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DUMMY THICC BOOK (Halo: Empty Throne - Part 3)
11 Plays6 months ago
This book keeps going doesn't it? Not that we are complaning. This thighs save lives. Or thick binding in this case.
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Synopsis
2559. It has been a year since the rogue artificial intelligence Cortana seized control of the Domain, an otherworldly dimension housing a vast information network. With an array of Forerunner weapons at her disposal, Cortana set out to enforce an authoritarian peace on the civilizations of the galaxy. But as the United Nations Space Command flagship Infinity prepares to strike against Cortana at Zeta Halo, another plan has also been set in motion.
An ancient access point hidden on a seemingly insignificant human colony has become the focus of a parallel effort to claim the Domain and its immeasurable capabilities. The UNSC, however, needs a key: a living, forsaken product of an old war. As a new generation of heroes rise to meet this challenge and Cortana's pursuit of control reaches a desperate and sudden crescendo, a cunning, ruthless warrior emerges from the shadows of the Banished, who has vowed to fill the new power vacuum by any means necessary...
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:00
Speaker
They are really new.
00:00:02
Speaker
I think I'm going with a death core of Krieg though.
00:00:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:00:06
Speaker
Because those guys are, are fucking sick too.
00:00:08
Speaker
They are pretty, they are pretty metal.
00:00:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:11
Speaker
Some metal shit right there.
00:00:13
Speaker
But yeah, that's, that sounds, that sounds fun.
00:00:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:17
Speaker
I think so.
00:00:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:19
Speaker
You know what else sounds fun?
00:00:21
Speaker
What's that?
Introduction and Episode Context
00:00:22
Speaker
Hey there, everybody.
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome back to Pixel It.
00:00:23
Speaker
My name is Kevin.
00:00:24
Speaker
With me as always is Phil.
00:00:25
Speaker
And on today's show, we are on part three of four.
00:00:29
Speaker
I want to remind you, it's part three of four for Halo, the Empty Throne, because this book is...
00:00:36
Speaker
thick.
00:00:36
Speaker
It's a big old book.
00:00:37
Speaker
She a thick old book.
00:00:41
Speaker
It's this book Thicken the Thighs.
00:00:43
Speaker
She a Thicken the Thighs, Danny.
00:00:45
Speaker
Thick thighs save lives and this book will not let you die.
00:00:48
Speaker
Never, never, never.
00:00:53
Speaker
Oh, this book will float.
00:00:59
Speaker
This boat may double as a flotation device.
00:01:02
Speaker
Get your ass in there.
00:01:04
Speaker
Get your ass on the thick fag express called Halo Empty Throne.
00:01:09
Speaker
The big titty goth girlfriend of the Halo universe, Empty Throne.
00:01:16
Speaker
Oh, God.
00:01:16
Speaker
We're off to a good start tonight.
00:01:19
Speaker
I think so.
00:01:19
Speaker
We're cooking with gas, yeah.
00:01:21
Speaker
Feeling real punchy.
00:01:22
Speaker
Phil's power went out right before we were going to record earlier.
00:01:26
Speaker
I love it.
00:01:28
Speaker
This is what it looked like.
00:01:29
Speaker
I went like
00:01:31
Speaker
And the power, boom.
00:01:32
Speaker
I went, huh.
00:01:36
Speaker
Huh.
00:01:37
Speaker
But it's back on.
00:01:38
Speaker
Back on.
00:01:39
Speaker
Back on.
00:01:39
Speaker
And we're here.
Patreon Support and Perks
00:01:40
Speaker
And, you know, there's a website that you could go to that would help your power stay on.
00:01:47
Speaker
What?
00:01:50
Speaker
And by power, I mean, I'm defining power as P. The P in power stands for paying us through Patreon.
00:02:01
Speaker
So patreon.com slash pixel pod.
00:02:03
Speaker
That's that's the way to go.
00:02:06
Speaker
I think I think if you go there, you'll find that you can join us for free.
00:02:12
Speaker
I think that because I know that.
00:02:14
Speaker
Go ahead.
00:02:15
Speaker
Go to patreon.com slash pixel pod.
00:02:17
Speaker
Join us for free or.
00:02:20
Speaker
You can give us $1, get access to blog posts, $5, get access to the bonus episode that we record before every episode.
00:02:30
Speaker
This week, we talked about Warhammer a little bit.
00:02:35
Speaker
What a Chuck!
00:02:37
Speaker
We've got to be careful, man.
00:02:38
Speaker
What a shock.
00:02:39
Speaker
What a twist.
00:02:40
Speaker
They're going to wonder what the hell's going on with this show.
00:02:44
Speaker
God, we... And $10 gets your name read out at the beginning of each episode.
00:02:52
Speaker
So to that end, I want to thank Jesus Loves You, Kyle Seaman, Ruthless Mudder, Middle of Things, Sigma Sal, Jack...
00:02:57
Speaker
Beaks.
00:02:58
Speaker
Demmit.
00:02:59
Speaker
Bick.
00:03:00
Speaker
Langelier and friend of friend.
00:03:01
Speaker
Thank you so much for being a friend.
00:03:04
Speaker
Patreon.com slash pixeled pod.
00:03:06
Speaker
Do it.
00:03:09
Speaker
today.
00:03:11
Speaker
We love you.
00:03:12
Speaker
We love you.
00:03:13
Speaker
We love you so much.
00:03:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:15
Speaker
Did you ever come up with a word that we can use to refer to all of our fans?
00:03:22
Speaker
Oh, like the Lovelies or something like that.
00:03:24
Speaker
The Lovelies from Game Grumps.
00:03:27
Speaker
We should absolutely put that to a... Let's crowdsource that.
00:03:31
Speaker
If you have an idea, mention it on the Discord what you would like to be called.
00:03:37
Speaker
Because everything that my mind immediately goes to sounds dumb.
00:03:42
Speaker
The pixleys.
00:03:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:45
Speaker
The pixies.
00:03:48
Speaker
The librarians.
00:03:49
Speaker
I don't know.
00:03:49
Speaker
The librarians?
00:03:51
Speaker
The lit tits.
00:03:52
Speaker
I don't know.
00:03:52
Speaker
That's probably not going to work.
00:03:56
Speaker
The littles.
00:03:57
Speaker
The littles.
00:03:57
Speaker
The littles.
00:04:01
Speaker
The bodies in the marsh.
00:04:03
Speaker
Ah, the bodies.
00:04:06
Speaker
Every fan is another body.
00:04:08
Speaker
Is another body in the marsh.
00:04:09
Speaker
I love it.
00:04:10
Speaker
I love it.
00:04:10
Speaker
That's, there it is.
00:04:11
Speaker
There it is.
00:04:12
Speaker
We're done.
00:04:13
Speaker
There it is right there.
00:04:14
Speaker
Anyway, this body's going in the marsh.
00:04:16
Speaker
Yep.
00:04:16
Speaker
When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them in the marsh.
00:04:25
Speaker
OK, we start on Chapter
Interrogation and Betrayal
00:04:28
Speaker
18.
00:04:28
Speaker
We are back with Tol Jaron on board the ship with the Gray Squad and everybody else.
00:04:36
Speaker
And they are interrogating the Sangelli prisoner that they took alive.
00:04:42
Speaker
The prisoner is is just.
00:04:46
Speaker
too cool for school does not give a shit does is doesn't care kind of suspiciously I thought says that he noticed that they have a female Sangelli leader and and they they want to know where the lithos is and he says well send her in and I'll be happy to tell you and they're like oh yeah sure we can do that that sounds reasonable that sounds like a good idea
00:05:11
Speaker
And so she, but I mean, to be fair, she rushes in there.
00:05:14
Speaker
She's like, what motherfucker?
00:05:15
Speaker
Like she, she is pissed.
00:05:17
Speaker
He is just pissing her off.
00:05:19
Speaker
And so the prisoner says no problem.
00:05:21
Speaker
The lithosis on this human world called boundary.
00:05:24
Speaker
And then he gases them.
00:05:25
Speaker
And this gas is so gnarly that it literally melts his body down to a paste.
00:05:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:32
Speaker
And real good body horror there.
00:05:34
Speaker
It's oh, it's pretty awful.
00:05:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:36
Speaker
And and it hits Toljur on almost immediately.
00:05:40
Speaker
And she is just down.
00:05:43
Speaker
And the chapter ends with her hearing the humans say that there's some some antidote.
00:05:49
Speaker
There's like a figure somewhere that says this is this will work.
00:05:52
Speaker
We've only ever done it with humans, but it ought to work on her.
00:05:54
Speaker
And her final moment is being glad that the humans are there to save her life.
00:06:01
Speaker
Right.
00:06:02
Speaker
Which is a very big step for her in terms of accepting them as allies.
00:06:08
Speaker
I thought that was kind of cool.
00:06:09
Speaker
They prevented her from being melted, from having her organs liquefied inside her body and then melted out of her.
00:06:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:19
Speaker
It was damn decent of them.
00:06:21
Speaker
It was damn decent of them.
00:06:24
Speaker
Damn decent of your fellows.
00:06:27
Speaker
Chapter 19.
00:06:28
Speaker
It's a month later.
Severin's Fleet Attacks Earth
00:06:30
Speaker
We have we are over Earth.
00:06:33
Speaker
Black box.
00:06:34
Speaker
It's a black boxes dispensation.
00:06:37
Speaker
So it's basically a funeral for all intents and purposes.
00:06:39
Speaker
It's going away party.
00:06:40
Speaker
Pretty much.
00:06:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:43
Speaker
And it has to be officially overseen by different members of ONI and everything like that because, you know, you can't take chances with this shit.
00:06:51
Speaker
But it does feel kind of more like a funeral.
00:06:55
Speaker
Black Box is kind of cheerful and says some of the most baller last words of all time.
00:07:01
Speaker
He said, process fast, go offline young, and leave fabulous documentation.
00:07:06
Speaker
I was like, that's amazing.
00:07:09
Speaker
Fucking excellent.
00:07:10
Speaker
Black box.
00:07:12
Speaker
You are a hero.
00:07:13
Speaker
Gone too soon.
00:07:14
Speaker
What's the original version of that quote?
00:07:16
Speaker
Live fast, die young.
00:07:17
Speaker
It's live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse.
00:07:20
Speaker
Right.
00:07:22
Speaker
Just fucking metal as shit.
00:07:24
Speaker
It was so good.
00:07:26
Speaker
Despite how metal those last words are, Osman is still grieving.
00:07:30
Speaker
Osman was very close to this AI, as we're seeing over and over again.
00:07:36
Speaker
Then all of a sudden,
00:07:39
Speaker
The banished show up with over like 1300 vessels.
00:07:43
Speaker
It's like it's it's it's severin and like 85 percent of the banished squad.
00:07:48
Speaker
Severin's like, hey, listen, bitches.
00:07:51
Speaker
I told you I was coming for Earth.
00:07:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:54
Speaker
Remember when I said that?
00:07:55
Speaker
You remember when I said that?
00:07:56
Speaker
I'm doing it now.
00:07:57
Speaker
Right now.
00:07:58
Speaker
So they've been waiting there for them.
00:08:01
Speaker
So it's a battle starts.
00:08:04
Speaker
But before the battle can even really get started, a bunch of guardians arrive as well.
00:08:10
Speaker
So it's like...
00:08:12
Speaker
So everyone's killing everybody, basically.
00:08:15
Speaker
It's a nightmare.
00:08:16
Speaker
The battle starts and then it kind of ends because the Guardians show up and are like, all right, well, we're just going to break this up now.
00:08:25
Speaker
Right.
00:08:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:26
Speaker
EMP, EMP, EMP, EMP.
00:08:29
Speaker
EMP, EMP.
00:08:30
Speaker
And huge swaths of ships on both sides are just kind of floating through space, waiting for their life support systems to run out so they can die a frozen, horrifying death.
00:08:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:44
Speaker
It's pretty – it's also pretty metal, honestly.
00:08:46
Speaker
Yes.
00:08:48
Speaker
So Abigail Cole and the ship, they're basically going to stay and fight for as long as it makes sense before leaving for boundary, because that is the main thing.
00:09:01
Speaker
We get to meet the Paris ship group.
00:09:04
Speaker
And Paris is a form of ship.
00:09:06
Speaker
I love the name of these ships.
00:09:08
Speaker
Here we go.
00:09:08
Speaker
Here we go.
00:09:09
Speaker
Are you ready?
00:09:10
Speaker
The four ships in the Paris ship group get my drift,
00:09:14
Speaker
Blank check, hazard pay, and easy does it.
00:09:20
Speaker
Presumably, he who smelt it dealt it and bubblegut were on another mission.
00:09:27
Speaker
I just now realized both of my joke ones are involved farting.
00:09:33
Speaker
I love it.
00:09:34
Speaker
I love it.
00:09:36
Speaker
I think there's probably also a how you doing thing.
00:09:40
Speaker
Oh, these are the, these, these are the Joey Tribbianis.
00:09:43
Speaker
It's the Joey Tribbiani.
00:09:45
Speaker
Yes.
00:09:46
Speaker
And we do get that impression because the captains of all of these are these young, like fly by night, Poe Dameron, you know, kind of style guys.
00:09:55
Speaker
And, and they're very cocky and they're, they're, and they're part of the.
00:09:58
Speaker
It's a whole bunch of Matt LeBlancs up there.
00:10:01
Speaker
That's exactly what it is.
00:10:02
Speaker
And it's, and they're really cool.
00:10:04
Speaker
And I immediately said, okay, based on the names alone,
00:10:09
Speaker
I'm going to play a little betting game in my head.
00:10:11
Speaker
None of these, not all these guys are getting out alive, if any.
00:10:14
Speaker
It's like a half a page later.
00:10:16
Speaker
Right.
00:10:17
Speaker
And so I immediately was like, what ship, what ship based on the names, what ship would I be on?
00:10:21
Speaker
And I chose hazard pay.
00:10:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:24
Speaker
So I'm on hazard pay officially.
00:10:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:10:27
Speaker
Well,
00:10:28
Speaker
The yeah, the Guardians are EMP and huge portions of both sides.
00:10:32
Speaker
Cole gets to square off against Severin ship for a moment.
00:10:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's hilarious because it's like it's like Cole and Severin were on the outskirts of where the EMPs hit.
00:10:43
Speaker
So there are two ships just happen to be still functioning.
00:10:47
Speaker
And while all this other shit or shit is happening, Cole and Severin are like, no, fuck you.
00:10:55
Speaker
Everyone's dying and Guardians going and they're like, you know what?
00:10:59
Speaker
Fuck it.
00:10:59
Speaker
Let's do this.
00:11:00
Speaker
And there's a Guardian specifically in their midst.
00:11:06
Speaker
So it's like, think about playing a video game where it's like you squaring off against the boss.
00:11:10
Speaker
And while that's happening, there's like a fucking meteor strike every like 20 seconds or something.
00:11:16
Speaker
That's what this is.
00:11:17
Speaker
The Guardians of the Meteor Strike.
00:11:19
Speaker
It is the ultimate hazard.
00:11:21
Speaker
They are not...
00:11:22
Speaker
really killable.
00:11:23
Speaker
You just all you can do is try and avoid them.
00:11:27
Speaker
Chapter 20, we cut to Severin.
00:11:30
Speaker
Everybody and their mom is evading.
00:11:33
Speaker
Even Severin is proud as he is.
00:11:34
Speaker
He's like, no, no, fuck this.
00:11:36
Speaker
Let's learn out.
00:11:36
Speaker
We got to go.
00:11:37
Speaker
Yeah, let's wrap it up, guys.
00:11:39
Speaker
Yeah, let's get out.
00:11:40
Speaker
This isn't going to be worth it.
00:11:42
Speaker
And now as they're doing that, suddenly and mysteriously, the Guardians shut down
00:11:51
Speaker
They just stop.
00:11:55
Speaker
They're not they're just shut down.
00:11:58
Speaker
And and so Severin pretty quickly assumes that that means that Atriox has defeated Cortana wherever they are.
00:12:09
Speaker
And he takes this as a huge victory and he orders all the other war chiefs to withdraw and go with him to find the lithos, because that is way more important than blowing up Earth.
00:12:20
Speaker
Earth's going to be there to get blown up later, but we can't do it unless we have the lithos.
00:12:24
Speaker
So he talks a bunch of the war chiefs into it.
00:12:27
Speaker
They're not exactly thrilled about it at first, but they all kind of come around to it in the end.
James' Suspicious Orders
00:12:32
Speaker
Chapter 21, we got James and Chloe.
00:12:36
Speaker
They are on boundary.
00:12:38
Speaker
He gets it's getting real mission impossible here.
00:12:42
Speaker
He gets his marching orders literally in this little lockbox that they told him to go find.
00:12:48
Speaker
And it's and they make a point saying it's written down on a piece of paper like a caveman.
00:12:54
Speaker
Like, like, it's.
00:12:56
Speaker
Because they can't trust any electronics.
00:12:58
Speaker
And so the idea of it being written down on a piece of paper, pen to paper is just like insane to him.
00:13:05
Speaker
He's like, this is what the shit this is the most primitive stuff.
00:13:09
Speaker
But it's it's smart.
00:13:11
Speaker
It made me think a little bit of that old apocryphal story about the NASA and the Russian Space Station and how NASA developed a pen that you can use in space.
00:13:21
Speaker
And it was like took millions of dollars and years of research.
00:13:25
Speaker
And the Russians just used a pencil.
00:13:28
Speaker
me think of that so um he he gets his orders he has got to he's been given a syringe that is the subroutine and they're like you gotta inject this into the girl uh and get her to this next destination that's like it's it's video game rules you know you're gonna you're gonna you gotta go this level and then go to this level he's like he's like you gotta inject this with to the girl and he's like i'm not doing that
00:13:57
Speaker
Yeah, he's like, I don't.
00:14:00
Speaker
He's like, maybe later.
00:14:01
Speaker
I don't feel good about that right now.
00:14:03
Speaker
This sounds weird.
00:14:04
Speaker
I'm moving on.
00:14:05
Speaker
Yeah, he's not.
00:14:06
Speaker
And we'll find out later that he's not the only person who finds this a little sketch.
00:14:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:11
Speaker
Weird damn orders.
00:14:14
Speaker
So let's see.
00:14:16
Speaker
So he decides against it for the time being.
00:14:18
Speaker
Chapter 22, we've got Tolgeron in a drop ship with the Spartans and the ODST.
00:14:25
Speaker
And just like they're all just...
00:14:28
Speaker
It's it's it's aliens.
00:14:29
Speaker
It's the drop ship and aliens.
00:14:31
Speaker
They're just, you know, and she is freaking out because her species spaceships there.
00:14:40
Speaker
They don't have these issues when they're coming.
00:14:42
Speaker
They're like this.
00:14:43
Speaker
They don't they don't worry about a vomit box when it comes to, you know, launching themselves into this new territory.
00:14:50
Speaker
So she's like really freaked out a little bit.
00:14:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:54
Speaker
I appreciate everything about Tolgeron, who at the beginning was like, ah, humans, why are we working with them?
00:15:02
Speaker
They suck.
00:15:04
Speaker
And at every point, they're like, she's like, oh, my God, they're fucking crazy.
00:15:12
Speaker
We do.
00:15:12
Speaker
We do.
00:15:13
Speaker
It's absolutely that.
00:15:15
Speaker
It's very American, isn't it?
00:15:16
Speaker
It's like the way, you know, it's like the way you hear stories about World War Two or any other engagement we've been in with international forces.
00:15:24
Speaker
And they're like, fucking Americans.
00:15:26
Speaker
What the fuck is wrong with you people?
00:15:28
Speaker
And we're like, I don't know.
00:15:29
Speaker
I don't know.
00:15:31
Speaker
250 years of nonstop war does something to you as a culture.
00:15:37
Speaker
Go figure guns.
00:15:39
Speaker
That's it, baby.
00:15:42
Speaker
And so she's still a little on the mend.
00:15:44
Speaker
She has survived the poison attack, but like she's still kind of shaking it off.
00:15:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:50
Speaker
The banished are also in fact, they're already on boundary.
00:15:53
Speaker
They are swarming the planet, and that's a problem.
00:15:59
Speaker
So they touch down, and we meet a Spartan named Merrick who kind of talks shit.
00:16:06
Speaker
He talks shit about the ODSTs.
00:16:08
Speaker
He's like, we're going to have to...
00:16:10
Speaker
They send them off to do a thing.
00:16:11
Speaker
And he's like, yeah, good call.
00:16:12
Speaker
They're going to just slow us down.
00:16:13
Speaker
These these humans, you know?
00:16:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:16
Speaker
And then he kind of pulls the same shit with Tuljeron and Jai or Hai.
00:16:21
Speaker
I'm going to say Hai.
00:16:22
Speaker
I'm just going to stick with Hai.
00:16:24
Speaker
I think it's probably Jai.
00:16:25
Speaker
Is it Jai?
00:16:26
Speaker
OK.
00:16:26
Speaker
Jai basically nips that in the bud and says, you stow that shit, Hudson, and just fucking...
00:16:35
Speaker
If I wasn't drinking water, if I wasn't taking a sip, I was going to say you stow that shit, Hudson.
00:16:43
Speaker
Look into my eye.
00:16:46
Speaker
So Apone is just the best, man.
00:16:49
Speaker
Which is like the guy from the older guy, black dude in Halo was based on that character.
00:16:58
Speaker
Yes, exactly.
00:16:58
Speaker
It was based on that guy.
00:16:59
Speaker
So we're full circle here.
00:17:01
Speaker
Is it Johnson?
00:17:03
Speaker
Sergeant Johnson.
00:17:04
Speaker
It's been a minute.
00:17:05
Speaker
It's been literally years since we read those.
00:17:07
Speaker
I don't remember.
00:17:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:10
Speaker
So Jai.
00:17:11
Speaker
Avery Johnson.
00:17:12
Speaker
Avery Johnson.
00:17:13
Speaker
Avery Johnson.
00:17:13
Speaker
Damn it, dude.
00:17:14
Speaker
You are way better at that than I am.
00:17:18
Speaker
So yeah, Jai immediately just shuts that down.
00:17:20
Speaker
Fuck you.
00:17:21
Speaker
Do not.
00:17:23
Speaker
This is our ally.
00:17:23
Speaker
Go fuck yourself.
00:17:24
Speaker
And told Jaron is like, feels some camaraderie.
00:17:27
Speaker
He's like, hey, wow, cool.
00:17:28
Speaker
Thanks.
00:17:28
Speaker
What is this feeling?
00:17:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:33
Speaker
It's impressive because Tolgeron kind of senses that this isn't just because they're working together.
00:17:39
Speaker
It's like he actually feels...
00:17:44
Speaker
Like this is the right thing to do.
00:17:45
Speaker
And she's kind of impressed by that.
00:17:46
Speaker
Right.
00:17:48
Speaker
So they find this sewer culvert that's going to take them into
Mission to Secure the Lithos
00:17:52
Speaker
the city.
00:17:52
Speaker
It's these huge pipes that lead under the city.
00:17:56
Speaker
So they make clear their their mission goals.
00:18:02
Speaker
First and foremost, the lithos.
00:18:04
Speaker
And then if it's possible, but not at the but not at the expense of the lithos, we'll take down Dovo.
00:18:11
Speaker
Uh, or Davo is it devil?
00:18:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:13
Speaker
Devil.
00:18:13
Speaker
Uh, cause that's, that's, that's secondary.
00:18:16
Speaker
So she's like, okay, yeah, fine.
00:18:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:19
Speaker
Um, chapter 23, Abigail Cole is watching all of the ships, uh, rearranging from earth's trajectory to boundary.
00:18:29
Speaker
They've all just, they're like, yep, fuck that.
00:18:31
Speaker
We got, we got lucky.
00:18:32
Speaker
Like, like the guardian shut down.
00:18:34
Speaker
Fuck it.
00:18:35
Speaker
We need to, we need to, uh, uh, change our, uh, our, uh,
00:18:39
Speaker
our course here.
00:18:40
Speaker
So they're all basically showing up there.
00:18:42
Speaker
And the fight just kind of continues on.
00:18:46
Speaker
Right.
00:18:47
Speaker
She, on the other hand, she they escape banished firing range.
00:18:52
Speaker
She's she's trying to take more of a leadership tack than actually getting into the shit right now.
00:18:56
Speaker
Right.
00:18:58
Speaker
She gives the captain of get my drift, the low down by now.
00:19:02
Speaker
I think we've lost one of them.
00:19:06
Speaker
We lost one of them.
00:19:07
Speaker
They've been blown up and he's a little shaky.
00:19:11
Speaker
So she gives him the low down about the lithos and what we're here for.
00:19:14
Speaker
Here's what the plan is.
00:19:16
Speaker
And
00:19:17
Speaker
He points out, he says, well, before my friends over there got blown to fucking shit, they scanned the planet's surface and there are more banished on the surface than there were covenant on reach when they invaded reach.
00:19:34
Speaker
Which is just like.
00:19:37
Speaker
And we threw like 15 people down there, so we're fine.
00:19:39
Speaker
It's fine.
00:19:42
Speaker
It's fine.
00:19:43
Speaker
We're good.
00:19:44
Speaker
Yeah, we're good.
00:19:45
Speaker
We're good.
00:19:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:47
Speaker
So, uh, chapter 24, um, we cut to Severin.
00:19:52
Speaker
He is now on the surface of boundary.
00:19:55
Speaker
Uh, they are closing in on the lithos location.
00:19:57
Speaker
They've been given like the coordinates, like two, it's, it's, it's just the map on far cry where it's just like, go this way, go this way.
00:20:07
Speaker
It's like, oh, I see the thing in my little heads up display.
00:20:10
Speaker
That's I'm in the right spot.
00:20:12
Speaker
Right.
00:20:12
Speaker
That's exactly it.
00:20:15
Speaker
They are.
00:20:15
Speaker
He's he is called to the side by.
00:20:21
Speaker
Dovo, I guess.
00:20:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:23
Speaker
Dovo.
00:20:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:24
Speaker
And Dovo kind of tells him that the human strike squad that killed one of his captains that they fought when they were extracting him are on this planet, which brings up a lot of questions.
00:20:41
Speaker
So many questions that Severin is like,
00:20:45
Speaker
What do you know and why are you waiting to tell me these things?
00:20:52
Speaker
Right.
00:20:53
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:20:54
Speaker
Because it's truly sus at that point.
00:20:58
Speaker
And on top of that, Dover reveals that the domain wasn't in fact invented by the forerunners.
00:21:03
Speaker
It is an ancient technology that predates even them.
00:21:07
Speaker
The precursors?
00:21:08
Speaker
Is that what they're called?
00:21:09
Speaker
Yeah, the precursors.
00:21:11
Speaker
And yeah, and and the fact is, even when they find it, we still need the key.
00:21:16
Speaker
But good news, the key is somewhere on this planet.
00:21:19
Speaker
The humans are securing the key and you need to go stop them and get that and make this happen.
00:21:26
Speaker
Right.
00:21:27
Speaker
And yeah, and Severin is really uncomfortable at this point.
00:21:31
Speaker
really starting to wonder how, how on the ball this guy is.
00:21:35
Speaker
There's a lot of clandestine shit, a whole lot of like, I can read this and you can't kind of stuff, which yeah, that would bug the fuck out of me.
00:21:45
Speaker
So we're not getting, and he's, and he's losing people, you know, all the time.
00:21:49
Speaker
That's the thing about Severin is that he actually gives a shit about his troops.
00:21:52
Speaker
He cares about his, you know,
00:21:55
Speaker
clan mates.
00:21:56
Speaker
This is all about keeping his species alive.
00:22:00
Speaker
And so feeling as if he's being kind of played with is not going to work for him.
00:22:05
Speaker
So I feel like we're probably going to have a big come up.
00:22:07
Speaker
We're coming to a head soon on the Dovo bullshit that is like, I tell you things when you should know them because I am all mystical and I'm the only one who could read this thing.
00:22:24
Speaker
Right.
00:22:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:24
Speaker
Severn's like, this is going to get old real quick.
00:22:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:27
Speaker
This is, I tell you what, I liked it a whole lot better when you lived a few towns over.
00:22:33
Speaker
It was a whole lot easier to take your bullshit seriously when I only saw you once a week.
00:22:38
Speaker
Now that you live with me.
00:22:39
Speaker
When I only saw you on Christmas and Easter.
00:22:42
Speaker
Right.
00:22:42
Speaker
Yes.
00:22:44
Speaker
I'm hanging out with you all summer and I got to tell you, this isn't we're going to this isn't going to work out.
00:22:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:51
Speaker
Chapter 25, we cut back to James.
00:22:55
Speaker
He is he's basically outside of an excavation being done by the banished.
00:23:01
Speaker
He has eyes on the next lockbox that he needs to get for further orders.
00:23:06
Speaker
Bad news.
00:23:07
Speaker
It's in the middle of the excavation zone, which is being guarded by a bunch of banished.
00:23:15
Speaker
So James says, you know what?
00:23:17
Speaker
This is fine.
00:23:18
Speaker
Let's play a quick session of Hitman and basically sneaks in.
00:23:25
Speaker
Fucking we get we get all the glorious, like slowly, covertly murdering the shit out of everybody.
00:23:32
Speaker
And it's you know, it's a dishonored thing.
00:23:35
Speaker
It's very dishonored.
00:23:36
Speaker
Very dishonored.
00:23:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:37
Speaker
And so he's making his way through, finally clears the area, gets the lockbox and finds out that his next goal is he's to deliver Chloe to the Zeta strike team, which is our friends who we've just spoken with.
00:23:53
Speaker
Right.
00:23:54
Speaker
And it emphasizes, please use the syringe on her.
00:23:59
Speaker
please don't forget and which of course makes him go i still don't know about that that's yeah it's kind of weird i don't know uh yeah so he's he's not uh stoked about it no um
00:24:15
Speaker
Then, by the way, all this time, Chloe is like asleep.
00:24:18
Speaker
She's just passed out somewhere.
00:24:20
Speaker
She's exhausted.
00:24:23
Speaker
And a bunch of scout ships show up and he basically says, oh, she's going to fucking hate this.
00:24:29
Speaker
And just kind of bodily throws her over her shoulder and they get the fuck.
00:24:32
Speaker
Yeah, because they had a whole discussion earlier where he was like, all right, well, we got to go.
00:24:39
Speaker
It's like 32 kilometers to the next spot.
00:24:44
Speaker
It's going to take a bit.
00:24:45
Speaker
So I'm just going to carry you.
00:24:47
Speaker
And she's like, no one cares.
00:24:48
Speaker
You don't know.
00:24:49
Speaker
No one carries me.
00:24:51
Speaker
And he's like, all right, well, why don't you have a prosthetic leg?
00:24:54
Speaker
Did he not want it?
00:24:55
Speaker
And she's like, I am who I am.
00:24:57
Speaker
Just get me a goddamn crunch.
00:24:59
Speaker
And, and he's like, Jesus.
00:25:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:04
Speaker
And he even says, he's like, this kid, this kid is tougher.
00:25:06
Speaker
He's like, this kid's tougher than most kids.
00:25:08
Speaker
Hell, she's tougher than most people like full grown adults I've seen.
00:25:13
Speaker
And it's true.
00:25:14
Speaker
She is hardcore.
00:25:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:17
Speaker
So chapter 26, we cut to Tuljeron and the Spartans.
00:25:22
Speaker
They are working their way through the tunnels beneath the city and they hit a dead end.
00:25:26
Speaker
So they split up because they are being chased by Banished to throw them off and a big firefight ensues.
00:25:33
Speaker
The Spartan Michael takes some hits.
00:25:35
Speaker
We get to see the biofoam, which is...
00:25:38
Speaker
I love the biofoam.
00:25:39
Speaker
I love biofoam.
00:25:40
Speaker
It's such a neat invention for this world.
00:25:44
Speaker
For those of you who don't know, we've talked about it on episodes before, but it's literally this first aid.
00:25:50
Speaker
It's like think of the insulation that you spray and it goes like that.
00:25:56
Speaker
But it's that for first aid where they just stick it into a wound and just go.
00:26:01
Speaker
And it just goes.
00:26:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:02
Speaker
And it's just and it's a temporary solution.
00:26:05
Speaker
It's just but it's like holding all your shit in place.
00:26:08
Speaker
Well, before until you can get to an actual doctor.
00:26:11
Speaker
So your shit doesn't fall out literally or figuratively.
00:26:14
Speaker
So they fill Michael full of bio foam.
00:26:17
Speaker
And he's like, yeah, we're good.
00:26:18
Speaker
So he gets it's like he gets hit with it was either a needler or spears or something.
00:26:23
Speaker
It's a needler.
00:26:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:24
Speaker
He gets him and there's like he's gets impaled three times and he like he barely goes down until drawn is like this motherfucker.
00:26:33
Speaker
And he's like, oh, I'm fine.
00:26:36
Speaker
And he's like, just takes him out and he's like blood everywhere.
00:26:38
Speaker
And there he's just like, just fill me up with the biofoam.
00:26:41
Speaker
He gets filled up biofoam and told runs just like standing there like like watching all of this happen.
00:26:48
Speaker
Like, what is wrong with these people?
00:26:52
Speaker
I got to tell you, this is how jaded I am, Kevin.
00:26:55
Speaker
I was reading this and I forgot for a second that the Halo universe does not exist.
00:27:02
Speaker
And I rolled my eyes and I went, this is just pro-human propaganda.
00:27:08
Speaker
Because, because every chapter with her is like the humans doing something kick ass and her going these fucking humans, right?
00:27:15
Speaker
Like it's, I, I just, for a second, I was like, oh, please, you know, like, like the sound galley aren't all so cool.
00:27:25
Speaker
Fuck you.
00:27:25
Speaker
Fuck you.
00:27:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:27
Speaker
And like, and then you're like, oh, that's not, that's, that's not real.
00:27:33
Speaker
Uh,
00:27:34
Speaker
So it's a cool chapter, though.
00:27:39
Speaker
They exit into a hydroelectric plant and they are at the they find the full banished excavation site with a crazy ass structure that they assume is the lithose.
00:27:55
Speaker
So they're like, OK, so we are we are here.
00:27:59
Speaker
Chapter 27, Abigail Cole, she sees that Bannis ships are following them again, and she gets a transmission
Reinforcements and Strategic Moves
00:28:09
Speaker
from Earth.
00:28:10
Speaker
And they say, hey, we got your request for more ships.
00:28:13
Speaker
We're going to send you like a shit ton of fleets.
00:28:16
Speaker
But their job is not to...
00:28:19
Speaker
like get into it with you and like just take orders and fight these guys.
00:28:24
Speaker
The job is to like help keep you guys alive so you can secure the lithos and do your job, which is better than nothing.
00:28:32
Speaker
But it's a lot.
00:28:33
Speaker
And she had said that she had said something like that to the effect to the one of the Paris group captains in the previous chapter.
00:28:42
Speaker
Like, listen, you know, like this is a very important mission.
00:28:46
Speaker
We're going to have support.
00:28:47
Speaker
Like they're going to send us whatever we ask for.
00:28:50
Speaker
Right.
00:28:50
Speaker
Right.
00:28:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:51
Speaker
And it's true.
00:28:52
Speaker
And that's true to an extent.
00:28:55
Speaker
They do, however, inform them because the whole point with the squad that's down there with Jai and Tuljeran and everything, their whole thing is they were going to meet up with a bunch of Oni operatives and basically pass along the shit to them so that they would handle the Litho situation.
00:29:13
Speaker
They would have the key and take care of all of this.
00:29:17
Speaker
Earth tells them...
00:29:18
Speaker
those folks ain't coming.
00:29:19
Speaker
So you're going to need to tell the squad you have down there.
00:29:23
Speaker
Uh, you're, you're, you're pulling a double shift.
00:29:25
Speaker
Let me, let me put it that way.
00:29:27
Speaker
And, uh, so, uh,
00:29:31
Speaker
she contacted basically and they say, you know, secure the key and activate lithos.
00:29:37
Speaker
And if that if that goes wrong and here's the thing, it's not likely that a lot of them are going to come back alive.
00:29:43
Speaker
This is going to be a shit show.
00:29:46
Speaker
But if it goes wrong, we're just going to blow it the fuck up because we'd rather no one have it than for the banished to get their hands on it.
00:29:54
Speaker
Right.
00:29:54
Speaker
Which.
00:29:55
Speaker
Fair enough.
00:29:56
Speaker
Fair enough.
00:29:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:58
Speaker
But it's the only it is the only weakness for technically the only weakness for Cortana is this entrance.
00:30:06
Speaker
Yes.
00:30:06
Speaker
Yes.
00:30:07
Speaker
So it's going to make their jobs a whole lot fucking harder, but better, better for that to happen.
00:30:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:14
Speaker
We get a moment of Abigail Cole kind of having a bit of a crisis where she's thinking about this kid, Chloe, and basically like how far is too far?
00:30:27
Speaker
Right.
00:30:27
Speaker
Like how what are we willing?
00:30:29
Speaker
How how hard are we willing to go on this thing to win this war?
00:30:33
Speaker
How many of our morals do we have to give up, et cetera, et cetera?
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:37
Speaker
So she thinks about that and then she she pings Jai, gives Jai the new orders and then says, but listen, on top of all of that, if I don't know, because she's like, we don't know what the fuck's going to happen.
00:30:52
Speaker
Right.
00:30:53
Speaker
Chloe goes into the life.
00:30:54
Speaker
No one knows.
00:30:55
Speaker
No one knows.
00:30:55
Speaker
And we're not really we're not learning at this point.
00:30:58
Speaker
We don't know what is going to happen to her.
00:31:01
Speaker
And so she orders Jai.
00:31:03
Speaker
If if you find out that the trade basically is that Chloe has to die, just blow it the fuck up.
00:31:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:13
Speaker
So she's not willing to take that step.
00:31:16
Speaker
She's not willing to trade this girl's life for all of this, which
00:31:23
Speaker
I admire and also I'm like, ah, like, well, it's yeah.
00:31:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:30
Speaker
I have some thoughts on the, on the, on that in terms of like how it is in turn.
00:31:35
Speaker
It's like a, it's almost like a full circle moment for UNSC slash earth because, um,
00:31:42
Speaker
You had Halsey who ran the Spartan program, which was predicated on kidnapping children, basically child sacrifice to create the Spartan twos.
00:31:55
Speaker
Torturing their parents because they gave them clones that were set to die.
00:31:58
Speaker
That were set to die.
00:32:01
Speaker
And in my head, the headcanon is like they died in like horribly gruesome ways.
00:32:07
Speaker
They were just like.
00:32:08
Speaker
They were just like running and you're like, oh, catch the ball, Billy.
00:32:11
Speaker
And then the ball hits Billy lightly and he just explodes.
00:32:16
Speaker
Good job, Billy.
00:32:17
Speaker
And they pat him on the head and his head falls off.
00:32:19
Speaker
And his head just falls off.
00:32:23
Speaker
So it is like a full circle where like, all right, well, Halsey did this.
00:32:26
Speaker
And now the clone of Halsey would be the one that needs to make to be sacrificed in the end.
00:32:34
Speaker
Right.
00:32:34
Speaker
To quote unquote, like end the story to finish the story.
00:32:39
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:32:40
Speaker
It closes the circle.
00:32:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's true.
00:32:44
Speaker
That's a really good point.
00:32:45
Speaker
But yeah, so Cole is saying, you know, don't let the kid get hurt.
00:32:49
Speaker
That's that's the rule.
00:32:51
Speaker
And Jai's like, yeah, cool, because Jai's a Spartan.
00:32:53
Speaker
It's like, yeah, whatever you say.
00:32:55
Speaker
I just imagine Jai is taking this call, like fighting like somebody.
00:33:01
Speaker
Yeah, go totally get that.
00:33:02
Speaker
Jai is awesome.
00:33:04
Speaker
Jai is like on the freaking ball with everything.
00:33:07
Speaker
Jai is Leonardo from Ninja Turtles, like just the cool cucumber leader, a bit of a square, but you wouldn't have it any other way.
00:33:15
Speaker
Right.
00:33:16
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:33:17
Speaker
So.
00:33:18
Speaker
In this moment, then the human fleet arrives to supplement them.
00:33:22
Speaker
Just fucking a shit ton of human ships.
00:33:25
Speaker
We get a lot of ship porn.
00:33:27
Speaker
Look at all these beautiful, beautiful ships.
00:33:28
Speaker
It's very cool.
00:33:29
Speaker
And before they even get a chance to go, we're going to make it.
00:33:37
Speaker
An ex covenant fleet shows up, which has horrifying implication because they
00:33:43
Speaker
the ex-covenant fleet, it suggests that they're probably working with the banished, which is going, which doesn't make sense, but it's the only thing that makes sense.
00:33:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:52
Speaker
And, uh, and, and if that's the case that they're, they're dealing with a much bigger presence than they worried about.
00:34:00
Speaker
Um, and that's chapter 27.
00:34:01
Speaker
That's where we are.
00:34:03
Speaker
We are our three quarters of the way through this book.
00:34:06
Speaker
So, uh,
00:34:07
Speaker
What do you think so far, Kevin?
00:34:08
Speaker
How are you feeling?
00:34:09
Speaker
You know, for a book as long as it is, I am really liking the pacing of how we're
Discussion on Pacing and Climax
00:34:15
Speaker
getting.
00:34:15
Speaker
It does fly by.
00:34:17
Speaker
We're in the last quarter of the book, and all the players and pieces have now moved to a single location.
00:34:25
Speaker
Yes.
00:34:25
Speaker
Yes.
00:34:27
Speaker
They they they were all all over the place and now they are here, you know.
00:34:32
Speaker
So I it's cool to to be like, oh, yeah, I feel like we are heading for a pretty cool showdown.
00:34:40
Speaker
I think most of these people are going to die.
00:34:42
Speaker
Probably.
00:34:43
Speaker
Yeah, we are.
00:34:44
Speaker
We are.
00:34:45
Speaker
We are on the way to a pretty spectacular final.
00:34:50
Speaker
Ninety nine percent of everyone dies.
00:34:51
Speaker
If I if I'm if I'm going if I'm being honest, I'm picking told you're on to be one of the only survivors of that's a good of the planet side.
00:35:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:03
Speaker
I think, yeah, I think, I think Abigail Cole is definitely on the way out.
00:35:07
Speaker
James is deaf.
00:35:09
Speaker
There's no way James writes this story.
00:35:12
Speaker
This is, he's literally two days from retirement.
00:35:15
Speaker
That's literally where he is.
00:35:17
Speaker
This is his literal last job.
00:35:20
Speaker
This is it.
00:35:21
Speaker
One last job.
00:35:22
Speaker
And then no, he's dead.
00:35:23
Speaker
He's dead.
00:35:25
Speaker
There's no, it would be irresponsible not to kill him at this point.
00:35:30
Speaker
So, yeah, so he's gone.
00:35:34
Speaker
Probably the Grey Squad, too, because they're so noble and good.
00:35:37
Speaker
They're so good.
00:35:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's like Grey Squad.
00:35:41
Speaker
That's what I'm thinking is Teldron is the only person from Grey Squad who makes it out.
00:35:45
Speaker
I think that makes sense.
00:35:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:48
Speaker
So Michael is already half dead.
00:35:50
Speaker
He's been needled up.
00:35:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:52
Speaker
He's more bio foam than man.
00:35:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:58
Speaker
So, yeah, I totally agree.
00:36:00
Speaker
This is this has been it has been worth the build.
00:36:04
Speaker
Yes.
00:36:05
Speaker
It's a 500 page book.
00:36:07
Speaker
And and they're leading doesn't feel like it.
00:36:10
Speaker
No, it's been very, very briskly.
00:36:12
Speaker
I believe the term you used was breezy and 100%.
00:36:16
Speaker
It's it's fun to read.
00:36:19
Speaker
The action scenes are excellent and kind of.
00:36:23
Speaker
And might I say thrilling.
00:36:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:27
Speaker
Great, great stuff.
00:36:29
Speaker
It's a lot of fun.
00:36:31
Speaker
After we're done here, we are going to show you guys.
00:36:35
Speaker
You're going to get an interview that we did with Jeremy Patenode.
00:36:40
Speaker
And
00:36:42
Speaker
He talks about how James and Chloe are like, were his two favorite characters to write while he was writing this book.
00:36:52
Speaker
And it shows.
00:36:54
Speaker
They're really interesting characters.
00:36:56
Speaker
Chloe's hilarious with how mean she is to James.
00:37:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:00
Speaker
She's just an, what an unusual quarry, you know, like this kid that he's like, I'm here to save you.
00:37:07
Speaker
And she's like, go fuck yourself.
00:37:08
Speaker
Oh shit.
00:37:09
Speaker
Shit.
00:37:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:37:11
Speaker
All right.
00:37:11
Speaker
He like carefully puts the copy of Teen Beat he bought for her behind his back so she doesn't see it.
00:37:17
Speaker
She's like, what are you saving me from?
00:37:19
Speaker
My job?
00:37:23
Speaker
You know, child labor laws are killing this planet.
00:37:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:28
Speaker
So she's like a literal accountant and she's like, please leave me alone.
00:37:32
Speaker
Right.
00:37:33
Speaker
She's like, I have not finished this quarter.
00:37:35
Speaker
And I'm telling you.
00:37:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:39
Speaker
I agree.
00:37:39
Speaker
This is, this is outstanding.
00:37:40
Speaker
The halo books.
00:37:41
Speaker
Just, they just keep stacking up.
00:37:44
Speaker
Very sharp writers.
00:37:46
Speaker
I'm always, it's always a pleasure to come back to halo.
00:37:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:51
Speaker
So.
00:37:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:52
Speaker
Agreed.
00:37:53
Speaker
Well, uh, now that that is done, Kevin, I have one last question.
00:37:57
Speaker
I wrote it down.
00:37:58
Speaker
Hold on.
00:37:58
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:01
Speaker
Oh, here's here's, uh, what are you playing?
00:38:04
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:38:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:08
Speaker
What am I
Discussion on 'Look Outside' Game
00:38:09
Speaker
playing?
00:38:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:09
Speaker
So I spent the past week playing a little RPG maker horror game called look outside.
00:38:18
Speaker
that for I think I may have had that recommended to me.
00:38:22
Speaker
Yeah, maybe.
00:38:24
Speaker
Super Eyepatch Wolf did a stream where he played it a couple of weeks ago, and I've just been like, it's a neat game.
00:38:33
Speaker
I call it like the children of fear and hunger, though I don't know necessarily how much it's inspired by fear and hunger, but it is a pretty difficult RPG maker horror game in the same vein.
00:38:50
Speaker
You play as a guy named Sam who wakes up from a dream with the urge to look outside his window.
00:39:01
Speaker
And as you walk closer to the window, your creepy neighbor, Sybil, who was always spying on you through the crack in the wall, tells you not to do it, basically.
00:39:15
Speaker
And you find out that looking outside will kill you.
00:39:20
Speaker
You can actually get my wish list.
00:39:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:23
Speaker
You can actually get an achievement right away if you look outside, like at the beginning of the game and you look outside and you're treated to a cut scene of Sam seeing something and then his like eyeballs being ripped out and his skull being ripped out and he's just like vacuumed up into space.
00:39:44
Speaker
And the achievement you get is followed instructions.
00:39:49
Speaker
This is brutal.
00:39:50
Speaker
The art design on this is creepy.
00:39:53
Speaker
The art designs.
00:39:54
Speaker
I love the art design.
00:39:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:56
Speaker
So you play as this guy, Sam, and you have the basic stakes are set early on as
00:40:06
Speaker
It symbol tells you she's heard rumors that this should this is going to pass in 15 days.
00:40:13
Speaker
So you basically have to kill half a month in your in your apartment building.
00:40:20
Speaker
And, you know, you got to find food and all that stuff.
00:40:23
Speaker
But as you journey out of your hotel room, you start finding things are OK.
00:40:29
Speaker
Shit's fucked up.
00:40:32
Speaker
You meet one of your neighbors who starts stabbing himself with a knife and he like splits his stomach open, but instead of guts falling out, like an eye comes out of his stomach because he looked outside.
00:40:47
Speaker
So something happened to him.
00:40:49
Speaker
And you start finding out more and more about what is outside and you find these astronomers or astrologers who talk about something called the visitor is outside and you.
00:41:10
Speaker
You can't be in the visitor's eyesight without changing like to observe the visitors.
00:41:19
Speaker
When the visitor observes something, it inevitably changes it.
00:41:23
Speaker
So you you work with these astrologers to acquire four.
00:41:31
Speaker
like four descriptions or depictions of the visitor.
00:41:36
Speaker
So like, but looking at a depiction of the visitor is the same as looking at the visitor himself.
00:41:44
Speaker
Right.
00:41:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:41:45
Speaker
So how do you do it?
00:41:46
Speaker
Like there's this there's this amazing sequence.
00:41:49
Speaker
So I'll just tell you the first like the first the first one I did is you find these
00:41:57
Speaker
these disks around and one of them is is just a void that it has the ability to have like a negative like a negative image imprinted on it.
00:42:11
Speaker
So in some in this one guy's apartment, you find a telescope.
00:42:16
Speaker
And so what you do is you take the telescope and you point it outside and you don't look at it.
00:42:22
Speaker
and the light from outside then is pooled on the floor.
00:42:27
Speaker
And then you take that disk and you put it into the pool and that creates a negative of what the telescope is looking at outside.
00:42:36
Speaker
which is the visitor.
00:42:37
Speaker
So now you have this negative and now you have to find photo paper and you go to, you find photo paper and you find a projector and now you take the negative and you project it from the disc onto the photo paper.
00:42:51
Speaker
So now the photo has a negative of the visitor and you go and you take that to a guy who knows how to develop photos and he develops this photo of the visitor.
00:43:00
Speaker
So now you have this photo of the visitor that you can't look at, but you have it.
00:43:07
Speaker
but you're not allowed to look at it.
00:43:09
Speaker
Right.
00:43:10
Speaker
That's so fucked.
00:43:12
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:43:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's really cool.
00:43:15
Speaker
There's a guy who has a painting of the visitor.
00:43:18
Speaker
There's a guy who wrote what the visitor looks like.
00:43:23
Speaker
There's security cam footage of the visitor.
00:43:25
Speaker
It's really clever and basically all the things you have to go through to not...
00:43:33
Speaker
to get these things, but also not look at them.
00:43:38
Speaker
That's really cool.
00:43:40
Speaker
I have got to I got to check this one out.
00:43:42
Speaker
That sounds really.
00:43:43
Speaker
It's worth checking out.
00:43:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:46
Speaker
I mean, and that's that's those are like some light spoilers I just mentioned, sort of.
00:43:51
Speaker
But it's it's stuff you kind of figure find out pretty quickly as you're going through the game as to what you have to do.
00:43:58
Speaker
I mean, it's it's within the first 20 minutes of playing that you talk to the first astrologer who kind of lays it out for you.
00:44:06
Speaker
But it's it's cool.
00:44:09
Speaker
So I beat the game.
00:44:12
Speaker
It took me I have 12 hours of playtime on record.
00:44:17
Speaker
I don't know if all that is actual playtime or some of that's just like leaving it on pause menu.
00:44:23
Speaker
I'm never sure these days.
00:44:26
Speaker
And so I beat the game.
00:44:28
Speaker
I got one of the endings and I was like, OK, yeah, I'm satisfied.
00:44:34
Speaker
I'm not going to go through and try to get all the endings.
00:44:38
Speaker
So I went and watched all the endings as for any Lovecraftian story.
00:44:43
Speaker
Just heads up.
00:44:45
Speaker
It's going to be a bummer.
00:44:47
Speaker
Sure.
00:44:48
Speaker
Yeah, I believe that.
00:44:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:52
Speaker
There's some really funny humor in the game, I'll say.
00:44:55
Speaker
There's some really good humor in it.
00:44:58
Speaker
But the game is also a grim, dark, gory, body horror bummer.
00:45:09
Speaker
Just the way I like them.
00:45:11
Speaker
Just the way you like it.
00:45:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:15
Speaker
So that was all I was playing the past week.
00:45:20
Speaker
Phil, what are you playing?
00:45:25
Speaker
I played a lot of little indie games.
00:45:29
Speaker
It's been a lot of fun.
00:45:31
Speaker
I know, crazy, right?
00:45:32
Speaker
Me playing indie games.
00:45:33
Speaker
You playing indie games.
00:45:35
Speaker
It's going to tell me that you played a demo.
00:45:37
Speaker
Yes, I'm going to start with the demo.
00:45:40
Speaker
Yes, I played the darkest files, the demo for that game.
00:45:46
Speaker
Really interesting.
00:45:47
Speaker
This is a similar game to the root trees are dead.
00:45:51
Speaker
The uncovering of mystery, the the
00:45:55
Speaker
research oriented, you know, Encyclopedia Brown, solve the mystery kind of thing.
00:46:01
Speaker
The twist on this that I found really very intriguing is that it is actually based on true events and real people.
00:46:10
Speaker
It's based on this group of prosecutors in Germany in the 1950s who were hired specifically to prosecute
00:46:22
Speaker
ex-Nazis because they were having trouble.
00:46:25
Speaker
They knew that Nazis were like there were Nazis, former Nazis who were judges now, who are cops now, who are your neighbors.
00:46:32
Speaker
And these people had to see justice.
00:46:35
Speaker
But no one wanted to really
00:46:37
Speaker
do it because a lot of them, again, were judges and lawyers and powerful people or they were their neighbors, their friends.
00:46:44
Speaker
And so this guy was the only character and who they changed the names of everybody except for and I'm embarrassed.
00:46:53
Speaker
I forget the name now.
00:46:54
Speaker
I'll find it.
00:46:55
Speaker
This guy assembled his fucking, you know,
00:46:59
Speaker
untouchables crack team of, of, uh, you know, prosecutors to find these Nazis and put them in jail, uh, to prosecute them.
00:47:10
Speaker
It's fascinating.
00:47:12
Speaker
It's really very interesting.
00:47:13
Speaker
It is a very interesting idea.
00:47:16
Speaker
Um, it's got courtroom stuff in it.
00:47:18
Speaker
You've got the art style is really, really nice too.
00:47:21
Speaker
It's really cool.
00:47:23
Speaker
It's just it's very clean.
00:47:25
Speaker
I haven't gotten through the entire demo.
00:47:28
Speaker
It's a little more complex than a lot of these kind of games are.
00:47:32
Speaker
There's more to it than it.
00:47:34
Speaker
They don't really hold your hand, but you got to build the case.
00:47:37
Speaker
You got to get all your get all your ducks in a row and then you got to go to court and prove it.
00:47:43
Speaker
And it's it's that's pretty cool.
00:47:46
Speaker
It's yeah.
00:47:47
Speaker
And the fact that it's based on a real story, I think that's really neat.
00:47:52
Speaker
So I'm going to I might have to give the full game a whirl at some point because that's truly unique and I really like that.
00:48:00
Speaker
um yeah yeah yeah I'm like I'm looking at it and I'm like it only has 120 reviews I mean it was it's only been out for like a week or so yeah but it's still like this should this deserves more attention it's sacrilege that just the the the care that has gone into this is pretty crazy
00:48:19
Speaker
Adding that to the wish list.
00:48:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:21
Speaker
And I'm adding their other game to the wish list.
00:48:25
Speaker
It's it looks like their first game is called Through the Darkest of Times, which is set in Berlin, 1933.
00:48:33
Speaker
Well, fuck.
00:48:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think it is a German team.
00:48:37
Speaker
So.
00:48:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:39
Speaker
Oh, that's interesting.
00:48:40
Speaker
So this is pre-war like this is like resistance stuff like organizing labor strikes or whatever.
00:48:50
Speaker
Cool.
00:48:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:51
Speaker
This this team is awesome.
00:48:54
Speaker
What a what a that is.
00:48:55
Speaker
They've got a hell of a body of work here.
00:48:57
Speaker
That's really neat.
00:48:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:59
Speaker
Cool.
00:48:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:59
Speaker
So, yeah, the darkest files, I think it's definitely worth checking out.
00:49:04
Speaker
I played a game called Roguelike Deck Builder.
00:49:11
Speaker
This is... That's not a game.
00:49:13
Speaker
That's just slap some genres.
00:49:16
Speaker
It sure is.
00:49:17
Speaker
It's a roguelike.
00:49:18
Speaker
Is it a deck builder too?
00:49:22
Speaker
You are literally building decks as in a deck in the backyard.
00:49:28
Speaker
You are in some kind of hellscape.
00:49:30
Speaker
It is very bleak and very dark.
00:49:34
Speaker
And the only way, and you make money based on building these decks and doing it well.
00:49:40
Speaker
And a million dollars buys your freedom.
00:49:44
Speaker
So you are constantly building new decks and trying to, and like investing in new hammers and all kinds of- Yeah, was this on Steam?
00:49:54
Speaker
Yes.
00:49:54
Speaker
Yes.
00:49:55
Speaker
I can't even find it because the tag.
00:49:57
Speaker
A roguelite deck builder.
00:49:59
Speaker
Roguelite?
00:50:00
Speaker
Yeah, light.
00:50:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:01
Speaker
Okay.
00:50:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:02
Speaker
That's another thing.
00:50:03
Speaker
There's a light that's constantly turning on and off.
00:50:05
Speaker
It's insane.
00:50:08
Speaker
They got real cute with it.
00:50:10
Speaker
They got real cute with it.
00:50:11
Speaker
Real cute.
00:50:13
Speaker
I ultimately couldn't play too much of it because this is a game that's meant to be streamed.
00:50:18
Speaker
You can tell it's one of these physics games and you are with your mouse controlling the hand that's bringing the hammer down.
00:50:27
Speaker
And if you're off, you can injure yourself and you lose money every time you smash one of your fingers.
00:50:35
Speaker
And
00:50:38
Speaker
It just, and it's a really interesting idea, but honestly, after a few sessions, I was born to fucking tears.
00:50:44
Speaker
Uh, it was just, it was, I was like, am I really gonna do this, uh, up to a million dollars?
00:50:49
Speaker
And I'm sure there's some kind of twist that, that I was, I was, I was about to like, try to share this with, uh, with chariot rider, who is a big roguelike fan.
00:51:02
Speaker
I was like, I wonder if he, and then of course he already has on his wishlist.
00:51:06
Speaker
There you go.
00:51:06
Speaker
There you go.
00:51:07
Speaker
I think the thing is, is it's I think it's a it's really interesting.
00:51:12
Speaker
The art style is wonderful and dark and spooky.
00:51:17
Speaker
The whole idea is actually quite good.
00:51:20
Speaker
It just wasn't for me.
00:51:21
Speaker
I'm sure I don't respond well to the physics kind of based games, but I know a lot of people will really dig this.
00:51:28
Speaker
So I'm glad I at least played a little bit of it.
00:51:32
Speaker
And the last game I played that I'm still playing is called No Skin.
00:51:38
Speaker
Oh, I think I saw maybe I saw you play it.
00:51:41
Speaker
You may have.
00:51:43
Speaker
I saw it pop up or something like that.
00:51:45
Speaker
Or it was on my
00:51:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:47
Speaker
Oh no, it was on my thing.
00:51:49
Speaker
It was on my, what's it?
00:51:51
Speaker
Discovery queue?
00:51:52
Speaker
Discovery queue.
00:51:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:55
Speaker
My Star Trek discovery.
00:51:57
Speaker
Yes, exactly.
00:52:00
Speaker
This is a roguelike.
00:52:01
Speaker
It's a horror game.
00:52:02
Speaker
It made me think,
00:52:05
Speaker
in a way it made me think of World of Horror.
00:52:10
Speaker
Which is, yeah, World of Horror is listed.
00:52:13
Speaker
When I went to the page, it says, is this game relevant to you?
00:52:16
Speaker
Similar to games you've played.
00:52:17
Speaker
World of Horror.
00:52:18
Speaker
There you go.
00:52:18
Speaker
And Keep Driving.
00:52:20
Speaker
Yes.
00:52:20
Speaker
Oh, I know why they would call this Keep Driving.
00:52:23
Speaker
Just because it's a roguelike, I guess.
00:52:24
Speaker
Yeah, I guess.
00:52:26
Speaker
You play this character who is going through this house and your friends are in it and you're constantly searching through it and fighting demons and warped, horrifying versions of your friends.
00:52:40
Speaker
And the whole thing is you are trying to
00:52:43
Speaker
to find the skin of this creature called no skin.
00:52:47
Speaker
It accuses you of having stolen its skin and you have to get it back by getting all the way to the end of this kind of labyrinthine house.
00:52:57
Speaker
Sure.
00:52:57
Speaker
And you're, and, and like as you do,
00:53:00
Speaker
As you do.
00:53:01
Speaker
And you're not going to do it the first go and you have to, you know, and you you obtain shards that are short term weapon buying shards and then you obtain moon shards, which are things that you can spend on abilities in between sessions so you get a little stronger, a little stronger as you go.
00:53:17
Speaker
Right.
00:53:18
Speaker
It is a very it the art style is really weird.
00:53:22
Speaker
It's got some earthbound vibes.
00:53:23
Speaker
It's also got some like Hotline Miami kind of shit.
00:53:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:53:28
Speaker
It's it's and I am a I'm a big Hotline Miami fan.
00:53:33
Speaker
I really love Hotline Miami.
00:53:37
Speaker
I wish there was a new one or because I played games.
00:53:42
Speaker
I play.
00:53:42
Speaker
I mean, there's two Hotline Miami games, right?
00:53:45
Speaker
There's been other games of that
00:53:47
Speaker
ilk released by other people, but they never really, they didn't have the sauce.
00:53:53
Speaker
They didn't have the, you know, of Hotline Miami.
00:53:57
Speaker
Yeah, this has got some Hotline Miami vibes in the sense that it has a very simple art style, but it's also very disturbing at the same time.
00:54:08
Speaker
It's very effectively done.
00:54:13
Speaker
It's really weird.
00:54:14
Speaker
It's a really, really weird game.
00:54:16
Speaker
And when I just like a lot of my favorite games, I played about 10 minutes of it and I went, oh, I don't know about this.
00:54:26
Speaker
And then I died and then game of the year.
00:54:30
Speaker
Right, right.
00:54:30
Speaker
I died.
00:54:31
Speaker
It was like, OK, well, we're going to bring you back and here's some stuff you can get.
00:54:35
Speaker
It's like, OK, cool, cool.
00:54:37
Speaker
And I was like, well, I should do another session just to be sure, you know, just to give it give it the you know.
00:54:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:44
Speaker
Two hours later, I am not I haven't beaten it yet, but it's it's a very unique.
00:54:51
Speaker
kind of a game.
00:54:52
Speaker
It's a lot of fun.
00:54:53
Speaker
It's grim.
00:54:54
Speaker
I don't know what the fuck they're getting at just yet.
00:54:58
Speaker
The storyline means nothing to me at this point, but I'm enjoying peeling back that onion.
00:55:05
Speaker
Peeling back that skin.
00:55:08
Speaker
Yeah, pretty much.
00:55:09
Speaker
Yeah, there you go.
00:55:10
Speaker
There you go.
00:55:12
Speaker
It's really interesting.
00:55:13
Speaker
I'm impressed.
00:55:14
Speaker
I'm impressed by it.
00:55:16
Speaker
So yeah, that's what I've been playing.
00:55:18
Speaker
Awesome.
00:55:18
Speaker
A lot of weird ass indie shit.
00:55:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:21
Speaker
A lot of weird, weird stuff.
00:55:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:25
Speaker
I should also mention I've been playing Vampire Survivors on my phone.
00:55:29
Speaker
Oh, nice.
00:55:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's been my battery drainer of choice.
00:55:33
Speaker
Sure.
00:55:37
Speaker
But yeah, that'll do it for tonight's episode.
00:55:39
Speaker
Thank you all so much for listening.
00:55:41
Speaker
We'll return next week with another episode of Halo, the Empty Throne.
00:55:46
Speaker
In the meantime, in between time, I've heard people say that and it sounds so cool when they say it.
00:55:52
Speaker
But when I say it.
00:55:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:54
Speaker
The meantime in between time.
00:55:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:56
Speaker
Go ahead and follow us on blue sky, Instagram, pixel of pod on both, you know, or Patreon and, or jump into our discord and chat us in there.
00:56:06
Speaker
It's, it's good times.
00:56:10
Speaker
So Phil, the trees are alive again.
00:56:19
Speaker
Sure.
00:56:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:21
Speaker
So what do I do?
00:56:23
Speaker
These are and they're not like helpful like the ants, you know?
00:56:26
Speaker
No, no, no.
00:56:27
Speaker
No, no.
00:56:28
Speaker
These are these are live oak trees.
00:56:30
Speaker
What do I got to do to keep a live oak in its in its place?
00:56:34
Speaker
Well, all right.
00:56:35
Speaker
You know, it's like you've seen you've seen people who keep bees dressing up as bees.
00:56:41
Speaker
So what I need you to do is buy a shirt that has been covered with yellow powder.