Glim Garry Glim Lost (Elder Scrolls: Infernal City

Transcript

Speaker: They're bred to wear parkas.

Speaker: Yeah, they wear North Face shit and they're like really obnoxious.

Speaker: They'll hit on your girlfriend.

Speaker: It's not cool.

Speaker: They're really on your girlfriend.

Speaker: They're really into the Austin comedy scene.

Speaker: Oh, God.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They won't shut up about it.

Speaker: They won't shut up about Shane Gillis for some reason.

Speaker: It's just the worst.

Speaker: And that's when you got to start shooting them.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: We're actually going to probably get a air rifle just to if we see them like out the out the back, just like pop them off to to get them away.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know who else needs an air rifle?

Speaker: Who's that?

Speaker: Hey everybody, welcome back to Pixlet.

Speaker: My name is Kevin with me as always as Phil on today's show.

Speaker: We are starting the Elder Scrolls, the forbidden, forbidden city, forgotten city.

Speaker: Infernal city.

Speaker: Yeah, that's the ticket.

Speaker: That's the stuff.

Speaker: So yeah, it's, it's an Elder Scrolls book.

Speaker: If you don't know what Elder Scrolls is, welcome to video games.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Elder Scrolls is an RPG series that is made by Bethesda and has been around for like 31 years at this point, I think.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: When did Arena come out?

Speaker: That was the first one.

Speaker: When did Arena come out?

Speaker: That's a good question.

Speaker: Yeah, did.

Speaker: March 25th, 1994.

Speaker: Bam.

Speaker: Bang on.

Speaker: Perfect guess.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: Nicely done.

Speaker: Holy shit.

Speaker: So yeah, the first one is Arena.

Speaker: They're all these, they are first person RPGs.

Speaker: The first few of them, Arena and Daggerfall, have that classic first person pixel style that Doom has, except it's not as fun as Doom.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Daggerfall held the distinction as like the largest video game ever made for a long time.

Speaker: It's still my one still up there.

Speaker: God damn big.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's like basically the size of Europe in the game.

Speaker: It's huge.

Speaker: Well,

Speaker: But yeah, so they all take place in this world that is... They got a bunch of different races.

Speaker: They got cat people.

Speaker: They got lizard people.

Speaker: They got regular humans.

Speaker: And then they got like literal fucking Nazi Aryan people.

Speaker: Yeah, they got, they got, they do a lot of cultural races, you know, alongside their elves and their, their Arcanians and all that.

Speaker: Elves and, and, and drow and, and all that stuff.

Speaker: And then it's like, there's like humans.

Speaker: And then it's like, there's the Nords.

Speaker: Like, right, right.

Speaker: Wait a minute.

Speaker: We're calling them a separate race.

Speaker: That's a different, oh, okay.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: They're tall, blonde and white.

Speaker: Oh, interesting.

Speaker: Interesting.

Speaker: Very interesting.

Speaker: And the Khajiit are basically Romani.

Speaker: Like it's not without its problems.

Speaker: It's not without its problems.

Speaker: Probably the best game in the series is Morrowind, would you say?

Speaker: I'd say it is, but the most popular is obviously Skyrim.

Speaker: Most popular is Skyrim.

Speaker: But I would say, yeah, it'd be Morrowind for me.

Speaker: Yeah, Morrowind is... I lost a lot of time to that one.

Speaker: Lost too much time to Morrowind.

Speaker: Morrowind was the third game in the series.

Speaker: Oblivion was number four, and Skyrim was number five.

Speaker: The sixth one has been in production for 30 years.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: As is, it's right.

Speaker: I mean, it's going to have to be.

Speaker: But yeah, it's up this reputation of being the biggest goddamn games in the world.

Speaker: So yeah, it makes makes frickin Grand Theft Auto blush.

Speaker: Yeah, after each, so basically each game takes place in a specific location.

Speaker: Morrowind takes place on, I think it's called Morrowind, is right?

Speaker: The island?

Speaker: Usually it's the name of the place it's in.

Speaker: So Oblivion, it's not set in Oblivion, but you do go to Oblivion.

Speaker: in part four and part five is set up north in Skyrim where the mountain folks are basically set during a civil war period between the Empire and the Nords so to speak what's the overarching story of the Elder Scrolls?

Speaker: Fuck if I know

Speaker: There's like, I don't think they're connected by anything.

Speaker: And that's the sound of a thousand people typing.

Speaker: Yeah, probably.

Speaker: No, it's it's that's the thing I will say is that the Elder Scrolls story from game to game has never really intrigued me.

Speaker: And I don't think I think you're with the majority on that one.

Speaker: I think most people, I think the vast majority of people who have played played it all the way through the end.

Speaker: In fact, if you if you said to them, what's the storyline of this?

Speaker: I'm willing to bet most of them be like, oh, I don't know.

Speaker: I was just I was on an adventure.

Speaker: I was shouting dragon calls and killing giants and doing all that shit.

Speaker: And I think that's more important than anything else, really.

Speaker: Yeah, it's the journey, not the destination.

Speaker: Yes, very much so.

Speaker: But yeah, so... Oh, and What's-His-Face has been in charge of it forever.

Speaker: Todd.

Speaker: Todd, what's his name?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I should have known that.

Speaker: Because that's the thing.

Speaker: Elder Scrolls has been my jam since Daggerfall.

Speaker: I've been playing it...

Speaker: i've been playing that game forever i have the dagger fall um demo as a kid howard see how oh yeah yeah yeah todd howard um

Speaker: And that game, I probably pumped as many hours into the demo of Daggerfall as many full-fledged games.

Speaker: And then Morrowind came out, and I nearly failed a class in undergrad because of it.

Speaker: My girlfriend got me an Xbox.

Speaker: I think it was a graduation present or something like that.

Speaker: And I was sitting in a dorm as a freshman.

Speaker: playing through Morrowind for hours on end.

Speaker: It nearly, yeah, it could have gotten really bad.

Speaker: I never played Oblivion, though.

Speaker: I never played, which... Yeah, I never really, I played like the first 15, 20 minutes of it and never really clicked with it.

Speaker: Oh, it's on Game Pass, and it's the remaster they did.

Speaker: I think I might have to give it a shot at some point.

Speaker: Maybe after I'm done with Rogue Trader.

Speaker: On the Daggerfall box art, it says, prepare to experience your new obsession.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: That is accurate.

Speaker: That is what it was for some people, you know.

Speaker: There.

Speaker: Yeah, it goes.

Speaker: You know, I remember actually Dan from Game Grumps on an episode talking about how he had stopped playing.

Speaker: He had stopped playing video games for a year, few years because of his addiction to Morrowind.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: Yeah, sure.

Speaker: I get that.

Speaker: You'll hear you'll hear no criticism from me.

Speaker: I understand.

Speaker: It's real easy as a gamer who believes that games are art to go to roll their eyes when people talk about how addictive games are.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Come on.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Let's be real here.

Speaker: I think he like failed out of a college or something like that at some point because of Morrowind.

Speaker: I think it's very sim.

Speaker: I just remember it being very similar to your story of just.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I think he's I think he's it's funny.

Speaker: I think he's a couple of years older than me, maybe at the same level that I'm a couple of years older than you.

Speaker: And, and, and yeah, it's like him telling the story.

Speaker: I remember that story and it's, it's this thing of like, Oh Jesus Christ, at least I didn't fail the class.

Speaker: But I could totally see how it could have happened.

Speaker: Cause there were, there was no, there's, I mean,

Speaker: Nowadays, the big open world game and that kind of thing is a very, uh, Everything's open world.

Speaker: It's it's bright.

Speaker: You can find an open world.

Speaker: You shake a stick at a and find an open world.

Speaker: Um, but, but yeah, I just remember my times.

Speaker: I remember my college, so my sophomore year roommate playing Morrowind and saying something like, hey, check this out.

Speaker: And I look over and he's constructed a house out of skulls that he... Sure.

Speaker: Just like all the skulls that he had collected.

Speaker: He was just like stacking them up.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Morrowind in Morrowind was the last one that really lets you do just about anything.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And we'll get into it with this book.

Speaker: But one of the things that I think is really accurate on this book is one of our characters, without getting too far ahead, she is constantly experimenting with different ingredients to make potions and stuff.

Speaker: The irony of that is that this is more of a tie-in with Oblivion.

Speaker: It takes place like six years after Oblivion.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I was like, this feels like an Oblivion tie in.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: But I haven't played it.

Speaker: But from what I understand, Oblivion, it was more of a, they kind of made, they dumbed it down a little bit to try and reach out to more people.

Speaker: That's how a lot of people looked at it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: From three, like going three, four, five, it's like dumbed down, dumbed down even more.

Speaker: You know, right, right.

Speaker: And one of the things with Morrowind you could do is you could literally just sit there and create spells and create like and people came up with the craziest shit.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: It was a whole thing.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And that's and I will I will say pretty much same thing happened with Fallout once Todd Howard took it over.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: And that's the and that's also a game series.

Speaker: that the later ones I have a lot of fondness for, I have a lot of affection for, but I totally see what old school gamers are talking about.

Speaker: I never fall out was not my thing until the third one.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And looking at it, if you started with Fallout one and two, yeah, I totally get why three would be like, what the fuck is this shit?

Speaker: You know, it makes sense.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Who wrote this this book?

Speaker: Oh, this is this is by Greg Keyes.

Speaker: He's another of this is our first Greg Keyes book.

Speaker: He's another of our right for hire guys.

Speaker: He is from the deep south.

Speaker: He's from Mississippi.

Speaker: He actually missed the universe.

Speaker: Miss.

Speaker: I went to University of Georgia.

Speaker: He's a bulldog.

Speaker: Yeah, he's a former anthropologist of all things.

Speaker: Interesting.

Speaker: And yeah, and he does a lot of the same stuff a lot of our guys do.

Speaker: He's a lot of novelizations.

Speaker: XCOM 2 Resurrection.

Speaker: He did the novelization for he did a lot of Godzilla, some Planet of the Apes stuff.

Speaker: And and also some Star Wars.

Speaker: He did the Edge of Victory books and some Babylon five, as well as some of his own original stuff.

Speaker: But his but his for higher stuff far outweighs numerically his original stuff.

Speaker: He wrote like some alternate reality stuff, like some alternate history stuff where like

Speaker: It's this weird futuristic sci-fi thing where Benjamin Franklin is the main character.

Speaker: And it's strange.

Speaker: It's strange enough that I'm like, I might have to take a look at this.

Speaker: I might have to check this out.

Speaker: This looks a little crazy.

Speaker: But he also he wrote The Infernal City in 2009, which is what we're reading now.

Speaker: And he wrote its sequel, The Lord of Souls in 2011.

Speaker: So that's our guy.

Speaker: That's Greg Keynes.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: He wrote a, so wait, he wrote an adaptation to, for XCOM 2.

Speaker: Yes, yes.

Speaker: Interesting.

Speaker: XCOM 2.

Speaker: Resurrection.

Speaker: Okay, it's a prequel to, it's a prequel to XCOM 2.

Speaker: Yes, yes.

Speaker: And considering how badly the first XCOM novelization we read went, we might have to hop on to this one next year at some point.

Speaker: We might have to check it out because this is a Firaxis joint rather than a whatever.

Speaker: Whoever it was, yeah.

Speaker: Whatever that was for the first one.

Speaker: It's like, fuck it, XCOM.

Speaker: What a mess.

Speaker: That was a mess.

Speaker: Yeah, that was a mess.

Speaker: That was a real mess.

Speaker: Um, this will not be free of mess.

Speaker: Uh, I'm going to, this is not a mess free book.

Speaker: This is not a mess free book.

Speaker: I, I think one of my first things that I want to point out is it's elder schools and anyone who plays a lot of elder schools knows that one of the things, and you and I have talked about doing this as like bonus stuff and let us know if this is something you'd like, um, there are books upon books

Speaker: upon books in the worlds of the Elder Scrolls.

Speaker: Sometimes there are a few pages.

Speaker: Sometimes they are like short story length.

Speaker: And there are just so many of them.

Speaker: And they don't really serve a purpose in terms of like giving you a clue or pointing you.

Speaker: Sometimes they do, but mostly it's just flavor stuff.

Speaker: Um, so it's very literary oriented.

Speaker: And when that's the case, I was surprised to see how thin this book is.

Speaker: It's not even 300 pages.

Speaker: That's not and that's not a problem.

Speaker: It's it's, you know, I write shorter books, so that's that's not a big deal.

Speaker: It's just that I expected something denser.

Speaker: And as we're going to get into, I think this might have originally been something denser.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And we'll get into it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But yeah.

Speaker: I mean, speaking of which, how about we how about we marsh that body?

Speaker: Let's let's put that body in the marsh.

Speaker: Let's do it.

Speaker: OK, so.

Speaker: The body of the man found dead in the Fenway marshes yesterday afternoon is that of Timothy Delahunt.

Speaker: The Infernal City, an Elder Scrolls novel by Greg Keyes.

Speaker: We start with a prologue.

Speaker: A group of sailors led by a Khajiit captain tumble through a terrible gale that tears their ship apart.

Speaker: In the distance, they see a dark shape that I, like a fool, interpret it as a tornado.

Speaker: They describe it as a cone.

Speaker: I was like, that's like a tornado or it's over water.

Speaker: So water spout.

Speaker: But right.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: And I was like, why would they have not seen that before?

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And they're all horrified by it.

Speaker: But not for long, because then they're blown to bits.

Speaker: We we are introduced to Seul.

Speaker: He awakens.

Speaker: He's had some sort of prophecy like.

Speaker: based.

Speaker: He's seen all of this.

Speaker: He assumes it's from Azura, the Daedric Prince that he kind of worships.

Speaker: And he thinks Azura has pushed him in a certain direction.

Speaker: Azura is the Daedric Prince of egotism, vanity, dusk and dawn, the magic between day and night, according to the Elder Scrolls Wiki.

Speaker: We get a lot of stuff from her in Oblivion, which makes a lot of sense.

Speaker: in this world, gods are less a thing and it's more Daedric, which are kind of self-interested.

Speaker: It makes you think a little more of the old pagan gods, where they're kind of like...

Speaker: Yeah, they're not good.

Speaker: They're not evil.

Speaker: Well, some of them are, but like they're more capricious than anything else.

Speaker: They're there.

Speaker: They're just there doing like that, doing their own thing.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: It's very much an old Greek god kind of situation.

Speaker: So this guy is, you know, a worshiper of Azura.

Speaker: And he believes he's being pointed in a certain direction.

Speaker: And and he gets like a message like he he says, OK, great.

Speaker: This dream was a terrific prophecy.

Speaker: What the fuck does it mean?

Speaker: And then he happens to look at a book.

Speaker: And it's like, oh, oh, it says right in here where I should be going.

Speaker: And it like basically corresponds to the dream it just had.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So that's that's our prologue.

Speaker: And we cut to chapter one.

Speaker: We get this weird brief interlude of a woman and an Argonian.

Speaker: And it looks like.

Speaker: they're squaring off like we get there.

Speaker: They like talking about like, so you're going to kill me.

Speaker: It's like, well, more like you're going to get killed, you know, and it feels like they're about to have like a final, you know, battle with lightsabers and shit.

Speaker: We cut to an egg and glim who are Britain and an Argonian.

Speaker: Britain is one of the many.

Speaker: They're the British white people.

Speaker: British white people cultures and and the Argonians are swamp lizard people.

Speaker: I think my first instance of being intrigued by this was the fact that an Argonian was one of the main characters.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Because they very frequently take kind of like.

Speaker: second banana to most other things when it comes to Elder Scrolls.

Speaker: So I was like, that's a good sign.

Speaker: And they are in the Black Marshes where they're from.

Speaker: So that's pretty cool.

Speaker: They argue over whether or not they should go on a quest, basically.

Speaker: Yeah, they're bored.

Speaker: They want to do stuff.

Speaker: It's the most murder hobo shit you've ever heard in your life.

Speaker: They're bored off their tit.

Speaker: And she thinks that there's this guy who is a were crocodile.

Speaker: Awesome.

Speaker: It's fantastic.

Speaker: No notes.

Speaker: I am with you 100%.

Speaker: The only thing I would have added is like if her asking him the Argonian would be like, is that offensive to you?

Speaker: Like...

Speaker: Yeah, that would have been great.

Speaker: Because the Argonian is basically what you would imagine.

Speaker: He's like Argonians are basically just imagine what's his name from from fucking the lizard from Spider-Man.

Speaker: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: The lizard.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Or Killer Croc, if you want to.

Speaker: Or Killer Croc.

Speaker: Like, yeah, they don't have to be as big as Killer Croc, but yeah.

Speaker: And they can swim underwater indefinitely.

Speaker: And, you know, and they've got all the reptile things.

Speaker: Pretty cool.

Speaker: Pretty cool race.

Speaker: So he's much more interested in drinking up her dad's wine.

Speaker: But she talks him into it.

Speaker: They find the lair, which is this kind of like, it's like,

Speaker: a corner of an old abandoned castle slash Manson that could actually still be lived in.

Speaker: And they hide in the rafters as this trio comes in and they're listening to the conversation and through the conversation, they realize he's not a were crocodile.

Speaker: He's just a common skooma smuggler.

Speaker: Skoma being one of the many booze slash drugs that Khajiit mostly deal in.

Speaker: And this brings us back to the opening interlude.

Speaker: We find out that it's not them squaring off.

Speaker: It's them getting ready to die because they almost immediately get seen.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's amazing.

Speaker: The guy is like, so who are the people up in the rafters?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, they were just he knew the entire time they were talking that they were there.

Speaker: And it was as long.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: Now that we finished talking about that, who are those people?

Speaker: Like, it's that kind of situation.

Speaker: And there's like, oh, I don't know them.

Speaker: I thought you knew them.

Speaker: You're like, I don't know them.

Speaker: Like, that's why I sent the Bill and Ted up there to deal with them.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it's in that moment, of course, they realize they're being hunted by people also up in the rafters.

Speaker: They're spotted.

Speaker: They run.

Speaker: They take feather fall potions and escape off of broken roof.

Speaker: We find out that an egg has is basically a budding alchemist and she has tried all kinds of different potion things.

Speaker: She's trying to find a potion that will make you fly.

Speaker: It's just beyond her, though.

Speaker: And she was thinking this was going to be a flying potion.

Speaker: It's not.

Speaker: but it's still pretty good.

Speaker: At least they, they don't break their legs on the way down or something.

Speaker: Um, back home, they, they are drinking wine now.

Speaker: Uh, they are doing what Glim recommended.

Speaker: Uh, you learn a lot about what he wanted to do at the beginning.

Speaker: It's where he wanted to be in the first place.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: And, and, and I'm with him.

Speaker: I, I most, nine times out of 10, I'm, I'm supporting Glim, uh, in this book so far.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: We they give us a little information on the Empire, the Imperials and the end of Oblivion.

Speaker: We talk a little bit about Emperor Martin Septim and, you know, just just you get some some exposition shit and some history, some background stuff.

Speaker: It's it's pretty well.

Speaker: And the way I'm saying it's kind of clumsy, but it actually is pretty well written into the thing.

Speaker: And so Glimm lets her know that his cousin is docked.

Speaker: He's a sailor.

Speaker: And he is and everyone's been talking about a floating island with a city on it that that everyone that's the talk of the town lately.

Speaker: And that's chapter one.

Speaker: So far, I like it.

Speaker: I like our characters.

Speaker: I like the fantasy romp.

Speaker: I'm enjoying myself.

Speaker: And it's a good story.

Speaker: And Mayor Glimm.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Awesome.

Speaker: I'm in.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Chapter two, we meet Colin, who is talking to an old man.

Speaker: He's nervous.

Speaker: Something's going on.

Speaker: There's something Colin knows that the old man doesn't know.

Speaker: And we find out that he's been sent there to kill the old man.

Speaker: It is brutal.

Speaker: It is a very ugly scene, not just because he is not good at killing, but like the dude is literally saying, why are you doing this?

Speaker: And please don't.

Speaker: He's begging for his life.

Speaker: It's rough.

Speaker: It's actually a really rough killing scene.

Speaker: Colin is, it's just like, he's so bad at killing that it's, it's like, um, you, you know what it reminds me of?

Speaker: It reminds me of that scene in, uh, Game of Thrones where, uh, is it Theon tries to cut, uh.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: When he's cutting, uh, what's his name's head off and he's failing miserably at.

Speaker: Is it Roderick or?

Speaker: Whoever the guy who tied his his his ponytail under his chin.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He's trying to cut his head off.

Speaker: And it's like it's not a clean cut at all.

Speaker: It takes like five hacks to get the guy's head off.

Speaker: And the guy is screaming.

Speaker: He was a little kid.

Speaker: And yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's a mess.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And that's very much of this.

Speaker: That's very much what this is.

Speaker: It's really it's sloppy.

Speaker: It's brutal.

Speaker: After the deed is done, a couple of other people who clearly Colin knows come to help him dispose of the body and through context and through the conversation.

Speaker: We find out that he is now an official.

Speaker: They call him an inspector.

Speaker: And as the chapter goes on, you find that inspector is basically a sanctioned imperial assassin.

Speaker: uh yeah and that's and he's like he's been working at it for three years or something like that and this was like his final he he gets his final tests um one would you say they're cops they're cops they're cops uh uh yeah they're definitely they're definitely more of the uh of the uh matt damon type uh yeah

Speaker: They're pretty brutal.

Speaker: No fucking co-op.

Speaker: They're co-ops.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that's chapter two.

Speaker: And I hope over the course of this, that this Colin character that we've mentioned to you and the Sewell character, the worshiper of Zura, I hope you didn't get too attached to them because we'll not be talking about them for the rest, for another hundred pages, give or take.

Speaker: That is it.

Speaker: We have been introduced to them.

Speaker: I forgot that they were in this book until you just reminded me.

Speaker: I almost did as well.

Speaker: And I read this yesterday.

Speaker: It's not like...

Speaker: It's I was and this is and this is like exhibit A for me in terms of how I believe this used to be a much longer, windier novel.

Speaker: It's the fact that I one of the things they talk about him on his Wikipedia page is that one of the the.

Speaker: The through lines for Greg Keyes is that he likes to tell a story through a bunch of different characters who don't necessarily meet, but they're living these parallel lives and they're all experiencing the same situation parallel to each other, which is a very cool conceit.

Speaker: And that's and that's what they have set up here.

Speaker: But this is part one of the book, the first third of the book.

Speaker: And from here on out, all we're getting is an egg and Glimm.

Speaker: It is their adventure from here on out.

Speaker: So chapter three, an egg and Glimm have a hangover breakfast classic.

Speaker: I I've had many of these.

Speaker: I immediately recognized what was going on.

Speaker: Lovely.

Speaker: She's like, she's like doing this thing.

Speaker: The thing she does with alchemy where she's just like mixing a little of this and a little of that, that's also what she does with her omelets as it turns out.

Speaker: She's basically like just making this gruel out of whatever shit is there.

Speaker: She was like, I'm making it like this.

Speaker: And somebody goes, it's like, is it her dad is like, I thought you made it, it was supposed to be made like this.

Speaker: And she's like, ah, you're just trying to find the same flavor profiles.

Speaker: Little this, little of that.

Speaker: So her father does join them.

Speaker: He he is the relationship between him and an egg is strained.

Speaker: She calls him by his name, which is always a bad sign with a dad.

Speaker: you know, instead of dad.

Speaker: And he's kind of basically we find out that he's an old drunk.

Speaker: He hasn't been the same since her mom died.

Speaker: And then it's just kind of a mess.

Speaker: So he they're talking and he kind of gives them some info on the flying city.

Speaker: But it's clear that he's hiding something he knows more than he is willing to talk about.

Speaker: Then he talks about the hists.

Speaker: And there is just one that he listens to.

Speaker: Now, the hists

Speaker: are these sentient trees that live throughout the Black Marsh.

Speaker: And they're not worshipped, per se, but they're kind of venerated.

Speaker: And they are all connected in some way.

Speaker: So the idea is that they're all related slash kind of the same beings.

Speaker: And people ask them questions and they get guidance from them and that sort of thing.

Speaker: And what's starting to happen is there's one hist in particular that seems to be going straying from the pack in terms of the stuff that it's talking about.

Speaker: And this is the only one that her dad will talk to.

Speaker: Basically, he's he's.

Speaker: I don't know about the politics specifically, but he's kind of like going to an on like he's he's he's getting real paranoid.

Speaker: The difference is, I think he might be right about some of this stuff.

Speaker: But by the way, I is like they have this thing called the hist and it reminded me of I don't think you never played control, did you?

Speaker: No, I never played control.

Speaker: The enemy in control is called the hiss.

Speaker: Oh, okay.

Speaker: Which is, it's basically like, and it's like a sentient frequency sort of that.

Speaker: Oh, that's cool.

Speaker: Basically, once somebody hears it, they are under the control of the hiss.

Speaker: It sounds like a hiss to the person, but it's.

Speaker: What a fun idea.

Speaker: I like that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's like, it's like.

Speaker: zombie tinnitus.

Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.

Speaker: That's kind of what it was in control.

Speaker: I like that.

Speaker: That's fun.

Speaker: Okay, cool.

Speaker: Yeah, but so they're dealing with the awkwardness of dad coming down to have breakfast with them.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So Glimm heads out and we get a really interesting inner monologue.

Speaker: Glimm's inner monologue, we get a couple of instances of it in this section.

Speaker: And I find it some of the best writing in this book.

Speaker: And it's talking about assimilation because the Imperials have taken over the Black Marsh where the Argonians are from.

Speaker: They couldn't be more different.

Speaker: Their culture is different.

Speaker: And he has a lot of thoughts about

Speaker: code switching and stuff like that.

Speaker: He talks a different way.

Speaker: It's really, it's probably the best section of the book where he's like, he's like, and it actually reminds me of a, uh, there's actually a good scene in modern family where Sophia Vergara, uh, is, is talking to, um, uh, I think it's, it's to her, to her husband or somebody else.

Speaker: And she says, uh,

Speaker: do you know how smart I am in Spanish?

Speaker: Like to have to, she's like, I have to think, I think everything in Spanish and then I say it, I like translate and say it in English.

Speaker: And it reminded me, I was reminded of that reading this where he's like, yeah, like I can think more nuanced thoughts in my native tongue than the words in other, the other languages that I know just don't exist.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: It's very well written.

Speaker: And it makes sense because Greg Keyes is actually a linguist.

Speaker: Like he's a trained linguist.

Speaker: That's his thing.

Speaker: But it has a lot.

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

Speaker: And it has a lot to say, though, about assimilation, about code switching, about different cultures and colonization.

Speaker: And holy shit, it's good.

Speaker: Like it's really well written and really well thought out.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So he touches one of the tree roots of the, of the nearby hist and has some kind of vision or he sees a mysterious city with two moons.

Speaker: Um, and, uh, so he goes to Irv when, who is some sort of like psychic priest, uh, uh, the psychics in, in this land are called psychics, I guess, uh, or psychics.

Speaker: It depends on how you pronounce it, but, um,

Speaker: So he's asking them about what they've been talking about, and he tells them, you know, the floating city, it's already here.

Speaker: And he does the whole Jedi slash tech bro thing of being like, it is, but it isn't, you know, like, oh, shut the fuck up.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: It's like it's part of oblivion, but it's not.

Speaker: You know, it's pretty standard fortune teller shit, really.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, so he, but he gets kind of worked up and he said, I don't want to talk.

Speaker: You need to leave.

Speaker: And he basically makes him.

Speaker: I don't want to talk about it anymore.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: That's exactly it.

Speaker: He's just a little too worked up to talk about this shit anymore.

Speaker: Chapter four, an egg.

Speaker: She is with her own old mentor kind of figure, Hecua, who was an old alchemist and they're discussing potions.

Speaker: She finds an ingredient that,

Speaker: that neither of them have any clue what it is.

Speaker: Basically, years ago, some guy came in, was hurting really bad.

Speaker: And Heckua was like, well, I feel bad for him.

Speaker: I'll fix him up.

Speaker: And the only thing you could offer was this mysterious ingredient that she's never opened, that she's never looked into, that she has no idea what it is.

Speaker: And an egg's like, I'll take it.

Speaker: And she goes, yeah, fine.

Speaker: Go on.

Speaker: 16 year old adventure have enjoy yourself uh it's yeah and one of the one of my favorite things favorite misfires that they talk about for an egg is that uh she created an invisibility potion for glim to take but it it only made his skin invisible so basically he just looked like floating internal organs yeah

Speaker: And Hecchio was like, hey, listen, it took me a week to cure him of that.

Speaker: Please be careful with whatever you make.

Speaker: It's really good.

Speaker: I think these two characters are the most level one D&D characters you can have.

Speaker: They're going on kind of light impact missions and fucking up.

Speaker: It's very well done.

Speaker: They're level one and they're not leveling up anytime soon.

Speaker: Not any time soon.

Speaker: No, sir.

Speaker: So she synthesizes the ingredient.

Speaker: They use some other term for it, but I get the impression it was like she centrifuges it basically.

Speaker: And so she spins out a she.

Speaker: So suddenly Glim is missing and she hasn't seen Glim in a while.

Speaker: And

Speaker: I interpreted this as just the fact that they have been friends since they were like kids.

Speaker: He points out that he says, we've been friends since we were hatchlings.

Speaker: And so she hasn't heard from him in a while.

Speaker: And so she sends out this clockwork sparrow named Koo.

Speaker: And the whole thing with the mechanism of this thing is that she has a locket and she can look into the locket and basically see what Koo sees and hear.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And talk to him and give him more.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So she sends him out to find him.

Speaker: Um, so her dad comes to her and he, he basically tells her that he sold the house and, uh, and, uh, and you've got to get the fuck out of here.

Speaker: Uh, because he's talked a lot about how you got to get out of here.

Speaker: I want you out of here.

Speaker: I want you not, not in a mean way, but like, Hey, you, you deserve better than this.

Speaker: I want you to go on your adventures.

Speaker: Start your life.

Speaker: You know, that kind of stuff.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And what's happened is that he has hired a group of thugs to kidnap her and throw her on a ship to take her across the ocean to the empire.

Speaker: Like, so she can begin her and she's fighting it.

Speaker: It's like he has literally paid these guys to kidnap her and force her out of town.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Which honestly, and he says, you know, I hope that one day you think back and realize I did right by you.

Speaker: This is what you need.

Speaker: Uh, so, so she's on this ship, uh, and, uh, and that's what we're doing now.

Speaker: So, uh, Glim, uh, finds coup eventually.

Speaker: And, uh, and here's through the, through coup, through coup, uh, uh, that's, here's a struggle and he hears her fighting and he goes, oh, yeah, I gotta go save my girlfriend.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: Uh, chapter five, uh, uh, an egg, uh, she hears from Glim through the locket.

Speaker: Uh, uh, he's, he's trying to find her.

Speaker: Um, the captain of the ship, uh, lets her above deck eventually when they're out in deep water.

Speaker: He's like, yeah, he's like, you're not getting anywhere.

Speaker: So yeah, you're not going to go anywhere.

Speaker: We're in deep water.

Speaker: You'll just drown.

Speaker: So I'm going to let you do, do your stuff.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: So this I was hoping this would be the beginning of a rollicking good nautical adventure.

Speaker: No, it lasts for another couple of pages before Glimm shows up and they just dive overboard.

Speaker: Right overboard.

Speaker: It's like, oh, we're past the pirate nautical adventure stuff.

Speaker: Yeah, we were introduced to this captain.

Speaker: He was kind of interesting.

Speaker: And yeah, that's it.

Speaker: The prologue was was was on the ocean.

Speaker: We're like, we're returning to the ocean, boys.

Speaker: Here we go.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Nautical adventures back on the menu.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: Bingo.

Speaker: Nothing.

Speaker: No, no.

Speaker: It's so crazy.

Speaker: So.

Speaker: She's she she's hanging on to him for dear life, basically, because he's he's Argonian.

Speaker: He can just tear through the water.

Speaker: They find an island and he realizes that he knows where they ought to go.

Speaker: It starts to tumble a little bit.

Speaker: We're getting to the point here a little too fast and a little sloppily because I'm like, oh, how the fuck does he?

Speaker: Okay, fine.

Speaker: So they head to a group of ruins where they find the floating city.

Speaker: And Glimm suddenly, Glimm, who would rather just stay home and get drunk, suddenly is all about going there.

Speaker: And an egg is suddenly the one who's like, no, I want to go home.

Speaker: So she

Speaker: This is so confusing.

Speaker: This is where it starts to get.

Speaker: I got lost right about here.

Speaker: I was like, what the fuck just happened?

Speaker: So she's like, we got to get out of here.

Speaker: And he's like, we got to go on the island.

Speaker: She forces a flight potion that she has successfully made.

Speaker: I'm assuming with the mystery ingredient.

Speaker: At some point.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: She forces him to drink it and they're both flying.

Speaker: And he says, well, great.

Speaker: I can fly to the floating island.

Speaker: And she just kind of goes with him.

Speaker: despite everything, it's very confusing.

Speaker: It's weird.

Speaker: And it takes us into chapter six where the book takes a sharp left turn into fuckery.

Speaker: This is where

Speaker: This is where up until around here, I was having a really good time.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And then it's like we're through the looking glass and we didn't consent to that.

Speaker: It's like the story that we were given in the first few chapters was like...

Speaker: this is high adventure.

Speaker: This is something.

Speaker: And now it's like, what the fuck are the words that I'm reading on the page now?

Speaker: What is this?

Speaker: Uh, uh, did James Joyce start writing Dubliners and write it into my eyeballs?

Speaker: It's very weird.

Speaker: We're middlers.

Speaker: I'm Jimmy John, the middle burger.

Speaker: We're about to go into like, this is like, it goes, yeah, because you're right.

Speaker: It's like high fantasy, classic fantasy, D&D style Tolkien kind of shit.

Speaker: And we're about to head into this weird,

Speaker: 80s labyrinth style kind of fantasy where everything is up for grabs.

Speaker: And it's just it anyway.

Speaker: So chapter six, I'm going to read you just how I wrote it.

Speaker: OK, so they say they're on a flying island, but suddenly they're passing through an area of the Black Marsh again.

Speaker: First and foremost, they're on this floating island, but then it tells us that they're wandering through the Black Marsh.

Speaker: I'm assuming and later they talk about them looking off the edge.

Speaker: So I'm like, oh, OK, so they're like, all right, they're looking over the edge down on the ground.

Speaker: where things are happening.

Speaker: And they watch a random group of Britons who have built this barricade.

Speaker: We don't know why.

Speaker: We don't know what's going on there.

Speaker: And they get slaughtered by this random group of sea creatures.

Speaker: And then they kind of rise from the dead like zombies.

Speaker: And then an egg and a glimpse start kind of freaking out and saying, we've only got basically saying we've only got so long to help them.

Speaker: And I'm like, what the fuck are we talking about?

Speaker: It doesn't make any sense.

Speaker: And so, yeah, so I'm confused.

Speaker: Yeah, again, they're on the edge of the island looking down at what's happening, but

Speaker: Why?

Speaker: You're on a floating island.

Speaker: Why are you still looking?

Speaker: Why aren't we learning about all the shit that's in front of you?

Speaker: It's a city.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: There's a whole city there.

Speaker: And we're still talking about, oh, look what's happening down there.

Speaker: It's so weird.

Speaker: They're on this mysterious new land and they're still like looking down at the stuff that's going on down there.

Speaker: So it's right off the bat.

Speaker: We are.

Speaker: It feels like we're in a different.

Speaker: We've got different characters.

Speaker: It feels like it feels like we switched authors.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's so weird.

Speaker: So.

Speaker: But they do eventually start kind of like creeping into the island.

Speaker: They're basically...

Speaker: In like, it's not, it's nothing about this is clear.

Speaker: That's the problem.

Speaker: There's a lot of shit.

Speaker: We have not been painted a picture because there's just like a line where it says the air was thick with flyers and threads and wherever they fell, a silvery thread followed, striking the body and reeling back up brighter.

Speaker: The maulist simply vanished.

Speaker: It's just like there's, I, I,

Speaker: There's not enough, like whatever he is trying to describe here was just not, it did not, there was no image generated in my head.

Speaker: You know what I mean?

Speaker: It's like footage not found, just in my head.

Speaker: That is like a good 50% of it.

Speaker: It's just like footage not found.

Speaker: It doesn't make any sense.

Speaker: And you have to kind of, you have to infer

Speaker: a lot and you have to guess a lot.

Speaker: And by the way, knowing a lot about the Elder Scrolls will not help you because this is not connected.

Speaker: This floating city is not part of any of the previously maintained Elder Scrolls lore.

Speaker: This is just a new thing.

Speaker: So you just kind of have to infer ship.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: they they they're kind of in the root system sewer system they're like on the lower levels and they're digging their way through basically not literally digging their way through there's like tunnels and it's like a labyrinth yeah and and there's a party that's kind of searching for them they overhear and they're they're like cords of spider web they like describe it as cables of spider web that they don't it looks like

Speaker: web sacks and egg sacks and stuff.

Speaker: They don't, but we don't see a spider.

Speaker: So it's, it's just weird.

Speaker: And they, they overhear a group of people looking for them and it's like, how the fuck did they know?

Speaker: Okay, whatever.

Speaker: So, so an egg takes coup and says, go to Prince Etribus and tell him what's happening.

Speaker: Who the fuck is Prince Etrovus?

Speaker: I hear you saying.

Speaker: Who is this guy?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You look it up and he is he is a character in this book alone.

Speaker: He is not in any of the other games.

Speaker: He's just he's the son of one of the emperors.

Speaker: And.

Speaker: I think this might be the first time he's mentioned.

Speaker: And so she's like, just tell him, tell him, she says, tell him what's happening.

Speaker: And to which I said, what is happening?

Speaker: Tell me the reader what is happening.

Speaker: What's going on?

Speaker: What?

Speaker: Why am I in the dark?

Speaker: This is so, it's so frustrating.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: So they travel, but, but, but who doesn't know?

Speaker: Who's who's just who.

Speaker: And so I'll go and tell the prince.

Speaker: Okay, cool.

Speaker: Who's the clockwork bird.

Speaker: He flies off.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He doesn't.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He fucks off.

Speaker: Uh, uh, it's, it's just a sparrow version of that owl and clash of the Titans.

Speaker: It's the same shit.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: They meet.

Speaker: Is it Wem Rettle?

Speaker: I want to say is the name of this fucking dude.

Speaker: Fucking Wem Rettle.

Speaker: Pisspot.

Speaker: The middle.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Wem Rettle.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Speaking of labyrinth, I pictured Hoggle.

Speaker: And they find him.

Speaker: He's licking the spider web cables.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it's like clear.

Speaker: It's like you feel like it feels like they caught him with his nuts out.

Speaker: Like it was like

Speaker: He's like, oh, geez, it's natural.

Speaker: It's perfectly a natural thing to be doing.

Speaker: It's a natural thing to do.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: And so so we know this guy for five seconds.

Speaker: He realizes he kind of infers that they're not from there and they're from off the island.

Speaker: And so immediately in true RPG fashion, he needs their help.

Speaker: And in true RPG fashion, they question nothing and say, well, lead us over.

Speaker: Lead us to the thing you need, random stranger.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Sounds good.

Speaker: Chapter seven.

Speaker: Wemretel basically tells him, he gives him some background.

Speaker: And I will say, this is actually pretty well written.

Speaker: It just goes on too long.

Speaker: So Wemretel is from the Middens.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: We're in the lowest of the Middens or something like that.

Speaker: And at this point, I'm like, so they're not on top of the islands.

Speaker: OK, I get it.

Speaker: This is the first time we have.

Speaker: This is this is the only way we know about this, by the way, for sure.

Speaker: Like I assumed you would go to the top if you're fucking flying.

Speaker: You would go to the top of the island and be like, no, they're in the middle of the island and be like, I guess the middle of the thing had a landing zone.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: The root system somehow.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: Despite the fact that it was described as a cone.

Speaker: So it's like basically you'd have to land on an upside down triangle.

Speaker: But anyway, and this but it is well written where it's this kind of low context, high context kind of situation where

Speaker: He has no idea what they're talking about.

Speaker: And he it's it's it's they don't know the most basic thing about where they are.

Speaker: And he's kind of like and it confuses everything that he says because he doesn't know how to even begin with them.

Speaker: It'd be like if a fish hopped out of the ocean and was like, well, why are you why do you why does your chest rise like that and then go down again?

Speaker: And you're like, wait, what are you even taught?

Speaker: Are you talking about breathing?

Speaker: Like it's it's he's it's.

Speaker: It's pretty good.

Speaker: It just goes on a little too long.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But through this, we get some exposition.

Speaker: And we're basically told that the island, which is called Umbriel, the island is basically Galactus.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It just goes from place to place, and it steals souls, and it just drains people wherever it goes.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's a tornado of soul drinking like that.

Speaker: That's what it is.

Speaker: And the threads are basically just they're just soul sucking tubes.

Speaker: They're just sucking the souls up in the moths.

Speaker: So it's like the moths have to be have to hatch down there or else if they start on the islands, then they would become incorporeal.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: By the time they get down there, because that's the thing is, if you're from the island, you can't go down there because then you just become a ghost.

Speaker: You can't interact with anything.

Speaker: So the moths are attaching the threads to people and sucking and drinking their souls up.

Speaker: And that's what Wem Riddle was doing when they first met him.

Speaker: He was licking one of the tubes.

Speaker: Just to get like just to get like a little residue of soul juice from that that the island is sucking up.

Speaker: And I was like, OK, OK, I get it now.

Speaker: Sort of.

Speaker: Well, and this and this is where you kind of start to realize what the problem is here.

Speaker: And this is where it really came together for me.

Speaker: Excuse me.

Speaker: Now, this was a longer, larger novel, at least in its planning, if not in practice.

Speaker: These kind of strange little world building things can absolutely work.

Speaker: Little interstitials with a character who's super interesting, but you only see for like 10 pages.

Speaker: That shit can work in a

Speaker: a much larger world, you know, and a much larger kind of a story.

Speaker: And as I said before, this is not even 300 pages.

Speaker: This is a short novel in the grand scheme of things.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So we are introduced to a lot of world building stuff and mechanics that we are not going to be with for very long.

Speaker: And so instead of making us go, oh, what a rich world we are in.

Speaker: It just makes you go, what the fuck was that?

Speaker: What's happening?

Speaker: Like it just- Who's that guy?

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: become the senior citizen, you know, that's always behind me in the movie's going, who's that?

Speaker: Like, that's it's it's.

Speaker: Why did they say?

Speaker: It's that kind of shit.

Speaker: And we and we're given very little in the way of clarification for a lot of this shit.

Speaker: They end up in a pit.

Speaker: This is where I just almost if this wasn't on, I almost threw it.

Speaker: at the wall.

Speaker: I was reading it at work or I would have there in a pit that has like these vaulted ceilings and these holes.

Speaker: This is all actually very interesting shit.

Speaker: I'm going to clear.

Speaker: I'm just, I want to say this up front.

Speaker: This is actually a very interesting idea.

Speaker: We're just, we are treated to none of it.

Speaker: It's this pit they're in.

Speaker: It's got these vaulted ceilings with four or five different holes in them.

Speaker: And stuff is falling out of the holes.

Speaker: And the suggestion seems to be that Umbriel, the floating island, is a being.

Speaker: It is it is a Gaia kind of figure where it has a digestion tract and it's it's it's a living thing.

Speaker: Yeah, it is.

Speaker: It is basically like somewhere between Galactus and ego.

Speaker: Yes, absolutely.

Speaker: Ego is a great way to put it.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: And and here's the thing I just said, by the way, stuff is falling out of these holes.

Speaker: That was on purpose.

Speaker: The only descriptor we're given for what is falling out of these holes is stuff.

Speaker: That is it.

Speaker: He doesn't describe the stuff.

Speaker: We don't know if it's goo.

Speaker: We don't know if it's solid.

Speaker: We don't know if it's like individual items.

Speaker: It's just stuff.

Speaker: And I nearly threw the book across the room.

Speaker: I was so angry.

Speaker: That was what pushed me over the edge.

Speaker: I was so fucking mad.

Speaker: It's just big.

Speaker: God's sake.

Speaker: Because when they started, because they were like, they're starting, they're, they're thinking this is a Daedric Island.

Speaker: Some Daedra live here probably.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: But then they also go, maybe the,

Speaker: islands of Daedra.

Speaker: Maybe this is like, they suggest, they're like, you know, Daedras take up different beings.

Speaker: They take up different forms all the time.

Speaker: And so it's really interesting.

Speaker: Really, I could really chew on that for a little while.

Speaker: And then they're like, and there's stuff, there's fucking stuff.

Speaker: It's just falling out of the holes.

Speaker: And just, I just...

Speaker: This is our holes of stuff.

Speaker: It's like basically Dax Shepard's character from Idiocracy just like steps in.

Speaker: It's like the most interesting thing you've ever seen.

Speaker: And then his character takes over narration for a second.

Speaker: It's like this is a fucking stuff hole.

Speaker: These are our holes of stuff.

Speaker: God damn it.

Speaker: Go away.

Speaker: Leave me alone.

Speaker: I'm tired.

Speaker: So

Speaker: So they get kind of captured by this gang.

Speaker: The implication, they start talking about food a lot here.

Speaker: And the implication is that each one of these holes is like it's connected to a kitchen, basically.

Speaker: And so we get this rough and tumble chef who comes down.

Speaker: Great big barbarian lout style, red haired kind of guy.

Speaker: I was thinking of what's his face in Game of Thrones.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And.

Speaker: Torment, torment, giant torment, giant span.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: I was thinking it's that kind of dude.

Speaker: And he's like, I'm taking you guys.

Speaker: I have I have captured you.

Speaker: And then and then this other group comes in that's led by a character name.

Speaker: I have no idea.

Speaker: It's Q. I. J. N. E. So I'm going to say.

Speaker: Queen?

Speaker: Let's say queen.

Speaker: Queen.

Speaker: Let's say queen.

Speaker: So she does some very basic entry level.

Speaker: I'm a badass.

Speaker: And here's why kind of shit.

Speaker: She like slashes his cheek and and and doesn't even see her hand move.

Speaker: My God.

Speaker: It's like level three character coming in to stunt on these level one hoes.

Speaker: That's exactly what it is.

Speaker: You didn't know.

Speaker: It's that kind of shit.

Speaker: And it's like, OK, great.

Speaker: And so and we're told that that an eggs is like, this is the scariest person I've ever met.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: We're told that this is the scariest.

Speaker: An egg looked into the camera and said, this is the scariest person I ever met.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: I am really scared.

Speaker: You remember, but it makes sense though.

Speaker: Cause you remember that moment.

Speaker: I think it was season four of, um, breaking bad.

Speaker: where Jesse looks at the camera and he says, this Gus guy is the scariest dude I've ever met.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So it has precedent.

Speaker: This stuff happens.

Speaker: And then the fly flies away.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So hooray.

Speaker: So she takes them instead.

Speaker: So thank God that little misunderstanding is over.

Speaker: She, they got captured by one group and now they're captured by another.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Warm, warm piss.

Speaker: The middler is, is out.

Speaker: And he's out.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He like, he like gave them up or something like that.

Speaker: It's who cares?

Speaker: We'll never see him again.

Speaker: We haven't even seen Colin or Sewell again.

Speaker: And they've got prophecy and assassination shit.

Speaker: What, what,

Speaker: What makes you think we're going to see the piss boy ever again?

Speaker: We're not.

Speaker: It's not happening.

Speaker: God damn it.

Speaker: I was enjoying this book for a minute.

Speaker: For a hot minute.

Speaker: It was really enjoyable.

Speaker: I was really enjoying it for a good like 50 pages.

Speaker: I was really having fun.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Chapter eight.

Speaker: Queen takes them to her kitchen where the cantina cast from Mos Eisley are working.

Speaker: Apparently, it's just it's just every short, tall, fat, thin alien creature you ever saw.

Speaker: Yeah, it's the fucking one of the things is basically described to look like the alien, the little dude that sits on Jabba's tail.

Speaker: Oh, oh, oh, I know his name.

Speaker: What's his name?

Speaker: God damn it.

Speaker: Hold on.

Speaker: Oh, something crumb.

Speaker: Hold on.

Speaker: Salacious Crumb.

Speaker: Yes, Salacious Crumb.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: What a name, by the way.

Speaker: Holy shit.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And there's one.

Speaker: My favorite description was the one that's like a spherical bunny.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It looked like a rabbit, but spherical.

Speaker: And then we moved on.

Speaker: What the hell is going on?

Speaker: So, so we're in the kitchen.

Speaker: We're in the kitchen.

Speaker: And it seems to be it seems to be an actual kitchen.

Speaker: And she's explaining how this works.

Speaker: There are there are different levels of people here.

Speaker: There are the high end people and there are the low end people and the low end people get the low end food.

Speaker: The high end people get the really creative shit.

Speaker: And I need you to.

Speaker: an egg to help me make exciting, new, unique meals.

Speaker: And this is based entirely on the fact that an egg is from off the island.

Speaker: They're like, well, you're not from here.

Speaker: And we're here now.

Speaker: We're in this land that you are from.

Speaker: So I need you to, like, guide my cooks to making cool, interesting stuff.

Speaker: We even get, like, kind of a funny...

Speaker: We also get the full bear, the bear moment here where it's, she goes, I'm sorry.

Speaker: And the, and Queen goes, I'm sorry, chef.

Speaker: That's right.

Speaker: That's just what I was going to say.

Speaker: We get, yes, chef.

Speaker: And it's just like, it's like, this is, this is prior to the bear and prior to the, to the menu where, you know, the,

Speaker: But it was like, he clearly worked in the kitchen at some point.

Speaker: In a kitchen at some point.

Speaker: He knew something.

Speaker: It's so- Yes, Jeff.

Speaker: And I got a kick out of that.

Speaker: That was pretty funny.

Speaker: So she's so she's basically making an egg like this kind of apprentice, a whole cuisine kind of person who's going to come up with fascinating and new things.

Speaker: By the way, all this is happening.

Speaker: Glimm is apparently just in the background somewhere.

Speaker: He's not.

Speaker: He's supposed to just be in the background and then he just fucks off and then he just disappears.

Speaker: We get no description about how that happens.

Speaker: No, it just does.

Speaker: You know what we do get descriptions of?

Speaker: We get descriptions of a neg just going, okay, I guess this is my job now.

Speaker: Well, bring me this and bring and they give her like servants like a hob.

Speaker: She gets a hob and a scamp.

Speaker: And a scamp.

Speaker: A hob and a scamp.

Speaker: Oh, God.

Speaker: I remember surely when I got a hob and a scamp.

Speaker: And...

Speaker: So she's suddenly like, yes, chef.

Speaker: And she's in it.

Speaker: And she's like, okay, we're going to come up with something.

Speaker: God damn it.

Speaker: They're ordering.

Speaker: And she suddenly became Elder Scrolls overcooked.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: She just takes it and she's like, yeah, OK, I guess we're doing this.

Speaker: So she's working a fire for some reason.

Speaker: And everything that she's meant to do is just so vague.

Speaker: They never say at any point like they like this or they like that.

Speaker: It's just the most vague, lazy kind of like.

Speaker: Well, they'll want something unique.

Speaker: Come up with something unique.

Speaker: It's like this place likes it burned.

Speaker: But don't you dare burn this place.

Speaker: Oh, my God.

Speaker: Literally, it's like it becomes Elder Scrolls, a cooking game.

Speaker: Just like we're in some sort of kitchen management sim now.

Speaker: That's really it.

Speaker: It's like, it's, it's, yeah, it's papers, please.

Speaker: The burnt food to make sure to give the burnt food to these guys and the non burnt food to these guys.

Speaker: And don't do it or you'll lose points.

Speaker: Um, and it's something about creeping dictatorship and totalitarianism.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: And so she gets the staff.

Speaker: And this is another moment that made me want to throw the book across the room where she, by the way, she is speaking a language that is like, like these creatures are all speaking this kind of archaic dead language, like a variant of it.

Speaker: And she has studied enough of it to understand what they're saying to speak with them.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: in her just just coincidentally, she happens to know the language and glim.

Speaker: And to be fair to glim, he's sitting there because he doesn't understand what the fuck anyone's saying.

Speaker: So at one point he says he says to her, I don't speak the language, but it's pretty clear what they want from you.

Speaker: How?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: How has it ever?

Speaker: No, it's I'm reading the book.

Speaker: I know what they said.

Speaker: And it's unclear to me.

Speaker: I don't get it.

Speaker: So she's working on fire.

Speaker: She's she's doing and she says like like it feels like she's been working for days at a certain point that just snaps by.

Speaker: And they lead her to this communal room where she's got a cot and she lays down and oops, Glim's been taken away.

Speaker: OK.

Speaker: It's just like, yeah, your friend got taken away.

Speaker: Oh, did he now?

Speaker: You were so locked in on cooking that you didn't notice that your friend Glimm was gone?

Speaker: You wanted to be cooking mama so bad that you forgot about your best friend in the world who is now gone.

Speaker: It's fucking stupid.

Speaker: So she has her moment of laying on the cotton going, I wish my friends were here and speaking into her locket, please find Glim or whatever.

Speaker: You know, she's just, find the prints for the thing.

Speaker: That's right.

Speaker: Atribus.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: The, the prints that we, we, we've been introduced to and we know so thoroughly.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: We cut to Glimm.

Speaker: We get more genuinely interesting, well-written internal monologue from Glimm, this time about the cultural differences on the afterlife.

Speaker: Wondering where he's going to go when he dies.

Speaker: And this is what the Imperials believe, but this is how my people typically believe it.

Speaker: It's really good.

Speaker: It's like a page and a half of

Speaker: A really interesting internal monologue from this character who is actually very interesting.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's once more.

Speaker: Once more.

Speaker: It's about colonization.

Speaker: It's about assimilation.

Speaker: It's really well written.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And that's it.

Speaker: And then and then and then he gets basically put in a cell and he meets a guy who is just babbling at him.

Speaker: He can't understand him.

Speaker: And he gives him a potion.

Speaker: He drinks it.

Speaker: And it's basically an understand languages potion.

Speaker: So you understand me now?

Speaker: Yeah, I understand you now.

Speaker: So basically he interviews him about what an Argonia is.

Speaker: He goes, we've never had a guy like you here.

Speaker: So what are, what is this all about?

Speaker: What are your stat bonuses?

Speaker: Basically, you know, what's, what are your special abilities?

Speaker: What are your saving throws?

Speaker: And, and he interviews him about his race and what they're good at.

Speaker: They swim, they can breathe underwater, shit like that.

Speaker: And, and the guy basically implies we're going to put you to work on the sump.

Speaker: back down in the piss hole that are... Where the worms are.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker: There's worms, by the way.

Speaker: Yeah, they just kind of... They're like basically the internal bacteria of this living being thing.

Speaker: This guy is an asshole, by the way.

Speaker: Oh, totally.

Speaker: He's like, where are you from?

Speaker: And Gwim's like, I'm from Tamriel.

Speaker: And the guy goes like, exciting, another meaningless word.

Speaker: And he'll be like, no, it's not meaningless, you fucking...

Speaker: It's just a different language, you piece of shit.

Speaker: Like, yeah, it's it's that he's like he's like condescendingly excited about this person from another culture.

Speaker: Yeah, it's like it's like if you'd never met a Mexican before and you knew nothing about that culture and they're like, well, I'm I'm I'm making I'm making a burrito and you guys are so cute with your fake bullshit words.

Speaker: A burrito.

Speaker: I am really interested and kind of racist.

Speaker: Like it's, it's, it's basically that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so they're going to put them to work.

Speaker: Um, and that's really exciting to know.

Speaker: And a really exciting, uh, a place to end part one on because they do.

Speaker: And that's the end of part one.

Speaker: And that's the end of our, our time together tonight.

Speaker: Uh, the inf,

Speaker: Kevin, what do you think about the Infernal City?

Speaker: Well, because I forgot to do it earlier, my thoughts on the Infernal City are brought to you by Patreon.com slash PixelitPod, where you can join one of three tiers, four if you count for free, and I do.

Speaker: $1, $5, $10, $1.

Speaker: $1 gets you the ad-free episode, $5 gets you the bonus that we record before every episode, and $10 gets your name shouted out.

Speaker: in every episode.

Speaker: And to that end, I want to shout out the Jesus loves you.

Speaker: Kyle Seaman, Ruthless Mudder, Middle of Things, Sigma Sal, Sanguine Flatulence, Chut Beaks, Dumb and Thick, and Friendly Friend, thank you so much for being a friend.

Speaker: This book fucking sucks.

Speaker: I am so frustrated.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I liked the first half of what we read.

Speaker: And I'm going to.

Speaker: So let me rephrase.

Speaker: Part one is 50% good.

Speaker: 50% like it just seems like I text you as like, this is weird.

Speaker: It feels like deleted scenes or something.

Speaker: We're missing.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: We're missing stuff.

Speaker: It's like it's all the all the good description in the linguist stuff is just somehow missing in the actual physical description of the world that we're in when it comes to the Umbriel or wherever the fucking floating islands.

Speaker: It just feels it's moving too fast to be like, wait, wait, wait.

Speaker: No, what was that?

Speaker: What was the wire thread thing?

Speaker: What's the deal with the moths?

Speaker: The moths do.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: We're not going to dwell on that at all.

Speaker: It just sucks up the souls.

Speaker: There's worms.

Speaker: Oh, we're in a kitchen now.

Speaker: There's no fire in the kitchen, just hot stones or hot things.

Speaker: That's right.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Don't don't burn the chicken, but burn.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They get real mad over the semantics of burning things like let's.

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: Let's talk about that.

Speaker: My God.

Speaker: So, yeah, like I liked it.

Speaker: It was like, whoa, we're in for adventure.

Speaker: I guess we're not now.

Speaker: We're like, we're in a we're in a they're they're just working now.

Speaker: This is it's like the opposite of adventure.

Speaker: They got day jobs.

Speaker: That's exactly what it is.

Speaker: They got day jobs.

Speaker: They work in a kitchen now.

Speaker: That's what happens.

Speaker: They got kidnapped by a floating island and they got day jobs.

Speaker: And that's pretty much the... It's become a horror book is what we're saying.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, they were in a world of adventure.

Speaker: There's like a it's a real world of magic and and and things adventurous things you can do.

Speaker: And they got caught by they got caught by Galactus.

Speaker: But instead of being eaten, they are being like forced to work for like the silver surfers like surfboard wax procurer.

Speaker: Is there anything more horrifying than being in the land of Faerun and finding out that you have to do a nine to five for the rest of your lives?

Speaker: Nothing.

Speaker: So it is a horror piece, I think.

Speaker: I totally agree.

Speaker: This is so frustrating.

Speaker: And this is where I come to what I've been talking about this entire time.

Speaker: where the only explanation that makes sense to me is that this was a much larger piece that he was like, yeah, I got you.

Speaker: I got your 400-word novel right here.

Speaker: I got your 500-word novel right here.

Speaker: And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker: we're not investing that much in, in a tie in novel.

Speaker: You're going to have to cut it down by about half.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so he was like, I can't write a whole new thing.

Speaker: And so instead it's cause there, cause you're right there.

Speaker: It's genuinely these moments that it feels like seeing, not found missing scene.

Speaker: And there are so many things that are hinted at that, uh,

Speaker: It just ends up being rushed and sloppy.

Speaker: And it starts out as a really fun, rollicky kind of thing.

Speaker: I was like, holy shit, Elder Scrolls is doing it right.

Speaker: This is great.

Speaker: This is going to be fun.

Speaker: And then it all just falls apart like a flan in a cupboard.

Speaker: And it's so ridiculous.

Speaker: I was expecting more Diablo.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: Like the Diablo books that we read.

Speaker: Oh, they build the fucking world up.

Speaker: To the point that it's frustrating sometimes.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like, we've criticized those books, but they have the opposite problem of what this book has.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: So, yeah.

Speaker: This is Greg Keyes, and this is what's so frustrating.

Speaker: It's like...

Speaker: he's a good writer.

Speaker: Like I know enough to look at this shit and go, Oh, you're a really good writer.

Speaker: Some fuckery happened and something fucked him.

Speaker: That's my optimistic view of this, that he got that something fucked him over in the grand scheme of things.

Speaker: And he had to cut like a hundred thousand words or something like that.

Speaker: Cause this is not done.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So yeah,

Speaker: At least if we're going to do two more episodes of this, at least it's short.

Speaker: That's nice.

Speaker: God, it's not like the fucking what was it?

Speaker: The sins of the fathers, the Gabriel whatever book.

Speaker: Oh, God.

Speaker: 500 goddamn pages.

Speaker: Just kept going, man.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So now that we've gotten through that, though, Kevin, I do have one last question before we finish up.

Speaker: What are you playing?

Speaker: Oh, OK.

Speaker: I am playing.

Speaker: What am I playing?

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: I'm playing Shinobi, the art of vengeance, which is basically, you know, I was playing Ninja Gaiden Rage Bounds a couple of weeks ago.

Speaker: Shinobi Art of Vengeance is similar in it's Shinobi is back, baby.

Speaker: Do your side-scrolling ninja shit.

Speaker: It's different enough that I would say you could play both and have fun, different experiences playing them.

Speaker: Art style is really cool.

Speaker: It's very similar of like, ah, the demons have invaded.

Speaker: And there's a human task force that's like working with the demons.

Speaker: And it's like some quasi governmental agency is bringing the demons in and you're the last of this ninja clan.

Speaker: And you got to do it and get it and get it done.

Speaker: It's a little bit more Metroidvania-y in that there's like you get you get new abilities as you go along and then you can go back to old maps and open up certain areas.

Speaker: Oh, cool.

Speaker: It's not like huge new areas.

Speaker: It's like you can now go back and open up a certain area.

Speaker: It's almost like more like Mega Man X or something.

Speaker: You can unlock a secret fight or something like that.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So, yeah, it's a lot of fun.

Speaker: Shinobi Art of Vengeance.

Speaker: Good time.

Speaker: It's a good time.

Speaker: It's available now on Steam for, well, I got it a little bit cheaper than the price of $29.99.

Speaker: uh i bought i bought the you can buy one of those collection things where it's shinobi and um ninja guy and rage bound but because i already had a guy and it's i could buy the collection with just shinobi in it for a few bucks off so nice nice yeah it's my next it's my next

Speaker: Steam Deck game because I'm finding I like, yeah, I like Metroidvanias and platformers for my Steam Deck.

Speaker: That's kind of like where I'm at with it.

Speaker: And obviously tomorrow, the day after this episode comes out, we got Silksong is coming out, baby.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Oh, my God.

Speaker: People have been waiting for that for ages.

Speaker: Ages indeed.

Speaker: So Silksong, it's kind of crazy.

Speaker: The games that are going to be coming out soon.

Speaker: Let me pull up my wish list real quick.

Speaker: So Silksong is coming out on Thursday.

Speaker: Kronos the New Dawn, which is Bloober Team's next game, is coming out Friday.

Speaker: Also coming out Thursday is Hell is Us.

Speaker: That looks pretty cool.

Speaker: That looked interesting.

Speaker: And then also coming out this month is the next Silent Hill game.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: So a lot of cool stuff.

Speaker: And we've got the Vampire of the Masquerade Bloodlines 2 coming out in... No, it's October.

Speaker: October.

Speaker: Yeah, we'll see how that game actually turns out.

Speaker: Hopefully it's...

Speaker: We'll see it's the one I've heard is that it is not quite the type of game you played in the first bloodlines, but that it's actually but it is still pretty good, which is better than I expected.

Speaker: So I'm not I'm cautiously optimistic.

Speaker: It is still playable.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: The other thing I played.

Speaker: The other thing I played is a bit is that is a demo for a game called Flickshot Rogues, which is basically it's a roguelike where you play as these little pirate dudes and you've landed on an island.

Speaker: And it's it's one of those games where you like you

Speaker: basically draw back the power and angle for your little dude and you shoot them around the map and they hit the other pieces and knock their HP down.

Speaker: And each of your pirate dudes has a different ability.

Speaker: Like one is like it does damage based on direct contact.

Speaker: The other one does damage based on like a perimeter as long as the enemies are within a perimeter of him, but not based on direct contact.

Speaker: It's a cute game.

Speaker: It's tough to really...

Speaker: Yeah, it's just to really explain it.

Speaker: There's actually a game in UFO 50 that did a similar thing with like the with like the flick shot thing.

Speaker: So but I would I would it's it's worth checking out.

Speaker: And for those of you who like a game where you land on a space and you choose one of three upgrades, it's one of those.

Speaker: So, you know, check that out.

Speaker: That's actually coming out in September as well.

Speaker: The demo is out now.

Speaker: Otherwise, I have been playing more Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader.

Speaker: I just I'm in Chapter 4 right now, which is a lot of companion quest stuff.

Speaker: And I just finished the final or the penultimate.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: Mission for void shadows.

Speaker: Um, uh, it's, uh, it's a doozy of a mission.

Speaker: Uh, it happens towards the beginning of chapter four while you're in a warp jump.

Speaker: So, you know, uh, yeah, I had to turn the difficulty down, uh, for the boss fight on this one, um, because it, it felt a little unfair.

Speaker: i have no shame in saying that i've been playing this on the story mode the entire time okay you should be you should be fine then with yeah dealing with this this uh this thing because uh tyranids are no joke folks um oh excellent excellent that's good

Speaker: Uh, you know, you, you, you, you just, some people start worshiping the many armed God and shit goes sideways.

Speaker: Gene Steeler cults, man.

Speaker: Oh, I love them.

Speaker: I want to make, I want to make an army of Gene Steeler cultists.

Speaker: I'm a fucking little commie alien people.

Speaker: They're awesome.

Speaker: They are.

Speaker: You know, it's funny.

Speaker: Funny about the gene stealer cultists is they don't even realize that at the end of the day, they're just going to be turned into a pile of goo.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: That's I guess that's the irony is that they don't know that like there's no many armed God coming for you.

Speaker: You're just going to be turned melted into a pile of biomass for this part of the biomass.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: for the Tyranids.

Speaker: You're very useful and we appreciate you for that.

Speaker: We're going to build Tyranids.

Speaker: We will build ships out of you.

Speaker: And they will.

Speaker: So that's what I'm playing.

Speaker: Phil, what are you playing?

Speaker: Also playing Rogue Trader.

Speaker: Just wrapped up Chapter 3.

Speaker: Um, that went on.

Speaker: Not my favorite chapter in this thing.

Speaker: It felt like every D&D or role-playing game DM puts forth a gladiatorial level at some point.

Speaker: And it's usually and it's often when they've run out of ideas or they just want to have some good hard and heavy punching, fighting and that kind of thing.

Speaker: And there's nothing wrong with that per se.

Speaker: But there was like one fight after the other.

Speaker: And as I mentioned, I am on story mode and that's my own problem.

Speaker: But

Speaker: God, it just it was by the time we were finished, I was like, oh, my God, thank God.

Speaker: I am so sick of the Dracari and I know I'm going to be dealing with them more down the line, but at least I'm out of their goddamn planet.

Speaker: I am.

Speaker: So I assume Marzai is dead, right?

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Oh, did you did you get him?

Speaker: Who's all for?

Speaker: No, I didn't get all for.

Speaker: Did I miss somebody?

Speaker: The Space Marine.

Speaker: Oh, no.

Speaker: I wanted the space.

Speaker: Was he on there?

Speaker: Yeah, that's where you get.

Speaker: Oh, well, that actually makes a lot of sense.

Speaker: I was I was dying to get out of that chapter.

Speaker: Yeah, I sacrificed getting a space wolf to get the fuck out of that chapter.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: When, what's his name?

Speaker: The crazy doctor who is basically making you do the fights or is like asking you to do the fights.

Speaker: In his room, there's a cage with Olfar standing in it.

Speaker: Oh, for fuck's sake.

Speaker: Yeah, I just, I got my marching orders and I got the fuck out of there.

Speaker: That explains it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Well, I don't, you know what?

Speaker: Maybe I'll back up and do it again later, but I just, I was over it.

Speaker: I was so over it.

Speaker: I just wasn't interested.

Speaker: So how did you get captured, by the way?

Speaker: Because you don't have Eerliette, how does the capture happen?

Speaker: Oh, gosh, I don't even remember.

Speaker: I don't even remember.

Speaker: It was not.

Speaker: It was it.

Speaker: Did you go?

Speaker: It was like, did you check out a ship and then you get knocked out or?

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Oh, yes.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: We went to check out the ship.

Speaker: We were going to ambush the Dracari.

Speaker: And one of my crew was brainwashed into working for them.

Speaker: Got it.

Speaker: And it was actually kind of fun because it was like they had all these different ways that you could set traps for them.

Speaker: So I was like, oh, cool.

Speaker: I'll set this kind of trap and I'll do this and I'll do that.

Speaker: And then and of course, I'm betrayed and yeah, and and defeat that way.

Speaker: Yeah, that's that's what happened.

Speaker: Got it.

Speaker: OK.

Speaker: So yeah, so what happens in the... What happens is you show up to the ship and the Drukhari are already there and they basically just knock you out, they gas you.

Speaker: Oh, okay.

Speaker: And you get knocked out right away.

Speaker: You don't even get a chance.

Speaker: You're just like... Oh, yeah, no.

Speaker: It is interesting.

Speaker: It's fun.

Speaker: And then you're put on trial and then and Eerliette is there like with the trial.

Speaker: Like there's it's it's if you have her if you didn't kill her with like with a dogmatic playthrough.

Speaker: Which I did.

Speaker: She has it is

Speaker: I'll say this.

Speaker: Kimura becomes a big, is a huge part of her story.

Speaker: So if she is dead, I can understand like, well, there's a lot less happening now.

Speaker: Oh, that makes sense.

Speaker: There's a lot less.

Speaker: It's like, it is like you having her and her being tricked by the Jukari with promises that they're going to help her find space.

Speaker: survivors from her craft world to turn you in.

Speaker: Like, that's the whole plot of Kimura.

Speaker: And I'm like thinking if you don't have her, I feel like you're missing the meat of what you're doing on Kimura.

Speaker: That explains so much.

Speaker: So yeah, so when the next bit of season pass shit comes out, and I inevitably end up playing this again, I'll try to be next to it.

Speaker: Yeah, I would do an iconoclast playthrough.

Speaker: You know what I'll say is I think the iconoclast playthrough is honestly the only way to experience almost everything in the game.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: If you're a heretic or dogmatic, you are ultimately cutting yourself off.

Speaker: from certain things in both ways because you're cutting yourself off from certain companions.

Speaker: An Iconoclast can get just about everybody except a few special companions.

Speaker: There's a few special companions that only show up if you are a dogmatic, and that's Incendia Korda.

Speaker: You can be a dogmatic companion.

Speaker: The other Rogue Trader or Calogos Winterscale if you're a heretic.

Speaker: Oh, okay.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: And if you're an iconoclast, they're both somewhat antagonistic towards you.

Speaker: Oh, okay.

Speaker: But yeah, so there's a lot.

Speaker: There's a lot.

Speaker: there.

Speaker: That makes sense.

Speaker: But I can understand it's not everybody's favorite.

Speaker: Like a lot of people are ho-hum on chapter three.

Speaker: I kind of like it, but I understand.

Speaker: I will give them credit that it snapped along for the most part.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It wasn't.

Speaker: It wasn't like chapter two was goddamn 25 hours or something.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know, this one clipped along at a much faster pace.

Speaker: It was just that the pace was taken up mostly with

Speaker: Well, you fought these guys, but what about fighting these guys?

Speaker: I was like, all right, Jesus.

Speaker: Fine, moving on.

Speaker: Fine, fine, fine.

Speaker: So, yeah.

Speaker: It's good, but I'm ready to get... I'm glad I'm back on my ship and doing it.

Speaker: You're glad you have your ship again.

Speaker: You have... Did you fix the Heartless?

Speaker: When you had the confrontation with the Heartless, did you... No.

Speaker: Oh, okay.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: If you don't do any damage to it and you fix it, you just have the Heartless now as a second ship in all of your space combat.

Speaker: That's pretty cool.

Speaker: I think I did do damage to it.

Speaker: I did something else with it though.

Speaker: Yeah, you get the option to like launch an attack on the ship itself before you board it.

Speaker: I think I sent it to be a defender on one of my other planets or something like that.

Speaker: Oh, okay.

Speaker: Got it.

Speaker: I think that's what I did.

Speaker: Yeah, and that raises the security of your worlds.

Speaker: Yeah, I think that's what I ended up doing, if I'm not calling correctly.

Speaker: It's all a blur.

Speaker: So I'm still doing that.

Speaker: I played a couple other things.

Speaker: I played the demo for Endless Legend 2.

Speaker: Endless Legend...

Speaker: is one of those things.

Speaker: It's a it's a four X and they are kind of that double a sort of studio kind of thing.

Speaker: I really loved the first endless legend.

Speaker: I wasn't very good at it.

Speaker: I really enjoyed it.

Speaker: And I think the thing that the studio amplitude studios has for them with these is that

Speaker: They are great at creating a fantasy world that is more than just you got your elves, you got your dwarves, you got your humans like the races and the societies and the cultures they create are really unique and strange.

Speaker: It's also far more narratively focused for a 4X than they usually are.

Speaker: Their quests, stuff like that.

Speaker: And I think for this

Speaker: kind of game that's perfect um it's got some jank it's it's uh it it's a little sloppy sometimes in the same way that like

Speaker: You know, it's just, it just don't have limitless resources like say for access or something like that.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: Those janky shit.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Civ seven.

Speaker: I still have not picked up Civ seven.

Speaker: I'm waiting.

Speaker: I, I, I, I was, I was really optimistic on that one.

Speaker: And the more time goes on, the more I'm like, this is not,

Speaker: It's not a worthy successor.

Speaker: This is not what I want.

Speaker: Not what I was asking for.

Speaker: I'm going to get into that one of these days.

Speaker: We might get into that at our Game of the Year episode or something like that.

Speaker: But yeah, and so it's more of that.

Speaker: You've got really unique, interesting surroundings.

Speaker: It's more than just...

Speaker: You're getting silk, you're getting grain, you're getting it's they really take it up a notch into the fantastic in a way that's very effective and really enjoyable.

Speaker: I just don't have time for another four X in my life.

Speaker: Personally, I just don't.

Speaker: I got enough.

Speaker: This is the year of Phil playing lazy games.

Speaker: I don't have time for another four X, but it's beautiful.

Speaker: It's really well done.

Speaker: And if you are,

Speaker: in the market for a really unique fantasy 4X.

Speaker: I highly recommend at least playing the demo.

Speaker: It's really impressive.

Speaker: I also played and finished Last Report.

Speaker: Oh, yeah, I played that.

Speaker: I see.

Speaker: Yeah, I got it on your recommendation and that was fun.

Speaker: Yeah, I am.

Speaker: I am a good little point and click, wasn't it?

Speaker: I am.

Speaker: God, I am all about these bite sized one or two hour experiences, you know, that have

Speaker: you know, kind of just the one or two main mechanics that you use and it gives you some scares.

Speaker: It gives you a fun story.

Speaker: It gives you that it's got some good analog horror kind of vibes to it.

Speaker: It scared me at times.

Speaker: It has like one little jump scare and it's whatever, but it's scary.

Speaker: And I played for about 15 minutes and I had fucked up the way that you

Speaker: do the reports.

Speaker: I misunderstood.

Speaker: And so I started all over because I was I suddenly got in my house like, no, I'm getting a perfect score on these.

Speaker: So I got the perfectionist achievement.

Speaker: It's really enjoyable.

Speaker: I'd like to play through it again and try some other things because you do have one.

Speaker: The big, the big

Speaker: decision you have to make at the end and right like to see how it differs um great stuff i i look for games like this i i am the older i get you know talking about how open world games are de rigueur and to the point of boredom these days uh

Speaker: So I'm really happy to find these little self-contained experiences, things like this.

Speaker: What was the other one I really enjoyed?

Speaker: The Children of Clay, things like that.

Speaker: Children of Clay, yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, where it's just, it's not long.

Speaker: It's just, it's a little...

Speaker: you know, bite size or sandwich sized experience.

Speaker: And I really appreciated what they did with this.

Speaker: I really enjoyed it.

Speaker: So I'm really happy about that.

Speaker: So that was yeah, that was a whole lot of fun.

Speaker: And I highly recommend it to anybody who

Speaker: would like also to have something like that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I think, yeah, I'm playing I'm I'm playing the Count of Money Clicker still a moment at the end of that.

Speaker: That's actually the perfect game to have playing in the background while you're packing boxes, by the way.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's it's, you know, it's a clicker game.

Speaker: So you hit this automated point.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And you just go back and check on it every now and then.

Speaker: Make sure that it's everything.

Speaker: Everything's fine.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, by the way, I noticed you got the achievement on Rogue Trader.

Speaker: You got the whodunit achievement.

Speaker: You discover the truth about Theodora's death.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Yeah, that was cool.

Speaker: What'd you do to the perpetrator?

Speaker: I forgave the perpetrator.

Speaker: I told the perpetrator, girl, you're good.

Speaker: It's all right.

Speaker: Girl, you're good.

Speaker: Because no matter how sexy and I know you're married to the emperor, but I know, but yeah, you know, it's I I'm dogmatic, but no one's that dogmatic.

Speaker: And what's funny is the she did it for dogmatic reasons.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And that was I mean, that's the thing.

Speaker: Ultimately, I was like,

Speaker: No, you did the right thing.

Speaker: That's good.

Speaker: If you have, if you have a Salomorn with you, by the way, when that happens, he he'll be like, uh, she must be executed.

Speaker: She must be put on trial and executed for, but like Salomorn is like, so like by the book, the law, because to him, you know, the Lex is, is the Lex is the Lex.

Speaker: You can't, you know, he's the Javert of the group pretty much.

Speaker: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So Argenta stole a piece of bread and then shot that bread through Theodora's face.

Speaker: Through the head.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So what's funny is Argenta is like, the only thing I regret is killing Mort.

Speaker: He's like, yeah, okay.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Well, it wouldn't be a Phil episode if we didn't come close to two hours.

Speaker: Um, yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, uh, thanks for listening to us.

Speaker: Uh, if you can go follow us on the social medias, uh, blue sky, Instagram, Tik TOK, uh, uh, patrion, uh, dot com slash pixel pod do it today.

Speaker: So, uh, there's a puddle of biomass, uh, collecting, you know, my driveway kind of like dips down a little bit where the rain builds up and that's like, there's a puddle biomass there.

Speaker: And, uh, it makes me worried that it's like, you know,

Speaker: Who do I call with the government in all these days?

Speaker: Who do I call about a Tyranid invasion?

Speaker: Oh, I mean, you'd be amazed at what a regular household sponge can do.

Speaker: But it's got to be prepped, obviously.

Speaker: So I recommend getting one of those scrub daddies.

Speaker: Little face.

Speaker: and you get down, find an anthill in your yard, preferably the closest anthill to the puddle of biomass and find a little hillock that they're all crawling in and out.

Speaker: Get down there, put the sponge next to it and put your mouth right up close to the little hole.

Speaker: And what you're trying to do is speak to the queen, the ant queen.

Speaker: And you're going to say,

Glim Garry Glim Lost (Elder Scrolls: Infernal City - Part 1)

Recommended