Chapter Text
A young man stands in his bedroom. It just so happens that today, the 13th of April, 2009, is this young man's birthday. Though it was thirteen years ago he was given life, it is only today he will be given a name!
However, we'll skip the dumb joke because already know it, and that name is!
[ZOOSMELL POOPLORD]
Oh, my sweet nonexistent Gog. you just HAD TO didn't you? well whatever let's do that again
[JOHN EGBERT]
Good now where were we? Ah right.
Your name is JOHN. As was previously mentioned it is your BIRTHDAY. A number of CAKES are scattered about your room. You have a variety of INTERESTS. You have a passion for REALLY TERRIBLE MOVIES. You like to program computers but you are NOT VERY GOOD AT IT. You have a fondness for PARANORMAL LORE, and are an aspiring AMATEUR MAGICIAN. You also like to play GAMES sometimes.
now skipping a panel or two for brevity's sake since we all know what happens.
~
You refuse to consume the cake. why? Because are sick to death of cake!!! You've been eating it all day. And you have no intention of clogging your SYLLADEX with it either. The CAKE stays put for now. You hear a notice from your COMPUTER. Someone is messaging you
You pull up to your COMPUTER. This is where you spend most of your time. You decorated your desktop with some rather handsome WALLPAPER which you made yourself. You are really proud of it.
Your desktop is also littered with various PROGRAMMING PROJECT FILES. You are so bad at programming that sometimes you wonder why you even bother with it.
Your PESTERCHUM application is flashing. Someone is trying to get in touch with you. It seems only one of your CHUMS is logged in. He's sent you a message.
-- sparkySpindles [SS] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 16:13 --
SS: morning morning b day boy.
SS: so spill.
SS: what sort of absolutely insane to the membrane loot you rake in today
EB: i got a little monsters poster, it's so awesome. i'm going to watch it again today, the applejuice scene was so funny.
SS: well well talk about coinkidinks.
SS: i JUST convinced the stridster the aj bottle he located was full of nothing but monster howie mandel piss.
EB: ha!
EB: nice one.
SS: yeah i know. comedic excellence over here
SS: anyways egbro
SS: you get the sburb beta yet
SS: also what a dumb name
SS: sburb
SS: it has the same mouth feel as the word smorgasbord
SS: it doesn't feel like a real word
EB: no.
EB: did you?
SS: dude i got both discs already
SS: did you see how it got slammed in game bro????
SS: im playing it exclusively because what they said
SS: fuck game bro
EB: agreed
EB: game bro is a joke and we both know it.
SS: yeah
SS: why dont you go check your mail maybe its there now
SS: I've gotta go annoy and feed the bun
EB: alright. see ya
You see the view of your yard from your window.
Hanging from the tree is your TIRE SWING. In a kid's yard, a tree without a tire swing is like a proper gentleman without a monocle. That is to say, HE CAN HARDLY BE CONSIDERED A TERRIBLY PROPER GENTLEMAN AT ALL.
And there beside your driveway is the mailbox. You look to the mailbox and. Egad! The little red arm-swingy-dealy thing or whatever it is called is flipped up!
What the hell is that thing called anyway. You do not have time for these semantics. The red flippy-lever thing means you have new mail. And that means the beta might be here!
You are about to hurry downstairs when you hear a car pull into the driveway. It looks like your DAD has returned from the grocery store.
Oh great. He is beating you to the mail. Forget it. You'll check the mail later.
If you go down stairs to get it, he will likely monopolize hours of your time. You decide to chill out up here for a while until the dust settles.
Sometimes you feel like you are trapped in this room. Stuck, if you will, in a sense which possibly borders on the titular.
And now your chum is pestering you again. The clockwork of friendship turns ceaselessly, operating the swing-lever dealies of harassment in perpetuity!
SS: is it there?
SS: plz say yes
SS: the show is here
SS: on the grass
SS: when i want it on the road
EB: it's here.
EB: i hope.
EB: dad got to it before me
SS: oof
SS: mayhaps a big one at that
SS: anyways later text me when you got them
EB: yeah i got it
EB: but real quick. what's the order again?
SS: oh you mean the circle of fuckery™
SS: it's GG -> me -> TG -> AC -> TT -> You -> GG
EB: got it!
-- sparkySpindles [SS] stop pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 16:15 --
You thought that it was Strider, didn't you? well, you were wrong. now then let's skip over to Miss Lalonde.
~
A young lady stands in her bedroom. Due to a violent storm, her house has just lost power, along with her wireless internet connection. This has severed her link to a popular video game she was playing with a young man at a critical moment. That young man is relying on this young lady to reestablish a connection somehow. This young lady named...
Named...
Oh let us stop it. We already know who our darling occult lover is. It's-
[FLIGHTY BROAD]
WOW, YOU SURE ARE INSISTENT WITH THAT, DAMN READER OF INDETERMINATE GENDER, damn. now let me just...
[ROSE LALONDE]
There. now.
Your name is ROSE. As was previously mentioned you are without ELECTRICITY, although your LAPTOP COMPUTER still functions on BATTERY POWER. You have a variety of INTERESTS. You have a passion for RATHER OBSCURE LITERATURE. You enjoy creative writing and are SOMEWHAT SECRETIVE ABOUT IT. You have a fondness for the BESTIALLY STRANGE AND FICTITIOUS, and sometimes dabble in PSYCHOANALYSIS. You also like to KNIT, and your room is a BIT OF A MESS. And on occasion, if just the right one strikes your fancy, you like to play VIDEO GAMES with your friends.
You seem to be getting pestered by one of your chums. better answer them before you search for a stable internet connection
-- alchemicalCalibrations [AC] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 17:30 --
AC: Good evening Lalonde.
TT: Ah.
TT: Ms Maxwell
TT: Have you come to sample more of the Lalondian charm?
AC: Sadly no.
AC: Ive come to tell you that I've obtained both copies of the beta
AC: Please contact me when your ready to connect up
TT: Splendid.
TT: Also the correct usage is you're
AC: And YOU'RE a pedantic prude
TT: You can hardly call me a prude. pedantic or otherwise
TT: Especially when we read the same smut
AC: You read smut
AC: I read tasteful erotica
TT: As they say.
TT: Same shit.
AC: Fuck you
TT: And up your's darling
-- alchemicalCalibrations [AC] Ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 17:31 --
For brevity's sake, lets skip over to [S] enter
You are once again Rose, you have finished assisting John in getting to the first gate and now, it's your turn to be the player
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering alchemicalCalibrations [AC] at 18:21 --
TT: I'm ready.
TT: Are you?
AC: Yes. as SS would say.
AC: "lets get the shit show on the shit road"
TT: Yes lets make things transpire
As you wonder how long this is going to take until you see your bed get tossed out in favor of the totem lathe
TT: Was evicting my bed nesseary
AC: Your house is going to go up in flames in a matter of minutes Lalonde
AC: You can be mad at me later
AC: The cruxtruder and pre-punched card is in the observatory and The alcehmiter on the roof
Ok. unorthodox placement aside she's right. you move to the observatory as AC drops the wizard stachue on the lid releasing the sprite. You grab the card and dowle and move back to your room to carve it before throwing the corpse of Jaspers into the sprite then back to the roof post haste alchemizing the lilac colored wine bottle which the broken hand of the stachue knocks into the water you chase it
AC: Lalonde what are
With trust in your server player you jump grabbing the bottle then get saved by the freshly dobble prototyped Jaspersprite.
AC: PUTAIN DE MERDE ROSE
AC: ARE YOU TRYING TO INFLICT A HEART ATTACK ON ME
With mere seconds left you shatter the Cruxite bottle, escaping the meteor in a flash.
TT: Apologise for the scare Ms Maxwell
TT: Alex?
-- alchemicalCalibrations [AC]'s CPU exploded --
TT: Ah
~
A young man stands in his bedroom. It's as nice as a day it can be for The Rainy city so it's absolutely PISSIN outside, anyway, as is tradition I'll give you the honor of naming this nice youn-
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What is your damage. like really, what is it? child neglect? Absentee Father?
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That's better
Your name is LUKE. You have a variety of INTERESTS. You have a passion for RPGS especially ones of the RTS kind. you are a complete GUN NUT. You have a fondness for LAGOMORPHS OF ANY KIND, you like to dabble in the arts of BLACK MAGICS or MAJYYKS as you like to say sometimes
Now what were you doing? Oh right. Retrieve your copy of the game from your sister since she doesn't let you open the mail even though the envelope was in YOUR NAME. whatever, you're over it just get the mail
You walk into the living room and a water balloon immediately hits you in the face, you hear your sister snicker as she disappears back into her room.
SIS: Too slow bro!
Of course. jokes on you for thinking you can stay nice and dry in your Goddamn apartment with your trickster of a sister. You wipe the water off your glasses with the dry part of your now-wet hoodie. You retrieve a spare towel from your sylladex the Key Modus slaps a keyhole onto all your cards turning them into mini safes all with their own key, although you currently have it set to Master key which gives you one key for all the keyholes, which you have safely hanging around your neck, you can also try to lockpick them but that has a chance of destroying the card.
Now sufficiently dry you knock on the door to your sister's room
LUKE: sis. siiiiis
SIS: Yeah! Im busy!
LUKE: where did you put my mail
SIS: Kitchen!
SIS: Check on top of the microwave!
SIS: Also what the Friday the fuckteenth is sburb?????
LUKE: online game
LUKE: may or may not cause doomsday
SIS: Sweet have fun!
SIS: Dumbfuck name though!
LUKE: agreed
SIS: Be quiet though Im gonna take a nap
LUKE: k
You make your way to the kitchen, grab a bag of Doritos, and yoink the discs from the top of the microwave, as you pass the knife rack a thought gets pushed into your mind as if it was written in bold and neatly contained within a text box
Equip a knife. you'll need it
You mean... You've always thought of using knifekind but you've never really thought about it since your main abstrata is shotgunkind, the best option for mid to close-range combat
You'll need it
Ok then. you did have an extra strife deck after all.
with discs and new weapon, you make your way back to your room, but as you walk, your path gets blocked by a most fearsome beast—the king of all lagomorphs, the devourer of all leafy greens and beta-carotenes. BATTALION, the spotted rabbit!
LUKE: gasp
LUKE: how amazingly terrifying
LUKE: i must use my most powerful technique
LUKE: Omae wa mou shindeiru
BATTALION: !?
You extend your hand and pet the bun. you pet the bun unlike you've ever pet the bun before. your pets infuse the bun with so much love that Eros greek god of love sees and goes "me damn, I gotta learn how to do that"
With the bun in your arms, you go into your room and place disc 1 in the reader now time to see how long- 10 minutes!? wow, you've played Flash games that load faster. with nothing else to do you pester your soon-to-be server player
-- sparkySpindles [SS] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] at 17:50 --
SS: yoooooooooooooooooo
SS: j bomb
SS: you ready?
GG: hi luke!!!
GG: i'm all ready!
GG: i had to feed bec first
SS: you still live with that devil dog?
SS: sweet
SS: give him extra extra pets for me
SS: speaking bout pets the dreaded lagomorph hath claimed a spot on my lap
GG: awww! :D
SS: he's killing me jade.
SS: he's killing me with cuteness
SS: and your laughing?????????
SS: for shame
GG: hehe
GG: well see you!
SS: same
-- sparkySpindles [SS] stopped pestering gardenGnostic [GG] at 17:53 --
Still 7 minutes left. You open Astrape your browser of choice and open ms paint and do what you always do to piss away time, make shitty ms paint comics
...you believe this is your best work yet
Finally. it's done
-- sparkySpindles [SS] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] at 18:00 --
SS: its done
SS: you see me?
GG: yep!
GG: your hair looks so fluffy!!!
SS: thank you
SS: i only use the highest-quality shampoo
SS: now lets get the shit show on the shit road
SS: i do NOT wanna get flattened by a space rock
GG: ill give you the pre-punched card first
you feel the card land on your head, you throw the card into your syllade-
THUD
SS: that was?
GG: the cruxtruder
GG: i left it and the alcehmiter in the living room
SS: thank gog lizzbeth sleeps like a bolder
GG: wait what's with the derse and prospit replicas
SS: oh those?
SS: made em when after i woke up there the first time
SS: saw derse in one of the clouds
SS: ok enough talk
Battalion hopps off your legs as you get up and grab your phone to keep messaging Jade who rearranged your room to place the Punch Designix and Totem Lathe
you walk into the living room and see the cruxtruder and alcehmiter and without hesitation, you climb the cruxtruder and slam the butt of your Mossberg 500 into the lid
the lid pops off as the kernelsprite flies out, you turn the handle and captchalogue the cruxite dowel "15 minutes and 20 seconds" You head back to your room almost sprinting
you open your chest in search of something to prototype the kernelsprite with.
Your name is Battalion proud and unstoppable protector of the Scott household and before you float a new threat, an orb flashing in blues and white
BATTALION: (threat seen)
BATTALION: (readying pounce of fuck this thing)
BATTALION: (3...2...1...)
BATTALION: (POUNCE)
With a self-made Pyro Jack stuffy in your hand, you turn to shove it in the sprite and what you see makes you drop the plush
SS: jade
SS: jade what happened to my bunny
SS: jade?
SS: damn you and your narcolepsy
With Jade most likely unconscious and a meteor hitting you in now 9 minutes and 15 seconds you resolve to cry when you're "safe" in the medium. you jam the dowel and pre-punched card in the lathe and as it finished you yoink the carved totem and sprint to the Alcehmiter.
The Alcehmiter scanned the totem and created a blindfold and flying target, a literal clay pigeon. you blind yourself and load a slug into your shotgun and hold it straight, you rarely trust your instincts you're an overthinker and you know that, but they never fail you when you do. You let your reflexes pull the trigger and hit the Cruxite pigeon center mass. and with 3 minutes and 30 seconds left everything goes white
~
A young woman stands in her bedroom, located in scenic assfuck nowhere Phoenix Arizona. Due to the blazing rage of the mid-day Arizona sun, her computer's CPU is absolutely fucked! however like with everything else in her life, she had planned for this, she keeps a backup laptop in the attic. but before she can go and grab one you must give her a name, however, she is a dignified and mature young lady who'll only accept the most intel-
...You know, part of me feels like I should react to this. The rest feels numb to your bullshit Reader. do it again.
Your name is Alex. As was previously mentioned, your PC is CAPUT yet your handheld PDA stays unaffected by the sun's baneful wrath. You have a variety of INTERESTS. You fancy yourself a SCIENTIST, you have a passing fondness for MATHEMATICS, and you definitely DEFINITELY DO NOT READ SMUT. You read tasteful erotica like a proper adult, you can't help that the ones you read have a focus on the more... EXPLICIT scenes or sapphic romances. that's just how modern erotica is.
Now enough wasting time. You have things to do, namely get pestered
-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering alchemicalCalibrations [AC] at 18:25 --
TG: hey
TG: you ready to get this on with
AC: I would be
AC: If not for the fact that this heat caused my computer's CPU to commit self-annihilation right after I got Rose in
TG: damn
TG: you got a backup
AC: Yes. Within the attic
TG: cool
TG: shot me a message when you got it
-- turntechGodhead [TG] stopped pestering alchemicalCalibrations [AC] at 18:26 --
You walk down your hallway and lock eyes with the portrait of your late father. Dr. Maxwell, a brilliant mind that makes yours look as dim as a black hole, you have a feeling that if he was alive right now he wouldn't be proud of your success, or habits.
You push that thought to the far back of your mind with the rest of them as you make your way to the living room you usually keep the pole you use to open the attic door here, but you don't see it "I swear if I left it in the attic again" you cut yourself short when you see the pack of cigarettes on the coffee table, you pick up the packet of Marlboros and feel the card paper box in your hands. You can't remember when you formed the habit just that it wasn't new, nor an old one you do know that the smoke shuts down the constant noise in the far back of your mind, allowing you to relax, and focus.
You captchalogue the cigarettes, storing them in your BOOK MODUS, it creates a book with all the items you captchalogue being the pages, each page displays the item's picture, captcha code, amount, and all other relevant information. you head to the kitchen and luckily see the pole resting against the refrigerator
With pole in hand, you hook the latch and pull down the stairs, you know exactly which box you placed the laptop in, you look at the array of cardboard, far back to the right. as you use your axe to cut the tape an unfamiliar handle starts to pester you, well not unfamiliar to you, this person was annoying you periodically since you were 10 but, aside from Rose, they were one of the people you could talk to without getting particularly annoyed.
-- existentialistExpedition [EE] started trolling alchemicalCalibrations [AC] at 19:19 --
EE: ==> hello prude_
AC: Ah, right on time
AC: Which bit will you partake in this time EE
EE: ==> ha ha_
EE: ==> im just here to warn you_
EE: ==> if someone with the handle ag or gc tries to suggest a plan to you_
EE: ==> disregard it imminently_
EE: ==> ones plans have a less than less than average success rate_
EE: ==> the other one is just generally untrustworthy_
-- existentialistExpedition [EE] gave up trolling alchemicalCalibrations [AC] at 19:19 --
Hmm, that was briefer than usual. you disregard her advice, this is clearly one of her elaborate japes. whatever it's time to dodge a meteor.
You take the laptop to your bed put it through the software updates re RE install Hestia the better browser than the default one that worms it's way back into this thing with each update and start downloading sburb
-- alchemicalCalibrations [AC] started trolling turntechGodhead [TG] at 19:28 --
AC: I have redownloaded the game
AC: David are you there?
TG: one its not david
TG: just dave
TG: and damn can a guy piss without the ladies asking for a piece of the strider pie
AC: It's bold for you to assume that I want the piece I'm getting now
AC: Now connect up
AC: You insufferable prick
TG: yeah yeah i see you
TG: give me a sec
A second? what does he mean by- SHATTER
AC: Dave Elizzabeth Strider
AC: What the ever-loving fuck was that
TG: had to evict your coffee table to put the alcehmiter
TG: where do you want the cruxtruder
AC: Preferably
AC: A room where you don't feel the need to "evict" more of my furniture. David
TG: just for that
TG: say goodbye to Dad's bed
TG: it was worth 15 build
AC: Fine.
TG: anyways everythings in the living room
TG: mind if i throw this doll in the sprite
Dave brought what he had in the cursor to you, an old wizard doll you had when you were five, Its right eye and left arm were missing
TG: hey
TG: are you ok
AC: Oh, I'm sorry.
AC: I just didn't expect you to find that.
AC: Yes
TG: yes you mind or yes i can use it
AC: You can prototype the sprite with it
You close the laptop and store it in your sylladex moving to your father's room until the sprite already prototyped with the doll floated in front of you, it sem Dave opened it without you, no matter, the faster you enter the less your friends have to worry.
You grabbed the dowl and the pre-punched card Dave left on the platform of the alcehmiter. Just as you saw Rose do, Carve, Place, Print.
What stood before you, spat out from the alcehmiter, was a Cruxite chalkboard. A cruxite chalkboard with scientific and mathematic questions written on it, That was all? complete some questions? you could do this in your sleep. Question 1 "What non-Newtonian fluid turns solid when sudden force is applied" You can do this... you have to do this...
The moment you touched the purple chalk to the board your gums started to hurt, you barely finished the first line when the numbers and letters started to swirl in your vision, you wer- ARE a genius! you could solve these for hours on end when you were younger. so why. WHY IS IT SO HARD TO WRITE ONE GODDAMN LINE. This question. You know this... YOU KNOW THIS. WHAT IS IT. WHY CAN'T YOU WRITE IT.
YOU.
USELESS.
FUCK.
Your body moves on its own, it pulls your axe from your strife deck, and hacks, and hacks, it hacks away until the chalkboard is nothing but splinters and with 30 seconds left before impact, a bright white light engulfs you, and your house