Transcript
Speaker: We'll do it until it breaks and then we, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: If we gotta switch, we'll throw in one of Uncle Keeler's commercials.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: You know who else throws in commercials?
Speaker: Who's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel It.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me as always is Phil.
Speaker: And today on the show, we are walking a tightrope, hoping our recording setup continues to work because it's given like 15 different errors over the past hour.
Speaker: So we'll see.
Speaker: We'll see you then.
Speaker: The same works.
Speaker: Fuck it.
Speaker: But nothing will stop us from providing you people with quality content.
Speaker: We are going to talk about Shadowkeep, which is part three of our Shadowkeep series, the last part of our Shadowkeep series, because my book fell apart.
Speaker: I only have half of it.
Speaker: I can't finish the book.
Speaker: Is Kevin's copy of Shadowkeep
Speaker: existed for exactly as long as it needed to.
Speaker: That's all the binding.
Speaker: The binding mystically dissolved.
Speaker: It just, it just fell apart.
Speaker: It, it, it, the, the book shouted, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Speaker: And, and it was, and, and it is done and it fell apart.
Speaker: Everything fell apart.
Speaker: I have nothing left.
Speaker: Nothing left.
Speaker: But Shadowkeep has ended.
Speaker: And that's the end of that.
Speaker: All we have left are our memories of Shadowkeep.
Speaker: All we have left are memories of Shadowkeep gone by.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Anyway, so, Phil, if you could start us off with a little bit of a recap on what happened last episode.
Speaker: You bet your sweet Bippy I'll do that.
Speaker: Last episode, we started with Chapter 5, where we encountered a pack of hungry goblins attacking...
Speaker: A caravan of reptilian bipeds.
Speaker: We had a fascinating discussion about who are people, really, and came to the conclusion that apparently goblins are not people while bipedal snake men are indeed people.
Speaker: People.
Speaker: So that happened.
Speaker: Our hero, Proctor, killed his first person, took his first life, found that it was super easy, but also super disagreeable.
Speaker: He was not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Deep down inside.
Speaker: Uh, that brought us to chapter seven where, or sorry, chapter six, where we are met with a caravan of people from Kep Basin, which is the, uh, the town that exists beneath Shadowkeep.
Speaker: Basically people are evacuating.
Speaker: It is a full scale evacuation because, uh,
Speaker: Uh, apparently everybody knows that this demon is coming, uh, and we're not running into a lot of heroes going the opposite direction, which I found kind of funny.
Speaker: No heroes.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We are introduced to Norrell, who is the innkeeper of the town of Kept Basin, who's the only person who stayed behind.
Speaker: Big beefy man.
Speaker: He's a big beefy man.
Speaker: Big beefy old man.
Speaker: He's just a big old beefy man.
Speaker: Big old beefy boy with his mighty meals.
Speaker: Mighty meals.
Speaker: Mighty meals for beefy boys.
Speaker: That's our brand.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he's, he's, he's just, he's, he's what a weird, I think might be the weirdest character in this book because his stance is basically that, you know, I'm an innkeeper.
Speaker: I've been selling stuff.
Speaker: Basically he's been selling his rooms to humans only because they happen to be the people who were passing by.
Speaker: He has no problem with assisting demons who might need a room for a day or two or even 15 minutes.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: Hey, if you get your drifts there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it brings us to chapter seven where they've had a large meal with Norrell and he proceeds to give us to this.
Speaker: Now we've finished the book.
Speaker: I can positively say this was the weirdest part of the book.
Speaker: He gives Proctor, our protagonist, the weirdest sales pitch, basically just walks him through
Speaker: All this stuff that has been left behind by heroes...
Speaker: I kept waiting for it to connect to something and it never did.
Speaker: It was literally just this weird guy with a, what did you compare it to?
Speaker: It was the- It's Glenn Shadow, Glenn Keep.
Speaker: Right, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Shadow Gary, Glenn, Glenn Keep.
Speaker: He's just trying to sell land and multifaceted jewels to this young man.
Speaker: You know, it's the only thing they're not making any more of.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Demon opals.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that leads us to them finally leaving Norrell, leaving Kett Basin and entering into Shadowkeep finally.
Speaker: Almost over halfway through the book, through Hooker by Crook, they make their way in.
Speaker: Merrill – what's her name again?
Speaker: Merrild?
Speaker: Merrild.
Speaker: Meryl is basically earning her keep by knowing how to use riddles and figure her way through the puzzles that will get them in, that'll get them through.
Speaker: This continues through the book.
Speaker: She explains these feats to no one, thus keeping her importance to the party sound.
Speaker: I'm very weirded out by the fact that
Speaker: She is the only character who seems to whisper to people, and we as the reader are left entirely in the dark.
Speaker: And this is where we're introduced to that trope.
Speaker: Finally, we get into Chapter 8 where we get our first fight with somebody in the Shadowkeep, a group of faceless sub-demons, more than humans, less than devil.
Speaker: Never really described.
Speaker: Never really described.
Speaker: Yeah, kind of just vaguely horrifying things.
Speaker: They do a lot of fighting slash running.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we get into a lot of traps.
Speaker: Our Rue friend proves to be an idiot on like a lot of situations, like just setting one trap off after the other in rapid succession, never learning his lesson.
Speaker: Never learning his lesson.
Speaker: Never learning his lesson.
Speaker: And finally, he basically just makes it through the goodwill of his friends and just a whole lot of luck, which seems to be his main stat is luck.
Speaker: And then finally, the chapter ends.
Speaker: He didn't put it in intelligence or wisdom.
Speaker: Luck was not the dump stat for him.
Speaker: No, it was the only stat.
Speaker: And the chapter ends with them running away from a horde of angry trolls who are interested in consuming their flesh, consuming their flesh.
Speaker: Just that is what it is.
Speaker: Flash consumption.
Speaker: That's, you know.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: It's the name of the game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that brings us to chapter nine of Shadowkeep.
Speaker: That brings us to chapter nine of Shadowkeep.
Speaker: And in chapter nine, basically chapter eight ended with Serrano like screaming from another room or making a sound.
Speaker: And in chapter nine, it's a false alarm.
Speaker: Serrano's fine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We don't get to see him horribly dismembered like we were all keeping our fingers crossed.
Speaker: No, he's fine.
Speaker: He found a skullcap hidden behind some sort of clear crystal.
Speaker: Their description of it almost makes me think of the transparent aluminum from Star Trek, which is what the windows are made out of in Star Trek.
Speaker: It's not glass.
Speaker: It's transparent aluminum.
Speaker: So, yeah, I was just reminded of that briefly.
Speaker: So they take turns trying to figure out how do we get it?
Speaker: Get this.
Speaker: How do we how do we figure it out?
Speaker: And Meryl's like, don't worry, guys.
Speaker: I got it.
Speaker: And she walks up to it.
Speaker: She like stares at it for a little while.
Speaker: And then her delicate little fingers like.
Speaker: Touch it right and pops that bad boy right open.
Speaker: And she gives the skull cap, which is made out of spun silver to Praktor, who gives it to Sranel because Sranel saw it first and Sranel tries to put it on, but he can't wear a skull cap because he's a little kangaroo man and he has big, big, big kangaroo ears.
Speaker: Big old floppy ears.
Speaker: Big old floppy ears.
Speaker: So Srenhal gives it back to Praktor and Praktor puts it on and he's now protected from a direct blow to the head according to Hard Rock.
Speaker: They do make a point of saying like, I guess it's better than just having a bare head.
Speaker: It's better than nothing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's more protective than hair, I guess.
Speaker: It really is level one Final Fantasy shit at that point.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And Merrill's like, you don't feel anything.
Speaker: You're not feeling a twitch of anything.
Speaker: You're not dying or anything.
Speaker: Merrill and practice like nap.
Speaker: Moving on.
Speaker: So they go they go to they find a practice like, oh, that's a weird thing over there.
Speaker: And he walks over and they're like, what, these giant chess pieces that are out?
Speaker: And he said, no, the mirror with a hinge.
Speaker: And he opens up this mirror.
Speaker: He opens up a mirror because there's a big mirror and he opens it up and there's an iron vault door behind it.
Speaker: And basically they spend a good amount of time trying to figure out what the...
Speaker: What is this?
Speaker: What's going on?
Speaker: And they're like, well, maybe it's a puzzle.
Speaker: Maybe we have to move the chess pieces around to solve it.
Speaker: And the chess pieces aren't actually there.
Speaker: They are just ethereal projections of chess pieces.
Speaker: Which is a theme we run into a lot.
Speaker: We run into it a few times.
Speaker: It's like things aren't things that you see aren't actually there.
Speaker: So they can't touch the chess pieces.
Speaker: And they're like, all right, well, we got to go.
Speaker: Like, we're not figuring this out right now.
Speaker: Sranel is like, but mom.
Speaker: And they continue on their merry way.
Speaker: And along the way, Merrill finds a stick.
Speaker: She finds a stick.
Speaker: Finds a stick.
Speaker: It looks like a stick.
Speaker: Serrano and Praktor are like, why?
Speaker: And she's like, it's got writing on it.
Speaker: It's got runes.
Speaker: It's got runes, and I don't know the language, so that's neat.
Speaker: Which look, look, if I was a dungeon crawler, I'd be insufferable for that very reason.
Speaker: I'd be like, there's right, I think it's neat, I'm keeping it.
Speaker: It's the Skyrim, you know, you just pick everything, just steal it all, pick it all up.
Speaker: Empty body into backpack, the end.
Speaker: Yep, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah, you're just hitting E for take all and you're not really discerning what's on the body.
Speaker: Yeah, I'll deal with it later.
Speaker: I'll figure out if this is- I picked up the quest item, I didn't notice.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: I can't move.
Speaker: Why is it?
Speaker: Oh, I've got 97 leather vests in my backpack.
Speaker: Being under encumbered is for cowards.
Speaker: That's playing true easy mode, my friend.
Speaker: That's playing true easy mode.
Speaker: Actually being choosy on what you pick up?
Speaker: You want a man's game that'll put some hair on your chest?
Speaker: Steal everything.
Speaker: What kind of luxurious life you must have.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My Skyrim character carries the world on his back.
Speaker: So anyway, yeah, we're she finds a stick.
Speaker: It's kind of it's kind of neat.
Speaker: And they move on.
Speaker: They get to a they basically reach the end of the hallway and there's just a black wall at the end.
Speaker: And it's just like it is so black.
Speaker: It's like Vantablack.
Speaker: You know, they you cannot see any.
Speaker: There's just they're like, well, what are we going to do?
Speaker: And
Speaker: Hargrod was like, well, I didn't want to say anything, but the trolls are coming.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hargrod, I swear to God, man, maybe speak up.
Speaker: He's like, I didn't want to ruin the moment, but the trolls did find their way through the wall of flashing colors, and they're on the way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we better move.
Speaker: So we better move.
Speaker: So yeah, they decide to crawl, they like touch the black wall.
Speaker: It's another portal.
Speaker: So they're like, all right, we're going.
Speaker: And they end up in this room.
Speaker: It's a circular room.
Speaker: And this scene was kind of neat because because of what happened.
Speaker: So it's a circular room in the center.
Speaker: There is a pool of murky water with a stick.
Speaker: Sticks are a recurring theme here.
Speaker: It's actually it's actually more of a it's clearly more of like a walking stick.
Speaker: It's like the first thing she finds is looks like just just a branch or whatever you snap off a tree.
Speaker: This looks like an actual walking stick.
Speaker: It looks like it has purpose.
Speaker: I had it.
Speaker: They never described it as such, but I had it in my head that it was like a shillelagh or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Something stick.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It also has the writing, similar writing on it that the other stick has.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they're like and there is a there's an opening in the ceiling leading to another tunnel that they can see.
Speaker: So like, all right, well, we're going to get across there and we're going to drop jump on hard rod shoulder and then we're going to have to pull him up like plan, plan, plan.
Speaker: OK, right.
Speaker: They have to cross the mucky water to get there.
Speaker: So they get in there, Praktor goes in first, and it is gross.
Speaker: It is algae-filled, muddy swamp water, and it's going up to his knees.
Speaker: And he's just like, oh.
Speaker: It's true, though.
Speaker: He's just like, oh.
Speaker: This is worse than being chased by the trolls.
Speaker: This is worse.
Speaker: Can we go be eaten by the trolls now?
Speaker: Yeah, that sounds better.
Speaker: That does sound better.
Speaker: So they continue along and they're like, all right, well, let's get the stick.
Speaker: while we're here, Meryld is really showing Skyrim ingenuity.
Speaker: Oh, big time.
Speaker: And is like, let's pick it all up.
Speaker: And nobody can move it except Hargrod.
Speaker: So Hargrod goes and he gives it a tug, rips it out, and they're like, all right.
Speaker: And then a claw comes up out of the water and nearly bisects Hargrod, just the vivisection right in the middle of the murky water.
Speaker: He gets out of the way because he's Superman.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: He's the fastest reaction of all time.
Speaker: And there is a monster.
Speaker: They back up.
Speaker: And this monster is it's it is kind of disgusting looking the way he described it.
Speaker: It's it has it has like no neck.
Speaker: It is just this fleshy eyeball monster with a giant mouth.
Speaker: Yeah, very, very tentacly and just kind of... Yeah.
Speaker: It's like the...
Speaker: I remember DMing a game where they had, it was like a shambling pile or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: Which is, I think that's just decaying leaf matter.
Speaker: I changed it because it was more fitting to a corpse pile.
Speaker: So basically it was like a ball of like corpses kind of like shambling towards the party.
Speaker: That's what it made me think of a little bit.
Speaker: So at the same time, removing the stick, give him the stick.
Speaker: Don't give him the stick.
Speaker: Removing the stick caused the water, like a basically a basin to start draining into the room.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they got this monster and now the room is also filling up with water.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hargrod is fighting off the monster because he's literally the only one capable.
Speaker: Pretty much, yeah.
Speaker: So he's ducking, diving, dodging, dodge, duck, dive.
Speaker: Dodge, duck, dash.
Speaker: dash and dodge.
Speaker: He's dashing.
Speaker: He's dodging.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Bold move, Cotton.
Speaker: Let's see if it pays off.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like this double whammy of just like the, yeah.
Speaker: Well, you know what it is?
Speaker: It's the, it's the, it's the trash compactor scene in Star Wars.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It's very much the trash compactor scene.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You've got the environmental hazard while you're fighting off a horrible tentative monster.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You don't get a good look at it.
Speaker: I will say that for Alan Dean Foster with his monster.
Speaker: Sometimes we don't get any description at all.
Speaker: Like the demonette kind of things.
Speaker: But he does do a good job of like giving you just enough information to let your imagination fill in the rest.
Speaker: I know that that's not fashionable these days, but it's pretty cool.
Speaker: And this was a great example of it.
Speaker: What did they call it?
Speaker: It had a weird ass name.
Speaker: Yeah, it was, oh, it was the- A Bralachian.
Speaker: A Bralachian, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Bralachian.
Speaker: Yeah, here we go.
Speaker: It seemed to have neither ears nor neck, only a watery, bloated face.
Speaker: It rose higher above the surface of the pool, displaying several lantern-like eyes and a vast cavern of a mouth.
Speaker: And that's pretty much all we get.
Speaker: That's kind of enough, if you ask me.
Speaker: That's all you really need.
Speaker: That's pretty gross.
Speaker: I think it's pretty gross.
Speaker: I'm not a fan of that.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: To get out of the room, they decide, all right, well, we got to wait for the water to raise us up to the opening in the ceiling.
Speaker: They do that.
Speaker: They crawl up.
Speaker: They're all good.
Speaker: Hargrod is like...
Speaker: It like basically gets an arm up onto the thing.
Speaker: He's like, this thing's not dying.
Speaker: They pull Hargrot up and they're like, all right, well, we're here.
Speaker: We're safe.
Speaker: And Meryl's like leans over the opening and says, I think the water stopped coming in so we don't have to rush down the thing.
Speaker: And then the thing grabs Meryl and pulls her back into the water.
Speaker: It just pulls her right down.
Speaker: Oh, Merild.
Speaker: Merild.
Speaker: Yeah, Praktor jumps right into the water and saves her.
Speaker: He uses his sword to slice at the thing.
Speaker: It doesn't really do anything.
Speaker: And then Merild explains later that there's nothing you can do to a Brolachian unless you stab it through the brain.
Speaker: Yeah, it will just be constantly regenerating.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Praktor does save her, pulls her out.
Speaker: The Brolachian then tries to like send up a tentacle through the passage to them, but it's they're just out of reach and they continue.
Speaker: What I imagine is basically crawling through an air shaft kind of like in Die Hard.
Speaker: Yeah, I was I was like, are they in the ventilation system?
Speaker: It felt that way.
Speaker: It totally did.
Speaker: And by the way, this is another great example of like, I really wish I had played the game or something like that.
Speaker: It's tough with this one, but it almost feels, and there are lots of moments like this, but at this point, it almost feels like the author is telling the reader, if you play the game, you should probably mostly be running.
Speaker: Because everyone puts up a fight briefly and then just hauls ass.
Speaker: This is three for three that this has happened.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The goblins are the only people they could stand up to.
Speaker: They killed the shit out of the goblins.
Speaker: Oh, they killed the shit out of them.
Speaker: They murdered the shit out of them.
Speaker: Murdered the shit out of those goblins.
Speaker: But –
Speaker: But they're goblins.
Speaker: You know, it's like a quarter CR each.
Speaker: What are you going to do?
Speaker: What are you going to do?
Speaker: You need like 50 of them to make up one challenge rating point.
Speaker: It's not even worth it.
Speaker: Not even worth it.
Speaker: Meryl ends the chapter by flirting more.
Speaker: Dude.
Speaker: I like to think like they didn't go too deep into it.
Speaker: But Praktor's girl back home with the weird name.
Speaker: I like, I just imagine her.
Speaker: Cyanide.
Speaker: Her name is Cyanide.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I just, I'm imagining her as like this broad beamed kind of like, you know, farmhand kind of lassie.
Speaker: That's just what sticks out in my head is like, girl, his girl back home will crush your elfie ass.
Speaker: Like she will break you into a powder if you don't stop flirting with this farm boy.
Speaker: I swear to God.
Speaker: Swear to God.
Speaker: Swear to God, Meryl.
Speaker: She doesn't know what she's getting into.
Speaker: He will crush your taut 80-year-old ass.
Speaker: Your immature octogenarian ass.
Speaker: Just knock it off.
Speaker: Anyway, that's the end of chapter nine.
Speaker: We move on to chapter 10, and we get the party.
Speaker: The party has a restful moment.
Speaker: Basically, they find themselves in a water reservoir that is possibly, I got the...
Speaker: I got the picture that this was where the water came from to fill up the Berlachians room.
Speaker: Yeah, this used to be fuller than it is now, that kind of thing.
Speaker: So they chill in the water reservoir and they have the classic like, oh, what are you going to do when we find the treasure type thing?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They each have their own thing.
Speaker: Srannell would just get in gem encrusted stuff because it looks cool.
Speaker: Merald would open a school to teach kids of all races.
Speaker: Hargrod would buy a house for his family on a warm southern continent.
Speaker: And Praktor would give up smithing and buy a nice house for scurvy.
Speaker: Dream high, kid.
Speaker: Aim a little bit high.
Speaker: Aim high.
Speaker: I wanted to say dream big and aim high, and I went with dream high.
Speaker: Dream high.
Speaker: Which is a subject that is not unfamiliar to me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But not what I meant in the moment.
Speaker: Um, and Mer, the conversation kind of comes to an end when Merrill suggests to Practor that maybe the spinner always intended for you to be the one that took this adventure because you're so good at getting people together.
Speaker: Uh-huh.
Speaker: And Merrill and Practor's like, meh, I don't like that concept because it takes away my agency.
Speaker: He doesn't say that, but he says that in so much of a huff.
Speaker: That's, you know, that's what he means.
Speaker: That's what he means.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which is an interesting idea.
Speaker: You know, Foster likes to throw in
Speaker: Like in what would what is actually otherwise just kind of a fairly standard dungeon crawl.
Speaker: Yeah, we don't we don't dwell on it.
Speaker: We don't get too deep into it.
Speaker: But yes, we have talked about whether or not it's whether or not a goblin is a human being or a person.
Speaker: Yes, we have talked about the fact that you feel hollow and empty by killing somebody dead.
Speaker: Yes, we have talked about.
Speaker: About agency and, you know, a clever idea of like, well, he wasn't actually looking for your blacksmith boss at all.
Speaker: He was just, he was trying to get you, get the right people surrounding him into this fight.
Speaker: And that's how you did it.
Speaker: And I don't, I don't really buy that argument for the record because the spinner kind of,
Speaker: The spinner seemed to have his own self-esteem issues.
Speaker: The spinner doth protest too much for that to be the case.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I like to think that the spinner, like if he was there, he would have been like, yeah, yeah, that's absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah, she's right.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's absolutely what I meant to do.
Speaker: You figured it out.
Speaker: This is the Merald's is kind of annoying chapter.
Speaker: So Merald says that to Praktor and Praktor gets Huffy.
Speaker: And then she plays a joke on Hargrod for really no reason.
Speaker: None.
Speaker: Hargrod's like, oh, how do we open this door?
Speaker: And she's like, oh, let me cast a magic spell.
Speaker: And she pretends to cast a magic spell and then just opens the door and says it was unlocked.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was like, Hargrod doesn't deserve that.
Speaker: He didn't do anything.
Speaker: If anyone you want to do that to, it's the frigging Rue.
Speaker: Like he's, you know, Hargrod's been nothing.
Speaker: Hargrod literally risked his life just now.
Speaker: Hargrod's the only reason that you guys are alive.
Speaker: Oh, he is such an effective tank.
Speaker: As we brought up last time, like he is very many levels ahead of them.
Speaker: It's, you know, and I do, it's like the graph is like,
Speaker: the more she talks, the more annoying she becomes.
Speaker: At first it was like, oh, she's mysterious and interesting and she uses her brain.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: That's an interesting character.
Speaker: She's super smart.
Speaker: Smart as a whip.
Speaker: Knows her way around things.
Speaker: And then it's like, well, you are just kind of being mean to people a lot too.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which they said is like a trait of the Thalinar people, I guess.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But is kind of being, you know, hoity-toity and condescending.
Speaker: Yes, that's exactly the word.
Speaker: In the last few chapters of the book, she really turns it up to 11.
Speaker: Oh my God, yeah.
Speaker: Like it doesn't go down from here.
Speaker: She really gets more and more condescending as this goes on.
Speaker: As in the next scene, they come into a room with broken furniture and a chest and Serrano opens the chest and there's nothing but junk until the chest explodes in a giant fireball and throws everybody aside.
Speaker: And then Meryl spends like two pages Socratically talking them through, well, why might this be like this?
Speaker: you're just not observing well enough.
Speaker: And, and Sranel is just about to like stab her in the throat, I think.
Speaker: He's so sick of her.
Speaker: He's so, yeah.
Speaker: She's like, Hey, remember when, you know, you went after things that are valuable and the trap went off, but like,
Speaker: Wouldn't it make sense then that if something seems kind of mundane, it would be – and then she falls and starts bleeding and we see a bipedal kangaroo man with a sharpened screwdriver standing above her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And nothing of value is lost.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The book ends there.
Speaker: The book ends.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's the whole book.
Speaker: Meryld basically walks them through and then finally gets to the point of like, look over there where the pile, there's a bigger pile of junk than everywhere else.
Speaker: And they move aside the pile of junk and there's an iron door behind it.
Speaker: Like, Meryld, we already know you're smart.
Speaker: You don't have to do the thing where you show how smart you are for 15 minutes before showing what you figured out.
Speaker: Before oh so intelligently figuring out that maybe the pile of shit is covering a door.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't think we needed a sage for that.
Speaker: We didn't need a sage.
Speaker: We needed a cleanup crew.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then she continues on the same thing where Strattle is about to touch the door and she's like, oh my good Rue.
Speaker: And it takes like another two paragraphs to explain like why he shouldn't touch it.
Speaker: And he's like, what are you talking about?
Speaker: And then she spits on the handle and it sizzles.
Speaker: because the handle is hot.
Speaker: And then she spits on the rue and calls him a dirty mudblood and the book ends.
Speaker: And the book ends.
Speaker: No, basically they figure out that,
Speaker: Okay, well the sticks that they've collected are, have some power to them and Hargrod uses one of the sticks to pry the door open, to like lower the latch and pry the door open and everything is good and dandy.
Speaker: They get the door open and wouldn't you know it, it's basically Scrooge McDuck's vault behind this door.
Speaker: They finally find the treasure room.
Speaker: It's the Cave of Wonders from Aladdin.
Speaker: Exactly, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, and...
Speaker: They basically they're walking around.
Speaker: They're looking at all the treasures.
Speaker: Rannels like doing a Scrooge McDuck dive through the gold and Praktor and Merrill both realize that, oh, the reason this room is here is just to bribe people because why would it be here other than to stop people from continuing any further?
Speaker: So they're like, we're going to go.
Speaker: And Sranel is pissed.
Speaker: Yeah, he is not having it.
Speaker: He is not having it.
Speaker: He is not having.
Speaker: And they all walk away.
Speaker: He's learned nothing, but he's also not wrong.
Speaker: It's like, it's weird.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You're in a weird position with Serenal because it's like, on one hand, you're like, dude, you have been, you have nearly died like 19 times.
Speaker: So many times.
Speaker: Always because you just went after some treasure you didn't know anything about.
Speaker: And on the other hand, it's kind of like this thing of like,
Speaker: Yeah, let him have a bauble if it'll make him happy.
Speaker: Just like give him something.
Speaker: Give him a little something.
Speaker: And I think he takes some stuff on the way out the door.
Speaker: Yeah, he takes some jewelry and stuff like that.
Speaker: And like a jewel dagger or something like that.
Speaker: So they leave and they continue on.
Speaker: Serrano catches up at the party and Practor is like, oh, the guilt got the better of you.
Speaker: And Serrano's like, shut the fuck up, man.
Speaker: Yeah, it truly does.
Speaker: He's like, what are you talking?
Speaker: Guilt.
Speaker: Fuck yourself.
Speaker: Like, I'm not, what are you talking about?
Speaker: The guilt got the better of me.
Speaker: Party's in a real tenuous state at the moment.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: Morale all time low.
Speaker: All time low.
Speaker: All time low.
Speaker: They've known each other for four days and it's never been as bad as this.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: Is this where Serrano explains to them why he's obsessed with treasure?
Speaker: And it's not about greed and, like, actually wanting to be rich, but he likes it.
Speaker: Yeah, in the scene before, that's when he explains that it's the aesthetic.
Speaker: He likes shiny things.
Speaker: He likes having, like, instead of just, like, the crappy basin he always bathes in, he wants a nice one.
Speaker: You know, it's just the little aesthetic changes.
Speaker: It's like, yeah, it's like, you just want to go to him and be like,
Speaker: you are literally talking about being rich.
Speaker: Like that is no different whatsoever.
Speaker: Just having nice things is what rich is.
Speaker: It's like, I don't have a, you know, it's not that I have to be opulently wealthy and have a, you know, ruby encrusted catalog.
Speaker: I just want to look like I'm opulently wealthy.
Speaker: But wouldn't that, it would just look better if I had a, I just like the aesthetic of being rich more than the aesthetic of being rich.
Speaker: of being poor, that's all, that's all.
Speaker: Like what's so hard to understand about that?
Speaker: What's so hard to, yeah, what's so hard to, yeah, what's, come on.
Speaker: Come on, come on, come on.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Anyway, they find Gore Withers Library.
Speaker: Yes, they do.
Speaker: They do.
Speaker: And Merald's, I mean, this is the most excited you're gonna get Merald's.
Speaker: This is her treasure room.
Speaker: This is her treasure room, except she can't read any of the books because they're written in Gore Withers weird ass language that he writes everything down in.
Speaker: So they just start looking around.
Speaker: She's like, well, maybe he had a diary or something that he was.
Speaker: Oh, I love this scene so much.
Speaker: And they eventually find a diary and there's nothing in it that's blank.
Speaker: The pages are blank.
Speaker: If I might interject, she literally says, we need to find, I feel like we need to find a diary, something that is handwritten, look for something that's handwritten,
Speaker: Hargron says like this and picks up the diary.
Speaker: It's like the first thing anyone tried for.
Speaker: He's like, I got it on the first try.
Speaker: Which, look, that's better than four pages of them like just shiftlessly like searching for stuff.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Hargron is like, it was on the table.
Speaker: It was the only book on the table.
Speaker: It was next to a sign that said diary.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: From the desk of Gore-Wither.
Speaker: Top of the page says, dumb things I gotta do today.
Speaker: Oh, it's his checklist.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Oh, cool.
Speaker: Binaural steak.
Speaker: I don't know what that means.
Speaker: No, that's weird.
Speaker: Yeah, so they find his diary, quote unquote diary.
Speaker: There's really nothing in it except for a glass crystalline shard type thing that everybody is like, now Meryl's like, well, why are you taking that?
Speaker: And Praktor's like,
Speaker: It's useful.
Speaker: You just said.
Speaker: We're picking up random sticks in the hallway.
Speaker: You pick up random sticks.
Speaker: I pick up random pieces of glass.
Speaker: We've both got a thing.
Speaker: We got our things.
Speaker: We're very well-developed characters.
Speaker: So they can then there's a bit of they search around the library a little bit more.
Speaker: Don't find anything and continue on in the next room where there's a statue and a giant mirror.
Speaker: And yes, they he used in this part of the book, he uses one of my favorite words, supplicant.
Speaker: I love supplicant is a great word.
Speaker: I love supplicant.
Speaker: It's supplication.
Speaker: It really makes me think of what was the game that you just did a video on?
Speaker: earlier in the year.
Speaker: Oh, blasphemous.
Speaker: Blasphemous.
Speaker: I feel like the word supplicant was used in blasphemous.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: That's one of those very Catholic words that pops up in games like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Supplication basically, I mean, means it's like giving yourself up to something.
Speaker: It's like being down on your knees and your palms in the air and you're like,
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You are giving yourself up to.
Speaker: At the mercy of the gods.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Kind of thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is a cool room.
Speaker: This is a room I would like to have in my D&D game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is a cool room.
Speaker: It is a cool room.
Speaker: They have a bit of a debate whether there's anything in the room.
Speaker: And Meryl's like, what?
Speaker: They're all like, yeah, let's go.
Speaker: And Meryl's like, have you guys learned nothing?
Speaker: Look around.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, and we're back on her side at that point where you're just like, no, we've got to search the room, guys.
Speaker: Like the other three guys just like walked in, we're like, I don't know, it was a mirror.
Speaker: And they start leaving.
Speaker: And Meryl's like, fucking Christ, okay.
Speaker: You, search for traps, you.
Speaker: And then Strangel's like, what, you think the mirror is a portal?
Speaker: And he touches the mirror and it's a portal.
Speaker: And falls through, basically, yeah.
Speaker: He touches it, he pulls his hand back, and then Praktor is like, all right, fine, I'll go through.
Speaker: So Praktor goes through, everybody else goes through, and it's a one-way portal.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And they find themselves in a kind of a domed and basically this domed room that has a crystal in the center of it.
Speaker: And through some debate and investigation, they figure out that the crystal like Gore with her is inside of it.
Speaker: He is trapped inside of this crystalline formation.
Speaker: So these weird magical wooden sticks have been useful for other things.
Speaker: So Praktor hits the crystal a few times with the wooden stick, which causes it to start to resonate and glow and basically shatter into a million pieces.
Speaker: And wouldn't you know it, there's Gore with her.
Speaker: They've completed their quest.
Speaker: They have freed the wizard.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And Gore Weaver is not exactly the guy they were expecting.
Speaker: He's kind of gross.
Speaker: He's basically, I actually kind of imagined him as, what's his name from Mad Men?
Speaker: Sterling?
Speaker: I imagined him with like, what's his name?
Speaker: What's the actor's name?
Speaker: Sterling.
Speaker: I'm not too, that's a blind spot for me.
Speaker: John Slattery, who also played.
Speaker: Oh, sure, sure.
Speaker: Yeah, I can see that.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Imagine him like coming out like, because they're talking about like, you don't look like a wizard.
Speaker: Because he has close cropped white hair, which is like, I think, what's his name?
Speaker: Practor's like, I've never seen hair that closely cropped before, which is like, okay.
Speaker: It's a weird observation, bro.
Speaker: It's kind of a weird thing to say, but OK.
Speaker: But yeah, he's got like, you know, he's got like a high and tight silver haircut and he's coming out like a silver fox, just like, fuck, a couple hundred years in that thing.
Speaker: Anyway, and he starts like gathering up crystal shards and they're like, what are you doing?
Speaker: And he's like, yeah, I know I'm gore with her.
Speaker: And they're like, OK, we we've we've done it.
Speaker: You could go.
Speaker: So we're good, right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's like, oh, no, I'm dead.
Speaker: And they're like, what?
Speaker: Can you say that again?
Speaker: He's like, no, I'm very.
Speaker: Which, like, you know, that just sounds like it sounds just like he was like, I don't want to do.
Speaker: No, I'm not in.
Speaker: Oh, no, I'm fading away.
Speaker: Oh, I'm dead.
Speaker: He's like, oh, no, I'm I'm on another plane right now.
Speaker: The me of this plane is very much dead.
Speaker: This is just my essence.
Speaker: It was trapped here by the dude.
Speaker: And I'm probably not going to last very long.
Speaker: I got a crossover at some point.
Speaker: They're like, fuck.
Speaker: And he's like, yeah, OK.
Speaker: So he gathers up a bunch of crystals and he casts the spell on the little crystal chunk and he gives it to Praktor and he's like, here, take this.
Speaker: It'll be useful.
Speaker: And then he basically whispers something in Meryl's ear and he's like, yeah.
Speaker: And Gorwithers like, you all have been lovely.
Speaker: Thank you for getting me out of the crystal thing.
Speaker: Did not like the past couple hundred years that I've been stuck in there.
Speaker: Peace, I'm out.
Speaker: And then he basically fades into oblivion.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Now, let me – this is not the only time that Meryl either whispers something to somebody or has something whispered to her.
Speaker: And this to me – and we're going to get to it.
Speaker: But I want to – I just want to put a pin in this now where this is like –
Speaker: I had a hard time imagining how long he was whispering to her based on what's going to come up later.
Speaker: Based on what she does, yeah.
Speaker: Yes, yes, exactly.
Speaker: She starts gathering up some crystals and she takes them over to the spinny wheelie thing that they find at the far end of the room, which is similar to the spinny wheelie thing they found down in the barracks, I believe.
Speaker: And she's like, oh, yeah, he told me how to use this thing.
Speaker: And she puts in some crystals to charge it and she starts spinning the wheel and they all got to hold hands while they stand around it.
Speaker: The room starts spinning around them.
Speaker: And wouldn't you know it, they have been teleported to the throne room of the castle.
Speaker: And it's massive.
Speaker: It is a gigantic throne room.
Speaker: There are
Speaker: There are windows in this throne room bigger than any of the buildings that what's his face?
Speaker: Praktor has ever seen before there.
Speaker: It's just this gigantic structure.
Speaker: And in the middle of the room at the foot of this grotesque, gigantic statue.
Speaker: It's just a statue.
Speaker: This grotesque, gigantic statue sitting in a throne is basically Dante from Devil May Cry, but.
Speaker: like eight feet tall.
Speaker: That's kind of how I pictured him in my head.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Let's see if I can find it.
Speaker: It was like for this guy supposed to be, he's meant to be a demon kind of guy.
Speaker: And yeah, it just- He's like, he looks like a man, but he has lizard eyes.
Speaker: Right, yeah, that's it.
Speaker: That's really it.
Speaker: Like you just got lizard eyes.
Speaker: So I just popped Dante from Devil May Cry in there and it was good to go.
Speaker: You know, I'm happy with that.
Speaker: That'll do.
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: They approach and they have a little tête-à-tête.
Speaker: They have some words.
Speaker: They exchange words.
Speaker: And he's like, I'm fascinated that you guys got in here, but you guys are going to go pretty quickly.
Speaker: And he calls his guards.
Speaker: And they start, this is the beginning of the end.
Speaker: They have their final showdown starting here.
Speaker: And Hargrod barks out the orders.
Speaker: They form a defensive triangle around Merild.
Speaker: And they just start fighting off these little gremlin-y, demon-y dudes, slicing them down.
Speaker: And they kill everything.
Speaker: They kill everything.
Speaker: And the demon guy on the throne, who we're calling Dalbrad for now.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's like, he does the Thanos thing and says, I'll do it myself.
Speaker: And he hops off the throne and immediately kills Sranil.
Speaker: Just so quick.
Speaker: Oh, just kills the shit out of him.
Speaker: Just so quick, kills the shit out of him.
Speaker: Just...
Speaker: It's like for how like YA and very kind of like cute, charming this has been up until now, it's not the worst thing I've ever read, but it's kind of a surprisingly graphic death.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like he just impales him on his sword.
Speaker: He impales him on his sword, pulls him out and Serrano dies in a puddle of blood with a surprised look on his face.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Which is, look, look, we all knew that Serrano would die with a surprised look on his face.
Speaker: That is, that is two character.
Speaker: Yeah, that's, that's right, right in, right in character.
Speaker: So they, they start fighting.
Speaker: Hargrot is, is pressing the advantage on this giant demon dude.
Speaker: And he can't make contact.
Speaker: Basically, he's ephemeral.
Speaker: He can kill them, but they can't touch him.
Speaker: And then Merald whispers something to Hargrad.
Speaker: And Hargrad takes the stick of truth that they have been using...
Speaker: so often recently and Hargron.
Speaker: It's a very valuable magic item.
Speaker: Hargron just stabs him right through the fucking chest with the stick.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that turns him solid with the stick in his chest.
Speaker: And this dude's like, oh, that's not a good thing.
Speaker: And Praktor then stabs the dude in the back and he's like, oh, I am slain.
Speaker: And he falls dead to the ground.
Speaker: And I love they have a moment there where
Speaker: As Praktor is stabbing him in the back, he's saying like, he basically has like a, not the hero we need, but the hero we deserve moment where he's like, this isn't the kind of killing blow that a hero should do, but it's what we need to do in this moment.
Speaker: It's like, dude, just fucking kill him.
Speaker: As he's stabbing him, like, this isn't chivalrous.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: But then you weren't specking as a knight, so.
Speaker: Yeah, come on, man.
Speaker: Let's just get on with it.
Speaker: You're a fighter.
Speaker: That's all you are.
Speaker: Fucking lawful good over here.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: Lawful good.
Speaker: Bore me to tears, Praktor.
Speaker: Anyway, Praktor's like, so we did it, right?
Speaker: Yeah, we're good.
Speaker: We're good?
Speaker: Oh, Saranel died.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, that's true.
Speaker: Everyone says that kind of a moment where they're like, oh, that sucks.
Speaker: That sucks, but we did it, right?
Speaker: What was it they say at one point?
Speaker: Someone says, like, I didn't expect it to be that easy.
Speaker: And he has a good point.
Speaker: He goes, tell him that it was that easy.
Speaker: Oh, right.
Speaker: Sranel's dead.
Speaker: I mean, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they're standing there and they're like, well, we did it.
Speaker: And no, they didn't.
Speaker: Because the giant thing that they thought was a statue was not a statue.
Speaker: That was Dalbrad.
Speaker: It is this gigantic, grotesque,
Speaker: Like, oh, that's the king of the demons.
Speaker: Now Brad explains like that was the prince of prince of darkness that you just killed.
Speaker: He he basically does all the work that I that I ask, and he does all the moving because I don't like to move.
Speaker: I love that line.
Speaker: Literally, he's pissed off that he is being forced to move.
Speaker: He literally says that.
Speaker: And now I'm going to kill you because I hate moving because moving is like the enemy of intellectual pursuit or something like that.
Speaker: It's like it's such a waste of time, you know.
Speaker: I didn't expect to be attacked like this in my home by this fantasy novel, but fuck you a little bit, Alan Dean Foster.
Speaker: This was like a mojo from Marvel.
Speaker: The alien dude who just floats on a platform and watches people kill them, kill each other.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's so ridiculous.
Speaker: So Dalbrad grabs Praktor in his hand and is going to eat him.
Speaker: And Praktor takes out the gem that Gorwither gave him and throws it right down the right down the gullet.
Speaker: And that basically causes Dalbrad to explode from the inside out.
Speaker: Yeah, it's kind of like the scene in Return to Oz where the Gnome King is trying to eat Dorothy and a chicken egg falls into his mouth and he just crumbles to dust.
Speaker: That's how I imagine it.
Speaker: That's pretty much how it happens, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And now evil is defeated.
Speaker: Now it's done.
Speaker: And they're like, oh man, Serenal is still dead.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Still dead.
Speaker: Still dead as a Turk.
Speaker: Still dead.
Speaker: Still very dead.
Speaker: And then Merald is like, well, maybe not so dead.
Speaker: Fucking Merald, I swear to God.
Speaker: This castle, even though the owner of the castle is gone now, both of them, Gorewither and Dalbrad,
Speaker: The castle still has its own magic and wonders and all that stuff.
Speaker: So they go over to a particular statue, which is it's it's basically a statue of one of the Brothers of Aid.
Speaker: I believe they had explained explained them a little bit earlier.
Speaker: They were like these mystical bunks or what have you.
Speaker: And they have to they make an offering to the statue and the statues like your offerings accepted.
Speaker: And it takes it resurrects Sranil.
Speaker: And they're like, they literally use a flower that they find in the room.
Speaker: And like, that's that's that's what we got to offer.
Speaker: He's like, cool.
Speaker: Yeah, I'll bring anyone back to life for a random fucking flower that you found on the ground.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: You guys are great.
Speaker: It's about time someone opened up to me.
Speaker: And Saranel's alive.
Speaker: And they're like, well, that's that's the end.
Speaker: Srendel, like he's alive and immediately.
Speaker: He's talking shit immediately.
Speaker: He like grabs the sword from one of the demons and like gets killed by a trap immediately all over again.
Speaker: God damn it, Srendel.
Speaker: All right, if we got another flower, can we bring him back again?
Speaker: Yeah, man, it's your flower, whatever.
Speaker: Your flower, you know, that's fine.
Speaker: Yeah, dude.
Speaker: So that's pretty much the end of the book.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: When I say pretty much, that is the end of the book.
Speaker: Yeah, we get a real quick recap on like, what's everyone using the treasure that they're inevitably gonna go grab for?
Speaker: All right, you're getting a house.
Speaker: You're getting a house for your sweetheart and you're gonna do your Scrooge McDuck thing and you're making a school where you teach children of all the races to be condescending dickweeds.
Speaker: Tis the end.
Speaker: The end.
Speaker: This book took a hard nosedive in the last four chapters.
Speaker: It really did.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: I was loving this book up until they got to Shadowkeep, which is what the book's about.
Speaker: Which is, by the way, the thing that made me happy because too frequently with these books, you get to a point where you're like,
Speaker: okay, we're having fun here on the journey, but are we ever going to get to the fucking point?
Speaker: And the book's like, hey, we're halfway through.
Speaker: We've gotten to the point.
Speaker: Here's the adventure.
Speaker: And you're like, thank you.
Speaker: And then like five pages in, you're like, oh, no.
Speaker: I was...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was enjoying this much more when it was like The Hobbit.
Speaker: Yeah, it was it was very fun.
Speaker: And I think what happened was all the characters kind of became flanderized.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In once they got to Shadowkeep.
Speaker: So all of their worst characters.
Speaker: characteristics became the only thing about them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Srannell was, he was a rogues rogue.
Speaker: All he cared about was the golds and Merrild was the know it all.
Speaker: And Praktor was the naive leader who just was like, he's Leonardo.
Speaker: He's the Leonardo.
Speaker: And Hargrod was the only one doing his fucking job without.
Speaker: Hargrod was the competent one.
Speaker: Competence.
Speaker: How about that?
Speaker: He brought a lot of competence and he flanderized into even more competence.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's kind of my issue with the book as we go through Shadowkeep, where it felt neat and then there was a bunch of things that felt like they were being set up that just never paid off in any measurable way.
Speaker: There's the innkeeper, the mysterious innkeeper, Norrell, with all the stuff that he had in the back.
Speaker: I thought that something was going to come of that.
Speaker: We get all these little tokens and stuff like that that are picked up in Shadowkeep that never come back around.
Speaker: And that actually brings me to my question.
Speaker: Now, having said that we have not played this game, is it possible that this is meant to be tie-ins to the game itself and it was meant to be hints along the way somehow?
Speaker: Yeah, references to stuff that happened in the game.
Speaker: Perhaps.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: And that's the thing is that there isn't enough.
Speaker: There isn't enough information about the game.
Speaker: It is available on my abandoned where to download is pending that you have a Apple to emulator somewhere lying about.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which I'm sure is not is not that hard to find out on the Internet.
Speaker: But.
Speaker: Yeah, it's and if you look up online, most people only play like 20 minutes of the game, which I think is only a portion of the game.
Speaker: If you find videos, I can't imagine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's the thing is I don't know enough about the game itself to say confidently that these are not references to the players of what.
Speaker: you're supposed to do in certain situations or what or hints as to like how to kill something or what have you.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That being said, a lot of these little things did not.
Speaker: They felt like setups and then they had no payoffs.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I totally agree.
Speaker: In the last third of the book, there are a bunch of little setups that nothing comes of it.
Speaker: I also found myself very annoyed with how frequently...
Speaker: We had – this is along the same line where we had information that was clearly kept between usually Merrill and somebody else.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it's never explained.
Speaker: It's just this coy little like, well, this is something I know.
Speaker: It's like that's – but God, come on.
Speaker: Like I'm not saying you have to explain every little thing but either –
Speaker: Explain it or don't.
Speaker: It was just a weird choice.
Speaker: It was a very weird choice.
Speaker: It was a weird choice.
Speaker: Also, Shadowkeep, the traps and stuff that they find in Shadowkeep was a little bit of a letdown for how much it was talked about.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I thought it was going to be
Speaker: a little bit more intimidating than, than, than what ends up happening.
Speaker: If that makes sense.
Speaker: I, I get the distinct impression, uh, that if shadow keep, uh, existed in the South, uh, then a handful of preppers kids would have completely wiped it out, uh, ages ago.
Speaker: It was, it's not, it really, especially with our characters, they don't show any grand abilities.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, they're scrappy.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: But if that's all it takes, then why did we need an interdimensional character to come and choose somebody to go in and end this thing?
Speaker: It didn't feel like it took.
Speaker: The stuff with this.
Speaker: It was a level three adventure at best.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: It was a starting adventure that tests low-level characters within the confines of a much larger campaign.
Speaker: Big time.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: That is how I view the castle of Shadowkeep itself.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Temple of Elemental Evil, this is not.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: This is barely lost minds of Phandelver.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's just, yeah, it gets, like I said before, I think this book was at its best when we were in
Speaker: the Hobbit mode where it was like the real Shadowkeep was the friends we made along the way.
Speaker: Yes, when we were building the world, that was where- Oh, that was so much fun.
Speaker: That was where the book was at its best.
Speaker: And I felt like this could have been, this is a book that could have been- One piece.
Speaker: One piece.
Speaker: No, I think it's a book that could have been much, much longer, possibly twice as long.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: With a little bit more worlds building in there, but also just more Shadowkeep and just a little bit more interesting Shadowkeep.
Speaker: We could have had like a third of the book be gathering the party.
Speaker: And then, yeah, and like this, that would have been a good book, you know, this twisting, turning maze of a place with intricate, you know, basically take a really good dungeon crawl and novelize it.
Speaker: And write it down, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, which I think on its face, this was what it was meant.
Speaker: That was the idea.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But either...
Speaker: I said before that this book is very much a product of its time with the fantasy.
Speaker: And I stand by that with the fantasy part.
Speaker: But based on
Speaker: What I suspect, I have to give the benefit of the doubt and assume that this is meant to be read in conjunction with the game on some level.
Speaker: And if that's the case, then it's doubly a product of its type.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that makes sense.
Speaker: I think it would be worth, maybe we'll ask the man about it.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: Maybe we'll ask.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: It's distinctly possible.
Speaker: Maybe we can ask Al and Dean Foster what the- There's only one way to find out.
Speaker: There's only one way to find out.
Speaker: By asking him.
Speaker: By asking him.
Speaker: Wink.
Speaker: Hmm?
Speaker: Hmm?
Speaker: Hmm?
Speaker: What are we being coy about?
Speaker: We're like Merrild in that fun book we just finished.
Speaker: We're like Merrilds.
Speaker: It's like the new section of the city.
Speaker: You're such a Merrild.
Speaker: You're such a Merrilds.
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, oh, I have, I am, I haven't been able to play as much this week because of moving and stuff.
Speaker: You guys might know that my office is like growing around me.
Speaker: But I did get a chance to play one really interesting little indie game that I highly recommend called Save Room.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: And this is, I think it's like a few bucks.
Speaker: The game is literally taking the grid-based inventory system of Resident Evil and turns it into a puzzle game.
Speaker: Oh, that's cool.
Speaker: It's really neat.
Speaker: Like, so you have your grid with your inventory and you have a bunch of items and you have to, by hook or by crook, get them all fitted into the grid.
Speaker: And some of the items you can use, some you can combine with each other.
Speaker: Others just have weird, they take up weird, you know, shapes and sizes in it.
Speaker: And you just have to figure out what works best.
Speaker: It took me like a handful of hours to like fully beat it.
Speaker: But I was – I was not – I basically took care of it in like two sittings because I just couldn't stop.
Speaker: I was like this is – this appeals in a very real way to the puzzle part of my brain.
Speaker: And the aesthetic is totally Resident Evil.
Speaker: Like the font, everything from the font to the items, their herbs and stuff like that.
Speaker: And it's just a really neat –
Speaker: Very simple puzzle game that takes you a few hours.
Speaker: And I had a blast with it.
Speaker: It was so much fun.
Speaker: It cost a few bucks.
Speaker: That sounds fun.
Speaker: I might have to check that out.
Speaker: Yeah, it was super fun.
Speaker: Save room.
Speaker: I highly recommend it.
Speaker: Save room.
Speaker: On Steam?
Speaker: Yep, totally.
Speaker: Cool, cool.
Speaker: In terms of what I've been playing, I finally polished off all the current achievements on Vampire Survivors.
Speaker: That's so achievement twins.
Speaker: Achievement twins.
Speaker: So we'll see if that happens, if that stays fine until when they do the 1.0 update.
Speaker: That fucking game.
Speaker: Yeah, they're just probably gonna add a few more achievements and take my little blue ribbon away that I have on Steam.
Speaker: It's a, that ribbon is such a, oh, it's so good.
Speaker: It feels so good.
Speaker: It feels so good once you get that blue ribbon.
Speaker: It's actually the first game that I got the blue ribbon on for, for steam.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, so that's why there's a little outline of a ribbon next to achievements.
Speaker: Never knew that.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I'm such an achievement nerd that it's like, that it's, yeah, I've got, I don't have a lot, but I have a few and it always feels so frigging good.
Speaker: The other thing is I finally, I beat my second playthrough of the quarry, so I'm probably pretty much done with that for now.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: How'd you, did you, do you, you managed to get the achievements you were looking for?
Speaker: Hold on, Camilla's.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yes, Camilla.
Speaker: Hi.
Speaker: Hello.
Speaker: Goodbye.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: When she's older, we've got to get her to guest on this.
Speaker: Yes, of course.
Speaker: So what was I talking about?
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: So I finally finished my second playthrough of the quarry.
Speaker: And yeah, I got I got the achievements that I was looking for.
Speaker: There's a bunch of other ones that.
Speaker: So I have 72 percent of the achievements, 29 out of 40.
Speaker: That's very respectable.
Speaker: It's a respectable amount.
Speaker: I think I'm going to go ahead and uninstall it and be happy with my time spent with the quarry.
Speaker: So I can.
Speaker: That is that is exactly the attitude I think one should have at a certain point.
Speaker: You just go, you know what?
Speaker: I'm uninstalling you and I'm and I'm content with that.
Speaker: I'm content with you.
Speaker: I played you for 25 hours and I had two full playthroughs.
Speaker: I got all of the clues and all the evidence in the game.
Speaker: And I saw and I did a playthrough where I kept all the kids alive.
Speaker: Yeah, that's that's that's that I'm great.
Speaker: Yeah, it's going to have to do.
Speaker: We're good.
Speaker: Coming up next, because people were talking about it, I might be back on my bullshit and.
Speaker: Reinstall XCOM 2.
Speaker: Oh, fucking God.
Speaker: You see, now that you said it, anytime someone says XCOM 2, I get a little tingle and go, well, maybe.
Speaker: Well, maybe I shouldn't install it.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: It's like that meme with what's-his-name from The Hobbit with Bilbo, like, looking down at the ring.
Speaker: Like, after all, why shouldn't I put the ring on?
Speaker: Why shouldn't I reinstall XCOM 2?
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: I'll tell you what that helps me scratch that itch.
Speaker: I have it on my Switch.
Speaker: Ooh.
Speaker: And it's just as buggy as it is on PC.
Speaker: So what's the difference?
Speaker: Never losing anything.
Speaker: No, man.
Speaker: But you can sit on the couch.
Speaker: Sitting bad or whatever.
Speaker: You know, and hang out and just play a level or two or something like that and get pissed off, throw it across the room and, you know.
Speaker: Just like you would with your PC.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: You know what I did?
Speaker: What I did put in a deposit for, though, and I'm probably not going to get it until the end of the year, is a Steam Deck.
Speaker: Oh, I keep thinking about that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I keep thinking about that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because I'm finally at a point where I'm making big boy money.
Speaker: And it's like...
Speaker: But I should probably upgrade my PC before I get a toy PC switch.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which is, I think it's more potent than the Switch is.
Speaker: It actually will have a dock too.
Speaker: So you can.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: The dock is not ready yet.
Speaker: But it will have a dock that you can just like sit it in and like, well, now it's on your TV or whatever.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well, that's that's pretty bad.
Speaker: I'm I'm thinking I might do it.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: That does sound awesome.
Speaker: Damn.
Speaker: Okay, yeah.
Speaker: Well, I will basically need to hear all about that from you when and if it comes in.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Because that would be, that's one of those items that is very much a, my friend loves his and therefore I need to grab one kind of thing.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: So we'll see how it is.
Speaker: I'm cautiously optimistic that it'll be,
Speaker: the worst purchase of my life it's going to ruin your life it's going to be something that absolutely ruins my life we'll see um yeah so that'll do it for our coverage of shadow keep the next book that we are reading which is great because ubisoft is totally in the news when are they not in the news for when are they they've done nothing to get out of the news
Speaker: They're just in the news and they're the worst company in the world.
Speaker: But regardless, they're terrible.
Speaker: Most of the a lot of the companies that we talk about are morally bankrupt anyway.
Speaker: So that's not going to stop us from doing our show.
Speaker: We are going to be covering this guy right here.
Speaker: It'll be a one episode.
Speaker: Hell yes.
Speaker: One episode special.
Speaker: We are talking Assassin's Creed Bloodstone.
Speaker: I got the complete collection in here.
Speaker: It's the complete collections.
Speaker: Not very long.
Speaker: It is not.
Speaker: Yeah, it is.
Speaker: It is probably four issues or so.
Speaker: It looks like that was turned into a graphic novel.
Speaker: So we are going to read that, cover that in one episode.
Speaker: It is an Assassin's Creed story set in Vietnam.
Speaker: So there's no way that this is going to turn out in a way that is good.
Speaker: I have low expectations.
Speaker: It's an Assassin's Creed story set in Vietnam written by a French guy who.
Speaker: It's two of the three, two of the worst things of all time right there off the bat.
Speaker: It is not a good idea, but we're going to read it anyway and see what's up.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: What show do you think you're listening to?
Speaker: We're going to do it anyway.
Speaker: We're going to do it.
Speaker: We didn't start a Shakespeare podcast, people.
Speaker: We goddamn did not because – No, sir.
Speaker: Because that would be a terrible idea.
Speaker: Who the fuck would be listening to a Shakespeare podcast?
Speaker: I don't think that – I don't think – No one wants – That's –
Speaker: If you think that we're reaching a limited audience now, wait until you hear our opinions on King Lear.
Speaker: Boy, howdy.
Speaker: Boy, howdy.
Speaker: For some reason, I always associate King Lear with Diablo because of the, was it the first boss in Diablo?
Speaker: King Leoric?
Speaker: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Makes me think, the name always makes me think of Lear and I don't know.
Speaker: I never even thought about that.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: So every time I see King Lear in my head, I think of Leoric from Diablo.
Speaker: That makes sense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, why not?
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: We wrapped up another book, my friend.
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Shit.
Speaker: We wrapped up another book.
Speaker: Yeah, we wrapped up another book.
Speaker: Look at that.
Speaker: Look at that.
Speaker: Eh.
Speaker: Eh.
Speaker: Eh.
Speaker: For those of you watching on YouTube, you're missing all... Those of you watching on YouTube saw what I did.
Speaker: Those of you listening are missing all the bits that I'm doing with my... For those of you who are listening at home, Kevin tossed his book into the air and it exploded and became two dubs that flew in opposite directions.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's beautiful.
Speaker: Eat your art out.
Speaker: What's his name?
Speaker: Who's the director that...
Speaker: Oh, oh, oh, you talking about Jet Li?
Speaker: No, well Jet Li was in the movies, but who's the director who did that shit?
Speaker: Oh, he also did Face Off, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I think- With his fucking doves.
Speaker: I think- I thought you were gonna say like- John Woo!
Speaker: Eat your heart out, John Woo.
Speaker: John Woo!
Speaker: I thought you were gonna say, I thought you were going to say like, David Copperfield or something like that.
Speaker: Eat your heart out, David Copperfield.
Speaker: In dubs everywhere.
Speaker: Dubs everywhere.
Speaker: Anyway, follow us on our socials, PixelitPod on Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker: And then go ahead to our website, PixelitPod.com.
Speaker: You can find links to our Discord as well as our Steam group where we are curating only the finest...
Speaker: reviews for the games that we mentioned on what are you playing now i've no there are 15 people in there and it makes me so happy 15 people in the steam group it's so nice um but that'll do it for tonight's episode thank you so much for listening and have a good night everyone bye
