Transcript
Speaker: It can be way bleaker, which is weird because the first book was pretty bleak.
Speaker: But it also had kind of a high fantasy, like demons crawling out of the earth to fix you a meal bullshit, you know, like all that stuff.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Had a little whimsy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A little whimsy.
Speaker: A little whimsy.
Speaker: You know, the demons crawling out of the earth to make you a dinner.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That was fun.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That was fun.
Speaker: You know what else is fun?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixlet.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me as always is Phil.
Speaker: And today on the show, we are starting Diablo, The Black Road.
Speaker: So before we get started, Phil, can you tell me a little bit about the author of Diablo, The Black Road?
Speaker: All right, so we're dealing with Mel Odom, which is tough because the first thing you get when you look for Mel Odom is this really kind of cool, stylized painter.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And I'm not going to lie to you.
Speaker: I went down a bit of a rabbit hole with that guy.
Speaker: I highly recommend.
Speaker: Just completely, completely, you know, nothing to do with anything.
Speaker: Just like, oh, this is fascinating stuff.
Speaker: But then when I was able to pull back on the throttle of my ADHD, I found the author that we're looking for, Mel Odom, who is...
Speaker: Big old shocker, say it with me now, a writer for hire.
Speaker: A writer for hire.
Speaker: Writer for hire.
Speaker: This is actually the only Diablo book that he ever wrote.
Speaker: But he's also written for Might and Magic.
Speaker: He's written a few Shadowrun books in the mid to late 90s.
Speaker: Oh, Shadowrun.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I love that we keep coming back to that.
Speaker: We get a lot of Shadowrun authors on this show.
Speaker: I feel like we're gonna read a Shadowrun book at some point.
Speaker: I think we got to, right?
Speaker: Like, come on.
Speaker: Yeah, I think we got to.
Speaker: It's so good.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, because I feel like maybe we should expand.
Speaker: Maybe a Warhammer book, maybe.
Speaker: We're gonna get, you've been?
Speaker: I've been engaging in Warhammer content.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I've been engaging in Warhammer content, so I can't, you know, I think that's gonna be a thing.
Speaker: I think we might have to.
Speaker: But a big, a couple of franchises, he's got a few franchises under his belt, which some of them, it's kind of a, one of these things is not like the other thing.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So I'm just gonna read a few of the franchises he's written for.
Speaker: Go for it.
Speaker: Forgotten Realms.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Obviously.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: NCIS, which.
Speaker: Well, that's a bit different.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But, but interesting.
Speaker: The Secret World of Alex Mack.
Speaker: All right, we're getting a little bit further off trail.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Speaker: There's the Munchkin.
Speaker: Oh, hey.
Speaker: I'm gonna see you real soon, kid.
Speaker: I meant that for those of you listening at home, but Kevin's visiting with his family soon.
Speaker: That wasn't me threatening her.
Speaker: See you in your nightmares.
Speaker: Okay, so Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Speaker: So this seems like a lot of CW stuff.
Speaker: A lot of CW stuff.
Speaker: Seven Sabrina the Teenage Witch books.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: I thought you were about to say Seventh Heaven.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: I would start a whole new podcast to do seventh heaven novelizations.
Speaker: If that's even all right.
Speaker: God damn it, Kevin.
Speaker: You know how this works.
Speaker: Now I have to look real quick, real quick.
Speaker: Seventh heaven novel.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: No, there's wait, wait, wait, wait.
Speaker: Four years with the Camden family.
Speaker: Oh, it's an official guide.
Speaker: Okay, okay, no.
Speaker: No novelizations for Seventh Heaven.
Speaker: The show that made me fall in love with Jessica Biel.
Speaker: What were you supposed to do?
Speaker: What choice did you really have?
Speaker: This all comes to a head, I think, with a left-behind military series.
Speaker: So left behind as in?
Speaker: Like separate, separate like sub series.
Speaker: We're talking about left behind, left behind.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: These are like.
Speaker: So Seventh Heaven novelizations could have been on the table.
Speaker: It absolutely could have been on the table.
Speaker: It could have.
Speaker: Yeah, because this is like, it's four.
Speaker: I didn't even know this was a thing, but obviously there's the Left Behind series.
Speaker: We all know what that is.
Speaker: I guess these were sub-series.
Speaker: It's the Left Behind, excuse me, military series.
Speaker: which is this whole other kind of, I guess, like sub series kind of thing.
Speaker: It's a, it's a spinoff kind of a series.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's so funny.
Speaker: So yeah, they had seven of these in total and Mel Odom wrote four of them.
Speaker: That's wild.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He called it the Apocalypse series.
Speaker: So there's Apocalypse Dawn, Apocalypse Crucible, Apocalypse Burning, and Apocalypse Unleashed.
Speaker: But no now.
Speaker: No, no now.
Speaker: They resisted that temptation.
Speaker: It's the only thing.
Speaker: The ghost of Stanley Kubrick coming in.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: At that point, you're like, I don't, is there any, you know, yeah, that, but apparently they like take place concurrently with the series.
Speaker: Okay, so for those of you, so those of you who don't know, just haven't heard of Left Behind.
Speaker: I take for granted that most people know what this is.
Speaker: Left Behind is a series of books about the rapture
Speaker: happening in it happens and suddenly like all the quote unquote good Christians rapture up to heaven.
Speaker: And then there's the people who are left behind and it's and it's you might be thinking, oh, I remember a show on HBO called The Leftovers.
Speaker: Was this related to that?
Speaker: And be like, and I would say no, because The Leftovers was an interesting character piece and left behind is moral
Speaker: masturbation.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: It's so bad.
Speaker: And by the way, by the way, Kevin and I have always made no bones about our lack of spiritual ability.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But the fact of the matter is if something's quality, something's quality.
Speaker: Even if it's not part of a culture that you yourself agree with or care for.
Speaker: Like one out of every ten Christian rock bands.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: That's pushing it.
Speaker: One out of every 20.
Speaker: That's close.
Speaker: But every now and then, I got one I like.
Speaker: So yeah, it's like that.
Speaker: But because here's the thing.
Speaker: I would love a well-written, biblical apocalypse narrative.
Speaker: That would actually be pretty cool.
Speaker: It would be pretty fucking metal.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely it would.
Speaker: This was not that.
Speaker: This was...
Speaker: This was not that.
Speaker: It's streaked through with all the evangelical, anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic shit that you'd expect it to.
Speaker: Yeah, the Pope is the Antichrist.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When you start noticing who was left behind by the rapture, you start to go, oh.
Speaker: Those dang Irish.
Speaker: Yeah, what the hell is that all about?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That island didn't know anything had happened for months.
Speaker: Carried on as usual.
Speaker: Yeah, they were like, oh, it's weird.
Speaker: Um, yeah, that's so left behind, uh, terrible stuff.
Speaker: Um, really bad.
Speaker: And also for the left behind movies, all you really got to know is I believe Kirk Cameron is involved.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: He, he helped.
Speaker: Once Kirk Cameron's involved, I think you can understand, uh, it's just, it's going to be bad.
Speaker: It's a wrap on, on all of it.
Speaker: Uh, so this, he's just going to eat his subway sandwiches alone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's a reference.
Speaker: We're just explaining all the references today.
Speaker: That's just a reference to Google.
Speaker: Google Kirk Cameron.
Speaker: Subway sandwiches.
Speaker: Subway sandwich birthday.
Speaker: So sad.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Yeah, but this guy has written, he's like kind of an old school gamer geek.
Speaker: Like he was involved in Top Secret, Shadowrun, all kinds of other stuff.
Speaker: So this guy's got some serious chops as far as like OG geek cred.
Speaker: So it should make for an interesting read, I think, even if this is the only Diablo book he ever wrote.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: By the way, Mel Odom, the painter.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Fucking slaps.
Speaker: Fucking cool, right?
Speaker: Like there's some.
Speaker: So you get.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I like Mel Odom.
Speaker: What is this guy about?
Speaker: And I like look.
Speaker: I was like, well, he's a very talented painter.
Speaker: Oh, it's not him.
Speaker: But I'm intrigued.
Speaker: So yeah, it's.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Do yourself a favor.
Speaker: Google some Mel Odom, people.
Speaker: It's pretty cool.
Speaker: Pretty cool, pretty cool.
Speaker: All of the men in his work look a little bit like him if you look at a picture of his face.
Speaker: Yeah, a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah, a little bit.
Speaker: But no judgment here.
Speaker: No, no, no, no.
Speaker: That's totally fine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So over to the game.
Speaker: What is Diablo?
Speaker: Diablo is a... This is not the first time we talked about it, but it's a hack and slash, you know, loot-based game where you just go down into dungeons and you...
Speaker: You beat up monsters and there's skeletons and there's things.
Speaker: And there's, I remember playing the first Diablo and something about,
Speaker: I have Diablo, the first Diablo and Wolfenstein 3D tied together because the first boss in both games kind of had a similar effect on me in terms of startling me.
Speaker: So the first boss in Diablo was the butcher, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When you first open his door, he shouts out something like fresh meat or something like that and attacks you.
Speaker: You're like this big guy.
Speaker: And the first boss in Wolfenstein 3D is, what's his name?
Speaker: I want to say Hans Strasse or something like that.
Speaker: Oh, oh.
Speaker: The guy with the two chain guns.
Speaker: And when you open the door, he goes, Guten Tag.
Speaker: Guten Tag.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Unloads on you.
Speaker: Both very startling introductions to the boss fight.
Speaker: Very startling bosses.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And I remember the Wolfenstein boss, when you opened the door, he was right.
Speaker: Like, you opened the door and he was standing at the door.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Ready to unload on you.
Speaker: And what's hilarious is I replayed that level.
Speaker: I was playing through the Wolfenstein, the newer Wolfenstein games last year.
Speaker: And in it, you could play like an arcade and you could go through and you could play the Wolfenstein levels, the old Wolfenstein levels.
Speaker: And there was a level that was a recreation of that first one, but they changed it so that when you open the door, Hans Strasse is much further away.
Speaker: So it's not like the original where when you open the door, Han Strauss is standing right there.
Speaker: Basically just waiting for you to kick the door down.
Speaker: A face full of two miniguns right off the bat.
Speaker: They decided to give you a fighting chance.
Speaker: A fighting chance.
Speaker: Anyway, Diablo, a classic game.
Speaker: It's a Blizzard game.
Speaker: And it is... We're actually going to see the fourth one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It should have...
Speaker: It's going to be Diablo 4.
Speaker: It's actually, I mean, they've released a bunch of subtitles and DLC and stuff like that.
Speaker: So Diablo 4 coming out.
Speaker: this year, will it have been released?
Speaker: It should have.
Speaker: It should have come out.
Speaker: It will have been released by the time this episode comes out.
Speaker: Yeah, it's the day before this.
Speaker: Yeah, June 6th is when it's supposed to come out.
Speaker: Yeah, so the day before this drops, we'll have Crash Diablo if there are no issues with the release.
Speaker: Kevin, I don't... I have... Come on.
Speaker: It's...
Speaker: It's Activision Blizzard.
Speaker: It's Activision Blizzard.
Speaker: What could go wrong?
Speaker: They've got more money than God.
Speaker: I think we can count on them to have a smooth release day.
Speaker: And then I wait the appropriate amount of time for the irony to sink in.
Speaker: That's crazy.
Speaker: I'm going to feel like a total asshat if it turns out it did great.
Speaker: I think at this point, it's safe to assume that Blizzard does not necessarily have their shit together on those things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that, you know, Bobby Kotick is just going to be sitting there counting his money while the server issues are happening.
Speaker: And just chomping, chomping on us.
Speaker: Just look at Bobby Kotick.
Speaker: You know, he's a guy who just like chomps on a cigar.
Speaker: Well, like he has a snap in his suspender in the other hand.
Speaker: He's like, ah, ha.
Speaker: He's the guy who looked at the Monopoly guy as goals.
Speaker: Yeah, and he said, you know what?
Speaker: That looks good.
Speaker: Gonna do that.
Speaker: Gonna do that.
Speaker: He's cosplaying as a Rockefeller every day.
Speaker: Every single day.
Speaker: He's got, like, children he hides in an attic somewhere.
Speaker: Like, he's just, yeah, he's all kinds of...
Speaker: There's no way he hasn't tasted human flesh.
Speaker: That's the level of rich he is.
Speaker: We're not saying that he has.
Speaker: We're just saying in all likelihood that he might have eaten a person at some point.
Speaker: I'm just saying that... It would make sense.
Speaker: It would make sense.
Speaker: With how much money he has.
Speaker: It would actually be more confusing if he hadn't.
Speaker: I'd be more befuddled if we found out that, no, he never...
Speaker: once tasted of long pig.
Speaker: For legal purposes, we're not saying he has.
Speaker: No, we are not.
Speaker: We're saying it's just, it feels likely.
Speaker: It feels like that's on the table.
Speaker: The long pig.
Speaker: Man, it's on the table.
Speaker: Man, it's on the table.
Speaker: The most dangerous game.
Speaker: All right, with that being said, let's put the body in the marsh.
Speaker: Let's put the body in the marsh.
Speaker: When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them in the marsh.
Speaker: Chapter one.
Speaker: Several sailors from the West March Navy are rowing a boat down a river toward where they believe some pirates have taken the nephew of the king.
Speaker: The named sailors in the boat are Derek, Matt, and Muldron.
Speaker: And Muldron is the most, you know, sea scurvy dog name that I've ever
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yet there, we're going to have some more really on the nose names, like people who were named and then became what their name was in this book.
Speaker: But anyway, these, these fellows are under the orders of captain Tollifer and they're discussing how the pirates thereafter are just not any pirates and they need to be sneaky in order to pull this off.
Speaker: But Derek is looking forward to killing some folks.
Speaker: Derek has a taste for the blood.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Meanwhile, pirate Captain Wraithan and a priest named Booyard Chalik are discussing the fog.
Speaker: Let's pause for a second.
Speaker: Let's talk about that name.
Speaker: Booyard Chalik.
Speaker: That is a choice, my friend.
Speaker: Like Mel, Mr. Odom, you made a choice.
Speaker: You made a choice.
Speaker: That is a name.
Speaker: That's a taffy name.
Speaker: You have to chew on that name a little bit.
Speaker: You do.
Speaker: You do.
Speaker: And he's our cleric.
Speaker: Like, yeah.
Speaker: And that's the name.
Speaker: That's, that's the name of my gnomish illusionist.
Speaker: Uh, that's my sneaky hobbit.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: But the stately priest, not so much.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Stately priest of the Zacharum church.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Um, so Chalik hired, uh, Raythan, um,
Speaker: to help unearth a city that was buried under another city.
Speaker: So the city they're looking for is Ransom.
Speaker: The city they're currently in is Torxport.
Speaker: Torxport is a ghost town as well.
Speaker: Wraithan is only there for the money and doesn't actually believe what Chalik is selling.
Speaker: Chalik is a trader to the Zacarum church, and he betrayed the information of a lot of valuable ships and merchant lanes to Wraithan to help pay Wraithan for his services.
Speaker: And Chalik tells Wraithan he's searching for real power that's buried under Torik's port.
Speaker: Um, and they get into the debate about the nature of power.
Speaker: So Wraith and Isley, go ahead.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: I just, I would like to point out that, uh, my wife and I have been watching, uh, we've been doing like the trilogy thing.
Speaker: Like we watched all of the Lord of the Rings movies and we've recently decided we're going to watch all nine of the mainline Star Wars films.
Speaker: Um, and we watched the prequels and, uh, they're every bit as bad as I remember them being, if not more.
Speaker: Um, but, uh, when the unlimited power cackle scene and revenge of the Sith, uh, happened in the third one, uh, uh, I think I may have almost died laughing.
Speaker: Like I did not get enough air.
Speaker: And that's all I could think about when I was, when I was reading this, we're talking about the
Speaker: So you're saying you're saying Ian McDiarmid overacted a little bit, a little, a little, but, but you know what the irony is?
Speaker: We agreed that he was definitely the best actor in the whole bunch.
Speaker: He definitely.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I mean, Ian McDiarmid was amazing.
Speaker: It did a lot of great understated moments in that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It felt like sometimes he was the only one who knew what movie he was in.
Speaker: It was like, yeah, the only one who knows it's a, he knows it's a star war.
Speaker: It's like, I'm going to get my Star War on.
Speaker: I don't know what you kids are doing.
Speaker: And he's like, I've been waiting for this.
Speaker: I've been waiting to age into this role since 1983.
Speaker: You fuckers aren't going to ruin this for me.
Speaker: No, you're not going to fuck up my dream.
Speaker: No, sir.
Speaker: They had to put old man makeup on me when I first did this role.
Speaker: And now I'm just me.
Speaker: Now I'm just me.
Speaker: I'm ready to roll.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: But anyway, Captain Wraithan is like, real power is just a good steel.
Speaker: You know, he's just talking about like swords and stuff.
Speaker: And Chalak is like, I'll show you real power.
Speaker: And he's he puts Wraithan into a force choke.
Speaker: He sure does.
Speaker: Force chokes Wraithan.
Speaker: And yeah, there is no Grand Moff Tarkin to tell him to stop in this scene.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: Uh, meanwhile, uh, the Navy crew gets closer to shore.
Speaker: Uh, then they have a lot of Navy talk as they land.
Speaker: I'm just gonna, uh, gloss right over that.
Speaker: And, uh, probably like, oh, they're talking about the anchor, not catching it.
Speaker: You got to make the boat fast when we're ready and the climb ahead of them, et cetera.
Speaker: There's like so many discussions in this that I just kind of like, uh,
Speaker: I mean, I read them and then when I'm rereading them for my notes, I'm just like flip, flip, flip, flip.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There it is.
Speaker: It's like.
Speaker: What's the next beat happen?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We're like, okay, we get it.
Speaker: This is a maritime adventure.
Speaker: We got it.
Speaker: It's just the sailor version.
Speaker: What do they call it in sci-fi or fantasy movies or books when they just...
Speaker: talk science babble or whatever like to yeah it's just pirate babble it's just yeah yeah yeah pull out the oars etc you know you gotta catch the anchor but then be ready to make the ship fast and we're gonna have to go up and we're gonna have to be very silent and then somewhere Kevin Kline his ears perk up and it's got like treasure
Speaker: Upon a prayer we see still.
Speaker: Silence dread.
Speaker: A cautious way we feel.
Speaker: No sound at all.
Speaker: We hardly misspeak a word.
Speaker: A fly's footfall could be distinctly heard.
Speaker: Turan-tur-a.
Speaker: Turan-tur-a.
Speaker: We have that.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Why, why isn't there a pirates of Penzance in the Diablo universe yet?
Speaker: This is, this is why is there not?
Speaker: Why do we have to do all of your work for you, Blizzard?
Speaker: This is bullshit.
Speaker: Um, so that's my, uh, one of my favorite musical numbers.
Speaker: Um, because, and also that the moment, the, the version of,
Speaker: from that adaptation of pirates of penzance with, uh, Kevin Klein, uh, where it's like, it's basically, and you, you don't really get them anymore where it's basically a play that they're just recording like a movie.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, yeah, it's, it's very clearly a play like on kind of on a stage.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So they have, uh, they really, really dance their asses off, uh, uh, in that go check it out.
Speaker: Go watch that version.
Speaker: It's wonderful.
Speaker: It's wonderful, but it's also, you get, you actually get the hilarity of why it's so funny.
Speaker: That song is so funny is because they are shouting and singing this song as they're trying to be stealthy.
Speaker: Yeah, it's wonderful.
Speaker: It's basically not a soft song.
Speaker: It's a loud song.
Speaker: They, they, they did not, you know, they didn't mean to do this, but they basically set the foundation, uh, of every annoying loud D and D rogue you've ever played.
Speaker: Uh, like, you know, who blows it by screaming while he's hiding from the shadows.
Speaker: Like, like they didn't mean to do that, but that's exactly what this is.
Speaker: It's beautiful.
Speaker: It's Kevin Klein and pirates of Penzance.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So anyway, cat-like tread.
Speaker: They consider their, Derek considers the mission ahead an adventurous lark, but there's concern about pirate captain's magic and wielding the undead, which I'm gonna circle back around to based on something Captain Wraithan says later.
Speaker: And I'm like, what the, are these two in two different universes?
Speaker: What's going on here?
Speaker: And then they slip into the water and they go towards the first entry point.
Speaker: And we're on to chapter two.
Speaker: Um, Wraithan is struggling with Chalik's spell, uh, but Chalik lets him go and Wraithan is angry to say the least, but Chalik lets him know what the balance of power truly is.
Speaker: Sort of because Chalik used all of his energy on that one spell and Wraithan probably could have killed him right then if he wanted to.
Speaker: but he doesn't know that.
Speaker: And we get some backstory about how Chalik would have been sent to hospice soon if he had stayed with the Zacharim church to live out his days healing older priests before he would be the older priest in need of healing.
Speaker: And then he would, you know, die.
Speaker: And all of this is part of his motivation.
Speaker: He doesn't want to just go silently into that good night.
Speaker: He wants to betray everything he worked for us in his entire life in the face of death.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So yeah, the city below Torxbourne is called Ransom.
Speaker: Child's daydreaming is interrupted by one of his acolytes.
Speaker: And I refuse to believe that his parents gave him this name because the acolytes name is Nullet.
Speaker: Nullet.
Speaker: Nullet.
Speaker: Nullet.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Do you know what I first, the first thing I thought of when they introduced Nullet, uh, just based on that name alone, I thought, oh, this is a droid.
Speaker: Uh, I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know why.
Speaker: That's where my head went, but I was like, if this was, if this was Star Wars, if this was a Star War, uh, Nullet would be, would be like an astromech droid or something.
Speaker: It would be like, uh, the, the, yeah, it would be like, uh, zero dash ET or Nullet.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: That's what he'd be.
Speaker: And so far in the book, I feel, I feel pretty validated by this, this thought.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And then, uh, so Nolet tells him that brother Althrin has found the final gate.
Speaker: Uh, meanwhile, the Navy men are climbing.
Speaker: And we get still singing while they're climbing.
Speaker: We get some background on Matt and Derek who grew up together.
Speaker: Derek ran away to escape his abusive father and Matt joined him in the Navy.
Speaker: But oh, they've been spotted.
Speaker: Fight, fight, fight.
Speaker: We're in chapter three now.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Chalik and Nellet are going down, down, down into the tunnels that takes them so long to go down, get, get down there.
Speaker: Um, we get a lot of stuff about demon shit and that there's so many rats in the city because of the undead zombies and whatnot.
Speaker: Uh, Nellet is a real, real underfoot character.
Speaker: He is an underfoot character with an underfoot name.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And they get to the door and Chalik mentions the name Cabraxas, the banisher of light, which that's about as good as a demon name as you're going to get.
Speaker: That is a great demon name.
Speaker: Fantastic stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: 10 out of 10.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: 10 out of 10 demon name.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: Back to the other group.
Speaker: More pirate fights.
Speaker: Derek fights one of them off, but the other pirate is Lon.
Speaker: We get a name for him.
Speaker: Lon is heading for the signal fire.
Speaker: Meanwhile, we get some...
Speaker: Captain Wraithan sexually assaulting a woman.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I was like, that's a real turn.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We made Captain Wraithan a little bit sympathetic in the beginning.
Speaker: We're going to dash that real quick.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We go back and forth with him quite a bit.
Speaker: Like, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And just to make sure we don't have any sympathy for him after he got choked out by Chalik, Wraithan and the pirates killed the woman's father.
Speaker: And Wraithan likes to fight in her, though.
Speaker: She's very rebellious.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She's like, I'm going to fucking murder you one day.
Speaker: And he goes, he goes, thank you.
Speaker: That's if it's like the nicest thing anyone's ever said to him.
Speaker: So he leans in for a kiss after she, you know, turns him on again by by talking about how she's going to murder the shit out of him.
Speaker: And he leans in for a kiss and be like, oh, OK.
Speaker: And then she tries to murder the shit out of him by biting his fucking throat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like Danny DeVito in Batman Returns, except the neck instead of the nose.
Speaker: She just chomps his ass.
Speaker: It's pretty metal, actually.
Speaker: It's pretty great.
Speaker: Just chomps his ass.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We move on to chapter four.
Speaker: Derek is still chasing after Lon.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And my notes are, look at our boy Derek go.
Speaker: And like bats are there too.
Speaker: It's wild.
Speaker: You got to read it.
Speaker: Not really.
Speaker: Chase scenes are not my favorite things in books.
Speaker: I love when you have the notes specifically.
Speaker: You're like, I'm just going to read this.
Speaker: So you can all follow what's going on here.
Speaker: What was in my head at the time?
Speaker: I think it's weird.
Speaker: I've just like, we've read so many books with like chase scenes in them.
Speaker: And I hate them.
Speaker: I don't like chase scenes in books.
Speaker: I barely like them in movies.
Speaker: Like they got to be really well done in a movie for me to get any juice out of it.
Speaker: Yeah, I get that.
Speaker: They've got to be basically flawless otherwise.
Speaker: In a book, it's just like, he's running.
Speaker: The other guy's running.
Speaker: They're both running.
Speaker: Running, running, running.
Speaker: For pages.
Speaker: It doesn't work.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: He's like, oh, no, he's scared by the bats.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Oh, well, that would have been a jump scare in a movie, but because this is a book, moving on.
Speaker: This is a book, and there's more after, more text.
Speaker: I know that we're not... Anyway.
Speaker: Uh, finally, Derek tackles the pirates, uh, after pages of running.
Speaker: Is it me?
Speaker: Am I the asshole or is this just page stuffing when we get shit like this?
Speaker: That was my, the rest of my note.
Speaker: No, it starts, I think with what we were talking about earlier with the pirate babble.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, this, this is not as bad as some of the other stuff we've read, but like, it does.
Speaker: No, I think this was just the straw that broke the camel's back for me.
Speaker: But it does have like, it does.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, like a, like the bra of a first date.
Speaker: It is stuffed.
Speaker: And, and padded, if you will.
Speaker: Padded.
Speaker: But yeah, I, I, I actually, I totally agree.
Speaker: I think it gets better and I'm, I'm of two minds about this book.
Speaker: We'll get into that later, but yes, I, I happen to agree.
Speaker: I think it, I think it does feel a little padded.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I'm chasing you're you're on notice officially from.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Wraithan is still getting bit.
Speaker: He he he's thinking about how vampires aren't real.
Speaker: And I love that comment.
Speaker: And I'm like, motherfucker, what world are you in?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: This is the Diablo universe.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: We just had the Navy guys talking about how some pirate captains use the undead.
Speaker: Meanwhile, vampires are one toke over the line.
Speaker: I just love that.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: Like, that's where, I'm sorry, I've got limits.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Just...
Speaker: And it keeps going, by the way.
Speaker: This keeps happening.
Speaker: But yeah, I'm not going to go ahead, though.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Wraithan thinks maybe the woman works for Chalik or maybe she sold her soul for power, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker: Then he kills the woman after getting free of her by stabbing her in the stomach and turning the blade up into her heart.
Speaker: And she she's like, ah, fuck you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he's really bummed about it.
Speaker: He's really bummed about it.
Speaker: He said he goes, he says the ultimate creepy thing and said, had I known you had this much fight in you, we could have had more fun.
Speaker: Like buddy.
Speaker: He's got a very specific type, let's say.
Speaker: He's got a very, he likes being, I don't think he likes being dominated, but he likes someone attempting to dominate.
Speaker: Yeah, someone making the effort.
Speaker: He doesn't actually want to be dominated.
Speaker: He doesn't want to be dominated.
Speaker: He just wants to have a fist fight while he's, while sexing.
Speaker: He wants being punched in the, he wants to be choked and punched while also choking and punching.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's not a one way thing for him.
Speaker: He wants both.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Wraithan kills her and then Pettit, one of Wraithan's sailors checks on him and they discuss Wraithan's feelings on Chalik and how the pirates are feeling about the priest in general.
Speaker: And Pettit's like, eh, I was thinking about just killing one of the priests to keep him on their toes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Wraithan's like, yeah, that's not a bad idea.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Smart.
Speaker: He's a good businessman, you know, when you think about it.
Speaker: He's a good businessman.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And meanwhile, Derek and Lon are still going at it.
Speaker: They're still fighting.
Speaker: We've, this has spanned like five chapters at this point.
Speaker: This one chase scene.
Speaker: Derek is, is, is,
Speaker: is winning the fight and he's about to kill Lon because he's having flashbacks about his dad beating him and he mistakes Lon for his father.
Speaker: And, uh, Matt though stops him, uh, because they need him alive to interrogate.
Speaker: And Lon reveals that they're keeping the King's nephew on the captain's ship, the Barracuda.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Ooh.
Speaker: Well,
Speaker: a very musical episode.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: Um, ooh, Barracuda.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's, uh, that's chapter four.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, every time it's like, every time Derek gets into a fight, it's like the author makes sure to note that Matt's looking at him disapprovingly.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Oh, well, in that case, in that case, um,
Speaker: Chapter five, Pettit is giving Wraithen the lowdown on what's happening down, way down in the tunnels.
Speaker: He, there's a draw, he gives him a drawing of a door that the miners found down below and
Speaker: They make a plan to check out what Chalak is looking for.
Speaker: Raithen also realizes that the king's nephew might know what's up because he's a royal and therefore he gets learned in a bunch of this, basically this bullshit.
Speaker: Yeah, which is a bit of a stretch, but at the same time, what are other options he got?
Speaker: Yeah, I guess that's one way to make connecting tissue.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: Pettit also warns the captain if he's going to go speak to him that the boy is wily and nearly beat one of his pirates with a two by four, which is amazing.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: This kid rules.
Speaker: Chalik is down at the door and Chalik is doing his best Skeletor yelling at Althrin for not letting him know sooner about finding the gate, even though Althrin let him know literally as soon as he possibly could.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Chalik is just like, yeah, he really is.
Speaker: It's just, it's just shaking his fist above his head.
Speaker: Every opportunity he gets basically.
Speaker: that's his, that's his voice.
Speaker: Um, one of the slaves, uh, hurts his leg while Chalik is down there and Chalik uses this opportunity opportunity to sacrifice him with some sort of vampiric spell that like, hold the guy.
Speaker: It can't be that.
Speaker: It can't be that though.
Speaker: Cause there's no vampires.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Vampires aren't real.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, Wraithan said so.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So it lifts the slave up into the air, and then it breaks every bone in his body individually, but the slave is conscious for all of it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then after all that's done, he goes like...
Speaker: Yeah, just pops like a wet balloon.
Speaker: It's pretty brutal.
Speaker: It's a pretty brutal death.
Speaker: It's like, okay, well, there's Diablo.
Speaker: Exactly, yeah.
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: Yes, up until this point, I've been going, okay, I love pirates.
Speaker: What the fuck does this have to do with Diablo?
Speaker: I don't remember any pirate levels of Diablo.
Speaker: don't i don't remember this this is not this is not or this is not diablo this is not this is not my beautiful diablo this is not my beautiful wife how did i get here as the days go by uh water flowing under and chalik gets some health back this really is the fucking musical episode this is
Speaker: We're not doing this on purpose.
Speaker: This is just happening.
Speaker: This is organic.
Speaker: Chalik then starts getting to work on the Cabraxas door with some magical shit, magic bullshit, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker: The caves begin to crash down around him as he speaks the magic words and it's killing the slaves, the priests, the mercenaries, but somehow isn't hitting him and the door opens.
Speaker: Chapter six, we're back to Derek and Muldron tells Derek that they should try to free the women too if they can and Derek agrees.
Speaker: And then there's a joke about ha ha Muldron is eating too many pastries.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just really shoehorned in here.
Speaker: By the way, Muldron's getting fat.
Speaker: And here's why.
Speaker: And here's we're going to spend two pages talking about how he's like paying.
Speaker: What is it?
Speaker: He
Speaker: There's a baker aboard the ship that Captain Tollifer pulled some string to get the best naval baker that he could.
Speaker: And Maldren is trading time on learning how to do stuff on the ship with him because what he really wants to be is a sailor.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And instead of a baker and in exchange, he's giving Mulder an extra, uh, extra, you know, puff pastries, probably a macaron.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The occasional, you know, the occasional cookie, a biscuit, if you will.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It would be a biscuit.
Speaker: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker: It would be a biscuit in the Diablo verse.
Speaker: Let's be honest.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So anyway, we spent a little time talking about this.
Speaker: Uh, the joke is ha ha.
Speaker: Muldron is getting a little fat, a little fat, getting a little thick around the, around the middle there, around the middle there.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: First of all, Mel Odom, how dare you?
Speaker: Who the fuck do you think you are, Mel Odom?
Speaker: How dare you?
Speaker: Also, what baker wants to be like, no, I want a life that has an infinitely shorter lifespan?
Speaker: This has got to be... I haven't read ahead yet, but if this isn't the beginning of a weird, like...
Speaker: Parent trap style situation where a pirate, they meet a pirate who'd much rather be a baker and they like do the old switcheroo.
Speaker: I'm for one, I'm going to be very disappointed.
Speaker: And that is a fact.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Um, and also I want a cookie now.
Speaker: Um, God, right.
Speaker: So anyway, they're going to go to the Barracuda to get the king's nephew.
Speaker: Wraithan is going to the ship as well.
Speaker: And Wraithan and another pirate named Bull, who in my head is just Bull from Night Court.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a reference for the older ones.
Speaker: Well, Night Court has a... Oh, you're right.
Speaker: It did have a relaunch.
Speaker: Yeah, with John Larroquette coming back to do his...
Speaker: And you know what else John Laracat is doing?
Speaker: He's reprising his role as the narrator in a new Texas Chainsaw movie that's coming out soon.
Speaker: Well, that is just wonderful.
Speaker: That is prime fodder for a crossover, I think.
Speaker: Yes, I agree.
Speaker: Night Court, Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, um, so they go down below deck to talk to the boy and the, and the kid bless his heart tries to do the same trick again on, on bull.
Speaker: And he hides above the door frame with a two by four, but bull catches him this time and throws him to the floor.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: The boy, uh, his name is Lex, but it's written Lex.
Speaker: Um, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Just a pointless fantasy.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Just throw in a fantasy, uh, letter, a consonant for, for the, for the, the, the, the fun for fun.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: For the kids in the back.
Speaker: Lex identifies the symbols on the door as that of, uh, Cabraxas and the black road.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And then meanwhile, Derek, Derek, Derek, Derek is doing his cat like tread stuff all over the deck.
Speaker: And their plan is to light the ships on fire with whale oil because they go there.
Speaker: They're lousy with whale oil.
Speaker: Yeah, we're working with what we got.
Speaker: Chapter seven, Wraithan is still talking to Lex, and Lex is trying to explain the difference between something being true and something based on truth.
Speaker: So Lex is giving him like a lowdown on like symbols and like, okay, so back then people used religion to explain natural phenomena.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: is like just because it's it's written down and told as a story that's true doesn't mean it's actually true it's just possibly a story passed down on gen for generations based on the natural phenomenon it was used to it and raven's like i'm not following uh yeah it's a good does wasn't aware we're getting a a lecture on intro to semiotics kid uh sounds great cool
Speaker: And, uh, Cabraxas was a demon that was summoned a lot in the day because of his ability to open bridges to hell.
Speaker: Uh, Lex is like, listen, uh, this is probably all a scam.
Speaker: Like, you know, a priest would say, Hey, you need a, you need us to, to do something.
Speaker: And they would, you would hire the priest to do a summoning.
Speaker: Um, because so your crops wouldn't die.
Speaker: It was just so that people could get paid.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And then there is a lot of religiosity background on Cabraxas and his followers and the concept of the three selves and how he offers the ability to make friends and influence people.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Here's the thing.
Speaker: I was very surprised reading that Mel Odom wrote for the Left Behind series after reading this section because it's
Speaker: pretty astute on cultsy bullshit and organized religion.
Speaker: And it's like, Oh yeah.
Speaker: It's like, it's like, all right, I'm going to have this, this 15 year old boy, just say a scathing indictment of organized religion.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It, and, and, and Cabraxas is a pretty cool demon actually.
Speaker: Like they, they describe it in vaguely sympathetic terms.
Speaker: Like he wasn't like as bloodthirsty as the other demons.
Speaker: So he's not looking to, he's just there to, he's just there to help you make friends and influence people.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: Who, who wrote that book?
Speaker: Carnegie, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Dale, Dale Carnegie, Carnegie, whatever.
Speaker: Is he?
Speaker: He's not even a real Carnegie.
Speaker: Is he?
Speaker: Is that?
Speaker: I think that is a coincidence.
Speaker: I don't think he was actually related to the right.
Speaker: Uncle Scrooge Carnegie's.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Carnegie.
Speaker: Like, OK, because the name was even spelled differently and then he changed it to be more like.
Speaker: Ah, very tricky.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you look at his Wikipedia, it was spelled Carnegie C-A-R-N-A-G-E-Y until around 1922 when he started spelling it C-A-R-N-E-G-I-E, which is a close, which is basically the way the Carnegie's spelled it.
Speaker: Smart.
Speaker: He changed the spelling of his last name in honor of the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie.
Speaker: And easier for others to remember.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In honor.
Speaker: Okay, bud.
Speaker: In honor.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: Where do we?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then my last note on this section is, yar, the ship is under attack.
Speaker: Up on deck, Derek is just killing pirates and Matt is being very judgy about it.
Speaker: And Matt also doesn't like the idea of trapping the pirates below with fire, but Derek is like, fuck it and lights the ships up.
Speaker: Yeah, he does not give a shit.
Speaker: If you're a pirate, you deserve to die.
Speaker: And he is so anti pirate like you deserve to be drawn and quartered and all the humiliations put upon you.
Speaker: And Matt's like, there are people to know.
Speaker: Fuck pirates and everyone who looks like pirates.
Speaker: That's all there is to it.
Speaker: Fuck pirates and everybody who looks like my dad.
Speaker: I mean, pirates.
Speaker: You son of a bitch.
Speaker: Did that hard cider go right into your nose?
Speaker: Actually, that might kind of clear them up a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah, a little bit.
Speaker: I can't believe that's never happened on this show before.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: Oh, that was good.
Speaker: I'm really kind of wired now.
Speaker: That's weird.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I found a new way to get toasty.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, down below deck, Lex escapes during the confusion and Wraithan tells Bull to get him back and Wraithan goes above deck and is like, who's attacking?
Speaker: What's going on?
Speaker: Um, we get to chapter eight, uh, Derek, Errol Flynn's onto the ship, uh, swinging via rope and diving his feet into Bull's chest.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: So Matt finds Lex and gets him to come with them while Derek is still fighting off some of the pirates.
Speaker: And Derek is now facing off against Wraithan, who until now, like we've been told that Wraithan is big, but we get a reminder that Wraithan is fucking huge.
Speaker: He is a he is like a he is a slab of a man.
Speaker: Um, big and strong, um, ripped to shreds, uh, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker: Uh, bull interrupts the fight.
Speaker: Uh, Wraithan is like about to land a killing blow and Derek's like, oh wow, he's really good at fighting.
Speaker: Um, he's like really swinging for my eyes, my heart or my peen.
Speaker: Um, for all my favorite places, all my favorite parts.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And, uh, uh, Wraithan is about to like land a killing blow on Derek, but bull interrupts by like charging at Derek and Wraithan has to like stop or else he'll, you know, kill bull.
Speaker: So he like backs up.
Speaker: He's like, bull, you idiot.
Speaker: And then, uh, but Derek front flips over bull.
Speaker: We get real Errol Flynn here.
Speaker: We get real Errol Flynn.
Speaker: He front flips over bull and off the ship and over towards Matt.
Speaker: And they're they're running away and they head towards Tarek's port.
Speaker: And Lex is like, did you guys do this?
Speaker: Because everything's it seems to be collapsing.
Speaker: And they're like, no, no, no, no.
Speaker: Down below, we got locusts.
Speaker: Uh, locusts are spewing out of the black, the black gate, uh, the door and they're eating everybody except for Chalik and Altherin, uh, get nom done.
Speaker: Um, Cabraxas then, uh, invites Chalik through the door and he goes through and there's just a lot of great puny mortal talk.
Speaker: Just a lot of just filled and some really good descriptions.
Speaker: I'd say Mel does a good job describing hell and,
Speaker: In this case, it's terrifying.
Speaker: Like he's like, he's walking and he's like, oh, there's trees.
Speaker: And he'd be like, oh, no, the fruit on the trees are people's heads.
Speaker: It's awesome.
Speaker: No, it's great.
Speaker: It actually made me think if you guys like that kind of really grim, strange, surreal detail, like a like a
Speaker: Oh, what's that?
Speaker: What was that painter who did the horrifying medieval drawings of hell?
Speaker: Oh, was it Hieronymus Bosch?
Speaker: Bosch, yes.
Speaker: If you like that kind of thing, you got to read Nathan Ballingrood.
Speaker: He wrote a book called Wounds, and it's a series of short stories that are all just about hell and devils and demons and shit.
Speaker: And that's immediately where my head went.
Speaker: But yeah, there's a tree with just heads hanging from it as fruit and...
Speaker: This is the shit I live for, Kevin.
Speaker: I love, I was like, I was, I was starting to be like, okay, I don't know what this book, who this book's for.
Speaker: They're like, and now there are hell trees with, with severed heads hanging from them.
Speaker: Like I really should make sure I got to give them a fair go.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Like just, just, yeah.
Speaker: What was the name of that book again?
Speaker: Wounds by Nathan Ballingrood.
Speaker: I actually got to meet him in Asheville briefly.
Speaker: Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker: He's a super cool guy.
Speaker: So, yeah, I really enjoyed that one.
Speaker: Bosch was painting this shit, like, what, 600 years ago?
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: There's nobody better.
Speaker: This stuff is insane.
Speaker: Hieronymus Bosch is fucking awesome.
Speaker: Hirano's Bosch is like, today I will invent metal.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But he would say it.
Speaker: And what was he?
Speaker: What nationality was he?
Speaker: Is he?
Speaker: Where's my time?
Speaker: I want to say German, but I feel like I'm just being lazy.
Speaker: Dutch.
Speaker: I was going to get Dutch.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Dutch.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's a Dutch boy.
Speaker: Garden of earthly delights.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Just some real fucked up shit.
Speaker: And yeah, man, it's like it's every time you look at it, you find a new thing to be upset about.
Speaker: Yeah, it just goes deep.
Speaker: Yeah, so deep.
Speaker: Yeah, his style was like.
Speaker: Unnerving.
Speaker: Yeah, that dude's still inspiring writers to this day.
Speaker: I should pick up just a book of his shit so I can just look through it.
Speaker: I'm looking at his painting of Christ before Pilate.
Speaker: And it's wild, but there's like, you know, you got a Roman soldier with a septum piercing.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And like these guys with pierced lips and things like that.
Speaker: It's weird.
Speaker: It's so weird.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: It's got all.
Speaker: Everyone looks like, everybody looks like a puppet in Labyrinth.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It just like you expect to see David Bowie in the background somewhere.
Speaker: It's just so strange and unnerving.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Everything is, is so God, this has been your, um,
Speaker: this has been your Hieronymus Bosch hour.
Speaker: Um, thanks for listening.
Speaker: No, uh, yeah, it's very Bosch like stuff that is, that gets described, uh, as Chalik walks across a bridge and, and, uh, Cabraxas is like, Oh, do you want to turn back?
Speaker: And it's like, it's like the battle of the star screams at this point.
Speaker: It's like Skeletor versus star scream in my head.
Speaker: no and like ah i mean like no i can't turn back and then and in the bridge collapses um and uh he can't turn back so he keeps going um and cabraxas is like i will be your strength i will be your strength when you have none
Speaker: Um, and Chalik's like, okay, I'm down with that.
Speaker: Sounds good.
Speaker: And Chalik agrees.
Speaker: I've always wanted more strength.
Speaker: I've always wanted more strength.
Speaker: That was the whole goal.
Speaker: Uh, and Chalik agrees to face the black road.
Speaker: Uh, that's, that's the title of the book.
Speaker: And that's the end of the section for tonight.
Speaker: So, uh, Phil, how you feeling so far?
Speaker: I know we were up and down, but we're just now getting into what I think about when I'm thinking about Diablo.
Speaker: Uh, so better late than never.
Speaker: Uh, but I don't know.
Speaker: I, maybe I'm being optimistic.
Speaker: I got a good feeling.
Speaker: Cause cause the, the glimpses of the infernal that we've gotten just in this, the, the last section of this chapter,
Speaker: Pretty cool.
Speaker: Pretty cool stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Pretty cool.
Speaker: Fingers crossed.
Speaker: More Bosch.
Speaker: More Bosch left.
Speaker: Less cat-like tread.
Speaker: All apologies.
Speaker: And you'd never think that either Kevin or I would say that.
Speaker: You'd never think that either of us would say that.
Speaker: We're all down for a good pirate story.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Is there any pirate books that we would read on this show?
Speaker: Like real.
Speaker: I'm just trying to think of a.
Speaker: If there would be anything.
Speaker: I don't think so.
Speaker: They never made any Monkey Island books, did they?
Speaker: No, I don't think so.
Speaker: That would be perfect.
Speaker: So, yeah, I agree.
Speaker: It's been hit or miss so far.
Speaker: Some characters are really cool.
Speaker: Some characters feel a little bit lame.
Speaker: Matt just seems like the wet blanket to Derek.
Speaker: Um, there's, there's supposed to be best, best friends.
Speaker: I skipped descriptions of some characters who aren't even in the book.
Speaker: They just talk about them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They just reference them.
Speaker: There's like a lot of description about this one guy on a back on the ship who is great at being up in the up in the ropes and the crow's nest and all that stuff.
Speaker: And be like, he's not here.
Speaker: I don't know why we're talking about him.
Speaker: Maybe we'll get to him later.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: But he's like, oh, and he's only 14 and he's really good at climbing and.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, yeah, that tracks, you know, you get a 14 year old who doesn't understand or fear death.
Speaker: There's going to be good at climbing shit.
Speaker: Um, that's, that's when, you know, people really get into skateboarding.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, you're just describing jackass, honestly.
Speaker: You're just describing jackass in most sports that involve biking or skateboarding or etc.
Speaker: Facing death.
Speaker: Going very fast with not much padding.
Speaker: Good news, Kevin.
Speaker: There is a novelization of Assassin's Creed Black Flag.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: I'm not sure that's the book we're looking for.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: That might be the only Assassin's Creed I enjoyed, though.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And even then, I was screaming at it half the time because Assassin's Creed and I are enemies.
Speaker: Assassin's Creed is going to Assassin's Creed.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker: And also, like, a good chunk of it is...
Speaker: of the assassin's creed universe is like the bullshit that um like they're doing a little bit of in this book with the you know so cabraxas fits with diablo but then they do that weird shit for assassin's creed where it's like ah the apple of eden and the templars and like yeah like i wish we could
Speaker: just like ease off the throttle a little bit on that, on the Dan Brown bullshit, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I, I think mine's let's back off on Dan Brown.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I always hated the modern day shit.
Speaker: Also the modern day shit.
Speaker: We can just have this be an anthology.
Speaker: It always brings everything to a screeching, vagina drying halt.
Speaker: And it's so annoying.
Speaker: It's a frustrating franchise that I have thoughts on.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: That's the closest thing I think we've got, though.
Speaker: so yeah i'm up and down on this book so far to wrap up my thoughts on it as it is uh names are fun and interesting and they're all almost a little too on the nose like
Speaker: Mel went to a list of like, what's a good name for a pirate?
Speaker: And it's like, Wraithen, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: These are, these are characters from his D and D campaign.
Speaker: Let's face it.
Speaker: These are D and D campaign campaign characters.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, so yeah, we'll, we'll continue it next week.
Speaker: And I guess, uh, and until then I got to ask you, Phil,
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, well, I have continued with Far Cry 6.
Speaker: We've actually been discussing this ever so briefly on the Discord channel.
Speaker: A few of the people on Discord with us have been playing it, and we're all kind of exchanging notes because Far Cry 6 was probably, of all the Far Cries to come out in recent history, the one that kind of came and went without much sound and or fury.
Speaker: So we're talking about it a lot.
Speaker: And I think the consensus is mostly the same.
Speaker: Basically the same as what we talked about last week, where it's fun to play.
Speaker: It's not the same, but I'm still playing it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It feels good to play.
Speaker: The gunplay is good.
Speaker: Hell, the storyline's pretty good.
Speaker: Yeah, it's keeping me engaged.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, it's keeping me engaged.
Speaker: I am going to have to come back to it, though, because I also recently started playing Bolt Gun, which that has been my obsession for about a week.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: That's been for anyone who doesn't know, Bolt Gun is the most recent Warhammer 40K game to be released, and it's basically a Doom clone.
Speaker: It's it's basically Doom, but 40K like it's it's that level of retro gaming style.
Speaker: uh the same kind of levels uh that it held the music similar and i'm kind of shocked that it took the world this long to realize that a doom clone is might be the ideal place to put the 40k universe because it's so kitschy and over the top and gore filled and it's kind of
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker: I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just to, I mean, just to get into, I mean, I am also playing that.
Speaker: That is my what are you playing for the week is a bolt gun.
Speaker: I got convinced by...
Speaker: Bill talking about it in anticipation of it coming out.
Speaker: I was like, check it out.
Speaker: It is really fun.
Speaker: It plays super fast.
Speaker: I don't know enough about, I know some things about Warhammer.
Speaker: The 40K, the 40K universe, I don't know enough to like be totally like, oh, yes, I recognize all of these things, you know, I've just been Googling like the monsters as they come up, just be like, all right, so what are what are these like?
Speaker: And the cool thing about it is there's a T, there's a button, you just hit T for taunt.
Speaker: And you get a line read from Rahul Kohli, who was in the booth for four hours.
Speaker: shouting taunts into a microphone.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: And it's amazing.
Speaker: They just keep, you just keep going with them.
Speaker: And it's a lot of fun.
Speaker: I was watching him, I was watching him watch Alana Pierce play it.
Speaker: He was like just sitting over her shoulder as she was playing it.
Speaker: He's like, oh no, you got it.
Speaker: Just keep hitting T and you'll get another random voice line from me.
Speaker: But
Speaker: But yeah, that's... Bolt gun is great.
Speaker: I have some small quibbles with it.
Speaker: Me too.
Speaker: No map?
Speaker: Question mark?
Speaker: I... Yes.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: And I know...
Speaker: And I didn't play enough Doom.
Speaker: I guess Doom didn't have maps, I suppose.
Speaker: It did, I thought.
Speaker: It did.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I feel like I spent so much time trying to regather myself because it is that old retro style pixelated graphical fidelity, which is awesome.
Speaker: But it also means it's super easy to look completely past the
Speaker: an entrance or a door or something like that.
Speaker: And a map would be very helpful.
Speaker: But I guess that's part of the challenge.
Speaker: You're supposed to.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm on my I'm on the last level.
Speaker: I'm about to play the last level of the game.
Speaker: I beat the second to last level just before we started recording here.
Speaker: I literally have a save in the middle of the last battle.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So a map.
Speaker: would be would be cool i also wish there were more bosses um yeah don't get me wrong there are plenty of boss battles but you're going to get uh the same rotation of boss fights yeah you got so it's either going to be
Speaker: It's either going to be a Lord of Change or a Great Unclean one or a sorcerer is going to end each of the chapters.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But otherwise, it's a lot of Lords of Change, a lot of Great Unclean ones.
Speaker: The Great Unclean ones are the most annoying boss in the game because they're the only boss that continually generates...
Speaker: new ads.
Speaker: If I never see another fucking nurgling as long as I live, it will be too soon.
Speaker: The nurglings are the worst and they can swarm you so easily.
Speaker: They die in one hit.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: But there are a ton of them and even one, you'll have your back to it and he'll just be slamming at you and just draining your life and you don't even notice because it's just the one little guy.
Speaker: Tiny guy could be like below your eyesight.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the great unclean one is the only one, only boss enemy who generates new at like you can clear all the the ads out of a room for a Lord of Change and fight it one on one.
Speaker: And you should, by the way.
Speaker: And you should because the Lord of Change has an attack where it will do damage to you as long as you're in its eyeline.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Um, it took me a while to figure that out.
Speaker: Like, why am I doing getting like, why am I getting damaged?
Speaker: I was screaming.
Speaker: I was like, why?
Speaker: And then as soon as, as soon as you break its eye line, the damage stops and I was like, oh, okay.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, you just got to duck behind a pillar, shoot them and duck in.
Speaker: It's not so bad.
Speaker: It's not so bad.
Speaker: And the sorcerer is just like a beefy boy version of the Chaos Terminator.
Speaker: It's pretty much the Chaos Terminator with a few extra steps.
Speaker: But also, the sorcerer can use the life force of another enemy to stop taking damage.
Speaker: Yeah, so you have to execute that enemy before you can take out the sorcerer.
Speaker: So that's, and the sorcerer's name is...
Speaker: It's like Sam Sam I L or something like that or on those lines, something along those lines.
Speaker: But what I didn't realize until just recently, I was watching Coke carnage play it a little bit and he said, oh, this game takes is actually in the continuity of the space marine games.
Speaker: It's a really, it takes place between space Marines one and two.
Speaker: Oh, that's cool.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I didn't realize that.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Because your character references Captain Titus several times, who I think is a reference from the Space Marine games.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so... I noticed that, but I didn't even...
Speaker: Oh, that's great.
Speaker: That's too cool.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: That makes me like it even more because that's another game I'm really looking forward to this year.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So there's one more munchkin wave.
Speaker: Three times the charm, right?
Speaker: Third time's the charm.
Speaker: Third time's the charm.
Speaker: Yeah, but that's, I'm literally like, I think I had to take a break because it's, I will just tell you ahead of time, Kevin, the last fight is just an extended arena boss rush battle thing.
Speaker: So you just, you gotta, it's a marathon.
Speaker: So you just gotta pace yourself.
Speaker: Yeah, I will say for anybody looking to pick it up and play it, there's a gun that you get
Speaker: that you should only ever use on bosses.
Speaker: The grav?
Speaker: The grav cannon.
Speaker: Hell yes.
Speaker: When you get it, just get as much ammo for it as you can.
Speaker: And only it's the BFG of this game.
Speaker: Just, you know, save your grav cannon.
Speaker: And so like sometimes if you have a room full of enemies, you know, just shooting the grav cannon and spinning around willy nilly can be fun.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And causing everybody to explode.
Speaker: But yeah, it basically melts anybody, including bosses.
Speaker: It's like every second is a tick of damage that does like a huge chunk of health.
Speaker: It's brutal.
Speaker: It is really good.
Speaker: Any non-boss enemy dies to it basically instantly.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like Terminators, all that shit.
Speaker: Terminators.
Speaker: So what are the Terminators in Warhammer compared to the Space Marines?
Speaker: Because they look massive.
Speaker: Terminator armor essentially turns a regular space Marine into a living tank.
Speaker: They're slow moving, but they are like basically indestructible.
Speaker: It's just fucking insanity.
Speaker: And the fact is, now I haven't played 40K in a long time, but one of the big,
Speaker: touchstones of Terminators was that they could also teleport.
Speaker: So yeah, they're not moving very fast, but then all of a sudden they're behind you and oops, I'm dead.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: They are brutal.
Speaker: They do that in Boltgun.
Speaker: They do teleport.
Speaker: Yes, yes they do.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker: No, so they're basically just take a space marine, which is already the equivalent of about 100 normal people and crank it up to 11 and they are just brutal.
Speaker: And then, yeah, the Terminator is like another, is like, okay, now we have 100 space marines combined into one thing and that's the Terminator.
Speaker: And then you've got the Dreadnought, which is 100 Termin... Yeah, yeah, it's a whole...
Speaker: It's a whole thing.
Speaker: Yeah, they're brutal.
Speaker: They're really cool.
Speaker: That'll about do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: Phil, why don't you tell the fine folks where they can support us if they so choose to do so.
Speaker: Oh, you're talking about patreon.com slash the pixel lit podcast.
Speaker: That's correct.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You can join one of three tiers to get early access to episodes, free essays and all kinds of stuff that we're actually still in the planning phases for some really neat stuff coming your way.
Speaker: Some little bonus episodes and bonus series is that we have got in our heads and we just need to sit down and make them happen.
Speaker: But there are some.
Speaker: Extra essays we've got in there, some early access stuff.
Speaker: I think it's worth your while.
Speaker: So check it out, patreon.com slash the Pixelit Podcast.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Yeah, go check it out.
Speaker: And if you want to just get in touch with us otherwise, go follow us on Instagram and Twitter at PixelitPod.
Speaker: You can go to our Discord, which you can find through our website, PixelitPod.com.
Speaker: where you can find the link to the Discord, you can join the mailing list, all that fun stuff.
Speaker: So it's really great.
Speaker: We love hearing from the fans, and we've been hearing from more of you lately.
Speaker: Oh my gosh, you guys just keep showing up.
Speaker: It's awesome.
Speaker: Keep showing up, and I really...
Speaker: Shout out to the fan who today noticed that I spelled vengeance wrong in one of the episode descriptions.
Speaker: And I got to tell you, folks, I enjoy I actually enjoyed that.
Speaker: Did you know, go ahead, point point out the thing that I got wrong.
Speaker: It shows you're actually paying attention to it.
Speaker: It shows you're actually paying attention.
Speaker: Also not going to fix it.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: It's going to stay there for posterity.
Speaker: In fact, any time we mention Vengeance in the future, it's going to be called Vengeance.
Speaker: Vengeance.
Speaker: Just be ready.
Speaker: Vengeance is going to be a thing, folks.
Speaker: Mark it down.
Speaker: Mark it down.
Speaker: On this day.
Speaker: June 7th, 2023.
Speaker: Vengeance.
Speaker: Vengeance.
Speaker: Metal Gear Rising.
Speaker: Vengeance.
Speaker: Vengeance.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, I think that's it.
Speaker: Good night.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Bye.
