Zoostuck 2

An alien-skin rollex watch

A new president

Oh, yeah! You could replace that boring old skeleton with a dinosaur! A dinosaur could totally wipe the floor with that giant monster, plus you could ride him and...

An alien-skin rollex watch

Wait, no, a really expensive watch. The most expensive! A watch made from alien-skin! You can afford that now, you're ludicrously rich!

You just need to call a watch store and place an order...

Wait a minute! You just burned and ate all the phone books nearby after scrambling their contents! This is going to be harder than you thought.

You are now Ryan North. Your webcomic that you're secretly running on your missing friend's site while pretending to be him is super-popular! But you're also getting confused by it. For one thing, new updates are popping up that you didn't have anything to do with, and they're even more confusing than your updates.

You're totally making the next update, though. In the last one, the superhero who tried to wake the monsters in the Atlantic Ocean tried to stop them with his phone book powers, failed completely, and decided to buy a watch instead, but then realized he didn't have any easy way of finding the number for a watch store.

This is thrilling drama! The fans are going crazy trying to figure out what's going to happen next. And it's going to be SO AMAZING and will totally blow that stranger sneaking his own updates in away so he won't make things way more confusing, probably.

But the update will have to go on hold until you solve the puzzle in this room. What's the puzzle again?

how you, ryan north, are satan d. beelzebub

THIS STRANGE GLOWING PORTAL

go away demon

how you, ryan north, are satan d. beelzebub

Oh, right, the puzzle is to work out that you're Satan... wait, no, that isn't it. You don't play nearly enough video games to be Satan! Unless maybe the puzzle is playing video games?

Well, there does seem to be some kind of fancy monitor here, so maybe you are supposed to play a video game on it! But what game will it be?

go away demon

"Go Away Demon"? You've never heard of that game before! Well, you're always up for trying new things, so you make your way to the selection menu and look for it.

Wait, no, you can't find it. But you did find a text prompt! Maybe this is a search bar. You type in "GO AWAY DEMON" and wait as a loading screen pops up. Man, this system seems really slow.

Five minutes of waiting later, it's still loading. Maybe there's some other part of the puzzle you can try to solve in the meantime. But what could it be?

THIS STRANGE GLOWING PORTAL

Oh yeah! There's a strange glowing portal, how did you miss that? It looks pretty cool, honestly. You should try doing something with it. Maybe you could step into it... or would that just take you into the previous room, with this puzzle unsolved? Oh, or you could throw something into it. Or...

LOADING COMPLETE

Oh hey, while you were thinking about that the game finished loading. Cool. You head over to the monitor and... wait, what's that coming out of the portal?

"WELCOME TO GO AWAY DEMON. YOUR TASK IS TO SEND THE DEMON BACK THROUGH THE PORTAL BEFORE IT TEARS YOU LIMB FROM LIMB. YOU MAY USE ANY MEANS AVAILABLE TO YOU TO DO THIS. HAVE A NICE DAY."

Oh cool, you've almost solved the puzzle! Now you just need to get that demon to go back to where it came from. How are you going to do that?

go back to hell, cause you're a demon

go back to hell, cause you're a demon

Oh man! That's got to be it, this is one of those metaphorical puzzles where man is the real demon! So you jump through the portal, which will obviously solve the puzzle.

Now you're in Hell and, huh. You didn't hear any "puzzle solved" sound effect. Maybe it played back in the room.

You are now a demon from Hell. You were summoned here as part of a puzzle, and now some guy jumped through your portal and then a sound effect played and a door opened.

You have no idea what to do now, because your only instructions were "tear whoever summons you limb from limb" and "go back to Hell if the summoner performs this series of specific actions".

But there's no summoner to tear limb from limb, and they also can't perform any of the actions because the actions all involve being in the room. You think they triggered a glitch.

So what are you going to do now?

Become the player.

Become the player.

Well, that's a thought. You're not exactly big on solving puzzles, but at least it might help you pass the time until you have a better idea.

You head through the open door into the next room and... OH WHAT THE HELL IS THIS SOMEONE'S IDEA OF A JOKE.

There's a bunch of holy texts on the table! They're all open to different verses, but who cares, it's painful to you to be around them. There is no way you're solving this stupid puzzle. Maybe you should just head back through the portal...

Oh, great. The door closed behind you. This was a dumb idea. Now you've got to somehow figure this puzzle out without melting your eyes by trying to read the holy words. Man, you really hate puzzles.

You are now the guy who owns the mansion beyond time and space. You hired a bunch of gangsters to protect it for you, but now they're getting in a fight with a rival gang and also a bunch of detectives from back when time and space existed.

You've been watching the whole thing unfold, of course, and as you watch everyone stumble around like idiots, one question lingers on your mind.

Just who the hell are you, anyways?

The player.

The player.

Ah, yes, that's right. You're the player. It all started back when time existed, when you were just a minor demon from Hell summoned as part of a stupid puzzle. Then the guy trying to solve the puzzle leapt through the portal and left you hanging.

You went on to solve all the puzzles, only to discover the idiot had gone through backwards. So you went through forwards and discovered the gateway to Featurelesswhitevoidia. You arrived in the middle of some place called Fortress, kicked out the delusional imaginary guy who was running it, and made it your own. Then some gang showed up here and you told them they could stay as long as they did what you said.

But something feels weird. Here in Fortress, which you've since renovated into Mansion, you are closely connected to the very fabric of the universe. And something's wrong with it. Something's trying to break free.

If you actually paid attention to earthly events before your summoning, you would recognize this as the alternate universe that doesn't exist because some kid is named Zoosmell Pooplord. It is even now trying to come into existence, and its attempts can happen at any place and any time, including the past.

But you don't realize that. You just vaguely think something's wrong. What are you going to do about it?

Shave it bald.

Shave it bald.

Shave what bald? The fabric of space and time? The thing trying to escape from it? Your mansion? Your head? Ugh, stupid vague voices in your head, they never clarify.

You decide to just pass the message along to one of the gangsters who works for you. Let them work it out.

you are now an evil wizard inhabiting the body of a bird gangster. your capital letters are still missing. you are fighting a spider and a monkey and trying to die but they're really bad at killing you. you also lost your capital letters and you don't know where they went.

while that was going on, you got a call from your boss. he told you to "shave it bald". you have no idea what he's talking about but you're jealous because you totally heard him using capital letters.

anyways you were just going to ignore him but apparently this bird body you're in is magically bound to obey his commands. so what are you going to shave bald?

Well, black holes have no hair.

Well, black holes have no hair.

good point. if he asks you can just tell him you shaved a black hole bald and you don't even have to do anything. problem solved. now you need to get back to dying so you can regenerate again.

you are now the monkey detective with the power to make pages play songs but you prefer to just solve mysteries with your fists. you and the spider detective with an incredibly powerful computer are fighting this bird gangster and you're not doing a very good job of it. also you seem to have caught this problem the spider had where your capital letters disappeared, but who cares about that, your fists don't need capital letters.

but somehow your fists aren't doing a very good job in this fight. you don't understand this at all. your fists have never failed you except for all those times they made things worse but you eventually got out of those problems with your fists so it all worked out. this time they just don't seem to be taking you anywhere.

so what are you going to do?

Go on a quest to find capital letters.

Go on a quest to find capital letters.

yeah that's a good idea. forget about this jerk, forget about trying to find the evidence to clear your name, forget about making sense of all this stupid stuff, you don't have any capital letters so you should go look for them.

wait no that's a terrible idea. seriously, let someone with nothing better to do go look for the missing capital letters. you've got way too much on your plate right now, like ineffectively fighting this gangster and, uh, actually that's about it.

well okay maybe you could look for capital letters. but that's stupid and you don't want to.

you are now the horse detective with rocket jets. your capital letters have gone missing and you have decided to use your incredible deductive skills to work out where they are.

so what have you deduced?

That the fisting monkey has them.

That the fisting monkey has them.

oh right yeah your powers of deduction told you that the monkey detective's been taking them. he probably doesn't even realize it seeing as he's not very bright. honestly he isn't very good at the whole detective thing, pretty good at punching though.

of course you have no idea where the monkey detective is. also you found your way into this room with a bird gangster who has a whole collection of hats and he's begging you not to tell his boss about what he's been doing. well you weren't planning on that, you want to take down his boss and you aren't even sure what he's been doing anyways. you could probably deduce it but you've already deduced that whatever it is must be really boring so you don't care.

you have noticed a sweet hat, though. maybe you can get him to give it to you in exchange for staying quiet about the thing you're already planning to stay quiet about.

You are now the hat. You still have your capital letters because nobody thinks a hat has capital letters in the first place and so they wouldn't bother to steal them. Your mental adventure has hit a snag, except you're not sure what it is exactly.

But you know it must have because this horse detective is bargaining for you and your owner seems to be seriously considering it. That isn't what's supposed to happen, so something must have gone wrong with your mental adventure.

But what could the problem possibly be?

a world premiere

The loss of capital letters, obviously.

----

Alternatively, a bald black hole.

----

Alternatively, both.

a world premiere

You review the status of your mental adventure. The witch is at the world premiere of a film, and your adventure is currently covering the events of the film. Could it be that the film is the wrong focus, and you should move the adventure into the theater?

This is possible, but given that you no longer directly update the adventure but merely receive cryptic clues leading to the parts of your mind the updates are hidden in, you aren't sure how exactly you're supposed to adjust that. Maybe if you made some different suggestions.

But is this the right approach? Could something else be responsible?

The loss of capital letters, obviously.

This is a possibility. You were unaffected by the loss of capital letters, but your owner was not. Perhaps their disappearance has resulted in a change in how he acts in response to your adventure updates. This is worth considering. But is there another possibility?

Alternatively, a bald black hole.

It then strikes you that you are receiving these updates from other inanimate objects throughout space and time. Perhaps one of those objects, such as a bald black hole, is intentionally sabotaging your adventure. Indeed, this object could even be responsible for the disappearance of capital letters, or for your adventure being focused on this world premiere, or...

Alternatively, both.

...or both.

Yes, suddenly it all makes sense. A bald black hole is stealing capital letters in order to interfere with your mental adventure, and for good measure it's creating updates which are contrary to your goals. This makes it perfectly clear now.

Except for one thing. Why is it doing this? What's the black hole's objective?

To meet Wyatt Hall.

To meet Wyatt Hall.

You have no idea who Wyatt Hall is. Is it a person, or a building? But as soon as the thought crosses your mind, you realize it must be true. A bald black hole is manipulating your mental adventure so that it can meet this building or possibly person.

You suspect it is a building, however. Both it and the black hole would qualify as inanimate objects and therefore they would be capable of engaging in this bizarre item-breeding process that your mental adventure has somehow gotten involved in.

But this suggests that the black hole is merely a pawn, that someone else hopes to make use of the offspring of such a meeting. You feel instinctively that this must be prevented, and so it is imperative that you get this mental adventure back on track. If only you had some idea of how you could even theoretically do that.

You are now a vast pile of garbage. You were trapped on a website and are in the process of escaping through a time portal. You alone among all beings, animate or inanimate, understand the grave threat posed to all existence. It is imperative that you cover the world with your filthy presence to protect it.

What are you protecting it from, exactly?