A/N: Hey guys. I have returned. Dang, this is a long one, the next one may take longer due to me kinda burning myself out on this one. Still, I hope you enjoy, I plan to have some ACTUAL cover art up...eventually? as soon as Spyzee hurries it up... and as soon as I figure out what Evan's prototyped equipment should be, speaking of which, if you have any ideas for that, PLEASE, comment and add suggestions, my mind is a blank for that. Anywho, I don't own anything, other than the OC's, and...yeah, rate and review, I hope you enjoy.
Tatopatato: Thanks for all your reviews, :) you are like, the best.
Everything felt so heavy.
Chester groggily sat up in his backyard. Sleepily gazing around his surroundings, he tried to remember why he was passed out in his yard... Was that a hole...in the side of the house? What were all these strange machines doing here... Was that a...ghost that just hovered past him...What the hell, is going on here?
Then, he remembered. Evan. The blue ghost man. THE COMET.
Frantically gazing upwards, Chester assured himself that the comet was gone and that he was, still alive. Great.
Looking around, in greater detail, he began to quickly remember the events leading up to the comet. So, judging by the fact that he was still alive, Chester found it reasonable to hypothesize that either he 'activated' the book at the last second, or, Evan did something to save him.
Looking around a bit more, his vision clearing, Chester finally noticed something...odd.
The ground was gone.
That last one made him do a double-take. No... The ground was still there. Just...the rest of the neighborhood was gone. The house and a small patch of lawn around it had been...teleported? Somewhere.
Gazing around closer, he could see that he was up high somewhere. About half the house and lawn bordered a sheer cliff face, while the other half abruptly stopped and fell away into... a long fall. Cautiously approaching the part of his lawn that crumbled away into oblivion, and cautiously peering over, he could indeed make out the ground... and it was very far down. It seemed that the house was on... a mountain...or something like that.
Looking around, he could see many, many rivers cris-crossing the...snowy? … well, it was white, ground below. Clear, gleaming towers rose out of the ground all along the horizon. Chester couldn't tell what they were at this distance. The whole surrounding area was blanketed in a very light, fog.
As he gazed out in wonder over the vast expanse, a name ran through his mind,
'Land Of Glass And Pillars'
He remembered that, though he wasn't sure how he knew it. He could have sworn this was the first time he had heard that. Was that referring to this place? As a cool wind blew against him, he was reminded, that he was on the edge of a very. Tall. Cliff.
Chester wasn't afraid of heights, per say, but he still didn't find doing stuff like this pleasant. Satisfied with his look, he scampered backwards, only to have his heart stop in terror as the ground beneath him gave way.
As he was rapidly sliding towards his death, he felt something wrap around him and stop his descent. He was then dragged backwards through the air, before being deposited on the lawn with a thud.
Looking behind him, he could see Boreall, standing (err... floating?) there with a goofy smile. Standing up, Chester gratefully said,
"Oh, god. I would have fallen if it weren't for your help. Thanks Boreall,"
Now, not expecting an answer, Chester turned around, only to nearly jump out of his skin as the good Captain spoke, in the trademark broken English from his Video Game,
"Do not frat of it, young squire! Tis' deh sovergin douty of erry SPESS RENGER to perhtect deh cetizenry of deh Imperium."
Chester stared at him for a moment, baffled, before asking,
"you can speak now?"
"Af course ah can speek, young lad, why wouldn't I?"The ghost-man responded jovially
"Well. Ok then. What are you exactly? If you don't mind me asking." Chester inquired
"Ah am a SPESS RANGER! Also, Ah am yer sprite."
"A...Sprite? Can you please clarify?" Chester asked, dumbfounded
"A Sprite is a guide created by a player, Ah am heer to give ye guidaance ant wisdom."
"What kind of guidance? So, you know where I am now? What I should do?"
"Weel, now ye are in dah medium, on one of deh tree planets created for you and your co-players. As to what ye sheld do, yee must first ascend through the gate."
"The gate?" Chester asked, confused.
"Ineeed, deh gate. It is deh ring high above yer house." he said, pointing
Chester looked up and, sure enough, a large circle hung serenely in the sky above his house. It was the same circular logo that could be found on most of the devices spawned by Evan. Eyeballing an estimate, Chester guessed that it was about... two kilometers? Above the house, give or take a few hundred meters. He wasn't quite sure how to "ascend" to it, but he assumed that just meant passing through it. Anyway, he had no idea how to get up there, as a tall ladder probably just wouldn't cut it in this case.
"How do you suggest I go about 'ascending' to it?" he asked,
"Ask thy server player friend ter help." Boreall replied cryptically, intending for Chester to finish the train of thought.
"Of course!" Chester exclaimed, "Evan can use his game to build something to get me higher."
"Now then," he continued,
"You mentioned planets, and the medium. What are those? I assume this is not Earth, judging by the disappearance of the neighborhood and the different skyline."
"Deh medium is deh dimenshun yer in now. Deh planets are created unce yeu and yer friends stert deh game. Deh planets are serpussed to reflect you as a perrson."
Different planets, eh? Chester wasn't liking where this was going, he asked, dreading the answer,
"So what happened to Earth then?"
"Deh Earth is destroeyd...or will be destroeyd... Hard ter keep track of time out here, in deh meduim."
"The earth..." Chester whispered, "destroyed?"
"Eyerp,"
"And... The People?"
"All Perbably dead," Boreall said, quietly.
"But dooh not grew dis-hertened, squire! Deh death of battul brodders is but a fact of life." The sprite said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder "There was nay a thing thee could have done for them. Now, derre is nay time tooh be lost. We must press ohnward!"
Gritting his teeth, 'most of the people there were assholes anyway', Chester asked Boreall what to do now.
"Well, squire! Thou may explore deh land and speak to deh consorts, or thou may contact thy friend and try to reach deh portal. First dough, Ah would recommend alchemizing thyself better equipment, thy enemies will be approaching soon."
Enemies? What enemies? Chester most certainly did not like the sound of that.
"Enemies?" he inquired,
"Deh various und villainous cretures that sburb will throw at ye to test thy martial prowess," The sprite said, gesturing outwards with his spoon,
"Dough, do not worry, deh first ones ye will face will be quite weak und puny. Exxelent fer improving thy marital prowwes. Besides, deh mountin doth delay deir advance...for now."
Weak and puny, heh, sounded like a metaphor for his life. Still, better weak and puny than strong and mighty, he thought. HE would be more than happy to work with "Weak and Puny". But, what did the sprite mean by "alchemize equipment"? Did that imply that the devices in the yard could be used to fabricate more than just a glowy book?
"What do you mean by "alchemizing equipment"? Can you elaborate on how I would do that, Mr. Boreall?" Chester asked,
"I doth not know how shuch a sorcerous system works, even in all mine spritely knowlege...but, thou may find it prudent to check upon thy "cards" once more" The sprite said coyly,
His cards... captchalogue cards?
Opening his fetch modus, and selecting the first item he came across, the Crocker-Crop Heater. Examining it's physical card, Chester was shocked to find that a code, much like upon the totem's card, had appeared upon the card's back. Checking various other items, Chester saw that they too, all now bore unique codes.
Looking back up, he could see that Boreall had floated off to the other end of the yard and was now gazing over the side, shaking his spoon at something below. There was likely no time to lose.
Chester sprinted over to the devices, his laptop chief among them, and began trying to contact Evan, who he hoped was still alive and kicking.
-InquisitoralLogician [IL] began pestering EnragedExtremist [EE]-
IL: Evan?
IL: Are you there?
EE: HOLY CARP! YOURE ALIVE
EE: What's going on, I got disconnected from you,
IL: No time to explain. Enemies are coming. I'm in space...I think.
IL: And I need you to help alchemize weapons and stuff to repel them.
EE: ...is that all?
IL: And Boreall actually talks now.
EE: Great, lets do this.
IL: Really? That's your response? No confusion? No curiosity?
EE: Meh, I've seen weirder.
IL: …Whatever. So. How do we re-connect?
EE: idk, try opening sburb and connecting to me, or something.
IL: Alright then.
-InquisitoralLogician [IL] ceased pestering EnragedExtremist [EE]-
Chester hung up on Evan, and navigated to the sburb directory to find, to his surprise, that the game was still running. Not really in the mood to question it, he just went to the active players screen, where he saw only EnragedExtremist in the lobby. Clicking on him, and pressing 'reconnect', Chester waited for something to happen, while the stupid loading animation played.
As far as he could tell, they probably just needed to follow the same procedure to alchemize stuff. Get totem, get code, carve totem, place on alchemeter, … , receive item? As he thought about it, he realized there were two problems.
Firstly, he had no idea how to get more totems. Secondly, the whole procedure was about making items from a totem and a code... but he only had codes for things that he already had in his fetch modus... so it could only really be useful for duplicating stuff that was already on hand. Now if he had something like a pictionary modus on the other hand... Sigh, this pop-quiz modus was really lucky no replacements were around.
Chester decided to, as discretely as possible, consult his "advantage" about the situation. Opening " ", and browsing to a cached version of some obscure walkthrough site, he found what he was looking for, a walkthrough to the opening stages of sburb.
He found it earlier, while Evan was depositing items in his backyard. It was written by TentacleTherapist, which was obviously a pesterchum account, but the odd thing was, when he tried to search the username to contact the author, the account search came up empty. The username was never used. Strange.
Speaking of odd pesterchum occurrences, he was suddenly reminded of the creepy fellow who messaged him. The person mentioned the medium, which, if Chester was not mistaken, was what Boreall-sprite called this place. The mystery user spoke as if Chester's entrance into the medium was predetermined... which was kinda creepy. What was it he wanted from him again? Oh, yeah, " Once you enter the medium, seek out your... Denizen?" or something like that. Chester made a mental note to ask Boreall what a "denizen" was, and whether it would be a good idea to seek it out.
Creepily prophetic or not, Chester most certainly did not, trust the strange user.
Anyway, he returned to the walkthrough.
According to TentacleTherapist, the Cruxtruder would produce infinite amounts of totems. Of more interest, was the fact that, apparently, the Punch-DesignX could be used to fuse items by combining the codes from two cards, resulting in a unique, fused item. Hm. Useful.
Meanwhile, it appeared that the loading had finished and they were connected. Going back to messaging Evan, Chester began to write,
-InquisitoralLogician [IL] began pestering EnragedExtremist [EE]-
IL: You have connected?
EE: yep,
EE: So, do you know what to do now?
IL: Yes. The Punch-DesignX lets us combine items by using their codes.
IL: And the Cruxtruder apparently has infinite numbers of totems.
EE: Great, now what?
IL: I guess we make weapons and stuff.
IL: I'll be honest. No idea how to start.
EE: Well, how bout you take my last birthday present, and fuse that with something.
Chester immediately knew what Evan was referring to. The item he sent for Chester's birthday last year was awesome... and probably illegal in Canada. When Evan had heard that Chester didn't own even a single gun, he immediately decided to rectify the situation... Despite any protests to the contrary.
Somehow... Evan had acquired a burst-auto combat rife and ammunition, and decided to mail it to Chester.
Despite no mail offices existing in North Korea, and the fact that sending an unlicensed gun in the mail was probably illegal, Evan still found a way around all that.
Early in the morning on his birthday, Chester woke up to scratching at his window. Apparently, it was a carrier pigeon.
No...many carrier pigeons... all tied to a cardboard box? Chester let them in, and thus, received an assault weapon and a few clips of ammunition for it.
He kept it hidden under his bed ever since. Not like it had a return address or anything.
IL: You know. That might work. Ill go get it.
IL: What should I fuse with it?
EE: How bout a chainsaw?
IL: That's terrible. No. Just no.
Remembering what the guide said about fusing things, and how it sometimes combined the "symbolic" properties of objects, and not just their physical characteristics. Like how TentacleTherapist described fusing knitting needles with a grimoire of black magic, to create magic wands. So, perhaps if Chester fused his gun with something like... a Spess Ranger model that used a pulse cannon, it would turn the rifle into a plasma gun...or something.
IL: Still though, I have something in mind...
-InquisitoralLogician [IL] ceased pestering EnragedExtremist [EE]-
Chester put down his laptop and began combing the grass for the Spess ranger model. Upon finding it, he captchalogued it. He then decided that the fusing process would be more efficient if he got all the stuff he meant to combine first. Thus, he ran over to the house to get various things from his room. Before entering, he stopped himself, remembering his grandpappy. He was a heavy sleeper, but there was no way he could have slept through all the chaos of the past while. Old buzzard was probably prowling the halls even now... This would need to be done stealthily...
Gently opening the door, and wincing at every resulting creek and groan from the hinges, Chester crept inside.
Once in, he crept down the hall into the living room. Pausing at the entrance, he gazed around the interior of the house, spotting his grandpa rolling his wheelchair to his ground floor office. He rolled in and closed the door behind him.
Realizing that now that Grandpa was in his office, this may be the best time to get up stairs, Chester quietly lad-scampered up the carpeted stairs. Halting at the top, he listened intently for any sign of being discovered... Nope, everything's good. He stalked his way down the hall and into his room.
Closing the door behind him, regarding Evan's hole in the wall with annoyance, Chester began captchaloguing anything that he thought may be useful or cool to combine. Reaching under his bed, he captchalogued the rifle and ammo. Going over to a shelf, he got a SPESS RANGER helmet, as well as a tablet he planned to fuse with it, which would, (hopefully) result in a helmet with integrated computer screens. His copy of the Fictionomicon was also grabbed, to imbue something with spooky supernatural powers... or something like that. Evan's present from two years ago, a police grade stab-proof vest, was taken from it's resting place at the back of the closet. He also captchalogued some clothes and a blue scarf from his closet, though, those were mostly just for style.
As he was finishing up, he heard a sound that froze his blood. The Chair lift on the stairs. It was in use. Grandpappy was coming upstairs. Uh-oh.
Panicking, and with his only way downstairs, Chester concluded that the most reasonable option was to climb out the window. The hole, after all, had splinters and things. Chester hated splinters.
Scampering over to the window and cracking it open, all his items secure in his fetch-modus, he raised the window and began to climb through it. When he was fully on the outside of the building, hanging on only by his fingers, was when he realized his blunder. There were no hand or foot-holds on the outside of his house. For a second, he just dangled there, and then to compound the situation, the window fell shut. On his fingers. Ouch.
Then, he fell two stories to the ground. Ouch x2.
Groaning, he flexed his fingers and, to his relief, found nothing broken. (Though they hurt like hell) Then, his laptop beeped.
Wandering over, he found a message from Evan,
-EnragedExtremist [EE] began pestering InquisitoralLogician [IL]-
EE: What the hell was that?
EE: I was chatting with Chris while keeping an eye on things,
EE: And I just see you open your window, and fall out of it
EE: XD
EE: What is wrong with you?
IL: Shut up.
EE: Do you have the things? Namely my gun, you NEED the gun.
IL: Yes. I have the things.
EE: Are you gonna make a chainsaw gun?
EE: When I get into the medium, I want a chainsaw gun.
IL: No. That's dumb. I. Am going to make an energy weapon.
EE: That's it? You're so lame, BOOOOOOO
-EnragedExtremist [EE] ceased pestering InquisitoralLogician [IL]-
Trying to ignore Evan, Chester walked over to the Cruxtruder and looked inside the cylinder. Sure enough, another totem awaited. Captchaloguing it, he wandered over to the Punch-DesignX and looked at the cards containing the rifle, and the Spess Ranger. The device had a pair of terminals where, according to the tutorial, the two item codes went. Entering the Ranger card's code into one of the terminals, he then input the rifle card's code into the other terminal.
After activating the machine, a piece of paper was ejected with the new code on it. Taking it, along with the totem to the totem lathe, Chester once again inserted and strapped down the totem, and entered the code into the lathe. The machine spun up, and carved the totem into a new shape. He then took it over to the Alchemeter and placed it on the pedestal. Pressing the activation button, he was interrupted by his pesterchum beeping,
-EnragedExtremist [EE] began pestering InquisitoralLogician [IL]-
EE: Hey, I don't know if you realized, but using the Alchemeter to make things costs grist.
IL: Do we have enough?
EE: Well, the car gave us a lot of grist. Even some of the other, special types.
EE: So, we have quite a bit for now.
EE: Craft to your heart's content.
IL: Also. I just remembered to tell you. I need to "ascend" or something through the portal up there above the house.
IL: So Boreall said that the easiest was is to just build the house up until I can walk through.
EE: That will require a lot of grist, repairing the floor in your room almost bankrupt us.
IL: Really? And who's fault was that, pray tell?
EE: ...I blame the communists
IL: Of course you do.
IL: Look. Can I just craft things now? Why don't you make yourself useful and use your majjyk camera to scout for these enemies.
EE: Fine, You're boring,
-EnragedExtremist [EE] ceased pestering InquisitoralLogician [IL]-
Happy at no further interruptions, Chester slammed the button. The arm extended from the Alchemeter, scanned the totem, and a flash of light occurred.
When his vision cleared, the totem was gone, and, in the center of the Alchemeter, lay a gun. It wasn't a copy of the rifle Evan sent him, though the similarity was visible. The most noticeable differences were the completely reconfigured barrel, and the glowing tubes running along the barrel and stock, humming with barely contained power. SUCCESS!
Captchaloguing it, Chester was extremely anxious to try it out. As he went to appear it, he was once again, stopped by his modus, which printed out another quiz card.
"What was the Date of Alfred Hitchcock's death?" it read.
Puzzling over the sheer randomness of the questions it asked sometimes, Chester searched it up on . Apparently, he died in April 29, 1980. Hmm. Who knew?
Entering the date into the fetch-modus, Chester was rewarded with the lazer gun.
Ecstatically, and throwing caution to the wind, he pointed it in the air, and squeezed the trigger. The resulting flash of light and heat nearly blinded him. When, after a minute he could see again, he saw that the garden shed was...smaller than it was before. Almost a quarter of the diminutive structure was...just gone. Nothing remained but a glassy, charred crater...Grandpa was going to be pissed...that is, if he ever went outside and saw it, that is.
So, he could conclude, the gun really did fire blasts of...something, as a result of the Spess Ranger component in the fusion. Great. Now he could move on to other stuff. Though, he did add a mental note to fuse some sunglasses with his helmet to avoid blinding himself every-time it fired.
The fusion process repeated itself several more times, Chester taking great comfort in the... quiet and serenity of the monotonous and repetitive process. The Spess Ranger replica helmet was fused with his laptop, which resulted in the sleek and cool helmet now gaining an integrated wifi antenna, and toggle-able computer screens in the eye pieces. Chester immediately put it on.
On a spur of the moment idea, he took off his tan coat, and captchalogued it. He then underwent the lengthy procedure to fuse it with Evan's stab-proof vest. The resulting coat was now visibly identical, but was now comprised of a rough, tensile material. Then, on a whim, he fused the new coat, with the code from the Spess Ranger model. The result was, just as planned, more protective qualities for the coat. Sadly, it did not turn into power-armor, but it did gain thick shoulder pauldrons, from the same stab-proof material as the rest of the coat.
Chester then thought it would be a great idea to fuse his blue scarf, and the code for his laptop. After the monotonous setup, the result was the same light blue scarf, with an imbedded computer, capable of accessing the internet and pesterchum. Wonderful. One can never have too many computers, after all. He immediately tossed on the scarf, underneath the coat.
Lastly, he found himself staring at his fetch-modus, and pondering what to do with the Fictionomicon. Then, it hit him. The dark book of black majjyk and evil that TentacleTherapist fused with the knitting needles turned them into magic wands that contained powerful black majjyk... perhaps fusing it with his lazer gun would result in something... interesting.
Even then though, Chester wasn't stupid enough to sacrifice his only copy of the unique lazer gun in the fusion, so, he captchalogued it, and wrote down the code on it's card. This way, if everything worked out, he would have the original, as well as the new black majjyk gun. While he was in his modus, Chester noticed that the lazer gun, as well as all other fused weapons had names. The gun was called a "Plasma Rifle". If that thing that vaporized his shed was a rifle, Chester felt fortunate he didn't fuse a miniature with plasma cannon to the rifle by accident. Still, having obtained the code, he was ready for fusing, or, prototyping, as TentacleTherapist called it.
In hindsight, perhaps fusing a demonic book with a SI-FI lazer gun wasn't the wisest course of action.
Still, as Boreall would say, "DERRE WAS NO TIME TER BE LOST", as Chester would say, "for progress and SCIENCE!" and, as Evan would say, if he were here, "Don't be a wuss, just do it." Thus, Chester set everything up, and pressed the button.
The bright light that accompanied all previous prototypings was noticeably dimmer and more ominous. Before Chester could wonder what that meant, he was buffeted by a wave of... he couldn't really describe it, the words that came close were; coldness, suffering, hatred, fear, malice, and despair. He began to shiver, despite his coat and scarf, and the warm climate. Then, he looked up at the gun that lay upon the Alchemeter.
He immediately wished he hadn't.
The gun was... evil. That was the only word that came to mind. It was as if it sucked the light and warmth out of it's surroundings. Grey ghostly mist congregated and shimmered around it, Chester could swear that he heard alternating whispers and screams emanating from it. It made him want to get as far away from it as possible, curl up, and cry.
It was perfect.
Chester wasn't stupid, he had more than a vague notion of what prototyping the Fictionomicon with something could create, but he was fairly certain that something this terrifying to it's creator, would be even more horrifying to it's enemies. He looked back at it, to find that it was less... painful to look at now. Strange, he mused... it was as if with every passing moment, he was growing more accustomed to it, and less fearful.
More paranoid (sane) individuals might have freaked out at that point, convinced that the weapon was trying to manipulate them into taking it, but Chester was... well, he was paranoid and cynical, but he was sure the weapon was harmless...for him anyways.
Thus, he walked nervously upto it, and captchalogued the thing. Immediately, the tension in the air dissipated, and the warmth returned.
Examining his fetch modus, and viewing a 3D model of it on the modus's screen, he could see that, once one got past all the scary ghost smoke and whispers, the gun looked pretty sweet. It was like the Plasma Rifle, except it now had a longer barrel and a scope. The rifle's glowing energy tubes were now filled with what looked like... lightning? Small decorative skulls covered a lot of it's surface, and the muzzle was framed with an ornate silver dragon head. The name tag on it read UNDERTAKER .
Chester wouldn't lie, he found this thing to be really cool. But mainly he couldn't wait to show it to Evan and try to scare the hell out of him. Hopefully the mind-violating side-effects persisted through computer screens...
Speaking of Evan, it seems the fellow was pestering him right now.
-EnragedExtremist [EE] began pestering InquisitoralLogician [IL]-
EE: Oh wow.
IL: What?
EE: You look like a tool.
EE: Your outfit is so awful, the English language fails to describe how bad and tacky you look.
IL: I think this costume is cool.
EE: Of course you would, you thought your bedroom looked fine.
EE: Even people in the eighties didn't decorate that badly, or, so my dad, and High School Musical say.
Evan lived in the literal boonies. Thus, he never went to school. Or had anything resembling a normal childhood. Thus, his only knowledge on human interactions came from his dad, and bad movies in the Winnebago.
IL: I… Just what do you want?
EE: Oh yeah, right, your outfit was so bad it distracted me.
EE: The enemies are, like, right about to reach your house.
IL: Did you see them? How many are there?
EE: Calm down, they are small black bi-pedal creatures. They are like, four feet tall, and kinda scrawny.
EE: Boreall was...fighting them, I guess? He'd like levitate those horrid lawn-gnomes and launch them down the mountain.
IL: Levitate... That's a new one. Say. You can move objects. How about you select something heavy. And start hitting them with it.
EE: Hmmm... sounds fun, Ill do it. What do you want me to grab?
IL: Since you've already demolished my room. Just go ahead and grab the other cabinet in there.
EE: Mkay, are your things in order?
IL: Should be.
EE: Good luck then, (not that you'll need it, these things are so pathetic, it's kinda funny)
-EnragedExtremist [EE] ceased pestering InquisitoralLogician [IL]-
With that, Evan logged off. Chester, deciding to test the Undertaker first, uncaptchalogued it, going through the irritating song-and-dance routine that the pop-quiz modus insisted on. This time, it asked about the capital of the Roman Empire. Chester entered "Rome". This was correct, and the modus released the Undertaker rifle.
The undertaker was... less horrifying than the first time Chester saw it. Now, holding it in his hands, the unnatural and evil aura around the weapon seemed to calm and abate. Whether it was due to being wielded by it's master, or because it was trying to lure him into a false sense of security, Chester didn't know. Though, he did hope for the former.
Deciding to test it before entering combat, he aimed at a patch of the lawn, and pulled the trigger.
For a split second the horrible feeling was back. A flash of ghostly, blue light was launched from the barrel's mouth, and flew towards the lawn, accompanied by a spine-chilling wail.
When the bolt connected with the ground, it blasted a soccer-ball sized crater in the lawn. Much of the soil in the crater had been turned to ashes. The grass immediately around the point of impact began to rapidly decay, changing from a healthy green, to a sickly yellow, before becoming a muddy brown, and then fading to a life-less gray.
Truly, this was a pretty sweet weapon, who needs chainsaw guns when you had this thing. Which fired... soul energy?...or something like that? Chester wasn't sure just what it actually shot, it certainly wasn't bullets, or plasma, so it had to be some... dark majjyks?
As he continued to think on this, Boreall rounded the corner of the house, shouting,
"Deh Enemies Approach! ARM DEH SECUND LIEN OF DENFENCE! ENGAGE RAMMING SPHEED! TARGET STEHL REIN!"
The sprite then proceeded to float past Chester, and...keep going? Straight around the house, and... out of sight...ok then. Chester didn't need his help anyway.
Cautiously, he walked over to the other side of the house, where Boreall came from. Behind him, he dimly noticed his cabinet trying to make it out of the hole in his room, Evan seemed to be having a tough time trying not to further damage the house.
Chester was pretty anxious about fighting these things, whatever they were. Evan and Boreall-sprite talked about fighting them, with the implication of killing the things, being left unsaid. Chester was... pretty uneasy about killing things.
As he rounded the corner, his weapon drawn and fixed ahead, eyes scanning everything around him, off by the cliff edge, something moved.
Chester immediately answered by aiming the undertaker at it, and pulling the trigger until whatever it was stopped moving. Pausing a moment, and seeing as nothing leapt out at him, he went closer. He saw, like Evan said, a...black...thing. It was short, and, certainly humanoid, but it was definitely not human. Quite hideous, too. It had a snarl on it's face and lots of sharp teeth. Due to it's size though, it did not look menacing in the slightest. It was wearing...something resembling a perverted and poorly made version of Spess Ranger armor. T'was kind of comical how dinky it looked in the oversized armor.
It's eyes though, held the most interest for Chester. They lacked any spark, any defining feature of sentience. This thing was certainly not sentient, and it was probably a 'living creature' in the basest of terms, more like algae or plants, rather than a dog or a bunny, only barely aware of what was going on around it, likely just created for the players to have something to gun down in droves...
Oh, and there was a massive, smoking hole in it's chest. Which it didn't even appear to notice. The thing stopped squirming after a few seconds, and exploded, showering the area in grist. Fortunately for Chester, (and likely a point of complaint for Evan) the thing didn't seem to bleed, it just faded away with wispy black smoke.
The grist objects, which kinda looked a bit like Crocker-Crop's patented fruit gusher candies, hovered a little bit above the ground for a few seconds, before fading away. Chester remembered TentacleTherapist mentioning that grist will just fade away and go to a player's grist storage.
So, Chester concluded gleefully, he had no problem killing these things, and they dropped grist. Now the giant house to the portal plan could continue without grist shortages.
Unbeknownst to him, another small black thing had snuck-up on him, and was likely planning on...clawing him? When a large wooden cabinet fell out of the sky and crushed it into the ground. Grist sprayed everywhere.
It seemed that Evan had successfully extricated the cabinet through the hole, Chester noted. Good. Chester then turned around, and froze.
Before him, arrayed in a haphazard manner, were almost thirty or forty of the...hmmm, calling them small, black things was too awkward to think... hmmm,what would be a good name for them... goblins...no... runts...no, but close... imps?...hmmm, that might work, actually. Thus, the small runty creatures were now dubbed 'imps'.
Oh, right, back to the problem at hand. Chester did have a tendency to go on weird tangents at the worst possible moments. Glancing back at the floating cabinet, and assuming that Evan had his back, Chester turned to face the disorderly mob of imps, who were visibly frightened by the Undertaker, and leveled the weapon at them.
Before anything could happen, they became aware of a...noise in the distance. One that wasn't the Undertaker's incessant ghostly whispering. It slowly began to increase in volume, but Chester still couldn't make it out. The imps were starting to huddle together nervously, Chester could totally see now what Evan meant by 'pathetic enemies'.
Then, finally, they could make it out. As Chester heard the shout,
"STHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL REIN!"
Boreall-sprite suddenly leapt off the roof, and dove head first into the enemy ranks. Taking the example, the floating cabinet launched itself at the enemy, sending multiple imps flying off the edge on impact. Shrugging, Chester raised the Undertaker and began blasting away indiscriminately. They were going to get so much grist from this.
After about two minutes, all the imps had either fallen off the mountain to their deaths, been crushed by the cabinet, or blasted to ashes by the Undertaker. Chester stood knee-deep in grist. Some of the little ball sized grist particles, he noticed, had different colors, some even had unique shapes. One resembled a raindrop, but was black... oil? As they faded, he messaged Evan to tell him to get to work building the house higher. Then, Chester went to seek counsel from the sprite.
"Hey. Boreall. I had some questions for you." He asked,
"Ideed yong squire! Knowelege is powar. What doth thou seak?" The sprite merrily boomed,
"Well. Firstly. What is a denizen? I was told to seek 'mine' out... What does that mean?"
"Sedly, I am not privy to dat infurmation. Purhaps an local would knowest." The sprite said, pointing at what was a... settlement? in the distance, at the foot of the mountain.
"Okay. What do you mean local? Are they like the imps?" Chester said, he was... still unsure as to what a local here was. Weren't they technically aliens?
"Deh locels of thy worlds are culled CONSORTS, deir phisical form, like thy plannet, is a reflection of thee." Consorts. Right. Great. Very Helpful.
"Lastly. What do you think I should do now? Evan is managing the house, soon Ill try to get Chris into the session, and then Evan can follow. But now there isn't much to do here, should I try to explore? Or stay here," Chester asked, unsure of where to go from here,
"Do as thy will, squire. Expluration und cunsultatioon with deh locals may yet yeild valuable knawledge." The sprite gestured outwards,
"Well. Alright. I feel that this Denizen... thing is important. So. I think that I will explore the... settlement? You pointed out. Thanks Boreall," Chester said, turning to go,
"Do not fret of it yung lad. Dere shalt be moar upportunites fer glorius combert later!" The sprite triumphantly bellowed, floating back and forth in excitement.
"If fate doth will dat thy comerads shalt enter deh game, den dey shall."
"Well, okay then," Chester said, approaching the cliff's edge, and trying to find the optimal route down.
"Thanks Borall,"