Diablo: Legacy of Blood Part 1
New book alert! Today we are starting a brand new series on Diablo: Legacy of Blood written by Richard Knaak. Follow Phil and Kevin as they read through the trials and tribulations of Norrec Vizharan, Kara Nightshadow, and a cavalcade of demonic entities!
Video Version
Automated Transcript
Is Rachel exactly mob so no, they do usually end up in the mob. You know who never ends up in the mob. Oh, hey everybody. Welcome back pixel it.
Phil 0:12
I hope whatever,
Kevin Erhard 0:14
folks so my name is Kevin. Alongside with me is Phil and today we're starting a brand new book. Oh,
Phil 0:23
new book new genre new genre.
Kevin Erhard 0:26
Yeah, we've been on Sci Fi and military sci fi for quite a bit now. And you know, hard sci fi, soft sci fi flash and sci fi you know,
Phil 0:38
it's just a little cold outside sci fi
Kevin Erhard 0:41
growers sci fi show or sci fi. We've been we've been in there for a while. And now we are in good old fashioned sword and sorcery land. Look at this. We got Diablo legacy of blood, which is the first of the Diablo novelizations
Phil 1:01
and it's another we're just we just love opening up Pandora's box. Here we are. We have opened up like sip. Excuse me several franchises. Yeah, that our books and books long. Yeah, this is another one. So
Kevin Erhard 1:18
this is another one this is going to be is it going to be a beefy series? I mean, we'll probably we'll see how far we get into the Diablo franchise. I mean, why not? And it's you know, this is a nice looking book.
Phil 1:32
Like you got the really nice yeah, it's it's
Kevin Erhard 1:35
the new it's like a new printing of it or something. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it feels good. Feels good in the hands bossed cover
Phil 1:43
and Boston cover I got my it might beat up
Kevin Erhard 1:47
to die it is beaten that beat the shit out of that with a
Phil 1:51
with a like parking receipt. Lice on the page holder like it's just, it's a mess. But that's this is pure pulp and therefore, I'm gonna beat the shit out of this.
Kevin Erhard 2:05
Beat the absolute shit out of it. So this book is written by Richard A. And I'm I'm not sure if it's NAC or Canac
Phil 2:17
I'm assuming that but yeah, I guess it could be Canac Yeah.
Kevin Erhard 2:22
Richard so he wrote a legacy of blood and I don't know much else because I did not research about the author. Oh, here we go. He's a New York Times bestselling author and USA Today written for such well known series as World of Warcraft Diablo dragon Lance Cohn, N. O L, which that's that's right up your alley. That's
Phil 2:42
my jam.
Kevin Erhard 2:44
And Pathfinder, and is the Creator. Yeah, I guess Pathfinder has some. Yeah, I mean, Dungeons and Dragons has books, so why not? Make sense? And is creative, popular epic fantasy saga, the dragon realm. He's also in comic, manga and gaming material and his works have been translated worldwide. So
Phil 3:06
he's got another one of our you know, dietzgen Island style kind of writers for hire. So
Kevin Erhard 3:12
is it he's a journeyman? Yeah,
Phil 3:15
I think my favorite things on the back of my edition of it. The way it describes it is an original tale of swords, sorcery, and timeless struggle based on the best selling award winning M rated electronic game from Blizzard Entertainment. I love I love that I
Kevin Erhard 3:31
threw an M rated emirate it that's my
Phil 3:33
favorite bar there like this isn't just regular fantasy. This is fantasy that Fox. This isn't your grandpa's fantasy. This is based on M rated fantasy.
Kevin Erhard 3:49
Well, that's funny is it doesn't say that on my version. No, it just says it just says original tale. Yada yada yada cuts out the emirate apart and then it has a sentence at the end it says intended for mature readers.
Phil 4:00
Nice. Yeah. It's
Kevin Erhard 4:03
okay, but
Phil 4:04
so they they took out the Emirate of that because
Kevin Erhard 4:07
it's it's it's kind of lame.
Phil 4:08
This is pretty lame. It's pretty lame. Like Mortal Kombat. Hey, pretty, pretty rough stuff.
Kevin Erhard 4:17
You guys like Mortal Kombat with the blood code entered?
Phil 4:19
I don't know man like that. I don't know if you guys have played Streets of Rage. But it's pretty rough. Those guys have you ever played bad dudes? Those are some bad dudes is a bad dude. So
Kevin Erhard 4:30
you were bad enough dude to rescue President Rouhani spoiler alert you shouldn't because he's a terrible president. You shouldn't not rescue President Rouhani Rouhani the Contras
Phil 4:45
that's why they called them the bad dudes because they rescued him. And it set in motion so many horrible things were
Kevin Erhard 4:51
Yeah, I mean, trickle down economics, Iran Contra, all that stuff. All could have been avoided if the bad dudes had not responded. Just taking
Phil 5:00
a taking a break that day under like not taking a break.
Kevin Erhard 5:04
Ah Gosh. Anyway Diablo
Phil 5:07
Diablo legacy of blue wood. Let's get into it.
Kevin Erhard 5:10
This is this. Let's get into it. So chapter one we get introduced to three adventure Yes, they are Norik satin and a Faustian and Norik and Saturn are warriors they're fighters and Faustian is a spooky wizard man
Phil 5:36
took Saturn as like a thief like it looks like the because I think we were introduced to a trio. And yeah, the same classes that you could pick from the first Diablo game. Right? So I was like kind of nervous. Like, oh God, are we just following? How do they how are we following Diablo? I don't know you could do that.
Kevin Erhard 5:58
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Phil 6:01
And then they got a gem and put it into their sword and the sword was better than and then they found another sword. And they checked the stats. And then they decided to kill it's a new short because it was better stats even with the upgrade on the first slightly better
Kevin Erhard 6:15
stats and then they kill the skeleton and loot just exploded everywhere.
Phil 6:19
White trash as far as the eye can see. And it's that for 500 page
Kevin Erhard 6:25
500 pages later on. No thankfully, it's not that. No, it actually one of the things that I've noticed about Richard backs writing so far is he's very good at the
Phil 6:39
Oh, the lights? Oh, no. I don't know, for those of us playing the podcast gave it Oh, it's like just went on and then off.
Kevin Erhard 6:53
Hold on. Let me turn it on. I
Phil 6:54
think we're never gonna see him again.
Kevin Erhard 6:56
All right, so for those of you at home, I have a light in the center of the room hanging from the ceiling. And it's it's one of these. It's got one of these big big ass fancy bulbs that looks like an old timey bulb. So it has it looks like it has the giant filament inside of it. Yeah, Edison bulbs. Yeah, yeah, except it's led, right. But it's we've only had it for like, two years and it's already acting up. I just noticed that yesterday where I'll have it on and it will be bright and then it will just dim down for no reason. And then I'll forget that it's on and then like 30 minutes later we'll go and in Brighton back up again. Like it's like there's a poltergeist in it. It's like yeah, so yeah blow
Phil 7:43
that's actually perfectly appropriate because perfectly progress is not the only place that is haunted.
Kevin Erhard 7:49
Yes.
Phil 7:52
So we've got our party we've got our party you
Kevin Erhard 7:55
got we got our party and so as I was saying the thing that Richard Knack seems to be really good at so far is like describing environments and and so like the giving a kind of like the the flavor texts of the area set scenes very well. Open like I said, I was talking to Phil a couple of weeks ago I was like you know the opening sentence has a skull right in it and that's perfect for
Phil 8:27
it's just metal as fuck right off the bat. Yeah, it's it's pretty great. So you know you sat down with your friends said let's play a weekend game of d&d. There's only three of you but who cares who wants to be what and we got our full party
Kevin Erhard 8:43
we got a ranger a fighter and sorcerer
Phil 8:48
and they made and they made the rookie mistake
Kevin Erhard 8:51
no healer no healer no offense no defense no
Phil 8:55
and that's gonna come into play later on.
Kevin Erhard 8:59
So they're investigating this tomb and it talks about how they're seven levels down which I feel like has to be like a nod to the to the actual game talking about it like being laid out in levels
Phil 9:13
totally totally you know you just they just they made their way down seven levels and I but I think the funniest part to me about that is because you think seven levels they're like Oh God What are you been playing the game for about you know, half an hour at this point. But they make a point of saying and they saw basically nothing the whole way down.
Kevin Erhard 9:31
It's just been nothing they have seen traps that had already previously been tripped and nobody's so like so like the spikes are already out of the wall like there's nothing for them to avoid the traps are already have already been launched. One of the interesting things though, is there because they're like talking back and forth and they're thinking about you know, the their adventures so far, and they talk about this better be not better now. Don't be like what they just ran into and trust Ram first which is where Diablo takes place and there was like two weeks earlier they were just interest him and then like they're like oh yeah now Diablo two Diablo is tomb has already been hit this guy went all the way down killed Diablo and since then everybody's taken everything and it's so basically I think it's hilarious that our traveling party is uh is these three guys who are just like a couple of weeks too late Ryan it for the for the Diablo host Diablo story they
Phil 10:33
basically came in after you the player cleared out the dungeon like the townspeople talking about this guy don't wander you know, and who, who basically went down the rumors he killed Diablo took all the loot, there's nothing left and that's what they've already dealt with. So they're worried that this is going that same thing more for hijacks. That is an absolute wink to the audience. It's I think it's a really great way to open the book
Kevin Erhard 11:00
it is a good way it's like it's like not no way
Phil 11:04
copying the game.
Kevin Erhard 11:05
This is not Diablo one Diablo one clearly happened two weeks prior. Like we're setting like a timeline two weeks ago Diablo one happens and it's not related to that
Phil 11:17
character you play that you had so much fun invested in he's done he's moved on you're no
Kevin Erhard 11:22
longer he's continued wandering
Phil 11:24
right right he kept going so yeah, we've got Norick the fighter who's basically like a retired veteran at this point he's and say dune who yeah thief Ranger soldier kind of guy who suggests basically he's like look if the nearby militia is hiring mercenaries maybe we could go join up with
Kevin Erhard 11:51
it oh join the army or something. Man I need something to eat
Phil 11:55
right and NORC has no interest in that because he that's why he's a dirtbag you know murder hobo these days because he hated the army. So they keep going in there approaching the central chamber you know and that's where we should be able to find if there's anything in here there's
Kevin Erhard 12:12
going to be something and this is gonna be loot there's gonna be some loot in this blue.
Phil 12:16
There's got to be something
Kevin Erhard 12:17
a b Yeah. So yeah, they they get in there they're they're getting it and things are starting to get a little spooky. The the the wizard who is also referred to as a visionary, which I don't know enough about Diablo to know if that means anything but he's he's a, he's a he's a particular type of person.
Phil 12:43
I think then general, like order of the sorcerer's lecture, I think I don't think it's because we do get another order later on. Yes,
Kevin Erhard 12:53
another one of the other main characters. Ostensibly, Mariah is a different order. So yeah, faston The Sorcerer is basically he he's been lighting the way this entire time with his staff. You know, he has, he has one of those DND spells that lights shit up, whatever, it's magic.
Phil 13:16
Like go ahead and they'd like some torches you know,
Kevin Erhard 13:19
because it's for some reason. It's like in the central chamber. It's especially dark so his glowy staff is not that not doing the trick. They light up some torches. And wouldn't you know it? They find things it's a lot of dead bodies. It is it's just so many dead bodies. It is it is a remarkable amount of dead bodies think of this ship seen in Goonies Yeah, where they find one eyed Willy and multiply it by a factor of like five it just imagine that that like that, that Corey Feldman would be tripping every like 30 seconds over over over some bones Yeah, you know it's just
Phil 14:01
just different. Yeah, and some of them are bones basically down to dust and some of them are you know just kind of shrunk in court like they various
Kevin Erhard 14:10
states have decomposed various states of decomposition. Nobody
Phil 14:13
too recent. But yeah, they don't know what killed them. They just know that they're in a room full of dead bodies. The walls are covered in gyms and these magic rooms and there are most importantly just piles upon piles of treasure piles of gold, like like a d&d, you know, cover, you know, just just just jewels and
Kevin Erhard 14:38
gold and everything. Like it's the it's the dragon's hoard without the dragon.
Phil 14:42
Exactly, exactly. As far as they can tell. Nothing to be worried about except the impending doom that comes from being in a room full of corpses. Yeah, so
Kevin Erhard 14:51
corpses in the Diablo universe tend to resurrect, don't they?
Phil 14:56
They do that they do that a lot. They're they're big on that. especially when you deal with necromancers. But
Kevin Erhard 15:03
yeah, this says some necromancy takes effect. And wouldn't you know it the corpses of corpses come alive, right? Who couldn't? Who could have seen that happening?
Phil 15:14
Who would have thunk it? You know, it's it's yeah, they they, they see they're surrounded by these things beforehand they they they end at the end the at the end of the room is that this Deus that has this the remains of this body in this specific red armor. Yeah,
Kevin Erhard 15:32
it's red suit of armor. Yeah.
Phil 15:34
And the wizard investigates and, and sees that the body doesn't have a head and there's no sign of the head anywhere. And that kind of tells him where they are. And let me see. It gives them a gives them an idea where they are. Is this by Heaven? No. Do you not see one gloved finger pointed at the red breastplate. This is the last Tomb of bar took Lord of demons master of darkest sorcery, the warlord of blood. The words escaped Norik as little more than a gasp he knew very well the tales of bar to who had been who had risen among the ranks of sorcerers only to later turned to darkness to the demons. Now the redness of the armor made perfect and horrible sense it was the color of human blood so the smarter two members of the party immediately go we're getting the fuck out of here. Right? And this is this is why because that no point because you're right at no point did they say that say Dune is like a thief per se or rogue? But he fills all the tropes when they go say Dude we gotta get out of here and he's filling like he's basically like a cartoon character filling his pockets with gold and putting rings on every finger and he's he's just going No Come on guys. Absolutely not. He's
Kevin Erhard 16:55
the guy from work for this. He's the guy from what's it the mummy
Phil 17:03
it's just these just these these these he can't see the forest. You know for the corpses and
Kevin Erhard 17:09
the forest from the corpses. The skeletons from the half eat remains
Phil 17:14
right? And NORC and and Faustian are basically like, you know, they they at least I think I think the wizard is like he deals in sorcery enough to know a cursed room when he sees one. Yeah, and NORC is superstitious enough to go absolutely not. No, thank
Kevin Erhard 17:33
you fast and fast and casts detect magic. And he's like, oh, boy, this is not good.
Phil 17:40
And a legend with Martin faces as they said he was a terrible, horrible warlord who used demons to destroy everything in his path. He ended up being defeated by his brother and his body was in tuned in this very tomb to seal away his evil. Yeah. And evil. Yeah, yeah. And many of his kids. Like a lot of his followers had kids. And those people still are around today and basically kind of in imply that Norik was probably you know, fighting alongside of them when he was in the army. Right. And so they pull a Marines we are leaving. Yeah, but not in. Not in a good enough.
Kevin Erhard 18:26
Time because guess what the Skelly men are awake now.
Phil 18:28
Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's a classic. It's a classic movie scene. You got the guy basically stuffing a burlap sack with $1 bill on it. Full of gold. Just gibbering about the merge McDuck in it? Absolutely. And as he's doing this, there's just this shambling horde of zombies coming up behind him and his friends are pulling the Bugs Bunny like Yeah, yeah, point.
Kevin Erhard 18:55
Yeah. Yeah, no, it's not a good it's not a good moment. So they have to fight they're fighting. They're going nuts. And Norik is being forced pushed back and back. He's separated basically for he gets separated from Saturn and faston and he's being pushed back and back towards the Dyess Deus, Deus stay status is Deus. Yes. He gets get pushed back towards the pedestal. And he's fighting he loses his sword to the Horde. And he's like just trying to do anything he can. And he puts his hand back and he accidentally touches the armor. Yeah. And when he pulls his hand back from the armor, he is now somehow wearing the gauntlet of the Bartok's armor. Yeah. And things spin wildly out of control from
Phil 19:54
everything like he starts talking words against his will Just like just a start speaking these horrible magic words that no one really understands maybe the Wizard of Oz dance probably. But he doesn't he's he's no idea he's an old grunt he doesn't know what it's like it's like if your buddy who was in a fraternity for six years of undergraduate suddenly started spouting Latin at you and Latin that had nothing, you know and not Greek for once, right? You know, it's just I just realized what it did there. And that would freak you out right? And and indeed it freaks out everybody in the room. But the one good thing is that the magic words that he uses somehow consumes the undead and drops them leaves the party of three basically, untouched,
Kevin Erhard 20:49
untouched you know what, they're they are touched, they're totally safe 100% Safe things are a okay.
Phil 20:58
Except NORC starts to have some Bilbo Baggins thoughts
Kevin Erhard 21:02
Yeah, he definitely is is his it's definitely a after all, why couldn't I have the
Phil 21:12
Why shouldn't I keep the gauntlet and the wizard it's terrific because the wizard knows what's going on at very carefully very diplomatically starts going maybe you should take the gloves off take
Kevin Erhard 21:28
off so basically, he he knows nor grabs Faustian by the throat and fasting is trying to tell satin, cut his arm off like you have to cut his arm off
Phil 21:43
right it's it's that glove isn't just sliding off that
Kevin Erhard 21:47
you got to cut his arm off to get the glove off and and then we cut to black. And we're left wondering what's hap what happened to faston and satin I don't know
Phil 22:01
pretty good opening
Kevin Erhard 22:04
pretty good opening
Phil 22:06
you get your you get your your Metalist Fuck d&d party in Yeah, and then one of them starts killing the other one with ancient cursed armor and Cradle of Filth starts playing in the background opening credits. You know, we are Yeah, Legacy of blood.
Kevin Erhard 22:25
Blood. Perfect flame particle effects.
Phil 22:29
Disposable Teens starts playing. Yeah, and
Kevin Erhard 22:34
and then we get a wide sweeping shot of a desert. Yeah, because we're in chapter two now. We are meeting our I guess he's the villain for all intents and purposes
Phil 22:47
I I'm trying hard. I can think I can only put my finger on one character that I'm definitely associating as a
Kevin Erhard 22:55
hero
Phil 22:57
with a question
Kevin Erhard 22:59
Yeah, there's only one so far that's like there's only one so far and we haven't even met her yet. Yeah, is the hero hero. Heroic, heroic and have in the first five chapters she has by far the fewest see?
Phil 23:18
Oh absolutely she does. Fingers crossed we'll see more of it but for now Fingers
Kevin Erhard 23:23
crossed. But we're not there yet because we are here in Aaron now with the army of Mr. General Augustus and a shit you not this is his name and he is the villain malevolent
Phil 23:41
malevolent malevolent I'm sure Kevin went out on you shame on you for assuming that this in our pulp sword and sorcery novel that the general warlord malevolent is is absolutely going to be the the villain How dare you? I thought you were a broader mind than that.
Kevin Erhard 24:07
I apologize. I should not have assumed that based on his name. malevolent general malevolent was he might be a stand up guy.
Phil 24:19
It does. He does sound like a Eman villain or
Kevin Erhard 24:22
he is he is basically a hitman villain. He has a so to cut to the gist of it. He's he's been massing this army and he he has a sorceress that this is the this part of the book is the is the the Shi breasted boo Billy down the stairs. Yes.
Phil 24:47
A real Melisandre and statusbar Rafi and kind of vibe here.
Kevin Erhard 24:57
Definitely. That's basically what it is. It's Mel Sandra and Stan As breath yeah she is she's the well Leona is the sorceress that works from a level in. And the way it's first set up. I was like, does he report to galley ONA? Because she has this massive tent at night? And we're like, no, he's she it other way around.
Phil 25:19
And they only talk about like how his soldiers, his soldiers are all insanely loyal to him. Yeah. Like he's a good he's a good leader. You know, they trust Him and they don't know why they're stuck out in this desert. They'd been marching and fighting for a while and now they've been in this desert for a while. And the only thing that and they just kind of whisper in London themselves because the witch has got a tent, and he hops into the tent with her and then sometimes she hops into His tent with him and clearly some funny business going on there. Yeah,
Kevin Erhard 25:47
they're bang and bang, bang.
Phil 25:50
And as it gets lonely, the desert
Kevin Erhard 25:52
gets lonely. In fact, there's a bit of dialogue Galio and and my Galliani has slept you well. When I actually slept my general tea.
Phil 26:04
Oh. malevolent
Kevin Erhard 26:06
malevolent Oh boy. My. Oh my. So what you find out what we find out is that malevolent is he's in search for the thing that we just saw in the first chapter. That's right. He has. So if you recall, the armor was without a head, and thusly without a helmet. Who has the helmet malevolent has the helmet? He wants the rest of the armor?
Phil 26:37
That's right. It's it's kind of they get right into it. I will give it to them. They get right into it. You know, he's been having dreams of bar touques armor. She's got the helmet. Clearly everyone's This is we've got our MacGuffin and it's an evil murderous MacGuffin
Kevin Erhard 26:56
it's a it's a it's an armor it's the armor of the murder hobo plus five yes five armor of the murder oh
Phil 27:04
yeah this is this is this is the ultimate murder
Kevin Erhard 27:07
hope it's a legendary set of armor
Phil 27:11
it is quite literally plot armor at slot armor
Kevin Erhard 27:14
at this point. Yeah. And as we'll see but yeah, so So malevolent is like is he is quick to anger Yes, because he he gets like semi abusive to galley ona in the scene as well. It is it's it's a it's a weird relationship. And once he leaves you start to find out what her her deal is.
Phil 27:50
Because when you get a character like this it's really easy to you know what the fuck is her side she
Kevin Erhard 27:57
getting out of it? Is she getting out? She's She's this she's uh She's this wicked hat sorceress who is just like why is she traveling around with this this hot headed general
Phil 28:09
right and she said you know she wants him to be bar to successor and yeah, all that shit. But why? Why? Find out why
Kevin Erhard 28:18
we're about to find out. You know the bug dude from Space Ghost Coast to Coast. Oh yeah. Zarek Zorach so this is his brothers Zach's
Phil 28:34
demon praying mantis. Is there any better kind I ask you.
Kevin Erhard 28:41
So hidden in the shadows of the tent, it comes out Zacks, who is a demon praying mantis, who is basically galley, ona and Zach's have their own plans for her Bartok's armor. And it's just like it's it with all these magic people it's plans upon plans upon plans it's like like malevolent doesn't know what Aliona actually wants and we'll find out Eliana doesn't necessarily know what Zach's actually want
Phil 29:11
right now, so yeah, so we get it's basically people betraying people betraying people Yeah, so as as x confirms they've had this vision of the armor. It's been they find out that they've realized that the armor has been taken by some schmuck some nobody in the middle of nowhere some
Kevin Erhard 29:33
absolute absolute loser of a schmuck absolute loser.
Phil 29:37
He is such a dork such a dork. Such a stupid stupid. And so they if it's
Kevin Erhard 29:44
Doric, or something stupid stuff, the Doric some probably sweating like this.
Phil 29:51
Yes, I'm sweaty old man. He is a DI Oh, no, sa you are a dinosaur. Yeah, and Yeah, I did that. I do that if I'm doing this you're coming down with me. Why
Unknown Speaker 30:08
did you do that?
Phil 30:09
And so it's as it confirms that the armor of Barczyk that that is indeed what's happening it's authentic and galley ona is kind of like amusing that she can manipulate the man and the armor who the way she always manipulates men with a strongly worded logical opinion. No, no with with with boobs that have surface tension, that kind of that kind of body, apparently, which we've already we've only gotten a hint at what happens to the dude inside of the arbor. So I'm not thinking Galliano has much of a shot in hell here.
Kevin Erhard 30:47
Yeah, no,
Phil 30:48
no, basically, she's just she's just going to try to get everybody in the same room together. Everyone, the demon, the warlord, and the loser with the armor, and whoever comes out on top, she'll just basically try to attach herself to
Kevin Erhard 31:03
exactly that's That's all she wants to do. Did you listen to the audiobook at all, by the way? Yeah, a little bit. Okay, did you hear the voice for Zach's? I don't remember. It's so fun. Yeah, so like the guy is doing like regular voices. And then when the Zach's voice comes on, he starts going this one knows
Unknown Speaker 31:25
that the honor is that true? Yes. Yes, this one knows that. It wanders this mortal plane.
Phil 31:34
He's clearly I do remember that he's like having so much fun. Which actors just showing the scenery with
Kevin Erhard 31:42
this showing the absolute scenery? I love it and
Phil 31:45
it's great. And the best part is is when you read the book, it's written to be that way. It's not like the guy had any other he would sound stupid. If he read those lines like a normal person. You've got to you've got to put some some stank on it and be a weird demon guy for it to actually work and it's hilarious. It's really
Unknown Speaker 32:05
this one knows that the armors true.
Phil 32:09
Yes, he does. This one knows,
Kevin Erhard 32:12
huh? Yeah, it doesn't work probably be a Verner Hertzog XL.
Phil 32:16
That is true. Now that I would actually I would have strongly approved of that kind of turn. This one knows.
Kevin Erhard 32:26
This one knows that the AMA is
Phil 32:28
true. I am a praying mantis for some reason the praying mantis. I don't know what French for some I don't know what the fuck I am a primate is found the
Kevin Erhard 32:43
Zen. Xaxis puffing on a cigarette?
Phil 32:54
Provincial pesant. I do I do remember what I used to work with with a handful of Romanians. And and we were all having a smoke break at one point at an ice. And I said to what we were talking about rednecks. There's some they referred to some guys are redneck and I went hey, what's the what's the Romanian version of that? What would you call like a redneck and Romania? And one of them thought about it. Had she went peasant, I guess. Oh, wow. That's way better. Yeah, that's that's there it is. Wow.
Kevin Erhard 33:30
It's so much worse. There's a solid historical burn, right.
Phil 33:35
So that brings us to the end of chapter two.
Kevin Erhard 33:38
So chapter three. We find out what happens to the rest of the party. adventuring party. Oh, let me tell you, it. It wasn't rainbows and sunshine.
Phil 33:51
It was not great. I think this was actually hilarious. Because I thought the way they ended chapter one, like it's like he blacks out and all he hears is screaming. And so I'm like, oh, everyone's dead now. And we're right. But it basically picks up right there from that end, and we actually see him killing a nother wizard has already done that. We
Kevin Erhard 34:13
hear the memory of the words. But we don't see it yet. Right away because he wakes up in the middle of a field covered in blood. Right? That's right. Yeah. And then as armor keeps walking, by the way, he can't stop walking.
Phil 34:32
This is hilarious. This is so funny. Yeah. Because based on the way the first chapter ended, I kind of thought that like he's now a demon like the armors possessed them. Kind of kinda not. Sword armor basically forces him to go and do the things that he wants that it wants him to
Kevin Erhard 34:51
your Weekend at Bernie's diversity Weekend at Bernie's. Oh,
Phil 34:56
yeah, absolutely.
Kevin Erhard 34:57
It's we it's a weekend Weekend at Bernie's rules. I mean, you're Rick is alive and Bernie is dead. But you know, same, same concept.
Phil 35:05
Exactly. It just you get this impression because he doesn't want to keep marching. But the armor forces him so yeah, you do see this, you kind of imagine his upper body bending back while his legs are just kind of stepping along. Yeah, it's kinda hilarious. Especially when we get to a point where he just wants to take a nap and he cannot. He cannot.
Kevin Erhard 35:28
Yeah, I have no nap and I must nap. Right. So yeah, as he's walking along, he starts to remember exactly what happened. Right? And a camera went out of focus.
Phil 35:43
Get back on their camera.
Kevin Erhard 35:45
Do you see follow the finger? Follow this thing are
Phil 35:50
everything is haunted in your office today. Whatever. melodious sound of your voice will have to be
Kevin Erhard 36:00
the melodious sound of my voice will carry you carry you through carries through the night Norik remembers that he ripped out fast and throat. Yeah, just ripped it right on out.
Phil 36:13
You don't forget that. I hope
Kevin Erhard 36:15
you don't forget that. And then he How did he kill Souderton not it wasn't pleasant. However it was it was it? It's it's dead. He's dead though. By the some both? Yeah, kill some both. And he he also white puts the blood on the armor. He like your mercy wipes
Phil 36:34
that he is there's a theme of that. Even the armor likes having blood white.
Kevin Erhard 36:40
It enjoys the blood that enjoys blood on it. It is it is sort of like the those those There's Chris swords from dune. Right in needs. It needs to soak up some blood before you put it away.
Phil 36:54
Exactly. So he's marching along. He's trying to remove his gloves. He can't do it. That tries the other pieces of armor he has on because he's like, okay, the gloves won't come off. But you know, but the are the boots and everything. They've got clasps on it. Maybe I can unclasp them. And the moment he does that they just clasp right back together again. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 37:16
Not happening.
Kevin Erhard 37:17
Yeah, not happening. He's not
Phil 37:20
basically he's like, I've got to find a wizard who will uncurse I'm wearing a cursed item. It's old RPG rules where you haven't identified the item. You equip it anyway. If you first find someone to uncurse it
Kevin Erhard 37:33
bad news when you when you when you when you put on some cursed
Phil 37:39
gear to it always identify your items first always identify
Kevin Erhard 37:43
first. So he starts like stumbling a little bit. His well his body starts stumbling over because he doesn't want to be walking anyway. And he realizes that he's hungry. Like he hasn't eaten anything. So his body is basically just starting to fail. Right? And there's one thing that the armor cannot abide is its boy Norik having a rumbly tummy.
Phil 38:07
It's whiny human.
Kevin Erhard 38:09
It's whiny human. So in the most absurd scene. I love this. It's so good. It's it is it is it is it is so overly complicated in a way to feed somebody. The armor summons opens a rift in the ground and summons demons out of it. Yep. for the express purpose of cooking him a rabbit.
Phil 38:40
Right? He literally he literally utters a magic word, the earth opens up half a dozen pig demons crawl out of it's like a it's like a third graders idea of what hell is like literal pig monsters pulling themselves out of the earth. And they're not happy to be there. Then the armor like or like make sense. Oh, yeah. Farmer makes them utter a word that terrifies them. They go off and run or they bring back a dead goat, several rabbits and a lizard and he kind of said, Alright, the rabbit I guess he's kind of disgusted by all this. And he goes to pick up one of the rabbits and the armor burns his hand and he doesn't know why until he pulls his hand back and sees that the rabbit has now been dressed and seasoned and perfectly cool officially perfectly cooked her the SU V read of medieval armor. He has just perfectly cut this rabbit at it and he kind of at he just and he eats it. This is the greatest armor of all time and armor of all time trainees are revolting. And he eats the rabbit gives the rest of the big demons who kind of make him lose his appetite and the way that they eat it. Yeah, they crawl back into the earth which closes up after them and he moves on like continue as the armor moves. It's like we were talking about this before. It's like this armor does a will do all kinds of shit. It's going to summon things out of nowhere. It's going to do all kinds it is literal plot armor.
Kevin Erhard 40:15
Yeah, do whatever the story may do
Phil 40:17
whatever the story needs, but first, and usually in a pretty effective, straightforward, straight line kind of way. But for whatever reason, whatever reason, it's
Kevin Erhard 40:27
like, we're gonna summon some hunt some pig demons to hunt some some food for
Phil 40:32
you. And this isn't the first time. The only time it's gonna happen. This is the only time it's gonna happen. It's no it isn't like
Kevin Erhard 40:38
it. Yeah,
Phil 40:41
it's just, it's crazy. It's like, that's the one. I love it so much. detail.
Kevin Erhard 40:48
It's an amazing detail. And I love like, it's like something you want to fold into a d&d game.
Phil 40:54
Oh, my God. And I'm going to the moment we play a d&d game with someone who doesn't listen to the show,
Kevin Erhard 41:04
you're gonna have like this really weird random encounter.
Phil 41:08
Yeah, pig demon sous chefs. And just like, oh, it's gonna be amazing.
Kevin Erhard 41:13
It's like, you're okay, you're taking first watch, you can do roll D 20. For me. It's like a seven. And you're like, alright, well, the earth trembles before you and and it opens up and these pig demons come out.
Phil 41:26
Yeah, and one D four plus two pig demons.
Kevin Erhard 41:29
One D four plus two big demons come out and, and but they're wearing chef's hats.
Phil 41:36
And one of them you can't understand what they're saying. But one of them just displays a diploma from the Cordon Bleu Institute. So
Kevin Erhard 41:44
and they they they quickly and efficiently chop down some wood build a little pop up shop for
Phil 41:53
that starts selling you kidney pies. You don't want to know where they came from. But there they are.
Kevin Erhard 41:58
They have kidneys want with them when they came out of hell. So you know, come to your conclusions.
Phil 42:04
Probably. Probably the kidneys have some damage to people's. Yes. And yeah, so finally he's full of food. He feels better because he's not starving anymore. But now all he wants to do is sleep. And he literally cannot fill armor will not let him sit down. No, it will. Which just mentally brings to mind the most ridiculous like if you were adapting this to a movie, you could not include this scene now without completely losing all credibility and
Kevin Erhard 42:31
armor is a dad driving his family on a cross country trip.
Phil 42:38
Yeah, just just No, no, no,
Kevin Erhard 42:41
everyone's saying stop and be like driving by a McDonald's like, can we stop get McDonald's and the dad pulls in orders a black coffee and
Phil 42:51
Mr. Mulaney this is what we're doing. And it just and forces him to keep marching. So Norick is having a real nice not
Kevin Erhard 43:00
having a good time, nor is having a real bad time that he's alive, which is more than his buddies. This is why we're not calling Norik a hero. Right? Because he's not having puppet. He's he's not he's just like a poor buddy.
Phil 43:15
Right? What? What nor would or wouldn't do given his own free will? We do not know. We know. He has not had free will for the majority of time that we've known him. Yes. So we don't know if he's a good guy. Bad guy. He's just he's a he's a warm body.
Kevin Erhard 43:31
He's a warm body and that's the all the armor really needs right now. But now we meet we meet ostensibly our protagonist maybe I don't know yet. See, we'll see after as we get further into the book. I don't know yet though.
Phil 43:47
So far. This one feels like the only one that we could call a hero question mark. Question mark. Yeah, Kara? Sure. Who is a necromancer?
Kevin Erhard 43:57
Yeah, she is. She's a follower of wrath, ma and a necromancer
Phil 44:02
and don't get a lot of heroic necromancer. So we don't that I don't have my favorite wizard classes. Yeah,
Kevin Erhard 44:08
it's it's nice. Because you know what, it's more of just like, like necromage just because they deal with death a lot doesn't mean that they're inherently bad. They just have a broad understanding of death. And I think that's kind of how they portray Kara as like, Excuse me, like death is just part of the cycle of life. And she's, it's just where she draws her magic from.
Phil 44:27
She says she's a part of the death positivity movement, that positivity movement, which I which I love, so yeah, keep them going.
Kevin Erhard 44:34
Keep them going. So she shows up at the tomb of of Bartok, and she's like, Yeah, fuck.
Phil 44:44
She immediately sees Oh, no.
Kevin Erhard 44:47
So she's the backstory on her is interesting because she is like one of the less least experienced members of whatever group she's a member of The Apprentice kind of an apprentice. So she's a low ranking person, and but everybody else is busy. So they're like, hey, everybody else is busy doing shit. They're like, can you go check on the tomb of Bartok? We have bad feeling something happened there. She's like, okay, and she goes down there. And yes, something bad happened there. The armors missing. Right? The whole
Phil 45:17
what? Yeah, that whole thing, the thing that we're trying to intuit and encapsulate here to avoid because it's the end of the world.
Kevin Erhard 45:23
Yeah. Because it's her group's magic that set the trap the, the trap of the resurrecting soldiers. So basically, every time somebody made it further into the tomb, it would add to the numbers of of the A undead
Phil 45:39
that would attack the great trap when he did. It makes its own gravy. It's fantastic. It
Kevin Erhard 45:44
does. But now they're all gone. And there's like two fresh dead bodies down there. Yeah, and the armor is missing.
Phil 45:53
So she basically she investigates the Faustian, the dead wizards body and does this ritual that essentially summons the ghost of the wizard or kind of a placeholder and he or she has to ask it, very simple question, Weegee board rules, right? Right. Yes, or no, that kind of thing. It was very, it made me think a lot. It was the very Vampire the Masquerade, necromancy kind of thing like very simple, the dead kind of deal and it gives her a brief idea, basically, of what went down and to do all this, she uses this powerful magic ivory handled knife. That's like this ritual dagger that like it cuts into stone at one point, it's a pretty badass weapon. And she but she hears the sound of the tomb and ends up following this crimson figure that she sees and kind of assumes that must be a ghost or something that she's going to have to expel. She leaves her knife behind, and when she realizes that she's left it behind, she turns around to go get it. And at that point, she realizes that the knife, both of the corpses and the Crimson figure are all poof, they're gone.
Kevin Erhard 47:09
Oops, basically. Imagine a cop leaving his losing his gun on his first day on the job. Oh, God. That's basically what carriages
Phil 47:22
that is exactly. Yeah, bad shit. That's Oh my god. That's exactly what
Kevin Erhard 47:30
she's a she's a she's basically a necromancy cop.
Phil 47:38
She's a she's a necromancy Mall Cop and it's the most dangerous mall in the world. So and she was the whole King of Prussia or something. Yes. That's, that's for the Pennsylvanians.
Kevin Erhard 47:50
That's for the Pennsylvanians. Also the largest mall on the Eastern Seaboard. Yes, that's yes. So you know, so that's
Phil 47:58
super dangerous. How Chapter
Kevin Erhard 48:06
Three ends chapter three ends with with Cara losing her gun, and Chapter Four begins with kind of like a weird scene, and I have no idea what it means. This is basically an old dude. And there's a snake and a beetle. And yeah, like,
Phil 48:23
we get we get this nature. See, we get this weird. David Attenborough kind of scene, this is how I interpreted it's like, it's this sand snake slithering through the desert sun trying to find shelter because the sun's only getting higher. And, and as it goes, it gets devoured by this seven foot long beetle that sees an old weathered man there and spits a civic Venom at him. It burns through the guy's shirt starts to damage him and he just kind of with a wave of his hand, dissipates the horrible venom, and with a second wave of his hand essentially just destroys the giant bug. He refers to it as a sand maggot. Yeah, and then even home in the dunes just kind of
Kevin Erhard 49:09
appear up to him like he's the diamond in the rough.
Phil 49:12
Right? Right. Exactly. If it had been in the shape of a tiger with an open mouth, I wouldn't have been surprised. Yeah, and he just kind of mutters something vague about evil is coming and to his death.
Kevin Erhard 49:26
Be careful, right? When I go into my into my second house,
Phil 49:31
I love i i am invested in his survival and is due now so I wanted to her
Kevin Erhard 49:39
and so that's a real brief scene. Now we're back with Norik the walking man.
Phil 49:45
Oh, yeah, the the ultimate walking man. Forgive
Kevin Erhard 49:48
me for not walking man. NORC finds himself finds himself at an inn. Yes, if you think this is going to end well. No spoilers it's not
Phil 50:02
it's not nothing with his armor Ends Well yeah, but we do get we get an in and you see it's filled with a motley gathering of people
Kevin Erhard 50:12
just like hive of scum and villainy,
Phil 50:16
right I was about to say it was like the moss Eisely cantina Cisely cantina for all frost with your least favorite d&d group. You know, the one that you played in middle school yeah, just everyone's a power gamer.
Kevin Erhard 50:31
Everyone's a power gamer. They're all min max and it's all weather hobos.
Phil 50:35
Yeah, exactly. So the innkeeper he's starving and the in the innkeeper tells them he can't have any food without any money. So the armor essentially conjures 100 coins gold,
Kevin Erhard 50:48
and that goes like oh, is this behind you? You're 30 years is this your card?
Phil 50:54
Yeah, and yeah, and and basically the gold it's because he's paying with gold and not like trade like normally in this kind of area. You'd be like, Hey, I've got some eggs can I write or something? And I don't know why you trade food for more food but the point is it's it's a trade to barter system right and the gold has gotten people's attention just
Kevin Erhard 51:18
be oh, by the way, I enjoy that they that he Richard neck describes the innkeeper as having an extravagant belly
Phil 51:27
Oh yeah. I was like that's what I'm calling this thing from now on. This isn't this isn't this isn't a beer god it's an extravagant belly like god yeah, that's that is that is good right Nick?
Kevin Erhard 51:44
The earth sign giant
Phil 51:49
he has a way with words that uh, yeah is just an earth sign Jain with an extravagant belly. Yeah, so the guy basically piece of gold and he's like, Okay, I need a room. So he gets a room
Kevin Erhard 52:02
because I've taken his stew and he's taking the stew up to his room
Phil 52:06
and he's like I'm gonna die right like all of those guys so the gold they're gonna fuck
Kevin Erhard 52:10
me. It's like the armor is not very bright basic. No,
Phil 52:13
no, the armor is very single minded it's like Look we're just gonna give these people what they want what they what they want the most. Yeah, it seems to be what it is. And and and then we get to move on with our lives. So but finally the armor does let poor North get some sleep. Yeah. So he he has a dream of being general Barr to essentially he's the he's in charge of a bunch of horrible demons and he's having this terrible dream of being a monster and wakes to the sound of someone slowly, quietly making up they're making their way upstairs and
Kevin Erhard 52:48
Norfolk's like there's no there's no reason for anybody to be sneaking. Right The only reason for anyone to be sneaking and I hear you doing your sneaky moves, is if they're trying to kill me.
Phil 52:59
Right. Guys bust in the door trying to kill them.
Kevin Erhard 53:04
So narc calls it they try. They come right and try to kill him. And he is thinking momentarily like maybe the armors just gonna let me die and it thinks one of these guys is better suited to be in the armor or something. But no, the armor kills the shit out of the
Phil 53:23
hills. the shit out of these guys summons a sword from out of nowhere,
Kevin Erhard 53:28
like a warlock like a
Phil 53:30
warrior just and just kills everybody. They end up rolling downstairs where the innkeeper and one of his buddies are waiting to basically break these guys because they see the guys running out again. Yeah, and they're ready to be like what the fuck Where did you not get the guy's money? Right and keepers in on it. Yeah. And and but instead they find themselves being attacked by a weird half sleepy?
Kevin Erhard 53:56
Yeah, he's studying Russian guy from his throat all the way down to his waist.
Phil 54:02
Oh, yeah, there's a graphic fights. There's
Kevin Erhard 54:04
some graphic violence in this. So So he goes downstairs and he faces off against the innkeeper who has the biggest sword he has ever seen. And the innkeeper is a had he been had he not been in the armor. He the innkeeper might have won because the innkeeper is actually kind of clever with his fighting. He knows how to surround somebody and he's also massive. But he's clearly been a fighter in the past. Norik has the armor of Bartok. And yeah, he kills kills the other guy. Innkeeper takes off running. Yeah. And then the armor not satisfied. Takes the blood of one of the dudes draws a symbol and summons a demon and then tells the demon to go fetch the bartender.
Phil 54:54
Yeah, it is it is pig rabbit dinner all over again. cuz it's like okay I'm not because armor because here's the thing the armor I don't run and run yeah I'm gonna let someone else do that yeah he delegates the chasing
Kevin Erhard 55:13
to a demon is like that's far you know yeah okay go get back guy and he does I mean the you the death happens off screen as much as you can in a book right it's like it's like no it says something like Norick here's the screams raise and pitch until there suddenly
Phil 55:32
yeah it's yeah so we know what happened
Kevin Erhard 55:37
we know what happens if
Phil 55:39
so and then and then the armor continues to play with the blood I'm assuming it's just going to rub more of that blood into just itself relatively moisturize regimen you know I only get to do it when I kill people so once or twice a day tops
Unknown Speaker 55:57
yeah
Phil 55:59
and we cut to general malevolent again our maybe hero maybe a good guy you never know could be a good guy and
Kevin Erhard 56:06
maybe he's a good guy he's looking on the city of loot go lane. Yes which is like the richest city in the land because and nobody's ever taken it
Phil 56:18
and right you're always protected it
Kevin Erhard 56:21
yeah it's like he thinks it might be magic is protecting it. I mean it's also very hard to attack because of the it's like a strip it's a narrow stretch of land situated between two Cs or something like that. So it's very defensible that he also thinks there's some sort of magic yeah magical luck that the city has
Phil 56:42
a little bit of we get a little bit of backstory on him he started out kind of as a commoner you know and kind of Ray he is bootstrap he's
Kevin Erhard 56:52
a landless noble. So he is the title of a noble but he doesn't have the lands of a noble
Phil 56:59
that's what it is. Yeah, yep. And and he thinks that bar touques problem was that bar to while he was a warlord and everything like that bartender was not a soldier was not a soldier. He was a sorcerer.
Kevin Erhard 57:13
He was a sorcerer that fell into the war lording by way of magic not by the way of knowing how to run an army
Phil 57:19
right it's a very it's a very right wing America hating college professors and theory kind of thing pretty much it's like theory versus action. He's like his problem is he spent too much time thinking about it and studying shit. And I want to get out there and get my fuck so
Kevin Erhard 57:36
so malevolence real goal then is once he gets the armor of Bartok is to resurrect rack Yeah, I was gonna say Oh, resurrect JFK Jr. Right I mean that's yeah, that's the endgame here
Phil 57:54
Yeah, it's obvious all signs point to yes we both Oh, our political humor knows no bounds.
Kevin Erhard 58:05
We've even we've even squeezed it right into Diablo I mean right in there it's you'll never ever escape you'll never escape you'll never but I think one of the interesting things is is malevolent has thinking all these thoughts and like yes, these are all my own thoughts and then we get to the next scene and Zach's like Hi there my thoughts
Phil 58:28
clearly whispering these ideas into the level and
Kevin Erhard 58:32
he's doing what demons do and he's he's planting thoughts and malevolence head and one of the things I love is we get a little backstory into the politics of health Yes, I
Phil 58:41
made a little graph you made a graph I made a little it's not much of one little show everyone on Twitter for the episode comes out but I did the infernal Civil War Yep, so we get we get the fit we get it figured out so Diablo it's it's basically it's asthma Dan and belly all or Bliley is how they say it in the audio book. But asthma den, which is kind of a take on Asmodeus I kind of love Diablo because it's not Christianity does not appear to exist right old school, Dark Ages demons and angels and hopefully
Kevin Erhard 59:15
very it Yeah, it uses Old Testament names.
Phil 59:19
So yeah, so we've got asthma Dan and belly owl are Belisle fighting against fighting against the other side of hell. And Diablo Diablo who wants to free his brother's bail and bail and Mephisto Yeah, so that's that's the weekend and zizic serves a while.
Kevin Erhard 59:39
So as Medan and Belisle have been are fighting each other. Bail and fighting I thought they were fighting Wow So bail and Mephisto are imprisoned as Madana and Bill aisle are fighting each other and Diablo they fear would so because I say xaxis Lord belie Oh word award his humble servant for such a fine not only had the civil war in hell against as Medan knock on well of late and troublesome rumors had reached the their that the primeval Diablo had made good as escape and if so huge free his brothers bail and Mephisto so it's like a it's like a it's like a hell triangle right you got asthma gonna be it's gonna be hell angle yeah hell angle you got asthma Dan versus belie el versus Diablo lufisto and bail
Phil 1:00:31
so it's more like that
Kevin Erhard 1:00:33
yes exactly
Phil 1:00:38
check out our Twitter account check out our Twitter and wanted to see my beautiful illustration.
Kevin Erhard 1:00:44
Exactly. So Zach's works for a while. Yes hello aisles his boss. And okay, yeah, yep. And as and currently they are on the losing side as Medan is the one who is currently winning the war, the civil war in hell, it seems. Yes. So far. And and whatever is as x is doing with Bartok's armor is kind of like a seems to be seems to be a Hail Mary.
Phil 1:01:14
Really is it's like it's like one last big chance see a
Kevin Erhard 1:01:17
move? Yeah. Like if we could get control of this. It might tilt the civil war in favor of us.
Phil 1:01:24
Right. Right. So he's, he's kind of contemplating all of this. When galley ona show shows up and demands to know what the hell he's doing.
Kevin Erhard 1:01:34
Yeah, it's like you're not supposed to be out and about you didn't guess. Right?
Phil 1:01:39
What are you doing? And he and he just lies and says, I've been studying the helmet. I'm just checking out the vertex helmet. And that's fine. You know,
Kevin Erhard 1:01:50
it's fine. And she's like, okay, yeah.
Phil 1:01:53
And then you get our we get our first mention of angels in this which I thought was great the way that demons See, angels. Let's see. He says, the demon respected her abilities in this matter. Even if he felt confident that in the struggle between galley ona and himself, the Witch woman would surely lose. After all, she was mortal, not one of the fowl angels. Had she been such Zach might have been more concerned, angels were conniving, working behind the scenes playing tricks instead of confronting their foes directly
Kevin Erhard 1:02:25
Me thinks that's foreshadowing.
Phil 1:02:27
I think so. And we get this great moment at the end of the chapter where he literally zyk is thinking about angels and he outloud mocks the idea of angels coming get me and angels I'm not afraid of you and me bro. Yeah, and then the light the torch like jumps just like you know how I like layers. Yeah, flares up a bit and he like jumps for a second and becomes the Mantis version of self like and he like
Kevin Erhard 1:02:56
he like retreats back into the shadows and yeah, he's like stupid fucking
Phil 1:03:01
wish. You're sure. I mean, just don't give your pet Yeah, yeah, it wasn't you was it who see like yeah, that's basically what happened.
Kevin Erhard 1:03:15
I love the fact that I love how much like he humanized Zach's like after our first encounter with him. He's like, Oh, he's like some creepy Mantis demon but then in this chapter I love where we leave with Zach's where he's like, he's he's he's just a little paranoid.
Phil 1:03:35
He's always and he's a toady like he said a toadies like total is like your baby Toady. It's fantastic.
Kevin Erhard 1:03:44
Is he is not he's not the boss. He's a henchman
Phil 1:03:48
No Yeah, yeah the first time you see him and the first time you see a demon any demons gonna be scary. But then when you get to know him later he's just he's just yeah, he's a demon but he's kind of a panty waste of a demon. It's fantastic.
Kevin Erhard 1:04:04
So Norik we pick up chapter five Norik is back on the road again. Yes. After his fresh slaughter at the
Phil 1:04:13
feeling feeling a little guilty about all the people that helped kills
Kevin Erhard 1:04:16
not feeling great. No,
Phil 1:04:19
he feels these not these like this really does suck lows.
Kevin Erhard 1:04:23
So they're like walking towards the ocean and he's like he's like it's the armor just gonna make me walk through the ocean and I'm just gonna drown or so I
Phil 1:04:36
love that part like he's been it's been the armor is so single minded Yeah, that he's worried the arbors just gonna go oh, the easiest way is just a march through the sea. Just Just keep walking and just forget about him and he's like, I That would suck that would be horrible. Remember that but that doesn't happen.
Kevin Erhard 1:04:53
Thank No, it seems it seems more and more the armor needs a living hosts. Yeah, it cannot be it like he has to be alive it because otherwise otherwise it would have let him die a lot earlier it's clear that he has to be alive and and like functioning in order for the armor to actually use him.
Phil 1:05:16
So yeah, yeah
Kevin Erhard 1:05:18
armor does not raise it like it doesn't do anything crazy like that he runs into a fisherman and the he's basically the armor like is like stops and he has to figure out what the armor wants right so he's talking to this fisherman and basically through a q&a he clicks through a dialogue tree
Phil 1:05:42
it's kinda like you when you think about it he's kind of like on in an adventure game yeah he's got every time you stop for something you've got to figure out what it is that the armor wants so every stop is like a dialogue tree or a puzzle or something like
Kevin Erhard 1:05:58
that. Yeah, he finds out that the what the armor wants is to go to loot galane which happens to be where where what's his name a level in level and yeah, he's amassing his army not far from so the armor wants to go to loot galane And basically the guy the fisherman's like well there's three ships one is going back west. My there's my ships going to loot go lane, but we're not leaving until next week, and then this other shitty ship is going to look away and like today and
Phil 1:06:31
he's like, stay off of
Kevin Erhard 1:06:32
that. Don't go on it. That's terrible. And he wasn't lying. It's terrible.
Phil 1:06:37
It really I actually grabbed I thought this was a pretty good description of our of our pretty boats. This is called the it's called the Hawks fire. And it says the three masts stood like tall skeletal sentinels half wrapped in the shroud like sails. The figurehead at bow once probably a curvaceous mermaid had been worn down by the elements until it now resembled more and aquatic Banshee and mid shriek. As for the whole itself. Something had long ago stained the wood nearly to pitch and scars rake to the sides making Norik wonder if at some point in its colored past, the vessel had either served in war or more likely had been used more than once as a freebooter. So he's about to board the Millennium Falcon. Fucking hunk of junk,
Kevin Erhard 1:07:27
a hunk of junk is bucket of bolts is yeah, it's not gonna even get out of the system. So basically, he's talking to the captain, who this he he's a rather haggard figure. And this is great description as well. What do you want? The skeleton coalesced into an older man with parchment skin and absolutely no flesh and sinew but beneath the thin veil of life.
Phil 1:07:58
This guy's a good writer, you know, like, like, if there's one thing that Richard that seems to know how to do it's it's just need
Kevin Erhard 1:08:07
to seem. It's like, it's like, it was like, oh, it's not a skeleton. It's a really old man who might as well be
Phil 1:08:14
real old dirtbag of a man. And he is he's the captain of the ship captain Kasko.
Kevin Erhard 1:08:21
Captain ESCO when he speaks in, in sentence fragments, right?
Phil 1:08:26
And he tells him and the guy and the guys like ship, okay, the armor wants. We gotta ride this boat. And so, in this is I found really interesting because so far we've seen the armor summon things out of nowhere. And in this time, he says, you know, what, what would it cost for me to board? And the captain asks for a specific kind of coin? Yes. Is it gold? He doesn't say and he just he's just like,
Kevin Erhard 1:08:52
assuming it's a very specific currency. Right. And
Phil 1:08:55
before nor can even figure out well, how much is that in real person dollars? I don't know. The armor just pulls out a handful of those very coins. Yeah. And it's kind of Yeah, it's it gets it's starting to get real specific. Yeah. On the ship. Yeah. So he gets in. He's got to they give him a room and he heats up. It's a it's a shithole. And it's he and he gets some sleep and once again dreams of that
Kevin Erhard 1:09:25
he is bar tar tuk. Yeah. Yeah. And the bell rings
Phil 1:09:30
the thank thank God right. I'm sure this place serves some some stand up cuisine.
Kevin Erhard 1:09:37
It doesn't. He goes to get he gets the food. He's gonna take it back to his room. And then Norik sees faston standing on the deck of the ship and he's so startled. He drops the food and cascos like What mess you clean it up. No help. Yeah, you're like you're not getting any more food.
Phil 1:10:00
does sound like a Star Wars alien? Like translator? No clean you clean? Yeah. Like it's yeah it's weird so in
Kevin Erhard 1:10:10
Casco the Java, right?
Phil 1:10:14
And and so Nora kind of gathers himself and basically starts worrying that not only is it that this doesn't end well for him in terms of him living or dying. He's also concerned now he's like, I don't think I'm I think I'm losing my soul here. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:29
Yeah,
Phil 1:10:31
it gets really dark.
Kevin Erhard 1:10:32
Really dark and we're back with Cara.
Phil 1:10:36
Cara. Thank goodness Carol. Good
Kevin Erhard 1:10:37
goodness. Karen shadow
Phil 1:10:40
Gaya cool. Port Town.
Kevin Erhard 1:10:43
Yeah, she's she's trying to figure things out. She's, uh,
Phil 1:10:47
he's looking for everything. She's
Kevin Erhard 1:10:48
looking for everything. She and she arrives at an inn called the captain's table, which, which is a jaunty little joint. And absolutely, she meets a cheerful man. Just Captain hanos dronin Who is the owner and proprietor of this establishment and he's he's flirting with her a little, flirty, flirty old man and cares. Like oh my.
Phil 1:11:14
Yeah, we do get we do get some very dated. You don't know how beautiful you are kind of description here. Yeah. We're like because he's he's not like trying to get in there. He's just he's just you know, flirting a little bit. Yeah. Saying that. She's beautiful. Fair, is what he says. And and we do get a like, she never thought of herself that way. I somehow like the other girls, right? Yeah. And wizarding school some people found me attractive, I suppose. And it Yeah, you do feel like it was a screenplay. It would be hot but doesn't know it. Yeah, it's like, yeah, we get over that pretty quick. Thankfully, I read it. We don't dwell on them. No,
Kevin Erhard 1:11:56
we don't dwell on it too. Too much. Basically, the captain. She, she buys she buys some cider. She gets some cider, a fish a nice fish meal. And a captain's like owl. I'll answer whatever questions you got. Just eat up.
Phil 1:12:13
Any rant even offers your free food and free room? Yeah. Yeah. Because he knows what she is. He knows that. She's a necromancer.
Kevin Erhard 1:12:21
He knows he's like, he's like, Yeah, I've been a fan of the rathmell people for a long time. You know? They've always like they've always been nice to me basically.
Phil 1:12:30
Right? He's really nice. He said, You know of all the people all the people that we all wizards I've ever met you people are always the nice ones. Yeah. Which I believe I think I think if your day to day business involves death you're probably going to be pretty nice. Yeah,
Kevin Erhard 1:12:43
you're gonna be pretty nice. Oh, God. So she asks him you know, some some questions like hey, have you seen anybody with the Crimson plate and drones like no, I don't
Phil 1:12:58
think he's Yeah, he's very wishy washy. He
Kevin Erhard 1:13:01
is very wishy washy. And that Cara. Cara notices that she is sleepy. And not Oh, yeah. And not tired. Sleepy, but sleepy, sleepy. And now she's like, oh, you
Phil 1:13:14
know, something may have happened to my side or something. I wonder if it was the inappropriately flirty guy who I wonder if it
Kevin Erhard 1:13:23
was the inappropriately flirty old man.
Phil 1:13:28
So she ends up because we actually don't
Kevin Erhard 1:13:30
get we don't get a full answer on that. But she does. We we don't know if it was him. Specifically, she heads out because fresh air is going to help and she like she heads out. breathes in the salty fresh air and it does help to clear your head for a moment. Yeah, before she's whacked upside. Buddy,
Phil 1:13:50
right. She sees she sees a figure carrying or knife. She sees the wizard and the star dune character both of our dead adventuring party friends who are kind of corpse suffi. They're not like full zombies, but they're still bearing the wounds. They killed them. Yep, dead but moving around. Yeah, so
Kevin Erhard 1:14:11
we find out that it was it was it was faston had cast a spell on her to knock her out. And yeah, they they knock her out they have her dagger. And she's they basically hit her on the head. And it's you know that scene and back to the future. Part Two were easy, the easy way.
Phil 1:14:43
The easy, weird scene in a movie.
Kevin Erhard 1:14:48
You want to do this the hard way or the easy way? Easy way.
Phil 1:14:54
So well, that's chapter Five,
Kevin Erhard 1:15:00
that's chapter five. And that's where we're gonna leave it for tonight. So even what do you feel in so far? Man, there's so many threads. It's like there's so many threads,
Phil 1:15:08
you know exactly what it is we are we are setting up so many threads here. It's a little slow. To start with that I, I am optimistic. I feel like we're going somewhere with this.
Kevin Erhard 1:15:21
I think I have faith, you know, I wasn't sure but talking through it. Talking through it just now I have faith that it's probably all going to tie together and some nice way, you know, effective way it's gonna it's gonna like a little. It's basically like, it's like making a rope. You know, all the threads are currently loose. So like, Oh, we got all these threads. And now we're going to start tying them together.
Phil 1:15:46
Right? Right. And so it's it's pretty cool so far. It's pretty cool. And it's fun that like characters like for example, Faustian and say, say Dune, who I just kind of thought were like, throw in, you know, party members to be killed in the beginning. Yeah, to set things up. But when they're back, they're back like everybody that they've introduced so far, except for the sand snake has kind of come back. And significance. And maybe and maybe the sense they go come back. I don't know. But we've had a lot of little seeds planted. We've got weird desert dwelling hermit guy. Yeah. I can't believe that the camp, the captain innkeeper, that this is the last we'll see of him. If this is if that was it, then he spent a lot of time describing this extravagant
Kevin Erhard 1:16:37
belly is yeah, I want to
Phil 1:16:41
I want I think I think we've got a lot of cool. Yeah. Cool shit going here. So fingers crossed. But yeah, I'm optimistic. I feel good about this. I feel good about it, too. Frankly, it's just good to be doing a little little sword swinging. Yeah, a little Robert E. Howard. For us.
Kevin Erhard 1:16:59
Yeah, why not? I mean, the dude broke Conan before he's, he's written Hell yeah. He's written a Conan book. So you know, oh,
Phil 1:17:06
my god, I can't tell you if I if I were a writer for hire. And someone told me where you want to raise a quotation, you'd write code and I lose my shit. I'd be like trying real? I'd be like, Well, that sounds like it would be very difficult. But you know, I think I think I can do I'm a great admirer of this franchise. Thank you so much. I'm gonna I'm gonna just get excuse me one second. And I think I've put them on mute and I start screaming and like so for some reason, farting and puking everywhere. And it sounds. I realize I haven't muted them. And they're like, we we actually changed our mind. We're gonna give it to this. Kevin guy.
Kevin Erhard 1:17:47
We're going in another direction.
Phil 1:17:48
Yeah, we're going into non a non vomiting when you're excited direction. Yeah, yeah. Like yeah, that makes sense. Cool. Good
Kevin Erhard 1:17:59
call. Good call. I buy it.
Phil 1:18:02
I'll just continue on my leisure suit. Larry fan pitch
Kevin Erhard 1:18:07
are you working on?
Phil 1:18:10
Now I am. Now that I've put that
Kevin Erhard 1:18:13
out in the universe, please. I mean, I don't know who owns leisure suit. Larry right now.
Phil 1:18:19
I don't think it's Rob Lowe.
Kevin Erhard 1:18:22
Rob Lowe, Rob Lowe. Rob Lowe.
Phil 1:18:28
Oh my god, I'm an asshole. I interviewed the fucking guy.
Kevin Erhard 1:18:33
Are you talking about the
Phil 1:18:36
Paulo? Oh, Allah alto. Okay. Hello. I mean, I've actually I've actually spoken to him. With my mouth
Kevin Erhard 1:18:44
with your mouth. The words We chatted for
Phil 1:18:46
like an hour and a half. He was a super nice guy. And I'm an asshole for not remembering him. Well, there you go. I'll reach out and be like, hey, oh, what do you think
Kevin Erhard 1:18:55
you know who wants this fanfiction?
Phil 1:18:59
Yeah, I at the time, I was actually considering writing like a history of leisure suit, Larry book, like I was just playing with the idea. And we got to talking and he was like, you want to write up a book? And I was like, yeah, and he goes, who do you think's gonna read it
Kevin Erhard 1:19:12
about? Larry?
Phil 1:19:16
And when? When the creator of the franchise is like, I don't know if anyone's gonna read that.
Kevin Erhard 1:19:23
Yeah, he's doing like the cut off motion with. Some things are better left in the 80s.
Phil 1:19:32
Yeah. And more and more Harebrained Schemes for me. So yeah.
Kevin Erhard 1:19:39
Anyway, so thanks, everybody, for listening. We've had this episode is going to be coming out in March. But we're just coming off a spectacular February of growth and new people in the pod.
Phil 1:19:53
It's been so cool to see. So cool.
Kevin Erhard 1:19:56
And we're also coming off a couple of episodes. woods with our good friend Aaron Hess is from the oops all monsters so if you're new to the podcast please go listen to those episodes and please go check out oops all monsters because they are hilarious hilarious. So that'll do it for tonight. Please if you can rate us five stars on the platform of your choice whether that be iTunes, Apple podcasts or Spotify those are the rating platforms I believe in you know just get click Make sure you click that follow and subscribe button follow us on Twitter, share us with your friends share us with your family shares with everyone you love and cherish deeply because we are the gift that keeps on giving.
Phil 1:20:46
We give we give we give and take nothing we
Kevin Erhard 1:20:51
take nothing pixel it makes the world takes as the that is a very specific reference to a bridge in Trenton that has Trenton makes the world takes in big letters on the side of it and I don't that's for like five people you've dug deep for that. That is impressed that is a deep cut tread and makes the world takes pixel in the world.
Phil 1:21:15
We don't pixel it does not take we just passive aggressively make comments under our breath at Thanksgiving.
Kevin Erhard 1:21:22
Yeah, that's an as you do, and you should, as you should. And tradition, proud tradition. That'll do it. Have a good night everybody. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai