Transcript
Speaker: Okay, okay, just make sure.
Speaker: But I will have an adapter for the microphone, so at least I won't sound all that bad.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I think it'll be great.
Speaker: I think it'll be great.
Speaker: It'll be awesome.
Speaker: It'll be awesome.
Speaker: You know what else is awesome?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome Pixel It!
Speaker: My name is Kevin, with me as always is Phil, and today we got a brand new series for you.
Speaker: It's gonna be a short series, but it's gonna be a series where we are going to read, recap, and review Infinity Blade Awakening.
Speaker: Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew!
Speaker: Pew, pew, pew, pew!
Speaker: So Infinity Blade, for those of you who don't know, is full on abandonware at this point.
Speaker: It's so sad.
Speaker: It's so sad.
Speaker: It was designed by, it was developed by Chair Entertainment for Epic Games.
Speaker: And it was initially a tech demo of what the mobile version of the Unreal Engine could do on an iPhone.
Speaker: It became a
Speaker: full-on game that was released December 9th, 2010.
Speaker: And as of 2018, all three games in the series were discontinued and taken off the App Store because Epic had cited difficulties updating it for the modern versions of iOS.
Speaker: And then the servers for the game were finally shut down in 2020.
Speaker: Fuck.
Speaker: Yeah, end of an era.
Speaker: The first game was a one on one duel system that was based apparently on Karateka and Prince of Persia.
Speaker: Karateka is not a game that you necessarily hear reference that much these days, but I can I could kind of see it.
Speaker: Yeah, a little bit.
Speaker: And if you are familiar with the game Rogue Legacy, you're kind of familiar with the way the game works in terms of the plot of when you die and start over again.
Speaker: In Rogue Legacy and in this game, when your character dies, your character is dead.
Speaker: The next character in line is your offspring, your progeny that moves up to take the mantle.
Speaker: And basically the goal is to challenge and kill the God King of this land.
Speaker: And the events of the book that we are about to...
Speaker: recap, pick up at the end of the canon victorious route through the game.
Speaker: And there's also references in the book that refer to encounters that you make in the game.
Speaker: So there's he talks about how there's like three dudes in a dungeon downstairs.
Speaker: And that's a thing that you have to do in the game in order to get like a true ending or something like that.
Speaker: There's some guys you fight downstairs.
Speaker: So with all that in mind, I didn't realize that because I never played Infinity Blade.
Speaker: Phil, you said you've played it.
Speaker: You've played the game.
Speaker: I played the shit out of that game.
Speaker: At least the first one because there were three and I loved it.
Speaker: It was like a super intense labyrinthine version of Fruit Ninja.
Speaker: That's pretty much what it was.
Speaker: And God, it was fun.
Speaker: And I think the most tragic thing about reading this novella is the fact that all it makes me all I can do is like I was sitting there going, I want to I haven't played this game in forever.
Speaker: I'm going to download this on my phone and find out, you know, the hard way that no, I cannot do that anymore.
Speaker: You cannot do that.
Speaker: Well, and there we listen, we here at Pixel It, we do not think that you should emulate or or anything of that or pirate or whatever.
Speaker: Of course not.
Speaker: Of course not.
Speaker: Of course not.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: No, but there's apparently ways that you can still do it.
Speaker: There are ways.
Speaker: Those criminals, I hate them, do it.
Speaker: Mm.
Speaker: Mm.
Speaker: Mm.
Speaker: Yeah, there's apparently ways that you should not do it.
Speaker: Never.
Speaker: Never.
Speaker: To get Infinity Blade games back on your sweet, sweet phone.
Speaker: So, you know.
Speaker: It's just...
Speaker: It's not a game that you can purchase anymore, and that is by design at this point.
Speaker: You are not allowed, you couldn't give anyone money for it if you wanted to, and therefore it is morally reprehensible to attempt to pirate it in any way do it.
Speaker: And you shouldn't.
Speaker: You shouldn't do it.
Speaker: is what I'm saying.
Speaker: You shouldn't not do it.
Speaker: Do it.
Speaker: Do it.
Speaker: Do it.
Speaker: Sorry, what I meant is you shouldn't.
Speaker: Do the do.
Speaker: Do it.
Speaker: Do the do.
Speaker: Sponsored by Mountain Dew.
Speaker: So the only way Infinity Blade lives on to this day is that there is a weapon in Fortnite that you can get called the Infinity Blade because Epic likes to just tease everybody with putting everything into Fortnite and not developing any of their other IPs out any further.
Speaker: You remember when Epic made Unreal?
Speaker: They had a game.
Speaker: The engine that runs Fortnite is called the Unreal Engine.
Speaker: Did you know that that was based on a game?
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Did you know that?
Speaker: Did everybody?
Speaker: It was a competitor to Quake?
Speaker: Yeah, it was a very important game, a very influential game, and one that maybe they could have developed further and given new life to it, but no, fuck it.
Speaker: They've got to make sure that they're injecting all that GMO steroid goodness into their cash cow.
Speaker: Into the cash cow of Fortnite, which I understand because it's a behemoth at this point.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: Fortnite has evolved.
Speaker: Has Pokemon evolved into some sort of eldritch being that they have to feed?
Speaker: True.
Speaker: An Eldritch being that poops money, then they just have to feel it.
Speaker: I got to say, I was on the wrong side of history.
Speaker: I worked for Scuff Gaming when that game came out and everyone was like, OK, we need to decide what pony to back.
Speaker: Do we push like on the PUBG side of things, which was huge at the time, which was the biggest thing in the world at the time?
Speaker: They said, but there's this new thing.
Speaker: fortnite game that's coming out and that could be a serious contender what do you think and i was like dude pub g all the way fortnite why even bother it looks stupid it's it's you know that's not what people want you got a building mechanic who gives a shit and i was wrong i was so so wrong seven years later yeah it's uh as wrong as anybody's ever been wrong that's pretty wrong
Speaker: There's a writer I'm a big fan of called David Rakoff, and he wrote an entire essay about all the different stuff that he's been wrong about in the past.
Speaker: And one of them was he was talking about going to a club on a Saturday night in New York, and the girl singing, he was just like, she's fucking awful.
Speaker: She'll never have a career.
Speaker: And the next year, that Madonna released her first album.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: I feel, I just, I'm sure we all have those moments, but man, do I relate with that guy.
Speaker: I feel like I've got more than my fair share.
Speaker: We do.
Speaker: We definitely have those moments.
Speaker: Speaking of writers, can you tell me a little bit about the author of Infinity Blade Awakening, one Brandon Sanderson?
Speaker: I can do that.
Speaker: Yeah, Brandon Sanderson, probably the most modern, relevant author of anyone that we have read so far.
Speaker: If you are a fantasy genre geek and you have not read any Brandon Sanderson, you are probably doing it on purpose.
Speaker: At this point, just because you are being stubborn, I have to guess.
Speaker: Or you're just like me and woefully stuck in your old school pulp people.
Speaker: Which is fine.
Speaker: Harlan Ellison isn't writing anything else, Phil.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: He's dead.
Speaker: It's all done.
Speaker: The master's dead.
Speaker: Fuck him.
Speaker: Robert E. Howard died a long time ago.
Speaker: But no, I would say, you know, but the thing is, it's impossible not to at least have heard of him.
Speaker: You know, two of his biggest hits would be the Mistborn series, which is just, even people I know who are distinctly not geeks have devoured those books and adore them.
Speaker: But probably the most amazing, cool, cute
Speaker: killer cred to his name is that he finished the wheel of time series.
Speaker: He was chosen to, to wrap that up.
Speaker: And that's insane.
Speaker: Like that.
Speaker: I don't care how popular, how, you know,
Speaker: huge your name is in the world of genre fiction if you're asked to wrap up uh you know the posthumous works in the wheel of time series then then you know that is a massive undertaking i think he ended up writing three or four of them yeah it's uh the last three novels are brandon sanderson
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So this guy, and I was telling Kevin before we started today, I think the most amazing thing about this particular book, and there are two, it's part of a series of two.
Speaker: He wrote two Infinity Blade novellas.
Speaker: And I think the most interesting thing about this is I can't shake the feeling that this was an act of love for him on a level that, like, I don't think...
Speaker: he was sought out to write these like a lot of our other authors have been.
Speaker: A lot of our other authors, this is about like, it's a paycheck, you know, it's like write for hire, which is awesome.
Speaker: And it's been a fascinating ride this entire time finding out more about that.
Speaker: But,
Speaker: I've got a hunch, based on the way he has written this, that he played the games, loved the games, and knew who to talk to to say, hey, out of curiosity, can I write a novella for this?
Speaker: And I don't know if it was ever released as an actual paperback or anything like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was definitely an e-book that you could get for a while, but now, as far as I can tell, the only way to get a hold of it legally is through audiobooks.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That's the only way we found it was through the audiobook.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, but we did not find some versions of it that were out in the wild.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: We totally didn't do that.
Speaker: Some e-book type versions of it that were out in the wild.
Speaker: So, it was clearly written at some, it was clearly written in a way that was meant to be read because I was, I was,
Speaker: Like with your eyeballs looking at words on a page or on an e-reader.
Speaker: The old-fashioned way.
Speaker: The old-fashioned way.
Speaker: Because here's the thing.
Speaker: You know what it actually reminds me of is that there's a book that's been on our list off and on to read.
Speaker: It's a division book called Hearts on Fire.
Speaker: And it's read by...
Speaker: There's two voice actors reading it, I believe.
Speaker: Katie Sackhoff and somebody else.
Speaker: I can't remember who the other voice actor is.
Speaker: But you look at this book and it's a four hour listen, four and a half hour listen, right?
Speaker: If this was created today, instead of doing it as just a four hour audio book, I feel like they would have done more of like a drama, which is becoming more and more more and more of a thing these days where they actually instead of just having one narrator do all the voices, they're actually casting multiple actors to do voices, specific voices.
Speaker: Yeah, Audible did it with Sandman.
Speaker: Oh, that's neat.
Speaker: The past couple of years, yeah, yeah, before the Netflix version of it came out.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: That's neat.
Speaker: I'll have to check that out.
Speaker: I listened to the first part of it.
Speaker: I liked it.
Speaker: I liked it a lot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, Brandon Sanderson.
Speaker: He's got a lot of stuff going on.
Speaker: Yeah, dude's got chops.
Speaker: And I'm not going to lie.
Speaker: I'm going to give it the old college try getting a hold of him.
Speaker: I got a distinct feeling that we might not actually get this interview.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, this is, this is, he, he has a, he, all right, so this is the first time I've seen this, okay?
Speaker: On Wikipedia, when you go to an author's Wikipedia page, usually their bibliography is a section of their page.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, I know what you're doing.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Brandon Sanderson's bibliography is its own Wikipedia page.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: I kept it to the two main things that I was most familiar with simply because
Speaker: This dude, this dude is right up there with Alan Dean Foster just writing like a fucking nymphomaniac suck stick.
Speaker: Like absolutely losing his mind in it.
Speaker: I'm really appreciating, I have a feeling that I'm glad Alan Dean Foster appreciated that joke.
Speaker: For some reason, I don't know if Brandon Sanderson would appreciate it as much, but I'm, knowing that Alan likes that, liked that joke, I think.
Speaker: That was a lovely moment there where, just because I never assume that any of our interviewees have actually bothered to watch or listen to the show or anything like that.
Speaker: They're busy people.
Speaker: And that dude came in specifically referencing the first episode of Shadowkeep.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, I see.
Speaker: You've actually listened.
Speaker: You've listened to us talk about your writing.
Speaker: Oh, shit.
Speaker: That's an extra bit of pressure.
Speaker: That's a whole different ball of wax here.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: But he sees good people.
Speaker: I assume Brandon is good people.
Speaker: I don't know much about his personal life.
Speaker: Yeah, I got no reason not to think so.
Speaker: Got no reason not to think so.
Speaker: I know apparently he disliked the only of the Star Wars sequel movies.
Speaker: The only one I liked was the middle one, the one that Rian Johnson directed.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: He's a that one disliker.
Speaker: Oh, OK.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: Which usually he probably has some legitimate concerns.
Speaker: Usually when somebody says they don't like the one that Rian Johnson direct, there's like some weird like tingly red flags that go off in the back of my head.
Speaker: Yeah, no, no.
Speaker: And I know what you mean, because I actually did not care for it when I saw it.
Speaker: I liked a lot.
Speaker: I liked a lot of it.
Speaker: I thought certain aspects of it were amazing.
Speaker: But overall, it was kind of like I left the theater feeling the same way I've been feeling when I watch Marvel movies.
Speaker: I'm like, I don't know if these are for me anymore.
Speaker: And that's okay, but it's kind of a bummer.
Speaker: And I remember not realizing...
Speaker: how bad the fuck boy situation of, of guys like coming in and talking shit about this movie was.
Speaker: Um, so when I was just like, well, I don't think I liked it.
Speaker: And a lot of my friends hackles went up and they're like, why?
Speaker: And I was like, what do you mean?
Speaker: I just, it just, cause it, I just, I didn't, the humor kind of was lost on me and I just, there were certain parts of it.
Speaker: I just didn't care for it.
Speaker: It was, I liked it.
Speaker: I like Laura Dern.
Speaker: She's fucking amazing.
Speaker: And that's kind of part of it.
Speaker: That's like the show that you're actually calling.
Speaker: You're like, I thought Laura Dern was fucking amazing.
Speaker: I was like, OK, he's all right.
Speaker: He's all right.
Speaker: He's fine.
Speaker: He's fine.
Speaker: Yeah, because there's like it's like the reason why you don't like it is it's it's so weird that it became such a weird litmus test.
Speaker: But it's true because there will be people who will be like, oh, I hate it.
Speaker: And you'll say, why?
Speaker: And all of a sudden, there will be like these weird little dog whistly things that start popping up.
Speaker: And you're like, oh, that's weird.
Speaker: That's a weird thing to say.
Speaker: That's an uncomfortable thing to hear.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's just it.
Speaker: And I think that's where we are with a lot of stuff with like a lot of pop culture likes and dislikes where if a person likes something, you go, oh, you know, without, you know, like like I was listening to a podcast the other day.
Speaker: Justice League.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Justice League or even let's go back even further.
Speaker: Fight Club.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Someone brings up, I got to a point where I loved Fight Club.
Speaker: When I was young, I loved Fight Club.
Speaker: And then I got older and I started to see the fan base that had surrounded it.
Speaker: And I started to really dislike Fight Club.
Speaker: And then in years gone by, I started to go, fuck it.
Speaker: I like it again.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: Fuck you guys.
Speaker: You can't take this thing away from me.
Speaker: I like it just because you guys are assholes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's tough.
Speaker: That's kind of where we are with pop culture, though.
Speaker: You know, you got to pay extra special attention to why people dislike things.
Speaker: And it's exhausting at times, but there it is.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It's exhausting.
Speaker: So, yeah, let's just...
Speaker: Let's get into the nitty gritty of this thing we call Infinity Blade Awakening.
Speaker: Hell yes.
Speaker: So in the prologue, we are introduced to Drem's Maw, which is, I think this is kind of neat.
Speaker: It is a town that is built within the opening of a gigantic cave.
Speaker: And the entire town is not in this cave.
Speaker: There's like,
Speaker: It's like it spills out into like the non cave portion.
Speaker: But the bulk of the town is is protected in this in this cave called Drems Maw.
Speaker: And there's this guy.
Speaker: He's a sniveling man named Wheelix.
Speaker: And that's a great name for the great Wheelix.
Speaker: Wheelix.
Speaker: Wheelix is aware.
Speaker: He is one of the only people aware that the God King has died.
Speaker: And he is using this opportunity to take power in the village because he was just the tax collector.
Speaker: But now he's like, well, fuck it.
Speaker: I'm the dictator now.
Speaker: It seems like a lateral move to me, but fine.
Speaker: Fine, yeah.
Speaker: So he decides, you know, I'm going to, there's basically, there's a dude in the group, in amongst the townsfolk, who's like, I have questions about this arrangement.
Speaker: And Wheelix is like, hey, beat this man.
Speaker: And he's like, oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker: And he's like, you're sorry?
Speaker: Well, how about we kill you now?
Speaker: So instead...
Speaker: He does five minutes as a dictator and he's already a pro.
Speaker: It's kind of impressive.
Speaker: He knows what he's doing.
Speaker: He knows what he wants.
Speaker: Um, so he has these inhuman bodyguards called day rails, um, who seem to have a, like a huge variety in their looks and appearances.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: So one of the day rolls is is approaching the guy to do bad stuff.
Speaker: Meanwhile, we're getting this like a stranger is kind of like walking around the town and like forcing his way through the crowd.
Speaker: And the day roll reaches the man and he takes out a sword or an axe or something.
Speaker: He's about to swing down and and kill the dude.
Speaker: And the blade is intercepted.
Speaker: by the stranger and everybody's like oh my god it's the infinity blade oh my god it's Jason Bourne oh my god it's Jason Bourne it's pretty much that moment it's pretty much oh my god my god it's Jason Bourne
Speaker: So the stranger orders Wheelix to leave and never return to the town again.
Speaker: And everybody applauded.
Speaker: Everybody stood up and gave him a round of applause.
Speaker: And that man's name was Albert Einstein.
Speaker: It really is that.
Speaker: And an eagle cries.
Speaker: A veteran stands up and salutes and gives a slow clap and
Speaker: That man's name was Elon Musk.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: But it's a real brief prologue, but it gives us a little, here's the vibe in this town now that the king, the god king is deceased.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's a crazy opening too, because as the reader, you're like, oh shit, this is, this is a sequel for all intents and purposes.
Speaker: We're beginning at the end of that, which is a really clever way to go about this.
Speaker: It's like immediately generations upon generations of that shit, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, we're picking up immediately after the very light plot of Infinity Blade 1.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Light is the word, yes.
Speaker: This book so far has done a really good job backfilling in the gaps that the first game pretty much leaves wide open.
Speaker: It's like, we're just going to pour some gravel right into that, and we're going to pave this road for the future.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker: But, but you know, the distinct thing is, I don't remember a ton of the details, but I think you kind of hinted at it when you were talking about the game.
Speaker: What you get the sense of is that this is like after the game is finished, but like after the game, I don't think it's the true ending that has happened at this point.
Speaker: Like there's still shit to unlock and stuff like that, which is pretty clever.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: There's a there's a whole there's in the true ending of the game and it's like spoilers for the book almost where you you get and you find this one chamber and it's yada, yada, yada.
Speaker: There is there is stuff in the game that has not happened yet.
Speaker: It's it's just the only thing that has happened is God King dead.
Speaker: A long way of the God King.
Speaker: Right, exactly.
Speaker: So we're out of the prologue and we're into chapter one and the town elders are like, holy shit, what the fuck?
Speaker: He was supposed to die.
Speaker: He wasn't supposed to come back.
Speaker: What do we do now?
Speaker: Like, they literally call him the sacrifice.
Speaker: So like, there it is right there.
Speaker: They were like, yeah, you're going to go die.
Speaker: You're not going to win.
Speaker: You're not going to, you weren't supposed to win.
Speaker: We're not Talia Shire and this isn't Rocky II.
Speaker: Absolutely not.
Speaker: We do not have benefits waiting for you.
Speaker: No ticker tape, no parade.
Speaker: Listen, I mean, I think they would have been happy if this was like the end of Rocky one where he just went the distance and, and, but still lost.
Speaker: But the fact that this is Rocky two really bums them out.
Speaker: They are super bummed about the sequel.
Speaker: They're not here for that.
Speaker: No, they're not here for that.
Speaker: Apollo Creed lost spoilers for Rocky two.
Speaker: Spoilers for a 40 year old movie.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: Talia Shire, to explain my reference even further, Talia Shire looks up at Rocky and tells him as she's in the hospital waiting to give birth to their son, win.
Speaker: And it's stuck in my head.
Speaker: I hate those movies.
Speaker: I hate those movies.
Speaker: I love Rocky.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: But, you know, I understand.
Speaker: I understand.
Speaker: I have I am super into like I like camp.
Speaker: I like cheese.
Speaker: Maybe it's because I'm just not a sports guy at all.
Speaker: That's one of the ones for me that's a blind spot.
Speaker: I just like I can't do it.
Speaker: I can't get into it.
Speaker: I just just not.
Speaker: No, you guys have fun.
Speaker: I'm going to I'm going to stay at home, play with my ball.
Speaker: I can't do it.
Speaker: I can't do Rocky.
Speaker: I can't do Rocky.
Speaker: You can't do it.
Speaker: Nope, nope.
Speaker: You know what's not gonna stop though is Rocky references.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: And that's fine.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: I will lose.
Speaker: So it's the end of Rocky II and Cirrus is, so in the book, the audio book, it's pronounced Cyrus, right?
Speaker: Yes, yes, Cyrus.
Speaker: But written on the page, it's super clearly Cirrus.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a real choice.
Speaker: We run into a lot.
Speaker: Were we gonna go over the Majolnir sort of thing all over again with this one?
Speaker: Majolneer.
Speaker: Majolneer.
Speaker: His Majolnir battle armor.
Speaker: The Majolnir armor.
Speaker: Yeah, no.
Speaker: So if I, I apologize if I switch between Cyrus and Cirrus because on the page it's S-I-R-I-S.
Speaker: To me in my head, that's Cirrus.
Speaker: It's a syllable from Sirius.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Yeah, I was thinking like Sirius Black kind of shit.
Speaker: Like that's what it looks like.
Speaker: And speaking of Sirius Black, fuck J.K.
Speaker: Rowling.
Speaker: Fuck, yeah, by the way, as long as we're on that topic ever so briefly.
Speaker: So Cyrus begins thinking about what he can do now that his task is completed.
Speaker: He's like, oh, man, I didn't think I would get to actually live a life.
Speaker: It's adorable.
Speaker: He's like, I'm going to eat pie.
Speaker: Yeah, that's literally his first thought.
Speaker: He's like, who was it?
Speaker: Who was the actor?
Speaker: A young man who was like, he's always been shredded and stuff.
Speaker: And recently he like talked about eating pasta for the first time in like several years and it like made him cry.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: I forget.
Speaker: I think it was the kid from the high school musical movie.
Speaker: Oh, was it Zac Efron?
Speaker: I think it was Zac Efron.
Speaker: He shredded all the time.
Speaker: At a certain point, you realize that's not good for him.
Speaker: He's trying to eat a human being again.
Speaker: I think it was he ate pasta for the first time and literally sobbed.
Speaker: Which I think we can all relate with.
Speaker: We can all relate to.
Speaker: I have cried through a pasta bowl more than once in my life.
Speaker: It is just the most relatable and real moment in this book where it's just like he's been training to be a warrior his entire life.
Speaker: And he's just like, I'm going to eat a whole pie all by myself.
Speaker: And you're like, I love you.
Speaker: I will die for you.
Speaker: I'm going to eat a pie and then go swimming.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's so nice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's great.
Speaker: I love him.
Speaker: I just imagine him like, he's like, the town elders are there and he just has his hands on his knees and he's like rocking back and forth and like,
Speaker: I think I want a pie.
Speaker: He's like the kid from Caddyshack.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: He's like, I want a hamburger.
Speaker: I want a hot dog.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: It's like some serious Captain America vibes in a way.
Speaker: Just a little sweetie pie who happened to be able to kill a god.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's got that vibe to him.
Speaker: And meanwhile, the town elders are like the judge and turns to them and say, you'll get nothing in like it.
Speaker: Right, exactly.
Speaker: It's literally that scene from Caddyshack.
Speaker: It's truly, it's Caddyshack.
Speaker: That's what it is.
Speaker: Caddyshack, awakening.
Speaker: Oh man, who was that actor?
Speaker: Oh, what is his name?
Speaker: I don't remember.
Speaker: He's one of the, he's a what's his face guy.
Speaker: Ted Knight.
Speaker: Ted Knight.
Speaker: Ted Knight, yeah.
Speaker: As Judge Smales.
Speaker: I feel ashamed for not knowing that right off the dome.
Speaker: Oh, I never would have had that one.
Speaker: I feel no shame.
Speaker: No shame for Phil.
Speaker: No shame for Phil.
Speaker: No shame for Phil.
Speaker: So he begins keeping a journal.
Speaker: He says he doesn't like the kind of soup that they feed him.
Speaker: It's right.
Speaker: And then he gets into an argument with the town elders because they're like, hey, buddy, you got to leave.
Speaker: You're ruining everything.
Speaker: You're ruining everything.
Speaker: You've been out into the world.
Speaker: Thank you for the water chip, but you're gonna have to leave the vault and Fallout 1 spoilers.
Speaker: So I'm just spoiling everything.
Speaker: Everything.
Speaker: It's a spoilery episode for everything but the game, really.
Speaker: For everything but the game.
Speaker: I'm really going to keep a lid on that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No one will ever know.
Speaker: No one will ever know.
Speaker: He packs up his gear and he marches off and he goes home to see his mother.
Speaker: Now, at this point, I stopped listening to the audio book and I was just reading it so I could take notes.
Speaker: And so how did they say his mother's name in the audio book?
Speaker: Oh, read it to me from the book.
Speaker: It's Mayan, M-Y-A-N.
Speaker: Yeah, I think it was.
Speaker: It was Mayan, like the people.
Speaker: Mayan.
Speaker: Like the people.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It could also be Mian.
Speaker: Mian.
Speaker: Mian.
Speaker: But it's got, you got that.
Speaker: There's really no way of saying it that way and it being appealing.
Speaker: Mian.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It sounds like you're saying man with like an intensely Midwestern accent.
Speaker: It's like, it's one letter off of like, of Nyan, which is the cat, you know, like the Nyan cat with that little.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: The Nyan, yeah.
Speaker: So Mayan, his mama.
Speaker: So he goes home and they have a reunion and she gets so mad at the town for the fact that they're not celebrating him.
Speaker: So she basically accepted that he was dead.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She thought he was dead.
Speaker: And she assumes when she saw him, like, oh, you didn't go.
Speaker: And he's like, no, I went and I won.
Speaker: And she's like, oh, well, let's go get, let's go get a parade going.
Speaker: And, uh, he's like, no, they don't, they don't want to do that for me.
Speaker: They want me to leave.
Speaker: No parade for me, mom.
Speaker: No parade.
Speaker: Um, so she feeds him dinner.
Speaker: Um, and he eats, uh, an entire peach cobbler.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: This is probably my favorite part in the entire book, actually.
Speaker: He likes the peach cobbler.
Speaker: He writes in his journal, I love peach cobbler.
Speaker: He's like a baby fawn just learning how to walk and to live.
Speaker: He's a murderous baby fawn.
Speaker: Oh, he's known as murder.
Speaker: Oh, he has known as murder.
Speaker: They've been raising him to kill the God Gig since he was a kid.
Speaker: And now he gets to eat pies.
Speaker: all the time in the world to eat pie.
Speaker: This actually, this could be the beginning of a horrifying story where he just turns into like, uh, uh, uh, King Robert from, uh, from gang.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Basically Robert Baratheon.
Speaker: Boring and talking about his great times as a great warrior.
Speaker: Give me my, give me, get me the breastplate stretcher.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: I see a lot of that in his future.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I see a lot of that, that, that Robert Baratheon.
Speaker: So we get a little background how Cyrus didn't know his dad because his dad went off to be the sacrifice before he was born.
Speaker: And he had been raised to be the sacrifice for forever.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: his mom begs him to stay.
Speaker: Uh, but he's like, no, I can't, I can't bring the heat down on you.
Speaker: Uh, the, because when they assume, they assume that, uh, well, they, that what they tell them is that,
Speaker: What do they call it?
Speaker: The undying or something like that?
Speaker: Yeah, the deathless.
Speaker: Deathless, thank you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're going to come looking for the sword.
Speaker: So there's like there's a pantheon of gods at the top is the God King.
Speaker: And then there's six other in the pantheon.
Speaker: And we find out more that that's that's not even the end of it.
Speaker: That's not even the extent of it.
Speaker: But there's these there's these beings called deathless that they heal.
Speaker: They live forever.
Speaker: They don't need to eat or drink.
Speaker: And so basically they're they're revered as gods.
Speaker: So I think that's kind of.
Speaker: It's kind of interesting as we get to learn a little bit more about what kind of bullshit might be happening, what might be going on here.
Speaker: I'm looking forward to some additional reveals in the back half of this book.
Speaker: Oh, definitely.
Speaker: If there's one thing he's doing really well in like a short amount of time, it's slowly unpeeling this onion.
Speaker: It's really, really good.
Speaker: Yeah, it is a tasty onion.
Speaker: Absolutely it is.
Speaker: be one of those people that eats an onion like an apple.
Speaker: I'm getting there.
Speaker: You're getting there.
Speaker: I...
Speaker: I eat about an onion a day and it's always cooked.
Speaker: But in my cooking, I tend to eat a lot of onions and I'm pretty sure I'm getting to that point.
Speaker: There's going to be a day where you're like, you're going to be like, why cook it?
Speaker: And you're just going to bite right into it.
Speaker: Just go straight into it.
Speaker: It's got all the vitamins and minerals and roughage that I need.
Speaker: Yeah, that you need.
Speaker: It's fibrous.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So go for it.
Speaker: So you do that.
Speaker: Listen, I mean, you know what?
Speaker: I'm actually proud of you.
Speaker: You're going to be going into 40.
Speaker: You're going to be hitting your 40s, swinging hard, eating onions.
Speaker: The age of an elderly troll, apparently.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, uh...
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, we'll find, we'll learn about that later.
Speaker: We'll get into that, we'll get into that.
Speaker: We'll get into that.
Speaker: So chapter two, and chapter two was like the bulk of what we just, of what we read.
Speaker: Um, so chapter two starts with the God King waking up from his death because he's a deathless and he doesn't actually die.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Son of a bitch.
Speaker: That sucks.
Speaker: Like, oh, you can't just kill him.
Speaker: Um, no, they, they reincarnated him.
Speaker: Um, he actually wakes up sooner than his handlers thought he would.
Speaker: Uh, he's only, he's been down for about a week.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And we get some backstory about his armor and there's like a lot of technology that he uses.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And there's there's this thing he uses called a dead mind mirror, which he also says it used to just be called a monitor.
Speaker: But now it's called this.
Speaker: And I'm like, wait a minute.
Speaker: Wait a minute.
Speaker: And it's like.
Speaker: One of those stories.
Speaker: One of those stories.
Speaker: And first of all,
Speaker: And this is just my theory going forward, is that these Deathless are just like super, super charged, super futuristic, high technology people who just happen to have all this technology and it looks like magic.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a Horizon Zero Dawn thing.
Speaker: Who's saying is that?
Speaker: Was it Asimov?
Speaker: Yeah, I think it was Asimov, something about like a sufficiently advanced technology is going to look will look like magic to people.
Speaker: And I think that it's basically indistinguishable from magic to certain people.
Speaker: I'm getting that vibe is that basically these deathless people are just like a super advanced race of people that are like, well, let's, you know, cosplay as gods on this planet.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're probably bored as shit.
Speaker: I kind of don't blame them.
Speaker: They do seem very bored with their lives.
Speaker: So he's using this monitor to keep an eye.
Speaker: His people are able to track down Cyrus, and he's keeping an eye on Cyrus.
Speaker: And the monitor shows him that Cyrus is actually coming back.
Speaker: to the palace.
Speaker: Yeah, because what else is he going to do?
Speaker: That he fought him at.
Speaker: And then we jump perspectives over to Cyrus.
Speaker: And Cyrus's plan is to start back at the castle and start a new path away from his hometown just so that anybody who is looking for him, and that's the main concern, is that anybody who's looking for him will not track him back there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he's he's during his walk.
Speaker: He's he's real big.
Speaker: He's big sad about missing out on his childhood.
Speaker: Just to sum it up.
Speaker: He's very sad.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: He's a little sweetie.
Speaker: He's looking at a rope and he's like, I can think of so many ways to kill a man using this rope, but a regular child would use it for a swing.
Speaker: And it's like, aw, buddy.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: He has so many moments like that where it's like, there's a moment in the previous chapter where he's like, he's got an axe and he sees an axe and he starts trying to chop a piece of wood with it.
Speaker: But he doesn't know shit about chopping wood.
Speaker: So it's like he could kill.
Speaker: kill somebody with the axe real easy, but chopping wood actually requires some level of like knowledge of grain and physics.
Speaker: And he just doesn't have it.
Speaker: He's like, he is cruelly min-max.
Speaker: Like he's just, he's just so min-max.
Speaker: So min-max.
Speaker: It's ridiculous.
Speaker: Wisdom, intelligence, both dump stats.
Speaker: You know, they're, they're, he's got an eight in both of those rolling at, rolling at disadvantage.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: It is a great theme, one that you see a lot in this franchise called Warhammer 40,000.
Speaker: I've never heard of that one before.
Speaker: Can you tell me more, sir?
Speaker: It's a new one.
Speaker: It's a new one.
Speaker: From the from the 80s.
Speaker: But it is a great it is a great theme.
Speaker: You see where these people who are bred for nothing but war.
Speaker: What do they even how can they even comprehend a world without it?
Speaker: Like, what are you going to do?
Speaker: Become a farmer like you don't have any other skills.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it's a terrific thing.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Why the, how the fuck does he get off writing this complex of shit for a, for again, I, I am not joking, advanced fruit ninja.
Speaker: Like, where the fuck does Brandon Sanderson get off?
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: How does he not phone this one in?
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: And that's why I think this was his idea.
Speaker: I think that's why I think that he went to them saying, I will happily write you a novella for this franchise.
Speaker: Like, I have to believe that because this is ridiculous.
Speaker: And you know what's funny is this novella is like, man, this shit would make a great game.
Speaker: Yeah, right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He could do a cool open world game based on this.
Speaker: Fascinating, fascinating.
Speaker: Fascinating.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Fascinating role playing game.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: All kinds of war.
Speaker: He he runs into a pack of day rails who tell him that he is their new master and he has no clue what the fuck they were talking about.
Speaker: And he's like, all right, let's let's figure this out.
Speaker: Go.
Speaker: Let's gather everybody up.
Speaker: Let's go to the throne room and and figure that out.
Speaker: So in the throne room, you know, all the day rolls are gathering.
Speaker: He's Cyrus is trying to figure out.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: He knows that the sword is magic.
Speaker: He knows that there's some, there is magic associated with the sword and he's trying to like figure out how to use it.
Speaker: And he starts poking around.
Speaker: He finds basically what's a computer in the
Speaker: the armrest of the God King's throne.
Speaker: And he fucks up on what I love is that it's a password and then three security questions.
Speaker: And he fucks them up.
Speaker: And it's like, well, it's locked till tomorrow.
Speaker: He basically fails the, are you a robot test?
Speaker: Like...
Speaker: They capture the shit out of him.
Speaker: The only thing they could have done that would have been more of a giveaway was if they were like, have you forgotten your password?
Speaker: Click here.
Speaker: Restart password.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: So now here's the here's the troll we were referring to.
Speaker: Cyrus.
Speaker: Cyrus meets Kuth.
Speaker: Is that is that the name?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Who's a 40 year old troll is about 15 feet tall and he's blind.
Speaker: And he knows a lot of stuff.
Speaker: He doesn't know everything, but he knows enough.
Speaker: And Cyrus basically and him kind of go back and forth.
Speaker: Cyrus asks him like 40 questions that Kuth is like, I don't know, man.
Speaker: And then it's like.
Speaker: There's a string of, what about this?
Speaker: No, I don't know that.
Speaker: And we're like, what about this?
Speaker: And be like, I don't know that.
Speaker: He basically exhausts the conversation tree.
Speaker: He exhausts the conversation tree.
Speaker: Like he goes through every, he's just fallout New Vegas-ing the shit out of this situation.
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: So he gets, but then Kuth adds a marker, a waypoint on his Pip-Boy map as to where the next closest Deathless is.
Speaker: And then Kuth reveals to him like, oh, this castle is not where the God King lived.
Speaker: This is just where he fought duels.
Speaker: Like he would just come here when there was a duelist on the way.
Speaker: He didn't.
Speaker: This is not his house.
Speaker: It's just another castle.
Speaker: And then Cyrus puts all the he has the the moment at the end of usual suspects.
Speaker: He like drops the mug.
Speaker: And he puts together like, oh, somebody is coming back here right now, probably to kill all the guards, deactivate all the golems and kill all the day rolls in the area because there can't be any witnesses left behind who knows the truth about the God King's death.
Speaker: So he's like, Cyrus is like, all right, fine.
Speaker: I'm going to go talk to this Deathless, the killer of dreams, I believe it was.
Speaker: And then an assassin, an assassin comes in.
Speaker: L'assassino.
Speaker: And he says, my name is Ezio Auditore.
Speaker: Plot twist, motherfucker.
Speaker: Plot twist, it's Assassin's Creed, motherfucker.
Speaker: So, yeah, he notes she speaks with a very something about how does how does the voice actor say her lines?
Speaker: It's kind of a Slavic sort of.
Speaker: OK, I was going to guess that I was going to guess either Slavic or German.
Speaker: The way it's described in the text.
Speaker: Sort of direction.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The Cyril also notes that the assassin is not unattractive.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I was like, all right.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: Fine.
Speaker: I'm really enjoying this, so I'm going to give it to you.
Speaker: I'm like, fine, Brandon.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: You're horny on Maine in your fucking novella, dude.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: The whole scene is like a, it is a chaotic mess.
Speaker: Like she poisons him at one point.
Speaker: He uses a healing ring, which ages him like six months and he has a beard now.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: And then the golems start attacking him because they're trying to get the sword and she's trying to get the sword.
Speaker: And he throws the sword away and the goblins and her are getting going for it.
Speaker: And
Speaker: it is bananas basically how much is happening.
Speaker: One of the golems at one point hits the throne and it basically resets the security measures.
Speaker: And so Cyrus is like, oh, okay, how do I use the magic for the sword?
Speaker: How do I do the teleportation?
Speaker: And it teaches him
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: How to do it.
Speaker: It's like, well, you know, you have to set your thing by default.
Speaker: It's set as this and then you do it.
Speaker: And it's like a hand gesture.
Speaker: It's a hand gesture.
Speaker: And the assassin.
Speaker: The assassin has taken the sword and she's left.
Speaker: She has left the castle.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he does the gesture and the sword reappears in his hand.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And off in the distance, you just hear her say like, ah, God damn it.
Speaker: Yeah, you literally do.
Speaker: And it's like, this is the moment where it's like, oh my God, this is actually really funny.
Speaker: It's such a funny moment.
Speaker: This is a funny book.
Speaker: This is a genuinely, it's got great action.
Speaker: It's really funny.
Speaker: Holy shit, this has no business being this good.
Speaker: It's fantastic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he then uses the teleportation disk in very clever ways to fight off the golems, basically making the sword disappear, reappear and all that fun stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because he figures out that the golems are tracking the sword, not him.
Speaker: So he'll like throw the sword.
Speaker: The golem will turn towards the sword and then he'll make it appear back in his hand and he'll slice up the golem.
Speaker: And he's victorious.
Speaker: Meanwhile, by the way, the day rules that were that said that they were pledged to him nowhere to be fucking found.
Speaker: They scattered.
Speaker: Not even a little bit.
Speaker: Like, thanks, guys.
Speaker: Really appreciate your help.
Speaker: Thanks, guys.
Speaker: Thanks for helping out here.
Speaker: Yeah, this is great.
Speaker: And the assassin returns at the end of the chapter saying, well, now I want you instead of the sword, basically.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And take that for what you will.
Speaker: She's not unattractive.
Speaker: She's not unattractive.
Speaker: The next chapter is all about how she looks in a bikini.
Speaker: And in a chainmail bikini.
Speaker: Red Sonja, why won't you return my emails?
Speaker: Because you are fictional.
Speaker: Because you are fictional.
Speaker: So in chapter three, the God King, it's just quickly revealed that BT dubs, it wasn't the Gollum hitting, smacking the throne that did it.
Speaker: It was the God King deactivating the security on the throne so that Cyrus could go and get do the teleportation thing.
Speaker: Because he was like, he says, I'd rather the enemy I know than the enemy I don't know.
Speaker: have the sword.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, which makes sense.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And basically, he deactivates all the, he like, he's like, shut it down, you know, activate, like he burns the castles, like security measures, the cameras, everything.
Speaker: It's, it's basically like a reaction to seeing Jason Bourne, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: You gotta shut everything down.
Speaker: Shut it down.
Speaker: Shut it down.
Speaker: God damn it, it's Jason Bourne.
Speaker: Power measures.
Speaker: So we find out that the assassin's name is Isa.
Speaker: And she tries convincing him to give her the sword while staring at his chest muscles.
Speaker: And she is very thirsty.
Speaker: It's a bold strategy, Cotton.
Speaker: Let's see how it works out.
Speaker: She also says he is not unattractive.
Speaker: He strikes me as the kind of guy who doesn't know how to swing an axe or what pie tastes like, but damn those chest muscles.
Speaker: Damn those pecs.
Speaker: Yes, indeed.
Speaker: I wonder if he's... Pecs.
Speaker: Those chesticles.
Speaker: Chesticles.
Speaker: So they have a back and forth, a little tete-a-tete.
Speaker: A little witty repartee.
Speaker: And then she walks out after stealing a silver bowl.
Speaker: And he's like, you're a thief.
Speaker: And she's like, shut the fuck up, nerd.
Speaker: Shut up.
Speaker: We're called rogues now.
Speaker: It's their addition, bitch.
Speaker: So Cyrus goes back to the throne room and starts questioning Strix because Strix has returned and the day rail and is like,
Speaker: hey, why didn't, where did you guys go?
Speaker: And uh-oh, the Dayrills were actually playing him all along and he kills, he turns around and slices Cuth in the stomach and kills Strix.
Speaker: And basically their entire plan was to keep them in place, to make him think that he was in charge until the God King just like walked in and took everything back.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it's kind of a shame because, I mean, you really thought, you know, these day rolls would be, you figured they'd be someone you could trust.
Speaker: That just, that just, yeah.
Speaker: You can't trust anybody in this game.
Speaker: Can't, can't trust anybody.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: Anyway, moving on to chapter four.
Speaker: So Cyrus asks Issa to take him anywhere that isn't the castle and just starts following along.
Speaker: They just start walking down the road and it's like, fine.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: They get into a conversation.
Speaker: This is like a very lore dumpy conversation, but it broadens the scope of the story a little bit more.
Speaker: We find out that they're not even on a continent.
Speaker: They're just on an island.
Speaker: And Cyrus didn't even realize that they were on an island.
Speaker: He actually didn't even realize that there was a name for the island they were on.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I mean, that is how, like, created in a lab he is for all intents and purposes.
Speaker: Like, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, because the Sacrifice family, and I think I might have forgotten to mention this earlier, the family that he is from is kept from the public.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: The sacrifice family, like his dad, his grandfather, his great grandfather, hundreds of years of the men of this family have been the sacrifice to duel the God King as like the minor act of rebellion for that this town sends to the God King.
Speaker: There is a great line where they're talking about what to what she could trade him for the sword.
Speaker: And she says a pair of penis.
Speaker: Yes, a pair of penis.
Speaker: He goes, I beg your pardon?
Speaker: And it's literally her going, yeah, sure.
Speaker: And she goes into her backpack and pulls out a couple of pens.
Speaker: And he's like, well, someone paid dearly for those, didn't they?
Speaker: She's like, yeah, they're a little expensive.
Speaker: it's like the second time that we get like an introduction to the fact that that she does not speak the language does not speak the language at all it's just some cheeky linguist humor for for our audience yeah i like it i mean it literally made me lol she does have a moment where like he explains to her like what that actually means and she literally is like this moment of of
Speaker: Oh, I have egg on my face.
Speaker: That is crazy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: And she's like, oh, wild and crazy guys.
Speaker: She actually says, that's really funny.
Speaker: I wish I did it intentionally.
Speaker: Right, yeah.
Speaker: So but before he actually explains it to her because he explains it to her later in the chapter.
Speaker: But before he gets to, they meet a group of travelers who are on their way to pay homage to the sacrifice.
Speaker: Basically, they we and we get a little bit more information that every year or every 20 years or so, the sacrifice after the sacrifice has been like killed, the God King places the body outside the castle.
Speaker: People come, they strip the armor, and they carry the body back to the town, and they bring, like, you know, wheat and frankincense and incense and myrrh.
Speaker: And gold.
Speaker: And gold and whatever.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Three wise men.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know.
Speaker: You know.
Speaker: That kind of thing.
Speaker: Elfior, Gaspar, and Balthazar.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The fact that you had them.
Speaker: Right away back there.
Speaker: You come here for the theological trivia.
Speaker: Don't you bitch?
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Yeah, so he explains all this to Issa.
Speaker: They're camping that night.
Speaker: And so and and Cyrus is trying to Cyrus is trying to write things.
Speaker: He's writing things in his notebook about things he would like to do with his life.
Speaker: And then he goes to sleep and Issa tries to kill him with a crossbow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like you do.
Speaker: But Cyrus had sabotaged it earlier that day.
Speaker: He had attached the teleportation disc to part of the crossbow and he did the thing and it basically removed the firing mechanism.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: The crossbow, making it useless.
Speaker: And so.
Speaker: It is actually a very intense scene.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because the sword has been kind of corrupting Cyrus a little bit here and there, prone to violent outbursts.
Speaker: And he really gives it to her.
Speaker: Like he gives it to her so much.
Speaker: She legitimate like this character who we've kind of seen so far as being completely unflappable.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And very sweet, honestly.
Speaker: And like, yeah.
Speaker: Well, Issa is unflappable.
Speaker: I mean, oh, sorry.
Speaker: I was talking about.
Speaker: Yeah, I was sorry.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Issa is like completely unflappable.
Speaker: Just not able to doesn't really seem to get afraid of anything.
Speaker: Cyrus terrifies the shit out of her with like the way he advances on her as, you know, the sword is telling him he's thinking thoughts in his head to just basically destroy her, like kill her.
Speaker: You know, she has to pay, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: And she trips over a rock.
Speaker: She's on the ground.
Speaker: He can he could kill her if if you wanted to.
Speaker: And he stops because like he finally sees like the fear in her eyes, something that he hadn't seen before.
Speaker: And she.
Speaker: she, this is like a breakthrough moment where she's like, all right, fine.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: I'm going to help you like for real this time.
Speaker: Uh, I'm not going to try to kill you again.
Speaker: If you want, you can tie me up.
Speaker: Um, wink, uh, every night.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: You can you can tie me up every night when we make camp just to make just so whatever you need to do to to get through this.
Speaker: But I'm going to like actually help you now instead of just lead you out in the middle of nowhere and steal your sword.
Speaker: So because it's a it's a crucial turning moment because they had this kind of.
Speaker: They kind of had this relationship of like, oh, I don't really trust you.
Speaker: And she's like, ha ha ha.
Speaker: You shouldn't.
Speaker: That's a good idea.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's where and that's where the recap ends for this evening.
Speaker: So how are you feeling so far, Phil?
Speaker: This is as if it hasn't been obvious.
Speaker: This is.
Speaker: I'm kind of a gog like, like this is really, really solid.
Speaker: You know, is it the best one we've read?
Speaker: I don't know yet.
Speaker: But damn, this is for, for, for as simple of a game as infinity blade is Sanderson has really, he's really sinking his teeth into this mythology, having fun with it.
Speaker: All of the little hints at future technology that were in the game.
Speaker: He's expounding on that.
Speaker: I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker: What about you?
Speaker: Yeah, it's a blast.
Speaker: And I think it's really neat.
Speaker: I liked the hook of it.
Speaker: We're starting with the God King is dead.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's not trying to just rewrite the story in the game or even make this make a story for the game as you've played it.
Speaker: He's picking up after it, which is smart.
Speaker: And he's doing a really good job.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: So, yeah, I'm enjoying it.
Speaker: I'm really curious as to to see where it will go from here.
Speaker: Oh, big time.
Speaker: Big time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So I know your computer is still not working.
Speaker: I'll ask, what are you playing?
Speaker: But I have a feeling it's nothing.
Speaker: Oh, well, actually, I found a game to play.
Speaker: Oh, OK.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: So hold on.
Speaker: Let me ask you officially.
Speaker: Yeah, do it.
Speaker: Do it proper.
Speaker: Do it proper.
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: The man with the voice.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I have been playing, as I mentioned earlier this episode, I found myself deeply frustrated while I was reading this because I could not find Infinity Blade to play.
Speaker: But it occurred to me that with work, for the first time in years and years, I'm working in an office environment again.
Speaker: And so I was like, to help pass the time while I'm working on shit in the office, I should find one of those terrible gotcha games or something like that to play in the background just to give myself a little respite now and then.
Speaker: And I used to be super into the Star Wars, I think Star, I forget what it's called, but one of the Star Wars games and you just collect all the characters and everything.
Speaker: But then I remembered, based on another book we read recently, that there was an Assassin's Creed game along those lines.
Speaker: And I had played it briefly and had been kind of shocked at how good it was.
Speaker: And I picked it back up again.
Speaker: It is shockingly good.
Speaker: It is your typical free to play, you know, daily quests unlocked for all these different currencies games.
Speaker: But you play like you're basically the master of this house of assassins, and they're all different assassins and characters that you can unlock from all the different games across all the different universes.
Speaker: And you build teams of three, and each one of them has a different specialty.
Speaker: And based on their specialty, you build the team and send them in and unlock a storyline.
Speaker: And for a couple of days' worth of just...
Speaker: you know, playing this game at work in the background, it's pretty good.
Speaker: Like the, the, the character it's weird because it's not like a cutesy game, but the characters are all in this like kind of chibi style, uh, cartoony kind of aesthetic, but it's really fun.
Speaker: And, you know, you're unlocking different abilities and you choose what way you're going to like,
Speaker: you know, traverse these different palaces and stuff?
Speaker: Are you going to sneak past with your sneaky assassin?
Speaker: Are you going to assassinate them?
Speaker: Are you going to just go in and fight them with one of your thug kind of characters?
Speaker: I forget what it's called.
Speaker: I honestly, if you, if it's the only Assassin's Creed mobile game that I know of.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think it's Assassin's Creed Origins.
Speaker: I think that might be it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Or something like that.
Speaker: No, no, no, no.
Speaker: Assassin's Creed Rebellion.
Speaker: Is that it?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Is it this one?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That's the one.
Speaker: I think that, yeah, that's the one.
Speaker: And it is surprisingly fun.
Speaker: I'm not giving them any money because fuck Ubisoft.
Speaker: But the thing about those games for me is that I actually enjoyed hunkering down with those games over a long period of time.
Speaker: And slowly unlocking my characters and stuff.
Speaker: I actually was never all that interested in spending money to unlock things.
Speaker: And I think that especially helps with something like this, which is a world that I'm not all that invested in.
Speaker: So I've got like a Viking assassin that I don't know who they are.
Speaker: I would like to have them though.
Speaker: So I'm just slowly chipping away.
Speaker: Yeah, why not?
Speaker: And it's...
Speaker: I'm enjoying it, surprisingly enough.
Speaker: I'm really liking it.
Speaker: But this time next week, I should have my new rig set up.
Speaker: So God only knows what I'll be playing by then.
Speaker: It'll be shiny and new.
Speaker: It'll be shiny and new, and you're going to probably christen it with something that's super taxing, like Vampire Survivors.
Speaker: Probably.
Speaker: I actually guarantee that the first game I play on my new rig will be something you could play on a toaster if you wanted to.
Speaker: So, yeah, you could play.
Speaker: You're not wrong.
Speaker: So what about you, Kevin?
Speaker: What are you playing, bud?
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: I have been playing Prey.
Speaker: I've been getting back into Prey because... Back into Prey.
Speaker: Wow, okay.
Speaker: Yeah, because I have started to realize that...
Speaker: Prey might be one of my favorite games of all time.
Speaker: Fascinating.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It might be.
Speaker: That's Arcane, right?
Speaker: That's Arcane, yeah.
Speaker: You love those guys.
Speaker: Those guys are- I do love myself some Arcane games.
Speaker: uh i i think i think looking back on it um i really love death loop um and which is their most recent release uh but going back to prey i was like oh but prey is so my shit it's exactly it's exactly my shit um it's it's in a package and it's labeled kevin shit right on there um
Speaker: And it's for me, it's my box of shit.
Speaker: I've also been playing, talked about this last time I'm playing Loop Hero again.
Speaker: I just, you know, ever since you brought that up, I was like, maybe I should play that because I never finished that one.
Speaker: You've been getting to hankering?
Speaker: Yeah, you brought it up and I was like, that was a fun game.
Speaker: Maybe I should try and finish it.
Speaker: Yeah, I think I just want to finish it.
Speaker: And I need to get back to playing Stray.
Speaker: I want to finish off Stray and see if I can knock that one out.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Because I don't think I have much left in that game.
Speaker: How long is that supposed to be?
Speaker: Um, actually, let me check.
Speaker: Time to beat.
Speaker: Stray.
Speaker: There's a website.
Speaker: I love time to beat.
Speaker: How long to beat.com.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: If you do everything, if you're like a completionist, you're getting all of the unlocks and achievements and all that, it's eight hours and eight and a half hours.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: It's like a it's basically a let's say a Resident Evil.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like one it's one Resident Evil in length.
Speaker: Pretty much, yeah.
Speaker: Okay, yeah.
Speaker: I mean, for the whole thing.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That's, yeah.
Speaker: It's like, yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: I think I'll be able to get... The average for, like, any percent speed running, just kind of, like, getting through it, is, like, an hour and 40 minutes.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Which is also very much, like, a Resident Evil, like...
Speaker: You just know exactly what you're doing.
Speaker: You go here, you do this, you do that, you jump up here and all that stuff.
Speaker: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker: And I guess if you beat it enough times, you get a rocket launcher.
Speaker: rocket launcher but i would love i would love the kitten to have a little rocket launcher of course it's the only way you make the game better and it shoots like fish out the back of it like heath clip style like fish like that that cold cartoon so it's like the fish head and the bones and the yeah
Speaker: It's Heathcliff.
Speaker: Oh, I know somebody.
Speaker: So somebody has already modded Garfield in to replace the cat.
Speaker: Oh, well, I mean, we live in a Garfield now.
Speaker: Yeah, I would love if somebody had a Heathcliff mod with Heathcliff wearing like the helmet that just says meat on it.
Speaker: It's amazing.
Speaker: But that'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: Please follow us on Twitter and Instagram at PixletPod.
Speaker: Visit our website, PixletPod.com to see and read transcripts of
Speaker: all the episodes, including links to episodes that we have guest spotted on in on other podcasts.
Speaker: The one coming up soon.
Speaker: Yeah, that there will be there.
Speaker: There will be.
Speaker: And if you can rate us
Speaker: five stars on Apple iTunes as well as Spotify.
Speaker: And if you're feeling up to it, Good Pods allows you to give five stars per episode.
Speaker: Hell yeah.
Speaker: Which, hey, that would be awesome.
Speaker: That would be cool.
Speaker: Just write us a little review and a little, a little love letter with each episode, a little love letter with each episode.
Speaker: We would love it and we would read it.
Speaker: We would actually read it on the podcast.
Speaker: We would.
Speaker: We would.
Speaker: We're not above the little love letter you put in the lunch.
Speaker: You know, that's, we're not above it.
Speaker: We might be below it, you know, and it might be too good for us.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I won't.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That, that goes without saying.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Anyway, there will be more Infinity Blade next week.
Speaker: Until then, have a good night, everybody.
Speaker: Bye.
