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Glim Garry Glim Lost (Elder Scrolls: Infernal City - Part 1)
21 Plays1 month ago
We read 100 pages and 50 of them were pretty good. So that's something!
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Transcript
Austin Comedy Scene and Shane Gillis
00:00:02
Speaker
They're bred to wear parkas.
00:00:04
Speaker
Yeah, they wear North Face shit and they're like really obnoxious.
00:00:08
Speaker
They'll hit on your girlfriend.
00:00:09
Speaker
It's not cool.
00:00:10
Speaker
They're really on your girlfriend.
00:00:11
Speaker
They're really into the Austin comedy scene.
00:00:14
Speaker
Oh, God.
00:00:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:15
Speaker
Yeah.
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Speaker
They won't shut up about it.
00:00:17
Speaker
They won't shut up about Shane Gillis for some reason.
00:00:21
Speaker
It's just
Air Rifle Purchase
00:00:23
Speaker
the worst.
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Speaker
And that's when you got to start shooting them.
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Speaker
Yeah.
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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.
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Speaker
Yeah.
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Speaker
You know who else needs an air rifle?
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Speaker
Who's that?
Elder Scrolls Discussion Begins
00:00:43
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome back to Pixlet.
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Speaker
My name is Kevin with me as always as Phil on today's show.
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Speaker
We are starting the Elder Scrolls, the forbidden, forbidden city, forgotten city.
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Speaker
Infernal city.
00:00:54
Speaker
Infernal city.
00:00:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's the ticket.
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Speaker
That's the stuff.
00:01:00
Speaker
That's the stuff.
00:01:01
Speaker
So yeah, it's, it's an Elder Scrolls book.
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Speaker
If you don't know what Elder Scrolls is, welcome to video games.
00:01:08
Speaker
Right.
00:01:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:10
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.
00:01:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:23
Speaker
When did Arena come out?
00:01:24
Speaker
That was the first one.
00:01:25
Speaker
When did Arena come out?
00:01:28
Speaker
That's a good question.
00:01:30
Speaker
Yeah, did.
00:01:31
Speaker
March 25th, 1994.
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Speaker
Bam.
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Speaker
Bang on.
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Speaker
Perfect guess.
00:01:35
Speaker
Wow.
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Speaker
Nicely done.
00:01:37
Speaker
Holy shit.
00:01:41
Speaker
So yeah, the first one is Arena.
00:01:45
Speaker
They're all these, they are first person RPGs.
00:01:50
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.
00:02:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:06
Speaker
Daggerfall held the distinction as like the largest video game ever made for a long time.
00:02:13
Speaker
It's still my one still up there.
00:02:15
Speaker
God damn big.
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah.
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Speaker
It's like basically the size of Europe in the game.
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Speaker
It's huge.
00:02:23
Speaker
Well,
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Speaker
But yeah, so they all take place in this world that is... They got a bunch of different races.
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Speaker
They got cat people.
00:02:35
Speaker
They got lizard people.
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Speaker
They got regular humans.
00:02:39
Speaker
And then they got like literal fucking Nazi Aryan people.
00:02:44
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.
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Speaker
Elves and, and, and drow and, and all that stuff.
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Speaker
And then it's like, there's like humans.
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Speaker
And then it's like, there's the Nords.
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Speaker
Like, right, right.
00:03:01
Speaker
Wait a minute.
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Speaker
We're calling them a separate race.
00:03:03
Speaker
That's a different, oh, okay.
00:03:04
Speaker
Okay.
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Speaker
They're tall, blonde and white.
00:03:07
Speaker
Oh, interesting.
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Speaker
Interesting.
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Speaker
Very interesting.
00:03:13
Speaker
And the Khajiit are basically Romani.
00:03:15
Speaker
Like it's not without its problems.
Morrowind vs. Skyrim
00:03:19
Speaker
It's not without its problems.
00:03:21
Speaker
Probably the best game in the series is Morrowind, would you say?
00:03:25
Speaker
I'd say it is, but the most popular is obviously Skyrim.
00:03:29
Speaker
Most popular is Skyrim.
00:03:31
Speaker
But I would say, yeah, it'd be Morrowind for me.
00:03:35
Speaker
Yeah, Morrowind is... I lost a lot of time to that one.
00:03:38
Speaker
Lost too much time to Morrowind.
00:03:40
Speaker
Morrowind was the third game in the series.
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Speaker
Oblivion was number four, and Skyrim was number five.
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Speaker
The sixth one has been in production for 30 years.
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Speaker
Yeah.
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Speaker
As is, it's right.
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Speaker
I mean, it's going to have to be.
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Speaker
But yeah, it's up this reputation of being the biggest goddamn games in the world.
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Speaker
So yeah, it makes makes frickin Grand Theft Auto blush.
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Speaker
Yeah, after each, so basically each game takes place in a specific location.
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Speaker
Morrowind takes place on, I think it's called Morrowind, is right?
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Speaker
The island?
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Speaker
Usually it's the name of the place it's in.
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Speaker
So Oblivion, it's not set in Oblivion, but you do go to Oblivion.
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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?
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Speaker
Fuck if I know
00:04:51
Speaker
There's like, I don't think they're connected by anything.
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Speaker
And that's the sound of a thousand people typing.
00:04:59
Speaker
Yeah, probably.
00:05:03
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.
00:05:18
Speaker
And I don't think I think you're with the majority on that one.
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Speaker
I think most people, I think the vast majority of people who have played played it all the way through the end.
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Speaker
In fact, if you if you said to them, what's the storyline of this?
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Speaker
I'm willing to bet most of them be like, oh, I don't know.
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Speaker
I was just I was on an adventure.
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I was shouting dragon calls and killing giants and doing all that shit.
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Speaker
And I think that's more important than anything else, really.
00:05:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's the journey, not the destination.
00:05:50
Speaker
Yes, very much so.
00:05:53
Speaker
But yeah, so... Oh, and What's-His-Face has been in charge of it forever.
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Speaker
Todd.
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Speaker
Todd, what's his name?
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Speaker
Yeah.
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I should have known that.
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Speaker
Because that's the thing.
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Speaker
Elder Scrolls has been my jam since Daggerfall.
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I've been playing it...
00:06:12
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
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Speaker
And that game, I probably pumped as many hours into the demo of Daggerfall as many full-fledged games.
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And then Morrowind came out, and I nearly failed a class in undergrad because of it.
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My girlfriend got me an Xbox.
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I think it was a graduation present or something like that.
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And I was sitting in a dorm as a freshman.
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playing through Morrowind for hours on end.
00:06:58
Speaker
It nearly, yeah, it could have gotten really bad.
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Speaker
I never played Oblivion, though.
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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.
00:07:12
Speaker
Oh, it's on Game Pass, and it's the remaster they did.
00:07:18
Speaker
I think I might have to give it a shot at some point.
00:07:23
Speaker
Maybe after I'm done with Rogue Trader.
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Speaker
On the Daggerfall box art, it says, prepare to experience your new obsession.
00:07:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:32
Speaker
That is accurate.
00:07:34
Speaker
That is what it was for some people, you know.
00:07:36
Speaker
There.
00:07:37
Speaker
Yeah, it goes.
00:07:39
Speaker
You know, I remember actually Dan from Game Grumps on an episode talking about how he had stopped playing.
00:07:50
Speaker
He had stopped playing video games for a year, few years because of his addiction to Morrowind.
00:07:56
Speaker
Sure.
00:07:56
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:07:57
Speaker
I get that.
00:08:00
Speaker
You'll hear you'll hear no criticism from me.
00:08:04
Speaker
I understand.
00:08:07
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.
00:08:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:17
Speaker
Come on.
00:08:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:20
Speaker
Let's be real here.
00:08:21
Speaker
I think he like failed out of a college or something like that at some point because of Morrowind.
00:08:29
Speaker
I think it's very sim.
00:08:30
Speaker
I just remember it being very similar to your story of just.
00:08:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:34
Speaker
I think he's I think he's it's funny.
00:08:37
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.
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Speaker
And, and, and yeah, it's like him telling the story.
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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.
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Speaker
But I could totally see how it could have happened.
00:08:55
Speaker
Cause there were, there was no, there's, I mean,
00:08:59
Speaker
Nowadays, the big open world game and that kind of thing is a very, uh, Everything's open world.
00:09:05
Speaker
It's it's bright.
00:09:06
Speaker
You can find an open world.
00:09:07
Speaker
You shake a stick at a and find an open world.
00:09:11
Speaker
Um, but, but yeah, I just remember my times.
00:09:15
Speaker
I remember my college, so my sophomore year roommate playing Morrowind and saying something like, hey, check this out.
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Speaker
And I look over and he's constructed a house out of skulls that he... Sure.
00:09:32
Speaker
Just like all the skulls that he had collected.
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Speaker
He was just like stacking them up.
00:09:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:38
Speaker
Morrowind in Morrowind was the last one that really lets you do just about anything.
00:09:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:45
Speaker
And we'll get into it with this book.
00:09:47
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.
00:10:00
Speaker
The irony of that is that this is more of a tie-in with Oblivion.
00:10:05
Speaker
It takes place like six years after Oblivion.
00:10:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:09
Speaker
I was like, this feels like an Oblivion tie in.
00:10:11
Speaker
Right.
00:10:12
Speaker
But I haven't played it.
00:10:13
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
Greg Keyes and Elder Scrolls Novels
00:10:21
Speaker
out to more people.
00:10:21
Speaker
That's how a lot of people looked at it.
00:10:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:24
Speaker
From three, like going three, four, five, it's like dumbed down, dumbed down even more.
00:10:29
Speaker
You know, right, right.
00:10:31
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.
00:10:43
Speaker
Right.
00:10:43
Speaker
It was a whole thing.
00:10:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:46
Speaker
And that's and I will I will say pretty much same thing happened with Fallout once Todd Howard took it over.
00:10:54
Speaker
Sure.
00:10:55
Speaker
Sure.
00:10:56
Speaker
And that's the and that's also a game series.
00:11:00
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.
00:11:09
Speaker
I never fall out was not my thing until the third one.
00:11:12
Speaker
Right.
00:11:13
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?
00:11:23
Speaker
You know, it makes sense.
00:11:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:27
Speaker
Who wrote this this book?
00:11:29
Speaker
Oh, this is this is by Greg Keyes.
00:11:32
Speaker
He's another of this is our first Greg Keyes book.
00:11:36
Speaker
He's another of our right for hire guys.
00:11:40
Speaker
He is from the deep south.
00:11:42
Speaker
He's from Mississippi.
00:11:44
Speaker
He actually missed the universe.
00:11:46
Speaker
Miss.
00:11:47
Speaker
I went to University of Georgia.
00:11:49
Speaker
He's a bulldog.
00:11:51
Speaker
Yeah, he's a former anthropologist of all things.
00:11:54
Speaker
Interesting.
00:11:56
Speaker
And yeah, and he does a lot of the same stuff a lot of our guys do.
00:12:00
Speaker
He's a lot of novelizations.
00:12:03
Speaker
XCOM 2 Resurrection.
00:12:06
Speaker
He did the novelization for he did a lot of Godzilla, some Planet of the Apes stuff.
00:12:13
Speaker
And and also some Star Wars.
00:12:16
Speaker
He did the Edge of Victory books and some Babylon five, as well as some of his own original stuff.
00:12:22
Speaker
But his but his for higher stuff far outweighs numerically his original stuff.
00:12:28
Speaker
He wrote like some alternate reality stuff, like some alternate history stuff where like
00:12:33
Speaker
It's this weird futuristic sci-fi thing where Benjamin Franklin is the main character.
00:12:38
Speaker
And it's strange.
00:12:40
Speaker
It's strange enough that I'm like, I might have to take a look at this.
00:12:42
Speaker
I might have to check this out.
00:12:44
Speaker
This looks a little crazy.
00:12:45
Speaker
But he also he wrote The Infernal City in 2009, which is what we're reading now.
00:12:50
Speaker
And he wrote its sequel, The Lord of Souls in 2011.
00:12:55
Speaker
So that's our guy.
00:12:56
Speaker
That's Greg Keynes.
00:12:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:12:59
Speaker
He wrote a, so wait, he wrote an adaptation to, for XCOM 2.
00:13:04
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:13:06
Speaker
Interesting.
00:13:06
Speaker
XCOM 2.
00:13:08
Speaker
Resurrection.
00:13:09
Speaker
Okay, it's a prequel to, it's a prequel to XCOM 2.
00:13:14
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:13:16
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.
00:13:23
Speaker
We might have to check it out because this is a Firaxis joint rather than a whatever.
00:13:30
Speaker
Whoever it was, yeah.
00:13:32
Speaker
Whatever that was for the first one.
00:13:34
Speaker
It's like, fuck it, XCOM.
00:13:35
Speaker
What a mess.
00:13:36
Speaker
That was a mess.
00:13:39
Speaker
Yeah, that was a mess.
00:13:39
Speaker
That was a real mess.
00:13:40
Speaker
Um, this will not be free of mess.
00:13:44
Speaker
Uh, I'm going to, this is not a mess free book.
00:13:46
Speaker
This is not a mess free book.
00:13:48
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
00:14:02
Speaker
upon books in the worlds of the Elder Scrolls.
00:14:07
Speaker
Sometimes there are a few pages.
00:14:08
Speaker
Sometimes they are like short story length.
00:14:11
Speaker
And there are just so many of them.
00:14:15
Speaker
And they don't really serve a purpose in terms of like giving you a clue or pointing you.
00:14:21
Speaker
Sometimes they do, but mostly it's just flavor stuff.
00:14:24
Speaker
Um, so it's very literary oriented.
00:14:28
Speaker
And when that's the case, I was surprised to see how thin this book is.
00:14:34
Speaker
It's not even 300 pages.
00:14:37
Speaker
That's not and that's not a problem.
00:14:39
Speaker
It's it's, you know, I write shorter books, so that's that's not a big deal.
00:14:44
Speaker
It's just that I expected something denser.
00:14:47
Speaker
And as we're going to get into, I think this might have originally been something denser.
00:14:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:54
Speaker
And we'll get into it.
00:14:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:56
Speaker
But yeah.
00:14:57
Speaker
I mean, speaking of which, how about we how about we marsh that body?
00:15:01
Speaker
Let's let's put that body in the marsh.
00:15:03
Speaker
Let's do it.
00:15:03
Speaker
OK, so.
00:15:05
Speaker
The body of the man found dead in the Fenway marshes yesterday afternoon is that of Timothy Delahunt.
00:15:10
Speaker
The Infernal City, an Elder Scrolls novel by Greg Keyes.
00:15:15
Speaker
We start with a prologue.
00:15:16
Speaker
A group of sailors led by a Khajiit captain tumble through a terrible gale that tears their ship apart.
00:15:24
Speaker
In the distance, they see a dark shape that I, like a fool, interpret it as a tornado.
00:15:30
Speaker
They describe it as a cone.
00:15:32
Speaker
I was like, that's like a tornado or it's over water.
00:15:37
Speaker
So water spout.
00:15:38
Speaker
But right.
00:15:39
Speaker
Exactly.
00:15:39
Speaker
And I was like, why would they have not seen that before?
00:15:42
Speaker
Right.
00:15:43
Speaker
Right.
00:15:43
Speaker
And they're all horrified by it.
00:15:46
Speaker
But not for long, because then they're blown to bits.
00:15:49
Speaker
We we are introduced to Seul.
00:15:52
Speaker
He awakens.
00:15:53
Speaker
He's had some sort of prophecy like.
00:15:56
Speaker
based.
00:15:56
Speaker
He's seen all of this.
00:15:58
Speaker
He assumes it's from Azura, the Daedric Prince that he kind of worships.
00:16:03
Speaker
And he thinks Azura has pushed him in a certain direction.
00:16:07
Speaker
Azura is the Daedric Prince of egotism, vanity, dusk and dawn, the magic between day and night, according to the Elder Scrolls Wiki.
00:16:20
Speaker
We get a lot of stuff from her in Oblivion, which makes a lot of sense.
00:16:25
Speaker
in this world, gods are less a thing and it's more Daedric, which are kind of self-interested.
00:16:32
Speaker
It makes you think a little more of the old pagan gods, where they're kind of like...
00:16:36
Speaker
Yeah, they're not good.
00:16:37
Speaker
They're not evil.
00:16:38
Speaker
Well, some of them are, but like they're more capricious than anything else.
00:16:42
Speaker
They're there.
00:16:43
Speaker
They're just there doing like that, doing their own thing.
00:16:47
Speaker
Right.
00:16:47
Speaker
Right.
00:16:48
Speaker
It's very much an old Greek god kind of situation.
00:16:53
Speaker
So this guy is, you know, a worshiper of Azura.
00:16:58
Speaker
And he believes he's being pointed in a certain direction.
00:17:03
Speaker
And and he gets like a message like he he says, OK, great.
00:17:07
Speaker
This dream was a terrific prophecy.
00:17:09
Speaker
What the fuck does it mean?
00:17:11
Speaker
And then he happens to look at a book.
00:17:13
Speaker
And it's like, oh, oh, it says right in here where I should be going.
00:17:17
Speaker
And it like basically corresponds to the dream it just had.
00:17:20
Speaker
Right.
00:17:21
Speaker
So that's that's our prologue.
00:17:23
Speaker
And we cut to chapter one.
Plot of 'The Infernal City'
00:17:26
Speaker
We get this weird brief interlude of a woman and an Argonian.
00:17:33
Speaker
And it looks like.
00:17:34
Speaker
they're squaring off like we get there.
00:17:37
Speaker
They like talking about like, so you're going to kill me.
00:17:39
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.
00:17:50
Speaker
We cut to an egg and glim who are Britain and an Argonian.
00:17:57
Speaker
Britain is one of the many.
00:18:00
Speaker
They're the British white people.
00:18:02
Speaker
British white people cultures and and the Argonians are swamp lizard people.
00:18:10
Speaker
I think my first instance of being intrigued by this was the fact that an Argonian was one of the main characters.
00:18:17
Speaker
Yes.
00:18:17
Speaker
Because they very frequently take kind of like.
00:18:22
Speaker
second banana to most other things when it comes to Elder Scrolls.
00:18:24
Speaker
So I was like, that's a good sign.
00:18:26
Speaker
And they are in the Black Marshes where they're from.
00:18:29
Speaker
So that's pretty cool.
00:18:32
Speaker
They argue over whether or not they should go on a quest, basically.
00:18:36
Speaker
Yeah, they're bored.
00:18:39
Speaker
They want to do stuff.
00:18:41
Speaker
It's the most murder hobo shit you've ever heard in your life.
00:18:45
Speaker
They're bored off their tit.
00:18:47
Speaker
And she thinks that there's this guy who is a were crocodile.
00:18:53
Speaker
Awesome.
00:18:54
Speaker
Awesome.
00:18:56
Speaker
It's fantastic.
00:18:57
Speaker
No notes.
00:18:59
Speaker
No notes.
00:19:00
Speaker
I am with you 100%.
00:19:02
Speaker
The only thing I would have added is like if her asking him the Argonian would be like, is that offensive to you?
00:19:08
Speaker
Like...
00:19:11
Speaker
Yeah, that would have been great.
00:19:13
Speaker
Because the Argonian is basically what you would imagine.
00:19:15
Speaker
He's like Argonians are basically just imagine what's his name from from fucking the lizard from Spider-Man.
00:19:26
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:19:28
Speaker
The lizard.
00:19:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:30
Speaker
Or Killer Croc, if you want to.
00:19:32
Speaker
Or Killer Croc.
00:19:33
Speaker
Like, yeah, they don't have to be as big as Killer Croc, but yeah.
00:19:36
Speaker
And they can swim underwater indefinitely.
00:19:38
Speaker
And, you know, and they've got all the reptile things.
00:19:40
Speaker
Pretty cool.
00:19:41
Speaker
Pretty cool race.
00:19:43
Speaker
So he's much more interested in drinking up her dad's wine.
00:19:49
Speaker
But she talks him into it.
00:19:51
Speaker
They find the lair, which is this kind of like, it's like,
00:19:57
Speaker
a corner of an old abandoned castle slash Manson that could actually still be lived in.
00:20:02
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.
00:20:10
Speaker
He's just a common skooma smuggler.
00:20:13
Speaker
Skoma being one of the many booze slash drugs that Khajiit mostly deal in.
00:20:21
Speaker
And this brings us back to the opening interlude.
00:20:25
Speaker
We find out that it's not them squaring off.
00:20:27
Speaker
It's them getting ready to die because they almost immediately get seen.
00:20:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:32
Speaker
It's amazing.
00:20:33
Speaker
The guy is like, so who are the people up in the rafters?
00:20:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:37
Speaker
Yeah, they were just he knew the entire time they were talking that they were there.
00:20:42
Speaker
And it was as long.
00:20:43
Speaker
All right.
00:20:43
Speaker
Now that we finished talking about that, who are those people?
00:20:46
Speaker
Like, it's that kind of situation.
00:20:47
Speaker
And there's like, oh, I don't know them.
00:20:50
Speaker
I thought you knew them.
00:20:51
Speaker
You're like, I don't know them.
00:20:52
Speaker
Like, that's why I sent the Bill and Ted up there to deal with them.
00:20:56
Speaker
Right.
00:20:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:58
Speaker
And it's in that moment, of course, they realize they're being hunted by people also up in the rafters.
00:21:04
Speaker
They're spotted.
00:21:04
Speaker
They run.
00:21:06
Speaker
They take feather fall potions and escape off of broken roof.
00:21:10
Speaker
We find out that an egg has is basically a budding alchemist and she has tried all kinds of different potion things.
00:21:17
Speaker
She's trying to find a potion that will make you fly.
00:21:21
Speaker
It's just beyond her, though.
00:21:22
Speaker
And she was thinking this was going to be a flying potion.
00:21:25
Speaker
It's not.
00:21:26
Speaker
but it's still pretty good.
00:21:27
Speaker
At least they, they don't break their legs on the way down or something.
00:21:31
Speaker
Um, back home, they, they are drinking wine now.
00:21:34
Speaker
Uh, they are doing what Glim recommended.
00:21:36
Speaker
Uh, you learn a lot about what he wanted to do at the beginning.
00:21:40
Speaker
It's where he wanted to be in the first place.
00:21:42
Speaker
Exactly.
00:21:43
Speaker
And, and, and I'm with him.
00:21:44
Speaker
I, I most, nine times out of 10, I'm, I'm supporting Glim, uh, in this book so far.
00:21:50
Speaker
Um,
00:21:52
Speaker
We they give us a little information on the Empire, the Imperials and the end of Oblivion.
00:21:59
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.
00:22:12
Speaker
It's it's pretty well.
00:22:13
Speaker
And the way I'm saying it's kind of clumsy, but it actually is pretty well written into the thing.
00:22:20
Speaker
And so Glimm lets her know that his cousin is docked.
00:22:24
Speaker
He's a sailor.
00:22:25
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.
00:22:34
Speaker
And that's chapter one.
00:22:36
Speaker
So far, I like it.
00:22:39
Speaker
I like our characters.
00:22:40
Speaker
I like the fantasy romp.
00:22:43
Speaker
I'm enjoying myself.
00:22:44
Speaker
And it's a good story.
00:22:45
Speaker
And Mayor Glimm.
00:22:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:48
Speaker
Awesome.
00:22:49
Speaker
I'm in.
00:22:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:50
Speaker
Chapter two, we meet Colin, who is talking to an old man.
00:22:55
Speaker
He's nervous.
00:22:56
Speaker
Something's going on.
00:22:57
Speaker
There's something Colin knows that the old man doesn't know.
00:23:00
Speaker
And we find out that he's been sent there to kill the old man.
00:23:03
Speaker
It is brutal.
00:23:05
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?
00:23:15
Speaker
And please don't.
00:23:16
Speaker
He's begging for his life.
00:23:18
Speaker
It's rough.
00:23:19
Speaker
It's actually a really rough killing scene.
00:23:21
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?
00:23:30
Speaker
It reminds me of that scene in, uh, Game of Thrones where, uh, is it Theon tries to cut, uh.
00:23:39
Speaker
Yes.
00:23:40
Speaker
When he's cutting, uh, what's his name's head off and he's failing miserably at.
00:23:43
Speaker
Is it Roderick or?
00:23:45
Speaker
Whoever the guy who tied his his his ponytail under his chin.
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:50
Speaker
He's trying to cut his head off.
00:23:51
Speaker
And it's like it's not a clean cut at all.
00:23:54
Speaker
It takes like five hacks to get the guy's head off.
00:23:57
Speaker
And the guy is screaming.
00:23:59
Speaker
He was a little kid.
00:24:00
Speaker
And yeah.
00:24:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:01
Speaker
It's a mess.
00:24:02
Speaker
It's a mess.
00:24:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:04
Speaker
And that's very much of this.
00:24:06
Speaker
That's very much what this is.
00:24:08
Speaker
It's really it's sloppy.
00:24:10
Speaker
It's brutal.
00:24:11
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.
00:24:20
Speaker
We find out that he is now an official.
00:24:21
Speaker
They call him an inspector.
00:24:23
Speaker
And as the chapter goes on, you find that inspector is basically a sanctioned imperial assassin.
00:24:29
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
00:24:52
Speaker
They're pretty brutal.
00:24:53
Speaker
No fucking co-op.
00:24:55
Speaker
They're co-ops.
00:24:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:58
Speaker
I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that's chapter two.
00:25:01
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.
00:25:17
Speaker
That is it.
00:25:17
Speaker
That is it.
00:25:18
Speaker
We have been introduced to them.
00:25:20
Speaker
I forgot that they were in this book until you just reminded me.
00:25:25
Speaker
I almost did as well.
00:25:26
Speaker
And I read this yesterday.
00:25:29
Speaker
It's not like...
00:25:35
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.
00:25:47
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.
00:25:53
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.
00:26:10
Speaker
And that's and that's what they have set up here.
00:26:14
Speaker
But this is part one of the book, the first third of the book.
00:26:17
Speaker
And from here on out, all we're getting is an egg and Glimm.
00:26:24
Speaker
It is their adventure from here on out.
00:26:27
Speaker
So chapter three, an egg and Glimm have a hangover breakfast classic.
00:26:33
Speaker
I I've had many of these.
00:26:35
Speaker
I immediately recognized what was going on.
00:26:37
Speaker
Lovely.
00:26:39
Speaker
She's like, she's like doing this thing.
00:26:41
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.
00:26:47
Speaker
She's basically like just making this gruel out of whatever shit is there.
00:26:53
Speaker
She was like, I'm making it like this.
00:26:56
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.
00:27:02
Speaker
And she's like, ah, you're just trying to find the same flavor profiles.
00:27:08
Speaker
Little this, little of that.
00:27:10
Speaker
So her father does join them.
00:27:12
Speaker
He he is the relationship between him and an egg is strained.
00:27:18
Speaker
She calls him by his name, which is always a bad sign with a dad.
00:27:24
Speaker
you know, instead of dad.
00:27:28
Speaker
And he's kind of basically we find out that he's an old drunk.
00:27:31
Speaker
He hasn't been the same since her mom died.
00:27:34
Speaker
And then it's just kind of a mess.
00:27:37
Speaker
So he they're talking and he kind of gives them some info on the flying city.
00:27:42
Speaker
But it's clear that he's hiding something he knows more than he is willing to talk about.
00:27:47
Speaker
Then he talks about the hists.
00:27:50
Speaker
And there is just one that he listens to.
00:27:52
Speaker
Now, the hists
00:27:54
Speaker
are these sentient trees that live throughout the Black Marsh.
00:28:01
Speaker
And they're not worshipped, per se, but they're kind of venerated.
00:28:07
Speaker
And they are all connected in some way.
00:28:10
Speaker
So the idea is that they're all related slash kind of the same beings.
00:28:16
Speaker
And people ask them questions and they get guidance from them and that sort of thing.
00:28:20
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.
00:28:31
Speaker
And this is the only one that her dad will talk to.
00:28:36
Speaker
Basically, he's he's.
00:28:39
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.
00:28:46
Speaker
The difference is, I think he might be right about some of this stuff.
00:28:52
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?
00:29:00
Speaker
No, I never played control.
00:29:02
Speaker
The enemy in control is called the hiss.
00:29:06
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:29:06
Speaker
Which is, it's basically like, and it's like a sentient frequency sort of that.
00:29:12
Speaker
Oh, that's cool.
00:29:13
Speaker
Basically, once somebody hears it, they are under the control of the hiss.
00:29:19
Speaker
It sounds like a hiss to the person, but it's.
00:29:21
Speaker
What a fun idea.
00:29:23
Speaker
I like that.
00:29:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:24
Speaker
It's like, it's like.
00:29:26
Speaker
zombie tinnitus.
00:29:28
Speaker
Yeah, pretty much.
00:29:31
Speaker
That's kind of what it was in control.
00:29:34
Speaker
I like that.
00:29:35
Speaker
That's fun.
00:29:35
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:29:37
Speaker
Yeah, but so they're dealing with the awkwardness of dad coming down to have breakfast with them.
00:29:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:45
Speaker
So Glimm heads out and we get a really interesting inner monologue.
00:29:50
Speaker
Glimm's inner monologue, we get a couple of instances of it in this section.
00:29:54
Speaker
And I find it some of the best writing in this book.
00:29:57
Speaker
And it's talking about assimilation because the Imperials have taken over the Black Marsh where the Argonians are from.
00:30:05
Speaker
They couldn't be more different.
00:30:06
Speaker
Their culture is different.
00:30:09
Speaker
And he has a lot of thoughts about
00:30:13
Speaker
code switching and stuff like that.
00:30:15
Speaker
He talks a different way.
00:30:17
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.
00:30:41
Speaker
And she says, uh,
00:30:42
Speaker
do you know how smart I am in Spanish?
00:30:44
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.
00:30:53
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.
00:31:12
Speaker
Right.
00:31:12
Speaker
It's very well written.
00:31:15
Speaker
And it makes sense because Greg Keyes is actually a linguist.
00:31:18
Speaker
Like he's a trained linguist.
00:31:19
Speaker
That's his thing.
00:31:21
Speaker
But it has a lot.
00:31:22
Speaker
It's like a page and a half.
00:31:24
Speaker
And it has a lot to say, though, about assimilation, about code switching, about different cultures and colonization.
00:31:32
Speaker
And holy shit, it's good.
00:31:34
Speaker
Like it's really well written and really well thought out.
00:31:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:40
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.
00:31:50
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.
00:32:02
Speaker
It depends on how you pronounce it, but, um,
00:32:05
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.
00:32:11
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.
00:32:22
Speaker
Right.
00:32:22
Speaker
Right.
00:32:22
Speaker
It's like it's part of oblivion, but it's not.
00:32:26
Speaker
You know, it's pretty standard fortune teller shit, really.
00:32:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:31
Speaker
So, so he, but he gets kind of worked up and he said, I don't want to talk.
00:32:35
Speaker
You need to leave.
00:32:36
Speaker
And he basically makes him.
00:32:37
Speaker
I don't want to talk about it anymore.
00:32:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:39
Speaker
That's exactly it.
00:32:40
Speaker
He's just a little too worked up to talk about this shit anymore.
00:32:44
Speaker
Chapter four, an egg.
00:32:46
Speaker
She is with her own old mentor kind of figure, Hecua, who was an old alchemist and they're discussing potions.
00:32:54
Speaker
She finds an ingredient that,
00:32:57
Speaker
that neither of them have any clue what it is.
00:33:00
Speaker
Basically, years ago, some guy came in, was hurting really bad.
00:33:05
Speaker
And Heckua was like, well, I feel bad for him.
00:33:07
Speaker
I'll fix him up.
00:33:07
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.
00:33:17
Speaker
And an egg's like, I'll take it.
00:33:19
Speaker
And she goes, yeah, fine.
00:33:21
Speaker
Go on.
00:33:22
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
00:33:49
Speaker
And Hecchio was like, hey, listen, it took me a week to cure him of that.
00:33:53
Speaker
Please be careful with whatever you make.
00:33:57
Speaker
It's really good.
00:33:59
Speaker
I think these two characters are the most level one D&D characters you can have.
00:34:07
Speaker
They're going on kind of light impact missions and fucking up.
00:34:13
Speaker
It's very well done.
00:34:14
Speaker
They're level one and they're not leveling up anytime soon.
00:34:17
Speaker
Not any time soon.
00:34:18
Speaker
No, sir.
00:34:20
Speaker
So she synthesizes the ingredient.
00:34:24
Speaker
They use some other term for it, but I get the impression it was like she centrifuges it basically.
00:34:30
Speaker
And so she spins out a she.
00:34:33
Speaker
So suddenly Glim is missing and she hasn't seen Glim in a while.
00:34:37
Speaker
And
00:34:38
Speaker
I interpreted this as just the fact that they have been friends since they were like kids.
00:34:43
Speaker
He points out that he says, we've been friends since we were hatchlings.
00:34:47
Speaker
And so she hasn't heard from him in a while.
00:34:49
Speaker
And so she sends out this clockwork sparrow named Koo.
00:34:54
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.
00:35:03
Speaker
Right.
00:35:03
Speaker
And talk to him and give him more.
00:35:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:05
Speaker
So she sends him out to find him.
00:35:08
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.
00:35:18
Speaker
Uh, because he's talked a lot about how you got to get out of here.
00:35:22
Speaker
I want you out of here.
00:35:23
Speaker
I want you not, not in a mean way, but like, Hey, you, you deserve better than this.
00:35:27
Speaker
I want you to go on your adventures.
00:35:29
Speaker
Start your life.
00:35:30
Speaker
You know, that kind of stuff.
00:35:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:32
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.
00:35:45
Speaker
Like, so she can begin her and she's fighting it.
00:35:47
Speaker
It's like he has literally paid these guys to kidnap her and force her out of town.
00:35:51
Speaker
Right.
00:35:52
Speaker
Which honestly, and he says, you know, I hope that one day you think back and realize I did right by you.
00:35:58
Speaker
This is what you need.
00:36:00
Speaker
Uh, so, so she's on this ship, uh, and, uh, and that's what we're doing now.
00:36:07
Speaker
So, uh, Glim, uh, finds coup eventually.
00:36:11
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.
00:36:22
Speaker
Um,
00:36:26
Speaker
Uh, chapter five, uh, uh, an egg, uh, she hears from Glim through the locket.
00:36:32
Speaker
Uh, uh, he's, he's trying to find her.
00:36:34
Speaker
Um, the captain of the ship, uh, lets her above deck eventually when they're out in deep water.
00:36:41
Speaker
He's like, yeah, he's like, you're not getting anywhere.
00:36:43
Speaker
So yeah, you're not going to go anywhere.
00:36:45
Speaker
We're in deep water.
00:36:46
Speaker
You'll just drown.
00:36:46
Speaker
So I'm going to let you do, do your stuff.
00:36:50
Speaker
Right.
00:36:51
Speaker
Exactly.
00:36:51
Speaker
So this I was hoping this would be the beginning of a rollicking good nautical adventure.
00:37:00
Speaker
No, it lasts for another couple of pages before Glimm shows up and they just dive overboard.
00:37:05
Speaker
Right overboard.
00:37:06
Speaker
It's like, oh, we're past the pirate nautical adventure stuff.
00:37:11
Speaker
Yeah, we were introduced to this captain.
00:37:14
Speaker
He was kind of interesting.
00:37:15
Speaker
And yeah, that's it.
00:37:17
Speaker
The prologue was was was on the ocean.
00:37:19
Speaker
We're like, we're returning to the ocean, boys.
00:37:21
Speaker
Here we go.
00:37:22
Speaker
Right.
00:37:23
Speaker
Nautical adventures back on the menu.
00:37:25
Speaker
No.
00:37:25
Speaker
Bingo.
00:37:26
Speaker
Nothing.
00:37:27
Speaker
No, no.
00:37:28
Speaker
It's so crazy.
00:37:30
Speaker
So.
Discovering the Floating Island's Mysteries
00:37:32
Speaker
She's she she's hanging on to him for dear life, basically, because he's he's Argonian.
00:37:37
Speaker
He can just tear through the water.
00:37:39
Speaker
They find an island and he realizes that he knows where they ought to go.
00:37:46
Speaker
It starts to tumble a little bit.
00:37:49
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?
00:37:56
Speaker
Okay, fine.
00:37:58
Speaker
So they head to a group of ruins where they find the floating city.
00:38:04
Speaker
And Glimm suddenly, Glimm, who would rather just stay home and get drunk, suddenly is all about going there.
00:38:11
Speaker
And an egg is suddenly the one who's like, no, I want to go home.
00:38:16
Speaker
So she
00:38:18
Speaker
This is so confusing.
00:38:19
Speaker
This is where it starts to get.
00:38:21
Speaker
I got lost right about here.
00:38:23
Speaker
I was like, what the fuck just happened?
00:38:25
Speaker
So she's like, we got to get out of here.
00:38:27
Speaker
And he's like, we got to go on the island.
00:38:29
Speaker
She forces a flight potion that she has successfully made.
00:38:34
Speaker
I'm assuming with the mystery ingredient.
00:38:37
Speaker
At some point.
00:38:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:39
Speaker
She forces him to drink it and they're both flying.
00:38:42
Speaker
And he says, well, great.
00:38:44
Speaker
I can fly to the floating island.
00:38:45
Speaker
And she just kind of goes with him.
00:38:49
Speaker
despite everything, it's very confusing.
00:38:52
Speaker
It's weird.
00:38:53
Speaker
And it takes us into chapter six where the book takes a sharp left turn into fuckery.
00:38:59
Speaker
This is where
00:39:01
Speaker
This is where up until around here, I was having a really good time.
00:39:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:09
Speaker
And then it's like we're through the looking glass and we didn't consent to that.
00:39:15
Speaker
It's like the story that we were given in the first few chapters was like...
00:39:20
Speaker
this is high adventure.
00:39:22
Speaker
This is something.
00:39:24
Speaker
And now it's like, what the fuck are the words that I'm reading on the page now?
00:39:28
Speaker
What is this?
00:39:30
Speaker
Uh, uh, did James Joyce start writing Dubliners and write it into my eyeballs?
00:39:37
Speaker
It's very weird.
00:39:39
Speaker
We're middlers.
00:39:41
Speaker
I'm Jimmy John, the middle burger.
00:39:44
Speaker
We're about to go into like, this is like, it goes, yeah, because you're right.
00:39:48
Speaker
It's like high fantasy, classic fantasy, D&D style Tolkien kind of shit.
00:39:54
Speaker
And we're about to head into this weird,
00:39:58
Speaker
80s labyrinth style kind of fantasy where everything is up for grabs.
00:40:04
Speaker
And it's just it anyway.
00:40:07
Speaker
So chapter six, I'm going to read you just how I wrote it.
00:40:13
Speaker
OK, so they say they're on a flying island, but suddenly they're passing through an area of the Black Marsh again.
00:40:20
Speaker
First and foremost, they're on this floating island, but then it tells us that they're wandering through the Black Marsh.
00:40:31
Speaker
I'm assuming and later they talk about them looking off the edge.
00:40:36
Speaker
So I'm like, oh, OK, so they're like, all right, they're looking over the edge down on the ground.
00:40:45
Speaker
where things are happening.
00:40:47
Speaker
And they watch a random group of Britons who have built this barricade.
00:40:53
Speaker
We don't know why.
00:40:54
Speaker
We don't know what's going on there.
00:40:56
Speaker
And they get slaughtered by this random group of sea creatures.
00:41:00
Speaker
And then they kind of rise from the dead like zombies.
00:41:06
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.
00:41:16
Speaker
And I'm like, what the fuck are we talking about?
00:41:19
Speaker
It doesn't make any sense.
00:41:21
Speaker
And so, yeah, so I'm confused.
00:41:24
Speaker
Yeah, again, they're on the edge of the island looking down at what's happening, but
00:41:30
Speaker
Why?
00:41:31
Speaker
You're on a floating island.
00:41:35
Speaker
Why are you still looking?
00:41:38
Speaker
Why aren't we learning about all the shit that's in front of you?
00:41:42
Speaker
It's a city.
00:41:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:44
Speaker
There's a whole city there.
00:41:46
Speaker
And we're still talking about, oh, look what's happening down there.
00:41:50
Speaker
It's so weird.
00:41:52
Speaker
It's so weird.
00:41:53
Speaker
They're on this mysterious new land and they're still like looking down at the stuff that's going on down there.
00:42:01
Speaker
So it's right off the bat.
00:42:03
Speaker
We are.
00:42:04
Speaker
It feels like we're in a different.
00:42:06
Speaker
We've got different characters.
00:42:07
Speaker
It feels like it feels like we switched authors.
00:42:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:11
Speaker
It's so weird.
00:42:13
Speaker
So.
00:42:15
Speaker
But they do eventually start kind of like creeping into the island.
00:42:18
Speaker
They're basically...
00:42:21
Speaker
In like, it's not, it's nothing about this is clear.
00:42:24
Speaker
That's the problem.
00:42:25
Speaker
There's a lot of shit.
00:42:27
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.
00:42:41
Speaker
The maulist simply vanished.
00:42:43
Speaker
It's just like there's, I, I,
00:42:47
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.
00:42:59
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:43:01
Speaker
It's like footage not found, just in my head.
00:43:04
Speaker
That is like a good 50% of it.
00:43:07
Speaker
It's just like footage not found.
00:43:11
Speaker
It doesn't make any sense.
00:43:12
Speaker
And you have to kind of, you have to infer
00:43:14
Speaker
a lot and you have to guess a lot.
00:43:16
Speaker
And by the way, knowing a lot about the Elder Scrolls will not help you because this is not connected.
00:43:23
Speaker
This floating city is not part of any of the previously maintained Elder Scrolls lore.
00:43:30
Speaker
This is just a new thing.
00:43:31
Speaker
So you just kind of have to infer ship.
00:43:34
Speaker
Um,
00:43:35
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
00:43:59
Speaker
web sacks and egg sacks and stuff.
00:44:00
Speaker
They don't, but we don't see a spider.
00:44:03
Speaker
So it's, it's just weird.
00:44:06
Speaker
And they, they overhear a group of people looking for them and it's like, how the fuck did they know?
00:44:11
Speaker
Okay, whatever.
00:44:13
Speaker
So, so an egg takes coup and says, go to Prince Etribus and tell him what's happening.
00:44:27
Speaker
Who the fuck is Prince Etrovus?
00:44:28
Speaker
I hear you saying.
00:44:29
Speaker
Who is this guy?
00:44:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:33
Speaker
You look it up and he is he is a character in this book alone.
00:44:38
Speaker
He is not in any of the other games.
00:44:41
Speaker
He's just he's the son of one of the emperors.
00:44:44
Speaker
And.
00:44:45
Speaker
I think this might be the first time he's mentioned.
00:44:48
Speaker
And so she's like, just tell him, tell him, she says, tell him what's happening.
00:44:53
Speaker
And to which I said, what is happening?
00:44:57
Speaker
Tell me the reader what is happening.
00:45:00
Speaker
What's going on?
00:45:02
Speaker
What?
00:45:02
Speaker
Why am I in the dark?
00:45:04
Speaker
This is so, it's so frustrating.
00:45:07
Speaker
Um,
00:45:09
Speaker
So they travel, but, but, but who doesn't know?
00:45:11
Speaker
Who's who's just who.
00:45:13
Speaker
And so I'll go and tell the prince.
00:45:15
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:45:15
Speaker
Who's the clockwork bird.
00:45:17
Speaker
He flies off.
00:45:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:18
Speaker
He doesn't.
00:45:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:18
Speaker
He fucks off.
00:45:19
Speaker
Uh, uh, it's, it's just a sparrow version of that owl and clash of the Titans.
00:45:23
Speaker
It's the same shit.
00:45:25
Speaker
Um,
00:45:26
Speaker
They meet.
00:45:26
Speaker
Is it Wem Rettle?
00:45:27
Speaker
I want to say is the name of this fucking dude.
00:45:30
Speaker
Fucking Wem Rettle.
00:45:33
Speaker
Pisspot.
00:45:34
Speaker
The middle.
00:45:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:36
Speaker
Wem Rettle.
00:45:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:38
Speaker
Speaking of labyrinth, I pictured Hoggle.
00:45:41
Speaker
And they find him.
00:45:43
Speaker
He's licking the spider web cables.
00:45:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:49
Speaker
And it's like clear.
00:45:50
Speaker
It's like you feel like it feels like they caught him with his nuts out.
00:45:53
Speaker
Like it was like
00:45:56
Speaker
He's like, oh, geez, it's natural.
00:45:59
Speaker
It's perfectly a natural thing to be doing.
00:46:01
Speaker
It's a natural thing to do.
00:46:02
Speaker
Exactly.
00:46:04
Speaker
And so so we know this guy for five seconds.
00:46:08
Speaker
He realizes he kind of infers that they're not from there and they're from off the island.
00:46:15
Speaker
And so immediately in true RPG fashion, he needs their help.
00:46:20
Speaker
And in true RPG fashion, they question nothing and say, well, lead us over.
00:46:24
Speaker
Lead us to the thing you need, random stranger.
00:46:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:28
Speaker
Sounds good.
00:46:31
Speaker
Chapter seven.
00:46:33
Speaker
Wemretel basically tells him, he gives him some background.
00:46:36
Speaker
And I will say, this is actually pretty well written.
00:46:39
Speaker
It just goes on too long.
00:46:41
Speaker
So Wemretel is from the Middens.
00:46:45
Speaker
Yes.
00:46:46
Speaker
We're in the lowest of the Middens or something like that.
00:46:50
Speaker
And at this point, I'm like, so they're not on top of the islands.
00:46:54
Speaker
OK, I get it.
00:46:55
Speaker
This is the first time we have.
00:46:56
Speaker
This is this is the only way we know about this, by the way, for sure.
00:47:00
Speaker
Like I assumed you would go to the top if you're fucking flying.
00:47:04
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.
00:47:12
Speaker
Yes.
00:47:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:13
Speaker
Sure.
00:47:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:15
Speaker
The root system somehow.
00:47:17
Speaker
I don't know.
00:47:19
Speaker
Despite the fact that it was described as a cone.
00:47:21
Speaker
So it's like basically you'd have to land on an upside down triangle.
00:47:25
Speaker
But anyway, and this but it is well written where it's this kind of low context, high context kind of situation where
00:47:38
Speaker
He has no idea what they're talking about.
00:47:41
Speaker
And he it's it's it's they don't know the most basic thing about where they are.
00:47:47
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.
00:47:55
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?
00:48:02
Speaker
And you're like, wait, what are you even taught?
00:48:04
Speaker
Are you talking about breathing?
00:48:06
Speaker
Like it's it's he's it's.
00:48:08
Speaker
It's pretty good.
00:48:10
Speaker
It just goes on a little too long.
00:48:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:13
Speaker
But through this, we get some exposition.
00:48:16
Speaker
And we're basically told that the island, which is called Umbriel, the island is basically Galactus.
00:48:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:23
Speaker
It just goes from place to place, and it steals souls, and it just drains people wherever it goes.
00:48:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:32
Speaker
It's a tornado of soul drinking like that.
00:48:34
Speaker
That's what it is.
00:48:36
Speaker
And the threads are basically just they're just soul sucking tubes.
00:48:40
Speaker
They're just sucking the souls up in the moths.
00:48:44
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.
00:48:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:57
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.
00:49:05
Speaker
You can't interact with anything.
00:49:08
Speaker
So the moths are attaching the threads to people and sucking and drinking their souls up.
00:49:13
Speaker
And that's what Wem Riddle was doing when they first met him.
00:49:16
Speaker
He was licking one of the tubes.
00:49:18
Speaker
Just to get like just to get like a little residue of soul juice from that that the island is sucking up.
00:49:29
Speaker
And I was like, OK, OK, I get it now.
00:49:36
Speaker
Sort of.
00:49:37
Speaker
Well, and this and this is where you kind of start to realize what the problem is here.
00:49:44
Speaker
And this is where it really came together for me.
00:49:47
Speaker
Excuse me.
00:49:48
Speaker
Now, this was a longer, larger novel, at least in its planning, if not in practice.
00:49:58
Speaker
These kind of strange little world building things can absolutely work.
00:50:04
Speaker
Little interstitials with a character who's super interesting, but you only see for like 10 pages.
00:50:10
Speaker
That shit can work in a
00:50:13
Speaker
a much larger world, you know, and a much larger kind of a story.
00:50:19
Speaker
And as I said before, this is not even 300 pages.
00:50:22
Speaker
This is a short novel in the grand scheme of things.
00:50:27
Speaker
Right.
00:50:28
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.
00:50:39
Speaker
And so instead of making us go, oh, what a rich world we are in.
00:50:45
Speaker
It just makes you go, what the fuck was that?
00:50:47
Speaker
What's happening?
00:50:48
Speaker
Like it just- Who's that guy?
00:50:50
Speaker
Exactly.
00:50:52
Speaker
become the senior citizen, you know, that's always behind me in the movie's going, who's that?
00:50:58
Speaker
Like, that's it's it's.
00:51:00
Speaker
Why did they say?
00:51:01
Speaker
It's that kind of shit.
00:51:06
Speaker
And we and we're given very little in the way of clarification for a lot of this shit.
00:51:13
Speaker
They end up in a pit.
00:51:15
Speaker
This is where I just almost if this wasn't on, I almost threw it.
00:51:19
Speaker
at the wall.
00:51:20
Speaker
I was reading it at work or I would have there in a pit that has like these vaulted ceilings and these holes.
00:51:29
Speaker
This is all actually very interesting shit.
00:51:33
Speaker
I'm going to clear.
00:51:33
Speaker
I'm just, I want to say this up front.
00:51:35
Speaker
This is actually a very interesting idea.
00:51:38
Speaker
We're just, we are treated to none of it.
00:51:42
Speaker
It's this pit they're in.
00:51:43
Speaker
It's got these vaulted ceilings with four or five different holes in them.
00:51:47
Speaker
And stuff is falling out of the holes.
00:51:51
Speaker
And the suggestion seems to be that Umbriel, the floating island, is a being.
00:51:58
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.
00:52:07
Speaker
Yeah, it is.
00:52:08
Speaker
It is basically like somewhere between Galactus and ego.
00:52:12
Speaker
Yes, absolutely.
00:52:13
Speaker
Ego is a great way to put it.
00:52:15
Speaker
Exactly.
00:52:16
Speaker
And and here's the thing I just said, by the way,
Critique of 'The Infernal City'
00:52:20
Speaker
stuff is falling out of these holes.
00:52:25
Speaker
That was on purpose.
00:52:27
Speaker
The only descriptor we're given for what is falling out of these holes is stuff.
00:52:34
Speaker
That is it.
00:52:36
Speaker
He doesn't describe the stuff.
00:52:38
Speaker
We don't know if it's goo.
00:52:40
Speaker
We don't know if it's solid.
00:52:41
Speaker
We don't know if it's like individual items.
00:52:44
Speaker
It's just stuff.
00:52:48
Speaker
And I nearly threw the book across the room.
00:52:51
Speaker
I was so angry.
00:52:54
Speaker
That was what pushed me over the edge.
00:52:57
Speaker
I was so fucking mad.
00:52:59
Speaker
It's just big.
00:53:01
Speaker
God's sake.
00:53:02
Speaker
Because when they started, because they were like, they're starting, they're, they're thinking this is a Daedric Island.
00:53:08
Speaker
Some Daedra live here probably.
00:53:11
Speaker
Right.
00:53:12
Speaker
But then they also go, maybe the,
00:53:14
Speaker
islands of Daedra.
00:53:16
Speaker
Maybe this is like, they suggest, they're like, you know, Daedras take up different beings.
00:53:23
Speaker
They take up different forms all the time.
00:53:25
Speaker
And so it's really interesting.
00:53:28
Speaker
Really, I could really chew on that for a little while.
00:53:31
Speaker
And then they're like, and there's stuff, there's fucking stuff.
00:53:34
Speaker
It's just falling out of the holes.
00:53:36
Speaker
And just, I just...
00:53:37
Speaker
This is our holes of stuff.
00:53:39
Speaker
It's like basically Dax Shepard's character from Idiocracy just like steps in.
00:53:47
Speaker
It's like the most interesting thing you've ever seen.
00:53:50
Speaker
And then his character takes over narration for a second.
00:53:54
Speaker
It's like this is a fucking stuff hole.
00:53:55
Speaker
These are our holes of stuff.
00:53:58
Speaker
God damn it.
00:54:00
Speaker
Go away.
00:54:01
Speaker
Leave me alone.
00:54:03
Speaker
I'm tired.
00:54:06
Speaker
So
00:54:08
Speaker
So they get kind of captured by this gang.
00:54:13
Speaker
The implication, they start talking about food a lot here.
00:54:16
Speaker
And the implication is that each one of these holes is like it's connected to a kitchen, basically.
00:54:24
Speaker
And so we get this rough and tumble chef who comes down.
00:54:27
Speaker
Great big barbarian lout style, red haired kind of guy.
00:54:32
Speaker
I was thinking of what's his face in Game of Thrones.
00:54:36
Speaker
Sure.
00:54:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:37
Speaker
And.
00:54:40
Speaker
Torment, torment, giant torment, giant span.
00:54:44
Speaker
Exactly.
00:54:44
Speaker
I was thinking it's that kind of dude.
00:54:46
Speaker
And he's like, I'm taking you guys.
00:54:48
Speaker
I have I have captured you.
00:54:52
Speaker
And then and then this other group comes in that's led by a character name.
00:54:57
Speaker
I have no idea.
00:54:57
Speaker
It's Q. I. J. N. E. So I'm going to say.
00:55:01
Speaker
Queen?
00:55:04
Speaker
Let's say queen.
00:55:05
Speaker
Queen.
00:55:05
Speaker
Let's say queen.
00:55:07
Speaker
So she does some very basic entry level.
00:55:11
Speaker
I'm a badass.
00:55:13
Speaker
And here's why kind of shit.
00:55:14
Speaker
She like slashes his cheek and and and doesn't even see her hand move.
00:55:20
Speaker
My God.
00:55:21
Speaker
It's like level three character coming in to stunt on these level one hoes.
00:55:26
Speaker
That's exactly what it is.
00:55:30
Speaker
You didn't know.
00:55:33
Speaker
It's that kind of shit.
00:55:35
Speaker
And it's like, OK, great.
00:55:36
Speaker
And so and we're told that that an eggs is like, this is the scariest person I've ever met.
00:55:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:55:46
Speaker
We're told that this is the scariest.
00:55:49
Speaker
An egg looked into the camera and said, this is the scariest person I ever met.
00:55:54
Speaker
Wow.
00:55:55
Speaker
I am really scared.
00:55:57
Speaker
You remember, but it makes sense though.
00:55:59
Speaker
Cause you remember that moment.
00:56:00
Speaker
I think it was season four of, um, breaking bad.
00:56:06
Speaker
where Jesse looks at the camera and he says, this Gus guy is the scariest dude I've ever met.
00:56:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:16
Speaker
So it has precedent.
00:56:17
Speaker
This stuff happens.
00:56:18
Speaker
And then the fly flies away.
00:56:20
Speaker
Right.
00:56:25
Speaker
So hooray.
00:56:26
Speaker
So she takes them instead.
00:56:28
Speaker
So thank God that little misunderstanding is over.
00:56:32
Speaker
She, they got captured by one group and now they're captured by another.
00:56:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:36
Speaker
Warm, warm piss.
00:56:38
Speaker
The middler is, is out.
00:56:40
Speaker
And he's out.
00:56:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:41
Speaker
He like, he like gave them up or something like that.
00:56:44
Speaker
It's who cares?
00:56:46
Speaker
We'll never see him again.
00:56:47
Speaker
We haven't even seen Colin or Sewell again.
00:56:49
Speaker
And they've got prophecy and assassination shit.
00:56:53
Speaker
What, what,
00:56:53
Speaker
What makes you think we're going to see the piss boy ever again?
00:56:55
Speaker
We're not.
00:56:56
Speaker
It's not happening.
00:56:58
Speaker
God damn it.
00:56:59
Speaker
I was enjoying this book for a minute.
00:57:02
Speaker
For a hot minute.
00:57:03
Speaker
It was really enjoyable.
00:57:05
Speaker
I was really enjoying it for a good like 50 pages.
00:57:08
Speaker
I was really having fun.
00:57:11
Speaker
Okay.
00:57:12
Speaker
Chapter eight.
00:57:16
Speaker
Queen takes them to her kitchen where the cantina cast from Mos Eisley are working.
00:57:23
Speaker
Apparently, it's just it's just every short, tall, fat, thin alien creature you ever saw.
00:57:31
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.
00:57:43
Speaker
Oh, oh, oh, I know his name.
00:57:45
Speaker
What's his name?
00:57:46
Speaker
God damn it.
00:57:47
Speaker
Hold on.
00:57:48
Speaker
Oh, something crumb.
00:57:51
Speaker
Hold on.
00:57:51
Speaker
Salacious Crumb.
00:57:53
Speaker
Yes, Salacious Crumb.
00:57:54
Speaker
Okay.
00:57:55
Speaker
What a name, by the way.
00:57:56
Speaker
Holy shit.
00:57:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:59
Speaker
And there's one.
00:58:00
Speaker
My favorite description was the one that's like a spherical bunny.
00:58:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:06
Speaker
It looked like a rabbit, but spherical.
00:58:08
Speaker
And then we moved on.
00:58:10
Speaker
And then we moved on.
00:58:13
Speaker
What the hell is going on?
00:58:16
Speaker
So, so we're in the kitchen.
00:58:19
Speaker
We're in the kitchen.
00:58:21
Speaker
We're in the kitchen.
00:58:23
Speaker
And it seems to be it seems to be an actual kitchen.
00:58:26
Speaker
And she's explaining how this works.
00:58:28
Speaker
There are there are different levels of people here.
00:58:32
Speaker
There are the high end people and there are the low end people and the low end people get the low end food.
00:58:38
Speaker
The high end people get the really creative shit.
00:58:41
Speaker
And I need you to.
00:58:43
Speaker
an egg to help me make exciting, new, unique meals.
00:58:51
Speaker
And this is based entirely on the fact that an egg is from off the island.
00:58:55
Speaker
They're like, well, you're not from here.
00:58:57
Speaker
And we're here now.
00:58:59
Speaker
We're in this land that you are from.
00:59:01
Speaker
So I need you to, like, guide my cooks to making cool, interesting stuff.
00:59:08
Speaker
We even get, like, kind of a funny...
00:59:10
Speaker
We also get the full bear, the bear moment here where it's, she goes, I'm sorry.
00:59:18
Speaker
And the, and Queen goes, I'm sorry, chef.
00:59:22
Speaker
That's right.
00:59:23
Speaker
That's just what I was going to say.
00:59:24
Speaker
We get, yes, chef.
00:59:26
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,
00:59:36
Speaker
But it was like, he clearly worked in the kitchen at some point.
00:59:43
Speaker
In a kitchen at some point.
00:59:43
Speaker
He knew something.
00:59:44
Speaker
He knew something.
00:59:45
Speaker
It's so- Yes, Jeff.
00:59:47
Speaker
And I got a kick out of that.
00:59:48
Speaker
That was pretty funny.
00:59:51
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.
01:00:04
Speaker
By the way, all this is happening.
01:00:05
Speaker
Glimm is apparently just in the background somewhere.
01:00:07
Speaker
He's not.
01:00:08
Speaker
He's supposed to just be in the background and then he just fucks off and then he just disappears.
01:00:15
Speaker
We get no description about how that happens.
01:00:17
Speaker
No, it just does.
01:00:19
Speaker
You know what we do get descriptions of?
01:00:21
Speaker
We get descriptions of a neg just going, okay, I guess this is my job now.
01:00:26
Speaker
Well, bring me this and bring and they give her like servants like a hob.
01:00:31
Speaker
She gets a hob and a scamp.
01:00:33
Speaker
And a scamp.
01:00:35
Speaker
A hob and a scamp.
01:00:37
Speaker
Oh, God.
01:00:37
Speaker
I remember surely when I got a hob and a scamp.
01:00:41
Speaker
And...
01:00:44
Speaker
So she's suddenly like, yes, chef.
01:00:47
Speaker
And she's in it.
01:00:48
Speaker
And she's like, okay, we're going to come up with something.
01:00:50
Speaker
God damn it.
01:00:52
Speaker
They're ordering.
01:00:52
Speaker
They're ordering.
01:00:53
Speaker
And she suddenly became Elder Scrolls overcooked.
01:00:59
Speaker
Right.
01:01:00
Speaker
She just takes it and she's like, yeah, OK, I guess we're doing this.
01:01:04
Speaker
So she's working a fire for some reason.
01:01:06
Speaker
And everything that she's meant to do is just so vague.
01:01:11
Speaker
They never say at any point like they like this or they like that.
01:01:15
Speaker
It's just the most vague, lazy kind of like.
01:01:20
Speaker
Well, they'll want something unique.
01:01:21
Speaker
Come up with something unique.
01:01:23
Speaker
It's like this place likes it burned.
01:01:28
Speaker
But don't you dare burn this place.
01:01:31
Speaker
Oh, my God.
01:01:33
Speaker
Literally, it's like it becomes Elder Scrolls, a cooking game.
01:01:38
Speaker
Just like we're in some sort of kitchen management sim now.
01:01:43
Speaker
That's really it.
01:01:44
Speaker
It's like, it's, it's, yeah, it's papers, please.
01:01:46
Speaker
The burnt food to make sure to give the burnt food to these guys and the non burnt food to these guys.
01:01:52
Speaker
And don't do it or you'll lose points.
01:01:54
Speaker
Um, and it's something about creeping dictatorship and totalitarianism.
01:01:59
Speaker
Um,
01:02:01
Speaker
And so she gets the staff.
01:02:03
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.
01:02:19
Speaker
And she has studied enough of it to understand what they're saying to speak with them.
01:02:26
Speaker
Um,
01:02:27
Speaker
in her just just coincidentally, she happens to know the language and glim.
01:02:32
Speaker
And to be fair to glim, he's sitting there because he doesn't understand what the fuck anyone's saying.
01:02:38
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.
01:02:46
Speaker
How?
01:02:48
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:49
Speaker
How has it ever?
01:02:50
Speaker
No, it's I'm reading the book.
01:02:52
Speaker
I know what they said.
01:02:53
Speaker
And it's unclear to me.
01:02:55
Speaker
I don't get it.
01:02:56
Speaker
I don't get it.
01:02:57
Speaker
I don't get it.
01:02:57
Speaker
So she's working on fire.
01:02:59
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.
01:03:07
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.
01:03:14
Speaker
OK.
01:03:15
Speaker
It's just like, yeah, your friend got taken away.
01:03:18
Speaker
Oh, did he now?
01:03:19
Speaker
You were so locked in on cooking that you didn't notice that your friend Glimm was gone?
01:03:30
Speaker
You wanted to be cooking mama so bad that you forgot about your best friend in the world who is now gone.
01:03:41
Speaker
It's fucking stupid.
01:03:45
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.
01:03:57
Speaker
You know, she's just, find the prints for the thing.
01:04:00
Speaker
That's right.
01:04:02
Speaker
Atribus.
01:04:03
Speaker
Atribus.
01:04:04
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:04
Speaker
The, the prints that we, we, we've been introduced to and we know so thoroughly.
01:04:09
Speaker
Um,
01:04:10
Speaker
We cut to Glimm.
01:04:11
Speaker
We get more genuinely interesting, well-written internal monologue from Glimm, this time about the cultural differences on the afterlife.
01:04:24
Speaker
Wondering where he's going to go when he dies.
01:04:27
Speaker
And this is what the Imperials believe, but this is how my people typically believe it.
01:04:32
Speaker
It's really good.
01:04:36
Speaker
It's like a page and a half of
01:04:38
Speaker
A really interesting internal monologue from this character who is actually very interesting.
01:04:47
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:48
Speaker
It's once more.
01:04:49
Speaker
Once more.
01:04:50
Speaker
It's about colonization.
01:04:52
Speaker
It's about assimilation.
01:04:53
Speaker
It's really well written.
01:04:57
Speaker
Right.
01:04:58
Speaker
And that's it.
01:04:59
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.
01:05:04
Speaker
He can't understand him.
01:05:06
Speaker
And he gives him a potion.
01:05:07
Speaker
He drinks it.
01:05:07
Speaker
And it's basically an understand languages potion.
01:05:10
Speaker
So you understand me now?
01:05:11
Speaker
Yeah, I understand you now.
01:05:13
Speaker
So basically he interviews him about what an Argonia is.
01:05:17
Speaker
He goes, we've never had a guy like you here.
01:05:21
Speaker
So what are, what is this all about?
01:05:23
Speaker
What are your stat bonuses?
01:05:25
Speaker
Basically, you know, what's, what are your special abilities?
01:05:30
Speaker
What are your saving throws?
01:05:31
Speaker
And, and he interviews him about his race and what they're good at.
01:05:34
Speaker
They swim, they can breathe underwater, shit like that.
01:05:36
Speaker
And, and the guy basically implies we're going to put you to work on the sump.
01:05:41
Speaker
back down in the piss hole that are... Where the worms are.
01:05:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
01:05:46
Speaker
There's worms, by the way.
01:05:47
Speaker
There's worms, by the way.
01:05:48
Speaker
Yeah, they just kind of... They're like basically the internal bacteria of this living being thing.
01:05:54
Speaker
This guy is an asshole, by the way.
01:05:56
Speaker
Oh, totally.
01:05:57
Speaker
He's like, where are you from?
01:05:59
Speaker
And Gwim's like, I'm from Tamriel.
01:06:02
Speaker
And the guy goes like, exciting, another meaningless word.
01:06:05
Speaker
And he'll be like, no, it's not meaningless, you fucking...
01:06:09
Speaker
It's just a different language, you piece of shit.
01:06:11
Speaker
Like, yeah, it's it's that he's like he's like condescendingly excited about this person from another culture.
01:06:19
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.
01:06:33
Speaker
A burrito.
01:06:37
Speaker
I am really interested and kind of racist.
01:06:39
Speaker
Like it's, it's, it's basically that.
01:06:41
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:43
Speaker
And so they're going to put them to work.
01:06:45
Speaker
Um, and that's really exciting to know.
01:06:47
Speaker
And a really exciting, uh, a place to end part one on because they do.
01:06:54
Speaker
And that's the end of part one.
01:06:56
Speaker
And that's the end of our, our time together tonight.
01:06:59
Speaker
Uh, the inf,
01:07:03
Speaker
Kevin, what do you think about the Infernal City?
01:07:08
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.
01:07:23
Speaker
$1, $5, $10, $1.
01:07:24
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.
01:07:34
Speaker
in every episode.
01:07:34
Speaker
And to that end, I want to shout out the Jesus loves you.
01:07:37
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.
01:07:45
Speaker
This book fucking sucks.
01:07:49
Speaker
I am so frustrated.
01:07:50
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:51
Speaker
I liked the first half of what we read.
01:07:54
Speaker
And I'm going to.
01:07:56
Speaker
So let me rephrase.
01:07:58
Speaker
Part one is 50% good.
01:08:01
Speaker
50% like it just seems like I text you as like, this is weird.
01:08:09
Speaker
It feels like deleted scenes or something.
01:08:11
Speaker
We're missing.
01:08:12
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:13
Speaker
We're missing stuff.
01:08:15
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.
01:08:36
Speaker
It just feels it's moving too fast to be like, wait, wait, wait.
01:08:40
Speaker
No, what was that?
01:08:41
Speaker
What was the wire thread thing?
01:08:43
Speaker
What's the deal with the moths?
01:08:44
Speaker
The moths do.
01:08:46
Speaker
Okay.
01:08:47
Speaker
We're not going to dwell on that at all.
01:08:49
Speaker
It just sucks up the souls.
01:08:50
Speaker
There's worms.
01:08:51
Speaker
Oh, we're in a kitchen now.
01:08:54
Speaker
There's no fire in the kitchen, just hot stones or hot things.
01:08:58
Speaker
That's right.
01:08:59
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:59
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:00
Speaker
Don't don't burn the chicken, but burn.
01:09:04
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:04
Speaker
They get real mad over the semantics of burning things like let's.
01:09:08
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:09:08
Speaker
Let's talk about that.
01:09:11
Speaker
My God.
01:09:12
Speaker
So, yeah, like I liked it.
01:09:16
Speaker
It was like, whoa, we're in for adventure.
01:09:19
Speaker
I guess we're not now.
01:09:21
Speaker
We're like, we're in a we're in a they're they're just working now.
01:09:25
Speaker
This is it's like the opposite of adventure.
01:09:28
Speaker
They got day jobs.
01:09:30
Speaker
That's exactly what it is.
01:09:32
Speaker
They got day jobs.
01:09:34
Speaker
They work in a kitchen now.
01:09:36
Speaker
That's what happens.
01:09:37
Speaker
That's what happens.
01:09:38
Speaker
They got kidnapped by a floating island and they got day jobs.
01:09:41
Speaker
And that's pretty much the... It's become a horror book is what we're saying.
01:09:47
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:48
Speaker
Yeah, they were in a world of adventure.
01:09:51
Speaker
There's like a it's a real world of magic and and and things adventurous things you can do.
01:09:56
Speaker
And they got caught by they got caught by Galactus.
01:10:01
Speaker
But instead of being eaten, they are being like forced to work for like the silver surfers like surfboard wax procurer.
01:10:16
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?
01:10:24
Speaker
Nothing.
01:10:25
Speaker
So it is a horror piece, I think.
01:10:28
Speaker
I totally agree.
01:10:29
Speaker
This is so frustrating.
01:10:31
Speaker
And this is where I come to what I've been talking about this entire time.
01:10:36
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.
01:10:50
Speaker
I got your 400-word novel right here.
01:10:53
Speaker
I got your 500-word novel right here.
01:10:55
Speaker
And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
01:10:57
Speaker
we're not investing that much in, in a tie in novel.
01:11:03
Speaker
You're going to have to cut it down by about half.
01:11:06
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:07
Speaker
And so he was like, I can't write a whole new thing.
01:11:12
Speaker
And so instead it's cause there, cause you're right there.
01:11:15
Speaker
It's genuinely these moments that it feels like seeing, not found missing scene.
01:11:20
Speaker
And there are so many things that are hinted at that, uh,
01:11:24
Speaker
It just ends up being rushed and sloppy.
01:11:28
Speaker
And it starts out as a really fun, rollicky kind of thing.
01:11:33
Speaker
I was like, holy shit, Elder Scrolls is doing it right.
01:11:35
Speaker
This is great.
01:11:36
Speaker
This is going to be fun.
01:11:38
Speaker
And then it all just falls apart like a flan in a cupboard.
01:11:42
Speaker
And it's so ridiculous.
01:11:44
Speaker
I was expecting more Diablo.
01:11:46
Speaker
Sure.
01:11:47
Speaker
Like the Diablo books that we read.
01:11:50
Speaker
Oh, they build the fucking world up.
01:11:52
Speaker
To the point that it's frustrating sometimes.
01:11:54
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:57
Speaker
Like, we've criticized those books, but they have the opposite problem of what this book has.
01:12:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
01:12:05
Speaker
So, yeah.
01:12:07
Speaker
This is Greg Keyes, and this is what's so frustrating.
01:12:10
Speaker
It's like...
01:12:11
Speaker
he's a good writer.
01:12:13
Speaker
Like I know enough to look at this shit and go, Oh, you're a really good writer.
01:12:19
Speaker
Some fuckery happened and something fucked him.
01:12:23
Speaker
That's my optimistic view of this, that he got that something fucked him over in the grand scheme of things.
01:12:30
Speaker
And he had to cut like a hundred thousand words or something like that.
01:12:33
Speaker
Cause this is not done.
01:12:34
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:35
Speaker
So yeah,
01:12:38
Speaker
At least if we're going to do two more episodes of this, at least it's short.
01:12:41
Speaker
That's nice.
01:12:45
Speaker
God, it's not like the fucking what
Video Game Recommendations and Releases
01:12:49
Speaker
was it?
01:12:49
Speaker
The sins of the fathers, the Gabriel whatever book.
01:12:54
Speaker
Oh, God.
01:12:54
Speaker
500 goddamn pages.
01:12:56
Speaker
Just kept going, man.
01:12:58
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:59
Speaker
So now that we've gotten through that, though, Kevin, I do have one last question before we finish up.
01:13:06
Speaker
What are you playing?
01:13:08
Speaker
Oh, OK.
01:13:09
Speaker
I am playing.
01:13:11
Speaker
What am I playing?
01:13:12
Speaker
All right.
01:13:12
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.
01:13:24
Speaker
Shinobi Art of Vengeance is similar in it's Shinobi is back, baby.
01:13:34
Speaker
Do your side-scrolling ninja shit.
01:13:38
Speaker
It's different enough that I would say you could play both and have fun, different experiences playing them.
01:13:49
Speaker
Art style is really cool.
01:13:51
Speaker
It's very similar of like, ah, the demons have invaded.
01:13:57
Speaker
And there's a human task force that's like working with the demons.
01:14:02
Speaker
And it's like some quasi governmental agency is bringing the demons in and you're the last of this ninja clan.
01:14:09
Speaker
And you got to do it and get it and get it done.
01:14:15
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.
01:14:27
Speaker
Oh, cool.
01:14:28
Speaker
It's not like huge new areas.
01:14:31
Speaker
It's like you can now go back and open up a certain area.
01:14:35
Speaker
It's almost like more like Mega Man X or something.
01:14:37
Speaker
You can unlock a secret fight or something like that.
01:14:41
Speaker
Right.
01:14:42
Speaker
So, yeah, it's a lot of fun.
01:14:46
Speaker
Shinobi Art of Vengeance.
01:14:49
Speaker
Good time.
01:14:50
Speaker
It's a good time.
01:14:51
Speaker
It's available now on Steam for, well, I got it a little bit cheaper than the price of $29.99.
01:15:00
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
01:15:22
Speaker
Steam Deck game because I'm finding I like, yeah, I like Metroidvanias and platformers for my Steam Deck.
01:15:29
Speaker
That's kind of like where I'm at with it.
01:15:32
Speaker
And obviously tomorrow, the day after this episode comes out, we got Silksong is coming out, baby.
01:15:44
Speaker
Right.
01:15:46
Speaker
Oh, my God.
01:15:47
Speaker
People have been waiting for that for ages.
01:15:50
Speaker
Ages indeed.
01:15:51
Speaker
So Silksong, it's kind of crazy.
01:15:56
Speaker
The games that are going to be coming out soon.
01:15:59
Speaker
Let me pull up my wish list real quick.
01:16:01
Speaker
So Silksong is coming out on Thursday.
01:16:03
Speaker
Kronos the New Dawn, which is Bloober Team's next game, is coming out Friday.
01:16:12
Speaker
Also coming out Thursday is Hell is Us.
01:16:16
Speaker
That looks pretty cool.
01:16:18
Speaker
That looks pretty cool.
01:16:19
Speaker
That looked interesting.
01:16:22
Speaker
And then also coming out this month is the next Silent Hill game.
01:16:30
Speaker
Yes.
01:16:31
Speaker
So a lot of cool stuff.
01:16:34
Speaker
And we've got the Vampire of the Masquerade Bloodlines 2 coming out in... No, it's October.
01:16:42
Speaker
October.
01:16:43
Speaker
Yeah, we'll see how that game actually turns out.
01:16:45
Speaker
Hopefully it's...
01:16:46
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.
01:16:59
Speaker
So I'm not I'm cautiously optimistic.
01:17:03
Speaker
It is still playable.
01:17:05
Speaker
Yes.
01:17:05
Speaker
Yes.
01:17:05
Speaker
The other thing I played.
01:17:07
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.
01:17:24
Speaker
And it's it's one of those games where you like you
01:17:29
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.
01:17:39
Speaker
And each of your pirate dudes has a different ability.
01:17:43
Speaker
Like one is like it does damage based on direct contact.
01:17:47
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.
01:17:55
Speaker
It's a cute game.
01:17:56
Speaker
It's tough to really...
01:17:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's just to really explain it.
01:18:00
Speaker
There's actually a game in UFO 50 that did a similar thing with like the with like the flick shot thing.
01:18:10
Speaker
So but I would I would it's it's worth checking out.
01:18:15
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.
01:18:24
Speaker
So, you know, check that out.
01:18:29
Speaker
That's actually coming out in September as well.
01:18:32
Speaker
The demo is out now.
Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader Discussion
01:18:34
Speaker
Otherwise, I have been playing more Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader.
01:18:40
Speaker
I just I'm in Chapter 4 right now, which is a lot of companion quest stuff.
01:18:50
Speaker
And I just finished the final or the penultimate.
01:18:56
Speaker
I don't know.
01:18:58
Speaker
Mission for void shadows.
01:19:01
Speaker
Um, uh, it's, uh, it's a doozy of a mission.
01:19:04
Speaker
Uh, it happens towards the beginning of chapter four while you're in a warp jump.
01:19:10
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.
01:19:24
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
01:19:47
Speaker
Uh, you know, you, you, you, you just, some people start worshiping the many armed God and shit goes sideways.
01:19:58
Speaker
Gene Steeler cults, man.
01:20:00
Speaker
Oh, I love them.
01:20:01
Speaker
I want to make, I want to make an army of Gene Steeler cultists.
01:20:04
Speaker
I'm a fucking little commie alien people.
01:20:07
Speaker
They're awesome.
01:20:07
Speaker
They are.
01:20:09
Speaker
You know, it's funny.
01:20:10
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.
01:20:18
Speaker
Right.
01:20:19
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.
01:20:25
Speaker
You're just going to be turned melted into a pile of biomass for this part of the biomass.
01:20:30
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:31
Speaker
for the Tyranids.
01:20:32
Speaker
You're very useful and we appreciate you for that.
01:20:34
Speaker
We're going to build Tyranids.
01:20:36
Speaker
We will build ships out of you.
01:20:40
Speaker
And they will.
01:20:41
Speaker
And they will.
01:20:42
Speaker
So that's what I'm playing.
01:20:45
Speaker
Phil, what are you playing?
01:20:48
Speaker
Also playing Rogue Trader.
01:20:50
Speaker
Just wrapped up Chapter 3.
01:20:52
Speaker
Um, that went on.
01:20:55
Speaker
Not my favorite chapter in this thing.
01:20:59
Speaker
It felt like every D&D or role-playing game DM puts forth a gladiatorial level at some point.
01:21:12
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.
01:21:21
Speaker
And there's nothing wrong with that per se.
01:21:24
Speaker
But there was like one fight after the other.
01:21:30
Speaker
And as I mentioned, I am on story mode and that's my own problem.
01:21:34
Speaker
But
01:21:35
Speaker
God, it just it was by the time we were finished, I was like, oh, my God, thank God.
01:21:40
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.
01:21:47
Speaker
I am.
01:21:47
Speaker
So I assume Marzai is dead, right?
01:21:52
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:21:53
Speaker
Yeah.
01:21:54
Speaker
Yeah.
01:21:54
Speaker
Oh, did you did you get him?
01:21:59
Speaker
Who's all for?
01:22:00
Speaker
No, I didn't get all for.
01:22:02
Speaker
Did I miss somebody?
01:22:03
Speaker
The Space Marine.
01:22:04
Speaker
Oh, no.
01:22:07
Speaker
I wanted the space.
01:22:08
Speaker
Was he on there?
01:22:09
Speaker
Yeah, that's where you get.
01:22:10
Speaker
Oh, well, that actually makes a lot of sense.
01:22:15
Speaker
I was I was dying to get out of that chapter.
01:22:17
Speaker
Yeah, I sacrificed getting a space wolf to get the fuck out of that chapter.
01:22:24
Speaker
Wow.
01:22:24
Speaker
When, what's his name?
01:22:28
Speaker
The crazy doctor who is basically making you do the fights or is like asking you to do the fights.
01:22:36
Speaker
In his room, there's a cage with Olfar standing in it.
01:22:40
Speaker
Oh, for fuck's sake.
01:22:41
Speaker
Yeah, I just, I got my marching orders and I got the fuck out of there.
01:22:46
Speaker
That explains it.
01:22:47
Speaker
Yeah.
01:22:48
Speaker
Well, I don't, you know what?
01:22:52
Speaker
Maybe I'll back up and do it again later, but I just, I was over it.
01:22:56
Speaker
I was so over it.
01:22:58
Speaker
I just wasn't interested.
01:23:00
Speaker
So how did you get captured, by the way?
01:23:02
Speaker
Because you don't have Eerliette, how does the capture happen?
01:23:08
Speaker
Oh, gosh, I don't even remember.
01:23:11
Speaker
I don't even remember.
01:23:14
Speaker
It was not.
01:23:17
Speaker
It was it.
01:23:17
Speaker
Did you go?
01:23:18
Speaker
It was like, did you check out a ship and then you get knocked out or?
01:23:22
Speaker
Yes.
01:23:23
Speaker
Oh, yes.
01:23:24
Speaker
Yes.
01:23:24
Speaker
We went to check out the ship.
01:23:26
Speaker
We were going to ambush the Dracari.
01:23:29
Speaker
And one of my crew was brainwashed into working for them.
01:23:35
Speaker
Got it.
01:23:36
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.
01:23:43
Speaker
So I was like, oh, cool.
01:23:44
Speaker
I'll set this kind of trap and I'll do this and I'll do that.
01:23:47
Speaker
And then and of course, I'm betrayed and yeah, and and defeat that way.
01:23:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's what happened.
01:23:53
Speaker
Got it.
01:23:53
Speaker
OK.
01:23:54
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.
01:24:05
Speaker
Oh, okay.
01:24:07
Speaker
And you get knocked out right away.
01:24:09
Speaker
You don't even get a chance.
01:24:10
Speaker
You're just like... Oh, yeah, no.
01:24:14
Speaker
It is interesting.
01:24:15
Speaker
It's fun.
01:24:15
Speaker
And then you're put on trial and then and Eerliette is there like with the trial.
01:24:21
Speaker
Like there's it's it's if you have her if you didn't kill her with like with a dogmatic playthrough.
01:24:27
Speaker
Which I did.
01:24:29
Speaker
She has it is
01:24:32
Speaker
I'll say this.
01:24:33
Speaker
Kimura becomes a big, is a huge part of her story.
01:24:38
Speaker
So if she is dead, I can understand like, well, there's a lot less happening now.
01:24:44
Speaker
Oh, that makes sense.
01:24:46
Speaker
There's a lot less.
01:24:47
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.
01:24:58
Speaker
survivors from her craft world to turn you in.
01:25:02
Speaker
Like, that's the whole plot of Kimura.
01:25:05
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.
01:25:12
Speaker
That explains so much.
01:25:16
Speaker
That explains so much.
01:25:18
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.
01:25:27
Speaker
Yeah, I would do an iconoclast playthrough.
01:25:30
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.
01:25:38
Speaker
Sure.
01:25:38
Speaker
If you're a heretic or dogmatic, you are ultimately cutting yourself off.
01:25:44
Speaker
from certain things in both ways because you're cutting yourself off from certain companions.
01:25:51
Speaker
An Iconoclast can get just about everybody except a few special companions.
01:25:56
Speaker
There's a few special companions that only show up if you are a dogmatic, and that's Incendia Korda.
01:26:04
Speaker
You can be a dogmatic companion.
01:26:07
Speaker
The other Rogue Trader or Calogos Winterscale if you're a heretic.
01:26:12
Speaker
Oh, okay.
01:26:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
01:26:16
Speaker
And if you're an iconoclast, they're both somewhat antagonistic towards you.
01:26:20
Speaker
Oh, okay.
01:26:22
Speaker
But yeah, so there's a lot.
01:26:26
Speaker
There's a lot.
01:26:27
Speaker
there.
01:26:28
Speaker
That makes sense.
01:26:29
Speaker
But I can understand it's not everybody's favorite.
01:26:31
Speaker
Like a lot of people are ho-hum on chapter three.
01:26:35
Speaker
I kind of like it, but I understand.
01:26:38
Speaker
I will give them credit that it snapped along for the most part.
01:26:41
Speaker
Yeah.
01:26:42
Speaker
It wasn't.
01:26:42
Speaker
It wasn't like chapter two was goddamn 25 hours or something.
01:26:47
Speaker
Yeah.
01:26:48
Speaker
You know, this one clipped along at a much faster pace.
01:26:51
Speaker
It was just that the pace was taken up mostly with
01:26:54
Speaker
Well, you fought these guys, but what about fighting these guys?
01:26:59
Speaker
I was like, all right, Jesus.
01:27:00
Speaker
Fine, moving on.
01:27:03
Speaker
Fine, fine, fine.
01:27:05
Speaker
So, yeah.
01:27:05
Speaker
It's good, but I'm ready to get... I'm glad I'm back on my ship and doing it.
01:27:09
Speaker
You're glad you have your ship again.
01:27:12
Speaker
You have... Did you fix the Heartless?
01:27:18
Speaker
When you had the confrontation with the Heartless, did you... No.
01:27:25
Speaker
Oh, okay.
01:27:26
Speaker
No.
01:27:28
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.
01:27:39
Speaker
That's pretty cool.
01:27:40
Speaker
I think I did do damage to it.
01:27:43
Speaker
I did something else with it though.
01:27:45
Speaker
Yeah, you get the option to like launch an attack on the ship itself before you board it.
01:27:52
Speaker
I think I sent it to be a defender on one of my other planets or something like that.
01:27:57
Speaker
Oh, okay.
01:27:57
Speaker
Got it.
01:27:57
Speaker
I think that's what I did.
01:27:59
Speaker
Yeah, and that raises the security of your worlds.
01:28:04
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's what I ended up doing, if I'm not calling correctly.
01:28:07
Speaker
It's all a blur.
01:28:09
Speaker
So I'm still doing that.
Endless Legend 2 and Other Games
01:28:11
Speaker
I played a couple other things.
01:28:13
Speaker
I played the demo for Endless Legend 2.
01:28:18
Speaker
Endless Legend...
01:28:20
Speaker
is one of those things.
01:28:21
Speaker
It's a it's a four X and they are kind of that double a sort of studio kind of thing.
01:28:30
Speaker
I really loved the first endless legend.
01:28:33
Speaker
I wasn't very good at it.
01:28:36
Speaker
I really enjoyed it.
01:28:38
Speaker
And I think the thing that the studio amplitude studios has for them with these is that
01:28:46
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.
01:29:05
Speaker
It's also far more narratively focused for a 4X than they usually are.
01:29:10
Speaker
Their quests, stuff like that.
01:29:13
Speaker
And I think for this
01:29:15
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
01:29:25
Speaker
You know, it's just, it just don't have limitless resources like say for access or something like that.
01:29:30
Speaker
Sure.
01:29:31
Speaker
Those janky shit.
01:29:32
Speaker
Yeah.
01:29:33
Speaker
Yeah.
01:29:33
Speaker
Civ seven.
01:29:34
Speaker
I still have not picked up Civ seven.
01:29:36
Speaker
I'm waiting.
01:29:38
Speaker
I, I, I, I was, I was really optimistic on that one.
01:29:42
Speaker
And the more time goes on, the more I'm like, this is not,
01:29:45
Speaker
It's not a worthy successor.
01:29:48
Speaker
This is not what I want.
01:29:49
Speaker
This is not what I want.
01:29:51
Speaker
Not what I was asking for.
01:29:53
Speaker
I'm going to get into that one of these days.
01:29:55
Speaker
We might get into that at our Game of the Year episode or something like that.
01:30:00
Speaker
But yeah, and so it's more of that.
01:30:03
Speaker
You've got really unique, interesting surroundings.
01:30:08
Speaker
It's more than just...
01:30:10
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.
01:30:21
Speaker
I just don't have time for another four X in my life.
01:30:24
Speaker
Personally, I just don't.
01:30:26
Speaker
I got enough.
01:30:27
Speaker
This is the year of Phil playing lazy games.
01:30:29
Speaker
I don't have time for another four X, but it's beautiful.
01:30:34
Speaker
It's really well done.
01:30:35
Speaker
And if you are,
01:30:37
Speaker
in the market for a really unique fantasy 4X.
01:30:39
Speaker
I highly recommend at least playing the demo.
01:30:42
Speaker
It's really impressive.
01:30:45
Speaker
I also played and finished Last Report.
01:30:49
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I played that.
01:30:51
Speaker
I see.
01:30:52
Speaker
Yeah, I got it on your recommendation and that was fun.
01:30:58
Speaker
Yeah, I am.
01:31:00
Speaker
I am a good little point and click, wasn't it?
01:31:02
Speaker
I am.
01:31:02
Speaker
God, I am all about these bite sized one or two hour experiences, you know, that have
01:31:13
Speaker
you know, kind of just the one or two main mechanics that you use and it gives you some scares.
01:31:19
Speaker
It gives you a fun story.
01:31:21
Speaker
It gives you that it's got some good analog horror kind of vibes to it.
01:31:29
Speaker
It scared me at times.
01:31:30
Speaker
It has like one little jump scare and it's whatever, but it's scary.
01:31:35
Speaker
And I played for about 15 minutes and I had fucked up the way that you
01:31:41
Speaker
do the reports.
01:31:42
Speaker
I misunderstood.
01:31:43
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.
01:31:47
Speaker
So I got the perfectionist achievement.
01:31:51
Speaker
It's really enjoyable.
01:31:54
Speaker
I'd like to play through it again and try some other things because you do have one.
01:31:57
Speaker
The big, the big
01:31:59
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
01:32:20
Speaker
So I'm really happy to find these little self-contained experiences, things like this.
01:32:26
Speaker
What was the other one I really enjoyed?
01:32:29
Speaker
The Children of Clay, things like that.
01:32:31
Speaker
Children of Clay, yeah.
01:32:33
Speaker
Yeah, where it's just, it's not long.
01:32:35
Speaker
It's just, it's a little...
01:32:37
Speaker
you know, bite size or sandwich sized experience.
01:32:41
Speaker
And I really appreciated what they did with this.
01:32:44
Speaker
I really enjoyed it.
01:32:45
Speaker
So I'm really happy about that.
01:32:47
Speaker
So that was yeah, that was a whole lot of fun.
01:32:49
Speaker
And I highly recommend it to anybody who
01:32:52
Speaker
would like also to have something like that.
01:32:54
Speaker
Yeah.
01:32:55
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.
01:33:01
Speaker
That's actually the perfect game to have playing in the background while you're packing boxes, by the way.
01:33:05
Speaker
Yeah.
01:33:06
Speaker
It's it's, you know, it's a clicker game.
01:33:08
Speaker
So you hit this automated point.
01:33:10
Speaker
Yeah.
01:33:10
Speaker
And you just go back and check on it every now and then.
01:33:12
Speaker
Make sure that it's everything.
01:33:13
Speaker
Everything's fine.
01:33:15
Speaker
Exactly.
01:33:15
Speaker
Exactly.
01:33:16
Speaker
Yeah.
01:33:17
Speaker
So, by the way, I noticed you got the achievement on Rogue Trader.
01:33:23
Speaker
You got the whodunit achievement.
01:33:25
Speaker
You discover the truth about Theodora's death.
01:33:28
Speaker
Yes.
01:33:29
Speaker
Yeah, that was cool.
01:33:32
Speaker
What'd you do to the perpetrator?
01:33:35
Speaker
I forgave the perpetrator.
01:33:37
Speaker
I told the perpetrator, girl, you're good.
01:33:40
Speaker
It's all right.
01:33:41
Speaker
Girl, you're good.
01:33:42
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.
01:33:56
Speaker
And what's funny is the she did it for dogmatic reasons.
01:33:59
Speaker
Right.
01:34:00
Speaker
And that was I mean, that's the thing.
01:34:01
Speaker
Ultimately, I was like,
01:34:04
Speaker
No, you did the right thing.
01:34:05
Speaker
That's good.
01:34:05
Speaker
That's good.
01:34:06
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.
01:34:15
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.
01:34:28
Speaker
You can't, you know, he's the Javert of the group pretty much.
01:34:32
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
01:34:35
Speaker
Yeah.
01:34:36
Speaker
So Argenta stole a piece of bread and then shot that bread through Theodora's face.
01:34:42
Speaker
Through the head.
01:34:43
Speaker
Yeah.
01:34:44
Speaker
Yeah.
01:34:45
Speaker
So what's funny is Argenta is like, the only thing I regret is killing Mort.
01:34:53
Speaker
He's like, yeah, okay.
01:34:55
Speaker
Yeah.
01:34:56
Speaker
Yeah.
01:34:57
Speaker
Well, it wouldn't be a Phil episode if we didn't come close to two hours.
01:35:01
Speaker
Um, yeah.
01:35:03
Speaker
Yeah.
01:35:03
Speaker
So, uh, thanks for listening to us.
01:35:06
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.
Conclusion with Tyranid Invasion Humor
01:35:26
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.
01:35:41
Speaker
And, uh, it makes me worried that it's like, you know,
01:35:46
Speaker
Who do I call with the government in all these days?
01:35:51
Speaker
Who do I call about a Tyranid invasion?
01:35:54
Speaker
Oh, I mean, you'd be amazed at what a regular household sponge can do.
01:36:04
Speaker
But it's got to be prepped, obviously.
01:36:06
Speaker
So I recommend getting one of those scrub daddies.
01:36:09
Speaker
Little face.
01:36:11
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.
01:36:23
Speaker
Get down there, put the sponge next to it and put your mouth right up close to the little hole.
01:36:30
Speaker
And what you're trying to do is speak to the queen, the ant queen.
01:36:34
Speaker
And you're going to say,