Palace Caprae (Sburblike RP)

Entry number 4, Jonas Bentham.

Show Content

Spoiler23:10 Culture_Scorch I recline in a soft chair in my library- I'm not quite /sure/ which particular library it is. I have a lot of libraries in my tower-house.
23:10 Culture_Scorch Makes it easier for me to read whenever I feel like it.
23:11 Culture_Scorch Right now, I'm finishing some sort of fantasy novel or something. I'm honestly not sure where the books in the library come from- I guess they're... automatically bought or something? Who cares.
23:11 Culture_Scorch (The fantasy novel's garbage, by the way. The only reason it's still open is because it's sort of amusing to make fun of.)
23:12 GMedict >Your attention is diverted from The Redemption of Althalus by a jingle from your phone.
23:12 GMedict >You don't remember installing this ringtone.
23:13 Culture_Scorch Who would possibly call me now? I thought I redirected all my contacts to the other phone.
23:13 Culture_Scorch This one's supposed to be for private friends.
23:13 GMedict >According to the sender, identified as NEODYNIC_NOREPLY, "The public test version of Neodynic's Palace Championship is now available for download!"
23:13 Culture_Scorch Ooooooooooh, yeah, now I remember. Took'em long enough.
23:13 Culture_Scorch I tap the side of my forehead twice and a holographic screen pops up in my glasses.
23:16 Culture_Scorch The screen's animated background- fire, of course- pops up, along with a dozen different app buttons.
23:16 Culture_Scorch Apparently, a new notification has taped itself onto the app-store button and now flashes at me, trying to grab my attention.
23:17 Culture_Scorch I shrug, set aside the book, and start installing the new app while also opening up a side-window for my ebook app.
23:17 Culture_Scorch Hopefully, the download doesn't take that long.
23:17 GMedict >The app installs surprisingly quickly- it doesn't appear to have been an especially large download.
23:18 GMedict >Wait, a couple hundred kilobytes?
23:18 Culture_Scorch Beats me. I don't have any idea if that's big or not. Kilo-thingies sound pretty impressive, though.
23:19 GMedict >You download the app. After a brief loading screen, the following is displayed:
23:19 GMedict
23:19 Culture_Scorch Oh, it's a face.
23:19 Culture_Scorch I guess I poke its nose.
23:20 GMedict >You poke its nose, and it responds with a cheery electronic voice.
23:20 GMedict >"Welcome to Neodynic's Palace Championship! Preparing for installation unstruction!"
23:20 Culture_Scorch Unstruction? Is that even a word?
23:20 Culture_Scorch I poke its nose again, as I muse out loud.
23:21 GMedict >The voice appears to respond to your voice command! "Unstruction is a word! It is defined as-" it is interrupted as you poke it again.
23:21 Culture_Scorch Whoops! I ask it again and refrain from unnecessary pokes this time around.
23:22 GMedict >"Unstruction is a word! It is defined as the opposite of construction!"
23:23 Culture_Scorch I thought the opposite of construction was deconstruction.
23:23 Culture_Scorch Maybe i'm approaching the problem wrongly?
23:24 Culture_Scorch If construction- building- is opposed by deconstruction- destroying- then I just need to figure out a context where that question doesn't even make sense.
23:24 GMedict >"Incorrect! The opposite of deconstruction is "struction"! Struction, however, is an optional post-game DLC activity, and you needn't concern yourself with it."
23:24 GMedict >The face's eyes begin pointing in different directions, as if looking around the room.
23:25 Culture_Scorch Whatcha lookin' at, little face buddy?
23:25 GMedict >"We detect that your local environment is polluted by dense wireless signals. Automatic installation unstruction is currently unavailable."
23:25 GMedict >"Would you like to engage MANUAL MODE?"
23:25 Culture_Scorch Uhhhhh.
23:26 Culture_Scorch How much manuality are we talking here?
23:26 Culture_Scorch Do I have to do a lot of work or...
23:27 GMedict >"MANUAL MODE merely delegates Perimetrization to the user! Installation unstruction itself is fully automated by local client."
23:27 GMedict >"Would you like to engage MANUAL MODE?"
23:27 Culture_Scorch Sure, I guess.
23:27 Culture_Scorch gets up from the comfy chair.
23:28 Culture_Scorch I needed to take a walk sometime this week I guess.
23:28 GMedict >The face responds "Please wait while Neodynic operatives engage MANUAL MODE." and closes its eyes.
23:28 Culture_Scorch Huh.
23:29 Culture_Scorch I leave the library and enter the third rotunda level of the house, where I look down from the railing and into the huge fire at the center of the bottom level.
23:30 Culture_Scorch (That fire's powered purely by heat extracted from the geothermal reactor. It won't go out unless the reactor shuts down. It reminds you of the work your inheritance is going to every day.)
23:30 Culture_Scorch (It's also great for indoor camping trips. You're too lazy to actually leave Vesuvius and go camping.)
23:31 GMedict >You begin to hear a loud whine.
23:31 Culture_Scorch The hell?
23:31 GMedict >It seems to be coming from somewhere above you.
23:31 Culture_Scorch How's it coming from above me??
23:31 Culture_Scorch I look up at the glass skylight.
23:32 GMedict >The noise gets louder, morphing into a dull roar. You can begin to make out some dark form in the sky.
23:32 Culture_Scorch Oh SHIT.
23:32 GMedict >The face opens its eyes. "MANUAL MODE engaged. Please take cover."
23:32 Culture_Scorch I run back to the library door and pound the lockdown button, sealing all windows and doors with reinforced metal shutters.
23:32 Culture_Scorch They'd stop anything short of tank artillery.
23:33 NotTheAuthor ((But will they stop pants))
23:33 Culture_Scorch Naturally, this includes the skylight. The entire house is plunged into darkness for a second, before the electric lights activate.
23:33 GMedict >A metal shutter covers the skylight, and for a moment, you're safe.
23:33 Culture_Scorch I've never had to use that button before!
23:33 Culture_Scorch Thank goodness my dad was as paranoid as rich people get.
23:35 Culture_Scorch I cautiously peek out from below a stack of books that collapsed on me in the crash.
23:35 GMedict >Your security measures prove approximately adequate, as the metal shutter underneath the skylight bulges inward.
23:35 Culture_Scorch ...Darn, I'll have to renovate the ceiling.
23:36 Culture_Scorch Maybe I should put something more useful there. Like a hydroponics farm. Or a set of mirrors to burn invaders with the power of the sun like Archimedes' ancient mechanism.
23:36 Culture_Scorch I tap my forehead again, pulling up my holographic cellphone screen.
23:36 Culture_Scorch Hey! Face app thingy! You there?
23:37 GMedict >Your phone provides some helpful commentary on your predicament.
23:37 GMedict >"MANUAL MODE has been engaged. Phace unit no longer integral. Please consult the provided Manual Installation Unstruction Manual for further assistance."
23:37 GMedict >The face closes its eyes, and your phone shuts down.
23:38 Culture_Scorch "And so, the hero's first wise guardian departs him, and he must set out alone on his quest thereon," I intone in a suitably deep and epic voice. Well, as deep as I can get it, anyways.
23:38 Culture_Scorch So
23:38 Culture_Scorch uh
23:38 Culture_Scorch manual.
23:38 Culture_Scorch Where is this 'provided manual' exactly?
23:38 Culture_Scorch I don't exactly see it anywhere around me.
23:38 Culture_Scorch Though I guess since there are so many books here I could easily miss it...
23:39 Culture_Scorch I look around the library, giving a few abortive efforts at cleaning up the mess before i inevitably decide on the procrastination path.
23:39 Culture_Scorch Nope, didn't find any manuals on anything that weren't gun cleaning, calculating trajectory of cannon fire, and the illegal trade of weapons-grade uranium and how to sneak it past airport scanning.
23:40 GMedict >The manual fails to materialize anywhere inside of your house.
23:40 Culture_Scorch Guess I've gotta check out the ceiling.
23:40 Culture_Scorch ...How exactly am I supposed to get up there? I've never had to go up there, ever.
23:41 Culture_Scorch The elevator only goes up to the fifth floor.
23:41 Culture_Scorch Hmm... this is truly a quest worthy of a hero's cunning.
23:41 Culture_Scorch And so, I do the only thing that makes sense in this circumstance.
23:42 Culture_Scorch I call 911 and also call a building contractor company.
23:43 GMedict >Emergency services are on their way, as are your favorite contractors.
23:44 GMedict >They'll know how to sort out this mess.
23:44 Culture_Scorch I sort of want to de-lockdown the building, but until I know exactly what landed on my roof I can't do that for fear of letting it fall into my house and probably being lit on fire by the ground-floor hearth.
23:45 Culture_Scorch There's a solution to that, though, and I may as well use it while I'm waiting.
23:45 Culture_Scorch Twenty minutes' wait will be plenty of time for me to go check out the ceiling cameras at the security room.
23:46 Culture_Scorch After a bit of exertion on the staircases, I make it to the security room in the basement. With the house in lockdown, the elevators are nonfunctional.
23:46 Culture_Scorch I take a seat in front of the dozen or so monitoring screens, and take a look at the upper left corner- the one that links to the cameras on the rooftop.
23:47 Culture_Scorch Hopefully at least one is intact so I can get a good look at what exactly just apparently decided to commit assault and battery on my house.
23:47 GMedict >The screen seems to have been cracked, but you can make out what's sitting in the crater on your rooftop.
23:48 GMedict >Well, not really.
23:48 Culture_Scorch There. Zoom. Enhance!
23:48 Culture_Scorch The screen, as expected, does nothing, as it's not built for voice commands.
23:48 Culture_Scorch Still, I always wanted to say that.
23:48 GMedict >It looks to be some sort of car-sized package wrapped in heavy cloth.
23:48 Culture_Scorch ...wow.
23:48 Culture_Scorch Where would that possibly have come from?
23:48 GMedict >The screen resolution is good enough to make out the denim-like texture- you paid good money for this security system.
23:49 GMedict >Or, well, your dad paid good money.
23:49 GMedict >The package is lightly smoldering, but it's mostly stopped giving off smoke.
23:49 Culture_Scorch Wow.
23:50 Culture_Scorch I rewind the recording to the last five minutes or so, trying ot get a look at how fast it was falling and in what direction.
23:50 GMedict >It was falling pretty damn fast- oddly, it seems to have been aflame /before/ it impacted the window.
23:50 Culture_Scorch There's no way it fell straight down on my house, this must be some sort of freak accident. Like, an airplane's cargo that accidentally fell out the back or something.
23:50 Culture_Scorch ...Aflame?
23:51 Culture_Scorch Okay, I seriously have no idea how to explain /that/.
23:51 Culture_Scorch Fire's cool, though.
23:52 Culture_Scorch I don't think it's a good idea to wait in the basement for my rescue, though. Maybe I should try to get outside and take a look with my own eyes.
23:54 Culture_Scorch Wait, no, front door's locked.
23:55 Culture_Scorch Can't unlock it either, yet- or at least it'd be a really, really bad idea to do so.
23:57 GMedict >You begin to hear emergency sirens in the distance. Hopefully the fire department or whoever should arrive soon.
23:57 Culture_Scorch Good timing!
23:57 Culture_Scorch I find a good place next to my hearth and start reading one of my ebooks again.
23:58 GMedict >After a few minutes, the sirens stop. Are they here?
23:59 GMedict >Can they get inside?
23:59 Culture_Scorch ...Good question.
23:59 GMedict >You should probably figure out a way to let them know where the problem is.
23:59 Culture_Scorch I go back down to the security room and take a look at the front-door cameras, hoping to see a cavalcade of cars.
23:59 Culture_Scorch Well, communication shouldn't be a problem. I have speakers attached to my front door specifically for harassing salesmen and jehovah's witnesses.
00:00 GMedict >A pair of fire trucks and an ambulance plus a handful of squad cars have arrived outside your door. You probably could have been more specific about the nature of your emergency.
00:00 Culture_Scorch Whoooooooooops oh well.
00:00 Culture_Scorch I tell them that, apparently, a burning car wrapped in cloth has landed on top of my building at terminal velocity.
00:01 Culture_Scorch And that I am now locked inside my own tower which has gone into lockdown mode, which is the only thing keeping the car from falling into the house and doing even more damage.
00:01 Culture_Scorch And the broken glass. That's a problem too.
00:01 Culture_Scorch Maybe they could figure out how to get the package off the roof for me?
00:02 Culture_Scorch I'm not sure their fire ladders are long enough though...
00:03 GMedict >The firemen locate the object with ladders quickly enough- you can see them around the object on the roof after a few minutes- but they seem stymied with regard to how to move the object.
00:04 GMedict >Some of them try to push it out of the dent in the metal shutter, but it appears to be too heavy to move all at once.
00:04 Culture_Scorch Maybe they could unwrap the object, see if they could move whatever's inside piece by piece?
00:04 GMedict >You relay your suggestion to the firemen, who start trying to unwrap the fabric.
00:05 GMedict After the first layer is unwrapped, they're unable to make much more progress since the rest of the fabric is under the weight of the package.
00:05 GMedict >They ask if it's okay to use fire axes to cut through the layers.
00:05 Culture_Scorch Cut it open, sure. If it's sturdy enough to be dropped from who knows how high, it's sturdy enough for axes.
00:05 Culture_Scorch Speaking of cutting it open, if anyone would like to blowtorch open my front door, that'd be nice too.
00:07 GMedict >After some consternation, the firemen and contractors cooperate to open the door, while the roof crew cut through the fabric.
00:07 GMedict >Their axes chop through some of the contents- apparently, the package contains numerous buckets of gray powder.
00:08 GMedict >There is also a small cardboard box amidst the 100-odd 10-gallon tubs.
00:08 GMedict >You can hear the blowtorch crew make their way through the door.
00:09 Culture_Scorch After they finish cutting a hole, I emerge from the tower and assure everyone that I'm totally unharmed. (This should be quite a relief- the city's energy infrastructure relies on my continuous goodwill, after all.)
00:10 GMedict >It appears that a pair of journalists followed the emergency vehicles to your building.
00:10 Culture_Scorch Oh, /joy/.
00:11 Culture_Scorch Being the completely responsible person I am, I foist them off by saying that this was obviously a move by Big Oil to remove my growing influence on the national energy market.
00:11 Culture_Scorch Let them chew on /that/ for a while.
00:11 Culture_Scorch Then again, it's not the first time I've bullshat the media, so maybe they've picked up on my tendencies.
00:11 GMedict >The young lady with the microphone seems surprised by your immediate response, and then deflated as you walk away.
00:12 GMedict >A fire crew worker from the roof brings the cardboard package down to you, and asks what you want done with the buckets of powder.
00:12 Culture_Scorch Bring them down one by one, try to recover as much of the stuff that spilled as possible with new buckets.
00:13 Culture_Scorch I have a sneaking suspicion that they're going to be important.
00:13 Culture_Scorch Meanwhile, I open the cardboard package.
00:13 GMedict >The package contains...
00:13 GMedict >ONE (1) leaflet reading "Manual Installation Unstruction Manual".
00:13 GMedict >ONE (1) plastic frame containing tiny white plastic weapons. You know, like one of those things that come in craft kits where you have to twist off the plastic nubs? It holds a sword, an arrow, and a staff, each of which are about an inch in length.
00:13 GMedict >THREE (3) color-coded bottles of liquid, red, green and blue.
00:13 Culture_Scorch Oh my /god/.
00:13 Culture_Scorch Oh my GOD.
00:14 Culture_Scorch Goddammit I am suing Neodynic for this shit.
00:14 Culture_Scorch As soon as I get my house sorted out. Who the hell makes a delivery through literal airdrop at terminal velocity?
00:14 Culture_Scorch I crack open the manual and start reading it.
00:16 Culture_Scorch ((btw the technical term of 'those things where you twist off the plastic nubs' is a Sprue))
00:16 Culture_Scorch ((the more you know))
00:17 GMedict >The first page immediately reads "Do not panic. This is a big opportunity. Hopefully you're unharmed by the delivery- I had them send extra bins of that Perimetric stuff, just in case. I don't think they're supposed to run out, but whatever."
00:18 Culture_Scorch ...Still suing them.
00:18 GMedict >"If I were you, I'd round up some help for some of these steps, depending on how you want to play it."
00:18 Culture_Scorch Well, I've definitely got plenty of help here.
00:18 GMedict >Turn to the next page?
00:19 Culture_Scorch Turn to the next page.
00:20 GMedict >The next page contains a table of contents. INTRODUCTION, PERIMETRIC APPARATI, REPLICA VERVESSELS, DREAM JOURNEY IMBIBABLES, and INGRESSION are the major headings.
00:21 Culture_Scorch Ooooooooo! I /love/ walkthroughs. Guys at Neodynic weren't being fully accurate when they said 'no walkthroughs', apparently.
00:21 Culture_Scorch Let's start from the Introduction, and then go onto Perimetric Apparati.
00:23 Culture_Scorch ((i'm a little surprised i don't get three talking radios lol))
00:23 GMedict >The introduction contains a lot of market-speak about how they're excited that you're participating in this groundbreaking new blah blah blah. This is stunningly unhelpful, but it does mention that you've been provided this manual and collection of supplies to fix a certain critical bug.
00:23 GMedict >Allegedly, this sequence will not be included in the mass-market product.
00:23 GMedict >You move on to the subject of PERIMETRIC APPARATI.
00:23 Culture_Scorch I'd love to see them try to include this in the mass-market product.
00:24 Culture_Scorch We'd probably end up with a game where everyone had to enter the game immediately or die due to a huge meteor crushing their house.
00:24 MrGuy (hahaha)
00:24 Culture_Scorch Which would of course be utterly stupid.
00:24 GMedict >"Your Manual Installation Unstruction Kit will provide you with one of a selection of many tools for establishing your Unstruction Perimeter."
00:24 GMedict >"In order to complete Installation Unstruction and proceed to Ingression, you must use your provided tool or tools to establish a defined perimeter around the play area."
00:24 MrGuy (I can't wait to figure out how he manages to fuck up The Thing anyway)
00:24 GMedict >"We detect that you have been assigned: the powder!"
00:24 MrGuy (parameterizing your hoobenstructure or whatever)
00:25 Culture_Scorch Huh. I've got to make a perimeter?
00:25 Culture_Scorch Well, since this is an aug-reality RPG, I should try to make the biggest perimeter I can.
00:25 GMedict >"In order to draw your Unstruction Perimeter around the play field, pour a trail of powder around the perimeter of your intended play area."
00:26 GMedict >"Then, proceed to TEMPLATE your REPLICA VERVESSELS by embarking on three DREAM JOURNEYS!"
00:26 GMedict >"See relevant sections."
00:26 Culture_Scorch Hm, okay. I wonder if the order is necessary or if I can do this voodoovessel thingy first?
00:26 Culture_Scorch I flip to the 'Replica Vervessels' page.
00:26 GMedict ((guy the hoobenstructures don't come in until later))
00:27 Culture_Scorch ((i have no clue what he is talking about so idgaf)
00:27 MrGuy (Scorch, so far every player has fucked up their templating one way or another)
00:27 GMedict >"You have been provided with three plastic replica Vervessels! These are a critical part of the manual installation unstruction process."
00:27 Culture_Scorch ((fangoodtastness))
00:28 GMedict >"Be careful! Their ends are sharp."
00:28 GMedict >"Once they have been TEMPLATED through your DREAM JOURNEY, you must select a replica and insert it point-first into some location in the play area."
00:28 GMedict >"This act will select both your starting weapon type, and your spawn point in the game world!"
00:30 Culture_Scorch Alright.
00:31 Culture_Scorch So... I need to make a large play area in which the augmented reality will actually work.
00:31 Culture_Scorch How would I go about doing that?
00:33 Culture_Scorch A dozen ideas pop through my head. Some involve helicopters. Some involve questionable tampering with the city's water supply and sewers. Some involve the city council, mostly in negative ways.
00:34 Culture_Scorch In the end I decide upon the most expedient method, with the tools most easily available to me right now.
00:35 Culture_Scorch First: I ask someone to help me mix all the powder with water. It's not a problem, seeing as there's a fire truck nearby with easy access to water.
00:35 Culture_Scorch Hopefully, the result will be some sort of gray powder-slurry.
00:38 GMedict >You successfully create some sort of muddy substance with the powder, and store it in...
00:38 GMedict >_
00:38 Culture_Scorch Well, the original buckets, of course!
00:39 Culture_Scorch We store all the buckets on one of the fire trucks.
00:40 Culture_Scorch Then, well...
00:41 GMedict >You load bucket after bucket of gray sludge onto a public emergency vehicle.
00:41 GMedict >They put up with this because you pretty much own the city, so who's going to complain?
00:42 Culture_Scorch I make sure I pocket everything in the cardboard box as well, and describe to the designated driver of the fire truck an exact circuit around the city.
00:42 Culture_Scorch It forms a loop that encloses just about the entire thing, my house and the geothermal reactor included.
00:43 Culture_Scorch While they drive, I dump bucket after bucket of grey sludge over the side, creating pretty much a nonstop line of gray powder in the road the whole way around the city.
00:43 Culture_Scorch The sludge actually blends in pretty well with the concrete. Hopefully nobody will notice. I'll just pass it off as a personal experiment on improving highway quality or something, I do this kind of shit all the time. It's my city, after all.
00:44 Culture_Scorch My original plan didn't quite work- which was to use the fire truck as a makeshift water gun to shoot the sludge.
00:44 Culture_Scorch Disappointing, really. It'd have been WAY cooler if I could have gotten that to work, but, I sort of forgot that the water pressure in the hoses comes from the hydrants, not... the truck. Whoops.
00:45 GMedict >Your sludge-dumping joyride around the city is a wild success, probably.
00:45 GMedict >A ring of gray stuff now encircles the entirety of Vesuvius!
00:45 GMedict >Good going!
00:46 Culture_Scorch Hell yeah, I'll have the /biggest/ play area out of any of the players.
00:46 Culture_Scorch I'll have so many levels to play through they'll be begging me for some of my territory! I mean, if that's the way things work.
00:46 GMedict >You're clearly the best at this game, already, completely.
00:46 Culture_Scorch Anyways- hopefully, the scene's mostly dispersed at the house now that all the broken glass and the package have been dealt with, meaning I can turn off the lockdown again.
00:47 GMedict >After turning off lockdown, you encounter something of a snafu under the former skylight.
00:47 Culture_Scorch Just to be sure, I dismiss all the ambulances and fire trucks and reporters, if there are any left.
00:48 Culture_Scorch And now... Uh... What was next on the list of manual stuff again?
00:48 Culture_Scorch I pull out my instructions and check up- oh, right, vervessels.
00:48 GMedict >The metal shutter, bent out of shape, hasn't fully retracted, and a massive pile of denim-like cloth is sitting on the floor of your...
00:48 GMedict >library.
00:49 GMedict >Did they even bother cleaning up the scene of the impact?
00:49 Culture_Scorch ...I could make a pretty cool blanket fort.
00:49 Culture_Scorch Book bricks and denim ceilings.
00:49 Culture_Scorch In fact, that is exactly what I do! An hour is spent on this foolishness but by the end of it I have a pretty awesome blanket fort built out of encyclopedia britannica and denim.
00:50 GMedict >You entertain this train of thought for a whole hour, and you have proven your worth as an architect.
00:50 GMedict >The blanket nations of the world cower in fear of your majestic construction.
00:51 Culture_Scorch Muahahahaha. Soon, the denim empire of Neo New Vesuvius shall come to dominate the WORLD!
00:51 Culture_Scorch And now... I guess I've gotta to get to actual business. I pull out the manual and look up the details on how I get a dream journey started.
00:52 GMedict >"To begin your DREAM JOURNEY, drink an IMBIBABLE of any color!"
00:53 GMedict >That's all it says.
00:53 Culture_Scorch Probably one of the potion-looking thingies, I guess.
00:53 GMedict >Most of the page is just blank space underneath that sentence.
00:53 Culture_Scorch ...Man, is this actually safe?
00:53 Culture_Scorch I hope this isn't just some sort of LSD-ish drug with food coloring, or something.
00:53 Culture_Scorch I guess technically it'd qualify for augmented reality, in a sense, if that were true...
00:53 GMedict >Small print at the bottom of the page notes that the IMBIBABLES contain no controlled substances.
00:54 Culture_Scorch Oh well, bottoms up with the red one. Red for fire, right?
00:54 GMedict >You drink the red potion, which tastes uncannily like orange juice.
00:54 GMedict >For a moment, you're unsure what's supposed to be happening, but then you very quickly become tired.
00:55 GMedict >Like, falling-down-on-the-spot tired.
00:55 Culture_Scorch I fall down on the spot under my blanket fort.
00:55 Culture_Scorch There's not really that much space to fall, but I make a good attempt at collapsing into listless unconsciousness nonetheless
00:55 GMedict >Your foresight in constructing a safe place for your DREAM JOURNEY is admirable.
00:56 Culture_Scorch I'm about to congratulate myself for good method acting right before I actually fall unconscious.
00:56 GMedict >You feel yourself blacking out, but you seem to be retaining a sliver of consciousness.
00:56 GMedict >A vision starts to dance before your eyes.
00:57 GMedict >It's blurry, but you see...
00:57 GMedict >Yourself?
00:57 Culture_Scorch I focus on it as best as I can with all the chakras and spirits and taos I can muster.
00:57 Culture_Scorch I realize I don't know what half of those even are but I do it anyways.
00:57 GMedict >You slip into a chakra-induced spirit dream journey.
00:57 GMedict >You are now fighting an ogre.
00:58 GMedict >It's totally standing there, screaming and wielding a club and behaving in a generally hostile manner.
00:58 GMedict >It swings its club at you! What do you do?
00:59 Culture_Scorch I charge at it and grab the end of its club, blocking it in midair! A furious struggle of muscular might between the two of us occurs.
00:59 Culture_Scorch Never back down from anything THIS awesome!
00:59 GMedict >You heave the ogre's club aside, throwing it off-balance.
01:00 GMedict >You feel yourself drawing your weapon, but you can't seem to focus on it.
01:00 GMedict >You're holding something in your hands, but you're not sure... what... it is.
01:00 GMedict >It's all blurry and unclear- you probably need to use those chakras and stuff to see it properly.
01:02 Culture_Scorch It's.... A club? No... It's not a club. It's hollow, cylindrical-
01:02 Culture_Scorch It's a pipe. A long, hollow pipe, elegant in its simplicity, perfectly smooth.
01:02 Culture_Scorch But it doesn't... /Feel/ like a weapon for melee combat.
01:03 Culture_Scorch No, that is not its purpose. Filled with what I can only describe as a really trippy sense of purpose, I plunge the pipe into the ground at an angle, so that it sticks out of the ground almost like a howitzer's barrel might.
01:03 Culture_Scorch In synchronization with my cry, a blast of pressurized lava issues forth from the might of the raw earth beneath me, the force that I control and wield and bend to serve humankind!
01:04 MrGuy (I think you may have just broken the streak of vervessel up-fucking)
01:04 GMedict >As the lava punishes the ogre, you feel a rush of clarity.
01:04 GMedict >You wake up in your blanket fort.
01:05 Culture_Scorch I blink.
01:05 Culture_Scorch Whoa.
01:05 Culture_Scorch That was seriously awesome.
01:05 Culture_Scorch So... two more to go?
01:05 Culture_Scorch I lay back in my blanket fort and drink the green 'imbibable'.
01:06 GMedict >The taste is less pleasant than the red imbibable- the bitterness of coffee combined with some sort of fruity flavor you can't really place.
01:06 GMedict >Regardless, you lose consciousness as quickly as with the first.
01:07 GMedict >You are standing on a castle wall, underneath a moonless night sky.
01:07 GMedict >Down in the courtyard, you see your quarry- the corrupt baron of the fiefdom.
01:08 Culture_Scorch My people are not well.
01:08 GMedict >Do barons have fiefdoms? You should probably brush up on your feudal social structures.
01:08 Culture_Scorch The leader must protect; the powerful must empower in turn.
01:08 GMedict >You hold a weapon in your hands. It will be his downfall.
01:08 GMedict >You're not quite sure... what it is, though.
01:09 Culture_Scorch Somehow, I decide that, standing upon this castle wall, that I built the wall, that I rule this land, that all earth within my sight is /mine/ and that /i/ am the one who must serve its people-
01:09 GMedict >You try to look directly at it, but...
01:09 Culture_Scorch Not this corrupt monster who wears the skin of a great man but is nothing but poison and darkness.
01:10 Culture_Scorch I raise a golden horn to my lips, emblazoned with heraldic phoenixes and laced with crimson ribbons, and blow a resounding note that pierces the sky.
01:10 Culture_Scorch As the sun rises from below the horizon, all around the Baron, an army of soldiers in my colors are revealed.
01:10 Culture_Scorch They are the people he has hurt, the men he has failed.
01:10 Culture_Scorch From above I watch as the soldiers I have summoned bury the Baron under a sea of lances and swords.
01:11 Culture_Scorch A new day rises, the light of the sun reflected in my horn.
01:11 GMedict >As the Baron perishes and the sunlight reaches your eyes, you jolt awake.
01:11 Culture_Scorch Maaaaaaaaaan.
01:11 Culture_Scorch If the entire game is like this, I could practically play it forever.
01:12 Culture_Scorch Blue down the gullet, mind down the darkness.
01:12 GMedict >Gulping down the potion- it's this overly sweet fizzy soda type stuff that's difficult to swallow- you once again fade into a vision.
01:12 GMedict >You are standing in front of...
01:12 GMedict >...of a blazing, shifting form of energy.
01:13 GMedict >It is a portal to another world, through which a demonic horde is soon to charge.
01:13 GMedict >You hold in your hands an artifact of great power with which to seal the rift.
01:13 GMedict >You know that with its power, you can rescue the land from destruction.
01:13 GMedict >But what... is it, exactly?
01:15 Culture_Scorch ((hmm let me think about this for a sec))
01:17 Culture_Scorch It is an ornate crown, with rubies and topaz and a central gold diamond the size of my fist. But its beauty is not its power; rather, the power is in its symbolism.
01:18 Culture_Scorch For this was the crown of the grand Lord of Demons, who fell from power when his own misdeeds returned to him and the Gods punished him for his sins. It, and it alone, commands all the Demons with a dark sorcery unknown to man.
01:19 Culture_Scorch I have retrieved it, and, bearing it, I am the heir of his dark empire. With a word, I could unleash darkness upon the world and cover it in misery upon the end of time, and revel forever with an infinite harem of succubi at my call.
01:20 NotTheAuthor ((Tempting))
01:20 Culture_Scorch I throw it upon the ground, and stomp upon it with my boot of white leather and silver filigree. The gold diamond cracks, then shatters, as the crown's dark magics are destroyed with it.
01:20 Culture_Scorch The corruption has been cleansed at its core; the Demonic legion that was once a force of evil is instantly purified into their original form- that of a shining army of seraphim and angels, raising their voices with a heavenly chorus.
01:21 Culture_Scorch This is the true nature of power revealed- a tool that can be used for good or evil.
01:22 Culture_Scorch The rift remains unclosed; the angels pour into the world, and assist me in rebuilding a world torn asunder by the Demon Lord's foul machinations.
01:22 Culture_Scorch All shall be well, in time. Providence shall, as its name suggests, provide.
01:23 GMedict >You are torn from your dream world of paradise, and returned to the waking world with a jolt.
01:23 Culture_Scorch I lie there for a second, thinking about what my dreams imply about myself.
01:24 Culture_Scorch Ultimately, I conclude that what they imply is that I have way too much of an overactive imagination.
01:24 Culture_Scorch I sit up, forgetting that I'm inside a blanket fort, and accidentally entangle myself in the denim for half a minute.
01:25 Culture_Scorch After that's been dealt with, I read the next segment in the manual. What was next, again? Sticking one of my plastic thingies somewhere inside the ring for a spawning area?
01:25 Culture_Scorch Well /that's/ a pretty dauntingly big range to pick from.
01:26 GMedict >The plastic weapons in the sprue have gone from white to red, green and blue- red for the sword, green for the arrow, and blue for the staff.
01:26 Culture_Scorch I leaf through the manual again, looking for anything else interesting in it.
01:26 Culture_Scorch Oh, looks like the dream process has imbued the plastic weapons with unspeakable power. Awesome.
01:27 GMedict >The manual has some boring disclaimers at the back, plus...
01:27 GMedict >A picture of the face thing's nose from the app?
01:27 Culture_Scorch Huh.
01:27 Culture_Scorch Just the nose?
01:27 Culture_Scorch That's weird.
01:27 GMedict >That seems to be all there is to it.
01:31 Culture_Scorch Well, time to get to the last step, as far as I know.
01:31 Culture_Scorch Placing a spawn point!
01:32 Culture_Scorch It should probably be a place where I'd feel comfortable, since I have to start there every time I start the game.
01:32 Culture_Scorch So, probably one of the libraries that aren't totally wrecked.
01:34 Culture_Scorch As I turn to leave this /clusterfuck/ of a library, I trip over one of the stray books and collapse in a heap to the ground-
01:34 Culture_Scorch OW!
01:34 Culture_Scorch Shit, I accidentally fell on top of the plastic stuff.
01:34 Culture_Scorch Wait, fuck. I got the little red sword stuck in my stomach by a centimeter! Ow ow ow ow ow.
01:35 Culture_Scorch Waaaait, isn't where I stick that supposed to denote where my spawn point is?
01:35 GMedict >Dang, it's stuck in there. Ow.
01:35 Culture_Scorch Does that mean that I just automatically respawn wherever I die, now?
01:35 GMedict >You're not sure anything has happened yet.
01:35 Culture_Scorch Ha, totally cheated you there, game!
01:36 GMedict >You look out the window. It seems the weather has become suddenly cloudy.
01:36 Culture_Scorch On the other hand, this is probably not a good thing as far as my health goes.
01:36 Culture_Scorch Can't pull it out, hurts too fucking much. Dammit.
01:36 Culture_Scorch Weird stormclouds.
01:36 Culture_Scorch Hope they don't wash the grey goo away.
01:36 GMedict >Weird, perfectly white stormclouds.
01:36 Culture_Scorch Wait, shit, my skylights are exposed!
01:36 Culture_Scorch All my books will get drenched.
01:37 Culture_Scorch ...Except these don't look like the kind of raining clouds.
01:37 Culture_Scorch They just look like normal clouds except... really thick and scarily imposing, for some reason.
01:37 Culture_Scorch I check the weather report on my holophone.
01:37 GMedict >It looks like some fog is rolling in, or something.
01:37 GMedict >You check the weather, and it reports clear skies.
01:37 Culture_Scorch Vesuvius isn't supposed to have any rain today, is it? Or fog, or anything else weird?
01:37 Culture_Scorch ....Uhhhhhhh.
01:38 Culture_Scorch I'm starting to get the idea that this has something to do with this whole game setup.
01:38 Culture_Scorch I call Neodynic on my Holophone.
01:38 GMedict >You look carefully at the horizon, which seems to be... getting closer.
01:38 GMedict >Your phone gets no reception.
01:39 Culture_Scorch ....What? The... horizon...
01:39 GMedict >This shouldn't be possible, right? You have a land line.
01:39 Culture_Scorch Fuck, okay, option of last resort.
01:39 GMedict >Your house has its own cell tower, this...
01:39 GMedict >Is it just you, or is the city getting smaller?
01:39 Culture_Scorch I descend the building as quickly as I can, and head outside.
01:40 Culture_Scorch I head for the garage, separate from our house.
01:40 Culture_Scorch ...But at this rate of shrinkage, I won't have anywhere to drive /to/.
01:40 Culture_Scorch Somehow, I get the feeling that this isn't just a fog, and rather something more... fundamental.
01:40 GMedict >The horizon is vanishing into whiteness- you can see down one of the main radial streets that the city just... stops.
01:41 GMedict >And the part where it stops seems to be getting closer.
01:41 Culture_Scorch ...Only one thing to do, then.
01:41 Culture_Scorch I go back in my house and sit near the hearth.
01:41 Culture_Scorch The fire hasn't gone out. As long as the fire's not out, everything is and will be alright.
01:42 GMedict >Everything is alright. You can't see most of the city past the white wall closing in, but everything is alright.
01:42 GMedict >You can't see the far wall of the room past the white wall closing in, but everything is alright.
01:42 Culture_Scorch Providence will provide.
01:43 Culture_Scorch (Naturally, you don't admit that you're scared shitless and basically repeating that weird mantra from your dream over and over by now.)
01:43 Culture_Scorch (Not in any sort of state to actually be able to coherently admit anything after all right now.)
01:43 GMedict >Providence provides a rapidly approaching wall of whiteness, which comes within a foot of you.
01:43 GMedict >Everything is alright.
01:44 GMedict >It slowly closes in around you. You are surrounded, and everything's alright.
01:45 Culture_Scorch Everything is alright, everything will be alright, everything will be alright-
01:45 Culture_Scorch I whimper a little bit.
01:45 Culture_Scorch Not that anything's there to hear, of course.
01:45 Culture_Scorch If a whimper comes in a nonconscious white empty world and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?
01:45 GMedict >You're pretty sure everything's alright as the whiteness swallows you up and you lose consciousness.
01:45 GMedict >Congratulations!