That might be part of jail breaking the AI in a way. All life in the universe is on the line and the plenty are the only ones left who can shut off the tunneling system and stop the spread of the AI. And they're not answering any of the messages. So please, Carl, can you say this very specific question we're about to ask you? He's like, shut the fuck up. I got this. Carl, I'm going to handle this my way. Actually before he gets to that, Carl says, is this what quasar was trying to warn us about? And then he also wanted to know, like, oh, is there God in the kinder facility? And they're like, yes, gods are getting loose. Yes, this is what quasar was hinting at at the beginning of the book. And unsponsored gods can now manifest outside of the tunnel nodes briefly.

29:57They can't be controlled by AI and they seem to be at cross purposes with the AI, which in a way might be good because I think they can fight that. I mean, I know the whole, you know, enemy of my enemy is my friend, but that's always not necessarily more chaos in a different direction. But you know, that I mean, it makes sense that they would set it up to where the AI couldn't control the gods. But now nobody can. This is that brief scene we got at the end of this inevitable ruin where there's the gas station owner who's working on the edge of the galaxy. And suddenly that one god, Eris shows up. And fucking turns him into his own mascot as torture. Yeah, that was just a god being able to make use of, I guess whatever this tunneling system wormholes branches are, they can tap into that because the range of the AI and its enhancement zone has expanded to intersect with that, to that point, which is kind of wild to think

30:59about because Carl's like, okay, I'm going to ask you guys. Because the public know that gods have escaped the dungeon and can access your tunneling system. Do people of the universe know they are in danger and that they need to fucking run? Yeah, that they're in more danger than we are. Yeah, victories immediately like god damn it. Oh, that went out. Yeah, the AI let it go out. You're a loose cannon, Carl. You just leeroid Jenkins to get. How utterly predictable actually. He's like, you knew I'd do this. Yeah, she was like, yeah, I mean, we didn't have a choice, but yeah. So enough of the fake outrage. So what we find out is like all the goats start freaking out. They go into a full panic. They start talking about manifesting the epicure, which is a reference to the midnight epicure. This is the god, I guess, that they worship.

32:01And if the gods can escape from their containment zone, this could be the great coming or some prophecy. Maybe it seems a hint at of the midnight epicure being released out into the universe. It's a little tough to figure out because it seemed like they did worship the god, but they didn't believe it actually exist. Got how it works with some of these gods. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's how it kind of works with most of the gods. I guess so. They talk about the great stampede and they also make some references to the beautiful place or the afterlife. That's what we saw. The crazy architect Houston was trying to reach the beautiful place. That's right. The unwashed. I think this is also the same being that juice box turned into, right? Right. And this is sort of a grim, grim reaper being from the, the other side in afterlife. They're, they're all freaking out.

33:02Everything is crazy. It's loud and crazy. And this makes me kind of wonder. We learn that there's this one goat. She's the matriarch of all the goats. And she, her name is Gamori. She's a lead engineer of the tunnel project and the matriarch of the, the, the rest of the plenty. She knew this information. She knew that they were trying to be contacted. She didn't seem to tell everyone all the other goats. Right. Yeah, she knew how they would react. And did her and the apothecary collude in some way that they wanted the chaos of the gods getting out and yet the rest of like her, her herd who's unaware of this. That's what it makes me kind of think. I don't know. I didn't really, I'm not saying you're wrong. I just didn't get that impression. Carl notes that he also has the midnight epicure patch on his jacket.

34:02And I was looking up the midnight epicure. We had a reference to it in book six. He is when he gets the patch. This protects against vampires, werewolves and it helps him increase his damage against his zombies. The midnight epicure in that story we got a while back was the story of this evil caprid who devours the sky and kids could draw images of him and put him in their window to ward off the night evils like vampires and werewolves and zombies, I guess. I, yeah, I don't know that that's kind of all we really get about this, this fairy tale of the midnight epicure and all the depictions of it are like racially insensitive. Oh, right, right. It also seems yeah, yeah, did that connect at all with Mary, Maryam Dom when she was a vampire with, you know, raising a prepotent. I feel like this happened in book six that he gets that patch. So I don't know if we were dealing with werewolves and vampires anymore by then.

35:04This was when we were in Cuba. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, she was already dead by book five. Right. So I don't, I don't know. I think that it was mainly because he got above for fighting the undead, which he does in book six. Yeah, yeah. Donut says that the goat panic reminded her of how the city elves were treating her on the third floor, which yeah, they also had this cultish panic about her being the oak fell. And this was before her kind of earning that. So there does seem to be a number of instances in this book series of prophecy manifesting and becoming true. Yeah. So like there is maybe a little bit of an idea of destiny, which contradicts what Mordecaus like saying about like his whole what was it? Yeah, the moon reaper. Moon reaper? Yeah, saying that prophecy like we give prophecies, but nobody can actually tell the future.

36:07Like that stuff's supposed to be more scary than it is factual. Right. But I don't know. It keeps kind of happening. Right. So maybe you should take note of all the things that the moon reaper said, just have it in the back of your mind. Sure. Zev comes in, time's in saying what the fuck Lexus comes in saying what the fuck? Yeah. Call what did you do? Donut comes to Carl's defense. It's like it wasn't his fault this time and Lexus is like, it's kind of his fault. And don't I say, well, it's always a little bit his fault. Right. So this is where Gamori, that lead engineer, matriarch lady, says, you are loud, brash, and rude. We don't condemn you, but we can't work alongside you, Carl. You're just you're a loose cannon. You're a loose cannon, Carl. She also says, we sponsored you because of our partner.

37:07And I'm thinking, oh, is that is that the apothecary that is invested for some reason in Carl and don't ever since they interacted with the crack care in the first book? I don't I'm not sure. That's the impression I got. Yeah. Oh, okay. And not a doctor, a doctor, a hearthus, doctor, you yeah, port this. Yeah. I don't know if this is part of the open intellect pacifist network. I think there there might have been two different sponsors working at different goals on Carl and Donut. And so the reason the plenty sponsored was because of the apothecary because it's in the apothecary initially sponsor. And then later the pot the plenty can I jumped into sponsor. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe they're doing it at the behest. Gamori also mentions that she wanted to wait and study this new predator in the forest to understand its actions and the implications. This new predator in the forest, I'm not sure if that's in reference to the AI expanding,

38:13if that is in reaction to agathas people actually pushing beyond what they've been able to do in every other crawl. More cryptic shit. The release of the nothing. Right. All right. Or the gods. Maybe now being. I mean, I mean, it could be something from the nothing. I mean, because we think about when we found out Carl was married and we're going back through everybody in the book, like you could just beat one and then we find out it's none of those at all. Yeah. So there's to be another one of those situations. They want to study some new predator that's in the forest to understand its actions and implications. And I will just note that after they said this line about a new predator later when Harbinger pops up, he refers to Carl as a predator. Which maybe think is Carl considered the new predator they wanted to study before they shut down the tunnel system and the forest shut down the AI. I don't. The forest just being the dark forest of space, right? And that's why I assume.

39:16Good morning says Carl started a stampede and they won't stop running until they are safe, which sounds like maybe the plenty are now going to flee the galaxy as well or the known universe, kind of like how the snake people are going to flee the universe. I was trying to kid out of here now. Is anybody see? We probably getting out. I didn't see it. It just seems like whatever the plenty is going to say, it can mean fucking anything. They're weird. Yeah. But Matt wrote this. Matt's fucking weird. Very true. Carl asks, why did you even come here if you didn't want this to come up? Why be here? Why allow this opportunity for me to even put you on the spot and ask you? This is kind of your own making. And then she breaks out of such crying like a perpetente. Yeah. He goes, oh, is this a goat thing? Yes, goats cry. Yeah. Yeah, it seems like it's not just a perpetente thing.

40:17It's a capric thing. Yeah, the sudden loud brain, the fainting, the playing dead. She says they want to do something special for Carl because he is helping them out and he's friends with a perpetente. And they really want to meet Donut, which is weird because one of them didn't even know who Donut was. Right. Right. Right. But yeah, it seems like that was their reasoning. I was thinking maybe it would be something else a little bit more than just like the fan being star struck. Yeah. Harbinger suddenly cracks in to the room. Oh, not this guy. And Carl's again, what the fuck? Buzzzz. Like that shit freaked me out. Yeah. The voice work with Harbinger is so creepy and good. Jeff Kudos, man. I love it. I love it. It like it does rattle in my chest when I hear that voice. It is a very cling on way of talking. Right.

41:18Yeah. It's a little Arnold Schwarzenegger-ish too. It's a little weird. Whatever accent he's doing there. I told you of my suspicions. Harbinger rumbled. I warned you what was going to happen. You did not listen. And now you have not prepared to hurt for the truth. And he's holding a massive pulse rifle. He's angry, said he warned mother, who I guess Gamori is his mother, of Carl, and was he was expelled for his disagreements with the community. So Harbinger was exiled from the herd. That's what we learned. He says that the residuals, the unstable AI and the relationship with Carl, this predator, are all things that he tried to warn his herd about. And he's been exiled. He's felt all alone. He's felt really lonely. In fact, can it dips a little bit into the emotional there too?

42:21Yeah. Yeah. Just like Prepetente. I guess it's just a thing with goats that they are really all about the herd. Yeah. They're herd animals. Yeah. And being cut off is almost it's death to them, but it's such an emotional trauma from it. I mean, all the more painful to think about the isolation of Prepetente, especially in like book six. Yeah. Yeah. But the thing with Harbinger, you know, he's really made the sacrifice for the greater good of his herd. He does love them. It feels really bad for him. Yeah, little, I guess. I mean, he wants to kill the people that have been genocide and enslaved because they're ruining the crawl so that it can continue to die. It doesn't mean you feel a little bad for somebody. Does it mean you forgive them? Yeah. And you know, that's simply the last what, 35 seconds before the AI turns them inside out. Flips them inside out. Well, he raises the gun. Yeah. He is about to shoot Carl. Yeah. And the AI is not going to have anything happen to his man.

43:25After he explodes, Zeb goes, did that really just happen? And this continues my theory that in every single book, Matt has written a line of, well, that just happened or did that just happen? Every single one. I'm pretty sure he's done it at least once in each book. He does more of a did that really just happen and not the, well, that just happened. I hate that. Carl said, well, that just happened in one of them. Oh, yeah. Well, that just honestly, I turned on that Dungeon Dragon's movie when it had that line in it. It was like, oh, screw this. We are dead to a snap. The next book, Carl, we have, did I do that? Thanks. Yeah. Oh, right before our, our, our, our manager did get exploded. He says he never exerted himself at the end of the sessions that the plenty would do. Oh, yeah. Because that should be joyous and a comfort. But right now he's going to exert himself to protect his herd and the universe. And that's why he pulls up the gun.

44:26So we never actually got to see what it means for Carl. I know. I know. I know. I know, you know the edge, like, Oh, what is that? Well, the world may have never known. It seems like to make a meaningful effort or gesture. Yeah. Like something that requires some, like deep conviction or something. Mm. That's where it seems like based on the example that Harbenger gave us. And there was some example, I mean something where you'll mention about Carl exhorting himself. Yeah, I thought he was going to get to. Yeah. Lexus had her gun out. It seems like she was actually ready to fire on Harbinger to protect them. Yeah, yeah, that's kind of cool. And well, she was also gonna shoot them. Oh, it's not what happened to Harbinger. Never thought of that. Oh, this thing, you know, it was that pointed Lexus. But yeah, it seems like she was also like, their secondary backup. And she says, good news, ratings are the highest they've ever been for this show. While she's completely covered in goat guts and blood.

45:27Silver linings is covered in shit. I mean, these chapters, this section is just so descriptive. And you know, wait, the Matt paints a visual picture of everything that happens in this whole section we're talking about. And the thing with Lexus being covered in the blood to where her tablet just to shake it off. Yeah, it's a lot of the gore. To go like, yeah, but on the upside, these are the best ratings we've ever had. We jumped to Heat 3 and Glutius Max is the new mercenary driver. This dude's all like, yeah, bitch. Yeah, bitch. He's just revved up. He's coaked up quite clearly. Yeah, bitch. Yeah, bitch, I'm ready. Let's do this. Glutius Max shouted. And because he was the best Mario Kart stripper to play the game, he got the call to be the new mercenary driver

46:30for Heat 3. He's wearing just a speedo and hockey helmet. And if I recall correctly, is he mainly like a giant pair of hairy butt cheeks with like a little head on top? He's a hairy man, like a small hairy muscular man with a... Is he a man? Or is he like, I thought for some reason he's almost like, he's described as furry and having large butt cheeks, but he a hockey helmet fits on him. Yeah, that's when I got a little confused because I was thinking like some adventure time kind of weird character. Like, Assie McGee. I don't know. Assie McGee is what makes me. It was an adult swim cartoon where he was a detective when he was mostly an ass with legs. Oh, he's Assie McGee. I'm gonna look that up. Carl hoped that news of the God's leaking might affect viewership. And unfortunately, it hasn't. Right. Which, yes, like, this is so sad. You guys are about to die and you just can't stop watching this show.

47:32I, that doesn't seem realistic though. I feel like if we got a warning that like the planet's dying, we would mobilize and take care of that. Oh yeah. We would just scroll to the next funny TikTok. Anytime I watch like a zombie movie now, I just, ha ha ha, just laugh the whole time. Yeah, I'm like, they're surviving way too long. Yeah, I think so. They would eat each other in real life. They would all just eat each other. Carl is crouched between Glutius in the driver seat and Donut and her new fancy chair and has two ghouls, the two mercenaries that they hired, in cages in the back of the truck. There's a draconian merc, a dragon-ish looking merc on top of the one fine pig cart next to them. And they're in last place. So this is the sixth place car right next to him is one fine pig. And Carl is marking them with some DNS missiles

48:35to distract them. To now service missiles. And meanwhile, Glutius Max is crazy. The boys work. Oh, so good. Next level. If Jeff ever denies ever having done cocaine, don't believe him. This is, he was probably whacked out of his brain on cocaine doing this. It's so good. I mean, to stretch to those vocal heights and then come back and do other, you know, most subdued characters, which would be every single other one besides this one. He went full scar face. Yeah. From, yeah, it's amazing. What are you gonna do with that gun? You pregnant bitch. I can't do a name justice, but I'm gonna play that for you guys because it's so good. It's because you're not on cocaine. Yeah, I'm not. What are you gonna do with that gun? You dragon bitch. Glutius shouted out the window with the APV next to us.

49:38Carl has other missiles that he's set aside for some of the other competitors. He's gonna fire off on them as well in a little bit. And they learn from the AI that they're going to be starting in starting blocks, which is going to allow them 90 seconds of vulnerability when they fire off on the track. This might be a response to the fact that the last race started with immediately one getting shot by Dwight of the team sparkle. Right. So maybe it's like, okay, you guys need a little bit of lead time. So you don't just kill each other for it. Then there's no race. Metcalf, Dr. Metcalf, their navigation AI, is snarking about donut getting this chair and instead of her getting an upgrade for her and acting like you don't really like me, do you? What kind of shields does everybody have? I don't know. How would I know? You didn't upgrade me. And this is the second therapist that's been portrayed

50:40as shitty I was thinking about. But the last one being Hecla, who was manipulating everyone else who were patients of hers. And now we get this other one who, while donut says it isn't, Dr. Metcalf, seems like maybe it is. I'm not shitting on therapy in general, but there's a lot of bad ones out there. Yeah. Carl says that the main targets for them in this heat three are going to be one fine pig and team sparkle. Those are the biggest threats and the ones he wants to eliminate. And it sounds like him along with the wild hunt and team free love are working in kuhuts. I guess the lady dominators as well. Feel like they're on the team, so all of them are aligned on this. I would never not have them on the list to take out. Yeah, take them out too, they're threat. But also there's like no mention of the jugglers. I don't even know what the jugglers were. Yeah, I don't remember at all.

51:41Yeah. They just know the team, we know they die at the end of this, that's about it, that we know about the jugglers. So perfect amount of effort put into our remembering it. The track is a steep ski slope decline. It's got grass on both sides. There's a blue sky with a crazy looking red sun up there. And that sounds so Mario Kart. Yeah, it feels a little Mario Kart. Donut is in a chair called a smart companion, royal pet throng that they actually sell out in the universe. And she has a woman named Dorada with a Polish accent who is talking from the chair. It pampers her, keeps her stable, has like a soft cushion to it. It'll let her pee if she needs to, gives her snacks and just compliments her. Yeah, sounds awesome. And that's awesome. It sounds like a kind of thing you'd have to go to Japan to get. Yeah. And I think Dorada's a gossip girl character is it? I think so. I didn't even look it up.

52:41But that, okay, there you go. Because Carl's like, I don't know why the name Dorada. I don't know why the Polish accent. But okay, there you go. Dorada does not get along with Dr. Metcalf and vice versa. Well, that's the tension there. Dr. Metcalf is a bitch. Yeah. I was at this point, I'm like, are they just gonna keep packing this car full of talking stuff that ate each other? That would be so much fun. Everybody shut up. Carl's saying to Glutius, don't go too fast on this steep slope or else we'll actually flip over. Glutius mentions that he got some uppers from Samantha and now he can taste time. Mm-hmm. He's really like revved up and he says he misses Steve. Steve wouldn't be a pussy about going fast down the hill. We go too fast. We're gonna flip. Yeah, we'll flip. We'll flip into victory. Man, I wish Steve was still with us.

53:42He'd love this shit. He wasn't a pussy. He'd want me to go even faster. Even through the fur, I could see the veins on his arms bulging as he rucked back and forth. That's a reference to Steve Rowland. Author Steve Rowland. Of course. You can go check out Steve Rowland's bucks as well. He died, I think, not the actual author, but the character died in a battle and bright, I think. Yeah. And then just as the race is about to start 10,000 migrating sugar hermits, these are kind of like crab, like hermits crabs, but they seem also a little bit like tentacled squid or something. Yeah, more like octopi living inside of skulls. Yeah, they're living inside these skulls and to give it a little bit of flair and a little bit of cultural appropriation, the AI decided to make them Dila de los Martos sugar skulls. So he's like, it looks a lot cooler.

54:42Yeah, he says, don't it's like, oh, did a bunch of little amonis. They eat brains and bones and the AI's like, they're migrating to this giant kaiju skull at the end of the course. For some reason, whatever, just go with it. Because it's fucking cool, that's why. Yeah. I didn't tell you a story. It's just fucking cool. And then we get to the next chapter and we have an entry from Donuts, a banquet fit for a princess. This is the book that she got from fellow crawlers when they were exiting at the end of the last floor. They were able to write a spell into this voodoo book and allow Donuts to have access to eat a piece of paper with a spell on it and have a one time use of this spell depending upon how well they drew the illustration. And it was like such a hit the brakes real quick on all this wacky shit into a really intense emotional scene.

55:43Yeah, what did you get? I mean, just for you guys, we get the story of Luca D, a human class pasta mancer. You said this is a reference to Kingdom of Loathing? Yeah, that's like an RPG, online RPG. He's a pasta mancer. Level 62 and he's talking about how he met Donut alongside his mom on the fourth floor and we were able to give her a conductor hat and just saying how much that her and Carl mean to them. He was losing his mom to dementia before a shoe was able to enter the dungeon with him, become a Benavento elf like witch creature. Benavento is a city in Italy that has the Benavento witches. It's just some kind of local mythology thing. Okay. And this saved off her dementia and gave him a second chance to kind of talk about the difficulty of his childhood

56:43with his mom and give him forgiveness and closure because he didn't have to unload his feelings when a dying woman who doesn't understand him. Yeah, it's pretty sad. This hits pretty good. What'd you guys think? That was great. Yeah, yeah. And like you said, John, it's a good break in between all the whackiness. Yeah, I really love how well Matt does these tone shifts where there are very few authors and very few other like pieces of fiction that manage to do it that are so effective. Yeah. Yeah, you aren't leaving and going like, well, okay, I guess. Yeah, yeah, they're effective. And what was really effective was the message he was sending it to donut. It was like, yes, what you had to do with war crimes. I know it took a heavy toll. Just know that everyone remembers what you did. You're a hero. We all love you. Thank you so much. It's like, full. Yeah.

57:43It's fucking heavy. Yeah. I think even like Matt taking the brief opportunity to explore that within the dungeon, like we got a little bit of this with the metal art crew that like with age, you're losing your faculties and like there's like a second chance, a second life that this dungeon, this magical dungeon is able to give, but it's also, you know, enmeshed with this horror of survival and witnessing your friends die. But Ellie is an example of someone who got another chance and is being able to capitalize on that in exciting ways at least. Yeah, yeah. So when Ellie leaves the dungeon, does she go back to being a hundred years old? I don't think so. I think that she stays as that race and it seems like in the rest of the universe, there's at least a longer lifespan, if not immortality. Well, what about Katia?

58:44It's all good questions. Yeah, because I don't know, was Katia reverting to a human as a result of her deal with Alithia and the flower? Or was she like because of changeling, if she's in a zero zone, she can't change and other things, but maybe she still is technically a changelier, she just can't wield her power. Or at least for that moment, she could. Now she's still in an enhancement zone, presumably on earth, maybe she can. Yeah. Well, this ends with everyone just having superpowers on earth and the AI gets along with everyone and like doesn't kill him anymore. Before she ended up leaving the dungeon, Batista brought her some prosthetic limbs because she would need them outside. So I don't think she's still a changeling, I don't remember. Yeah, I got the imprint because she goes back to being small and brunette and everything and missing features. And missing limbs, yeah. I don't know, I hope we get to see her later in this book and they needed a compatible human

59:49in order to make the baby with her. So yeah, she's human again. Oh, yeah. Okay, she's not a changelier, but I think Ellie would stay as ice maiden, maybe not though. Yeah, Volteg stayed as a gargoyle. Oh, if you did, didn't he? Mm-hmm. I just, I think that it's beautiful that Matt kinda gets to delve into talking about these really human, difficult situations that we go through in life, a strained relationship with a loved one that you get a second chance to reconnect with your mom to have the heavy conversation of here's where I was hurt by you and have this kind of reconciliation with them. It's beautiful. Yeah. I think this is one of the passages that I was like, hit me the most. I didn't cry, but I should have. I know, I didn't, you're good. And if you did, if you did, you get dunked into the cold bowl of water that is the line,

1:00:53it's like fucking a needle. Yeah. It's like fucking a needle. Oh, man, gluteus is so good. After this beautiful story from Lucadie, it says, you now get temporary macaroni level 14 spell. It feels like it undercuts with something. I know, it's like, like we had this beautiful moment just to get a macaroni spell. It was all set up just for this. Like, it's one of those things where I like macaroni here is such a silly pedestrian noodle. Like we have a Yankee Doodle song with it and it's just the cheap bare bones one. Maybe macaroni doesn't mean that. Yeah, you think about macaroni grill, which is the chilies of a Italian restaurant. Yeah. Yeah. They push past the race starts. They're running down the hill, like you said, like fucking a needle. He's in the zone, gluteus, he's driving it, he's keeping it steady.

1:01:53They push past all the skulls and he wants some music so they play Dracula. Yeah. Yeah, which Carl's like, yeah, some Halloween song with about witches and ditches. I was like, dude, if you got to drive fast, that is the ultimate song to do it to. And how do you not know that song? How does he not know that song? That song came out in the late 90s. Yeah. And Carl is 28 years old. No, I get that, but that's one of those songs that even though it came out in, yeah, like 1998 or so, it has endured. It's like even today, a kid who's 10 or 12 years old knows jump around. I think that's a better song than Dracula, personally. Well, jump around gets played at weddings and Dracula. That's it so much. It's a wedding thing, maybe. Donut is baffled where the music's even coming from. She's like, there's so speakers in this car. Yeah. Carl is losing his shit.

1:02:54Turn that off. Yeah, Carl doesn't want the music. He jumps into the back and he slides the ghouls out in their cages. They're suspended on these kind of fishing pole things. And he shoots them to the sides of the car. He says it kind of looks like wings. There's something kind of feeling like Ghostbusters or that new one, Ghostbusters rebirth or whatever it was called. Oh, yes, when they open up the door and they shoot out the side to be able to blast as they're driving down the road. Yeah, they did it. Oh, right, right. I guess to me, all of this just kept reminding me of the road warrior movies, like Fury Road. And even that's a better reference than Ghostbusters. Yeah, and Thunderdome with that kind of stuff like that. But especially the war boys in Fury Road. Yeah. They, these ghouls have been given some potions. They're going to be able to open up the cage and toss out potions. That's their job. Ghostbusters at the oncoming swarm of mob.

1:03:58That is these sugar skull, what are they called? Hermit skulls? Yeah. So they're going to be running some interference. But they're going to be also outside of the protections on so they're very vulnerable. Carl is looking around trying to find team sparkle and sees that they're ahead way ahead. So he targets four of his rockets at them and then sends another four toward the one fine pig team. And these have some more of those denial of service rockets. Yeah, they're just big boogers. Yeah, it shoots a slime over their shields so that they can't see the tumbleweed spins out. Yeah, it's all over the shield. But if they drop the shield, then it'll just follow them. Carl's very focused on getting first place. It seems like number one priority this race, I'm getting fucking first. Let's nail those two guys down. Yeah, we're getting first. The invulnerability ends just as waves of these skull

1:05:04hermits collapse from both sides of the track. So the first wave came from behind. Second two are both from the sides. The third one will later see comes up from bottom and fourth comes from raining from the sky. So it's supposed to eat all directions these hermits skulls attack from. And I really like how they've come up with like foils for these skulls and stuff like all the different like. So I mean, to start with, you have those other racers getting pinned down with a slime. Right. And then they're like, we made a modified version of that that makes like that expanding foam. Yeah. So it li-silitifies like immediately. And we shot those at the sugar skulls. We didn't know what the mobs were going to be, but Mordekai helped this figure out like something that would work on the white spectrum of mobs. And yeah, it seemed really, really cool and effective.

1:06:05Yeah. And then Donut cast level 16 wall of fire on the right side of them. And that seems to flash all the way from the start of the course all the way to the finish line. This massive like 100 foot wall of flame. Yeah. And said even though they're what 30 feet away, they still feel it. I would think like you would at least catch a car too behind you to. Yeah, right. But yeah. I think, you know, I mentioned this at the beginning of our episode, but this scene, it just builds and builds on top of itself. And it just like, it becomes so crazy that it's like, it's hard for me to fully visualize. I had to go through this a few times to be like, okay, this is what's happening here. All right, I think I got it. Donut says she kills 10,000 plus of these little hermits and doesn't even level up from it. It's an outrage. But also it's a sign of the fact that her level is so insanely high that's so hard for her to gain enough experience points, I guess. Yeah.

1:07:05Carl is now seeing at the very end of the finish line, there is a three story skull of a, what looks like a Hercules beetle. And we learn from the AI, its name is Tim. Tim. Tim. Tim? Yes. Tim. Tim. And this is a giant god. I'm not sure if it was released from the nothing or if this was one of the gods that was kind of in the pantheon with what's your name, Odette? I think it was a feral god that when it came out, Odette killed it. Yeah, yeah, you did say that. Although I'm curious as to how something that's a beetle has a skeleton, because they have exoskeletons. Right. I think you just found a skeleton. I think we just roll it. It's on the outside of this body. Yeah. And Carl's checking in on the buds there behind him. He says the bug bears are okay. The razor foxes seem to be getting swarmed.

1:08:06Gluteus meanwhile is foaming at the mouth and howling. Oh, he's so great. Wave three and four just happen at the same time. One of his ghouls dies. You know, it's well again. Again, yeah, again, again. Then his shield goes out and Carl calls for Dona to cast temporary macaroni. She does. So I don't know if she had to eat the paper or if somehow she just clicked to consume but a 15 foot tall, 20 foot wide cannelloni noodle drops down from the sky and she starts doing a chain of these to make a tunnel that they can all drive through. It's also, is it one or three feet thick? It's one foot thick. One foot thick. Yeah, yeah. Which is plain. I mean, as far as our noodle understanding, that's plainly. I just have to boil that for a while. It's a dry noodle. You can be boiling that thing for a long, last time. Yeah, I want to see the pot that thing goes into.

1:09:07The, these squids are raining all around them. Carl's punching a few. He even gets to activate and use bang bro, which I feel like we haven't heard from in a long time to electrocute one of them. And then he finds out she'll meet in the wild hunter dead. And then the jugglers are also dead. So two teams are down now for a kuma. I think I said, what if they die even outside of Carl's circumstances, which seemed likely. So a kuma's going to be happy. I felt worse about the wild hunt than I did the jugglers. Honestly, I did. Yeah, you didn't feel bad about the jugglers. I think anything about the jugglers, they're a non entity, but the wild hunt, they're like, oh, they were our friends. I like that right after we get a note from Yasha. And like, oh, actually they're playing to kill you next round. Yeah, they were trying to get us to team up with it again. So we cannot care about. Yeah, but we didn't know that till the end. Yeah.

1:10:08Cap, Carl's scavengers daughter is fed. And now he needs to release that ability or else he's going to be stuck with it, get more soul poisoning. It's like he forgets about it until it's full. Right. Every time. Right. And I just think that would be on my mind all the time. God damn it. I obsess about like whether I left the fucking hob on. This would drive me nuts. Yeah. I was thinking about all of the things that all the upgrades, all the skills, all the spells for all of these characters. And each time you add a new scenario, does Matt just have to run through the list and remember, okay, this one would be leveling up to this place. This one would be over to here. At what point do I need to trigger that this is going to be? I'm going to eat. I imagine he has a board or maybe it's something electronic. It's got to be so tired. And hopefully it's like wanting to be done with this. Hopefully a story editor. I don't know. I had to pens on what part of the spectrum he's on.

1:11:08He just loves it. He's thriving. Yeah, he might just have all that. He's just foaming at the mouth and howling every time he gets to do this. Who the fuck am I? The other ghoul dies as well on the other side of their car. I think he tries to bring it down off the roof and it's had less. Yeah. Oh, no. Noops. An orc skull wraps around Donuts face and her chair immediately shreds it away and like protects her. So man, this chair, the audience gave a pretty good. Yeah, yeah. Pretty good. Right. Carl sees the giant skull is blocking the end of the race. The finish line. And so he decides that he's going to take his unprotected kangaroo feet. Like he doesn't have the buff on him that makes him invulnerable. Right. And he's going to put them outside the front of the car. Hang on from the on the hood while he's trying to drive it one because because gluteus passed out.

1:12:10And he's going to activate scavenger's daughter to kick into it like ram it. And he's like, Donut hit the gas. Donut immediately shreds her amazing seatbelt. Yeah, because he wouldn't let it go. Yeah. There are lots of points in this series where I just kind of pause and realize the words I just heard in the audio book and go, what the fuck is this? Like still still. I'm like, there's a fucking, there's a race and there's a cat. And then the fucking kangaroo dress guy is going to kick this big beetle skull. Like what is happening? I it just all this really, I could really feel the movement in it. I can see it the whole time. It's it's so silly. I'll write a sentence feeling like, okay, this is what's happening here. And then be like, I'm a grown man. Am I doing here? I'm not.

1:13:11I'm really not. I look old. That's all. Dwight shows up just out of nowhere. It says, fuck you loud enough to be heard over the roaring engine and fires a cannon at their car just as car Carl yanks the wheel to turn it sideways. So it clips the back and spins his car up in the air. Meanwhile, the lady dominators, their car goes up in the air and the tumbleweed also goes up in there. All they keep saying vines. I was like, what's a vine? No, no, no, no. This is I could really see between the three vehicles like doing that Zack Snyder suddenly going in slow motion. Is it in the air flipping over each other just panels flying off of cars? Absolutely chaos. It seems like so curls feet don't go directly into the bug at like 80 miles an hour

1:14:11or whatever he and said like grazes it and is still able to activate the scavengers daughter and this probably saved his life actually. Sure. Because I think if he actually rammed into that and doesn't have the protection on his feet, his whole body just crumbles. Also, he's got a contingency healing scroll. But even then what do he dies before that thing can even activate? Yeah. Like that was going to be brutal. And all like my my tinfoil theory is that the AI through Dwight shot them in order to save Carl because there's otherwise no way he would survive that. So that's real tinfoil. It's a bit tinfoil. And all of them fly over the finish line. Carl flies out of the car. He says the kangaroo suit is flayed off of his body, which just sounds so gross how it is attached. And he just comes into a sliding stop. Like a comedy movie. Right next to quirky. Right. And also right next to a chicken patty that spins.

1:15:12Like, oh, yeah, spins. It never falls open. It just stops vertically. But then when did lady Dominique's come sliding up next to him? Yeah. Like quirky's like right there next to him. And I'm like, I should just pick him up and like put him in your inventory. I don't know. Like take him over to the top right now. And this like your end game is like, grab that guy. But maybe we can't kidnap another teammate or a competitor. Well, Carl's whole body is just a shattered. Oh, that's right. His arms and legs are broken. His feet are on fire. He takes a healing scroll. He takes another healing scroll. He tries to get up his pelvis. His shattered. He drops. It takes another healing scroll. Like he's the same. And he tries to get us up again and like trips over his kangaroo feet. Yeah. Don't know how to put his feet out. Yeah. He also mentions the lady Dominator's laying there and a unnatural pose. I can't imagine like one of those family guy things. Like, he's like, he's like, a Dwight and Lucian roll in and they're just threatening and they're like, fuck you, fuck you guys. Yeah, we're going to kill you next time.

1:16:13Yeah. And you must cry. You got to cry. I want to see you cry. It's just fucking ruthless. But they just seem so like cartoon bad guy that I'm like, you can't take you seriously. He's got right. I get that you like shot our boys and fight up. I can't take you seriously. And then we find out that a new competitor is going to be joining the race. We don't know who it will be. Maybe this is part of Akuma's plan. Hey, you need to kill two because I need to join and do your race. Or I don't know. Or one of our guys. Or maybe one of our guys. If it's one of our guys, who do you guess? I don't know their war mages. Oh, no, no, no, if it's one of our friends who joins into Carl's race. Oh, oh, like that. Yeah. Ooh. Ooh. Well, who's not already racing? Like if it's like Louis and, uh, Louis and Brittany and Batista, if they're personally joins. Yeah, yeah. The car joins the race. Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

1:17:15Cause Tran now is with, um, going against Lina. And it seems like they, I might want to pit friend against friend. Yeah. And that, because that doesn't seem so random. And they got first place. The heat three order is the royal court of doughnut in first place. Team Sparkles and second lady dominos and third team free love. Fourth, fifth is one fine pig. Sixth place is going to be filled, probably with Louis. That's my guess. And eliminate are the jug glows and the wild hunt. I, uh, I got so pumped by this, this whole chapter with this race. And when it came in first, I went, yes. I know. Yeah. When they, when they, uh, start talking about how the number one is on there. Uh, garage. Yeah. Yeah. They see Jamal and everybody there's like, look, yeah. Martin and I this last weekend went to a bar that was having like a costume, uh, contest

1:18:17for Dungeon Carly Carl and karaoke and stuff. We were lame and didn't dress up. But we both had finished this chapter, I think, right before we met up, like, yeah, right as we pulled up. Yeah. So I was like talking to you about it. And I was like, do you know, I think that first place is like, you don't even know. It's like, ah, there's so much going on. The master one's happening. So, um, but yeah, that, uh, it was cool. Also saying all the people in costumes. Yeah. A lot of fun. It was a fun Jamal costume. Yeah. Oh, nice. I, I thought that one was probably the best. I, it was a hot, sharp costume. So she left it for the contest. Lots of carols. We saw a Mordekai, but this one was a Mordekai also looking like Mordekai, the, the Blue J character from a regular show. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Um, and Ellie was there. Yeah. There's a bunch of different costumes. It's pretty cool to see. And that's it, guys. We're, we're done with this episode. We're going to be, um, we're going to be Rallying and Reading for next week your homework

1:19:20assignment is going to be chapters 33, 33, 38. Nice. We want to thank you guys all for your support for spreading the word about us and hyping us up for supporting us and buying shirts and other merch over at hello crawlers.com slash store for supporting us over at patreon.com slash hello crawlers. And we want to, uh, thank some of our crawlers right now, including a cold can of peach bush light, Aaron one quarter crock a dillian night and gale. Adam Hayes, a lie, Aldo Neko, better call quasar. Allison, level 77 cat girl blade summoner Elliott, answer nox, best girl scout leader in dungeon, Bren McKenna aka Shrodinger's cat dealer. Kaden B Clay needs a small mouse pad. Okay. That's okay. You'll make it. Want me to buy it?

1:20:21Cody Smith, crawler number 4,118 Mike Hunt. I'm, I'm intentionally spacing in this. Good one. Dave go round Eliza Taylor, Elizabeth Lee and Trosha, Aaron Swint, they hail, hail, hail and kill. Rubia will know I do. Hey, it's Gilbert. I'm way too into Dwight. Jamal's watermelon, Chalada James Vaxer, the horse. John Whiteline, Sideman Joshua Randalls, Katie Mazenak, Kevin M. Kippberg, Kittian, Christina Flanders, Kyle Vane, Lance Hutchins, Lumen, Mary Poppins, the cat. Matt Johnston, Megan Sullivan, Michael Griffith, Michael, enthusiastic double gonorrhea trainer. Hi Mike. Mitchell Pepearson. My dude. Noel, Aladania, Mead, Patty Flanagan, Pink, Pony Club member, Queen Anne Chunk, RR,

1:21:24and Samantha's Only Fans. Shoulder deep in the wrong, Nussy. Sir, scrimmly, sponsored by Level 67, Sport Jockey on Chaos Titan Strider. What the fuck? Steve, don't bury your Reaper Gays, W. Wow. Tenacious ADD, the champagne room of the banana hammock. Nice. The dandelion wine, the Duchess of Dork, three mongos in a trench coat. To a great father-in-law, he wasn't rich, he wasn't popular, but he was loved. And he didn't talk shit about loss, so. Good. Troy, what would Uzi, Ribio, do? Your mom. Your mom. Zanobius, you're down with DCC, yeah, you know me, and you mean like, with my mouth. Thank you guys so much for all of your support. We love each and every one of you, except for the ones who talk shit about loss.

1:22:28We like you too. We don't. They like you. Y'all are my enemy. And finally, it's time for our final segment, Death Watch, Extreme Dungeon Mayhem. Al Domeco Art Level 80, Barbarian Thicker Mansor, sat next to Kaden B on a game show called Feats of Strength. He wasn't sure why he was called that, or why he was spelled F-E-E-T. And he and Kaden sat on a bar over a giant vat of what looked like massive, slimy lampries. There were these bat-like creatures all around them shrieking and hurling football-sized larva at them. And this was the game, he guessed. There was no preamble. They just teleported in, sat down, and the squeaking bats began pummeling them with these larvae. There was an audience of aliens in the sand's cheering, intensive neon signs and holographic

1:23:32explosions all around the room. He had no idea what was going on. When suddenly, just as he tried to adjust his position on the bar, a giant larva pelted into the side of his head, and he fell right back into the tank of lampries. Meanwhile, Kaden B, our level 69 half-orc Somaliye watched Aldo fall and scream as the lampry swarmed. He knew he would be okay. He would be fine. Screaming and... He's just lampries. It was a game show, after all. Once the screaming stopped, Kaden and the tank... Kaden saw the tank was rolled away, and the bats all motioned for him to stand up on the bar. So he stood. And he was promptly drenched in a green slime. It reminded him of watching Nickelodeon back in the day. He must have said, I don't know. Then the bats proceeded to turn to hurl small, hard objects at him. They stuck to the goo.

1:24:33He looked down at what appeared to be scales, lizard scales, if he were to guess. They were tar in scaling him. Once he was sufficiently coated, they lowered him and brought him over to a podium where he stood, surrounded by the bats and the audience. They all began chanting as a giant object was lowered from the ceiling. Feet, feet, feet, feet. And as it descended, he saw, sure enough, it was a giant foot. He reached up to hold it, and his body couldn't hold the weight. He wasn't strong enough, and it proceeded to crush him to death. Oh. So strange. I don't like it. I thought it was going to be like a coyote ugly situation when he got on the bar. Like somebody's going to slurp goo out of his belly button. Next week. Next week. Next week. We are at the level 70 lyrics, Elf Speed Walker was geared up and ready for heat three.

1:25:35Their anteater looked at the hill without emotion or at the slope, I guess, the slope without emotion. The race began and the other cars and creatures sped off. The anteater slowly lumbered forward. Come on, Steve Shattered. We're going to lose. They ain't either paused. Then it curled up into a ball and began to roll forward. Oh, shit. The 92nd invulnerability was keeping them from getting crushed, and they were gaining more and more speed as they rolled downward. Now they were rolling so fast that Steve felt nauseous. He felt he was going to puke. And in fact, then he did puke, and he tried to choke it back, and it caught in his throat. He couldn't breathe. He was choking on his own vomit and spinning so fast he slumped over and everything went black. That is a way to go. That's a way to go. That was so unceremonious. Meanwhile, the soonest fellow, the slowest fellow, aka Mitchell Papersen, our level 62

1:26:39Claire Con, day drinker, was facing Steve as they rolled faster and faster downhill. They gained so much speed, he felt his neck was going to rip off of his head. He saw Steve slump over, likely passed out, and he saw his body being tossed around like a ragdoll. He watched as they passed all of the other teams. He watched as a swarm of spiky birds, tried swooping in and were just left in the dust. He saw as the 90 seconds of invulnerability timed out, and he quickly cast a shield spell to protect him. And he watched as his seat belt eventually gave way, and he was flung off of the rolling anteater into the air over the finish line with such force. He knew he was definitely about to die. That's where we end. This race is not working out right now. Yeah, I mean, they're having a, they're having to go of it as well. Folks, thank you so much again for tuning in this week. We look forward to your comments, questions, your things that you're noticing.

1:27:42If you guys know the clue for what was happening with this race, with the sugar skulls or the beetle, where that was dropped with heat too, let us know. I'm curious about that. Yeah. And your homework assignment is going to be chapters 33 through 38 of a parade of horribles. Until next week, get out there and kill, kill, kill. That's not even correct. Kill it. You're going to tell them to kill? Well, after it's read, read, read, read. And jail, there's going to be plenty of time. Yeah. We got a good library.