Diablo: Legacy of Blood Part 1

Transcript

Speaker: Right, exactly.

Speaker: They usually end up in the mob.

Speaker: No, they do usually end up in the mob.

Speaker: You know who never ends up in the mob?

Speaker: Who?

Speaker: Hey, everybody.

Speaker: Welcome back to Pixlet.

Speaker: I hope we never end up in the mob.

Speaker: Hope so.

Speaker: Hope so.

Speaker: My name is Kevin, alongside with me is Phil.

Speaker: Hello.

Speaker: And today we're starting a brand new book.

Speaker: Oh, new book, new genre.

Speaker: New genre.

Speaker: Yeah, we've been on sci-fi and military sci-fi for quite a bit now.

Speaker: And, you know, hard sci-fi, soft sci-fi, flaccid sci-fi, you know.

Speaker: It's just a little cold outside sci-fi.

Speaker: Grower sci-fi, shower sci-fi.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: We've been in there for a while.

Speaker: And now we are in good old fashioned sword and sorcery land.

Speaker: Look at this.

Speaker: We got Diablo Legacy of Blood, which is the first of the Diablo novelizations.

Speaker: And this is another we're just we just love opening up.

Speaker: pandora's box here we are we have opened up like seven excuse me several franchises yeah that are books and books long yeah and this is another one so this is another one this is going to be this is going to be a beefy series i mean we'll probably um we'll see how far we get into the diablo franchise i mean why not and it's you know what this is a nice looking book

Speaker: you got the really nice uh yeah it's it's the new it's like a new printing of it or something like that oh yeah yeah that's cute it's it's it feels good feels good in the hands embossed cover and embossed cover i got my my beat up two dollar it has been beaten the beat the shit out of that with a with a a like parking receipt

Speaker: page holder like it's just it's a mess but that's this is pure pulp and therefore I'm gonna beat the shit out of this book beat the absolute shit out of it so this book is written by Richard A and I'm not sure if it's knack or knack

Speaker: I'm assuming Knack.

Speaker: But yeah, I guess it could be Knack.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Richard.

Speaker: So he wrote Legacy of Blood.

Speaker: And I don't know much else because I did not research about the author.

Speaker: Oh, here we go.

Speaker: He's a New York Times bestselling author and USA Today written for such well-known series as World of Warcraft, Diablo, Dragonlance, Conan,

Speaker: Oh, hell yes.

Speaker: That's right up your alley.

Speaker: That's my jam.

Speaker: And Pathfinder.

Speaker: Pathfinder?

Speaker: Yeah, I guess Pathfinder has some... I mean, Dungeons & Dragons has books, so why not Pathfinder?

Speaker: Makes sense.

Speaker: And his creative popular epic fantasy saga, The Dragon Realm.

Speaker: He's also written comic, manga, and gaming material, and his works have been translated worldwide.

Speaker: He's kind of another one of our...

Speaker: Dee's Island style kind of writers for hire.

Speaker: So he's a journeyman.

Speaker: You know, I think my favorite thing is on the back of my edition of it, the way it describes it is an original tale of sword, sorcery and timeless struggle based on the best selling award winning M rated electronic game from Blizzard Entertainment.

Speaker: I love I love that they threw an M rated M rated.

Speaker: That's my favorite part.

Speaker: They're like, this isn't just regular fantasy.

Speaker: This is fantasy that fucks.

Speaker: It's not.

Speaker: This isn't your grandpa's fantasy.

Speaker: Oh, gosh.

Speaker: This is based on M-rated fantasy.

Speaker: Well, what's funny is it doesn't say that on my version.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: It just says original tale, yada, yada, yada, cuts out the M-rated part, and then it has a sentence at the end that says, intended for mature readers.

Speaker: Nice.

Speaker: Yeah, mine's got that too.

Speaker: Oh, okay.

Speaker: But they took out the M-rated aspect.

Speaker: Because it's kind of lame.

Speaker: It is pretty lame.

Speaker: It's pretty lame.

Speaker: You guys like Mortal Kombat?

Speaker: Hey, you guys.

Speaker: It's pretty rough stuff.

Speaker: You guys like Mortal Kombat with the blood code entered?

Speaker: I don't know, Matt.

Speaker: This is like that.

Speaker: I don't know if you guys have played Streets of Rage, but it's pretty rough.

Speaker: Those guys.

Speaker: You ever play bad dudes?

Speaker: Those are some bad dudes.

Speaker: Those are some bad dudes.

Speaker: Are you a bad enough dude to rescue President Ronnie?

Speaker: Spoiler alert, you shouldn't because he's a terrible president.

Speaker: You shouldn't.

Speaker: You should not rescue President Ronnie.

Speaker: Ronnie.

Speaker: The Contras.

Speaker: That's why they called them the bad dudes, because they rescued him and it set in motion so many horrible things.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I mean, trickle down economics, Iran Contra, all that stuff.

Speaker: All could have been avoided if the bad dudes had not rescued President Rani.

Speaker: Bad dudes had just taken a break that day and been like, nah.

Speaker: Taking a break.

Speaker: Oh, gosh.

Speaker: Anyway, Diablo.

Speaker: Diablo, Legacy of Blood.

Speaker: Let's get into it.

Speaker: This is a big one.

Speaker: Let's get into it.

Speaker: So, chapter one, we get introduced to three adventurers.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: They are Norik, Sadun, and Faustin.

Speaker: And Norik and Sadun are warriors.

Speaker: They're fighters.

Speaker: And Faustin is a spoopy wizard man.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: I kind of took Saturn as like a thief.

Speaker: Like it looks like the, um, cause I think when we're introduced to a trio and it's the same classes that you could pick from the first Diablo game.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So I was like, kind of nervous.

Speaker: It's like, oh God, are we just following?

Speaker: How do they, how are we following Diablo?

Speaker: I don't know how you could do that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: And then they got a gem and then put it into their sword and the sword was better then.

Speaker: And then they found another sword and they checked the stats and then they decided to go with the new sword because it was better stats, even with the upgrade on the first slightly better stats.

Speaker: And then they killed a skeleton and loot just exploded everywhere.

Speaker: White trash.

Speaker: As far as the eye can see.

Speaker: And it's that for 500 pages.

Speaker: 500 pages later.

Speaker: No, thankfully it's not that.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: It actually, one of the things that I've noticed about Richard Dax writing so far is he's very good at the.

Speaker: Oh.

Speaker: The lights.

Speaker: Oh, no.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: For those of us playing the podcast game at home, Kevin's light just went on and then off.

Speaker: Hold on.

Speaker: Let me turn it on.

Speaker: I think we're never going to see him again.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: So for those of you at home, I have a light in the center of the room hanging from the ceiling.

Speaker: And it's it's one of these.

Speaker: It's got one of these big, big ass, fancy bulbs that looks like an old timey bulb.

Speaker: So it has it looks like it has the giant filament inside of it.

Speaker: Edison bulbs.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Except it's LED.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: But it's we've only had it for like.

Speaker: Two years and it's already acting up.

Speaker: I just noticed it yesterday where I'll have it on and it'll be bright and then it'll just dim down for no reason.

Speaker: And then I'll forget that it's on.

Speaker: And then like 30 minutes later, it'll go and brighten back up again.

Speaker: It's like there's a poltergeist in it.

Speaker: It's like, yeah.

Speaker: So, Diablo.

Speaker: I mean, that's actually perfectly appropriate because yours is not the only place that is haunted.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: So we've got our party.

Speaker: We've got our party.

Speaker: We've got our party.

Speaker: So as I was saying, the thing that Richard Knack seems to be really good at so far is like describing environments and and like the giving a kind of like the flavor text of the area.

Speaker: He sets scenes very well.

Speaker: Like I said, I was talking to Phil a couple of weeks ago.

Speaker: I was like, you know, the opening sentence has a skull right in it.

Speaker: And that's perfect for Diablo.

Speaker: It's just metal as fuck right off the bat.

Speaker: Yeah, it's pretty great.

Speaker: So, you know, you sat down with your friends, said, let's play a weekend game with D&D.

Speaker: There's only three of you, but who cares?

Speaker: Who wants to be what?

Speaker: And we got our full party.

Speaker: We got a ranger, a fighter, and a sorcerer.

Speaker: And they made the rookie mistake.

Speaker: No healer.

Speaker: No healer, no offense, no defense.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: And that's going to come into play later on.

Speaker: So they're investigating this tomb and it talks about how there's seven levels down, which I feel like has to be like a nod to the to the actual game talking about it being laid out in levels.

Speaker: Oh, totally.

Speaker: Totally.

Speaker: You know, they just they made their way down seven levels.

Speaker: And but I think the funniest part to me about that is because you think seven levels are like, oh, God, what have you been playing the game for about, you know, half an hour at this point?

Speaker: But they make a point of saying and they saw basically nothing the whole way down.

Speaker: There's just been nothing.

Speaker: They have seen traps that had already previously been tripped and no bodies.

Speaker: So like so like the spikes are already out of the wall, like there's nothing for them to avoid.

Speaker: The traps are already have already been launched.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: One of the interesting things, though, is because they're like talking back and forth and they're thinking about, you know, their adventures so far.

Speaker: And they talk about this better be not better not be like what they just ran into in Tristram.

Speaker: Tristram, yeah.

Speaker: Which is where Diablo takes place.

Speaker: And there was like two weeks earlier, they were just in Tristram.

Speaker: And they were like, oh, yeah, now Diablo's tomb has already been hit.

Speaker: This guy went all the way down, killed Diablo.

Speaker: And since then, everybody's taken everything.

Speaker: And so basically, I think it's hilarious that our traveling party is these three guys who are just like a couple weeks too late for the Diablo's tomb.

Speaker: Diablo one story.

Speaker: They basically came in after you, the player, cleared out the dungeon.

Speaker: Like the townspeople talk about this guy, the Wanderer, you know, and who basically went down the rumors.

Speaker: He killed Diablo, took all the loot.

Speaker: There's nothing left.

Speaker: And that's what they've already dealt with.

Speaker: So they're worried that this is going to that they're basically following more of your hijinks.

Speaker: That is an absolute wink to the audience.

Speaker: It's I think it's a really great way to open the book.

Speaker: It is a good way.

Speaker: It's like this is not in no way copying the game.

Speaker: This is not Diablo one.

Speaker: Diablo one clearly happened two weeks prior.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: We're setting like a timeline.

Speaker: Two weeks ago, Diablo one happens and it's not related to that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And that character you play that you had so much fun invested in.

Speaker: He's done.

Speaker: He's moved on.

Speaker: He's moved on.

Speaker: He's the wanderer.

Speaker: He's continued wandering.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: He kept going.

Speaker: So, yeah, we've got Norik, the fighter, who is basically like a retired veteran at this point.

Speaker: And Seydoun, who, yeah, thief, ranger, soldier kind of guy, who suggests basically is like, look, the nearby militia is hiring mercenaries.

Speaker: Maybe we could go join up with them.

Speaker: Let's go join the army or something.

Speaker: I don't know, man, I need something to eat.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And Norik has no interest in that because that's why he's a dirtbag murder hobo these days because he hated the army.

Speaker: So they keep going and they're approaching the central chamber.

Speaker: And that's where we should be able to find if there's anything in here, there's going to be something in the central chamber.

Speaker: There's going to be loot.

Speaker: There's going to be some loot in this chamber.

Speaker: Some loot.

Speaker: There's got to be something.

Speaker: Maybe.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, yeah, they get in there.

Speaker: They're getting it.

Speaker: And things are starting to get a little spoopy.

Speaker: The wizard, who is also referred to as a Vajerai, which I don't know enough about Diablo to know if that means anything, but he's a particular type of person.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I think it's the general like order of the sorcerers.

Speaker: Like, I think I don't, I don't think it's because we do get another order later on.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Another, one of the other main characters ostensibly is a different order.

Speaker: So, yeah, Faustin, the sorcerer, is basically he's been lighting the way this entire time with his staff.

Speaker: You know, he has he has one of those D&D spells that lights shit up.

Speaker: Whatever.

Speaker: It's magic.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They go ahead and they'd light some torches, you know, because it's for some reason it's like in the central chamber.

Speaker: It's especially dark.

Speaker: So his glowy staff is not not doing the trick.

Speaker: They light up some torches.

Speaker: And wouldn't you know it?

Speaker: They find things.

Speaker: It's a lot of dead bodies.

Speaker: It is.

Speaker: It is.

Speaker: It is just so many dead bodies.

Speaker: It is.

Speaker: It is a remarkable amount of dead bodies.

Speaker: Think of this.

Speaker: The ship scene.

Speaker: in Goonies where they find one eyed Willie and multiply it by a factor of like five.

Speaker: It just imagined that, that like that, that Corey Feldman would be tripping every like 30 seconds over, over, over some bones.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know, it's just, just different.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And some of them are bones basically down to dust.

Speaker: And some of them are, uh, you know, just kind of shrunken court.

Speaker: Like they, they various states of

Speaker: various states of decomposition.

Speaker: Nobody too recent.

Speaker: But yeah, they don't know what killed them.

Speaker: They just know that they're in a room full of dead bodies.

Speaker: The walls are covered in gems and these magic runes.

Speaker: And there are, most importantly, just piles upon piles of treasure.

Speaker: Piles of gold.

Speaker: Like a D&D, you know, cover, you know, just jewels and gold and everything like that.

Speaker: It's the dragon's horde without the dragon.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: As far as they can tell, nothing to be worried about except the impending doom that comes from being in a room full of corpses.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So corpses in the Diablo universe tend to resurrect, don't they?

Speaker: They do that.

Speaker: They do that a lot.

Speaker: Uh, they're, they're big on that, especially when you deal with necromancers, but, uh, yeah, this is some necromancy takes effect and wouldn't you know it?

Speaker: The corpses, uh, corpses come alive.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Who couldn't, who could have seen that happening?

Speaker: Who would have thunk it?

Speaker: You know, it's it's yeah, they they they see the other surrounded by these things beforehand.

Speaker: They they end at the end.

Speaker: At the end of the room is this dais that has this the remains of this body in this specific red armor.

Speaker: Yeah, it's red suit of armor.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And the wizard investigates and sees that the body doesn't have a head and there's no sign of the head anywhere.

Speaker: And it kind of tells him where they are.

Speaker: And let me see.

Speaker: It gives him an idea where they are.

Speaker: He says, by heaven, no, do you not see?

Speaker: One gloved finger pointed at the red breastplate.

Speaker: This is the lost tomb of Bartuk, lord of demons, master of darkest sorcery, the warlord of blood.

Speaker: The words escaped Norik as little more than a gasp.

Speaker: He knew very well the tales of Bartuk, who had risen among the ranks of sorcerers, only to later turn to darkness, to the demons.

Speaker: Now the redness of the armor made perfect and horrible sense.

Speaker: It was the color of human blood.

Speaker: So the smarter two members of the party immediately go,

Speaker: we're getting the fuck out of here.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: You know, they're good.

Speaker: And this is, and this is why, because at no point, because you're right, at no point did they say that Seydoun is like a thief per se or a rogue, but he fills all the tropes when they go, Seydoun, we got to get out of here.

Speaker: And he's feeling like he's basically like a cartoon character filling his pockets with gold and putting rings on every finger.

Speaker: And he's just going, no, come on, guys.

Speaker: Absolutely not.

Speaker: He's the guy from... He's the guy from... What's it?

Speaker: The Mummy.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He's just... He can't see the forest, you know, for the corpses.

Speaker: Yeah, the forest from the corpses.

Speaker: The skeletons from the half-eat remains.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And Norik and Faustin are basically like...

Speaker: You know, they they at least I think I think the wizard is like he deals in sorcery enough to know a cursed room when he sees one.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And Norik is superstitious enough to go.

Speaker: Absolutely not.

Speaker: No, thank you.

Speaker: Faustin Faustin casts detect magic and he's like, oh, boy, this is not good.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And the legend with Bartu basically said he was a terrible, horrible warlord who used demons to destroy everything in his path.

Speaker: He ended up being defeated by his brother and his body was entombed in this very tomb to seal away his evil.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: A whole lot of evil.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And many of his kids, uh, uh, like a lot of his followers had kids and, uh, those people still are around today and basically kind of imply that Norik was probably, you know, fighting alongside of them when he was in the army.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Uh, and so they pull a Marines.

Speaker: We are leaving.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Uh, but not in, uh, not in a good enough time, because guess what?

Speaker: The Skelly men are awake now.

Speaker: Oh yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it's a classic, it's a classic movie scene.

Speaker: You got the guy basically stuffing a burlap sack with a dollar bill on it, full of gold, just gibbering about the money.

Speaker: Just Scrooge McDuck in it.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: And as he's doing this, there's just this shambling horde of zombies coming up behind him and his friends are pulling the Bugs Bunny like,

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Point.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: No, it's not a good it's not a good moment.

Speaker: So they have to fight.

Speaker: They're fighting.

Speaker: They're going nuts.

Speaker: It is tooth and nail.

Speaker: And Norik is being forced, pushed back and back.

Speaker: He's separated, basically.

Speaker: He gets separated from Sadun and Faustin.

Speaker: And he's being pushed back and back towards the dais.

Speaker: Dais.

Speaker: Dais?

Speaker: Dais?

Speaker: Dais.

Speaker: Dais.

Speaker: Dais.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He gets pushed back towards the pedestal and he's fighting.

Speaker: He loses his sword to the horde and he's like just trying to do anything he can.

Speaker: And he puts his hand back and he accidentally touches the armor.

Speaker: And when he pulls his hand back from the armor, he is now somehow wearing the gauntlet of the Bardock's armor.

Speaker: And things spin wildly out of control from there.

Speaker: Like he starts talking words against his will.

Speaker: Just like just he starts speaking these horrible magic words that no one really understands.

Speaker: Maybe the wizard understands probably, but he doesn't.

Speaker: He's no idea.

Speaker: He's an old grunt.

Speaker: He doesn't know what it's like.

Speaker: It's like if your buddy who was in a fraternity for six years of undergraduate suddenly started spouting Latin at you and Latin that had nothing, you know, and not Greek for once.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: You know, it just I just realized what I did there.

Speaker: And

Speaker: That would freak you out.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And indeed, it freaks out everybody in the room.

Speaker: But the one good thing is that the magic words that he uses somehow consumes the undead and drops them.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it leaves the party of three basically untouched.

Speaker: untouched.

Speaker: You know what?

Speaker: They are touched.

Speaker: They are totally safe.

Speaker: 100% safe.

Speaker: Things are A-OK.

Speaker: Except... Except... Mark starts to have some Bilbo Baggin thoughts.

Speaker: Yeah, he definitely is... It's definitely a... After all, why couldn't I have the rake?

Speaker: That's exactly what it is.

Speaker: Why shouldn't I keep the gauntlet on?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And the wizard, it's terrific because the wizard knows what's going on and very carefully, very diplomatically starts going, maybe you should take the glove off.

Speaker: Take the gauntlet off.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So basically, he, he, Nora grabs Faustin by the throat and Faustin is trying to tell Sadon, cut his arm off.

Speaker: Like you have to cut his arm off.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: It's not coming off.

Speaker: That glove isn't just sliding off.

Speaker: You gotta cut his arm off to get the glove off of him.

Speaker: And then we cut to black.

Speaker: And we're left wondering what happened to Faustin and Saturn.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: Pretty good opening, if you ask me.

Speaker: It's a pretty good opening.

Speaker: You get your metal as fuck D&D party in, and then one of them starts killing the other one with ancient cursed armor, and Cradle of Filth starts playing in the background.

Speaker: Opening credits.

Speaker: You know, there we are.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Legacy of Blood.

Speaker: Boom.

Speaker: Legacy of Blood.

Speaker: That's perfect.

Speaker: Flame particle effects.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Disposable Teens starts playing.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: And...

Speaker: And then we get a wide sweeping shot of a desert.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Because we're in chapter two now.

Speaker: That's right.

Speaker: And we are meeting our, uh, I guess he's a villain for all intents and purposes.

Speaker: I I'm trying hard.

Speaker: I can think I can only put my finger on one character that I'm definitely associating as a hero with a question mark.

Speaker: Yeah, there's only one so far that's like, there's only one so far, and we haven't even met her yet.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: That is the hero?

Speaker: Heroic?

Speaker: Heroic.

Speaker: Heroic.

Speaker: And in the first five chapters, she is by far the fewest seen.

Speaker: Oh, absolutely she does.

Speaker: Fingers crossed we'll see more of her, but for now.

Speaker: Yeah, fingers crossed.

Speaker: But we're not there yet because we are here in Aranach.

Speaker: with the the army of Mr. General Augustus and I shit you not.

Speaker: This is his name and he is the villain malevolent malevolent

Speaker: Malevolent!

Speaker: I'm sure... Kevin, shame on you.

Speaker: Shame on you for assuming that this, in our pulp sword and sorcery novel, that the general warlord Malevolent is absolutely going to be the villain.

Speaker: How dare you?

Speaker: How dare I?

Speaker: I

Speaker: I thought you were of a broader mind than that.

Speaker: I apologize.

Speaker: I should not have assumed that based on his name, malevolent, general malevolent was he might be a stand up guy.

Speaker: He does.

Speaker: He does sound like a He-Man villain.

Speaker: He is.

Speaker: He is basically a He-Man villain for all intents and purposes.

Speaker: He has a, um, so to, to cut to the gist of it, he's, he's been massing this army and, um,

Speaker: He has a sorceress that... This part of the book is the... She breasted boobily down the stairs.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: We get a real...

Speaker: melisandra and stanis baratheon kind of uh vibe here definitely that's basically what it is it's melisandra and stanis baratheon and she is she's the galiona galiona is the sorceress that works from a level in and the way it's first set up i was like does he report to galiona because she has this massive tent

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Like, no, she, other way around.

Speaker: And they, when they talk about like how his soldiers, his soldiers are all insanely loyal to him.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like he's a good, he's a good leader.

Speaker: You know, they trust him and they don't know why they're stuck out in this desert.

Speaker: They'd been marching and fighting for a while.

Speaker: And now they've been in this desert for a while.

Speaker: And the only thing that, and they just kind of whisper among themselves because the witch has got a tent and he hops into the tent and

Speaker: with her and then sometimes she hops into his tent with him and clearly some funny business going on there yeah they're banging they're banging they're banging why wouldn't they wait and desert gets lonely the desert gets lonely in fact um there's a bit of dialogue uh galeona my galeonia slept you well when i actually slept my general

Speaker: Malevolent.

Speaker: Malevolent.

Speaker: Oh boy.

Speaker: Oh my.

Speaker: Oh my.

Speaker: So what you find out, what we find out is that Malevolent is, he's in search for the thing that we just saw in the first chapter.

Speaker: That's right.

Speaker: He has.

Speaker: So if you recall,

Speaker: The armor was without a head and thus Slee without a helmet.

Speaker: Who has the helmet?

Speaker: Malevolent has the helmet.

Speaker: He wants the rest of the armor.

Speaker: That's right.

Speaker: It's it's kind of they get right into it.

Speaker: I will give it to them.

Speaker: They get right into it.

Speaker: You know, he's been having dreams of Bartuk's armor.

Speaker: She's got the helmet.

Speaker: Clearly everyone's, this is, we've got our MacGuffin and it's an evil murderous MacGuffin.

Speaker: It's, it's, it's, it's an, it's an armor.

Speaker: It's the armor of the murder hobo.

Speaker: Plus five.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Five armor of the murder.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: This is, this is, this is the ultimate murder.

Speaker: It's a legendary set of armor.

Speaker: It is quite literally plot armor at times.

Speaker: It is plot armor at this point.

Speaker: and as we'll see but yeah so malevolent is like

Speaker: is he is quick to anger.

Speaker: Um, yes, because, uh, he, he gets like semi abusive to Galeona in this scene as well.

Speaker: Um, it is, it's, it's a, it's a weird relationship.

Speaker: Um, and once he leaves, um, you start to find out what her, her deal is.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Because when you get a character like this, it's really easy to, um,

Speaker: you know what the fuck is her side what's she getting out of it she's this she's this wicked hot sorceress who is just like why is she traveling around with this hot headed general right and she said you know she wants him to be Bartuk's successor and all that shit but why we're about to find out why we're about to find out

Speaker: um uh uh you know the the the bug dude from um space ghost coast to coast oh yeah zorak zorak so this is his brother zazax right a demon praying mantis is there any better kind i ask you

Speaker: So hidden in the shadows of the tent, it comes out Zazax, who is a demon praying mantis, who is basically Galeona and Zazax have their own plans for Bartok's armor.

Speaker: And it's just like it's with all these magic people, it's plans upon plans upon plans.

Speaker: It's like like Malevolent doesn't know what Galeona actually wants.

Speaker: And

Speaker: out galeona doesn't necessarily know what zazax actually wants right so yeah so we we get a it's basically people betraying people betraying people uh so zazax confirms they've had this vision of the armor it's been they they find out that they've realized that the armor has been taken by some schmuck

Speaker: Some nobody in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker: Some absolute schmuck.

Speaker: Absolute loser of a schmuck.

Speaker: Absolute loser.

Speaker: He is such a dork.

Speaker: Such a dork.

Speaker: Such a stupid, stupid.

Speaker: And so they... Probably named Doric or something.

Speaker: Something Doric.

Speaker: Some sweaty name like... Yeah, some sweaty old man.

Speaker: He is a D-I-O-N-O-S-A.

Speaker: You are a dinosaur.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: D-I-O-N-O-S-A.

Speaker: I cursed us to that fucking earworm.

Speaker: How would I do that?

Speaker: If I'm doing this, you're coming down with me, Kevin.

Speaker: Why'd you do that?

Speaker: And so...

Speaker: Zazak confirms that the armor of Bartok, that that is indeed what's happening.

Speaker: It's authentic.

Speaker: And Galeona is kind of like musing that she can manipulate the man in the armor.

Speaker: Ooh, the way she always manipulates men.

Speaker: with a strongly worded logical opinion.

Speaker: No, no.

Speaker: With with with boobs that have surface tension, that kind of that kind of body, apparently, which we've already we've only gotten a hint at what happens to the dude inside of the arbor.

Speaker: So I'm not thinking Galeona has much of a shot in hell here.

Speaker: Yeah, no, no.

Speaker: Basically, she's just she's just going to try to get everybody in the same room together.

Speaker: Everyone, the demon, the warlord and the loser with the armor and whoever comes out on top.

Speaker: She'll just basically try to attach herself to.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: That's that's all she she wants to do.

Speaker: Did you listen to the audio book at all, by the way?

Speaker: Yeah, a little bit.

Speaker: OK, did you hear the the voice for Zazax?

Speaker: I don't remember.

Speaker: It's so fun.

Speaker: So like the guy is doing like regular voices.

Speaker: And then when the Zazak's voice comes on, he starts going, this one knows that the armor is true.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: This one knows that it wanders this mortal plane.

Speaker: He's clearly I do remember that he's like having so much fun with it.

Speaker: The voice actor is just chewing the scenery with this guy.

Speaker: Just chewing the absolute scenery.

Speaker: I love it.

Speaker: It's great.

Speaker: It's great.

Speaker: And the best part is, is when you read the book, it's written to be that way.

Speaker: It's not like the guy had any other.

Speaker: He would sound stupid if he read those lines like a normal person.

Speaker: You've got to put some stank on it and be a weird demon guy for it to actually work.

Speaker: And it's hilarious.

Speaker: Yeah, it's really good.

Speaker: This one knows that the armor is true.

Speaker: Yes, he does.

Speaker: This one knows.

Speaker: Yeah, it doesn't work.

Speaker: It could probably be a Werner Herzog accent.

Speaker: Now that is true.

Speaker: Now that I would actually, I would have strongly approved of that kind of turn.

Speaker: This one knows.

Speaker: I would like to see the armor.

Speaker: This one knows that the armor is true.

Speaker: I am praying mantis for some reason.

Speaker: Praying mantis.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: I went French for some reason.

Speaker: I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.

Speaker: I am praying mantis.

Speaker: You are some loser who found the armor.

Speaker: Je ne sais quoi.

Speaker: Loser.

Speaker: Loser.

Speaker: Loser.

Speaker: Zazax is puffing on a cigarette in this scene.

Speaker: Provincial peasants.

Speaker: I do.

Speaker: I do remember once I used to work with a handful of Romanians and we were all having a smoke break at one point.

Speaker: And I said to one, we were talking about rednecks or some they referred to some guy as a redneck.

Speaker: And I went, hey, what's the what's the Romanian version of that?

Speaker: What would you call like a redneck in Romania?

Speaker: And one of them thought about it.

Speaker: And she went, a peasant.

Speaker: I guess.

Speaker: And I went, oh, wow, that's way better.

Speaker: Yeah, that's there it is.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: That's so much worse.

Speaker: There's a solid historical burn right there.

Speaker: Damn.

Speaker: So that that brings us to the end of chapter two.

Speaker: So chapter three, we find out what happens to the rest of the part adventuring party.

Speaker: Oh, let me tell you, it it wasn't rainbows and sunshine.

Speaker: It was not great.

Speaker: I think this was actually hilarious because I thought the way they ended chapter one, like it's like he blacks out and all he hears is screaming.

Speaker: And so I'm like, oh, everyone's dead now.

Speaker: And we're right.

Speaker: But it basically picks up right there from that end.

Speaker: And we actually see him killing.

Speaker: Not the wizard.

Speaker: He's already done that.

Speaker: We hear the memory of the words.

Speaker: But we don't see it yet right away because he wakes up in the middle of a field covered in blood.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: That's right.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And then as armor keeps walking, by the way, he can't stop walking.

Speaker: This is hilarious.

Speaker: This is so funny.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Because based on the way the first chapter ended, I kind of thought that like he's now a demon, like the armors possessed him.

Speaker: Kind of.

Speaker: Kind of.

Speaker: Sort of.

Speaker: The armor basically forces him to go and do the things that he wants, that it wants him to.

Speaker: You ever see Weekend at Bernie's?

Speaker: You ever see Weekend at Bernie's?

Speaker: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker: It's a Weekend at Bernie's rules.

Speaker: I mean, Norik is alive and Bernie is dead, but, you know, same concept.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: And it just, you get this impression because he doesn't want to keep marching, but the armor forces him.

Speaker: So, yeah, you do see this.

Speaker: You kind of imagine his upper body bending back while his legs are just kind of...

Speaker: walking stepping along yeah it's kind of hilarious especially when we get to a point where he just wants to take a nap and he cannot he cannot um yeah uh i have no nap and i must nap right um so yeah as he's walking along he starts to remember exactly what happened right and uh my camera went out of focus it's

Speaker: Get back on there, camera.

Speaker: What do you think?

Speaker: Follow the finger.

Speaker: Follow the finger.

Speaker: Everything is haunted in your office today.

Speaker: Whatever.

Speaker: Kevin, the melodious sound of your voice will have to be enough.

Speaker: The melodious sound of my voice will carry you.

Speaker: Carry you through?

Speaker: Carry you through the night.

Speaker: Um, Norik remembers that he ripped out Faustin's throat.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: Just ripped it right on out.

Speaker: You don't forget that, I hope.

Speaker: You don't forget that.

Speaker: And then he, how did he kill Sowden?

Speaker: It wasn't pleasant, however it was.

Speaker: It was, it's dead.

Speaker: He was dead, though, by the end.

Speaker: He's dead.

Speaker: Oh, he kills them both.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He kills them both.

Speaker: Then he also puts the blood on the armor.

Speaker: Yes, he wipes.

Speaker: There's a theme of that.

Speaker: The armor likes having blood.

Speaker: It enjoys the blood.

Speaker: It enjoys blood on it.

Speaker: It is sort of like those Crist swords from Dune.

Speaker: It needs to soak up some blood before you put it away.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: So he's, he's marching along.

Speaker: He's trying to remove his gloves.

Speaker: He can't do it.

Speaker: He tries the other pieces of armor he has on.

Speaker: Cause he's like, okay, the gloves won't come off, but you know, but the, the, the boots and everything, they've got clasps on it.

Speaker: Maybe I can unclasp them.

Speaker: And the moment he does that, they just clasp right back together again.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Not happening.

Speaker: Yeah, not happening.

Speaker: He's not.

Speaker: Basically, he's like, I've got to find a wizard who will uncurse.

Speaker: I'm wearing a cursed item.

Speaker: It's old RPG rules where you haven't identified the item.

Speaker: You equip it anyway.

Speaker: It's cursed.

Speaker: Oh, man.

Speaker: You have to find someone to uncurse it.

Speaker: Bad news when you put on some cursed gear.

Speaker: Dude, always identify your items first.

Speaker: Always identify first.

Speaker: So he starts like stumbling a little bit.

Speaker: His well, his body starts stumbling because he doesn't want to be walking anyway.

Speaker: And he realizes that he's hungry, like he hasn't eaten anything.

Speaker: So his body is basically just starting to fail.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And there's one thing that the armor cannot abide is it's boy Norik having a rumbly tummy.

Speaker: It's whiny human.

Speaker: It's whiny human.

Speaker: So in the most absurd scene, I love this.

Speaker: So it's so good.

Speaker: It's so good.

Speaker: It is.

Speaker: It is.

Speaker: It is.

Speaker: It is so overly complicated in a way to feed somebody.

Speaker: The armor summons, opens a rift in the ground and summons demons out of it.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: for the express purpose of cooking him a rabbit.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: He literally, he literally utters a magic word.

Speaker: The earth opens up half a dozen pig demons crawl out of the, it's like a, it's like a third graders idea of what hell is.

Speaker: It's like literal pig monsters pulling themselves out of the earth and they're not happy to be there.

Speaker: And then the armor like, Oh yeah.

Speaker: Armor makes him utter a word that terrifies them.

Speaker: They go off and run and they bring back a dead goat, several rabbits and a lizard.

Speaker: And he kind of said, all right, the rabbit, I guess he's kind of disgusted by all this.

Speaker: And he goes to pick up one of the rabbits and the armor burns his hand.

Speaker: And he doesn't know why until he pulls his hand back and sees that the rabbit has now been dressed and seasoned and perfectly cooked, perfectly, perfectly, perfectly cooked.

Speaker: The sous vide of medieval armor.

Speaker: He has just perfectly cooked this rabbit and he kind of and he just and he eats it.

Speaker: This is the greatest armor of all time.

Speaker: And it's armor of all time.

Speaker: Greatest armor of all time.

Speaker: And he eats the rabbit, gives the rest to the pig demons who kind of make him lose his appetite in the way that they eat it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They crawl back into the earth.

Speaker: which closes up after them and he moves on.

Speaker: Continues walking.

Speaker: The armor moves.

Speaker: It's like

Speaker: We were talking about this before.

Speaker: It's like this armor does all will do all kinds of shit.

Speaker: It's going to summon things out of nowhere.

Speaker: It's going to do all kinds.

Speaker: It is literal plot armor.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: We'll do whatever the story needs.

Speaker: Do whatever the story needs.

Speaker: But for and usually in a pretty effective, straightforward, straight line kind of way.

Speaker: But for whatever reason, whatever reason, it's like.

Speaker: We're going to summon some hunt, some pig demons to hunt some, some food for you.

Speaker: And this isn't the first time, the only time it's going to happen.

Speaker: This is the only time it's going to happen.

Speaker: No, it isn't.

Speaker: Like it keeps, it happens.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: It's just, it's crazy.

Speaker: It's like, that's the one.

Speaker: I love it so much.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: This detail.

Speaker: It's an amazing detail.

Speaker: And it's like.

Speaker: It's like something you want to fold into a D&D game.

Speaker: Oh my God.

Speaker: And I'm going to.

Speaker: The moment we play a D&D game with someone who doesn't listen to this show.

Speaker: You're going to have like this really weird random encounter.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Pig demon sous chefs.

Speaker: And just like, oh, it's going to be amazing.

Speaker: It's like, you're OK.

Speaker: You're taking first watch.

Speaker: Can you roll a d20 for me?

Speaker: It's like a seven.

Speaker: And you're like, all right, well, the earth trembles before you and and it opens up and these pig demons come out.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And one d4 plus two pig demons.

Speaker: One D4 plus two big demons come out and and but they're wearing chef's hats.

Speaker: And one of them, you can't understand what they're saying, but one of them displays a diploma from the Cordon Bleu Institute.

Speaker: And they they they quickly and efficiently chop down some wood, build a little pop up shop for.

Speaker: start selling you kidney pies.

Speaker: You don't want to know where they came from, but there they are.

Speaker: They had the kidneys with them when they came out of hell.

Speaker: So, you know, come to your own conclusions.

Speaker: Probably the kidneys of some damned people, is my guess.

Speaker: And yeah, so finally he's full of food.

Speaker: He feels better because he's not starving anymore.

Speaker: But now all he wants to do is sleep.

Speaker: And he literally cannot.

Speaker: The armor will not let him sit down.

Speaker: It will not.

Speaker: And which just mentally brings to mind the most ridiculous.

Speaker: Like if you were adapting this to a movie, you could not include this scene.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: Without completely losing all credibility.

Speaker: The armor is a dad driving his family on a cross country trip.

Speaker: Yeah, just just no, no, no.

Speaker: Everyone's staying.

Speaker: Stop.

Speaker: I mean, like driving by a McDonald's.

Speaker: They're like, can we stop, get McDonald's?

Speaker: And the dad pulls in, orders a black coffee and.

Speaker: Mr. Mulaney, this is what we're doing.

Speaker: And it just and forces him to keep marching.

Speaker: So Norik is having a real normal.

Speaker: He's not having a good time.

Speaker: Norik is having a real bad time.

Speaker: He's alive, which is more than alive.

Speaker: Buddies.

Speaker: This is why we're not calling Norik a hero.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Because he's not having a puppet.

Speaker: He's not.

Speaker: He's just like, oh, poor buddy.

Speaker: right what what north would or wouldn't do given his own free will we do not know we don't know he has not had free will for the majority of time that we've known him yes so we don't know if he's a good guy bad guy he's just a he's a he's a warm body he's a warm body and that's the all the armor really needs right now but now we meet um we meet

Speaker: ostensibly our protagonist, maybe?

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: We'll see.

Speaker: We'll see after, as we get further into the book.

Speaker: I don't know yet, though.

Speaker: So far, this one feels like the only one that we could call a hero, question mark?

Speaker: Question mark?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Kara.

Speaker: Kara, who is a necromancer.

Speaker: Yeah, she is.

Speaker: She's a follower of Rathma and a necromancer.

Speaker: And you don't get a lot of heroic necromancers.

Speaker: So we don't that.

Speaker: I do one of my favorite wizard classes.

Speaker: Yeah, it's it's nice because you know what?

Speaker: It's more of just like like the necromancer just because they deal with death a lot doesn't mean that they're inherently bad.

Speaker: They just have a better understanding of death.

Speaker: And I think that's kind of how they portray Kara as like, excuse me, is like death is just part of the cycle of life.

Speaker: And she's it's just where she draws her magic from.

Speaker: She says she's a part of the death positivity movement, death positivity movement, basically, which I which I love.

Speaker: So, yeah, keep them going.

Speaker: Keep them going.

Speaker: So she shows up at the tomb of of Bardock and she's like, ah, fuck.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: She immediately sees.

Speaker: Oh, no.

Speaker: So she's the backstory on her is interesting because she is like one of the less least experienced members of whatever group she's a member of.

Speaker: She's kind of an apprentice.

Speaker: She's a low ranking person.

Speaker: And but everybody else is busy.

Speaker: So they're like, hey,

Speaker: Everybody else is busy doing shit.

Speaker: They're like, can you go check on the tomb of Bardock?

Speaker: We have a bad feeling something happened there.

Speaker: She's like, OK.

Speaker: And she goes down there.

Speaker: And yes, something bad happened there.

Speaker: The armor's missing.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: The whole thing.

Speaker: The thing that we're trying to entomb and encapsulate here to avoid the end of the world.

Speaker: Yeah, because it's her group's magic that set the trap, the trap of the resurrecting soldiers.

Speaker: So basically, every time somebody made it further into the tomb, it would add to the numbers of undead that would attack.

Speaker: It's a pretty great trap when you think about it.

Speaker: It makes its own gravy.

Speaker: It's fantastic.

Speaker: It does, but now they're all gone, and there's like two fresh dead bodies down there, and the armor's missing.

Speaker: So, she basically, she investigates Faustin, the dead wizard's body, and does this ritual that essentially summons the ghost of the wizard, or kind of a placeholder, and she has to ask it very simple questions.

Speaker: Ouija board rules.

Speaker: Right, right.

Speaker: You know, yes or no, that kind of thing.

Speaker: It was very it made me think a lot.

Speaker: It was the very vampire, the masquerade necromancy kind of thing, like very simple.

Speaker: The dead kind of deal.

Speaker: And it gives her a brief idea, basically.

Speaker: of what went down and to do all this she uses this powerful magic ivory handled knife uh that's like this ritual dagger that like it cuts into stone at one point it's a pretty badass weapon yeah um and she but she hears a sound in the tomb and ends up following this crimson figure that she sees and kind of assumes it must be a ghost or something that she's gonna have to expel uh she leaves her knife behind and when she realizes that she's left it behind she turns around

Speaker: to go get it and at that point she realizes that the knife both of the corpses and the crimson figure are all they're gone whoops basically uh imagine a cop leaving his losing his gun on his first day on the job oh god that's basically what cara just did that is exactly yeah bad shit

Speaker: That's oh, my God, that's exactly what she's.

Speaker: She's a she's a she's basically a necromancy cop.

Speaker: I mean, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: She's a she's a necromancy mall cop, and it's the most dangerous mall in the world.

Speaker: So and she was told King of Prussia or something.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: That's that's for the Pennsylvanians.

Speaker: That's for the Pennsylvanians.

Speaker: Also the largest mall on the eastern seaboard.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: So, you know.

Speaker: So, super dangerous.

Speaker: That's how chapter three ends.

Speaker: Chapter three ends with Kara losing her gun, and chapter four begins with kind of like a weird scene, and I have no idea what it means.

Speaker: There's basically an old dude, and there's a snake and a beetle.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, like we get we get this nature scene.

Speaker: We get this weird David Attenborough kind of scene.

Speaker: This is how I interpret it.

Speaker: It's like it's this sand snake slithering through the desert sun, trying to find shelter because the sun's only getting higher.

Speaker: And and and as it goes, it gets devoured by this seven foot long beetle that sees an old withered man there and spits acidic venom at him.

Speaker: It burns through the guy's shirt, starts to damage him, and he just kind of with a wave of his hand dissipates the horrible venom.

Speaker: And with a second wave of his hand, essentially just destroys the giant bug.

Speaker: He refers to it as a sand maggot.

Speaker: And then a hidden home in the dunes just kind of appears.

Speaker: Opens up to him like he's the diamond in the rough.

Speaker: Right, right, exactly.

Speaker: If it had been in the shape of a tiger with an open mouth, I wouldn't have been surprised.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And he just kind of mutters something vague about evil is coming and walks into his dune house.

Speaker: I must definitely be careful.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Gotta be careful.

Speaker: While I go into my sand house.

Speaker: Pepperidge Fogs.

Speaker: I love this man already.

Speaker: I am invested in his survival and his do now.

Speaker: I want a tour.

Speaker: And so that's a real brief scene.

Speaker: Now we're back with Norik, the walking man.

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: The ultimate walking man.

Speaker: The ultimate walking man.

Speaker: Norik finds himself finds himself at an inn.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: If you think this is going to end well, spoilers, it's not.

Speaker: It's not.

Speaker: Nothing with his armor ends well.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But we do get, we get an inn and you see it's filled with a motley gathering of people.

Speaker: Just people, a hive of scum and villainy.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: I was about to say, it was like the Mos Eisley Cantina.

Speaker: The Mos Eisley Cantina for all intents and purposes.

Speaker: Crossed with your least favorite D&D group.

Speaker: You know, it's just...

Speaker: The one that you played in middle school.

Speaker: Everyone's a power gamer.

Speaker: Everyone's a power gamer.

Speaker: They're all min-maxed, and it's all murder hobos.

Speaker: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: So the innkeeper, he's starving, and the innkeeper tells him he can't have any food without any money, so the armor essentially...

Speaker: conjures gold coins gold and goes like oh is this behind you you've got dirty ears is this your car and basically the gold it's because he's paying with gold and not like

Speaker: trade like normally in this kind of area you'd be like hey i've got some eggs can i you know right or something and i don't know why you'd trade food for more food but the point is it's it's a trade a barter system right and uh the gold has gotten people's attention catches people oh by the way i enjoy that they that he uh richard knack describes the innkeeper as having an extravagant belly oh yeah yeah

Speaker: I made a note of that!

Speaker: I was like, that's what I'm calling this thing from now on.

Speaker: This isn't a beer gut, it's an extravagant belly.

Speaker: My god.

Speaker: Yeah, that is good writing.

Speaker: The Ur-Sign Giant.

Speaker: God, yeah.

Speaker: He has a way with words, doesn't he?

Speaker: He does.

Speaker: Just an Ur-Sign Giant with an extravagant belly.

Speaker: And, yeah, so the guy basically pays a gold and he's like, okay, I need a room.

Speaker: So he gets a room.

Speaker: He gets a bowl.

Speaker: He's taking his stew and he's taking the stew up to his room.

Speaker: And he's like, I'm going to die.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Like all of those guys saw the gold.

Speaker: They're going to fuck me up.

Speaker: It's like the armor is not very bright.

Speaker: Basically.

Speaker: No, no.

Speaker: The armor is very single minded.

Speaker: It's like, look, we're just going to give these people what they want, what they're what they want the most.

Speaker: It seems to be what it is.

Speaker: And and and then we get to move on with our lives.

Speaker: So but finally, the armor does let poor North get some sleep.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So he has a dream of being General Bartuk, essentially.

Speaker: He's in charge of a bunch of horrible demons.

Speaker: He's having this terrible dream of being a monster and wakes to the sound of someone slowly, quietly making their way upstairs.

Speaker: And Norik's like, there's no reason for anybody to be sneaking.

Speaker: The only reason for anyone to be sneaking, and I hear you doing your sneaky moves, is if they're trying to kill me.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So three guys bust in the door trying to kill him.

Speaker: So Norik calls it.

Speaker: They try.

Speaker: They come right in, try to kill him.

Speaker: And he's thinking momentarily, like, maybe the armor is just going to let me die.

Speaker: And it thinks one of these guys is better suited to be in the armor or something.

Speaker: But no, the armor kills the shit out of these.

Speaker: Kills the shit out of these guys.

Speaker: Summons a sword from out of nowhere.

Speaker: Like a warlock.

Speaker: Like a warlock.

Speaker: And just kills everybody.

Speaker: They end up rolling downstairs where the innkeeper and one of his buddies are waiting to basically berate these guys because they see the guys running out again.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And they're ready to be like, what the fuck?

Speaker: Where did you not get the guy's money?

Speaker: The innkeeper's in on it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But instead, they find themselves being attacked by a weird, half-sleepy guy in red arm.

Speaker: Yeah, he's slitting one guy from his throat all the way down to his waist.

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: There's some graphic fights in this book.

Speaker: There's some graphic violence in this.

Speaker: So he goes downstairs and he faces off against the innkeeper who has the biggest sword he has ever seen.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And the innkeeper is, had he been...

Speaker: Had he not been in the armor, the innkeeper might have won because the innkeeper is actually kind of clever with his fighting.

Speaker: He knows how to surround somebody.

Speaker: And he's also massive.

Speaker: Yeah, he's clearly been a fighter in the past.

Speaker: Norik has the armor of Bartok.

Speaker: And yeah, he kills the other guy.

Speaker: Innkeeper takes off running.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And then the armor, not satisfied.

Speaker: takes the blood of one of the dudes, draws a symbol, and summons a demon, and then tells the demon to go fetch the bartender.

Speaker: Yeah, it is pig rabbit dinner all over again.

Speaker: It's like, okay, I'm not because armor because there's the thing the armor.

Speaker: I don't run.

Speaker: I don't run.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: No, I'm gonna let someone else do that.

Speaker: He delegates the chasing to a demon.

Speaker: He's like, that's far, you know, yeah, no, go get that guy.

Speaker: And he does.

Speaker: I mean, the death happens off screen as much as you can in a book.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: You hear that?

Speaker: It's like, it's like, no, it says something like Norik, here's the screams raise and pitch until they're suddenly cut off.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's yeah.

Speaker: So we know what happened.

Speaker: I guess we know what happens.

Speaker: And so the,

Speaker: And then the armor continues to play with the blood.

Speaker: I'm assuming it's just going to rub more of that blood into itself.

Speaker: Just rubbing that blood all over.

Speaker: Just just, mm, moisturize regiment, you know?

Speaker: I only get to do it when I kill people, so once or twice a day tops.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And we cut to General Malevolent again, our maybe hero, maybe a good guy.

Speaker: You never know.

Speaker: He could be a good guy.

Speaker: Maybe he's a good guy.

Speaker: He's looking on the city of Lut Golan, which is like the richest city in the land, and nobody's ever taken it.

Speaker: And right.

Speaker: There's something that's always protected it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's like he thinks it might be magic is protecting it.

Speaker: I mean, it's also very hard to attack because of the it's like a strip.

Speaker: It's a narrow stretch of land situated between two seas or something like that.

Speaker: So it's it's very defensible.

Speaker: But he also thinks there's some sort of magic.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Magical luck that the city has.

Speaker: We get a little bit of backstory on him.

Speaker: He started out kind of as a commoner, you know, and kind of raised himself up by his bootstraps.

Speaker: He's a landless noble.

Speaker: So he has the title of a noble, but he doesn't have the lands of a noble.

Speaker: That's what it is.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: And he thinks that Bartuk's problem is,

Speaker: was that Bartu, while he was a warlord and everything like that, Bartu was not a soldier.

Speaker: He was not a soldier.

Speaker: He was a sorcerer.

Speaker: He was a sorcerer that fell into the warlording by way of magic, not by the way of knowing how to run an army.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: It's a very, it's a very right wing America hating college professors and theory kind of thing.

Speaker: Pretty much.

Speaker: It's like theory versus action.

Speaker: He's like his problem is he spent too much time thinking about it and studying shit.

Speaker: And I want to get out there and get my fuck on.

Speaker: So Malevolent's real goal then is once he gets the armor of Bartok is to resurrect.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I was going to say, Oh, right.

Speaker: Resurrect JFK Jr.

Speaker: Right?

Speaker: I mean, that's the endgame here.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's obvious.

Speaker: All signs point to yes.

Speaker: We both...

Speaker: Oh, our political humor knows no bounds, my friend.

Speaker: We've even squeezed it right into Diablo.

Speaker: I mean, it's right in there.

Speaker: You'll never escape.

Speaker: You'll never escape.

Speaker: You'll never.

Speaker: But I think one of the interesting things is Malevolent is thinking all these thoughts and like, yes, these are all my own thoughts.

Speaker: And then we cut to the next scene and Zazak's like, ha ha, they're my thoughts.

Speaker: What?

Speaker: Zanzak's clearly whispering these ideas into Malevolent's head.

Speaker: He's doing what demons do and he's planting thoughts in Malevolent's head.

Speaker: And one of the things I love is we get a little backstory into the politics of hell.

Speaker: Yes, I made a little graph.

Speaker: You made a graph.

Speaker: I made a little, it's not much of one.

Speaker: I'll show everyone on Twitter before the episode comes out, but I did the infernal civil war.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: So we get, we get the, we get it figured out.

Speaker: So Diablo, it's, it's basically it's Asmodan and Belial or Belial's how they say it in the audio book.

Speaker: But Asmodan, which is kind of a take on Asmodeus.

Speaker: I kind of love Diablo because it's not, Christianity does not appear to exist.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: old school dark ages demons and angels totally do very yeah it uses old testament names very much so yeah so we've got asmadan and belial uh or belial fighting against uh fighting against the other side of hell uh and diablo diablo who wants to free his brothers bale and bale and mephisto

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So that's that's the we get.

Speaker: And Zazek serves Belial.

Speaker: So as Medan and Belial have been are fighting each other.

Speaker: I think they're fighting.

Speaker: I thought they were fighting.

Speaker: So Bale and Mephisto are imprisoned.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Asmadan and Belial are fighting each other and Diablo, they fear would.

Speaker: So because they say Zazak's Lord Belial would reward his humble servant for such a find.

Speaker: Not only had the civil war in hell against Asmadan not gone well of late.

Speaker: Oh.

Speaker: But troublesome rumors had reached there that the primeval Diablo had made good his escape, and if so, he would free his brothers Bale and Mephisto.

Speaker: I see.

Speaker: So it's like a hell triangle, right?

Speaker: It's going to be a hell angle.

Speaker: Yeah, a hell angle.

Speaker: You got Asmodan versus Belial versus Diablo, Mephisto, and Bale.

Speaker: There's more like that.

Speaker: Yes, exactly.

Speaker: Check out our Twitter account.

Speaker: Check out our Twitter and we'll see my beautiful illustration.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: So Zazax works for Belial.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Belial's his boss.

Speaker: And OK, yeah, yep.

Speaker: And as and currently they are on the losing side, as Medan is the one who is currently winning the war, the civil war in hell, it seems.

Speaker: Yes, so far.

Speaker: And and whatever Zazak's is doing with Bartok's armor is kind of like a seems to be a seems to be a Hail Mary.

Speaker: it really is it's like one last big chance yeah like if we could get control of this it might tilt the civil war in favor of us

Speaker: Right, right.

Speaker: So he's kind of contemplating all of this when Galeona shows up and demands to know what the hell he's doing.

Speaker: Yeah, he's like, you're not supposed to be out and about, you dingus.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: What are you doing?

Speaker: And he just lies and says, I've been studying the helmet.

Speaker: I'm just checking out the Bertuc's helmet.

Speaker: And that's fine.

Speaker: That's fine.

Speaker: And she's like, oh, OK.

Speaker: Yeah, she leaves it.

Speaker: And then we get our first mention of angels in this, which I thought was great.

Speaker: The way that demons see angels.

Speaker: Let's see.

Speaker: He says, the demon respected her abilities in this matter, even if he felt confident that in a struggle between Galeona and himself, the witch woman would surely lose.

Speaker: After all, she was mortal, not one of the foul angels.

Speaker: Had she been such Zazek might have been more concerned.

Speaker: Angels were conniving, working behind the scenes, playing tricks instead of confronting their foes directly.

Speaker: Methinks that's foreshadowing.

Speaker: I think so.

Speaker: And we get this great moment at the end of the chapter where he literally Zazek is thinking about angels and he out loud mocks the idea of angels.

Speaker: Like you fucking angels.

Speaker: Come and get me angels.

Speaker: I'm not afraid of you.

Speaker: Come at me, bro.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And then the light, the torch, like,

Speaker: jumps, just like, you know, how a light will do.

Speaker: A flares, yeah.

Speaker: A flares up a bit, and he, like, jumps for a second and becomes the mantis version of himself, like, out of fear.

Speaker: And he, like, retreats back into the shadows, and he's like, stupid fucking light.

Speaker: Stupid fucking light.

Speaker: I wish the angels would fucking come.

Speaker: I don't kick your ass, I don't give a shit.

Speaker: I don't care.

Speaker: I mean, you bet.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It wasn't you.

Speaker: Was it pussy?

Speaker: Like, yeah, that's basically what happens.

Speaker: I love the fact that I love how much like he humanized Zazax.

Speaker: Like after our first encounter with him, he's like, oh, he's like some creepy mantis demon.

Speaker: But then in this chapter, I love where we leave with Zazax, where he's like,

Speaker: He's just a little paranoid.

Speaker: And he's a toady.

Speaker: He's a toady.

Speaker: He's a total fear baby toady.

Speaker: It's fantastic.

Speaker: He is not.

Speaker: He's not the boss.

Speaker: He's a henchman.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: The first time you see him and the first time you see a demon, any demons going to be scary.

Speaker: But then when you get to know him a chapter later, he's just he's just.

Speaker: Yeah, he's a demon, but he's kind of a panty waist of a demon.

Speaker: It's fantastic.

Speaker: So Norik, we pick up chapter five.

Speaker: Norik is back on the road again.

Speaker: After his fresh slaughter.

Speaker: Feeling a little guilty about all the people that he helped kill.

Speaker: He's not feeling great.

Speaker: No, he feels he's not.

Speaker: He's like, this really does suck.

Speaker: This blows.

Speaker: So they're like walking towards the ocean and he's like,

Speaker: He's like, is the armor just going to make me walk through the ocean?

Speaker: Am I just going to drown or something?

Speaker: I love that part.

Speaker: Like he's been, it's been, the armor is so single minded that he's worried the armor is just going to go, oh, the easiest way is just to march through the sea.

Speaker: Just keep walking.

Speaker: And just forget about him.

Speaker: And he's like, I, that would suck.

Speaker: That would be terrible.

Speaker: Please remember that.

Speaker: But that doesn't happen.

Speaker: Thankfully for him.

Speaker: No, it seems, it seems more and more that the armor needs a living host.

Speaker: Yes, it cannot be like he has to be alive because otherwise, otherwise it would have let him die a lot earlier.

Speaker: It's clear that he has to be alive and and like functioning in order for the armor to actually use him.

Speaker: So, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: Because the armor does not crazy.

Speaker: Yeah, it doesn't do anything crazy like that.

Speaker: He runs into a fisherman.

Speaker: And the he's basically the armor like is like stops and he has to figure out what the armor wants.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So he's talking to this fisherman and basically through a Q&A, he clicks through a dialogue tree.

Speaker: I was about to say, it's kind of like when you think about it, he's kind of like in an adventure game.

Speaker: I was about to say, yeah.

Speaker: Every time you stop for something, you've got to figure out what it is that the armor wants.

Speaker: So every stop is like a dialogue tree or a puzzle or something like that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He finds out that what the armor wants is to go to Lut Golan, which happens to be where, what's his name, Malevolent.

Speaker: Malevolent, yeah.

Speaker: He's amassing his army not far from.

Speaker: So the armor wants to go to Luke Galane.

Speaker: And basically the guy, the fisherman's like, well, there's three ships.

Speaker: One is going back west.

Speaker: My there's my ships going to Luke Galane, but we're not leaving until next week.

Speaker: And then this other shitty ship is is going to Luke Galane like today.

Speaker: And he's like, stay off of that one.

Speaker: Don't go on it.

Speaker: That's terrible.

Speaker: And he wasn't lying.

Speaker: It's terrible.

Speaker: It really, I actually grabbed it.

Speaker: I thought this was a pretty good description of our, of our pretty boat.

Speaker: This is called the, it's called the Hawks fire.

Speaker: And it says the three masts stood like tall skeletal sentinels, half wrapped in the shroud, like sales, the figurehead at bow once, probably a curvaceous mermaid had been worn down by the elements until it now resembled more an aquatic banshee and mid shriek.

Speaker: As for the hull itself, something had long ago stained the wood nearly to pitch, and scars raked the sides, making Norik wonder if at some point in its colored past the vessel had either served in war or, more likely, had been used more than once as a freebooter.

Speaker: So he's about to board the Millennium Falcon.

Speaker: Basically, yeah.

Speaker: fucking hunk of junk it is a hunk of junk this bucket of bolts is yeah yeah it's not gonna even get out of the system um so basically he's talking to the the captain who um this he he's a rather haggard figure and uh this is great description as well what do you want

Speaker: The skeleton coalesced into an older man with parchment skin and absolutely no flesh and sinew beneath the thin veil of life.

Speaker: This guy's a good writer.

Speaker: You know, like, like if there's one thing that Richard Neck seems to know how to do, it's, it's, it's, it's set a scene.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's set a scene.

Speaker: It's like, it's like, it was like, oh, it's not a skeleton.

Speaker: It's a really old man who might as well be.

Speaker: Real old dirt bag of a man.

Speaker: And he is, he's, he's the captain of the ship, Captain Casco.

Speaker: Captain Casco.

Speaker: And he speaks in, in sentence fragments.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And he tells him and the guy and the guy's like, shit, OK, the armor wants we got to ride this boat.

Speaker: And so in this is I found really interesting because so far we've seen the armor summon things out of nowhere.

Speaker: And in this time, he says, you know, what would it cost for me to board?

Speaker: And the captain asks for a specific kind of coin.

Speaker: Yeah, it doesn't say gold.

Speaker: He doesn't say he's just he's like, it's a very specific currency.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And before Nora can even figure out, well, how much is that in real person dollars?

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: The armor just pulls out a handful of those very coins.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it's kind of, yeah, it's, it gets, it's starting to get real specific.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: On this shit.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So he gets in, he's got a, they give him a room and he, it's a, it's a, it's a shithole.

Speaker: It's a shithole.

Speaker: And he gets some sleep and once again, dreams of being Bartuk.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And then the dinner bell rings.

Speaker: Thank God.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: I'm sure this place serves some, some standup cuisine.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It doesn't.

Speaker: He goes, he gets, he gets the food.

Speaker: He's going to take it back to his room.

Speaker: And then Norik sees Faustin standing on the deck of the ship.

Speaker: And he's so startled.

Speaker: He drops the food and Casco is like, what mess you clean it up?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You're like, you're not getting any more food.

Speaker: It does sound like a Star Wars alien translator.

Speaker: No clean, you clean.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Houtini.

Speaker: Houtini.

Speaker: Yeah, it's weird.

Speaker: Captain Casco, the Jawa.

Speaker: Right, right.

Speaker: And so Norik kind of gathers himself and basically starts worrying that not only is it that this doesn't end well for him in terms of him living or dying, he's also concerned now.

Speaker: He's like, I don't think I'm I think I'm losing my soul here.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It gets really dark.

Speaker: It gets really dark.

Speaker: And we're back with Kara.

Speaker: Kara, thank goodness.

Speaker: Kara.

Speaker: Good goodness.

Speaker: Kara Nightshadow.

Speaker: Gay, a cool.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: A port town.

Speaker: Yeah, she's trying to figure things out.

Speaker: She's looking for everything.

Speaker: She's looking for everything.

Speaker: And she arrives at an inn called the Captain's Table, which is a jaunty little joint.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: She meets a cheerful man, Captain Hanos Geronin, who is the owner and proprietor of this establishment.

Speaker: And he's flirting with her a little bit.

Speaker: He's a flirty old man.

Speaker: He's a flirty old man.

Speaker: And Kara's like...

Speaker: Oh my.

Speaker: Yeah, we do get, we do get some very dated, uh, you don't know how beautiful you are kind of description here.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Uh, we're like, cause he he's, he's not like trying to get in there.

Speaker: He's just, he's just, you know, flirting a little bit and saying that she's beautiful.

Speaker: Fair is what he says.

Speaker: And, uh, and we do get a, like, she never thought of herself that way.

Speaker: I suppose.

Speaker: Not like the other girls.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: At wizarding school, some people found me attractive, I suppose.

Speaker: And yeah, you do feel like it was a screenplay.

Speaker: It would be a hot but doesn't know it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's like, eh.

Speaker: Yeah, but we get over that pretty quick.

Speaker: Thankfully, we didn't we don't dwell on that.

Speaker: No, we don't dwell on it too, too much.

Speaker: Basically, the captain, she she buys she buys some cider.

Speaker: She gets some cider, a fish, a nice fish meal.

Speaker: And the captain's like, yeah, I'll answer whatever questions you got.

Speaker: Just eat up.

Speaker: And he even offers her free food and free room.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Um, because he knows what she is.

Speaker: He knows that she's a necromancer.

Speaker: He knows he's like, he's like, yeah, I've, I've been a fan of the, the Rathma people for a long time.

Speaker: You know, they've always, it's like, they've always been nice to me basically.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: He said, you know, of all the people, all the people that we, all wizards I've ever met, you people are always the nice ones.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So,

Speaker: which I believe, I think, I think if your day to day business involves death, you're probably going to be pretty nice.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You're going to be pretty nice.

Speaker: Oh God.

Speaker: So she asks him, you know, some, some questions like, Hey, have you seen anybody with a crimson plate?

Speaker: And Jaronin's like,

Speaker: Um, no, I don't think so.

Speaker: Yeah, he's very wishy-washy.

Speaker: He is very wishy-washy.

Speaker: And then Kara, Kara notices that she is sleepy and not, oh yeah, and not tired sleepy, but sleepy sleepy.

Speaker: And now she's like, oh,

Speaker: no.

Speaker: Yeah, something may have happened to my cider.

Speaker: Something is... I wonder if it was the inappropriately flirty guy who... I wonder if it was the inappropriately flirty old man.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So she heads out because she gets a little fresh... We actually don't get a full answer on that, but she does... No, we don't.

Speaker: We don't know if it was him specifically.

Speaker: She heads out because fresh air is going to help, and she heads out, breathes in the salty, fresh air, and it does help.

Speaker: It clears her head for her

Speaker: A moment.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Before she's whacked upside the head by somebody.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: She sees she sees a figure carrying her knife.

Speaker: She sees the wizard and the Sardoon character, both of our dead adventuring party friends who are kind of corpsified.

Speaker: They're not like full zombies, but they're still bearing the wounds that killed them.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: Dead, but moving around.

Speaker: Yeah, so we find out that it was Faustin had cast a spell on her to knock her out.

Speaker: And yeah, they knock her out.

Speaker: They have her dagger and they basically hit her on the head.

Speaker: And it's, you know, that scene in Back to the Future Part 2 where... The easy way.

Speaker: The easy way.

Speaker: That's basically what happens.

Speaker: The easy way.

Speaker: What a weird scene in a movie, by the way.

Speaker: You want to do this the hard way or the easy way?

Speaker: The easy way.

Speaker: Such a great moment.

Speaker: It is.

Speaker: It's so random.

Speaker: But that's chapter five.

Speaker: That's chapter five.

Speaker: And that's where we're going to leave it for tonight.

Speaker: So what are you feeling so far?

Speaker: Man, there's so many.

Speaker: It's like there's so many threads.

Speaker: That's exactly what it is.

Speaker: We are we are setting up so many threads here.

Speaker: It's a little slow to start with, but I I am optimistic.

Speaker: I feel like we're going somewhere with this.

Speaker: I think I have faith.

Speaker: You know, I wasn't sure, but talking through it, talking through it just now, I have faith that it's probably all going to tie together in some nice way, you know, effective way.

Speaker: It's going to it's going to like a little it's it's basically like it's like a

Speaker: making a rope, you know, all the threads are currently loose.

Speaker: So like, Oh, we got all these threads and now we're going to start tying them together.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: So it's, it's pretty cool so far.

Speaker: It's pretty cool.

Speaker: And it's fun that like characters, like for example, uh, uh, Faustian and say, say Dune, who I just kind of thought were like throwing, you know,

Speaker: party members to be killed in the beginning.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: To set things up with their back.

Speaker: They're back.

Speaker: Like everybody that they've introduced so far, except for the sand snake has kind of come back and had significance and maybe, and maybe the sand snake will come back.

Speaker: I don't know, but we've had a lot of little seeds planted.

Speaker: We've got weird desert dwelling hermit guy.

Speaker: Yeah, who's that guy?

Speaker: I can't believe that the captain innkeeper, that this is the last we'll see of him.

Speaker: If this is it, if that is it, then he spent a lot of time describing this guy.

Speaker: His extravagant belly.

Speaker: Yeah, I want to... I think we've got a lot of cool shit going here, so fingers crossed.

Speaker: But yeah, I'm optimistic.

Speaker: I feel good about this.

Speaker: I feel good about it, too.

Speaker: Frankly, it's just good to...

Speaker: be doing a little little sword swinging.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: A little Robert E. Howard for us.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Why not?

Speaker: I mean, the dude broke Conan before he's he's written.

Speaker: Hell yeah.

Speaker: He's written a Conan book.

Speaker: So, you know, oh my God, I can't tell you if I if I were a writer for hire and someone

Speaker: totally you want to write a commission you to write conan i'd lose my i'd be like trying real i'd be like well that sounds like um it would be very difficult uh but you know i'm i think i'm up i think i can do it i'm a great admirer of this franchise thank you so much i'm gonna i'm gonna i've just gotta excuse me one second and i think i've put them on mute and i start screaming and like

Speaker: Also, for some reason, farting and puking everywhere.

Speaker: And I realize I haven't muted them.

Speaker: And they're like, we actually changed our mind.

Speaker: We're going to give the assignment to this Kevin guy.

Speaker: We're going in another direction.

Speaker: Yeah, we're going in a non-vomiting when you're excited direction.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker: Good call.

Speaker: Good call.

Speaker: Good call.

Speaker: I buy it.

Speaker: I'll just continue on my Leisure Suit Larry fan fiction.

Speaker: Are you working on one?

Speaker: Now I am.

Speaker: Now that I've put that out in the universe, please.

Speaker: I mean, I don't know who owns Leisure Suit Larry right now.

Speaker: I don't think it's Rob Lowe.

Speaker: Rob Lowe.

Speaker: Rob Lowe.

Speaker: Rob Lowe.

Speaker: Rob Lowe.

Speaker: Oh, my God, I'm an asshole.

Speaker: I interviewed the fucking guy.

Speaker: Are you talking about the.

Speaker: Oh, Al.

Speaker: Oh, okay.

Speaker: I'm an idiot.

Speaker: I've actually, I've actually spoken to him with my, with my mouth, with your mouth and the words.

Speaker: We chatted for like an hour and a half.

Speaker: He was a super nice guy and I'm an asshole for not remembering him.

Speaker: Well, there you go.

Speaker: I'll, I'll, I'll reach out and be like, Hey, Al, what do you think?

Speaker: You know who owns this fan fiction?

Speaker: Yeah, at the time, I was actually considering writing like a history of Leisure Suit Larry book.

Speaker: Like I was just playing with the idea and we got to talking and he was like, you want to write a book?

Speaker: And I was like, yeah.

Speaker: And he goes, who do you think is going to read it?

Speaker: About Leisure Suit Larry?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And when the creator of the franchise is like, I don't know if anyone's going to read that.

Speaker: He's doing like the cutoff motion with his hand.

Speaker: He's like, ugh.

Speaker: Some things are better left in the 80s is basically what he said.

Speaker: And more and more harebrained schemes for me.

Speaker: So, yeah.

Speaker: Anyway, so thanks everybody for listening.

Speaker: We've had this episode is going to be coming out in March, but we're just coming off a spectacular February of growth and new people coming to the pod.

Speaker: It's been so cool to see all you guys.

Speaker: It's been so cool.

Speaker: And we're also coming off a couple of episodes with our good friend Aaron Hess from Oops All Monsters.

Speaker: So if you're new to the podcast,

Speaker: Please go listen to those episodes and please go check out Oops All Monsters because they are hilarious.

Speaker: Hilarious.

Speaker: So that'll do it for tonight.

Speaker: Please, if you can, rate us five stars on the platform of your choice, whether that be iTunes, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Speaker: Those are the rating platforms, I believe.

Speaker: And

Speaker: you know, just get quick.

Speaker: Make sure you click that follow and subscribe button.

Speaker: Follow us on Twitter.

Speaker: Share us with your friends.

Speaker: Share us with your family.

Speaker: Share us with everyone you love and cherish deeply because we are the gift that keeps on giving.

Speaker: We give, we give, we give and take nothing.

Speaker: We take nothing.

Speaker: Pixelit makes the world takes.

Speaker: That is a very specific reference to a bridge in Trenton that has Trenton makes the world takes in big letters on the side of it.

Speaker: And I don't, that's for like five people.

Speaker: You dug deep for that.

Speaker: I'm impressed.

Speaker: That is a deep cut.

Speaker: Trenton makes the world takes.

Speaker: Pixelate makes the world takes.

Speaker: Pixelate does not take.

Speaker: We just passive-aggressively make comments under our breath at Thanksgiving.

Speaker: Yeah, that's as you do and you should.

Speaker: As you should.

Speaker: That's a proud tradition.

Speaker: That'll do it.

Speaker: Have a good night, everybody.

Speaker: Bye.

Speaker: Thank you.