Transcript
Speaker: Oh yeah, especially when you've built it up as much as he had.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But you know what's always satisfying?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there everybody!
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: We're always satisfying.
Speaker: We're always.
Speaker: We're nougat-y.
Speaker: You're a pixelate?
Speaker: Nougat-y smooth.
Speaker: We're like a Snickers bar.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Hungry?
Speaker: Have a pixelate.
Speaker: Have a pixelate.
Speaker: You know, that's one way.
Speaker: If you get some ramen noodles and you put on pixelate and...
Speaker: We are the chopped green onions and hard-boiled egg that dresses up your ordinary, everyday, 50-cent ramen.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yep, I'm the chopped green onions.
Speaker: I'm the onions.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Kevin's the hard-boiled egg.
Speaker: Oh, I thought I was the onions.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Wait.
Speaker: Am I?
Speaker: Oh, goddammit, I am the hard-boiled egg, aren't I?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anyway, we're finishing off Diablo, the legacy of blood.
Speaker: Legacy of blood.
Speaker: Which, spoiler warning, I've been looking at this super cool dude on the cover this entire time.
Speaker: Nobody who looks like this ever makes an appearance in the book.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: This is merely the cover of one of the expansions to Diablo 2.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That is all it is.
Speaker: That's that's it.
Speaker: They just threw.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That looks cool.
Speaker: Painted on the side of a van.
Speaker: That is right.
Speaker: To borrow an oops all monsters segment.
Speaker: It is bitch and van art.
Speaker: This is indeed bitch and van art.
Speaker: This is that is absolutely what it is.
Speaker: So I got one winner.
Speaker: We got one winner here.
Speaker: So, yeah, we're we're back and we're starting with with Chapter 16 and Kara finds herself underneath Lut Golan.
Speaker: Yes, she's in some sort of a labyrinth wandering around.
Speaker: with this terrifying old man, terrifying old man who is just like settling.
Speaker: Who's just like do do do evil.
Speaker: Yeah, there's evil.
Speaker: Yeah, we heard it.
Speaker: I don't think there's a baby.
Speaker: There might be evil.
Speaker: I don't think that's but evil happened.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: It's like you get the feeling, Kara gets the feeling that things are like shifting and changing as she wanders around.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, big time.
Speaker: And, you know, that's impossible.
Speaker: That can't happen.
Speaker: Corridors can't change like that, can they?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: It's a very tool music video kind of moment.
Speaker: she's just like making herself through all of these weird shifting corridors i love the moment too because she she's like trying to use her magic to figure out how to get through there there's this door and she's like well that can't be it right oh and she's trying to use it and then finally she's just like oh it and just turns the knob on the door and it opens right
Speaker: it made me think of the episode now that you say it i was like i remember laughing when i was listening to that moment she's just like right i'm just gonna i'm just gonna try it and she just it's just like it's a regular ass door it's not a magic door it's just it's just a door why are you so paranoid it made me think of that episode of rick and morty uh where where um oh fuck
Speaker: Chris Parnell's character gets dropped off in like this alternate reality nursing home for guys.
Speaker: The daycare.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: He goes, I am leaving.
Speaker: And the nurse goes, that was always allowed.
Speaker: Right, exactly.
Speaker: That was always allowed.
Speaker: That's what the old man should have said to her.
Speaker: He's like, the door was always allowed.
Speaker: It's just...
Speaker: It is good.
Speaker: It is good.
Speaker: It's a good moment.
Speaker: It's a nice moment.
Speaker: But she does finally come...
Speaker: opens that door, ends up at a blank wall.
Speaker: She's opening one door after the other, and she's just being taken in these impossible circles.
Speaker: Like, she's keeping track of the angles, and it doesn't make sense.
Speaker: Like, it's impossible that she would be turning where she is.
Speaker: And this guy, who they're identifying as Horazon, because...
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: It's it's it.
Speaker: Oh, horizontal is is still alive somehow.
Speaker: We've accepted that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: At this point, the right.
Speaker: Kara has accepted that this is horizontal.
Speaker: This is horizontal.
Speaker: I mean, I'm in an impossible maze.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: It's like she's so she's in an impossible maze.
Speaker: And horizontal is at this point written with the characterization of like the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Very much so.
Speaker: Very much so.
Speaker: You do really expect him to start doing the weird wordplay.
Speaker: It's like, if I'm upside down, why aren't you upside down too?
Speaker: Then that must make you right side up or I'm right side up and you're just like, oh God, I've gone to our side.
Speaker: Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.
Speaker: Jesus.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Shut up.
Speaker: I just like Santa, you know what?
Speaker: I mean, Lewis Carroll, you did.
Speaker: I guess you did some stuff, but like, I just want to reach through the pages sometimes in Alice in Wonderland and just slap the shit out of you because.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm talking a full, full fledged Will Smith, like, like, keep keep these words out of my goddamn book.
Speaker: This will be our only reference to that.
Speaker: This will be our only reference.
Speaker: We are no longer making references to that.
Speaker: As far as Pixel is concerned, it never happened.
Speaker: By the time this episode comes out, 90% of you will have forgotten that it happened.
Speaker: By the time this episode comes out, Will Smith will have attempted to murder the president or something like that.
Speaker: Either one of two things will happen that or he and Chris Rock will star in a commercial together where they they make fun of it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: They make the reference like like Mazda just offers them too much money.
Speaker: I don't know, man.
Speaker: It wasn't going to be Ford.
Speaker: Let's face it.
Speaker: It's Mazda or it's like an insurance company or right or or Snickers.
Speaker: It's like it's like, you know, like when you when you do not yourself, you're not yourself.
Speaker: Yeah, they're going to they're going to someone is going to drive a literal dump truck of money to their house and say, please, oh, please, oh, please do this.
Speaker: And yeah, that's going to work out real well for everybody involved.
Speaker: Chris, Chris Rock's great, great, great grandkids are going to go to Ivy League College just because of that commercial.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And.
Speaker: Meanwhile, meanwhile, she finds she what's that?
Speaker: Oh, oh, yeah.
Speaker: No, she find you're you're continuing on with the Kara and Horazont.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She she finds speaking of Mad Hatter bullshit.
Speaker: She does indeed find Horazont.
Speaker: eating at this fully you know this beautiful spread on a table uh it looks wonderful except the whole thing is is completely upside down she's the only part of the room uh that isn't upstairs staircases are upside down doors are upside down um just like the snickers bars are upside the snickers bars are glued to the ceiling
Speaker: they're not actually upside down they're glued to the ceiling and you're right that's the only part that he couldn't quite get right couldn't quite get right he's like that actually is super glue that's super glue everything else is magic everything else is totally magic i don't know why snickers is immune to my particular form of chicanery there it is so horazon orders the girl to sit and eat right
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Meanwhile, meanwhile, Horazon is an Italian mother-in-law.
Speaker: He so is.
Speaker: He's like, you're not eating enough.
Speaker: You're not eating enough.
Speaker: You're so thin.
Speaker: You're so skinny.
Speaker: Meanwhile, out in the desert, Malevolent and Zazak are up to no good.
Speaker: They're outside of Luka Lane.
Speaker: Of course they are.
Speaker: They just want to fuck some shit up.
Speaker: They are ready.
Speaker: Yeah, they're they're hanging out at at Luke Galane with an army of demons.
Speaker: Zag Zags is like kind of cagey and nervous.
Speaker: It's not really clear why.
Speaker: And they're just sitting around and a patrol starts heading towards them and they just fucking massacre them with these magic flaming arrows.
Speaker: And then in true bad guy fashion, allow one of them to escape so he can tell the others.
Speaker: Tell the others of what has happened here.
Speaker: Tell the others that Wu-Tang ain't nothing to fuck with.
Speaker: And that's what they're there for.
Speaker: But then they just charge.
Speaker: They just start attacking the city.
Speaker: They've got one order.
Speaker: The demons have one order.
Speaker: Bring Malevolent, the man in the armor.
Speaker: And everybody else is disposable.
Speaker: And it's looking pretty good for Luke Galane at first because the archers are shooting down.
Speaker: They're knocking them all down.
Speaker: They're...
Speaker: You know, this city has stood for generations for a reason.
Speaker: The demons are going down and then all of these, you know, they get cocky.
Speaker: They throw down the drawbridge.
Speaker: They charge out on their horses.
Speaker: And that's when all the demons pop back up and just slaughter all of the guys.
Speaker: It's it's kind of embarrassing.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It is an embarrassing battle for the Luke Golanians.
Speaker: for the for the galenians for the lutanians of gold what is for the lgs for the lgs for the lgs for the lgs who keep it real so we're off to the next chapter in norik and uh we're in chapter 17 norik and galleon are just chilling they're they're chilling and uh
Speaker: What?
Speaker: They do hear the violence.
Speaker: Yeah, they're hearing the bloodshed.
Speaker: Yeah, they're hearing the violence and the bloodshed.
Speaker: And they are also looking for the now they are looking for the the tomb of Horus.
Speaker: Well, it's the Tomb of Horrors on or it's the ancient.
Speaker: What is it?
Speaker: What is the other name for it?
Speaker: Sanctum, the sanctum, the arcane sanctum or something like that.
Speaker: Arcane sanctum, which is referred to as the tomb of Horrors on.
Speaker: It's it's like back and forth.
Speaker: Yeah, it's kind of interchangeable.
Speaker: It's kind of interchangeable at this point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is a great moment, too, because this is where they really just... You've probably suspected at this point that Galeona is not really all that capable.
Speaker: She is probably the least successful of all the people we've followed so far, but this is where she really should... You just... Honey, please.
Speaker: We need your stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She's she's like, I'm totally in control of this situation.
Speaker: And she is.
Speaker: She has not exhibited a single ounce of being in control of the situation since page one.
Speaker: None.
Speaker: None whatsoever.
Speaker: Like she's trying to use the she's using the feminine charms thing.
Speaker: And it's like.
Speaker: she's laying, she like, they, they teleport into a room that's full of statues that are just like in the dream that he had earlier.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And she like, she's, she, she lays it on really thick.
Speaker: Like she kisses him and immediately,
Speaker: norick starts thinking i'm gonna get rid of her pretty yeah that's like this ain't good she's a little clingy well a little cling wrap um she's she's yeah she's a little she's yeah don't stick your dick in crazy that's that's the feeling he's getting right yeah they find a uh they find a coffin um and there's nothing actually in it
Speaker: No, they think the horizontal body should be in there.
Speaker: Whoops.
Speaker: No, it's not.
Speaker: No, not there.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: So what would you say happens next?
Speaker: Would you say the building attacks them or it's it's weird?
Speaker: This is this is actually the point in the book where we get a lot of.
Speaker: we start to get a lot of magic from here on out and it can be very wishy washy.
Speaker: And I don't know about you, but I had to reread several sections from here on out that weren't always clear.
Speaker: So, so yeah, he has this dagger that he's been using and he, and he is convinced he says, you know, the wrong markings are on this coffin.
Speaker: None of this is real.
Speaker: He thinks the statue, you know, the statue faces are,
Speaker: what the Bartuk inside of him kind of remembers, but they don't at the same time.
Speaker: And so basically he starts like trying to cut through the illusion.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And and and by the way, Galeona is getting a little snappy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She is snipping and snapping at his heels.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She's yeah.
Speaker: She's she's really playing backseat driver a little too hard for my tastes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so this this dagger basically cuts through the coffin.
Speaker: As if the coffin is not there.
Speaker: So basically it'd be like, oh, none of this is actually here.
Speaker: What we're thinking is here isn't here.
Speaker: It's a projection of what, it's a projection of what I guess Bartuk would have imagined his brother's tomb to look like.
Speaker: That's not explicitly said anywhere.
Speaker: That's not.
Speaker: No, but I think that's kind of what it was hinting was that it's basically just showing me like, oh, yeah, it's totally the tomb of Harzon.
Speaker: This is what it would look like.
Speaker: And I'd be like, no, it's it's not even that's not the room they're in is barren.
Speaker: There's nothing there.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's essentially how I took it too.
Speaker: And when this happens, when it becomes clear that he's not buying it, everything starts to go to hell.
Speaker: Like the room starts to shift and shape and transform.
Speaker: There's hallways and there's not a hallway.
Speaker: And then it's... What's the... Who's the... It's like an Ansel Adams drawing.
Speaker: Or MC Escher.
Speaker: M.C.
Speaker: Escher.
Speaker: What am I thinking of?
Speaker: M.C.
Speaker: Escher.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's an Escher drawing.
Speaker: And every, yeah, the stairs are up on the ceiling and then they're down here and everything's shifting around.
Speaker: He gets knocked over and he's trying to get back up again.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The armor's fucking with him.
Speaker: He's like falling off of a cliff or something.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's falling a lot for some reason.
Speaker: And Galeone, of course, just like, it's just all of 10 minutes.
Speaker: She's like, ah.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: I'm out.
Speaker: I'm done.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I am actually finally making the right decision here and I'm leaving.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And she she gets summarily.
Speaker: So she gets rewarded with her only smart decision for the entire book.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: By getting roasted from the inside out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She she just like it's it's yeah, she she just says fuck off and leaves him.
Speaker: And the armor is just desperate for revenge and just and blows her up.
Speaker: blows her up.
Speaker: Like, just like you said, from the inside out, she basically disintegrates.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's it's very unceremonious.
Speaker: She's just gone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: For a main character, for a point of view character, it's it was actually a little jarring for her to just be like it was literally two sentences of like and then she was gone.
Speaker: And it's like, it's a picture wrap on Galeona.
Speaker: Right, just like that.
Speaker: Just like that.
Speaker: It's pretty abrupt, yeah.
Speaker: And this is one of my criticisms, is like, Kara, if you're going to have her as a point of view character, then I believe point of view characters should have some sort of an arc.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: She doesn't have an arc.
Speaker: Something.
Speaker: She just has a, I want the armor.
Speaker: All she does is change her, who she's affiliated with over the course of the book.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But we don't really even, do we ever even find out why she wants it?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: She just wants it to be in control of it and rule the world maybe.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Which to be fair is everybody.
Speaker: Which is everybody in this book wants that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But Galeona is somewhat, uh,
Speaker: And this is probably going to be some of my harshest criticism for the book.
Speaker: Galeona is a 2D character who is written with that.
Speaker: Basically, all she is is like a sex pot sorcerer who uses her feminine wiles to control men.
Speaker: has no and has zero change from what she believes from beginning to from her first page to the she wants the armor.
Speaker: It's only a superficial change in like she wants to do it.
Speaker: It's not like she changes her mind.
Speaker: She like sees the horrors that the armor could rot and like changes her mind.
Speaker: Like she basically just tries to leave out a self-preservation because it's gotten to be too.
Speaker: It's like this is too much effort.
Speaker: It's too hairy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then and then she gets evaporated for it.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's kind of like a bummer for for for her to have like.
Speaker: And that's why I was jar.
Speaker: It was jarring when she died.
Speaker: Be like, oh, OK, so we're just killing a character.
Speaker: Out a primary character whose arc is not even developed.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That was kind of my my takeaway from that.
Speaker: And it is I don't disagree.
Speaker: And it isn't.
Speaker: It isn't like a end of season one of Game of Thrones kind of jarring.
Speaker: She just she just wasn't given much more than a trope.
Speaker: She's just a trope for all intents and purposes.
Speaker: She's the seductress witch.
Speaker: And that's really all she exists to do.
Speaker: So as we've spoken of before, as we've gone with this book,
Speaker: There's a lot of setup here.
Speaker: And so there's a lot of setup.
Speaker: And this is our first moment where something concludes very definitely.
Speaker: And and it just just didn't quite hit the mark on.
Speaker: Yeah, there's no payoff to any of the setup with Galeona.
Speaker: No, no, I agree.
Speaker: Other than she becomes another piece of cannon fodder for the armor to kill.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker: The only difference.
Speaker: She's our.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The only difference between her main character.
Speaker: First main character to die.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, that happens.
Speaker: So basically the scene ends and we get a playback of that scene from a different point of view now.
Speaker: We start like we start seeing a version of this scene from the point of view of of Kara and the man we are calling Horazon.
Speaker: Right, right, right.
Speaker: They're basically looking at it through a portal or something.
Speaker: And and they witness the same beats up to Galeona getting killed.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And, and it's, uh, it's interesting.
Speaker: She starts to care, starts to realize that this sanctum is arcane sanctum that they're in is like this impossible pocket universe, uh, that he's created here.
Speaker: Everything is self-contained.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: She's begging Horazon to stop the armor.
Speaker: Uh, and, uh, and, and Horazon doesn't seem to care, but the sanctum itself does respond and gives her this vision of what we see in the previous section.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, she starts to see all of this and, uh, and, you know, everything goes down.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: chaos goes down.
Speaker: She sees it all happen.
Speaker: And then she sees Norik battling for control with the armor, um, which tells her, uh, she, she tries to plead with Horazon saying the evil's in the armor, not in this man.
Speaker: Let's try to spare the man and, and ends the curse.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And then kind of asks this pointed question because horizon doesn't seem terribly interested and ask this pointed question of like, is argue is horizon just as bad as his brother?
Speaker: Because he's about ready to just blow them all up.
Speaker: And again, the sanctum hears her and basically allows her to reach out and she gets to enter the domain to hopefully help Norik in this moment.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: yeah um uh so basically uh we pick up in the um in the next chapter in chapter 18 and yeah norik's still falling norik's still falling
Speaker: It kind of feels like it's like I remember I remember when I was I lived up north.
Speaker: I lived in Pennsylvania and the snow in western PA up in the mountains.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Pretty bad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And and my ex, we were walking in the from the dorms and we hit this patch of ice and I caught myself pretty quick and she began to slide.
Speaker: one way and then readjusted and started sliding the other way and then started.
Speaker: And she basically fell for what felt like four minutes.
Speaker: Just she fell forever because every time she readjusted, she started falling in that direction.
Speaker: And I she hated me for a very long time.
Speaker: I'm convinced we broke up because of the down side.
Speaker: I couldn't stop laughing.
Speaker: I couldn't stop laughing.
Speaker: I earned it.
Speaker: I admit it, you know, but I think of that when I think of this, he is just kind of perpetually falling.
Speaker: And then finally, Kara like reaches out and catches him and pulls him up, pulls him up and is like, all right, well, let's let's figure this out.
Speaker: Let's let's work together.
Speaker: And she he's he's like, well, who are you?
Speaker: And she goes, I'm a follower of Rathma.
Speaker: And he's like, he gets he there's like a moment where he's taken aback.
Speaker: By the fact that she's a necromancer and then immediately moves on because he's like, oh, no, I probably shouldn't get too pissy about like her being a necromancer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, yeah.
Speaker: He's like, I don't know if I have much of a leg to stand on here, but they do.
Speaker: They basically take a minute to get each other up to speed with everything that's happened on their side of things.
Speaker: Like he's sharing memories with Bartu.
Speaker: She's been seeing him in visions and they need
Speaker: Horazon to remove the armor essentially.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And, uh, so they're having a nice big conversation.
Speaker: And, uh, while that happened, while they're talking, uh, who appears Zazax.
Speaker: Zazax.
Speaker: Your and my favorite praying mantis.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Our favorite praying mantis.
Speaker: Um, basically, uh, he, he tries to kill Norik, uh,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Kara pushes Norik out of the way because she's she's the only hero in this book.
Speaker: She's the only good person here.
Speaker: And she gets stabbed to death by class.
Speaker: And I was like, I was like, at this point, I was like, given how quickly Galeona was killed, I was like, did we just kill both female characters in back to back chapters?
Speaker: I felt the same way.
Speaker: I was like, no.
Speaker: And here's the thing.
Speaker: I'm so I was just like, no, no, no, that's not.
Speaker: That's not what went down.
Speaker: We both know it.
Speaker: We just know that's not what happened.
Speaker: I refused to believe because, yeah, they basically go, all right, she's dead now.
Speaker: And Zazak finds out about Galeona's fate and has a nice, good, long laugh over that, which is I really did expect some sort of showdown between the two.
Speaker: Between Zazak's and Galeona.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because they built up so much about the two of them being bound to each other or whatever.
Speaker: And it was like, so Galeona got killed and Zazak's realizing that Galeona is dead and nothing happened to him.
Speaker: He's like, oh, I could have killed her all this time.
Speaker: Like, right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's like, we weren't actually bound the way that I thought we were.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: That's hilarious, by the way.
Speaker: He's like, oh, so because he had no idea.
Speaker: He had no idea.
Speaker: He's like, oh, that's stupid.
Speaker: I wasted a lot of time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: OK, so he has.
Speaker: But he finds the humor in the situation.
Speaker: So that's nice.
Speaker: That's nice.
Speaker: Good for him.
Speaker: Good for Zazax.
Speaker: You know, exactly.
Speaker: Zazax and Yaya sitting and having a picnic together.
Speaker: Two of the greatest.
Speaker: Two of the greats.
Speaker: The palindrome twins.
Speaker: Yeah, the palindrome twins.
Speaker: Well, they're not.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It isn't quite one, but still.
Speaker: Back off.
Speaker: He's an honorary one.
Speaker: He's an honorary one.
Speaker: You know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we get this really interesting moment where Zazak starts.
Speaker: He starts basically talking to the armor.
Speaker: Uh, and the armor gestures like, and basically is acknowledging the demons presence much to Norik's horror.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Zazek says, Hey, I know where the helmet is.
Speaker: Do you want to be whole?
Speaker: Do you want to be a full set and get all of your synergistic abilities?
Speaker: And the armor goes, uh, you bet.
Speaker: And, and Zazek goes right this way.
Speaker: And the armor literally just follows him.
Speaker: The armor makes a Scooby doo sound when, yeah.
Speaker: Just, Scooby Shocks.
Speaker: Norek's like, I like Zoey's armor.
Speaker: That's for Scott.
Speaker: That, that one was for Scott.
Speaker: That's for you, Scott.
Speaker: That one's for Scott.
Speaker: Uh, yeah.
Speaker: And, and, and just, and it's kind of hilarious because obviously we've had lots of moments where Norik hasn't been able to control the armor.
Speaker: That's kind of the whole point, but I think this is the most, um, insulting because, because it's the first time that the armor is being addressed.
Speaker: Like he's not in the room.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like, like he's, he's just, he's just secondary.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, and, and yeah.
Speaker: So it's, so at this section ends with the armor, basically following Zazek's lobby and let it's, it's doing the, let's all go to the lobby dance out of the room.
Speaker: Um, yeah, he pulls out a little top and just, just, and they just leave Kara's body there.
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: She ain't getting any living her, but,
Speaker: she is not dead yet no and to quote monty python uh she got better uh yeah exactly exactly i got better um i feel happy um which is the the main you know phrase of the rathma cultist yes of course um
Speaker: So basically who should return but the two ghouls that she is bound to.
Speaker: Sade and Trist and what's his name?
Speaker: The Vajari.
Speaker: Faustian.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They come back and they're like, oh, shit.
Speaker: She
Speaker: Yeah, she's dying.
Speaker: Oh, this this is not good.
Speaker: And this is this is the first because we get all we're going to get all the closure closure.
Speaker: This book does.
Speaker: I'll give it this.
Speaker: This book does wrap up into a nice little package of closure.
Speaker: It's a nice little and nice little closure package.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: It's really nice.
Speaker: And I will say this is the first bit of closure on one detail in the book that I actually, I was like, that's good.
Speaker: That was a nice little twist because she's dying, she's on her way out.
Speaker: And Faustian Seydoux basically, you know, you remember they made a pact with her, a life pact, that anything that happens to her happens to
Speaker: uh, well, everything that happens to them happens to her.
Speaker: I don't know if it works both ways.
Speaker: Clearly it doesn't cause they're fine.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, so, but part of the life pack was them taking some of her life force, which they release, they release the pact.
Speaker: And basically it's basically, they took like half of her HP away.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So she's sitting at zero HP and she has just failed to death saving throws.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: She's going to fail a third when they they zip like one HP back into her.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And she doesn't have to make any more throws.
Speaker: She stabilizes.
Speaker: Stabilizes.
Speaker: Her wound heals.
Speaker: And but except her clothes are covered in the blood that was hers at that point.
Speaker: But she's right.
Speaker: Otherwise, she's she's happy and living.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, she seems to be doing okay.
Speaker: She's living.
Speaker: She's not necessarily happy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, yeah, I don't know if anyone in this world is happy, per se.
Speaker: I imagine it's like at this point, it's like pitch black in there.
Speaker: For some reason, there's just no light.
Speaker: I don't think you're wrong.
Speaker: It doesn't look good in there.
Speaker: It's it's time has passed.
Speaker: But yeah, so we get a we get a quick that we get another moment of getting people up to speed.
Speaker: Yeah, she she's trying.
Speaker: She starts trying to pitch to the revenants the idea of like, we can't.
Speaker: I know you want to kill Norik, but you shouldn't kill Norik because it's not his fault.
Speaker: He didn't mean to kill you guys.
Speaker: The the armor's in charge.
Speaker: And they they both go.
Speaker: Yeah, we know.
Speaker: We were trying to try.
Speaker: We were never trying to kill him.
Speaker: No, nothing to do with it.
Speaker: No, we just we just wanted to get rid of this armor like that was what it was.
Speaker: That was the only goal.
Speaker: And she's like, oh, I'm a dummy.
Speaker: I feel like I feel like questions could have been asked.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I guess we're all friends now.
Speaker: She calls out to Horazon, hoping that he's going to help her.
Speaker: Here's nothing.
Speaker: And so the yeah.
Speaker: So the three of them.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And they give her her sacred knife.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They break the bond and they're like, you know what?
Speaker: You probably need this more than we do.
Speaker: Yeah, this is going to be important.
Speaker: And they let her know this is going to be important against that demon thing.
Speaker: And, you know, the one that stabbed you.
Speaker: Yeah, the stabby demon that stabbed you is you.
Speaker: You're probably going to need this bad boy.
Speaker: And basically because then the knife is like the thing where she it's the thing that she uses to to do most of her magic, I think.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So she's like, she has like one hand tied behind her back this entire time because she doesn't have her super Rathma necromancer knife.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And now she's back to full power, back to full power.
Speaker: She's leveled up.
Speaker: So the chapter ends with all of the, all three of them heading to Luke go lane where they're planning on dealing finally with Bartuk's armor and with Norik himself.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: in chapter 19 where we zip back outside of Luca lane to general Malevolent and his soldiers are still on the attack.
Speaker: But now they kind of made a deal with the generals over there.
Speaker: They're like, look, we're going to keep attacking you.
Speaker: We're going to fuck you up, but we will hold back and we will not fully decimate your city.
Speaker: If you guys search for this man in the arm.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they ain't found them yet.
Speaker: They have not found them yet.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And so... Basically, the armor is gonna just, like, walk right up to him.
Speaker: it's hilarious it's another really unintentionally hilarious moment because he's just standing there he's just watching his demons like just chucking arrows and firing shit at the walls and zazak walks up it's they make a point of saying it's broad daylight yeah this giant brain mantis and a dude in bloody red armor right and here he is zazak's like this one found it
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: And and and malevolent is just drooling right now.
Speaker: Yeah, malevolent is full bad guy like getting he's a bad guy and he's this close to his goal.
Speaker: You know, he's just about to cross the finish line.
Speaker: And he they they're basically and he does the he he monologues.
Speaker: He reveals.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: What the what basically what is going on here?
Speaker: Like why after all this time did was it Norik that the armor went on?
Speaker: And why is it malevolent that who has the helmet?
Speaker: Why is it?
Speaker: Why did all this work?
Speaker: And Malevolent breaks it all down Basically Norik and Malevolent Are Are relatives
Speaker: And they are ancestors of Bartuk.
Speaker: So they're both they're both long, long ancestors, several, several things removed from from Bartuk.
Speaker: But their blood, they're his, they're they're his blood nonetheless.
Speaker: So that's why.
Speaker: He explains why, oh, well, you know, there's all these dead bodies down there.
Speaker: Don't you think it's weird that you're, like, the first one, like, that the armor jumped onto?
Speaker: Which I have to admit, I hadn't thought about.
Speaker: Yeah, it was like, that is a good point that, like, you have to imagine that somebody in the previous dead body groupings had at least, like, maybe put their hand on it or something and nothing happened.
Speaker: Like, tried to grab it, that got pulled away by some other ghouls or whatever.
Speaker: And when when Norik touched it, it magically appeared on him.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I think that's that's a good point that that ties up that little loose end of not that not that it was like a loose end that I was actually thinking about actively.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was it was one that I'd completely forgotten about by this time, by this time.
Speaker: But when they brought it up, I was like, oh, wow, that's that.
Speaker: That's a really good point.
Speaker: That's OK.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So now, and by the way, on a side note here, this is the first moment in the book so far that I feel like I fully interpret how much of a dandy malevolent is.
Speaker: He comes off as very poncy, very rich man kind of general, which I wasn't picking up on before.
Speaker: Very foppish.
Speaker: But this is the first.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think it's because he monologues like an old James Bond villain here.
Speaker: Do you expect me to talk?
Speaker: Oh, I expect you to give me the armor.
Speaker: It's that kind of it's that level of like, here are my evil plans monologuing.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And so, yeah, we finally, so Malevins like, well, time to get the armor off of you.
Speaker: So he tries to cast one of the spells that he's been using before that just drains you of your life force.
Speaker: Like, let's just get it over with.
Speaker: Doesn't work.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Doesn't work at all.
Speaker: Nothing happens.
Speaker: Nothing.
Speaker: And Zazax is like, well, maybe the armor thinks that you're attacking it.
Speaker: Maybe you need to just like...
Speaker: They just need to kill Norik and just we'll deal with getting the armor off.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And guess what?
Speaker: It's the armor is not necessarily a fan of malevolence ideas.
Speaker: But.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: The armor, he goes to cut his head off and the armor defends itself.
Speaker: Like he brings out his, you know, shadow blade and the armor brings out his shadow blade and cling clang.
Speaker: We got a lightsaber fight.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: We get out.
Speaker: We get our good old fashioned 17th century lightsaber fighting.
Speaker: It's just it's it's really weird because I don't fully understand
Speaker: I don't fully grasp why the armor is fighting amongst itself.
Speaker: I, my guess, and I, they may even mentioned this, but my guess is they want to see who's the most worthy, who comes out on top.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think it is, has something to do with like the will of like, if malevolent had the armor, it's less likely to be Bartuk like in control than,
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So Bartu likes being in control and it knows it can do that with Norik.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: I think that's kind of the vibe there.
Speaker: So it's like, no, you're going to give me the helmet.
Speaker: We're not giving you the armor.
Speaker: It's just easier, really.
Speaker: So Zazax is watching this fight go down and he's once again.
Speaker: Did you ever hear of Zazax being nervous?
Speaker: Oh, he is.
Speaker: It happened again.
Speaker: It happened again.
Speaker: He's a nervy little dude.
Speaker: demon boy.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: He is a very insecure, very insecure demon for being a massive.
Speaker: He might as well be a Disney villain.
Speaker: He's just or not even the full villain.
Speaker: He's like Iago.
Speaker: He's more like Iago.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He puts on a big show and makes a lot of noise.
Speaker: And now I'm reimagining Zazak as being voiced by Gilbert Gottfried.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: And who would play Malevolent in this?
Speaker: Well, at this rate, I want Jeremy Irons.
Speaker: Jeremy Irons.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I want Jeremy Irons.
Speaker: I want another Disney villain veteran who is not at all afraid of hamming it up for a bad fantasy movie.
Speaker: I'm imagining him in Die Hard with a Vengeance.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like Luke Galena's is being burned to the ground and he's standing there like holy Toledo Yeah, looks like somebody had fun
Speaker: God, he was that was just the extra hammy Jeremy Irons in that one.
Speaker: It was so good.
Speaker: He just we will also take Malcolm McDowell in a pinch.
Speaker: Yes, we will take Malcolm McDowell or or Terran Stamp.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Terran Stamp still alive, right?
Speaker: Oh, no, no.
Speaker: I got it.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: Alive.
Speaker: He's alive.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: He's alive.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: He'd be so good.
Speaker: You can't get Malcolm McDowell.
Speaker: You go Terrence Stamp.
Speaker: They all come from the same school of creepy, weirdly aging guys.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That works out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it works.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: So while Iago is sitting there getting all nervous, biting his nails,
Speaker: biting his nails.
Speaker: He's thinking to himself, basically, the Lyle is going to see him as a total fool if he's backed the wrong person.
Speaker: He's starting to get nervous because he thought Norik was just going to be a pushover.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And if he looks stupid, it might be the end of him.
Speaker: And he thinks to himself that he needs to even the odds.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which probably means fighting dirty.
Speaker: He's fighting dirty.
Speaker: He's going to fight dirty.
Speaker: And one of the other things that we see with Norik's... Norik is watching the fight happen.
Speaker: He's kind of backseat on this one.
Speaker: And he's just like, oh, damn, the armor's kind of shitty.
Speaker: It doesn't actually know how to fight.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, this is hilarious.
Speaker: Yeah, this is great.
Speaker: It's missing openings.
Speaker: It's like it's like it's like and it's basically he's basically saying to the armor, he's like, you know, sword fighting has evolved a lot over the last thousand years.
Speaker: I don't think I know as much as you think, you know, right.
Speaker: Even if you are fighting against yourself.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's, it's, it's actually very clever because while Bartu might be a super powerful sorcerer, he isn't necessarily like the greatest sword fighter.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: And he starts noticing actual moves that a malevolent is using.
Speaker: And he, as a veteran of several wars and different campaigns recognizes what the, uh, you know, the, uh, what do you call them?
Speaker: retaliatory moves would be against them.
Speaker: And he starts kind of shouting at the armor, let me fight, like, let me do something here.
Speaker: And he's working against it and fighting against it until eventually he does gain control.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: The armor is like, like, all right, see if you can do better, you know?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But if you die, it's on you.
Speaker: If you die, it's on you.
Speaker: I mean, the armor is just moderately invested in winning this fight.
Speaker: At any time, you'd be like, you know, whatever, man.
Speaker: It is funny, isn't it?
Speaker: Every other time that the armor takes control, the armor is this unstoppable killing machine.
Speaker: And for this one, it does feel like the armor is kind of phoning it in.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: just like i guess man i win no matter what so fuck it you know whatever yeah uh but yeah that is probably one of my uh my favorite uh uh moments in the book um and then oh it's hilarious and then and then the chapter ends with zazak's being like now
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because as X like, yeah, real it looks like Norik is about to win.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then we kind of we we leave on a cliffhanger and basically we cut over to Kara just like she is now outside on the dune and she's like, oh.
Speaker: Oh, this is a lot of bad shit happening.
Speaker: A lot.
Speaker: A lot is going a lot of things happening here.
Speaker: Yeah, this is this is what but first things first.
Speaker: So she she basically runs up just as as X is about to bring his horrible claws down on.
Speaker: She runs up and stabs the shit out of him and stabs the shit out of him.
Speaker: She buries the dagger in him.
Speaker: And now that the dagger is in him, she can, like, cast all sorts of hurdy spells at him.
Speaker: And he is not loving it.
Speaker: No, no, he is.
Speaker: He is not doing great.
Speaker: They just start having a fight back and forth.
Speaker: And then she essentially casts what turns out to be a fear spell on him.
Speaker: And he starts seeing angels everywhere.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Because if there's one thing that we are absolutely certain that Zazek hates, it's angels.
Speaker: And and he just fucking beats feet and gets out of there.
Speaker: And Kara kind of reads all of our minds at this moment where she's like, well, that's not exactly a satisfying end to him.
Speaker: No, I'd much rather it be a little more permanent, but we'll take what we can get.
Speaker: Zazek's basically Hunter S. Thompson's and says we were just out of Barstow.
Speaker: When the drugs began to take hold and he starts seeing right?
Speaker: He's seeing creatures everywhere.
Speaker: Yeah, and he just runs.
Speaker: Jesus, where are these goddamn animals?
Speaker: And he just, and he's gone.
Speaker: He's gone.
Speaker: Cause who hasn't imagined the Dr. Hunter S. Thompson as a giant praying mantis who among us, I ask you.
Speaker: Who amongst us?
Speaker: Uh, and that person may cast the first stone or something.
Speaker: Cast the first fear spell.
Speaker: Cast the first fear spell.
Speaker: So Kara has this moment though, where she realizes she starts watching Norik and malevolent fighting and she realizes that whoever wins, she's probably gonna, yeah, I'm gonna probably have to kill somebody.
Speaker: She's not.
Speaker: She has to hype herself up.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Murder.
Speaker: Murder somebody.
Speaker: Murder someone.
Speaker: So malevolent is spouting more of his magic eugenics.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: It's essentially what it is.
Speaker: Like, he's like, we're part of the same bloodline, but my blood is thicker than your blood.
Speaker: I have the better blood clearly.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, he's, he's, he's part of the one drop theory there.
Speaker: And, and he's just, he's spouting off like that.
Speaker: And, and he starts to try to tear off Norik's face because he's losing the, and you know how it is.
Speaker: The moment someone starts to lose a fight,
Speaker: they immediately try to tear off somebody's face.
Speaker: It's that old chestnut.
Speaker: That old chestnut.
Speaker: So at one point, Malevolent tries to just like, I'm going to just go for it.
Speaker: And he takes a big old swing.
Speaker: And Norik is disarmed until he remembers that the sword is magic.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He warlocks the sword out of thin air just as Malevolent is charging and whoopsie daisy, he has successfully stabbed a killing blow, Malevolent, right in the chest with this big old magic sword.
Speaker: It is kind of hilarious.
Speaker: He's like, oh, shit.
Speaker: It's not kind of.
Speaker: It's really hilarious because it's like all he's been fighting with are these magical swords that are appearing out of thin air.
Speaker: And he and he and I guess for a while he thought he was charged.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: For a while, he's like, I'm disarmed.
Speaker: And I'm like, no, you can put you pull a sword out of thin air, man.
Speaker: It's it's it's your ult.
Speaker: Just fucking do it.
Speaker: Just fire your ult.
Speaker: And he does and he wins and he, and he takes the helmet and puts it on a lot of Bartu in his head.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We get a little Bartu and blood and, and he, he cuts off general malevolent's head.
Speaker: Uh, like you oughta, just to, just to, to clear, just to tie up that loose ends because the, the, the stabbing of the heart wasn't enough.
Speaker: You gotta know.
Speaker: the yeah so we got a lot we got a lot of vigo the carpathian bullshit for the next couple of days super vigo absolutely i mean we've been getting that from bartook since the beginning on a mountain of bones on a throne of blood
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And he takes it that extra Vigo step forward when Kara approaches and he starts and now it's Bartuk's turn to check out.
Speaker: Yeah, she's like, everyone needs to check her out.
Speaker: She's hot.
Speaker: She's hot.
Speaker: And she and she he's, you know, she's hot.
Speaker: She's hot, but doesn't know it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And she clearly does it clearly.
Speaker: And it starts out.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Because he's like, he's like, okay, how can I use her?
Speaker: What can I, you know, what, what, what is this?
Speaker: This girl could be a wonderful pawn.
Speaker: How do I use?
Speaker: And you're like, okay, that is probably how that guy would think.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Everyone he met.
Speaker: And then he starts going, she isn't unattractive.
Speaker: However, she could be, maybe she could be one of my whores.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She could be my consort.
Speaker: If you know what I mean.
Speaker: And it's just like this poor fucking woman.
Speaker: Can she go one interaction without somebody saying, hey, you're hot.
Speaker: Pretty hot.
Speaker: But you don't know it.
Speaker: I'm telling you this for the first time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You've never heard this before, have you?
Speaker: She's like the other side of the coin from Galeona, where Galeona wants to seduce people, but isn't very good at it.
Speaker: And then Kara, who seduces people constantly, but doesn't want to.
Speaker: you know it's just she doesn't it's a mess she doesn't want to deal with it um she doesn't yeah uh so she tries she's like put the helmet off she's like trying to and she's also trying to talk like trying to one last ditch effort of like like hey like
Speaker: fight it you know let's let's you're norik you don't have to um you don't have to and then he uses sand magic because i guess he has sand magic to bind to bind her to the uh the dune with sand yeah he just he shoves her in the dune uh and uh he's basically completely under bartook's spell at this point and puts on uh the helmet
Speaker: And let's see.
Speaker: Our buddies show up.
Speaker: And then we get.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then the revenants get ready.
Speaker: Oh, well, we do.
Speaker: It's kind of a cool moment.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She's trying to she tries to talk him out of it and reminds him of his friends and, you know, basically how many more people would be killed.
Speaker: He gets one last little moment of humanity and then he sees that she's got that knife in her hands and interprets it as correctly, by the way.
Speaker: You're going to try and kill me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which she was.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's like, let's wrap.
Speaker: Let's let's wrap her up in some sand rope.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And he's like, I am victorious.
Speaker: And then Satan and Faustin show up.
Speaker: And that breaks that kind of breaks the Bartukness.
Speaker: And he's like, oh, shit.
Speaker: I am so sorry, guys.
Speaker: I didn't mean to murder you.
Speaker: And they're like, we forgive you.
Speaker: And then I think it's Satan.
Speaker: And now we're going to rip your arm.
Speaker: Satan goes yoink and takes the helmet.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Takes the helmet.
Speaker: It just and and just and then he the armor blasts them away.
Speaker: He's struggling.
Speaker: He's fighting.
Speaker: And finally he gets up his his his power meter is full and he manages to rip off one of the gauntlets.
Speaker: And and then while he now you remember, he's always been he's been casting a lot of spells, but the words have been coming out of him without his say so.
Speaker: But he starts to use Bartuk's memories, which are, of course, in his head to cast a spell of his own.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And across town, across town, about 100 feet away.
Speaker: Meanwhile, at the gate inside of Luke Goulain, all of the people, all of the soldiers who are being inhabited by demons, that spell breaks and the demons start like...
Speaker: gorily ripping out of the the soldiers bodies and then dying because they don't they can't like stay on the mortal plane so it's just like this this body horror moment of these soldiers just like disintegrating in piles of blood and demon viscera and there's this one point where it says one of the luke gillane soldiers throws up
Speaker: Yeah, fair enough.
Speaker: Yeah, fair enough.
Speaker: Fair enough.
Speaker: That's that's yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah, that's it's yeah, it's a really horrifying moment.
Speaker: It's pretty great.
Speaker: It's like the messiest exorcism.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: With no less.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's it's pretty gross.
Speaker: It's pretty gross.
Speaker: So and now Kara is is totally she's broken out of the sand ropes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And she is trying again to to talk him out of like.
Speaker: Like, you can do it.
Speaker: You can get the rest of this armor off.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let's... And he's like, no.
Speaker: You gotta kill me.
Speaker: Go straight for the neck.
Speaker: Just kill me.
Speaker: Let's get it done.
Speaker: And then a Deus Ex fucking Machina...
Speaker: Jesus ex machina.
Speaker: Jesus ex machina.
Speaker: Horizon.
Speaker: The old man is like basically is like doop-a-do-do and just like the armor's off.
Speaker: He like he's able to he's able to get the armor off.
Speaker: He talks the armor into like
Speaker: He basically talks the armor into taking itself off or something like that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because he's like, you know what?
Speaker: Our time is our time is over, you know, right?
Speaker: Buddy, come on, come home, come home, brother.
Speaker: And it's an interesting moment because he's like, my powers negate your powers, your powers negate my powers.
Speaker: Let's just be.
Speaker: Let's just call the whole thing off.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Let's just let's just wrap it up.
Speaker: And.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Did you understand this part any better than I did?
Speaker: I think you know what I'm talking about, because you were talking before the man we call.
Speaker: Yes, the man we call Horazon.
Speaker: So basically, Horazon was never the man.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Horazon was the building.
Speaker: That they were in the arcane.
Speaker: The arcane sanctum was Horazon.
Speaker: Horazon explains that at one point he was down there and he was building this arcane sanctum.
Speaker: And then he's like, this sucks.
Speaker: I'm just going to become the arcane sanctum.
Speaker: And he does.
Speaker: I think we've all we've all been there, as you do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: And the but the homeless guy, if you will, they the crazy old man was just some wizard who got caught down.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Some wizard who was just like wandering around.
Speaker: And yeah, they they he he loses his mind down in the arcane sanctum and Horazon feels bad about it.
Speaker: So they go, just let this guy hang out here and do stuff for me, you know, run out for groceries and shit.
Speaker: Literally.
Speaker: Yeah, literally.
Speaker: So now, Horazon possesses the wizard man.
Speaker: And that's how all this scene is happening.
Speaker: Right now.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: OK, I did.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I'm just glad I had it right.
Speaker: I just.
Speaker: Yeah, you had it right.
Speaker: Now, with the resolution of what happens, like the armor, the armor gets sucked down into the sand or whatever.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the old man who Horazon possessed turns to dust.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He just, Oh, you understand that it was fucked up that you possessed my body and soul for so long.
Speaker: Do you, are you going to give me a new life where I'm going to get to go out and, and find my own destiny and maybe study magic again?
Speaker: And Oh no, none of that.
Speaker: You're just, you're worm food.
Speaker: You're worm food.
Speaker: You're not even worm food.
Speaker: You're just sand.
Speaker: You are sand.
Speaker: It is over.
Speaker: And it's like the way it's kind of written is kind of grotesque because it's like the last thing Norik sees is like a pair of eyes in the sand.
Speaker: And then they turn to sand.
Speaker: And it's like, oh.
Speaker: For a moment there, there was a pillar of sand and a pair of eyeballs sitting inside of it for just one moment.
Speaker: So now we have, just as a checklist, Malevolent.
Speaker: Malevolent's dead.
Speaker: Galeona's dead.
Speaker: Bartuk's armor is gone.
Speaker: Gone.
Speaker: Horazon is gone.
Speaker: Horazon's gone.
Speaker: Zazax is MIA.
Speaker: yeah yeah after that's uh for now uh who do we have to to to wrap up oh we got we need picture wrap on sad satan and faustin um yep who are like oh uh who explained like oh cara by the way it wasn't you that resurrected us uh right it was like it was him and they're like him who um
Speaker: And it was like, it's like, oh, Zazax's actual fears come to life.
Speaker: It's like an actual fucking angel resurrected.
Speaker: An actual angel.
Speaker: It is the most, it is the most like
Speaker: It's like this quick moment from one of those Christian paperbacks you see at the Walmart.
Speaker: Like, is there really a heaven?
Speaker: Yes, an angel brought me back to life to help fight back against my friend who was taken over by the devil.
Speaker: By the devil, because they were playing Dungeons and Dragons.
Speaker: It was mazes and monsters down there.
Speaker: It was mazes and monsters.
Speaker: So the angel just, Jesus is Satan and Faustin right up to heaven.
Speaker: Just does the Jesus and the Mary.
Speaker: They both got pulled right up to heaven.
Speaker: Read your Bible, folks.
Speaker: That's what happens.
Speaker: They don't die.
Speaker: Mary never died.
Speaker: Fun fact.
Speaker: Mary never died.
Speaker: She was just pulled right up.
Speaker: I heard that.
Speaker: I heard that from a guy.
Speaker: You heard that from a guy.
Speaker: I heard that from a guy.
Speaker: A guy named Jesus.
Speaker: A guy named Jesus?
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: The revenants, that's picture wrap on the revenants.
Speaker: The revenants are like, oh, an angel told us to do it.
Speaker: He's here now.
Speaker: He's our ride.
Speaker: And before Kara and Norik can so much as utter the words, what the fuck, they're gone.
Speaker: They're gone and they're left alone.
Speaker: They're like, they got Malevolent's dead body.
Speaker: They got like thousands of Malevolent soldiers like dead and rotting out in the desert sand.
Speaker: They're just standing there on the sand dune and everybody is gone.
Speaker: It is just Kara and Norik and Kara is like, and this, no,
Speaker: we are not being brief this is how the book wraps up it is truly it is like a madcap ending of of things just wrapping up um yes uh and basically kara's like well uh i'm gonna hang out in luke lane a little while and see if they need any help rebuilding and norik's like can i come with you and she's like sure and they the end they walk off into the sunset
Speaker: They go, yeah, we, god damn it.
Speaker: We get one more fucking like, oh, she's pretty cute.
Speaker: And finally, she's like, you get the impression that she's like, he is also very handsome.
Speaker: He is also handsome, which I thought Norik was like a dude in his 50s.
Speaker: So that's how I took it, too, because they emphasized that he was a veteran, which I know you don't have to be in your 50s.
Speaker: But like he spent his the way he's written.
Speaker: I thought he was like an old veteran, like, yeah, fighting forever.
Speaker: And and Kara is like 20.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it felt weird.
Speaker: It was, it was just a weird kind of, but all right, fine.
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: Weird vibe.
Speaker: You know, it's just like, okay, great.
Speaker: They're going to have babies.
Speaker: I guess they're going to go have babies.
Speaker: And then we get a nice little send off a little epilogue where Zazax is running through the desert.
Speaker: He's like, ah, yep.
Speaker: And he's still thinking he's seeing angels, but then something starts talking to him.
Speaker: He's like, well, the well, the hallucinations never actually talked to me.
Speaker: So somebody's talking to me.
Speaker: And then this is real.
Speaker: This is real.
Speaker: And then he's like trying to figure out like.
Speaker: this all this happens right before this zazax is trying to figure out like okay how can he save his hide with belial like well i can get some of the demons that that did manage to live from that spell and i can send them back down that should make belial a little happy because he sent me so many demons uh and he sent me a lot he sent me a lot of demons and they're all dead now
Speaker: so i don't know so he's like trying to figure out how to curry favor back with blile wrecked his dad's car and he's like i gotta find a way to you know buff these dents out and then dad won't kill me yeah and while he's thinking about that something somebody starts talking to him and uh it starts like insulting him like i should have i recognized you're you anywhere and uh uh zazax is like
Speaker: huh that's and then you just see like diab and um and basically uh he's dead yeah yeah we get we get we get the the cut off he starts to cry out the name diablo and then we he's very much a dead demon because diablo one of the primordial evils is free and uh it's not a fan of zazax apparently
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And you know what?
Speaker: I don't blame him.
Speaker: Zazak felt like he felt like more of a Power Rangers villain than anything else.
Speaker: Just ultimately very cowardly and kind of stupid.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cowardly, stupid.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You get rid of that guy.
Speaker: Get rid of that guy.
Speaker: If he can be taken out by a bunch of fucking teenagers with dinosaur blades, then honestly, I don't don't.
Speaker: I wish that that's how he was killed.
Speaker: i would kill if for that if that was the diablo power rangers if he was like wandering through the streets of luke gillain just like eating rats to try to heal himself or something like that and just like some some teenagers just beat him and stole his his sneakers or something like that
Speaker: I think that would have been the most appropriate way for... It would be a way more... It would have been the fate that Zazek deserves.
Speaker: Let's face facts.
Speaker: He deserves that.
Speaker: Just to get...
Speaker: beaten to shit and back.
Speaker: You're not even killed, just beaten up and humiliated by a bunch of 14 year olds that should be in school.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That would be better.
Speaker: But that's the ending we got anyway.
Speaker: And and and that's the end of Diablo Legacy of Blood.
Speaker: That's the end of Diablo Legacy of Blood.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Five check on this.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: What are you feeling about this book, buddy?
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: I have a lot of feelings because on one hand, this book had moments in it that were unlike anything we have had in other books we've read so far.
Speaker: You've got who could forget the pig demons from hell.
Speaker: literally crawling out of the crust of the earth to bring him dead lizards and squirrels and shit to him.
Speaker: The demon work is really fun.
Speaker: There are these really interesting moments within this.
Speaker: And even a few tied up ends like the ones we mentioned that have that work really, really well.
Speaker: But I we challenged this book to make all of the setup, all of the building blocks being set up worth it in the end.
Speaker: And I don't think it fully pulled it off.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And on top of that, the tone is kind of weird.
Speaker: Like, it's interesting because this book is not based on any moment in Diablo.
Speaker: No, it's not.
Speaker: It's set in the world.
Speaker: It's set in the immediate aftermath of Diablo 1.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that can be a lot of fun.
Speaker: As we have seen before, when the author is given free reign to just play in a world, you know, like like John Shirley, for example, with, you know, and any number and deets and then the people when they are the best parts are always the parts that they are just playing with that they make whole cloth instead of having just to adapt one dungeon after another or one level after.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, there, but there were moments in this that I wasn't sure how true to the world it was.
Speaker: Uh, Diablo is like blizzards edge Lord franchise.
Speaker: It's very bleak.
Speaker: It's very dark.
Speaker: It's very grim.
Speaker: And, and I know we keep harping on it, but I can't get it at the whole, like Kara needs a boyfriend thing.
Speaker: was driving me crazy yeah it was it was like it like maybe once or twice maybe once one it can happen once where and and maybe just as a a method of demonstrating uh her agency as opposed to like she doesn't need a fucking man you know
Speaker: right um right or if or if we had her with a character where a relationship even of the romantic stripe built up over time yes fine okay we ended this book with this random kind of thing where you can tell that they're kind of sweet on each other yeah i don't know who that's for i don't know and i don't know these characters literally just met each other this is her first time really meeting norick
Speaker: without like the cloud of without the cloud of and as an audience we don't know a whole lot about Norik outside of the armor we know some things but it's like
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: We had we had lots of moments where we could have fleshed him out a little bit more.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Even if it meant sacrificing some of these some of the characters.
Speaker: I Galeona ended up being kind of unnecessary.
Speaker: Even even to the point with like her her ties to malevolent kind of went nowhere.
Speaker: And then her tie to Zazac went nowhere.
Speaker: It was just like basically thrown out at the end of the book.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It was like, oh, yeah, there was no need.
Speaker: Their connection didn't mean anything.
Speaker: It was fine.
Speaker: And it was just why is that necessary?
Speaker: There are a lot of wonderful moments.
Speaker: I'm not going to get on this book, you know, but yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: There was a lot of stuff in here that it just the theme felt a little off.
Speaker: The tone felt a little off.
Speaker: And there was just there was a lot of there were too many.
Speaker: Whereas we've had lots of books where there was so much padding and unnecessary additions.
Speaker: This had too much skeleton.
Speaker: You were making a human with nine arms.
Speaker: It was like, we don't need that many arms in true Diablo fashion.
Speaker: It had too much skeleton.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I mean, what about you?
Speaker: Is that basically where you feel?
Speaker: That's pretty much where I land on it.
Speaker: I think like in terms of.
Speaker: Descriptiveness, setting a scene for the most part, really good there.
Speaker: It gets a little loosey goosey at the end with describing and letting the reader understand what the fuck is actually happening, especially when you get to the arc when you get to the arcane sanctum stuff.
Speaker: um yeah oh yeah that one was very obtuse it was very obtuse um yeah overall it's it's like and and at the end of uh at the end of this year we'll probably do another you know discussion about where we we kind of slot everything um yeah this is this is probably forever going to live in the mid-pack um where yeah yeah
Speaker: The quality and the style of the writing is fine, but the theme, the characters, the characterization, it all felt a little like, eh.
Speaker: For 75%, you're like, this is really cool.
Speaker: And then 25%, you're like, it kind of ruined the other 75%, didn't it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Knack is very good at moments.
Speaker: These, these interesting scenes, these set, the moments are great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, but it, it just, for whatever reason, you know, this particular piece, those moments just didn't hang together all that well.
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: So yeah, I think it's got a lot of interesting meat.
Speaker: uh but a nine-armed skeleton a lot of interesting meat but not enough meat on too many bones
Speaker: right right we we get these wonderful little nuggets in in in the in the different but you really gotta like fish that meat out in between like a couple of ribs or whatever and it's like right you catch your finger on it and it's like uh it's like a it's like you order a whole chicken from boston market but yeah for some reason there's like half of the meat is missing
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And the meat that's there is really tasty meat.
Speaker: I just I just wanted a whole.
Speaker: I just wanted a whole chicken tonight and I did not get it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you and you forgot the mashed potatoes and you forgot you ordered the mashed potatoes.
Speaker: You ordered the potatoes.
Speaker: I ordered the delivery person did not give you the mashed potatoes.
Speaker: And I think you knew that I wanted mashed potatoes because you included a little cup.
Speaker: The mashed potatoes were actually the the reason you made the order in the first place.
Speaker: It's all I wanted.
Speaker: It's all you wanted.
Speaker: You can't do that.
Speaker: You can't just order mashed potatoes.
Speaker: I'm not going to spend $20.
Speaker: Yeah, I can't.
Speaker: You can't just order that.
Speaker: I'm not going to spend like the fee and tipping the guy and stuff.
Speaker: And that's $25 mashed potatoes.
Speaker: That's stupid.
Speaker: I'm not doing that.
Speaker: So I'm getting the chicken.
Speaker: But then all I get is half chicken and then no mashed potatoes.
Speaker: And my night is ruined.
Speaker: I'm really hungry.
Speaker: So that's my letterbox review of Diablo.
Speaker: It's pretty much how it works.
Speaker: It's pretty much how it all went down.
Speaker: I think those of you who read along with us will recognize it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Our thoroughly thought out metaphor here.
Speaker: It is a pitch perfect metaphor.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: There's never been a better one.
Speaker: So we coming up next.
Speaker: We're just talking about this.
Speaker: We got some fun for you.
Speaker: Yeah, we got some fun for you next.
Speaker: Coming up next, we have our interview with John Shirley, the author of Bioshock Rapture.
Speaker: He joined us to talk about Bioshock Rapture, this stuff he's doing now, all that fun stuff and the crow as well, because if you didn't know it, he is the the co-script writer of of the crow.
Speaker: Yes, that dude's had a fucking he has had a he has had a career and it's a really interesting chat.
Speaker: So look forward to that.
Speaker: And then after that, we got what we got.
Speaker: We got Mortal Kombat coming up.
Speaker: Starting after the interview with John Shirley, we got Mortal Kombat.
Speaker: So
Speaker: Oh boy.
Speaker: It's been a really interesting year already.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We've had some really interesting books in this lineup and we're just getting started.
Speaker: It's we're not even halfway through the year yet.
Speaker: Oh, I know.
Speaker: It's beautiful.
Speaker: It's a beautiful thing.
Speaker: But that'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: If you could do us a solid go on twitter.com, which Elon Musk owns 10% of now.
Speaker: i don't want to talk i don't want to talk about it either um but you can find us on twitter.com uh at pixelitpod go ahead and follow us there uh you can follow us on instagram at pixelitpod uh go and rate us five stars on your podcast platform of choice uh you can do that on spotify you can do that on apple you can also do that on audible i don't know if there's any i haven't looked that deep into the stats oh shit i
Speaker: think about don't know if there's any anyone listening to us on audible but you can listen to podcasts on audible you you can so we're there we're there we're on yeah we're on audible too because why not i i because it because we want you to be able to find us everywhere wherever you are wherever fine podcasts you're one of the weirdos who listens to podcasts on yeah wherever fine podcasts are sold you can find us there um
Speaker: And if the platform supports us, write us a little review and maybe we'll read it on the show.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: That will do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: Have a good night, everyone.
Speaker: Bye.
