Transcript
Speaker: just kind of into what we're doing.
Speaker: It's like, okay, we're reaching the right audience.
Speaker: This is a good feeling.
Speaker: That's what you want.
Speaker: It's a good feeling.
Speaker: And you know what else is a good feeling?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixlet.
Speaker: My name is Kevin with me as always is Phil.
Speaker: Hello.
Speaker: Today is part two of Dark Souls, the mask of vindication.
Speaker: Actually, it's just mask of vindication.
Speaker: Mask of vindication.
Speaker: There's no article there.
Speaker: There's just a common mask of vindication.
Speaker: It's a, yeah.
Speaker: Oh boy.
Speaker: So when we last left off,
Speaker: I don't think we've ever gotten to the bare bones of your attitude on a book quite so fast, Kevin.
Speaker: When we last left off, they were in town.
Speaker: And there was no names because names are only for important people.
Speaker: And, uh...
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: We're picking up with chapter 14.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: We sure are.
Speaker: We sure are.
Speaker: So chapter 14, they're moving along the countryside.
Speaker: They're in a cart and they're going through warehouses of grain because this town sends all their grain to the king.
Speaker: So they got to have...
Speaker: They got to have the shipping concerns all laid out, you know?
Speaker: And we get into the details of these.
Speaker: We got to find out about every stop.
Speaker: Every stop.
Speaker: We unloaded some stuff here, loaded more up there.
Speaker: We got more carts here.
Speaker: Yeah, we found out about the circuitous trade routes of the world of Dark Souls.
Speaker: Taking a sip of my LaCroix.
Speaker: I'm just going to take a sip of my LaCroix and...
Speaker: They picked up some LaCroix in one of the towns.
Speaker: There was a three for two on sale at Publix, and they couldn't pass it up.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, it's a good deal.
Speaker: You can get a little key lime.
Speaker: You get that limoncello you like so much, Kevin.
Speaker: The limoncello.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: I mean, obviously, when you taste it, it just tastes like plain bubbly water.
Speaker: But the smell, it has the bouquet.
Speaker: Is that the right word?
Speaker: Yeah, that's.
Speaker: It has the bouquet of limoncello.
Speaker: Limoncello.
Speaker: Come on now, people.
Speaker: Mix your actual limoncello in with it.
Speaker: And you got a cocktail, my friend.
Speaker: You got a stew going, baby.
Speaker: You got a stew.
Speaker: So they're moving to the capital.
Speaker: They're moving along.
Speaker: They're moving along and they, who cares?
Speaker: They get through the gates, they talk to people with names and they get in front of the king.
Speaker: And the king is like, the king's his brother and he's like, oh yeah, you're Balarian all right.
Speaker: And Balarian's like, you're the king and you're my brother.
Speaker: And yeah, he's like, Jesus, what happened?
Speaker: What's going on?
Speaker: My cat got her claw caught.
Speaker: Oh God, we're really off the rails.
Speaker: Is that Lieutenant Ellen Ripley?
Speaker: Is she okay?
Speaker: Is she okay?
Speaker: Does she need to operate a load lifter now?
Speaker: She's fine.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: She can, she can, she's, she's fully certified to operate a load lifter.
Speaker: She's, she's good.
Speaker: Well, I don't know.
Speaker: What can you do?
Speaker: What can you do?
Speaker: Cat gets caught in the computer grate.
Speaker: This is real life, people.
Speaker: We bring it to you real and hard and fast, just like Dark Souls.
Speaker: We live the Dark Souls.
Speaker: We're the Dark Souls of podcasts.
Speaker: Dark Souls of podcasts.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So his brother, who is just like a dude who languidly sits on a golden throne and just loves gold, gold everywhere.
Speaker: Gold member.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's literally gold.
Speaker: I love gold.
Speaker: Like it's that guy.
Speaker: It's that guy.
Speaker: He is sitting there and he's like, hey, I'll give you the key, the golden key, the golden ticket.
Speaker: And you got to promise not to tell it about Slugworth about it.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: That's the first rule.
Speaker: That's the first rule.
Speaker: But you got to go to the glittering temple and you got to get me something.
Speaker: You got to get me a scepter out of that glittering temple.
Speaker: They're like, all right, we'll do it.
Speaker: We'll do it if it means getting the key from you.
Speaker: And they're like, okay.
Speaker: And they just really, they're just like eager can do with this one, by the way.
Speaker: They're so can do.
Speaker: There is no.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Obviously.
Speaker: You know, the hero's journey can get fucked for the most part.
Speaker: No, yeah.
Speaker: We're not going to take our time here, try to learn or negotiate.
Speaker: We're just like, yeah, fine.
Speaker: Fuck it.
Speaker: Let's go.
Speaker: Yeah, let's go.
Speaker: And then the king is like, well, hold on.
Speaker: I got to put your names down in this logbook.
Speaker: There's like an accounting.
Speaker: There's like a little detail where there's an accounting for what they're being given.
Speaker: And it's like, it's for the historians.
Speaker: Yeah, he's given them provisions.
Speaker: He's giving them provisions and horses and food and all that stuff.
Speaker: And they're like, okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Minor detail, we'll come back around to that later.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, put a pin in that.
Speaker: Put a pin in that.
Speaker: We're coming back around.
Speaker: So that's chapter 14.
Speaker: Chapter 15, they arrive at the temple, the glittering temple to the north.
Speaker: And they meet a guy and he is one of the other Knights of Virtue.
Speaker: He is Garvin, the Undaunted.
Speaker: The Undaunted.
Speaker: Yes, the Undaunted.
Speaker: And he is he uses a battle axe.
Speaker: So he is an axe wheeling fella.
Speaker: He has a strength build.
Speaker: And I was putting it together in my head.
Speaker: It was like, all right, so at this point in the party, we have a magic user.
Speaker: Yeah, we got a tank.
Speaker: We have a strength build in Garvin.
Speaker: We have, and I'm going to assume, in Dark Souls terms, it's called a quality build.
Speaker: for a quality build is somebody who has equal strength and dexterity.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So and that's Krotha and the other lady Phil Phil Phil Philodendron.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She is a dex build.
Speaker: Yeah, she's a double wielder.
Speaker: She is a double wielder.
Speaker: She dances with her swords.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Phyllicina.
Speaker: Phyllicina.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, and the Phillies just hit a home run.
Speaker: I'll edit that out.
Speaker: That worked.
Speaker: They're...
Speaker: they're world seriesing right now.
Speaker: So you gotta, you gotta be a part of it.
Speaker: I gotta be part of it.
Speaker: I'm keeping an eye on the score.
Speaker: I understand.
Speaker: I understand.
Speaker: I'd be doing the same thing.
Speaker: If I gave a shit about sports.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, if it was, if the Mountaineers were playing, uh, yeah, or, or yeah, the Mountaineers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If it was, if it was college ball, then yeah, I'd be, yes, you would be, you'd be all up in it.
Speaker: That's different.
Speaker: That's different.
Speaker: What about Balerion?
Speaker: We don't get a lot about Balerion style.
Speaker: Balerion said just, uh, he's your, he's your, um, Gary Stu, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Weird that it's not our main character.
Speaker: Our narrator is.
Speaker: Not our main character.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Quote unquote, the most important character in the book.
Speaker: Not our main character.
Speaker: Also not that interesting.
Speaker: None of them are.
Speaker: None of them are.
Speaker: I was complaining to you earlier that like there's only a few of them in this book that are like that have any development whatsoever.
Speaker: But developing them hasn't made them more interesting.
Speaker: So no, it's just more.
Speaker: It's like when you prove bread, it's like it's bigger now.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's got more air in there.
Speaker: The dough is bigger, but it's still just dough.
Speaker: It's still just dough.
Speaker: We are not finished here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So anyway, they meet this guy named Garvin, who was basically told by the old king to wait and watch this temple and go in when the time is right.
Speaker: And he has been doing this for hundreds of years now.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: We've got people who just live forever, whether they're dead or alive or fuck it, it don't matter.
Speaker: Because he has a duty to uphold.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So he's got to do it, obviously.
Speaker: Duty makes you immortal.
Speaker: And that's... And here's the thing, that's like...
Speaker: Sure, that's fine.
Speaker: That's actually not too far as off in the Dark Souls universe.
Speaker: Like, passage of time and aging and all that stuff.
Speaker: It's all wibbly wobbly.
Speaker: And we'll get to that.
Speaker: That is like one of the most Dark Souls things about this book is that...
Speaker: We're not dealing with like, oh, somebody's 80 and they died.
Speaker: Like, no, this person is 400 and they're alive because they still have something they need to do.
Speaker: That's kind of bleak.
Speaker: Like if we lived in that world, the corporations would seize on that.
Speaker: It's like, I can't die.
Speaker: Walmart still needs me.
Speaker: We'd be shackled to our Twitter accounts and we must tweet until the end of time.
Speaker: Until the end of time.
Speaker: And it's just like, it's just like a, just a long, long line of people going, kill me, kill me.
Speaker: The endless tweets.
Speaker: AB 962 20033 Q says, kill me.
Speaker: And when you finally do die, it's tweetricide.
Speaker: I think it's been really nice doing this podcast for everybody.
Speaker: This book broke Kevin.
Speaker: It broke me.
Speaker: It wasn't FNAF like we thought it would be.
Speaker: That's the end of our show.
Speaker: So they go in.
Speaker: Basically, what is it now?
Speaker: It's a castle temple thing.
Speaker: It's a temple built in a crater.
Speaker: And there's villages around it.
Speaker: And I got to be honest.
Speaker: I'm not sure I ever really grasped what the fuck they were looking at.
Speaker: Like, it was rings, right?
Speaker: Like, it's concentric circles as it goes down.
Speaker: And the rings move occasionally.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But there's no rhyme or reason to when they move or how they move.
Speaker: They just occasionally move.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay, great.
Speaker: So there's nothing more to it than that.
Speaker: It goes down, the outer rings to the inner rings, they'll rotate occasionally, and there's a massive, gigantic temple in the middle.
Speaker: In the middle of the bottom.
Speaker: Okay, okay, yes.
Speaker: All right, I wanted to make sure I'd read that correctly.
Speaker: I was like, I missed something.
Speaker: That's the problem with some of these books.
Speaker: You read something that just isn't well-developed, and you tell yourself, I missed something.
Speaker: You read it a few times, and you're like,
Speaker: No, I'm still not.
Speaker: No, still not.
Speaker: I'm not rocking what this is.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Okay, good.
Speaker: As long as I'm not the only one.
Speaker: Good, good, good, good.
Speaker: So they basically begin to, they have some story time.
Speaker: They talk to each other for a bit.
Speaker: Well, it wouldn't be a Dark Souls book if you didn't have pages upon pages of people telling each other stories.
Speaker: Yeah, and Garvin gives them the lowdown.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Garvin gives them the lowdown of what other armies and whatever have tried to attack the temple and get their way through.
Speaker: And none of them have ever made it.
Speaker: And those who have made it, he's like, there's always been horrific screaming when they get to the middle.
Speaker: He's like, so that bodes well for our heroes.
Speaker: They believe, they're like, we're going to go in and we're going to talk our way through
Speaker: And we're going to try to talk a way through.
Speaker: We're going to have Krotha take the lead on that project.
Speaker: Yeah, that's like, I mean, that's the standard issue Dark Souls way, right?
Speaker: Persuasion checks.
Speaker: Persuasion checks.
Speaker: All the way to the end.
Speaker: You know, the game famously known for having a persuasion stat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, get your high charisma bard in gear and talk your way through legions of the damned.
Speaker: That's Dark Souls, baby.
Speaker: That's Dark Souls, baby.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You got a Dark Souls stew going, baby.
Speaker: We're in chapter 16 now.
Speaker: It does not work at all.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Having Krotha, your big knight dude who stands for truth and justice in the American way, out front just aggros everybody and they end up having to...
Speaker: And I love, Stackpole even points this out.
Speaker: It's like, I kind of wanted to go, you wrote this because at one point- You wrote it.
Speaker: He said, he said, it basically says it was pretty stupid of them to put Krowth out front considering he's completely encased in armor and carrying a big sword.
Speaker: So everyone assumed, what a bunch of fucking idiots, right?
Speaker: It's like, you did this.
Speaker: You did that.
Speaker: You wrote it.
Speaker: It's like he's like nudging you and the audience is going, right, bunch of fucking idiots over there, right?
Speaker: You're like, no, that was you.
Speaker: You're the writer of this story.
Speaker: You did the thing.
Speaker: I just wrote it down.
Speaker: I'm just reporting.
Speaker: I'm just reporting on what happened.
Speaker: I'm a reporter.
Speaker: I'm not involved in the story at all.
Speaker: I'm the journalist for Dark Souls.
Speaker: So they fight there through a bunch of dudes called the Vangeon.
Speaker: I don't know if they got a name.
Speaker: I don't know if it matters ultimately later.
Speaker: I've never heard this name in relation to Dark Souls lore.
Speaker: I don't think so.
Speaker: I'm not sure it matters.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: So they kill all the Vangian who are basically the soldiers that are holding the rings.
Speaker: And then the people who live in the rings start coming out into like the public areas and we're like, oh, we're free.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You've saved us.
Speaker: You saved us.
Speaker: Dark Souls, the end.
Speaker: Like, what?
Speaker: So they're like seeing that there's just this place is just lousy with gold.
Speaker: And they're like, why hasn't
Speaker: Selerik taken this place because he's obsessed with gold.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I think he'd be all over this.
Speaker: And yeah, Phil Sina says, Selerik is as blind as the people born here.
Speaker: He cannot see the true value of all this.
Speaker: For him, the blindness is willful.
Speaker: If he thought that his accumulated treasure was insignificant, he would see himself as insignificant.
Speaker: So basically, he can't admit that this place, which has more gold than he does, exists because then it makes him seem weaker or more inferior.
Speaker: Ladies and gentlemen, King Sleric is Donald Trump.
Speaker: I mean, Jesus, like.
Speaker: Shots fired.
Speaker: Did I hear those shots being fired from the general direction of pixeled it?
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Ladies and gentlemen, that's right.
Speaker: We are brave.
Speaker: We are brave.
Speaker: Duncan on the former president.
Speaker: He's been out of office for several years now.
Speaker: Who most everyone agrees is a fucking joke.
Speaker: Yeah, we are brave, brave, brave men.
Speaker: This is the beginning, by the way, of like, we've had a lot of philosophical talks throughout this book, which once again, standard issue in a game like this.
Speaker: Get good at talking about your feelings.
Speaker: Get good about philosophy.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Hey, Socrates.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Don't be a punk, Plato.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: But this is the beginning of what we're going to see, like some pretty extreme measures that people take according to their philosophy.
Speaker: This is a world where people physically cannot fudge with their...
Speaker: their inner monologue, so to speak.
Speaker: They find their philosophy, they stick to it and, uh, and they have to, because if they don't, something horrible is going to happen.
Speaker: Terrible, terrible shit.
Speaker: This is just the beginning of that.
Speaker: So I just felt that that was important.
Speaker: It's important to point out.
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: So they continue in to the temple.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Yeah, they continue in towards the temple and they find the scepter is just kind of like suspended in a sunbeam or some shit like that.
Speaker: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker: Legend of Zelda like.
Speaker: Balerion goes in and they're all in all the scepter and Balerion's like, I'm going to grab it.
Speaker: And and Pharaon makes note like he reached for it with his left hand, which was super smart.
Speaker: Yeah, because if this turns out to be a trap and it cuts his hand off, he's still got a sword in the hand.
Speaker: He still has...
Speaker: I was like, thanks, Farinos.
Speaker: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker: All right, cool.
Speaker: Fine.
Speaker: I didn't mind that detail.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: All right, Farinos.
Speaker: So they take the scepter and then, whoops, it's a boss fight.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So now we're at chapter 17.
Speaker: Don't touch the statues.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're at chapter 17 and a giant golden statue comes to life with four arms.
Speaker: It's basically General Grievous.
Speaker: It's totally General Grievous.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It just doesn't cough as much.
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: It doesn't cough as much.
Speaker: And they are having a bad time trying to fight this thing.
Speaker: Because every time they hit it, chunks of gold melt off of it and fly off and hit the ground and then form into, I don't know what these animals are supposed to be.
Speaker: I just imagine them as gigantic porcupines.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, like little spiky things that jump out at them.
Speaker: And by the way, the Undaunted one just fucking runs.
Speaker: He bails.
Speaker: He bails immediately.
Speaker: Garvin the Undaunted.
Speaker: It's hilarious.
Speaker: He just runs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So God damn it.
Speaker: Like I'm a battle axe guy.
Speaker: Every time there's a dude with the axe, I'm like, yes, that's my guy.
Speaker: And I was like, God damn it.
Speaker: You fucking asshole.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: He is the worst.
Speaker: And he runs.
Speaker: He makes all battle axe lovers like just look terrible.
Speaker: So bad.
Speaker: So, yeah, he.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He he runs and they fight it and they are not very successful.
Speaker: And, you know, they're going back and forth.
Speaker: Then they decide, oh, let's let's leave.
Speaker: Let's run.
Speaker: Let's keep moving.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We got to move.
Speaker: We got to get the hell out of here.
Speaker: We're not going to win this fight.
Speaker: At some point, the statue, which they determine is the, which is a god, by the way, they realize is the god Arduin, which is some god of gold, the godling, they keep calling it.
Speaker: Like minor god.
Speaker: Takes the shape of a serpent and blocks them from the entrance.
Speaker: And Garvin, to make up for the fact that he fucking bailed earlier from the fight,
Speaker: uh, does a plunging attack from like the roof or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He just comes straight down on, comes straight down onto the snake skull.
Speaker: The snake slams him up onto the roof and then drops him.
Speaker: And then basically Arduin loses his form and, uh, just turns into a pile puddle of gold.
Speaker: And, uh, Garvin's like,
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: I'm, I'm wearing food.
Speaker: Um, and they're like, miserable last words.
Speaker: He's like, I'm a coward.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's why I never went in.
Speaker: And they're like, no, you, you just saved us though.
Speaker: So we'll make sure you get a good, good rap.
Speaker: And he's like, no, it's like Debbie downer on her deathbed.
Speaker: Like he's just,
Speaker: They're like, Beleriand gives him this really lovely like, but you proved your worth and your valor in saving us.
Speaker: And I will tell my father.
Speaker: My father shall know.
Speaker: Yeah, the history books will know.
Speaker: And he's just like, no, but I'm going to know I'm a pussy.
Speaker: And he died.
Speaker: And that's what the fuck, Marc Maron?
Speaker: Like, where the hell did that come from?
Speaker: Garvin is played by Marc Maron.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: It can't be undone.
Speaker: Like, that's just like... You wanted to go, okay, fine, die.
Speaker: Jesus.
Speaker: So I hope you didn't fall in love with Garvin because he's fucking dead.
Speaker: He's gone.
Speaker: That's a wrap on Garvin.
Speaker: He made two whole chapters.
Speaker: He made two whole chapters.
Speaker: Really didn't do a whole lot.
Speaker: They are not long chapters either.
Speaker: He didn't even, like, tell them that much information.
Speaker: He just kind of like...
Speaker: did his thing and died.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like it was kind of like they wanted someone to die, but he has, but, but the author has plans for everyone already.
Speaker: For everyone else.
Speaker: So yeah, this other, this other dude gets introduced Garvin.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's like the sitcoms in the eighties when you wanted to have a very special moment when like an old relative dies or something.
Speaker: A very special episode.
Speaker: Yeah, and they introduce them at the top of the episode, and by the end of it, they're dead, and we're supposed to, like, weep because, God, they were just the best.
Speaker: That was Johnny, and he died of AIDS.
Speaker: Oh, we love Johnny.
Speaker: He was, um...
Speaker: He did.
Speaker: He did the thing.
Speaker: He did.
Speaker: And it's like that very special episode where they like they're like trying to tackle something like the AIDS epidemic or the drug crisis or whatever.
Speaker: But they're not going to like actually talk about the marginalized communities being affected by it.
Speaker: No, it's like that's that's Johnny.
Speaker: He got it from a blood transfusion.
Speaker: He got it from a blood transfusion.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Very special episodes.
Speaker: We have a very special episodes of Dark Souls.
Speaker: It's very special.
Speaker: And next time on Dark Souls Mask of Vindication, Garvin drills with his drinking problem.
Speaker: I'm not a coward.
Speaker: I'm just drunk.
Speaker: Wait, no.
Speaker: Both.
Speaker: Sometimes you want to go.
Speaker: I think the Frasier style spinoff of Garvin was kind of a bummer.
Speaker: I didn't.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I didn't buy him as a, as an attorney.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I didn't.
Speaker: I did not buy those tossed salad and scrambled eggs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What is a boy to do?
Speaker: Sometimes I seem a bit confused, baby.
Speaker: I got you, babe.
Speaker: Would you guys rather if we just did like a Frasier podcast instead?
Speaker: We could skip this.
Speaker: We could pivot to Frasier if you guys want.
Speaker: Pivot to Frasier.
Speaker: Would that be better?
Speaker: It'd almost be better at this point.
Speaker: Let's look up.
Speaker: Do we start with Cheers and then go to Frasier?
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: That's the eternal question.
Speaker: Then are we obligated to do any other spinoffs that came from that?
Speaker: Were there any other Cheers spinoffs?
Speaker: There had to have been, right?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: That's a good question.
Speaker: It was Cheers and Frasier, and I think that's it.
Speaker: There might have been a backdoor pilot or two that never got picked up.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: Anyway, I think everyone in this room has been in a backdoor pilot or two.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: I'm talking about butt stuff.
Speaker: So they leave.
Speaker: Yeah, they leave.
Speaker: And they get to one of the big old warehouses in one of the rings that has a lot of gold in it.
Speaker: Like, oh, damn it.
Speaker: The God isn't actually dead.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Weird, right?
Speaker: Weird.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: So metaphor didn't die.
Speaker: The metaphor didn't die and Garvin did nothing.
Speaker: So Garvin's death was totally in vain, like totally pointless.
Speaker: So Farinos is like, oh, just kill me.
Speaker: Crotha.
Speaker: And he's like, what?
Speaker: And Farinus is like, give me this scepter and kill me.
Speaker: So they do.
Speaker: And he wakes up at a bonfire outside of the temple area, outside of the whole crater and rings and everything.
Speaker: And like the rest of the party comes trudging up and they're a little worse for wear, but they're fine.
Speaker: And he's like, was I right?
Speaker: And they're like, yeah, as soon as we got the scepter out of there, the gold piles of gold stopped attacking us.
Speaker: And he's like, yes.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He respawned with a flag a mile away.
Speaker: Yes, he respawned with a flag.
Speaker: They just did a little, they really hacked capture the flag.
Speaker: Good strategy.
Speaker: I mean, it's a good strategy, you know.
Speaker: Fuck it.
Speaker: So, they, and that's basically the beginning of chapter 18.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And chapter, a good chunk of chapter 18 is basically trying to convince Krotha to lie.
Speaker: He doesn't like that.
Speaker: This is more of what we were talking about with like, because, yeah, because they've got to go back and tell the king that they're, because they, what did they do to the scepter?
Speaker: They like break it.
Speaker: Oh, so yeah, he took the diamond out.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The diamond was the thing that was doing the thing and he shattered it and then re-put it back together.
Speaker: He like, he took the magic out of it.
Speaker: Yeah, like the majority of the magic.
Speaker: The majority of the magic.
Speaker: It still has a little bit of magic that is able to control gold, but not to the effects.
Speaker: Yeah, in a small way.
Speaker: In a small way.
Speaker: It doesn't summon a gold god.
Speaker: Right, right, right.
Speaker: And that's the thing.
Speaker: They figure, like, this will be enough to make the king happy, but not so much that he'll, you know...
Speaker: He'll die because he will get killed by the gold god.
Speaker: The gold god.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: And so they're trying to – most of this chapter is, yeah, they're trying to tell Crotha the knight of truth.
Speaker: Like you got to lie a little bit for us to make this work.
Speaker: And he is straight up –
Speaker: white atheist libertarian like no rationality and logic is the only way even though it'll get us all killed if I don't tell one little fib here basically facts don't care about your feelings right right yeah thanks Ben yeah we appreciate it so they get back to the king
Speaker: And they're like, here's this cool scepter and look what it can do.
Speaker: And Faradag's like makes it turn a pile of gold into like a guard that's made of gold.
Speaker: And the king is like, well, that fucking sucks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's like really disappointed.
Speaker: It's like, dude, if I was Faradag, I'd be like, hey, that was fucking impressive what I did.
Speaker: I didn't even know I could do that.
Speaker: I'm a mage.
Speaker: And I was just kind of assuming I could do it.
Speaker: Like, that's impressive, you ass.
Speaker: And then the king is like, the king's like, by the way, you've been gone for five years.
Speaker: Five years.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they're like, what?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And this is actually, that's like the most Dark Souls, one of the more Dark Souls elements is that the passage of time gets weird.
Speaker: And like, they were, to them, they were gone for like a week.
Speaker: But to him, they were gone for five years.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like he's, he looks different now.
Speaker: Like he's older.
Speaker: His punch is bigger.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like he's, that's, I thought that was pretty cool.
Speaker: Like that was pretty interesting.
Speaker: So he's like, all right, well that settles that.
Speaker: Now the matter of the bill you owe me.
Speaker: And they're like, what?
Speaker: And he's like, well, according to our accounts, we gave you food for five years because obviously it was enough to last you.
Speaker: And they're like, it wasn't five years.
Speaker: It was a week.
Speaker: Real quick, real quick to illustrate what they do here to take care of the debts.
Speaker: Kevin, let's say you lent me five years worth of a double quarter pound of cheese.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So ask me to pay you back.
Speaker: That's a little thought experiment here.
Speaker: Okay, can you pay me back for the five years of double quarter pounders?
Speaker: Five years worth of... I have a better idea, Kevin.
Speaker: What if I told you a really cute story?
Speaker: I would say, no thanks.
Speaker: I would like my five years of double quarter pounders.
Speaker: What if it was like a really, really cute story?
Speaker: okay are you are you guys are you guys listening because that's what fucking happens the king is like the king is like do you have a five years worth of story to tell me and they're like oh boy howdy do we and then they just say it feels like five years i'll tell you that much
Speaker: So and then they just tell him what happens.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But they just change a few of the details.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They changed the gold into into mercury.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that it was a little bit more frightening.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's about it.
Speaker: They just recap.
Speaker: That's about it.
Speaker: We were also there.
Speaker: We the readers were also there.
Speaker: And part of this book is recounting a thing that we read, but with lies mixed in.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: To another character.
Speaker: Just for the sake of settling five years worth of food debt, even though.
Speaker: Five years.
Speaker: Because they just happened to be gone for five years in his time frame.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a very, this is where we get into some very like,
Speaker: English folk tale style shit where it's like a very stone soup kind of thing where the bad guys like I gave you five years worth of food.
Speaker: And they're like, no, you didn't.
Speaker: You gave us a week's worth of food.
Speaker: He goes, ah, yes, but it lasted you five years.
Speaker: So quid pro quo, it should have counted as five years.
Speaker: Now get in the back and start spinning with your hair.
Speaker: And taking care of the goose that lays golden eggs.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: And yeah, it gets into some weird, like weird Rumpelstiltskin shit.
Speaker: Yeah, very Rumpelstiltskin shit.
Speaker: And the worst part about it is it fucking works.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: At the very end, at the very end, the king's like, I mean, that is a pretty good story.
Speaker: I'll tell you what, tomorrow, everyone gets some sleep and tomorrow, give me one more story and we'll call it square.
Speaker: And you're like, okay.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Call it square.
Speaker: I really, I had some emotional sustenance from that story.
Speaker: And this is what happens when you live in a world without TV.
Speaker: Live in a world without TV and you're alive for like a thousand years from now.
Speaker: Yeah, that was a goddamn good story.
Speaker: I mean, just look, we got and think about when you think about it, th is is a $25 book, ladies and gentlemen, when you think about it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just a piece of this book in the smack dab middle of it is worth five years worth of food.
Speaker: So it's a pretty good fucking deal.
Speaker: It's a good deal.
Speaker: If I do say so myself.
Speaker: You just rip out these pages.
Speaker: Take them on over to Aldi.
Speaker: I believe Aldi is accepting Dark Souls Mask of Vindication pages.
Speaker: Why wouldn't they?
Speaker: They're so reasonable.
Speaker: As coupons.
Speaker: And there you go.
Speaker: You're set.
Speaker: You're set for five years, my friend.
Speaker: So they continue.
Speaker: Oh, but Crotha, we got Crotha's- Oh, go get Crotha's story.
Speaker: Crotha's moment.
Speaker: Because he could see Crotha's just flop sweating.
Speaker: Crotha's the meme of the kid in school with the vein popping out his head.
Speaker: Krotha's that face right now.
Speaker: And he's like, Krotha, you're being quiet.
Speaker: You got anything to say, Krotha?
Speaker: And Krotha's like, yeah, I fucking sucked ass during that trip.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was terrible.
Speaker: And they're like, I can't tell you my part in it because I was, I sucked.
Speaker: I rolled like three ones in a row.
Speaker: And it's embarrassing.
Speaker: It was dumb.
Speaker: I was bad.
Speaker: And that's the truth.
Speaker: That's that.
Speaker: I'm not.
Speaker: Yeah, he just starts puking just everywhere.
Speaker: Vomiting.
Speaker: Yeah, just uncontrollable heaving.
Speaker: Well, it's like the character from Knives Out.
Speaker: Right, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: That's who he is.
Speaker: That's who Krothe is.
Speaker: It's Anna DeArmis' character from Knives Out.
Speaker: Puking uncontrollably.
Speaker: She starts vomiting if she lies.
Speaker: Oh, there it is.
Speaker: There it is.
Speaker: So some people's philosophies are a little more flexible than others as we come to find.
Speaker: As we come to find.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they, they continue.
Speaker: They continue on.
Speaker: There's trees.
Speaker: They walk through some trees and there's cows and they see the cows.
Speaker: They see the cows.
Speaker: They get to a town called Fairhaven.
Speaker: Oh, I forgot to mention, they get the fucking key.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He gives him the key.
Speaker: Some weird little hold my hand.
Speaker: It's a hold my hand thing.
Speaker: And he gives him his like Livestrong bracelet.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Transfers over your your friends would do that.
Speaker: Your girlfriends, they like hold hands and move the one friendship bracelet from one wrist to the other.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's it was like a magical version.
Speaker: I mean, Phil and I have done that.
Speaker: We've done that several times.
Speaker: Several times.
Speaker: That was just basically what the wedding weekend was all about.
Speaker: That's what the.
Speaker: That was.
Speaker: It's changing more than one piece of jewelry is all I'm saying.
Speaker: He's talking about butt stuff.
Speaker: Never forget.
Speaker: Never forget.
Speaker: So now they are.
Speaker: They have moved on from the land of gold.
Speaker: Gold.
Speaker: Into the land of beauty.
Speaker: Jesus.
Speaker: So they're in the second of three kingdoms now.
Speaker: And the queen of this is Jar Nessa.
Speaker: Jar or something.
Speaker: Jar Janessa.
Speaker: Anyway, she's the queen and she prioritizes beauty among all other things.
Speaker: So they get to the town of Fairhaven.
Speaker: And they're like, oh man, you know, Philicina and Balerion, you're hot to try.
Speaker: You're good to go.
Speaker: You're super hot.
Speaker: We love what you guys are doing.
Speaker: You two undead people, we got to work on you.
Speaker: So they take them.
Speaker: We got no room for uggos here, people.
Speaker: We got no room for uggos.
Speaker: So if you're going to hang out,
Speaker: Well, we're going to need you to do some stuff.
Speaker: They take them to a bathhouse, scrub them up and down.
Speaker: I fucking love this scene.
Speaker: They give them mani pedi.
Speaker: They do their hair.
Speaker: They do their makeup.
Speaker: They make them look live again.
Speaker: And they're like their their social ugliness ranking was upgraded to like fair.
Speaker: They literally go up a level in social.
Speaker: Like, it's like World of Warcraft where you're trying to increase your reputation with the society by killing all the murlocs hanging out outside of their village.
Speaker: Except you need a bath.
Speaker: Like, I love the way they've got this fucking woman.
Speaker: They've got this woman like Helga.
Speaker: Her name must be Bertha or Helga or something.
Speaker: And she's like this six foot tall bitch with huge arms.
Speaker: And she literally...
Speaker: All these kids and people surround the undead and she's just cross-armed in front of them.
Speaker: And she goes, you know what to do.
Speaker: And all of these people just descend on the undead, strip them naked, start scrubbing their bodies in the wall.
Speaker: It's so insane.
Speaker: It's like they get cleaned, they get mani pedis, they get a haircut, everything.
Speaker: A little rouge, a little lip.
Speaker: A little rouge, a little lip.
Speaker: It's beautiful.
Speaker: It's actually, I would love this scene more in literally any other book.
Speaker: Yes!
Speaker: You've described so many moments in this book.
Speaker: This is like fantasy RuPaul's Drag Race, and I'm here for it, but in something else, please.
Speaker: It just strikes so weirdly in a dark... This would have been great in Shadowkeep.
Speaker: This would have been great in a fucking Final Fantasy.
Speaker: Final Fantasy has done this.
Speaker: Oh!
Speaker: Final Fantasy is all over this.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Stackpole, get your ass over there and make some Final Fantasy novels, because you got it, my friend.
Speaker: You got the tone.
Speaker: You got the branding.
Speaker: But Dark Souls.
Speaker: God.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Jerenessa is her name, by the way.
Speaker: Jerenessa.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: So there's like...
Speaker: There is, uh, there was, they, the, the process is called being reclaimed.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So, um, yeah, they were placed at the rank of fair and there's, uh, other ranks are solar, bright and raised.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, fair placed them in the middle.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like average.
Speaker: Raised is when you're, you look like shit and you're not allowed to hang out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're not allowed to hang out.
Speaker: You're,
Speaker: She doesn't even go here.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Bright is bright is hot.
Speaker: Bright is like pretty hot.
Speaker: Bright is pretty hot.
Speaker: Solar is there's only one person who's solar and that's the queen queen hot shit herself.
Speaker: Gwendolyn Christie.
Speaker: Oh, sorry.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I mean, if it was Gwendolyn Christie, you know.
Speaker: I would understand if it was Gwendolyn Christie.
Speaker: I mean, yeah.
Speaker: You saw her in Sandman, right?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I may have, yeah.
Speaker: Phil Phil adores a tall woman.
Speaker: I might have a tie.
Speaker: Yes, I may have noticed her.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Anyway, they're at a they're they're they're basically what where the fuck are they now?
Speaker: We're in chapter 20.
Speaker: You're in chapter 20.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they are meeting with the queen.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And.
Speaker: Oh, and Philissina is so fucking hot right now, by the way.
Speaker: Oh, she is.
Speaker: Like, we need to know this.
Speaker: We need to know this.
Speaker: We're like, every inch of her is like, up to bottom and just like, mm, the hotness.
Speaker: And she's suddenly like carrying herself.
Speaker: Like, it's that social study that they did with homeless people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Where they like took half of them and put them in suits and they started acting like more professional or formal or something like that because clothes make the man, so to speak.
Speaker: So yeah, they put her in a bunch of lace and shit.
Speaker: So I forgot to mention, this is just a dinner at Fairhaven.
Speaker: They're not there for the queen yet.
Speaker: So while this dinner is happening, Farinos is basically just wandering around town.
Speaker: He's wandering outside of town.
Speaker: He's not very comfortable doing this.
Speaker: And he meets a cart of exiled people.
Speaker: And the exiled are the people who are
Speaker: Not even that, it's just like they might have one thing, little thing wrong.
Speaker: But that you can't fix.
Speaker: That you can't fix.
Speaker: It's just like, this person has a broken leg that healed wrong.
Speaker: This person has a scar across their face.
Speaker: There's like a little kid with like a cloudy eye, you know, and...
Speaker: So they're basically, they meet, he meets this group and he's trying to figure out like what's going on with them.
Speaker: And the cart, they're all down on the ground and praising and all that stuff.
Speaker: And
Speaker: because he is not one of them.
Speaker: So obviously they need to show deference to him.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So all these people are beneath the raised.
Speaker: The raised is the lowest level and these are the exiles.
Speaker: They're beneath it.
Speaker: So he meets a woman who reveals herself when she takes off her hood or whatever.
Speaker: God damn it, she is the hottest fucking person to ever live in.
Speaker: Crazy hot.
Speaker: Just crazy hot.
Speaker: She has a scar down her face.
Speaker: It's like something like it goes down her face and down her neck or something.
Speaker: And he's like, that just makes her hotter.
Speaker: That's literally what it says.
Speaker: It's like, oh, that scar makes her hot.
Speaker: Yeah, it shows she'll fuck you up and that's extra hot.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: So she is actually one of the knights.
Speaker: She is the knight of
Speaker: One of the knights, she's the knight of beauty.
Speaker: Her name is Ceresia.
Speaker: I assume that's how it was pronounced.
Speaker: Her name is Ceresia.
Speaker: She is the knight of beauty.
Speaker: And she's like, you know what?
Speaker: I'm going to join up with your little party and we're going to figure this stuff out.
Speaker: We get another party member because, I mean, and that's another thing that holds true to the Dark Souls franchise.
Speaker: Assembling a large group of people.
Speaker: Large group of people.
Speaker: That you will, you know, join in your adventures.
Speaker: It's not a lonely game where only occasionally you see other people like, you know, seven, eight, nine.
Speaker: You know, Dark Souls is basically like...
Speaker: Wow raids.
Speaker: It's wow raids.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, that is my best memories are, are fighting the dragon.
Speaker: One of the dragons with a party of like 20 people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Small army behind you.
Speaker: That's, that's dark souls, baby.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: There's a lot of weird, dumb philosophical stuff and some.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We get more talk.
Speaker: We get more talking.
Speaker: So here's something.
Speaker: Here's something I want to point out.
Speaker: Seressia is clearly in these scenes.
Speaker: She clearly sees beauty beyond physical appearance.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: She says they make a big point of saying make a big fucking point that she sees beauty beyond physical appearance.
Speaker: She sees beauty in things that aren't necessarily like considered beautiful by other people.
Speaker: She sees beauty in concepts.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All that's her leading these exiles.
Speaker: That's her leading these exiles.
Speaker: She sees them as beautiful.
Speaker: They are beautiful beneath the wounds that they carry.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So I'm just putting that.
Speaker: I mean, that's just a detail that Kevin felt the need to point out.
Speaker: It's just a minor thing.
Speaker: Don't worry about it.
Speaker: That's not going to come back.
Speaker: That's not going to come back.
Speaker: For any reason.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: So they travel from Fairhaven to the kingdom, Athemia, and they get inside and they meet with Jerenessa.
Speaker: Jerenessa Solar.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So she is the only one that gets that solar.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a cool name.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: Balerion is here.
Speaker: He calls himself Balerion.
Speaker: And she goes, I know who this guy is.
Speaker: He claims to be my brother.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But truly, he shall be my death.
Speaker: Bum, bum, swum.
Speaker: So we get a little audience with Jaronessa.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They talk.
Speaker: They have a moment where she decides that simplicity is more beautiful than complexity.
Speaker: Fine.
Speaker: Fine.
Speaker: But the hilarious thing is everybody starts immediately changing their clothes.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: When she says this, because everything she says is a decree.
Speaker: So everybody who was layered in these heavy laces and silks and stuff like that, she's like, sometimes simplicity is better.
Speaker: And everybody's like, oh, shit.
Speaker: And they start taking off the extra laces and silks.
Speaker: This was another moment that I thought was actually pretty neat and pretty cool and had no idea what it was doing here.
Speaker: So the thing that we know about Jaronessa is that she is tall and she wears a mask because and one of the reasons she wears a mask is that she is so beautiful.
Speaker: Under that mask that if you were then deprived of her beauty, you would kill yourself.
Speaker: So she's doing it as a favor to everybody.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like, yeah, I get it.
Speaker: 1994 Jennifer Connelly.
Speaker: I got you.
Speaker: I got you.
Speaker: I'm right on.
Speaker: Same page.
Speaker: Same page.
Speaker: They have another dinner.
Speaker: This time, Farinos is not leaving to go meet a hottie out in the in the woods.
Speaker: By the way, Pharaonus is in love with Seressia.
Speaker: He cannot stop talking about how hot she is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And she kind of likes him.
Speaker: She kind of flirts.
Speaker: She flirts back.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, he must be a pretty good looking guy for a corpse.
Speaker: For an animated dead man.
Speaker: It's charming.
Speaker: He's got a good personality.
Speaker: He's like Weekend at Bernie's without, what's his name?
Speaker: Jonathan.
Speaker: He's weekend at Chad's.
Speaker: That's weekend at Chad's.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Chad.
Speaker: Weekend at fairies.
Speaker: Um, so they, they're having dinner.
Speaker: Um, and, uh,
Speaker: They're having dinner and there's it's there is so much between Sericea and Phyllis Cina.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, like, like, because Phyllis Cina was like she was the hot one.
Speaker: And now she is here.
Speaker: She's here.
Speaker: It's and she's like, she's a little hot.
Speaker: But I don't like there are just pages and pages of them talking and it's not that interesting.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: The most interesting that ultimately happens, and this is several, this is like five pages later, is Jerenessa finally makes her ask.
Speaker: So for order them to get the key of beauty, they have to go down to this other town that where it's the city where all the exiles live.
Speaker: And she's like, and she's like, don't worry.
Speaker: We that's a service we provide them.
Speaker: They're allowed, you know, they're allowed to live down there.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: Their own town and everything.
Speaker: They got their own town and everything.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: But we do want you to go down there and kidnap a kid.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We would like you.
Speaker: If that's cool.
Speaker: If that's cool.
Speaker: We heard that there's a baby born down there.
Speaker: Super hot.
Speaker: We want you to go down.
Speaker: Super hot baby.
Speaker: Hot baby.
Speaker: Make sure you look out for that.
Speaker: We needed to go and grab that kid.
Speaker: Bring her back.
Speaker: Things are getting weird.
Speaker: Things are getting weird.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, and then there's a funny moment in chapter 24 where they're trying to get ready for this journey and they're, the people helping them get their stuff together are trying to do it in a way that's most aesthetically pleasing.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So they're like trying to give them the prettiest cows or oxen or whatever instead of like the ones that would be the best at pulling carts.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which, again, th at's a very interesting moment.
Speaker: It does not scream Dark Souls to me at all.
Speaker: But these moments all strung together, by the way.
Speaker: To me, the book feels like it's going more and more off the rails.
Speaker: Big time.
Speaker: Big time.
Speaker: Because just like these moments of like, what is happening?
Speaker: There are so many moments in this book where as a writer, I recognize some of these moments where they feel like these stream of consciousness things where you just, you do get in kind of this,
Speaker: blur of writing where you're like, oh, I've got it.
Speaker: You hit the, it's like, it's the writing equivalent of when you're wrapping presents and the scissors glide.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's the writing.
Speaker: You hear that little.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's the writing equivalent of that.
Speaker: And you're just moving.
Speaker: And when you're doing that, you can come up with some of your best ideas.
Speaker: You can also go off on tangents that you will come back to reading later and go, what the fuck was I on about?
Speaker: Like it's totally sober, write, drunk, edit, sober shit, where you come back to edit and go, what was this?
Speaker: Why does it matter that, okay, fine.
Speaker: And it just, yeah, it kind of goes on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: They get on the road, they meet up with some some exiles, they're like, yeah, let's let's all work together.
Speaker: They continue down the road, they fight some bandits, they meet some more exiles, yada, yada, yada.
Speaker: They get down to the town.
Speaker: And the town they see.
Speaker: So the town, the city's name is Vitaria.
Speaker: And it's actually really cool moments where it's like the, the, the council of Vitaria is like welcoming people into the town.
Speaker: And there's a pool that they wash themselves in when they, they enter with like a, there's like a rainbow that casts down upon the people.
Speaker: And it's like, it's like, this is the healing pool.
Speaker: And it's like, when they come out of the pool, they're not necessarily, they're not physically healed.
Speaker: And they're like, well, what do you mean?
Speaker: They're not physically healed.
Speaker: And it's like,
Speaker: it's, and basically the town council elders, like it's a metaphor, you fucking idiot.
Speaker: You got this far in the book and you haven't figured out these are all metaphors.
Speaker: So it's like, yeah, it's a, it's the people are learning to accept themselves with their, their injuries and their disabilities and things like that.
Speaker: And, and I was like, Oh wow, this Bataria place is pretty based.
Speaker: This is a, it's kind of cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Kind of cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: These people should probably be in charge.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's this life coaching thing where it's like, yeah, it's a thought.
Speaker: It's like, yeah, we're just, we're just, you know, now when I went into the pool, I didn't like myself.
Speaker: And now I feel good about me.
Speaker: I don't care.
Speaker: So they get to, and the other thing about Avataria is like, this city itself is perfect.
Speaker: It's like a, it's a nice city, you know, it's clean.
Speaker: It's got chops.
Speaker: It's got all that stuff.
Speaker: And they're like, oh, we thought we were taking a baby from like a hell hole.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This whole suddenly, I don't know if I don't know if I feel crazy or not, but suddenly kidnapping a child from this area feels a little weird.
Speaker: Suddenly.
Speaker: But they're like, well, what do we do?
Speaker: And they talk to the elder of the town council and it's like, all right, well, you know, that's what the queen wants.
Speaker: So she she claps and like, bring me any bring me all the kids that are zero to five years old.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She's like, Oh yeah.
Speaker: You want to bake?
Speaker: We got, I'll give you a fucking baby.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We got, we got kids.
Speaker: Oh boy.
Speaker: So she, we got kids.
Speaker: Boy, howdy.
Speaker: We got kids.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So basically they get to the lineup of kids that they got to choose.
Speaker: And Seresia starts looking at these kids.
Speaker: And now she has the face of that kid from the meme.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And she gets overwhelmed by the beauty of the kids because...
Speaker: It's really fucking stupid.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So fucking stupid.
Speaker: So remember earlier when I said they make it really clear that Seresia is able to see through straight up physical beauty and sees the beauty and things and stuff like that.
Speaker: And they're very clear cut on that.
Speaker: Very clear.
Speaker: Yeah, there's no like ambiguity there.
Speaker: It's very clear that she can see through that shit.
Speaker: She then, her mind breaks because as the elder describes, Sericia was like very vain and only saw physical beauty and didn't understand that beauty can be more than just like...
Speaker: Was there a mistake?
Speaker: We covered that, yeah.
Speaker: We covered this.
Speaker: Was this, was she, was like part of this section from one draft and part from another?
Speaker: What the fuck?
Speaker: You made this character very clearly able to see the beauty in things.
Speaker: The American beauty style, the bag twirling in the winds.
Speaker: She found beauty in that.
Speaker: And now you have this character...
Speaker: basically has a seizure at seeing some cute kids.
Speaker: She has a fucking aneurysm.
Speaker: And they say, yeah, what has Viteria done to her?
Speaker: Broken her reality.
Speaker: The speaker looked me in the eye.
Speaker: The night of beauty.
Speaker: Think on it.
Speaker: By what yardstick did she measure beauty?
Speaker: I wiped spittle from the corner of Sericea's mouth.
Speaker: Her own beauty.
Speaker: Just so.
Speaker: Her vanity defined the world.
Speaker: Here she learned there's beauty beyond her comprehension.
Speaker: The truth has broken her mind.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We covered that though.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: We're past that.
Speaker: And she's also, she was also somebody who didn't, she was like, she knew she was beautiful, but she also didn't care.
Speaker: Because at one point she cuts her own face to show her loyalty to the king.
Speaker: That's where her scar came from.
Speaker: This is not somebody who is vain.
Speaker: She sliced a scar down her face.
Speaker: Because she would.
Speaker: It sets up the rules and immediately breaks them.
Speaker: I was so angry by the time I got, when I read that.
Speaker: I was like, what?
Speaker: I texted Phil.
Speaker: I'm like, what the fuck did they just do to this character?
Speaker: It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker: Because she was, I liked her.
Speaker: She was kind of interesting.
Speaker: She was the only interesting character.
Speaker: so far she really was and she did this they did the same thing they did with fucking Garvin over there where it's just like we're introducing this character and now we're gonna kill her off we're gonna send her into a coma just dude it doesn't it didn't make sense it doesn't it just doesn't make sense
Speaker: It doesn't work based on the rules we've set up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Don't get me wrong.
Speaker: The idea of someone... Now, that's a cool idea.
Speaker: Like, if you're a person... Like we've said, you know, there's cool ideas.
Speaker: But that person would be vain and, you know, it would have to be a different character entirely for that to happen.
Speaker: It would make sense if it was like...
Speaker: the queen, that's how the queen died or something.
Speaker: Yes, if that was the queen, absolutely, it would make perfect sense.
Speaker: Now maybe that's a twist.
Speaker: Maybe that's a twist.
Speaker: We haven't gotten any further than that.
Speaker: But that's the end of the chapter.
Speaker: They pick a kid to steal and they're leaving with it.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Balerion's like, I guess I'm picking the... I guess as the next hottest person here, this kid.
Speaker: That's where we're at with Dark Souls Mask of Vindication.
Speaker: Phil is silently chuckling to himself and he's leaned back in his- Dark Souls.
Speaker: Dark, dark.
Speaker: This is- Dark Souls, Toddlers and Tiaras Edition.
Speaker: Like, what the fuck?
Speaker: It is so ridiculous.
Speaker: It is when we got to that.
Speaker: Here's the thing is the stuff with the temple and the rings and the five years.
Speaker: I was like, yes, we are kind of on the right track.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then we get Suresia, who is like, OK, we're
Speaker: We're veering off into a weird zone with this land of beauty, but at least we're getting an interesting character out of it.
Speaker: Now we have, we don't have the character because she now is living in the city, permanently living in the city of, what's it, Vitaria.
Speaker: Vitaria, yeah.
Speaker: As someone in a comatose state.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, they're gonna theoretically take care of her.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: Yeah, so fucking hell, what the shit?
Speaker: I'm aware that I don't know a ton about Dark Souls.
Speaker: No, no, no, no.
Speaker: You know enough to know that this isn't it.
Speaker: That's just it.
Speaker: I can't help but shake.
Speaker: I can't shake the feeling this is all wrong for this universe.
Speaker: Therefore, a person like you, who is a huge Souls fan, like you are, you have most of my friends, you are probably the biggest From Software slash Souls fan.
Speaker: Like that is your jam.
Speaker: And so I can't even imagine how frustrating this is for you.
Speaker: It is mind boggling that this is the first Dark Souls novel that we get.
Speaker: And it's just...
Speaker: I don't understand this nonsense.
Speaker: And I... So I sent Phil earlier today, before we recorded, I sent Phil the opening cinematic of Dark Souls 2, which is something I talked about last week, where we have basically... It's about...
Speaker: how the curse, which that's the thing, we haven't even brought up the fact that being undead is a curse.
Speaker: It's still just a detail.
Speaker: It's still just a little detail.
Speaker: Like you picked it in character creation.
Speaker: Yeah, my charisma went down, but I get extra constitution and immunity to poison attacks.
Speaker: Like, that's how they're treating undead.
Speaker: It's the D&D version of playing an undead character.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Versus, like, in the Dark Souls universe, being undead is the worst thing that could befall a person.
Speaker: Because it's a minor inconvenience.
Speaker: It is a minor inconvenience to Kortha.
Speaker: Actually...
Speaker: No, it's not even that.
Speaker: It's got all kinds of benefits.
Speaker: Like there are so few downsides to this.
Speaker: Like some people like like one village.
Speaker: We've been to one village where they were like, maybe hang in the back.
Speaker: We don't know how they're going to act everywhere else.
Speaker: They've been fine.
Speaker: Like, no one seems to give a shit.
Speaker: Children cleaned the one.
Speaker: Like, they weren't afraid of him.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Like, they made a point of saying it was kids that were getting Crotha all scrubbed and ready to roll.
Speaker: Like, oh, maybe I'll take back that idea if it gets fixed in the last third of the book.
Speaker: But I don't foresee anything happening in the last third of the book that...
Speaker: changes the perspective I have on like you can't take you can't undo the first two thirds of this book, which are absolutely ridiculous when you pair them with the idea of a Dark Souls universe.
Speaker: And I'm not like saying
Speaker: And I'm not saying, oh, actually, this isn't against lore.
Speaker: Like, I don't care as much about lore as I do about themes.
Speaker: And this is not even remotely in the ballpark of theme thematically linked to Dark Souls.
Speaker: Like the lore is fine.
Speaker: Like, fine lore.
Speaker: You can build new lore.
Speaker: You can add lore.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The world in Dark Souls is really fucking old.
Speaker: This could be set in one of those epochs epochs that you don't know about.
Speaker: Fine.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But at least give me something thematic that ties it in to that universe.
Speaker: Well, it's like Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic.
Speaker: That had fuck all to do with basically any story at that point that had happened in the Star Wars universe.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It didn't connect with anything except maybe in the most distant ways, but it was distinctly Star Wars.
Speaker: It was clearly that universe.
Speaker: It was clearly that world.
Speaker: It had the tone, right?
Speaker: It had the themes, right?
Speaker: And, and it ended up creating all kinds of new legends and shit like that.
Speaker: It was great.
Speaker: And, and that's what we're dealing with here.
Speaker: It's, it's not that it isn't even connected to, like you said, the lore.
Speaker: It doesn't,
Speaker: feel like it's in the same world.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And this is a conspiracy theory I mentioned to Phil, and I think I said it last week.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Is that it just, this kind of feels like a generic fantasy story that had Dark Souls stapled onto it afterwards.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: After the fact, some little details were changed.
Speaker: And I'm not hefting any accusations at Michael Stackpole.
Speaker: Far from it.
Speaker: I'm just saying that's what it feels.
Speaker: feels like if you're reading this book, you're like, this does not feel right.
Speaker: And if there's one thing we've, sorry, go ahead.
Speaker: We don't know the circumstances of this book's creation.
Speaker: That was exactly what I was.
Speaker: It's not, it's not a super marketed book.
Speaker: The fact that I don't see people tweeting or talking about Dark Souls Mask of Indication.
Speaker: It came out last week.
Speaker: This is a huge world.
Speaker: This is a huge world.
Speaker: It came out last week.
Speaker: As of this episode, it's been a week.
Speaker: And the lore junkies for Dark Souls and stuff, that shit is real.
Speaker: This should be fantastic.
Speaker: People should have torn this apart by now and it's barely been touched.
Speaker: It's barely been touched.
Speaker: And the fact that there's, you can't even search on Amazon.
Speaker: You can't, if you search Dark Souls Mask of Vindication, it actually doesn't even come up right away.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You have to go Google it.
Speaker: It doesn't come up.
Speaker: It gets a bunch of screenshots.
Speaker: I was looking for like cover art for, for some social media stuff.
Speaker: And you look up a dark souls mask of indication and it just gives you screenshots of the game.
Speaker: It's weird.
Speaker: It's weird.
Speaker: And really weird.
Speaker: And there's not that many reviews on Amazon.
Speaker: And the one review that actually was written said, yeah, it's a fine fantasy book, but has almost nothing to do with dark souls.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's – and the thing is we don't – we've learned – if there's one thing we've learned through this podcast and reading all these adaptations and talking to these authors is that the circumstances like Kevin said that surrounds the hows and whys of these books getting written –
Speaker: It's not like a person just sitting down and saying, I have an idea and I need to get it out on paper.
Speaker: It's a totally different situation.
Speaker: It's a business thing.
Speaker: We are not accusing Michael Stackpole of being a bad writer.
Speaker: Far from it.
Speaker: He's actually an incredible writer.
Speaker: And that's why it's kind of weird.
Speaker: You know, this is not a badly written book.
Speaker: It just doesn't feel like Dark Souls.
Speaker: It doesn't make any it doesn't make sense as a Dark Souls book.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker: So there's, yeah, there's only been a few reviews on, on, on the, on Amazon.
Speaker: It's, it's Goodreads here.
Speaker: You're checking Goodreads.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There it is.
Speaker: Four ratings, one review, 3.25 stars.
Speaker: Two stars, too long didn't read.
Speaker: This is a mostly middling, occasionally decent adventure novel with only superficial connections to the world of Dark Souls.
Speaker: Yeah, a very long review here.
Speaker: But seems like we're not the only people.
Speaker: Yeah, we're not the only people who kind of...
Speaker: Who have pegged it as such, but we're gonna finish it.
Speaker: We're gonna finish it and talk more about it next week.
Speaker: Wrap it up and kind of give our final thoughts on it.
Speaker: But I think you all know where this is headed on the scale.
Speaker: But I think the most important question, most important question to ask right now is, what are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, I'm so glad you asked.
Speaker: I actually, I got a couple of other games in, uh, in the past week.
Speaker: I played and finished How Fish is Made.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker: No, I don't.
Speaker: It's this free game.
Speaker: You can get it on Steam.
Speaker: I think it's on itch.io and some other places, but it's this free, it'll take you about 15 minutes to play and you basically play like a herring.
Speaker: that's flopping around and you've been dropped into this weird underground, like this industrial area full of pipes and tunnels and stuff.
Speaker: And you're going along your merry way and you meet all these different fish.
Speaker: And there's a lot of talk about, are you going up or are you going down?
Speaker: And you can answer up or down.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: you find out like some of them are super into going up and like, oh, you've got to go up.
Speaker: The only, the only smart thing to do is go up.
Speaker: And the other one's like, no, down is the way to go.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: I, now I know, I know what this, this is now.
Speaker: I've, I, now I've heard of it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, who,
Speaker: Who made a video on it?
Speaker: What's his face?
Speaker: The guy I like so much.
Speaker: Jacob Geller.
Speaker: Jacob Geller.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Made a video on how, okay.
Speaker: Now, so basically you just, yeah, you just have to interpret what the other fish are saying is like, is this the right way to go?
Speaker: Yeah, and you meet another fish that has one of those parasitic isopods that like eats out the fish's tongue and replaces itself in the fish's mouth.
Speaker: And it's telling you about like, I'm all about love and friendship and me and this fish are friends.
Speaker: And then it does this weird little song and dance number, which takes up about a third of the whole game.
Speaker: And it's really grim and strange.
Speaker: And it's kind of, you know, it's like if the guy isn't just taking the piss, it's basically this examination on the afterlife and existentialism and stuff like that.
Speaker: Sure, sure.
Speaker: It takes no time to finish.
Speaker: It's really weird.
Speaker: It's free.
Speaker: And I kind of love it.
Speaker: So that's that was what I did one afternoon.
Speaker: And then I started playing Card Shark.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I still need to finish Card Shark, but I feel like that would be right up your alley.
Speaker: I am enjoying it.
Speaker: I wish the controls were better.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I'm having trouble with the controls with different tricks.
Speaker: Now, Kevin, a few books back, uh, talked about this one and it's basically a game where you play a guy, a dude who's assisting someone else in cheating at cards all over, you know, um,
Speaker: not middle ages, you know, early 18th century.
Speaker: It's in, it's enlightenment France.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like I think is Voltaire.
Speaker: Is that one of the guys?
Speaker: Voltaire is one of, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and, and it's very clever and very interesting because you're not looking to play cards and win cards.
Speaker: You're looking to learn, you learn all these different things.
Speaker: cheating methods and they are mini games and you use different cheating methods in different places and you're uncovering this mystery, this strange rogues adventure of this, you know, kind of situation and you're learning all these different tricks.
Speaker: And you,
Speaker: They say, play with a controller.
Speaker: It's meant to be played with a controller, which is my bailiwick anyway.
Speaker: But I find that a lot of the tricks require a level of smoothness to get them right.
Speaker: Because you don't have just all day long.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah, they're all timed.
Speaker: Yeah, people are getting more suspicious the longer you take.
Speaker: And even on the easiest difficulty, the controls feel kind of sloppy for what they're trying to do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which is a real shame.
Speaker: I feel because I because you're right.
Speaker: This is my kind of game.
Speaker: I really like it despite the controls.
Speaker: But it's this kind of thing that's like keeping it out of like like game of the year sort of territory for me.
Speaker: Like, yeah, it's it's just I wish that I just wish the controls were a little tighter.
Speaker: That's sure.
Speaker: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker: But but I do recommend giving it a look for anyone that that sounds interesting.
Speaker: Yeah, it's by the same same devs who made.
Speaker: Oh, what's the name of that game?
Speaker: It's the you swipe left or right.
Speaker: Oh, Reigns.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Reigns.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's got a really fun art style.
Speaker: And yeah, it's it's it's definitely worth a look.
Speaker: I'm enjoying it so far.
Speaker: So so, Kevin, what are you playing?
Speaker: Let's see, I played and beat Shadows of Rose, which is the that is the Resident Evil Village DLC, the expansion.
Speaker: Shadows of Rose, it's a it's a DLC where you take control of Ethan's daughter Rose.
Speaker: It's about set 16 years after the events of Resident Evil Village.
Speaker: And so that it's like 2034 or whatever.
Speaker: They don't really give a year.
Speaker: I think.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think they're Resident Evil is kind of moving on from the like, yeah, who cares what year it is?
Speaker: It doesn't.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Are you paying?
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: Are you paying attention?
Speaker: So Rose is a 16 year old in this.
Speaker: And kind of the plot is she wants to get rid of her powers.
Speaker: She has like some some powers that she can.
Speaker: Not really control because of the the immunomized seat that's in her body that was left in her body because she was ripped apart and stitched back together.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: As a baby.
Speaker: You know, terrible twos, that kind of thing.
Speaker: That's.
Speaker: So it's I really liked it and it did a it puts a final button on like Ethan's storyline.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: And the general like Winters family.
Speaker: Like I imagine that Rose might be a character in the next Resident Evil game.
Speaker: But the storyline is probably not going to follow her specifically.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Like it's it's it's just kind of like we're just moving beyond the like it kind of separates her as a character now, like moving forward.
Speaker: We don't have to deal with the baggage of like the previous ones necessarily.
Speaker: Like she has closure, all that fun stuff.
Speaker: So it's good.
Speaker: It's it's it takes about three hours to play, which is pretty good chunk.
Speaker: I mean, village village is what?
Speaker: Ten hours, I want to say.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: At most.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which is about on par for most Resident Evil titles.
Speaker: So this adds long for a Resident Evil.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: So this puts it three hours.
Speaker: So it's it's almost like as long as Resident Evil three.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, I really liked it.
Speaker: And because of that, I got Resident Evil in the veins now.
Speaker: Oh, I reinstalled RE2 remake.
Speaker: Oh, so good.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: Such a good game.
Speaker: So I reinstalled that and I'm trying to think if there's anything.
Speaker: Is there anything else I've been playing recently?
Speaker: Let's look up.
Speaker: Oh, I also bought a game and I really haven't gotten too far into it.
Speaker: It's called Daymare 1998.
Speaker: And it is...
Speaker: Basically, it started out, from what I understand, as a Resident Evil fan project.
Speaker: And then the devs were kind of hired on.
Speaker: I think they were making they were doing their own like unity version of Resident Evil 2.
Speaker: before Capcom and said put a stop to it.
Speaker: So then they continued on and they turned it into something fresh and new.
Speaker: It's called Daymare 1998.
Speaker: Basically you play this character who's part of the Hades unit like stars or whatever.
Speaker: You're going in there to basically cover up a zombie biological spill that happened at a research lab.
Speaker: And it's really intense.
Speaker: It's
Speaker: I actually need to drop the difficulty down because on the on the harder difficulty or the standard difficulty.
Speaker: And I had literally just been thinking about this the other day.
Speaker: Like, you know, they really a lot of games don't get into the fact that when you like reload a gun, like, you know how you're like, oh, I fired a couple of shots.
Speaker: Let me top off my gun.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: There's no like idea that like, oh, well, there's there were bullets still in that magazine that you just took out.
Speaker: Shouldn't that affect like I've seen one other.
Speaker: This actually you have magazines in your inventory.
Speaker: as separate items, and then you have the box of bullets.
Speaker: And now you can refill the magazines or the clip.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I'm not a fucking guy.
Speaker: The magazines for the for the somebody will correct me for the handgun.
Speaker: You can refill it.
Speaker: So and these the magazines are on are on the quick select.
Speaker: So if you have if you have like 10 rounds and you fire off five now that magazine at five,
Speaker: And if you reload, now you have a magazine that has five bullets in it in your inventory and you took and you put in a 10.
Speaker: It doesn't automatically like switch, like top it off properly.
Speaker: So it's like it's the next level of like resource management.
Speaker: And I was like, I think I have to turn the difficulty down because I don't want to actually have to think about.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Oh, gosh.
Speaker: So when this episode comes out, we're recording it November 1st.
Speaker: Happy NaNoWriMo, everybody.
Speaker: You should be like three quarters of the way through your books or at least halfway through your books by the time this episode comes out.
Speaker: So stop slacking and get your- Come on.
Speaker: Get on it.
Speaker: Get your pages in.
Speaker: Get those words, people. 1667.
Speaker: Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker: If you want to give us a hand, follow us on Twitter at PixelitPod so far as Twitter still exists by the time this episode comes out on Instagram at PixelitPod as well.
Speaker: We have a YouTube channel and just got our YouTube handle.
Speaker: So it's going to be YouTube.com slash at Pixelit.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: We were able to get Pixelit on YouTube.
Speaker: So, hey, that's a win right there.
Speaker: Not half bad, damn it.
Speaker: That's not half bad.
Speaker: And then go over to PixelitPod.com.
Speaker: Check out our episodes that we post there because on there we have the transcripts posted as well.
Speaker: Thank you so much again for listening and have a good night, everybody.
Speaker: Bye.
