+iny ©at people

FROG-CRIMES: oh, uh. Whoops.
FROG-CRIMES: why didn’t you give us a warning that making a dumb knife would cause this to happen? You’ve warned us before.
WAX: well, you just answered your own question. I warned you before, like, an hour ago. You tried this with the Zone of Tranquility thing, remember?
WAX: not like I haven’t noticed how close you’ve come to breaking things multiple times before, but never close enough for me to give more official warnings.
FROG-CRIMES: … cool. We really would have appreciated more specific warnings.
FROG-CRIMES: Anyway, sorry, we’re not very well coordinated. You see, we’re a collective-
WAX: yeah, I know. That doesn’t actually excuse anything.
WAX: I’ve seen plenty of collectives with their acts together. You’re not one of them.


FROG-CRIMES: Well, this isn’t all bad, because now that you’re here, maybe you can help us with something?
WAX: what could you possibly need help with.
FROG-CRIMES: You see, Grind and Rein won’t ally with each other, which means our TCPs are going to end up being forced to fight each some of their friends just because Grind doesn’t like Rein because of something outside of the game, he won’t even say what.
FROG-CRIMES: So we can’t pick who to ally, and personally we’re trying to make this a peaceful session because we think it’s unfair that the TCPs have to fight for reasons that dont involve them.

WAX: … i don’t think you understand what the point of this game is.
WAX: i made this game to teach the other gods in my pantheon how to make hard decisions.
WAX: and you’ve been doing nothing but trying to circumvent the rules because you want the other gods to make hard decisions for you.
WAX: and- and trying to fundamentally change the game, and changing the win condition- I don’t understand what you think you’re trying to do.
FROG-CRIMES: Look, we just… yeah, we don’t know what to do in this game! We just started existing, which, we hear, won’t continue if we end up losing!
FROG-CRIMES: So can you help us?
WAX: listen. Carefully.
WAX: you are not the first collective to play this game, and you are not the first collective to fail to manifest your physical form.
WAX: while this game is meant to train and test existing gods, it also makes sure i'm not letting any collectives who don't know what they're doing into our pantheon, or anyone else’s pantheons, for that matter.
WAX: secondly, I’d tell you to ask another player, but I know for a fact you’ve been doing that and just ignoring half of what they tell you.
WAX: that, and, now that I’m here and the Autobalance is activated, everyone else knows something happened. It won’t take a minute for them to figure out it was you.
WAX: Do you think any of them are going to ally with you now?
FROG-CRIMES: ……………………
WAX: here’s a little bonus detail that’ll make this extra ffffffun, though.

His voice drops, to what you can only describe as horrifying. Even with your collective strength, there is something utterly terrifying about it, in a way that feels inescapable. You have never felt such fear in your life.

WAX: when i join the game, it’s my duty to ally with the team that currently has the least members.
WAX: you know what that means, right?
FROG-CRIMES: … y-you’re going to ally with us?
WAX: whether I like it or not, which, I really don’t.
WAX: I’ll give you a minute, though, because I’m sure you’re about to start getting some very confused calls about personalized knives.
WAX: maybe you can turn this around just enough to join one of the current teams, and then you don’t have to pair up with me.
WAX: but I doubt it. I’ve seen how you handle talking to the other players. Now that I’m a player too, though, I can’t watch anymore.

He straightens up a bit, and his voice returns to normal. You feel some of your confidence come back...

FROG-CRIMES: … why is ANY of this necessary?
WAX: hm?
FROG-CRIMES: Why did you HAVE to come into the game? Why do you HAVE to balance out the teams?
FROG-CRIMES: We didn’t tell you to do any of this, you can’t blame us.
FROG-CRIMES: You better hope we can’t ally anyone, cause if you join the team opposing us, we’ll throw you down.
WAX: haha! That’s funny. You were JUST telling me you didn’t want your TCPs to fight anyone.
WAX: that attitude’s gonna get you far, kid.
WAX: tell me when you make your 5th TCP.


-END OF CALL