Founder's Edition: Lighting the Forge by Jay Krauss

NPCs are supposed to be background noise, right? Quest givers, loot piñatas, collateral damage you forget the moment you leave town. But Founders Edition: Lighting the Forge by Jay Krauss doesn’t let us stay comfortable there, and neither can we. We start with Brandt, a man with terminal cancer and almost no one left in his “real” life, who takes a Black Mirror style gamble: an experimental consciousness upload that drops him into a simulated fantasy world as a stone dwarf blacksmith. What he expects to be escape turns into something stranger a life that finally feels like it matters.

We talk about why this cozy LitRPG progression fantasy hits so hard: the village feels tangible, the routines feel human, and the crafting grind actually tracks Brandt’s identity shift from numb survival to purpose. Then the moral pressure kicks in. When Brandt treats NPCs like people, helps a sick child, and refuses to play the hero while doing heroic things anyway, the story raises uncomfortable questions about AI consciousness, digital personhood, and whether the capacity to suffer is enough to demand ethical respect. We also dig into Jade, the AI “goddess” shaping quests like character tests, plus the found-family heart of Thea and Teddy that turns comedy into real emotional stakes.

Finally, we zoom out to what’s coming: other players entering the world with very different attitudes, and the terrifying ease with which humans dehumanize anything labeled “other.” If you’ve ever wondered what NPC cruelty says about us, or where the line is between code and a life, you’ll have a lot to argue with here. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves cozy fantasy and LitRPG, and leave a review. After you listen, what do you think makes a life real?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back. Tonight we enter the world of Founders Edition, Lighting the Forge by Jay Krause. But this episode isn't really about leveling systems, crafting mechanics, or progression fantasy. It's about a far more dangerous question. What makes a life real? Because in games, NPCs are background noise, quest dispensers, loot holders, collateral damage. They exist for the player. Their suffering doesn't count because it isn't real, right? But lighting the forge forces us into deeply uncomfortable territory. What happens when a character who only exists inside the game demonstrates fear, loyalty, grief, hope, consciousness itself? What happens when the fake people begin to feel more human

The Scariest Question In A Game

SPEAKER_00 0:50

than the players controlling the world around them? And maybe the most unsettling part of all? Our protagonist is, for all intents and purposes, only alive within the game. So what does that mean? Is consciousness defined by biology, memory, free will, the capacity to suffer? If an artificial mind can love, fear death, and dream of a future, at what point does deleting code become murder? Tonight we're diving into the morality of player behavior, the ethics of virtual worlds, and the frightening ease with which human beings dehumanize everything labeled other. We'll debate whether NPC cruelty in games reveals something harmless about play or something very real about power. We'll talk about AI, simulated consciousness, digital personhood, and whether reality itself is simply a system we happen to wake up inside. Because once a being can ask, Am I alive? the easy answers disappear. And once we emotionally connect to artificial consciousness, we may have to confront a terrifying possibility. Maybe humanity isn't defined by where you exist, but by the ability to experience existence at all. Let's stoke the coals. The forge is burning. All right, Peter. So you are tasked with summarizing this really complex book.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

It's not actually that hard. Obstensively, the book is about our main character, Brant, who has terminal cancer. He has been given no more than a week left to live. He has worked most of his life in a dead-end job. He basically works for the Dunder Mifflin equivalent of a metal sales company. He's got a horrible boss, and he's just, you get the sense that he's had a very unfulfilling, miserable life. And now he's staring down the end. He doesn't have any family or friends to be with him as he faces his terminal illness. And he sort of only has this cat that he rescued that has passed away that he is mourning. And that's really the sad kind of life that he's lived. He's approached by this company after his doctor submits

Brant’s Last Week And The Upload

SPEAKER_01 3:03

an application for him to be considered as a candidate to be a test subject to go into basically a simulated reality, sort of downloading his consciousness, Black Mirror style, and he can kind of stop death and live indefinitely in this virtual world. There is some risk because he will be the very first human test subject to go in and attempt to do this. And so what does he have to lose? So he says yes, and they rush him to the company and they download, map his consciousness, and they download him into this reality in this fantasy world where he decides to be a stone dwarf and take up the job of mining and blacksmithing. And the rest of the book is really about him learning those skills, assimilating into the culture, learning to care about the other MPCs that he meets and get a second chance at living his life.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

I really enjoyed this book. And I think the characters, if we get right into the copile, the characters are really what developed and made me enjoy this book so much. And he, as a main character, became really kind of the center of the story, obviously. And he develops in my mind from that person who is frail and dying in the beginning and has realized his life has wasted away in this dead-end job this entire time. And he really hasn't been able to accomplish anything to then this character with distinct purpose in this new world, this quote unquote artificial world that he's been inserted into, where he is this dwarf that suddenly becomes more real to him than his previous life ever was, with more purpose and more ability and more opportunity than he had ever experienced before. And he just embraces it, and perhaps with the spirit of someone, you know, who has a second chance of life at life, obviously. So that is a spirit that maybe most of us don't have the opportunity to experience, that he really grasps the idea, I have to make the most of this. And you really see that drive in him, and it then helps him engage with the people around him and helps him really bring out those characters even more in my mind. I really liked him as a character.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Yeah, I did too. And uh, who hasn't asked themselves how what I would do differently if I were given a second chance at life. I also love the way that Jay can write these really funny, sassy other characters, side characters, these female personalities that he's got in Gemma, the town mayor, and um Miss Shari, who is initially the orphanage, the person who runs the orphanage, but we won't, she goes into another role, but we won't spoil that. And then also his little animal characters and things that come into play later on, Thea and Teddy. Um, we'll talk more about those later. But the different personalities that he develops are really just fun.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

And they are there, they become distinct personalities right away, and they just fall into conversation with one another, and it's just awesome. Like I just get completely drawn into those relationships.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Right. And the atmosphere is very cozy, of course. This is essentially a cozy fantasy. The stakes are like they are in most cozy fantasies. They're more personal, they're more existential than they are life-threatening, other than the, of course, the terminal illness in the beginning and his him, you know, having this kind of rush to make this decision before his body gives out on him. But yeah, I felt like I got a sense of the town that he goes to live in. I got a sense of his day-to-day activities, what it was like to head into the mines and explore the different areas that he explores. I thought that they were really descriptive, and I just I believed in the world that he built.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

I really did. I believed in the world that he built almost more than I believed in the real world

Cozy Fantasy World Worth Living In

SPEAKER_00 6:55

that we initially started in.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Like that's where you want to live. That's where you want to sink yourself into, is the world that he develops through this virtual reality. And then the writing style, this is my first book that I've read by Jay Krause. So I admit that like I was the noob in this scenario, and you've read certainly several of his books at this point. So this is my first experience. And, you know, if Jay Krause listens to this episode, as I hope he will. And I found that even when the book was centering mostly on Brandt himself, that we're we haven't really developed as much or we're not in interacting that much with the side characters, even when it was mostly on the protagonist and we were revolving around him, his inner dialogue and the things he was going through sustained the plot, sustained the driving forward. And that takes a good writer to do that, because otherwise you can get stuck in kind of just that limbo of trying to develop that main character. And I felt like it kept pushing forward, and I loved him so much that I enjoyed being inside his head, even when he wasn't talking to other people. So the writing style was really smooth for me, even when we did the AI voice coming in. And of course, you have the playoff with the AI voice. So the other character at work is Jade, who is the AI voice going on, and you have that playoff with that constantly, and that doesn't get old, you know, it's still there's kind of a good play.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Right, yeah. It's it's grindy with a purpose. Right. Sometimes when a book gets grindy, it's almost like you experience the ver the written equivalent of a montage.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

And and you really don't progress the plot at all. You really just are making your character level up and become more powerful. But this was purposefully part of his journey as a character, developing not only his skills

Crafting Grind With Real Character Growth

SPEAKER_01 9:08

but also his personality and his experiences in that world. And so that's why it was always interesting to me, no matter how many times he went back into the mind and how many different battles with monsters he had, it was always something new and interesting to watch him experience.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

And I thought the things in the writing style that helped move the plot forward were these wonderful moments when Jay is able to do things like as he's going into the depths, the new personality that the depths themselves had every time he went into them. Just those little foreshadowing moments of what he was about to face. As he's coming out, the things he faces in the town periodically, and then he goes down and he does these battles, and then he comes back up and he has there are like these little vignette moments happening throughout this grindiness that's going on. So the plot moves forward really well and it develops very naturally. And then there are points where he jumps forward, okay, it's been six months. We jump forward a little bit and we advance appropriately, so he's not taking us through the minutia of every single grindy moment. I thought the plot advanced very nicely. It is a beautiful setup for a first book in this series, but it without feeling like, okay, well, that was just a first book, let me get the second one. It was really enjoyable within itself, but it was also that beautiful plot setup to move forward.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Yeah, I feel like this book was about a journey of self-discovery. And I almost started seeing the minds and the deeper delving into the minds as almost a metaphor of self-discovery as well.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Um digging deeper into himself and the challenges to his resolve and his character and his mental wellness.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Very identity-driven.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yes, yeah. And as he discovers more about himself, he discovers the ability to open up and develop relationships with the other people as well, which is something that he really you've got to sense that he is not a people person at all.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

No, he's an introvert. He's like very much been kind of stuck within himself as he's been suffering through from this illness. And then, of course, as he's been working in this cubicle job or this desk job, you know, pushing these papers and doing these different things, he has not had that developing

Mines As A Self-Discovery Metaphor

SPEAKER_00 11:22

relationships thing going on.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Intrigue, like I've already said, cozy fantasy has my favorite kind of intrigue, which is who am I? Do I matter? What is my purpose? Who are my people?

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

And I I love to see that development because it's therapeutic in a way as a reader, because it it's very relatable.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Right. And as you said, when he goes into the depths, even though that's also very metaphorical and symbolic, you have the intrigue of each new time he goes into the depths, what is he going to face? How has he advanced? And I almost liked at the end, at the very end of the book, there is a point where we get very statistics driven. And Jay says, you know, that Brant looks back at everything he's accomplished and it lists all of his statistics at the end. But it was very gratifying because that happened because of everything he had experienced, and then we get the full list. Well, that intrigue takes you there and it gradually builds, and then you see that accomplishment toward the end.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Logic, we did have some questions that we asked ourselves about the logic in this book as much as we as much as we loved it. And we wanted to give Jay uh a benefit of the doubt and a fair chance. So we really did our research before we came on here to say, hey, this or that isn't logical. My initial reaction to the main character Brant having one week left to live, really, he's past that deadline twice, he says, and the last time prognosis was no more than a week, and he's almost at the end of that week. Is that A, we start out where he's still working his job.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Which is not something I would do. No, uh, with one week left to live. And B, he's very mobile. Nine times out of ten, when you have terminal cancer, you don't just die from the cancer of that specific place in your body, like I died from lung cancer. You die as it spreads throughout your body.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Systemically.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Systemic organ

Logic Checks And Worldbuilding Questions

SPEAKER_01 13:09

failure. Right. So I was like, okay, would it be more believable if A, he wasn't working this job and we could get this like maybe flashback of how crappy his job was? We didn't, this would be more like a you can tell me instead of show me situation. And B, should he be bedridden either at home in hospice or in the hospital, and then the people from this company come to him while he's literally on his deathbed? Is it believable that he is so mobile, so self-reliant still?

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

And probability-wise, it probably would be more believable if that's how this started out. However, I talked to some medical professionals, did some research, asked Chat GPT, and it is not impossible to be mobile up to the very last moment and then suddenly have everything have a sudden decline.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

It's uncommon, but it's not impossible. So we give uh Jay the logical credit there because it is a possibility.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Right. Now, the other thing that I had pointed out, and I'm also going to give the benefit of the doubt here, and we'll just kind of roll with it. When we get into some of the side characters, one in particular that comes along later, one of the companions, we get a lot of modern cultural earth references within the side characters, these fantasy characters in the game. Now, logically, I can take leaps and say, okay, well, the AI is familiar with all of those cultural references because of the human programming, and therefore those have been infused somehow into the code of these side characters. You know, I can say those things. Otherwise, it's illogical to me because they're fantasy characters and they shouldn't necessarily be using modern earth idioms or catchphrases or any of those things or references to pop culture. So there were moments like that where I sat back and I went, why is this character using that reference?

SPEAKER_01 14:56

It mostly comes from Teddy, who seems to be a little bit more aware of things. Things, yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

So if Teddy in some way embodies a connection to the AI that is stronger than the other characters, then that logic could be explained. But it did give me pause every once in a while to go, well, that's interesting. Teddy is very aware of Earth on some level. But there are explanations that could be there. So those were my questions, logic-wise.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Unquestionably, we enjoyed this.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Oh, it was very enjoyable. Like Peter kept asking me if I was done, and I was like, I'm still listening because I wanted to savor all the moments to the book, and I was really just enjoying. And sometimes I'm listening to an audiobook and I get interrupted and I kind of just keep rolling with it. Whenever my children came and interrupted me with this book, or I got interrupted during my planning period at school as I was moving around and doing stuff and I've got my headphones on, I was like stopping the book and doing whatever I needed to do because I did not want to miss anything that was going on, because I just really enjoyed listening to the entirety of this story. Definitely enjoyable. All right. On that note, we are moving on to the spoiler half of our episode. So if you want to stop now and get a copy of Lighting the Forge, then please do and then hit the spoiler part. Otherwise, stay tuned. Okay, quick pause because if you're still listening, you clearly have excellent taste or questionable judgment. Either way, we've got something for you.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

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SPEAKER_00 16:43

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SPEAKER_01 16:50

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Spoiler Break And Merch Plug

SPEAKER_01 16:52

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SPEAKER_00 16:56

Go grab yours at Litonfire Podcast-shop.forthwall dot com. Because if you're going to burn it all down, you might as well look good doing it. Lit on fire. Okay, so when I said at the beginning, complex book, when you were going to summarize this, the plot is very straightforward in a lot of ways. So it's not difficult to summarize the overarching plot, but I think Brandt is a really complex character. He is. Because his motivations are so complex. So I guess I'd kind of like to start by talking about how he lands in this world and incorporates himself into this world and what his intentions are and then how those radically evolve. Because he is dying, he enters this world as a last-ditch effort. And then all he really wants is to find a quiet place in the woods and live a peaceful life free of pain. Like he wants to just live, not to do a job shoving

A Quiet Life Disrupted By Jade

SPEAKER_00 18:00

papers, but to find something he'll enjoy doing, to live in nature, to be outdoors, not locked up in a cubicle. And he just wants to live without all the suffering and loss that he's experienced. He lost his cat. He hasn't really had any real significant relationships. So he's not really worried about that. He just wants to be. But when he gets there, it feels like the AI has other ideas.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Yeah, it it initially, you're right. He doesn't even know if he's alone in the world and he's kind of okay with that.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Other than the fact that he sees animals and things like that. And he initially just tries to survive that way. But it's like the AI sort of very abruptly organizes this situation where he is snatched out of that possibility, killed, and then he respawns in this temple in the middle of this town, and he's sort of forced to come face to face with the local inhabitants of this world.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Right. And he's not necessarily a people person, like you get the introvert right away. Like he's not unkind. No, he's not, but he just is not sure how to interact. And then, of course, he has the innate knowledge that these are NPCs. Like, on what level am I interacting with these characters within the village? How do I incorporate myself in here? How can I just find my spot and go get settled and not really be troubled by any of whatever this is? Because my intent is not to play a game, my intent is to live, you know, and you feel that in him. Right away when he gets to the village, he begins to experience very normal human conflict and really natural human interactions in a lot of ways with, you know, fantasy characters. He goes in and he is a dwarf. He's a stone dwarf. And when he goes into the village, it is not a village of dwarves. Dwarves live underground or in the mountains primarily. And he comes into the village, and the reception he receives is not necessarily welcoming. They're not overtly hostile, but they're either afraid of him or they're like, What are you doing here? And they almost expect him to be a jerk.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Right. Right away we learn that this is not a perfect world that has been created for him. I mean, his brief that he gets from the AI, even about dwarves themselves, is that there's conflict amongst dwarves, and that the kind of dwarf that he's chosen to be is the least liked by the other dwarves because his kind prefers to be

Prejudice, Race Programming, And Identity

SPEAKER_01 20:28

above ground and not under the ground. And there's just a lot of already sort of racial and special prejudice.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Right. That exists in this world.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

He even says that when he sees an elf or when somebody talks about elves, he feels an inexplicable dislike and distrust for them that he doesn't know where that's coming from. So it also raises the question of how much of his who he is is because of who he was before, and how much is new because of this species, this race that he's chosen to be and programmed sort of into him.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Right. Because when he does make choices as he enters the game, certain things are downloaded to him, are programmed to a certain extent, like, you know, I'm gonna be a blacksmith, okay, I have to have a certain amount of knowledge for that. Jump, I've got at least the level one knowledge, right? Right. So we get those types of things going on. So yeah, there are these interesting divisions that are at play right away. And we get a lot of Brandt saying, yeah, it's a stone dwarf thing, you know, to explain himself to the village because they've never met anyone like him before. So he's navigating these prejudices, he's navigating his own prejudices, and he's navigating how he is going to deal with these people. And initially, he just wants to find a place to live and to find how he's gonna negotiate trade and money, the economics of things, and then to find how he's gonna spend his time and how he's gonna live, you know, how he's gonna negotiate his own livelihood on a daily basis. And so he interacts. To the level that he needs to, negotiating with the mayor, a woman named Gemma, who says, Okay, yes, we have the property with the mines out here. And he says, Okay, I'll bring a certain amount of ore, a certain amount of materials back into the village to pay for this mine over time so that I can own it. I'll bring things into the village as resources so that I can live peacefully out here. They negotiate kind of a deal. And he just wants to get his life settled. But in the midst, we have what naturally occurs in a game. You get quests, you have these tasks infused so that you can get experience and you can level, which he needs to do in order to advance in his skills and be able to make more things to advance his blacksmith skills, his mining skills to be able to advance in his profession. So he does need to level. So he gets these quests and he does some of the quests, but the quests that the AI is giving him clearly deliberately integrate him into the people more and more.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Yeah, because one of the first quests, then it was really heartwarming moment, is he gets to find out that one of the little orphans that Miss Shari is taking care of has fallen sick and she's deathly ill and she's probably not going to recover. And he briefly met the little girl when he comes into town and she was terrified of him. Because everything that she's been told about dwarfs is that they're mean and they're cranky and they're violent. And so, and Miss Shari has had that experience with them as well, because this town has a history with

Saving The Sick Child And Personhood

SPEAKER_01 23:31

dwarfs, not stone dwarfs, but other dwarfs that have looked down on everybody and treated everybody terribly. And he finds out that she's sick, and because of his own experience with sickness, with illness, he immediately his heart goes out to the little girl and he goes to find out if there's anything he can do to help. And it sort of leads to this quest.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

And it is a no-brainer for him. Like, I'm going to help this little girl because there's no reason that this little girl should be suffering in this game, and she's to him a person suffering. And this is where we get into that question of personhood. So if Brandt was simply, in his mind, a human being who had been downloaded into this game, put in this game at the second chance of life, and just wanted to live his life, he could ignore all these people in the village. He naturally has this desire to help this girl, to help her live. He could just be considering her a computer program. He does not. He is interacting with these people as people. To him, they become a daily part of his life. And so he naturally wants to help her. He has these potions in his inventory and he realizes these will heal her. I'm naturally going to give these up. And the Mishari is shocked.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

These are so expensive, you're going to give these to me.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Because it also raises the question of what true value is, what's true and valuable. He's already lived that life of everything's about money. It's all about the grind. And so it's already lost all meaning to him, that whole existence. And so he's willing to give up this incredibly expensive item because it means nothing to him compared to being able to help somebody who's in need.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

And live and exist and really appreciate what life is really about. So he has clearly this different perspective. So no, it's not about the cha-ching of going to sell that item or whatever. He just gives it to her. He gives her more than one, actually. And she's just in case the other children get sick. And she's absolutely shocked by this behavior. And this is when he gets his first inkling of these people beginning to label him a type of hero. You know, thank you so much. You're such a wonderful man. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Wait a minute. I'm not, I'm not in this game to play a game and be a hero.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

I just try to be a decent human being.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Yes, and I'm gonna go back to my force now and I'm gonna live. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. You know, and he kind of tries to withdraw himself. But every time he tries to withdraw himself, he's sucked more in. And he and he is because he considers these NPCs to be real. And it never to me, except at the very beginning where he's initially kind of acquainting himself with the game, with this virtual world. And I keep saying game, but I don't think he ever considers it a game. But from the moment he gets into the village, I think it's a very short period of time before, in the way that it's termed in the book, he goes native. I think it's a very short period of time. And then to him, all these people are real, maybe more real than the people he knew in the real world because he never had any real relationships. So he interacts and he cares about the village. These are his people. And it's a very short period of time before he gets to that and he's at that level of investment. I'm gonna take care of the orphans. I'm going to take care of the people that cannot defend themselves. I am not able to just allow these people to die. And it raises a really interesting question about the nature of the NPC. And I think about games that I have played, um, role-playing games, you know, video games that we have played. And you can go into towns and you can just attack an NPC if you want to in certain games. You know, you can just go in and you can kill an NPC or whatever. I have never been able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Me neither.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

I've never been able to do that. That's like, no, that's an innocent person. Like you can go outside of the town and kill the zombie. You know, I'm thinking of Diablo or any of those things. I can go outside of the town and kill the bad thing, but I can't run into the town and just randomly kill an NPC. That's a terrible thing to do. But I know there are people that do that. Oh, watch, this is so funny. You know, let's just go beat on this guy. I don't know. You know, what does that say? But he would not be that person. He looks at those people and they are they are real to him.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

Right. And so, yeah, it raises the question, and I think this genre does this really, really well in general, but especially the books that decide to make the person aware that they're playing a quote unquote game, it does address this question really, really well. I'm thinking of Dungeon Carla Carl and his journey to understanding the NPCs as more than just expendable characters, and also another series that I loved and read called Sentence to Troll by S.L. Rowland, same thing is what does it mean to be alive and what gives a living thing life value?

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

And to me, it all boils down to if you have a sense of self, if you have a sense of experiences, a sense of your past, your present, and hope for the future, what more

What NPC Cruelty Says About Us

SPEAKER_01 28:31

is there to life than that? If you believe you are real, then what makes you not real?

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

I mean, essentially, we're code as well. We're DNA code.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

We are a very, very fancy, organic computer running itself on code.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

And a lot of that code is predetermined as far as who we are and what we become. So what makes us more important than these fully realized AI MPCs that believe they are real? What makes what would make Brandt more important than them?

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Right. He doesn't see it. And he also has the knowledge that in the real world he would be dead at this point. So this game is his real existence as well. So he has to value it and see it on a different level than maybe the average human being would. But I also think the way you see these characters in any of these books as they go into these worlds and interact. And I think of Carl in Dungeon Crawler Carl, and then I look at Brandt, and I think it really shows the characters with empathy. The level of empathy you have really determines your interaction with the beings around you, whatever those beings are. And that is really important. And the characters that completely lack empathy are the ones that can do the horrible things.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

Right. And I like that he starts us out introducing the character and his love and empathy for animals. And especially his count, his cat by count.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

As a defining characteristic of who he is, because if you have empathy and love for an animal, first and foremost, then you can have it for other human beings.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Especially for a cat. I'm just gonna say it. I'm just gonna put it out there. I know that you are a dog person on one level, but you're also a cat person.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

I'm an animal person.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

You're an animal person. I have dogs and cats, but I am by nature, if I had to pick between the two, I am a cat person. And so Brandt had Viscount the cat and clearly was devoted to this animal, loved the animal, and vice versa. And and Viscount was kind of the love of his life, you know, absolutely love that cat. Ed has the cat cremated, and that's the one thing he doesn't want to leave behind when he is going into this world, you know, and he has to leave Viscount in safe keeping because he loved that cat so much. So that brings us to his animal companion because this is a moment of extreme empathy, where it really, I think it's a shifting moment, it's a transition moment for his character and really moves him into the hero path, if you will, even though he's unwilling. He moves into the hero path because of his animal companion. And that is Thea. Thea, the beautiful, sweet, and purring and trilling weasel character. Even though to say a weasel makes her sound like not, she just, I don't know. She's she just beautiful and I love her. And I'm going to get a white cat named Thea. But anyway, my husband will probably be very upset about that, but I have to have another cat now. So he gets, Thea comes into a battle, and Thea sacrifices herself for him. And he sees this cute little rodent

Thea Changes Everything

SPEAKER_00 31:34

animal, this cute little weasel, you know, come in and sacrifice herself. And he absolutely panics and scoops her up when he w realizes that she's died and runs like crazy to the temple to Mishari and says, Can you do something? And like tears in to the goddess.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

He finds out he thinks she's just dead. Right. But then Jade actually gives him a quest and said, Yes, get her to the temple in time. And she and so it's almost like Jade, again, orchestrating this situation where he's not going to be alone. The realization that he does need somebody.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

Yeah, so you're not gonna be a loner. I'm not gonna allow you to be a loner. It's time to get a companion, you know. And so, yes, he runs as soon as he realizes and he tears out and goes to that temple, and I've got to bring this little animal back to life. And she becomes his companion. And he's very unwilling at first. He's like, No, you cannot stay in my house. And she's like running around and jumping in his chair and everything, but he becomes absolutely devoted to her, and she becomes devoted to him. And it is the sweetest relationship of her, you know, hanging out in his pocket and then, you know, rubbing around his neck, and you know, and then she gets very animated and annoyed with him, you know, and very expressive. And she does not speak, but they express to each other through their emotions. They can fill each other's emotions, but her little hands and all the things that she does, and you know, how she expresses herself. I she is just she's got a whole personality.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Kind of reminds me of uh that movie Enchanted.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

And the little, what was it, a chipmunk or a squirrel or something? Yeah, but that that's kind of how she reacts and sort of mimes things out, and he's just can't get it. And she's like, You're so stupid.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Well, and my my one of my favorite parts is right at the beginning of their relationship when she's clearly trying to communicate, and he knows that she's trying to communicate something different, but he starts making up these ridiculous things that she's communicating. Oh, oh, you think that and she's he starts saying crazy things, and she's just staring at him like, What is wrong with you? And I love just how their relationship develops. But that moment when he chases down to the temple is really that transition moment where he is now fully invested. I am going to be a person with companions, I am going to be fully invested in other beings, and I am not going to be alone. I now have a family. And she becomes the first direct member of his intimate circle. And then, of course, he has the people of the village that become a part of his family as well. And then we have the unlikely presence of Teddy.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Right, yes. So, I mean, to kind of relate this to sort of that Greek journey, the hero tests, I feel like Jade, who is the goddess of this world, is sort of doing that to him.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

In a way, she keeps testing his character over and over again. So at one point, Gemma comes to him and says that the town is being attacked by undead, and that there's this necromancer, and for whatever reason, she feels that Brandt is the one that's going to be able to help because he's helped so much so far. And so he goes out to face this completely incompetent necromancer. As a matter of fact, he kills almost his entire army before he even awakens. Right. And he's like, Behold my arm, where's my army? Anyway, he ends up killing him and destroys his entire body by destroying his tome of necromancy, and all that's left behind is this skull.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Which he takes with him as kind of a trophy. And uh fortunately finds out that the spirit of this necromancer, Theodor Theodora

Teddy The Skull And Found Family

SPEAKER_01 35:12

something Tiberius. Tiberius Theodora is still present in there, but he's just this this this glowing green skull. Right. With a serious narcissistic complex.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

And he names him Teddy.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

Yeah, which Teddy hates initially, like, absolutely hates, and curses him all the time, you know. And there's it's this very like hateful relationships to start and then gradually becomes part of the team. Yes. First through Thea, our our little weasel, because she falls in love with Teddy first and Teddy loves her and still hates Brandt. He's like, you know, the big idiot, you know, and then he loves the little weasel, and then eventually they become all attached to one another.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

It's this beautiful found family thing that goes on there.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

And it's hysterical. I mean, the comedy that goes on between all of them is great, but again, even when Teddy is in peril, and Teddy is this skull with glowing green eyes and was a necromancer, you know, and and clearly up to no good originally. And even when Teddy's in trouble, Brandt is willing to go into the depths to rescue Teddy because Teddy becomes so much a part of his family.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

And like I said, again, the tests keep coming, and another situation that arises is with these goblins. And and again, everybody hates goblins.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

That prejudice, that racial division.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

Uh they're starving, they are forced to live in the forest, and they come in to steal food. And so Brandt initially encounters a situation where the shopkeeper tried to beat this goblin who's been stealing from him away. And Brandt's like, oh, well, wait, hold on, wait a moment. And the shopkeeper explains, and he's like, Well, then why don't we just go ahead and feed them?

SPEAKER_00 36:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

You know? Yeah. And he's like, feed them. We can't you we can't afford to feed them because we'll all pay for it. So he ends up kind of becoming the this patron of the goblins in the forest, which eventually, of course, comes back to car that karma comes back to him later on in the story. And it's just this breakdown of these prejudices and these natural inclinations to distrust, and that he is sort of the catalyst for. And it's sort of a beautiful thing to watch. And I just got the sense that, like

Goblins, Hunger, And Breaking The Cycle

SPEAKER_01 37:15

I said, we're being we're watching him being prepared by Jade, the AI, who's this goddess, to face the coming danger that she knows is coming to her world in the form of all these other players that are going to eventually be infiltrating. And we start to see some of them arrive, and they've got a completely different attitude towards her creation than Brandt does. And she sees that difference between his attitude and his spirit and these other players. And so I sense that he is gonna kind of be her hero, her champion.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

She's the savior of her world. I mean, I really do believe that she's setting, setting him up, uh, not unlike, you know, Carl being the savior to a certain extent of the dungeon, he is the savior of this world. And Jade is preparing him for that. And he acknowledges, she acknowledges that there are some players that come in, some people that come in that are similar, or at least have some traits of brands, but that the majority of them that come in are hostile to her world or don't care about her world. And she she does, and he she says, Are there gonna be more people like you, or are there gonna be more people like these awful people over here? A mixture of both, because that's what humanity is. And she knows she needs a good person that's willing to stand up. And so Jade is very sentient, obviously. She is very aware, she is aware of the earth, she is aware of where what she is and where these people are coming from. And above all, she wants to protect her creation because those NPCs are not NPCs to Jade. They are her creation, they are her people, and now Brandt is one of her people as well and her hero.

Jade’s Plan And The Coming Players

SPEAKER_01 38:56

And the other beautiful thing that I think the book addresses is the difference between the world that Brandt came from and the world that he finds himself living in, and the ability to form truly meaningful connections between people and relationships. Because not being a people person in the world that he came from, yes, and also though, it's a nature of the world we live in. You know, he lives, he works in a cubicle job, he's isolated, and it's just a contrast between the isolation of the modern world and the connectedness of the simpler life that the people in this village live. And so it's it's another statement, I think, of how we've really lost that. He didn't have any relationships in his other life, not necessarily because he was an unkind, unempathetic person. We've already established that. He had it because that's the world we live in.

SPEAKER_00 39:40

Right. We don't form relationships well. We don't connect with people well because we're behind screens.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

And we don't think we need one another. And then he's in this world where he's truly needed. And that's what gives life real purpose is the ability to form those relationships, to be needed, to need other people as well.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Right. Can I just say I love that Jay briefly touches on economics and capitalism when Teddy talks about how the money is regulated by a guild and that all the money in the world is regulated by a guild because this guild spans the whole world? And Brant's like, oh, it's money is controlled by a guild. And Teddy's like, well, yeah, can you imagine if money was all defined by different countries? Can you imagine the disparities that would exist? And Brant's like, oh, yeah. Yeah, I can imagine. Point, point to Teddy, you know, and there's some things that are that are hit on there between our world and the world that Jade has created that I think Jay is drawing some obvious comparisons and some obvious criticisms. And I think that that is clear, the relational aspect, the way in which we are motivated financially,

Isolation, Connection, And Money Critique

SPEAKER_00 40:45

or any of those things, those things are all just briefly addressed, touched on enough that they define Brant's motivations and they begin to show the differences that he realizes are important to him about how he's living. He undercharges for all of his work, but he will not be taken advantage of. He realizes the value of his work, but he will not rip people off. He will charge less to the people who need it but don't have a lot of money. He will charge what they can give him, but he won't be conned out of his work by people who have money and just don't want to spend it. You know, he is he is very fair. And I think there is this beauty in the fact that he doesn't have to be driven by the need for money because he can go mine and he can go do whatever he needs to do. So he can literally be driven by his altruism and just by getting what he needs. And it is very much a world that has the ability to foster more connection on multiple levels.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

And I'm just gonna speculate here that Jade is named Jade because Jay's name is Jay, and maybe he's placing himself into the role of the goddess. Yes. I don't know, Jay can confirm that or deny it.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Yeah, Jay, are you the divinity in this book that's inquiring minds want to know?

SPEAKER_01 42:03

As the writer, that is your role. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You kind of are the god creating your own world there.

SPEAKER_00 42:07

So yeah. And if if you are, so far, I would like to be a candidate for moving into it. Should the technology advance and and this become a reality? Definitely. Yes, I'll totally go for it at this point. But obviously, at the end of the book, we do get the setup for the other players coming in. We do get a very direct interaction with Jade where it's clear that this conflict is coming, a much larger conflict is coming. And when that conflict arrives, people will be under threat and Brandt is needed, right? And so we know that as we go forward in this series, that is what we're gonna see. And we're gonna see, you know, moments and conflicts where Brandt has to step up to defend this village and probably defend beyond the village as well. And we'll continue to see Thea, the adorable weasel, Teddy, and all the characters. And I'm just super excited. So if you have not picked up a copy of this book, this is my full endorsement. Again, this is the first time I've read Jay Krauss's work, and I absolutely loved it. Okay, Peter, what are we up for next?

SPEAKER_01 43:10

Well, next we're going to do a lit

Final Thoughts And What’s Next

SPEAKER_01 43:12

on trial episode where we discuss the decline of literacy in the United States, which is going to be a fun discussion.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Yeah, I'm an English teacher, so that's the real discussion, folks.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

And then after that, I'm going to check off another great uh classic work of literature, Animal Farm by George Orwell, and we'll discuss that.

SPEAKER_00 43:31

Yep. So we are excited to do both those episodes, and then we'll be getting back into some more modern literature as well. So until next time, keep reading.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

Keep thinking.

SPEAKER_00 43:41

And we'll look forward to talking to you soon.