Mongo is Appalled
A podcast covering all novels of Dungeon Crawler Carl. Discussing outlandish ideas and ridiculous notions that no one should have to endure. For those of you that have read all the current books and are just waiting for the next one, this is your respite until the next book for Dungeon Crawler Carl comes along. WARNING: This podcast contains definite spoilers and preposterous ideas that may make your brain melt. Listen responsibly.
Mongo is Appalled
Safe Rooms
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Mike and Corbett are talking about Safe Room safety. How safe can a safe room safe if a safe room could save safes, and lots of other trivial nonsense are talked about in this episode. Be Safe!
Welcome to Mongo is appalled. I am Corbett, and I am appalled for Mongo. Cause I feel his feels.
SPEAKER_01And with me I I'm I'm appalled one degree from Mongo's appallingness. That's I'm appalled adjacent to Mongo's appalled.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god. Your sympathy knows no bounds.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but I don't reach the level of appalled that Donut is.
SPEAKER_00I don't think Donut's ever appalled. It's always Mongo who's appalled. Very important to note.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's a very good thing that she doesn't use that as a rationale to cover her own appalledness. That's very good. Very, very good. But hi, my care.
SPEAKER_00Whatever makes you feel safe. And speaking of safe, segue time. Is it safe? How safe, quote unquote safe, is a safe room. In Dungeon Crawler Carl, there are rooms that are considered safe zones. Zones you cannot be attacked in or should not be able to be attacked in. But there are also rest zones that you can be attacked in, if I remember right.
SPEAKER_01The Desperado Club.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01Or Club Vanquisher. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh we know that people have been attacked and been frozen, but we also know people have been killed inside safe rooms. So Yeah. I guess my question today is how safe is a safe room? If a safe room could save safes.
SPEAKER_01Safely. Yeah, it's it's interesting. When we first run into safe rooms in the first few floors, the ones with vodkas in them, and it's pretty absolute. Nobody gets attacked in a safe room, period. You get frozen if you try, and you get three strikes, and on the third strike you are out, and it teleports you away to a random monster lair. But as the books go on, there seems to be exceptions that pop up. Most notably getting the uh Scullopendra nine-tier attack seems to ignore safe rooms, which Parade of Horribles. I mean, you know, they almost lost uh that was crazy.
SPEAKER_00I had forgotten about that. Which just happened.
SPEAKER_01Bucket boy, yeah. Bucket boy almost died because he got hit with the consumption, you know, horde of worms and he was in a safe room, but it didn't matter. And one wonders if some of the more mental magics Yeah, I got to thinking about this, and I know it's not canon, but I was reading some fanfics where the author put in something that it didn't attack you per se, but the trap that was in a safe room teleported you out of the safe room. And that got me thinking of, well, there have been exceptions to the safe rooms. And I think it was the third floor or more that they started when you had your personal spaces attached to taverns.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01And those taverns were kind of they were no longer pure safe rooms like with the Botkas, but they were sort of, I guess, like the Desperado Club or Club Vanquisher. It's like you could still get attacked, but they were semi-safe.
SPEAKER_00Well, when just this is very important, first floor. Uh because the first time we real we find out that safe rooms are quote safe is when Donut takes the the biscuit, which is way back, like probably chapter six or seven in the very first and they're like, Oh, it's good because if she turns into this horrible monster, then you know she'll just be teleported away. And Carl was like, What?
SPEAKER_01Wait, what?
SPEAKER_00She could be turned into this horrible monster. And later, I think it's still in the first book. I'm no, no, it's because you meet Zev in the first book. When they first meet Zev, one of the things they point out is she's wearing the space suit, the environmental suit or whatever, right because of her concerns about being attacked by things.
SPEAKER_01Even though they're mentioned that any attempt to attack an admin results in immediate termination.
SPEAKER_00But if the attack is quick enough much like uh Mukta.
SPEAKER_01That won't do the admin very a lot of fun or a lot of good.
SPEAKER_00Muk Mukta was the the one in between Zev and Loida. Mukta was one of the fill-ins, and she was He or she.
SPEAKER_01I guess I guess it doesn't really matter what their gender was. Was that the one that originally signed Carl up for Maestro's show?
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that was the one. But she was um she was the one that was killed by oh Lucia. Why am I blanking on her name? Oh yeah, Lucia Marr.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Lucia Marr. And we had read, I think it was in the Anarchist Cookbook that they talked about some of them managed to, without considering an attack, yank an admin out of a safe room and attack them in the hallway.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there are options. And Loida got blown up in the green room, which should count as a safe room. Should count a safe room. Certainly all their access to their gear is turned off. On the other hand, they're little fish people and big humans should be able to just go. So yeah. That's true. On the other hand, you know, how do you teleport something in out as punishment for an attack in a green room if it blows up?
SPEAKER_00Because it's instantaneous.
SPEAKER_01Right. And how do you freeze them when after the explosion? Well, they're they're in pieces, so it doesn't really matter. So yeah, safe rooms aren't a hundred percent. And slugpox, I just thought of that.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01He was able to infect all of them with slug all the in in the training room.
SPEAKER_00He literally infected them.
SPEAKER_01Right, which is part of their safe room complex. Which granted didn't kill them, but it hurt like hell.
SPEAKER_00Well, I presume there's certain caveats because it's a training room. Like he had a bombing studio where you could detonate his bombs and test them.
SPEAKER_01But safely. So they wouldn't injure anyone.
SPEAKER_00Right. It's it technically also is a safe room, so there's a lot of loopholes in safe rooms.
SPEAKER_01Right, but wasn't Carl dropping slug alos in the safe room off his body?
SPEAKER_00Yes. He had to have because he infected them.
SPEAKER_01Right. So I suppose And then the then the strippers had to start sprouting them because once they're infected there's a legion idea, the slugolo legion in the sixth book.
SPEAKER_00I do get a laugh out of that when he finds out that Amani could have cured it the whole time.
SPEAKER_01Really? What? Carl, that's what I do. I heal people. But I liked that because it showed that despite Carl's innovative mind, you know, he he's a human being. He can't think of everything. And sometimes things slip by and you look back and you go, damn it, why didn't I think of that? And as the slugs get bigger and bigger and more and more powerful, I don't know that they would actually kill s the host by emerging. So maybe that's it.
SPEAKER_00But on the other hand, kill the host.
SPEAKER_01It's basically a safe room.
SPEAKER_00It was inside of a monster and he converted the monster into right, but but they weren't getting killed. Does that mean Carl now has a portable safe room?
SPEAKER_01I wondered that. I like what is the scullopender club still in there?
SPEAKER_00Hypothetically.
SPEAKER_01I mean, yeah, I mean it's transformed, but it's still scalapendra. Sexy, sexy sculpendra.
SPEAKER_00I presume it's got like a lot more disco balls now.
SPEAKER_01Sculpendra's got balls. But yeah, now a lot smaller. So was everyone squished? Does is the club now basically a extra-dimensional space?
SPEAKER_00Well, technically, this last book, Afraid of Horribles, introduced the concept of size differences because they have the micro machine race basically through the apartment. Uh you know, when they're like little slot car racers and they're racing to the top of the apartments and then racing.
SPEAKER_01Right, right, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Now technically you could say, like, oh, they were giants, like, okay. But it's it was obvious, like, okay, there's been some kind of size change deprivation going on, so it'd be easy to like, well, we'll shrink down and go into club scalapendra as she's a puppy.
SPEAKER_01Right. I didn't think of that, but yeah, if the AI can do that, why wouldn't he do that in the scalapendra club?
SPEAKER_00Well, but the thing is, in Sculpendra, just from the Carl's short visit there, it was not safe. Not even like a little bit.
SPEAKER_01I mean, you wouldn't die, but wow, could you get screwed up?
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, yeah. It's some safe rooms. Are not as safe as you think. They should be like a little liability waiver or something. Yeah. We call them safe rooms, but this does not imply that we accept responsibility for actually keeping anyone safe.
SPEAKER_00There are examples of it like where it's being used. And it does work for for the way it's supposed to be. Like uh when most notably Frank and Maggie. Well, Frank and Maggie's the first one because they freeze. Right. They get the first freezing, but then like more specifically in the Iron Tangle, when Mordecai throws the chair at Chaco. That's right.
SPEAKER_01No, it wouldn't. It would just hurt. And yet he was timeout, and it wasn't a warning. It was boom immediately.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was instantaneous, and everything was freeze-framed in the air, basically. Um, another example, Edict, the Manted who was in um Oh yeah, uh the city. Ballroom Blitz, no. Trying to think Butcher's Masquerade. Yeah. Should have been called Ballroom Blitz.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Matt Denneman really should name uh name one of the upcoming books, Ballroom Blitz. That would be awesome. Although I guess that would be the technically the hunting grounds episode, because that's when the trap played Ballroom Blitz.
SPEAKER_00He did say in an interview that the next book is supposed to be called a beautiful place.
SPEAKER_01Uh okay. I guess because the celestial ascension.
SPEAKER_00Oh, Dr. Crazy Pants. He called it that. We're going to a beautiful place.
SPEAKER_01Oh, the pineapple cabaret?
SPEAKER_00No, no. The when he was on the surgical table and Carl was jumping from table to table.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, the head of the oh, the the weird surgery people whose name are I can't believe it's escaping me.
SPEAKER_00This is why we do this first thing in the morning.
SPEAKER_01Right. Because we're so sharp and with it.
SPEAKER_00Mike and Corbett in the morning.
SPEAKER_01We don't have any interns rushing to give us the hints of what what the name is. We're forgetting. Oh, it's fine.
SPEAKER_00We know who we're talking about. Anybody who knows the books knows who we're talking about, so we're fine. Right. But it's supposed to be called a beautiful place. Oh, okay. So that's at least what his tentative title was in the last interview I had caught with him. Something to know.
SPEAKER_01So I guess it means we're going to be seeing more of those creatures.
SPEAKER_00I can bet the Celestial Ascension's definitely gonna involve entropy in some way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Especially with the OIs involved.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. That's there's like so many things to like get all excited about. The sad thing is it's two books. We got two books coming our way, and then it's over. I'm so sad just because I've seen so many of these uh lit RPG games that are like on their, oh well, we we've only had this book series out for two years, and there's 38 books in the series. They're sadly a lot like porn.
SPEAKER_01Uh let's go with um westerns. Westerns prime noir detective novels. Yeah, that that that's better than porn. Although I do find it interesting, that was your go-to.
SPEAKER_00Is you know, well, no, just because you you're like, that was the joke from I can't remember what it was from, but like, oh, I was in porn for a little while. I was like, well, how long? I was only in porn for a month and a half. Like, how many movies did you do? 685. And it just seems like GameLit is that way where it's like, oh yeah, yeah. I've been I've been doing this for a week and a half, and like, yeah, 14 books are out.
SPEAKER_01And sometimes that's great because you're into it. Others it's like, we have been on the edge of this big event for five books. Get on with it.
SPEAKER_00So it on the on the happy note, we will see a completion because Deniman said he's planning on ending it with 10, wrapping it all up, and it'll be a nice little setup. And that'll be great.
SPEAKER_01Now that's a question though. Will there be safe room access on the Celestial Ascension?
SPEAKER_00I kind of got the impression it was all safe room. Just because it's supposed to be infighting and subterfuge.
SPEAKER_01But from fighting or in killing?
SPEAKER_00Uh well, we know that Odette has been killing left and right, apparently.
SPEAKER_01Right. So they're kind of.
SPEAKER_00No, just left and right. Not not just right.
SPEAKER_01Although it does remind me of some RPGs I've been in where people have been playing demigods or something, and yet they still act like they're murder hobos in a dungeon. You know, you got these deities hanging out, hiding behind a door or waiting for another deity to walk through and they were gonna bum rush him and then check his spleen for emeralds. And I was like, really, guys, that's not okay, whatever.
SPEAKER_00I expect it'll be a lot more like the Greek myths, the the the story if you ever I'm sure you've read through the stories of the Greek myths, and they're just like it's like reading National Enquirer for the Greeks.
SPEAKER_01Except they had no shame generally. So So and so slept with his mother and then blinded his own children, and then turned into a goose and and sexually harassed this girl, and yeah, it's a which sounds a lot like the Matt Deniman storyline.
SPEAKER_00So like, yeah, I okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Sure. So maybe this will work out, you know.
SPEAKER_00Uh but safe rooms uh um I guess they're safe enough.
SPEAKER_01But they like safe except when the plot calls otherwise. Let's be honest here.
SPEAKER_00Safe except for plot armor. Well, I guess we all have our limitations.
SPEAKER_01And they will not break us except when we're in a safe room. Then they might very well break us.
SPEAKER_00That you know sounded way more racist than I intended.