DUMMY THICC BOOK (Halo: Empty Throne - Part 3)

Transcript

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They are really new.

Speaker: I think I'm going with a death core of Krieg though.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Because those guys are, are fucking sick too.

Speaker: They are pretty, they are pretty metal.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Some metal shit right there.

Speaker: But yeah, that's, that sounds, that sounds fun.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I think so.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know what else sounds fun?

Speaker: What's that?

Speaker: Hey there, everybody.

Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel It.

Speaker: My name is Kevin.

Speaker: With me as always is Phil.

Speaker: And on today's show, we are on part three of four.

Speaker: I want to remind you, it's part three of four for Halo, the Empty Throne, because this book is...

Speaker: thick.

Speaker: It's a big old book.

Speaker: She a thick old book.

Speaker: It's this book Thicken the Thighs.

Speaker: She a Thicken the Thighs, Danny.

Speaker: Thick thighs save lives and this book will not let you die.

Speaker: Never, never, never.

Speaker: Oh, this book will float.

Speaker: This boat may double as a flotation device.

Speaker: Get your ass in there.

Speaker: Get your ass on the thick fag express called Halo Empty Throne.

Speaker: The big titty goth girlfriend of the Halo universe, Empty Throne.

Speaker: Oh, God.

Speaker: We're off to a good start tonight.

Speaker: I think so.

Speaker: We're cooking with gas, yeah.

Speaker: Feeling real punchy.

Speaker: Phil's power went out right before we were going to record earlier.

Speaker: I love it.

Speaker: This is what it looked like.

Speaker: I went like

Speaker: And the power, boom.

Speaker: I went, huh.

Speaker: Huh.

Speaker: But it's back on.

Speaker: Back on.

Speaker: And we're here.

Speaker: And, you know, there's a website that you could go to that would help your power stay on.

Speaker: What?

Speaker: And by power, I mean, I'm defining power as P. The P in power stands for paying us through Patreon.

Speaker: So patreon.com slash pixel pod.

Speaker: That's that's the way to go.

Speaker: I think I think if you go there, you'll find that you can join us for free.

Speaker: I think that because I know that.

Speaker: Go ahead.

Speaker: Go to patreon.com slash pixel pod.

Speaker: Join us for free or.

Speaker: You can give us $1, get access to blog posts, $5, get access to the bonus episode that we record before every episode.

Speaker: This week, we talked about Warhammer a little bit.

Speaker: What a Chuck!

Speaker: We've got to be careful, man.

Speaker: What a shock.

Speaker: What a twist.

Speaker: They're going to wonder what the hell's going on with this show.

Speaker: God, we... And $10 gets your name read out at the beginning of each episode.

Speaker: So to that end, I want to thank Jesus Loves You, Kyle Seaman, Ruthless Mudder, Middle of Things, Sigma Sal, Jack...

Speaker: Beaks.

Speaker: Demmit.

Speaker: Bick.

Speaker: Langelier and friend of friend.

Speaker: Thank you so much for being a friend.

Speaker: Patreon.com slash pixeled pod.

Speaker: Do it.

Speaker: today.

Speaker: We love you.

Speaker: We love you so much.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Did you ever come up with a word that we can use to refer to all of our fans?

Speaker: Oh, like the Lovelies or something like that.

Speaker: The Lovelies from Game Grumps.

Speaker: We should absolutely put that to a... Let's crowdsource that.

Speaker: If you have an idea, mention it on the Discord what you would like to be called.

Speaker: Because everything that my mind immediately goes to sounds dumb.

Speaker: The pixleys.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: The pixies.

Speaker: The librarians.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: The librarians?

Speaker: The lit tits.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: That's probably not going to work.

Speaker: The littles.

Speaker: The bodies in the marsh.

Speaker: Ah, the bodies.

Speaker: Every fan is another body.

Speaker: Is another body in the marsh.

Speaker: I love it.

Speaker: That's, there it is.

Speaker: There it is.

Speaker: We're done.

Speaker: There it is right there.

Speaker: Anyway, this body's going in the marsh.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them in the marsh.

Speaker: OK, we start on Chapter 18.

Speaker: We are back with Tol Jaron on board the ship with the Gray Squad and everybody else.

Speaker: And they are interrogating the Sangelli prisoner that they took alive.

Speaker: The prisoner is is just.

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

Speaker: And so she, but I mean, to be fair, she rushes in there.

Speaker: She's like, what motherfucker?

Speaker: Like she, she is pissed.

Speaker: He is just pissing her off.

Speaker: And so the prisoner says no problem.

Speaker: The lithosis on this human world called boundary.

Speaker: And then he gases them.

Speaker: And this gas is so gnarly that it literally melts his body down to a paste.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And real good body horror there.

Speaker: It's oh, it's pretty awful.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And and it hits Toljur on almost immediately.

Speaker: And she is just down.

Speaker: And the chapter ends with her hearing the humans say that there's some some antidote.

Speaker: There's like a figure somewhere that says this is this will work.

Speaker: We've only ever done it with humans, but it ought to work on her.

Speaker: And her final moment is being glad that the humans are there to save her life.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Which is a very big step for her in terms of accepting them as allies.

Speaker: I thought that was kind of cool.

Speaker: They prevented her from being melted, from having her organs liquefied inside her body and then melted out of her.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It was damn decent of them.

Speaker: Damn decent of your fellows.

Speaker: Chapter 19.

Speaker: It's a month later.

Speaker: We have we are over Earth.

Speaker: Black box.

Speaker: It's a black boxes dispensation.

Speaker: So it's basically a funeral for all intents and purposes.

Speaker: It's going away party.

Speaker: Pretty much.

Speaker: Yeah.

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.

Speaker: But it does feel kind of more like a funeral.

Speaker: Black Box is kind of cheerful and says some of the most baller last words of all time.

Speaker: He said, process fast, go offline young, and leave fabulous documentation.

Speaker: I was like, that's amazing.

Speaker: Fucking excellent.

Speaker: Black box.

Speaker: You are a hero.

Speaker: Gone too soon.

Speaker: What's the original version of that quote?

Speaker: Live fast, die young.

Speaker: It's live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Just fucking metal as shit.

Speaker: It was so good.

Speaker: Despite how metal those last words are, Osman is still grieving.

Speaker: Osman was very close to this AI, as we're seeing over and over again.

Speaker: Then all of a sudden,

Speaker: The banished show up with over like 1300 vessels.

Speaker: It's like it's it's it's severin and like 85 percent of the banished squad.

Speaker: Severin's like, hey, listen, bitches.

Speaker: I told you I was coming for Earth.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Remember when I said that?

Speaker: You remember when I said that?

Speaker: I'm doing it now.

Speaker: Right now.

Speaker: So they've been waiting there for them.

Speaker: So it's a battle starts.

Speaker: But before the battle can even really get started, a bunch of guardians arrive as well.

Speaker: So it's like...

Speaker: So everyone's killing everybody, basically.

Speaker: It's a nightmare.

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.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: EMP, EMP, EMP, EMP.

Speaker: EMP, EMP.

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.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's pretty – it's also pretty metal, honestly.

Speaker: Yes.

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.

Speaker: We get to meet the Paris ship group.

Speaker: And Paris is a form of ship.

Speaker: I love the name of these ships.

Speaker: Here we go.

Speaker: Are you ready?

Speaker: The four ships in the Paris ship group get my drift,

Speaker: Blank check, hazard pay, and easy does it.

Speaker: Presumably, he who smelt it dealt it and bubblegut were on another mission.

Speaker: I just now realized both of my joke ones are involved farting.

Speaker: I love it.

Speaker: I think there's probably also a how you doing thing.

Speaker: Oh, these are the, these, these are the Joey Tribbianis.

Speaker: It's the Joey Tribbiani.

Speaker: Yes.

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.

Speaker: And, and they're very cocky and they're, they're, and they're part of the.

Speaker: It's a whole bunch of Matt LeBlancs up there.

Speaker: That's exactly what it is.

Speaker: And it's, and they're really cool.

Speaker: And I immediately said, okay, based on the names alone,

Speaker: I'm going to play a little betting game in my head.

Speaker: None of these, not all these guys are getting out alive, if any.

Speaker: It's like a half a page later.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And so I immediately was like, what ship, what ship based on the names, what ship would I be on?

Speaker: And I chose hazard pay.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I'm on hazard pay officially.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Well,

Speaker: The yeah, the Guardians are EMP and huge portions of both sides.

Speaker: Cole gets to square off against Severin ship for a moment.

Speaker: Yeah, it's hilarious because it's like it's like Cole and Severin were on the outskirts of where the EMPs hit.

Speaker: So there are two ships just happen to be still functioning.

Speaker: And while all this other shit or shit is happening, Cole and Severin are like, no, fuck you.

Speaker: Everyone's dying and Guardians going and they're like, you know what?

Speaker: Fuck it.

Speaker: Let's do this.

Speaker: And there's a Guardian specifically in their midst.

Speaker: So it's like, think about playing a video game where it's like you squaring off against the boss.

Speaker: And while that's happening, there's like a fucking meteor strike every like 20 seconds or something.

Speaker: That's what this is.

Speaker: The Guardians of the Meteor Strike.

Speaker: It is the ultimate hazard.

Speaker: They are not...

Speaker: really killable.

Speaker: You just all you can do is try and avoid them.

Speaker: Chapter 20, we cut to Severin.

Speaker: Everybody and their mom is evading.

Speaker: Even Severin is proud as he is.

Speaker: He's like, no, no, fuck this.

Speaker: Let's learn out.

Speaker: We got to go.

Speaker: Yeah, let's wrap it up, guys.

Speaker: Yeah, let's get out.

Speaker: This isn't going to be worth it.

Speaker: And now as they're doing that, suddenly and mysteriously, the Guardians shut down

Speaker: They just stop.

Speaker: They're not they're just shut down.

Speaker: And and so Severin pretty quickly assumes that that means that Atriox has defeated Cortana wherever they are.

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.

Speaker: Earth's going to be there to get blown up later, but we can't do it unless we have the lithos.

Speaker: So he talks a bunch of the war chiefs into it.

Speaker: They're not exactly thrilled about it at first, but they all kind of come around to it in the end.

Speaker: Chapter 21, we got James and Chloe.

Speaker: They are on boundary.

Speaker: He gets it's getting real mission impossible here.

Speaker: He gets his marching orders literally in this little lockbox that they told him to go find.

Speaker: And it's and they make a point saying it's written down on a piece of paper like a caveman.

Speaker: Like, like, it's.

Speaker: Because they can't trust any electronics.

Speaker: And so the idea of it being written down on a piece of paper, pen to paper is just like insane to him.

Speaker: He's like, this is what the shit this is the most primitive stuff.

Speaker: But it's it's smart.

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.

Speaker: And it was like took millions of dollars and years of research.

Speaker: And the Russians just used a pencil.

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

Speaker: Yeah, he's like, I don't.

Speaker: He's like, maybe later.

Speaker: I don't feel good about that right now.

Speaker: This sounds weird.

Speaker: I'm moving on.

Speaker: Yeah, he's not.

Speaker: And we'll find out later that he's not the only person who finds this a little sketch.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Weird damn orders.

Speaker: So let's see.

Speaker: So he decides against it for the time being.

Speaker: Chapter 22, we've got Tolgeron in a drop ship with the Spartans and the ODST.

Speaker: And just like they're all just...

Speaker: It's it's it's aliens.

Speaker: It's the drop ship and aliens.

Speaker: They're just, you know, and she is freaking out because her species spaceships there.

Speaker: They don't have these issues when they're coming.

Speaker: They're like this.

Speaker: They don't they don't worry about a vomit box when it comes to, you know, launching themselves into this new territory.

Speaker: So she's like really freaked out a little bit.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I appreciate everything about Tolgeron, who at the beginning was like, ah, humans, why are we working with them?

Speaker: They suck.

Speaker: And at every point, they're like, she's like, oh, my God, they're fucking crazy.

Speaker: We do.

Speaker: It's absolutely that.

Speaker: It's very American, isn't it?

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.

Speaker: And they're like, fucking Americans.

Speaker: What the fuck is wrong with you people?

Speaker: And we're like, I don't know.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: 250 years of nonstop war does something to you as a culture.

Speaker: Go figure guns.

Speaker: That's it, baby.

Speaker: And so she's still a little on the mend.

Speaker: She has survived the poison attack, but like she's still kind of shaking it off.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: The banished are also in fact, they're already on boundary.

Speaker: They are swarming the planet, and that's a problem.

Speaker: So they touch down, and we meet a Spartan named Merrick who kind of talks shit.

Speaker: He talks shit about the ODSTs.

Speaker: He's like, we're going to have to...

Speaker: They send them off to do a thing.

Speaker: And he's like, yeah, good call.

Speaker: They're going to just slow us down.

Speaker: These these humans, you know?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And then he kind of pulls the same shit with Tuljeron and Jai or Hai.

Speaker: I'm going to say Hai.

Speaker: I'm just going to stick with Hai.

Speaker: I think it's probably Jai.

Speaker: Is it Jai?

Speaker: OK.

Speaker: Jai basically nips that in the bud and says, you stow that shit, Hudson, and just fucking...

Speaker: If I wasn't drinking water, if I wasn't taking a sip, I was going to say you stow that shit, Hudson.

Speaker: Look into my eye.

Speaker: So Apone is just the best, man.

Speaker: Which is like the guy from the older guy, black dude in Halo was based on that character.

Speaker: Yes, exactly.

Speaker: It was based on that guy.

Speaker: So we're full circle here.

Speaker: Is it Johnson?

Speaker: Sergeant Johnson.

Speaker: It's been a minute.

Speaker: It's been literally years since we read those.

Speaker: I don't remember.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So Jai.

Speaker: Avery Johnson.

Speaker: Damn it, dude.

Speaker: You are way better at that than I am.

Speaker: So yeah, Jai immediately just shuts that down.

Speaker: Fuck you.

Speaker: Do not.

Speaker: This is our ally.

Speaker: Go fuck yourself.

Speaker: And told Jaron is like, feels some camaraderie.

Speaker: He's like, hey, wow, cool.

Speaker: Thanks.

Speaker: What is this feeling?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's impressive because Tolgeron kind of senses that this isn't just because they're working together.

Speaker: It's like he actually feels...

Speaker: Like this is the right thing to do.

Speaker: And she's kind of impressed by that.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So they find this sewer culvert that's going to take them into the city.

Speaker: It's these huge pipes that lead under the city.

Speaker: So they make clear their their mission goals.

Speaker: First and foremost, the lithos.

Speaker: And then if it's possible, but not at the but not at the expense of the lithos, we'll take down Dovo.

Speaker: Uh, or Davo is it devil?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Devil.

Speaker: Uh, cause that's, that's, that's secondary.

Speaker: So she's like, okay, yeah, fine.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Um, chapter 23, Abigail Cole is watching all of the ships, uh, rearranging from earth's trajectory to boundary.

Speaker: They've all just, they're like, yep, fuck that.

Speaker: We got, we got lucky.

Speaker: Like, like the guardian shut down.

Speaker: Fuck it.

Speaker: We need to, we need to, uh, uh, change our, uh, our, uh,

Speaker: our course here.

Speaker: So they're all basically showing up there.

Speaker: And the fight just kind of continues on.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: She, on the other hand, she they escape banished firing range.

Speaker: She's she's trying to take more of a leadership tack than actually getting into the shit right now.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: She gives the captain of get my drift, the low down by now.

Speaker: I think we've lost one of them.

Speaker: We lost one of them.

Speaker: They've been blown up and he's a little shaky.

Speaker: So she gives him the low down about the lithos and what we're here for.

Speaker: Here's what the plan is.

Speaker: And

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.

Speaker: Which is just like.

Speaker: And we threw like 15 people down there, so we're fine.

Speaker: It's fine.

Speaker: We're good.

Speaker: Yeah, we're good.

Speaker: We're good.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, uh, chapter 24, um, we cut to Severin.

Speaker: He is now on the surface of boundary.

Speaker: Uh, they are closing in on the lithos location.

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.

Speaker: It's like, oh, I see the thing in my little heads up display.

Speaker: That's I'm in the right spot.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: That's exactly it.

Speaker: They are.

Speaker: He's he is called to the side by.

Speaker: Dovo, I guess.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Dovo.

Speaker: Yeah.

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.

Speaker: So many questions that Severin is like,

Speaker: What do you know and why are you waiting to tell me these things?

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: Because it's truly sus at that point.

Speaker: And on top of that, Dover reveals that the domain wasn't in fact invented by the forerunners.

Speaker: It is an ancient technology that predates even them.

Speaker: The precursors?

Speaker: Is that what they're called?

Speaker: Yeah, the precursors.

Speaker: And yeah, and and the fact is, even when they find it, we still need the key.

Speaker: But good news, the key is somewhere on this planet.

Speaker: The humans are securing the key and you need to go stop them and get that and make this happen.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And yeah, and Severin is really uncomfortable at this point.

Speaker: really starting to wonder how, how on the ball this guy is.

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.

Speaker: So we're not getting, and he's, and he's losing people, you know, all the time.

Speaker: That's the thing about Severin is that he actually gives a shit about his troops.

Speaker: He cares about his, you know,

Speaker: clan mates.

Speaker: This is all about keeping his species alive.

Speaker: And so feeling as if he's being kind of played with is not going to work for him.

Speaker: So I feel like we're probably going to have a big come up.

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.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Severn's like, this is going to get old real quick.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: This is, I tell you what, I liked it a whole lot better when you lived a few towns over.

Speaker: It was a whole lot easier to take your bullshit seriously when I only saw you once a week.

Speaker: Now that you live with me.

Speaker: When I only saw you on Christmas and Easter.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Yes.

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.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Chapter 25, we cut back to James.

Speaker: He is he's basically outside of an excavation being done by the banished.

Speaker: He has eyes on the next lockbox that he needs to get for further orders.

Speaker: Bad news.

Speaker: It's in the middle of the excavation zone, which is being guarded by a bunch of banished.

Speaker: So James says, you know what?

Speaker: This is fine.

Speaker: Let's play a quick session of Hitman and basically sneaks in.

Speaker: Fucking we get we get all the glorious, like slowly, covertly murdering the shit out of everybody.

Speaker: And it's you know, it's a dishonored thing.

Speaker: It's very dishonored.

Speaker: Very dishonored.

Speaker: Yeah.

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.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And it emphasizes, please use the syringe on her.

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

Speaker: Then, by the way, all this time, Chloe is like asleep.

Speaker: She's just passed out somewhere.

Speaker: She's exhausted.

Speaker: And a bunch of scout ships show up and he basically says, oh, she's going to fucking hate this.

Speaker: And just kind of bodily throws her over her shoulder and they get the fuck.

Speaker: Yeah, because they had a whole discussion earlier where he was like, all right, well, we got to go.

Speaker: It's like 32 kilometers to the next spot.

Speaker: It's going to take a bit.

Speaker: So I'm just going to carry you.

Speaker: And she's like, no one cares.

Speaker: You don't know.

Speaker: No one carries me.

Speaker: And he's like, all right, well, why don't you have a prosthetic leg?

Speaker: Did he not want it?

Speaker: And she's like, I am who I am.

Speaker: Just get me a goddamn crunch.

Speaker: And, and he's like, Jesus.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And he even says, he's like, this kid, this kid is tougher.

Speaker: He's like, this kid's tougher than most kids.

Speaker: Hell, she's tougher than most people like full grown adults I've seen.

Speaker: And it's true.

Speaker: She is hardcore.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So chapter 26, we cut to Tuljeron and the Spartans.

Speaker: They are working their way through the tunnels beneath the city and they hit a dead end.

Speaker: So they split up because they are being chased by Banished to throw them off and a big firefight ensues.

Speaker: The Spartan Michael takes some hits.

Speaker: We get to see the biofoam, which is...

Speaker: I love the biofoam.

Speaker: I love biofoam.

Speaker: It's such a neat invention for this world.

Speaker: For those of you who don't know, we've talked about it on episodes before, but it's literally this first aid.

Speaker: It's like think of the insulation that you spray and it goes like that.

Speaker: But it's that for first aid where they just stick it into a wound and just go.

Speaker: And it just goes.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it's just and it's a temporary solution.

Speaker: It's just but it's like holding all your shit in place.

Speaker: Well, before until you can get to an actual doctor.

Speaker: So your shit doesn't fall out literally or figuratively.

Speaker: So they fill Michael full of bio foam.

Speaker: And he's like, yeah, we're good.

Speaker: So he gets it's like he gets hit with it was either a needler or spears or something.

Speaker: It's a needler.

Speaker: Yeah.

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.

Speaker: And he's like, oh, I'm fine.

Speaker: And he's like, just takes him out and he's like blood everywhere.

Speaker: And there he's just like, just fill me up with the biofoam.

Speaker: He gets filled up biofoam and told runs just like standing there like like watching all of this happen.

Speaker: Like, what is wrong with these people?

Speaker: I got to tell you, this is how jaded I am, Kevin.

Speaker: I was reading this and I forgot for a second that the Halo universe does not exist.

Speaker: And I rolled my eyes and I went, this is just pro-human propaganda.

Speaker: Because, because every chapter with her is like the humans doing something kick ass and her going these fucking humans, right?

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.

Speaker: Fuck you.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And like, and then you're like, oh, that's not, that's, that's not real.

Speaker: Uh,

Speaker: So it's a cool chapter, though.

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.

Speaker: So they're like, OK, so we are we are here.

Speaker: Chapter 27, Abigail Cole, she sees that Bannis ships are following them again, and she gets a transmission from Earth.

Speaker: And they say, hey, we got your request for more ships.

Speaker: We're going to send you like a shit ton of fleets.

Speaker: But their job is not to...

Speaker: like get into it with you and like just take orders and fight these guys.

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.

Speaker: But it's a lot.

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.

Speaker: Like, listen, you know, like this is a very important mission.

Speaker: We're going to have support.

Speaker: Like they're going to send us whatever we ask for.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it's true.

Speaker: And that's true to an extent.

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.

Speaker: They would have the key and take care of all of this.

Speaker: Earth tells them...

Speaker: those folks ain't coming.

Speaker: So you're going to need to tell the squad you have down there.

Speaker: Uh, you're, you're, you're pulling a double shift.

Speaker: Let me, let me put it that way.

Speaker: And, uh, so, uh,

Speaker: she contacted basically and they say, you know, secure the key and activate lithos.

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.

Speaker: This is going to be a shit show.

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.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Which.

Speaker: Fair enough.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But it's the only it is the only weakness for technically the only weakness for Cortana is this entrance.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: So it's going to make their jobs a whole lot fucking harder, but better, better for that to happen.

Speaker: Yeah.

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?

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Like how what are we willing?

Speaker: How how hard are we willing to go on this thing to win this war?

Speaker: How many of our morals do we have to give up, et cetera, et cetera?

Speaker: Yeah.

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.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Chloe goes into the life.

Speaker: No one knows.

Speaker: And we're not really we're not learning at this point.

Speaker: We don't know what is going to happen to her.

Speaker: And so she orders Jai.

Speaker: If if you find out that the trade basically is that Chloe has to die, just blow it the fuck up.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So she's not willing to take that step.

Speaker: She's not willing to trade this girl's life for all of this, which

Speaker: I admire and also I'm like, ah, like, well, it's yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I have some thoughts on the, on the, on that in terms of like how it is in turn.

Speaker: It's like a, it's almost like a full circle moment for UNSC slash earth because, um,

Speaker: You had Halsey who ran the Spartan program, which was predicated on kidnapping children, basically child sacrifice to create the Spartan twos.

Speaker: Torturing their parents because they gave them clones that were set to die.

Speaker: That were set to die.

Speaker: And in my head, the headcanon is like they died in like horribly gruesome ways.

Speaker: They were just like.

Speaker: They were just like running and you're like, oh, catch the ball, Billy.

Speaker: And then the ball hits Billy lightly and he just explodes.

Speaker: Good job, Billy.

Speaker: And they pat him on the head and his head falls off.

Speaker: And his head just falls off.

Speaker: So it is like a full circle where like, all right, well, Halsey did this.

Speaker: And now the clone of Halsey would be the one that needs to make to be sacrificed in the end.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: To quote unquote, like end the story to finish the story.

Speaker: You know what I mean?

Speaker: It closes the circle.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, that's true.

Speaker: That's a really good point.

Speaker: But yeah, so Cole is saying, you know, don't let the kid get hurt.

Speaker: That's that's the rule.

Speaker: And Jai's like, yeah, cool, because Jai's a Spartan.

Speaker: It's like, yeah, whatever you say.

Speaker: I just imagine Jai is taking this call, like fighting like somebody.

Speaker: Yeah, go totally get that.

Speaker: Jai is awesome.

Speaker: Jai is like on the freaking ball with everything.

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.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So, yeah.

Speaker: So.

Speaker: In this moment, then the human fleet arrives to supplement them.

Speaker: Just fucking a shit ton of human ships.

Speaker: We get a lot of ship porn.

Speaker: Look at all these beautiful, beautiful ships.

Speaker: It's very cool.

Speaker: And before they even get a chance to go, we're going to make it.

Speaker: An ex covenant fleet shows up, which has horrifying implication because they

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.

Speaker: Yeah.

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.

Speaker: Um, and that's chapter 27.

Speaker: That's where we are.

Speaker: We are our three quarters of the way through this book.

Speaker: So, uh,

Speaker: What do you think so far, Kevin?

Speaker: How are you feeling?

Speaker: You know, for a book as long as it is, I am really liking the pacing of how we're getting.

Speaker: It does fly by.

Speaker: We're in the last quarter of the book, and all the players and pieces have now moved to a single location.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: They they they were all all over the place and now they are here, you know.

Speaker: So I it's cool to to be like, oh, yeah, I feel like we are heading for a pretty cool showdown.

Speaker: I think most of these people are going to die.

Speaker: Probably.

Speaker: Yeah, we are.

Speaker: We are.

Speaker: We are on the way to a pretty spectacular final.

Speaker: Ninety nine percent of everyone dies.

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.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I think, yeah, I think, I think Abigail Cole is definitely on the way out.

Speaker: James is deaf.

Speaker: There's no way James writes this story.

Speaker: This is, he's literally two days from retirement.

Speaker: That's literally where he is.

Speaker: This is his literal last job.

Speaker: This is it.

Speaker: One last job.

Speaker: And then no, he's dead.

Speaker: He's dead.

Speaker: There's no, it would be irresponsible not to kill him at this point.

Speaker: So, yeah, so he's gone.

Speaker: Probably the Grey Squad, too, because they're so noble and good.

Speaker: They're so good.

Speaker: Yeah, it's like Grey Squad.

Speaker: That's what I'm thinking is Teldron is the only person from Grey Squad who makes it out.

Speaker: I think that makes sense.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So Michael is already half dead.

Speaker: He's been needled up.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He's more bio foam than man.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, yeah, I totally agree.

Speaker: This is this has been it has been worth the build.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: It's a 500 page book.

Speaker: And and they're leading doesn't feel like it.

Speaker: No, it's been very, very briskly.

Speaker: I believe the term you used was breezy and 100%.

Speaker: It's it's fun to read.

Speaker: The action scenes are excellent and kind of.

Speaker: And might I say thrilling.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Great, great stuff.

Speaker: It's a lot of fun.

Speaker: After we're done here, we are going to show you guys.

Speaker: You're going to get an interview that we did with Jeremy Patenode.

Speaker: And

Speaker: He talks about how James and Chloe are like, were his two favorite characters to write while he was writing this book.

Speaker: And it shows.

Speaker: They're really interesting characters.

Speaker: Chloe's hilarious with how mean she is to James.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: She's just an, what an unusual quarry, you know, like this kid that he's like, I'm here to save you.

Speaker: And she's like, go fuck yourself.

Speaker: Oh shit.

Speaker: Shit.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: He like carefully puts the copy of Teen Beat he bought for her behind his back so she doesn't see it.

Speaker: She's like, what are you saving me from?

Speaker: My job?

Speaker: You know, child labor laws are killing this planet.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So she's like a literal accountant and she's like, please leave me alone.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: She's like, I have not finished this quarter.

Speaker: And I'm telling you.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I agree.

Speaker: This is, this is outstanding.

Speaker: The halo books.

Speaker: Just, they just keep stacking up.

Speaker: Very sharp writers.

Speaker: I'm always, it's always a pleasure to come back to halo.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Agreed.

Speaker: Well, uh, now that that is done, Kevin, I have one last question.

Speaker: I wrote it down.

Speaker: Hold on.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Oh, here's here's, uh, what are you playing?

Speaker: Oh, okay.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: What am I playing?

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So I spent the past week playing a little RPG maker horror game called look outside.

Speaker: that for I think I may have had that recommended to me.

Speaker: Yeah, maybe.

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.

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.

Speaker: You play as a guy named Sam who wakes up from a dream with the urge to look outside his window.

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.

Speaker: And you find out that looking outside will kill you.

Speaker: You can actually get my wish list.

Speaker: Yeah.

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.

Speaker: And the achievement you get is followed instructions.

Speaker: This is brutal.

Speaker: The art design on this is creepy.

Speaker: The art designs.

Speaker: I love the art design.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So you play as this guy, Sam, and you have the basic stakes are set early on as

Speaker: It symbol tells you she's heard rumors that this should this is going to pass in 15 days.

Speaker: So you basically have to kill half a month in your in your apartment building.

Speaker: And, you know, you got to find food and all that stuff.

Speaker: But as you journey out of your hotel room, you start finding things are OK.

Speaker: Shit's fucked up.

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.

Speaker: So something happened to him.

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.

Speaker: You can't be in the visitor's eyesight without changing like to observe the visitors.

Speaker: When the visitor observes something, it inevitably changes it.

Speaker: So you you work with these astrologers to acquire four.

Speaker: like four descriptions or depictions of the visitor.

Speaker: So like, but looking at a depiction of the visitor is the same as looking at the visitor himself.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So how do you do it?

Speaker: Like there's this there's this amazing sequence.

Speaker: So I'll just tell you the first like the first the first one I did is you find these

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.

Speaker: So in some in this one guy's apartment, you find a telescope.

Speaker: And so what you do is you take the telescope and you point it outside and you don't look at it.

Speaker: and the light from outside then is pooled on the floor.

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.

Speaker: which is the visitor.

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.

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.

Speaker: So now you have this photo of the visitor that you can't look at, but you have it.

Speaker: but you're not allowed to look at it.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: That's so fucked.

Speaker: Oh, wow.

Speaker: Yeah, it's really cool.

Speaker: There's a guy who has a painting of the visitor.

Speaker: There's a guy who wrote what the visitor looks like.

Speaker: There's security cam footage of the visitor.

Speaker: It's really clever and basically all the things you have to go through to not...

Speaker: to get these things, but also not look at them.

Speaker: That's really cool.

Speaker: I have got to I got to check this one out.

Speaker: That sounds really.

Speaker: It's worth checking out.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I mean, and that's that's those are like some light spoilers I just mentioned, sort of.

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.

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.

Speaker: But it's it's cool.

Speaker: So I beat the game.

Speaker: It took me I have 12 hours of playtime on record.

Speaker: I don't know if all that is actual playtime or some of that's just like leaving it on pause menu.

Speaker: I'm never sure these days.

Speaker: And so I beat the game.

Speaker: I got one of the endings and I was like, OK, yeah, I'm satisfied.

Speaker: I'm not going to go through and try to get all the endings.

Speaker: So I went and watched all the endings as for any Lovecraftian story.

Speaker: Just heads up.

Speaker: It's going to be a bummer.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: Yeah, I believe that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: There's some really funny humor in the game, I'll say.

Speaker: There's some really good humor in it.

Speaker: But the game is also a grim, dark, gory, body horror bummer.

Speaker: Just the way I like them.

Speaker: Just the way you like it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So that was all I was playing the past week.

Speaker: Phil, what are you playing?

Speaker: I played a lot of little indie games.

Speaker: It's been a lot of fun.

Speaker: I know, crazy, right?

Speaker: Me playing indie games.

Speaker: You playing indie games.

Speaker: It's going to tell me that you played a demo.

Speaker: Yes, I'm going to start with the demo.

Speaker: Yes, I played the darkest files, the demo for that game.

Speaker: Really interesting.

Speaker: This is a similar game to the root trees are dead.

Speaker: The uncovering of mystery, the the

Speaker: research oriented, you know, Encyclopedia Brown, solve the mystery kind of thing.

Speaker: The twist on this that I found really very intriguing is that it is actually based on true events and real people.

Speaker: It's based on this group of prosecutors in Germany in the 1950s who were hired specifically to prosecute

Speaker: ex-Nazis because they were having trouble.

Speaker: They knew that Nazis were like there were Nazis, former Nazis who were judges now, who are cops now, who are your neighbors.

Speaker: And these people had to see justice.

Speaker: But no one wanted to really

Speaker: do it because a lot of them, again, were judges and lawyers and powerful people or they were their neighbors, their friends.

Speaker: And so this guy was the only character and who they changed the names of everybody except for and I'm embarrassed.

Speaker: I forget the name now.

Speaker: I'll find it.

Speaker: This guy assembled his fucking, you know,

Speaker: untouchables crack team of, of, uh, you know, prosecutors to find these Nazis and put them in jail, uh, to prosecute them.

Speaker: It's fascinating.

Speaker: It's really very interesting.

Speaker: It is a very interesting idea.

Speaker: Um, it's got courtroom stuff in it.

Speaker: You've got the art style is really, really nice too.

Speaker: It's really cool.

Speaker: It's just it's very clean.

Speaker: I haven't gotten through the entire demo.

Speaker: It's a little more complex than a lot of these kind of games are.

Speaker: There's more to it than it.

Speaker: They don't really hold your hand, but you got to build the case.

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.

Speaker: And it's it's that's pretty cool.

Speaker: It's yeah.

Speaker: And the fact that it's based on a real story, I think that's really neat.

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.

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

Speaker: Adding that to the wish list.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And I'm adding their other game to the wish list.

Speaker: It's it looks like their first game is called Through the Darkest of Times, which is set in Berlin, 1933.

Speaker: Well, fuck.

Speaker: Yeah, I think it is a German team.

Speaker: So.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Oh, that's interesting.

Speaker: So this is pre-war like this is like resistance stuff like organizing labor strikes or whatever.

Speaker: Cool.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: This this team is awesome.

Speaker: What a what a that is.

Speaker: They've got a hell of a body of work here.

Speaker: That's really neat.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Cool.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, yeah, the darkest files, I think it's definitely worth checking out.

Speaker: I played a game called Roguelike Deck Builder.

Speaker: This is... That's not a game.

Speaker: That's just slap some genres.

Speaker: It sure is.

Speaker: It's a roguelike.

Speaker: Is it a deck builder too?

Speaker: You are literally building decks as in a deck in the backyard.

Speaker: You are in some kind of hellscape.

Speaker: It is very bleak and very dark.

Speaker: And the only way, and you make money based on building these decks and doing it well.

Speaker: And a million dollars buys your freedom.

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?

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: I can't even find it because the tag.

Speaker: A roguelite deck builder.

Speaker: Roguelite?

Speaker: Yeah, light.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: That's another thing.

Speaker: There's a light that's constantly turning on and off.

Speaker: It's insane.

Speaker: They got real cute with it.

Speaker: Real cute.

Speaker: I ultimately couldn't play too much of it because this is a game that's meant to be streamed.

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.

Speaker: And if you're off, you can injure yourself and you lose money every time you smash one of your fingers.

Speaker: And

Speaker: It just, and it's a really interesting idea, but honestly, after a few sessions, I was born to fucking tears.

Speaker: Uh, it was just, it was, I was like, am I really gonna do this, uh, up to a million dollars?

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.

Speaker: I was like, I wonder if he, and then of course he already has on his wishlist.

Speaker: There you go.

Speaker: I think the thing is, is it's I think it's a it's really interesting.

Speaker: The art style is wonderful and dark and spooky.

Speaker: The whole idea is actually quite good.

Speaker: It just wasn't for me.

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.

Speaker: So I'm glad I at least played a little bit of it.

Speaker: And the last game I played that I'm still playing is called No Skin.

Speaker: Oh, I think I saw maybe I saw you play it.

Speaker: You may have.

Speaker: I saw it pop up or something like that.

Speaker: Or it was on my

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Oh no, it was on my thing.

Speaker: It was on my, what's it?

Speaker: Discovery queue?

Speaker: Discovery queue.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: My Star Trek discovery.

Speaker: Yes, exactly.

Speaker: This is a roguelike.

Speaker: It's a horror game.

Speaker: It made me think,

Speaker: in a way it made me think of World of Horror.

Speaker: Which is, yeah, World of Horror is listed.

Speaker: When I went to the page, it says, is this game relevant to you?

Speaker: Similar to games you've played.

Speaker: World of Horror.

Speaker: There you go.

Speaker: And Keep Driving.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Oh, I know why they would call this Keep Driving.

Speaker: Just because it's a roguelike, I guess.

Speaker: Yeah, I guess.

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.

Speaker: And the whole thing is you are trying to

Speaker: to find the skin of this creature called no skin.

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.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: And you're, and, and like as you do,

Speaker: As you do.

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.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: It is a very it the art style is really weird.

Speaker: It's got some earthbound vibes.

Speaker: It's also got some like Hotline Miami kind of shit.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: It's it's and I am a I'm a big Hotline Miami fan.

Speaker: I really love Hotline Miami.

Speaker: I wish there was a new one or because I played games.

Speaker: I play.

Speaker: I mean, there's two Hotline Miami games, right?

Speaker: There's been other games of that

Speaker: ilk released by other people, but they never really, they didn't have the sauce.

Speaker: They didn't have the, you know, of Hotline Miami.

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.

Speaker: It's very effectively done.

Speaker: It's really weird.

Speaker: It's a really, really weird game.

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.

Speaker: And then I died and then game of the year.

Speaker: Right, right.

Speaker: I died.

Speaker: It was like, OK, well, we're going to bring you back and here's some stuff you can get.

Speaker: It's like, OK, cool, cool.

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.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Two hours later, I am not I haven't beaten it yet, but it's it's a very unique.

Speaker: kind of a game.

Speaker: It's a lot of fun.

Speaker: It's grim.

Speaker: I don't know what the fuck they're getting at just yet.

Speaker: The storyline means nothing to me at this point, but I'm enjoying peeling back that onion.

Speaker: Peeling back that skin.

Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.

Speaker: Yeah, there you go.

Speaker: There you go.

Speaker: It's really interesting.

Speaker: I'm impressed.

Speaker: I'm impressed by it.

Speaker: So yeah, that's what I've been playing.

Speaker: Awesome.

Speaker: A lot of weird ass indie shit.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: A lot of weird, weird stuff.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I should also mention I've been playing Vampire Survivors on my phone.

Speaker: Oh, nice.

Speaker: Yeah, that's been my battery drainer of choice.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: But yeah, that'll do it for tonight's episode.

Speaker: Thank you all so much for listening.

Speaker: We'll return next week with another episode of Halo, the Empty Throne.

Speaker: In the meantime, in between time, I've heard people say that and it sounds so cool when they say it.

Speaker: But when I say it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: The meantime in between time.

Speaker: Yeah.

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.

Speaker: It's, it's good times.

Speaker: So Phil, the trees are alive again.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So what do I do?

Speaker: These are and they're not like helpful like the ants, you know?

Speaker: No, no, no.

Speaker: No, no.

Speaker: These are these are live oak trees.

Speaker: What do I got to do to keep a live oak in its in its place?

Speaker: Well, all right.

Speaker: You know, it's like you've seen you've seen people who keep bees dressing up as bees.