The Anarchist Cookbook

Mike and Corbett talk about some book that Carl picked up in the dungeon and seems to have all the answers.  Of course, the secret it burning "it" all down and that does not involve setting clowns on fire.... but it could if needed.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Welcome to Mongo is appalled. And this time around, we're talking about secrets. Secrets. I find secrets appalling. Uh Mike, as do I. Corbett. Find secrets appalling. Or finding out those secrets. Yes. But we're talking about the uh uh Dungeon Crawler Carl series. Uh if you haven't read Dungeon Crawler Carl, I don't know what you're listening to this podcast for. Hey, glad you're here. More the merrier. Why not?

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Maybe maybe the show will inspire you to read it.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

We can hope. Maybe. Yeah. I would recommend it. I gotta admit, as a as a broad spectrum book, I have found very few that are as interesting. Yes. I don't know why. It's killing me too. Like there should be something else. Nope.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Not allowed.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

I just don't get it. How could it be this good?

SPEAKER_02 1:20

No pressure, Matt Deniman.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Well, Bounce House is about to come out, and I'm looking forward to to read through that, though. There are people who are complaining about it already, which seems What the graphic novel? No, the Bounce House book. It's his new book that comes out this February. Okay. Probably at the point that this would be out, it should be out. I guess they changed it from Big Book of Boom. Carl's Big Boom. No, no, no, no. This is Operation Bounce House is a totally, totally separate book that Matt Dinnaman's doing.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Isn't that a graphic novel though with um Florin? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Is that yet something else? Crocodile. Yeah, this is a book.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Yeah, he Matt Dinnerman wrote a whole different series about from what I understand, it's still set in another solar system, a colony that's being put through this sort of game-like situation. From what I understand, it's supposed to be a game-lit game where it's dealing with levels and stuff like that. So is it in the Dungeon Crawler Carl universe or is it a completely separate? From from what I understand, it is a totally separate book. Alright. But it's Matt Dinneman. I from what I understand, Soundbooth Theater is doing the audio for it, so could be pretty good. I I don't know if you've followed his uh Kaiju Battlesurgeon. No, I I mean it it sounds cute, but it just hasn't really grabbed me as a it's uh it's a lot more grotesque than uh Dungeon Crawler Carl. But I think a lot of Dungeon Crawler Carl is the colorful characters you're always jumping through. And with uh Battle Surgeon, it was more focused on the main character, and the other characters are interesting, but it's it's um pretty gruesome. I gotta admit, some of the more gruesome stuff in uh Carl, imagine all that every chapter. Yeah. Yeah, I I think I'll skip that. No, it's still it's still not a bad one, but it's it's uh it's it's the same reason I don't watch a lot of dramas and a lot of murder mysteries that my wife seems to love because I'm a comedy guy.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Well, maybe I'll give that bounce house a try. Just yeah. I just thought it was a weird thing because they did in the last Dungeon Crawler Carl book when they brought the ball to Lorakos, the ball of people. Yeah. The Ball of Swine, yeah, but it was everybody was in it. The operation was called Operation Bounce House, or it was Bounce House. The bounce spell was Bounce House. So he had that on his mind when he was writing it. Okay, obviously. And I would expect Dungeon Crawler Carl is probably only gonna last like maybe three more books. Not to be of Downer.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

Yeah, it seems like he's working it to try to wrap up, you know, since what, levels ten through fourteen are now like one big level after what that Justice Light did. So yeah, it's spoilers. So yeah, it seems like he's that's gonna be probably one big book, and then then we'll go directly into the hell dimension fifteen and then to Sculpendra. If Sculopendra doesn't come up. Right. That's what I'm kind of expecting, but maybe they'll meet on sixteen or seventeen, that way he doesn't have to go all the way to eighteen.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Or twelve. I have a feeling it's gonna get it's like the twelve is gonna be like the last book. Well, book ten. Because that's three levels, two, twelve.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Well, no, because remember, all those levels have been broken together. Uh what Justice Light did at the end of book seven.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

So I suspect that's gonna be just one big book, and that's gonna knock levels ten to fourteen out all at once. Sort of like how, you know, you totally skip level what was it, seven? Seven, yeah. The prepetency. Yeah, well, couldn't have happened to a nicer, nicer fish.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

A nicer mud skipper. It's it's uh so there's books, there's lots of books, and in this episode, we're talking about one book in particular. So we'll get to talking about that. So, Mike, I I there's one book I I do love to check out besides Dungeon Crawler Carl, and that's my cookbook.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

My anarchist cookbook? No, your dungeon anarchists cookbook. I used to own the anarch the original anarchist cookbook, so well, 80s, that was classic time. That and the poor man's James Bond. It was uh really kind of messed up. You'd end up getting getting visited by Homeland Security for getting that nowadays.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

So did you get your anarchist cookbook on a carousel as well?

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Or uh no no no no no Chaco for me, I fear. But first, is there couldn't be less than a hundred percent chance that the AI is behind the anarchist cookbook? I don't mean writing it, I mean keeping it going and giving it to important individuals. Again, like like the stairs, I think that book the AI was all but screaming and pointing at it and telling Carl, get this damn book.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Who was it? Actually, Voltigue. Voltigue I guess I keep going on that.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

You love that parrot.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

I I I really do love that parrot. But but he's the one who points out like he he had only written one entry in the Anarchist Cookbook. I think it was the seventh edition or one of the editions, yeah. He he had written one entry and he was embarrassed. He didn't want to admit that he actually had the book because he only entered one thing into the book, and it was basically how terrible everything is.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Which is kind of obvious, but he was there, and Porthus was the one who drug it out of him and found out like, wait, wait, you're that Voltigue? Because Rosetta had noticed the name. And yeah, like that's a really specific name because of that. You know, they all kind of formed bond based around that outside of the dungeon, which they could talk about the d the anarchist cookbook outside the dungeon, so that's kind of funny.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

And yet they really don't.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Well, there are specific requirements for them to get the anarchist cookbook. And I know Voltigue said he didn't get it until after the seventh floor when his original owner dies. Because Voltigue was a pet who became uh a crawler on his own, just like Donut.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

And he chose a different race.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Which means which seems to tell me you have to have a certain personality to get the book. And I guess his person didn't share that personality. So possibly.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

That could be why Prepotente didn't get it. Could be. Because he's he's certainly a a rebel to a certain degree.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

To a degree, yes. Especially now, but when Miriam Dahn was around, I don't know if he had it that person. I mean, he was, but yet he was still kind of a goofball. I think with her death, he has matured enough that yeah, if Carl hadn't already gotten it, I think he would have.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

They don't specifically say what requirements there are. Right. I know Volteague didn't get it until after he lost somebody close to him. Carl didn't recognize it until he opened it and his escape uh escape skill triggered.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

Right. Maybe that's part of it. You have to have the escape skill.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

So that gives us like one clue that you have to have that. You probably have to have some kind of trap skill or but maybe not, because uh Lord uh Light. Justice Light. Justice Light was the trap setter, but he didn't get it until Yeah, he didn't get it until like eighth or ninth edition.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Um maybe there's multiple requirements. You have to start with the escape skill or traps or bombs, which makes perfect sense for the anarchist cookbook.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

True. And although milk wasn't any of those things.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

And you've got to have that burning desire to burn it all down. No pun intended.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

That's probably more likely.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Yeah, you've got to have that screw all you guys, I'm gonna take you all out because you're a bunch of jerks.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Well, okay, I do know Porthos was the second edition. Porthos is the first person to have it, from what I gather. I don't know who had it before.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Yeah, I was about to say, but that seems to imply there was the first edition, and what happened? Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Who was that? Which that goes back to your like, could the AI have either written it, like maybe uh almost primal AI wrote it and got it put out there? Because it has to be encoded into the game, step one, because it it's part of the game and yet it's hidden from itself. Allegedly. I'm curious how well hidden it is, because I know when Orin interrogates Carl in the last book, he points out, like, we know what the secret message was that the oh, the homeless guy gave to him. Because in the in the sixth book, they didn't know at all. Like, we don't know what happened, but we don't see anything, so it's fine. And by then he's like, We know exactly what it said, we know where you went, we know you stopped and you were gonna push a button. What makes you think you can't do that? Because they were watching everything, they were paying attention to every little chat back and forth between him and donut. So they know, yet somehow nobody seems to know about the cookbook. And that was one thing Volteague pointed out is there's different crawlers who kind of you can get the taste that they probably have the book, but Carl might as well be screaming that he's got it because he's just using everyone. Yeah, wasn't it donut?

SPEAKER_02 11:22

It was donut or Katya, I don't remember which one, but one of them said, Yeah, nobody goes to the bathroom that much, Carl. So yeah. It's I I believe the AI knows about it. I'm wondering if the AI was the first author of it when he set it out into the world. Or an AI, like you said, a primal AI.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

That's the thing, the primal AI is the difference because they they don't kill the AI at the end, they put them on a farm upstate where all the AI is roam and play.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

But I don't I don't know. Well, they claim that it it basically is just left in place and the and the planet's left alone until the AI, I guess, burns itself out or something, because they just took all of its fuel to go fuel the one in the center of the galaxy who who makes their lives so so happy, which means the people won't rebel against the ultra-rich assholes that control their their government and society. Good thing we don't live like that ourselves, isn't it? Like uh Dinnerman wrote. A lot of fantasy are just a crappy attempt at at uh satirizing modern polit politics. Good thing we don't do that here. Like, yeah, yeah. Good thing, good thing. So yeah, it's obvious that the AIs in general, or this AI in particular, is wanting to and again, this gets back to my argument that the AI is trying to develop Carl for a purpose. And I think that purpose is to smash the syndicate.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

We were talking about that off the show, about how Carl might be might have been have have been purposely planted by the AI um because of the placement of the stairwell. He was the only one there with Donut.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

The fact that they kept his father's rec recording of his father's death, and in specifically that, that's very odd. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Even going to the level of showing the second wife, the son, his half-brother, the crappy trailer they lived in, which tell you, I tell you what, I was getting flashbacks.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Uh growing up myself in that circumstance. Yeah, it just it seems weird that they're specifically aiming. And while, yeah, I kind of got the impression that people were having to face off with certain family members or what are friends all across at that level of the dungeon. But I I just got the impression that they were really going that extra mile for Carl, even dropping that chunk of Iowa down in the keys when he didn't choose correctly. It's like, nope, you're not going to avoid this. We set this up and you're gonna face it, even if we have to dump this huge chunk of Iowa right there.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

That's a fix.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

Very clumsily, very clumsily. I mean, they could have just dropped the the trailer and stuff, but this was uh scoop this up right quick and just dump it down.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Entire surface of the planet.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

Yeah. I'm like, okay, you guys are desperate here for Carl to go through this. And I love Patrick Warburton.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

No, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

He was so cool. I when I first thought about him doing Carl's Dad, I was like, I don't know if Warburton can really get across the level of bastardy that is Carl's dad, but he did a good job on the audiobook.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

Oh yeah. No, no, he was he was terrific, and it was funny just because that was really the inspiration, I think, for Carl. Uh as much as Jeff Hayes, Jeff Hayes does a great job. Yeah. But it was obvious he kind of took that that sort of that Warburton tick. Well, the Warburton and Eartha Kit from Emperor's New Groove.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

Never saw it.

unknown 15:28

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

I'm glad Earth of Kit got some more work.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Yeah, she she gets turned into a cat at the end. She's a witch through most of it, and then she gets turned into a cat in like the very last version of herself. And it's Warburton and Earth of Kit as a cat. So coincidence. Maybe. Well, it's just yeah, by by coincidence, maybe maybe Carl is being planned up.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

I mean, honestly, honestly, all writers steal. That's just a given. I don't want to sound like we're criticizing because we're not. I'm I'm not, I'm pretty sure you're not.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

You're gonna be influenced. You're gonna you're you're like I I love the uh Starry Night by uh Van Gogh, but or Van Gogh, but I could do my own version and that's gonna be cool. And that's kind of the one cool thing about humans, I think, is we we ape each other quite well.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

But yeah, and frequently when we do that, we always add something new.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Yeah, an embellish. It's not a photocopy.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Or it's rarely a photocopy, and usually those are caught nowadays because internet No, there's on Facebook, there's a group I kind of like watching comic steals, and they show like covers of famous comic books, and where do they got it from? Like some other piece of art.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Either some other comic or something else.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

Yeah. Uh for example, the first issue of Justice League International from the late 80s, that cover has been redone so many times. Yeah. That looking up, you know, glaring, you know, want to make something of setup. So yeah, Nathan Fillion. I'm sure they'll eventually do that after the Superman movie, you know, the Justice game will be doing that at one point. Who knows?

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Oh yeah. Guaranteed. And it's it's because we we like familiarity.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

We like the repetition.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

And we want to give you something, but we want you to hearken back to that idea. Or even just Easter eggs. That's a thing and especially in superhero movies now. But all sorts of shows, they give you Easter eggs to go calling back to an earlier thing, which rewards your you if you're an old fan. But if you're a new fan, you know, you still can go with it. You just because you didn't get the reference, it's not like you're missing anything vital. But yeah, I think you know, he may have taken that idea and just ran with it and did his own thing. I mean, I'm oh yeah. I'm sure at this point Carl and Donut are not much like those two characters, assuming that was where his influence was from.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Well, my wife immediately pointed out how similar I am to Carl, and how the fact that she got the cat and I have to deal with the cat on a regular basis. So it's it's like this kind of thing happens in life all the time. So I don't slight him as a big thing.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

Oh yeah, it's a it's a joke here that um our old cat, Messalina, she taught likes sitting in Liz's lap and stuff, but we're both quite aware she's my cat. You know, Liz chose her, but she's pretty much if she has her druthers, she'd rather sit on me every time.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

I think Donut says it best when uh she says, You're my person.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

You all you're my person now.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Yeah. Or when she's you know flat blasting Bianca or not Beyoncé, what the hell am I talking about? Beatrice. Flat blasting Beatrice on Odette's show and is saying, you know, Carl's you're not my person anymore. Carl is. He always was.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

So you'll have a cookbook. Okay, I have a I have a thought on the cookbook as far as like if if it's not see the thing is the cookbook implies you're burning it all down. You said that yourself. Yeah, and it's in the book. Or it's actually in the series where Carl's like, I'm gonna burn it all down. I will break you. If the system made it, which is possible, then it's trying to destroy the way the system works. The way the system works is they go out, they plant implant the the setup for the crawl or whatever the event is going to be for that season on a planet, and then they land on the planet and take it over and then harvest the the AI that's there to go feed the AI back in the main system. Or the the materials that it runs on, yeah. Ooh, okay, that's the thought then. What if it's the main system that made the book? Because it wants it to end.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

Could be, because it's being kept basically as a drugged out prisoner.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Well, if the primals were the ones who put these AIs into place, seated the the galaxy, and then everybody just focused on the one and yeah, ate up the rest to use it.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

Or yeah, starved them to death.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Right. And then it's a cycle instead of like multiples all working as a unit, instead it's just feeding on the rest.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

Well, like that guy, you know, the homeless shelter guy in Florida said that already it's got way more material than it could ever really use for the long haul.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

But they keep taking it because it's now it's just become an excuse to do the the dungeon worlds and whatever because it makes so much money.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

But and that's something that King Rust mentions that there will always be a crawl. Like that doesn't seem likely.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

Yeah, well, and I think that's the system, the it that the cookbook encourages you to burn it all down. I think it's the syndicate, it's the super rich jerkwads that are oppressing everybody and rubbing their noses in it, but nobody wants to say anything because they have universal basic income, they have health care, they live to a thousand, so nobody wants to rock the boat.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

But I guess we'll see in the future. But yeah, the the cookbook is pretty cool in that it's not only just recipes to create better booms or poisons, but there's those sections that are take a philosophical bent on the whole point of dungeons and the crawls, meanings, and the crawlers and how they interact.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Um, I think was it York or was it Priestley? I forget. One of them like really waxes philosophically all the time.

SPEAKER_02 21:43

All the time. Makes yeah, it's like you were saying that the parrot only did one entry.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

One entry that was just like, this sucks.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

Yeah, and this guy like has as I think it was mentioned barely sane.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Rants and and theories on all sorts of things, on the primals, on the AIs, on the syndicate, on all this stuff. Which kind of makes you wonder, is the Dungeon Anarchist cookbook limited to the Dungeon Crawler Worlds, or does it show up on the other, like the Battle Royales and such?

SPEAKER_00 22:20

I would presume not, because they never mention the other things.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

I would presume not, but of course, if it were in the other things, no one would say anything about it, because it's like Fight Club, the first rule of Fight Club, you don't talk about Fight Club. The Dungeon Crawl format, which is part of the reason why it's so popular in role-playing games and computer games and stuff, is the heroic bent to it. Right. The idea of becoming a heap from zero to hero. Yeah. One g I get the impression anyway that that's what the AI wants. They want a hero holding out for a hero, one might say. And Carl's gonna burn it all down. Assuming Duniman does get bored and just stop the series.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Well, or and this is something that I don't think Carl's gonna burn it all down. It's not in his character.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

Well, everyone's entitled to their wrong opinion. But again, I think it depends on your interpretation of what it is.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

That's this is true. The more I think about Carl, the more I I generally like Carl because he does he does the best he can. Right. I think he has definitely given a bad batch of biscuits or whatever. He's always getting the worst end of it and like, oh come on. It's just worse and worse. Seriously. He's always he's always trying to do the best thing that should happen. And it usually comes to happen.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

Yeah, maybe not in the way he had planned, but it it all works out in the end.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Well, he hasn't had a terrible loss yet.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Katya was the closest, and I wonder if Deniman's original plan for Katya was to die, and he chickened out.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Maybe. Well, he but he did admit in an interview that he was original plan for Donut was to kill her on the first book.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

Wow. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

And I I kind of get the impression that it was supposed to be in oh when they fought the crack Karen.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

Because at that point he was thinking he was gonna die, and she was like curled up in his arms, like tucked behind the table when the blast went off.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

Is that the one where he was like horribly injured everywhere except his feet?

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

His feet were still pristine.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

He was still ringing, and then she was the one who woke up and drug him out of the fire.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

And I got the impression that he was probably supposed to get up and run out with this wad of fur and she's dead. And then she'd be dead. And then he suddenly I would for dramatic purposes, I could see like he would this would be too much.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

Right. And that would have been the incentive he needed to burn it all down. Very true. Um, so I wonder if the cookbook he designed was as a counter to to still get him on that path.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Well, he definitely was getting bitter about the whole Dungeons in in general. Like, wait a minute, you're killing us and we're causing a problem?

SPEAKER_02 25:21

Yeah. Well, we can't, you know, we have to have a respect for the life of the AI. And it's like, really? You're killing us in job lots, but the AI needs to be treated correctly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Well, the AI has rights. Right, and they don't. I remember he was real bitter when the what?

SPEAKER_02 25:42

Because God forbid the AI be mistreated, even though it really is, but like a lot of laws, uh certain elites will say, still managed to figure out ways around it to abuse people.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

But I the Anarchist Cookbook definitely covers people's bitterness and anger about what was happening to them. Yes. No matter even Milk, who is honestly probably the softest spoken, I think.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

Yeah. Well, that's why she just kind of curled up and gave up. You know, she just couldn't couldn't do it anymore. Nobody was coming to trying to come to her guild, so and she was in that circumstance where every season that went by, if nobody came for her services, it didn't count toward her and denture.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

And that was a screwover of the first magnitude.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

I will admit I loved her take when uh Miriam Dom shows up and like, oh no, if you were to hold a knife to me, then that would be a threat, and I would have to tell you exactly what you want to know.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Since you're going to put a knife to my throat, that's the only way I'll be able to tell you about that secret door over there. Wink wink. But yet that's how Carl succeeds. In the end, the anarchist cookbook is a tool. What is done with it? Carl is the one who constantly uses, let's face it, gamer cheats to twist the system to get what he wants out of it. Every time the syndicate or whoever's basically behind the programming thinks we've got him now, there's no way he'll get out. I mean, the sixth or the eighth floor. I mean, that was nothing but a custom setup to kill the vast majority of humans. That's all it was for. Yeah. And he still managed to get a good chunk of them out. Well, because he found an exploit. Yep. Exploits. Cheating. And I wonder if that's you know, that's the benefit of Earth humans. We find that cheat code.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

We find a way.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

We find that hole in the rules. I love Carl in the books, but I'd hate to have him at my table during a role-playing session.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

No, you've had him at your table.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

I know, which is why I wouldn't want him at my table, because he's gonna be that guy who goes through the rules to find the most obscure screw up to to stick it to the DM and just uh and that's what the cookbook is in the end. Here's a way of getting information that they don't want to give you to get around things.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Well, I don't I think he still figures things out with the cookbook without having to use the book.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

Oh yeah, I mean they're not just handing him stuff. I mean, they give him some stuff and tell him stuff, by the way, this tends to happen if you do this, so you might not want to do that.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

I was just thinking, like, on the fourth floor, third book, which is the anarchist cookbook. Right. But on the fourth floor, he I I want to say it was Rosetta who was talking about explosives in a backpack. And that's when he goes, wait a minute, what's a backpack?

SPEAKER_02 28:44

Not that he didn't know what a backpack was, but he but the game equivalency of the backpack, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Because their inventory was endless. But in the game previously, everybody had the slot system, and that's when he realized, oh, backpacks would give you another system. And that's when he realized, wait, if I put the stuff in the backpack, then Katcha can absorb it into her mass, and that changes everything. And he figured a lot of that out on his own, based on somebody else talking about something else that related to something that might work.

SPEAKER_02 29:11

And the idea of if I take stuff out of my inventory and have it in hand and I go to the green room, I've still got it, even though my inventory's shut off.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

He figures things out with the help of them mentioning stuff, but sometimes he figures that out all on his own. I think it's funny, he feels like he has to hide it, even though I will admit I I agree with Volteague, he is kind of waving the flap. Like, yeah, I've got the book.

SPEAKER_02 29:34

You have the book. Of course, you know, I'm sure to people who already had the book themselves, it is pretty damn obvious when somebody's got the book. Whereas I think Orin and some of the other guys are like, okay, you are cheating somehow, but we don't know how. But we're gonna keep an eye on you, which I think is hilarious considering how much those guys have been cheating, but whatever.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

I don't know. I think Orin's kind of on his side, but that's uh neither here nor there.

SPEAKER_02 30:04

I think he's on the side of the crawl. I think he's not so much on the crawler's side, but he's not on the super rich asshole side either. He's just kind of there. He's the the soulless DM who's like let the dice fall where they may, and and that's the way that is. I'm not on your side, but I'm not on the monster's side either.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

So I guess the question I don't know if we've really answered it, but is the is the is one of the AIs the creator of the cookbook? I think so. Probably I would agree. I'm actually kind of leaning more toward it, I think maybe the the main AI at the center of the universe is the one that created it. That would make it. Because if it's burned down, then maybe it can get free. Does the AI actually know about the cookbook? I it almost has to. Sure. If the one at the center of the universe, or whatever the main one, if it made it, it would be like your parents giving your wife your your manual. Yes, but don't don't show him the manual, but you'll it'll help you deal with him.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

But considering how it's behaved in other ways, especially with, you know, at one point it was like talking about I don't even remember what it is anymore, but that one thing where every time he's talking about it's like, good lord, guys, you know, I I I can only give you so many hints. And I I I think the current AI is aware of the cookbook, and I would even suggest that all the AIs have been aware of the cookbook. They would have to, because it's only one AI per crawl.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Well, it's embedded into the code and nobody can see it. You know that part? We know that he only recognized it because of his escape skill. So you have to have the escape skill on some degree.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

I suspect you have to have the right personality. Some type of event or trauma or something that makes you fully realize who the real enemies are. It's not the NPCs, it's not even the monsters or even the AI. It's these guys, these tools.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Well, I think, yeah, the third floor is uh or no, fourth floor. The fourth floor is third book, fourth floor, is where you he starts really coming to the point that these are just puppets that are being used against me. The more of them I wake up, the better it's gonna be possibly. Though I don't know if it waking them up is such a great idea. It seems terrible. They seem to always want to kill themselves.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

Except on the ninth floor, where they got to be their own faction.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

That's true. That's the point.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

I think it again, it would depend on the NPC and whether they thought they had any options in life. Because yeah, like Firebrandy and the Dwarf, they did not see a way out. And it's like we'd rather die than just be put back in stasis and come back again.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

And Signet, more importantly.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

But her solution kind of helped progress his solution. Right. And so it wasn't totally a suicide, but I still maintain she's not dead.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

I think she was dying, but going into the nothing. You can't die in the nothing. Yeah. I think unfortunately, she may be in the nothing still with a slit throat, which would really suck. There's detached penises running around the nothing, man. Yeah, but they're god penises, see. Well, it's not the first time I've woken up smelling like a strange person's wang. Ellie! I love Ellie. She's a great character.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

She's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 33:32

Yeah, so there's such weirdness in the nothing, you know, those feral gods and all sorts of junk. It's who knows. I hope she comes back. I I really do. If she doesn't come back, I hope Carl and Juicebox get together. Really? Yeah. I think they're fairly similar personalities.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

I guess.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Why? Who who do you want to see Carl Carl end up with?

SPEAKER_00 33:54

Well, we should probably save that for a show because Carl's relationships are definitely a whole show.

SPEAKER_02 34:00

That's true. That's true.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Anyway.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

Okay, so cookbook.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Cookbook. Is it the AI's cookbook? Is it just a book? Is it a secret? Don't tell anybody. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

Personally, I expect at one critical point the book's gonna disappear. Because that would be another great way of kind of sticking it to Carl. That's yeah, and Dinnerman, like most authors, love to put their main characters through the ringer.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Well, he's been woozy enough times, it would be easy for something to slip out, and as soon as he tells somebody, it would go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

Or a circumstance where he has no choice but to tell a person, even though he knows what's gonna happen, but there's no alternative.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

If Donut was in a like life or death situation and he had to say it or otherwise, one or the other though. He does not like being in those situations.

SPEAKER_02 34:47

But yeah, somebody's got a gun to Donut's head or something, and it's like, how are you how are you getting these cheats? We got to know. You must tell us now or she dies, or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

I doubt they'll be I doubt it will be that overt, but it'll be Right.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

Yeah, I'm just saying, you know, it's got to be some sort of he has no choice.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

But he's also made notes upon notes of the cookbook.

SPEAKER_02 35:11

Oh yeah, he's been putting his own entries in.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Well, no, he's practically made his own cookbook because he's been copying everything out. Remember when he got the automaton manual? He copied everything out and then copied it into the cookbook. But he copied it first. Yeah. And and he's made his own notes all over the place. So he's kind of the guy.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

He's got to keep that either in his inventory or in the bathroom of the safe room. Unless people just think he's writing his own book. I suppose there's one way, but then he couldn't put down the various names of the other crawlers and their entries, because that would be a dead giveaway.

SPEAKER_00 35:41

Ooh. Oh man, that's bad. If he because he's been writing notes into a scratch pad. They we know they've been following his texts. Yeah. So how hard would it be for them to follow his scratch pad?

SPEAKER_02 35:53

I think it would be up to the AI whether they let it I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

The AI would if it's funny, the AI is probably gonna do it anyway.

SPEAKER_02 35:59

It would depend on what the AI's long-term plan is, and I think it has a long-term plan.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

He obviously has a cut and paste method, and I remember I want to say it's back on the sixth floor. He he copied something out when the AI said something crazy, and I forget what it was now.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

Oh yeah, and they kept disappearing from his text boxes, so he started copying them down in the scratch pad.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

He would write it down manually because it would disappear like when he Oh yeah, the AA went off about the new AIs that don't have feelings or emotions or stuff.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

Right, and kind of ranting like it's trapped too, as much as they are.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Well, we all have our limitations, Mike.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

Indeed, we do. So I still really think what's gonna happen at the end of the series is something along the lines of Earth will be independent and its own AI, and like I've said, create that second source of power that people have an alternative to. Sort of like how the Naga dude was trying to negotiate for the Nagas to live in that soul system, not on Earth, but on some of the other planets. So yeah. That is the happy, happy, happy, happy, happy in the guys you want crawling all over your solar system. Those happy, trustworthy nagas.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

They're not all like the the sultanate. Oh sure.

SPEAKER_02 37:22

Yeah, I know, I know. But it was the Sultan, one of the Sultanate guys trying to negotiate it, and it's like, yeah, you're the guys we want here. Sure we do. Unless we want you in missile range. That's the only reason I would think we would want that. Because you guys are torps. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:39

I'm sorry, I didn't know you knew didn't know about Operation Bounce House.

SPEAKER_02 37:42

No, I didn't. I I knew that there was the graphic novel coming out, and I knew that the next Color Carl book is coming out, but I did not know about Bounce House at all.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

No, no, no. Well, I'm not as into the fandom as you are, so um I've been going to a support group, but they don't help, they just keep reading the books.

SPEAKER_02 38:05

They keep just feeding into it, into your addiction.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

They read book six? Yeah, I did.

SPEAKER_02 38:11

That was so good. Because if you don't get help at with Matt Deniman, please get help somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

If you try Matt Dinnerman, the first time's free.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

Yeah, it's always first time free.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

Oh man. It is a good book series, I can't help it. And Cookbook was a good one. Uh well, that was book uh three. Yeah. Three was the anarchist cookbook, and that as a as the book, book three, was pretty cool, but the anarchist cookbook kind of is a pretty neat guide all the way through it, and is very confusing when all the actual writers of the book show up in book eight. Yeah. No wait. Seven? Uh oh. Hold on.

SPEAKER_02 38:49

Yeah, because they were coming in to join faction wars. And yeah, it was just so funny to see everybody just kind of like, why is Carl hugging these people and talking like they're long-lost kindred or something?

SPEAKER_00 39:00

And yeah, another good show. Great to know. And um We tell you more, but it's a secret. It's a secret. It is a secret. Thank you. Oh, we all have our limitations. That's my line.

SPEAKER_02 39:13

That's not a secret, by the way. And they will not break us.