Chapter 11: In which the depths of competition are explored
.
.
AN: So, due to timeline issues, I'm moving Bottomless Pit and (possibly) Deep End before Boss Mabel. At this point, I haven't received any reviews, so I'll just head to the chapter. Also, I'm just going to give up on actually giving dates for now, I don't have enough time as it would take several weeks of uninterrupted work, and I just don't have the time. If you want to take a crack at it, go ahead.
Also, I watched The Great Potato war with my grandpa, he found it amusing.
Yo dudes, the discords pretty chill. Maybe you could, like, join it, or something? /eSSP2GtYQS
.
.
Dipper, Mabel, and Soos stared into a pit. Moments before, Grunkle Stan had been leaning on a sign next to the pit, the sign identifying the pit as the bottomless pit, when the dirt the sign had been planted in gave out, sending Stan tumbling into the depths for a twenty-two minute adventure plus commercial breaks (This is based on the length of the episode, but I think the total amount of time was between 45-60 minutes).
"He'll be fine." Mabel stated.
"I wonder what he'll do to entertain himself all by himself. Maybe I should jump in after him!" Soos asked in a panic.
"Soos, just because Stan fell into a bottomless pit, doesn't mean you need to leap in after him." advised Dipper.
"Are you sure dude? What Stan hits the bottom, and loses his memories or something! Then how will I get adopted and become Stan Junior!?"
"Soos, you don't need to worry about our Grunkle, he's tougher than his old man body would suggest!" Mabel said trying to cheer up Soos.
"Besides, we just came out of there. It's not like there's a 50% chance it'll lead to a chaos god or something."
"Yeah, I guess you dudes are right." Soos said, while still looking mournfully down into the bottomless pit.
"I know what'll cheer you up, a trip to the arcade!" Mabel suggested. Soos didn't look comfortable with the suggestion, so Dipper stepped in.
"Come on man, I'll even go easy on you in Nort, maybe you'll finally win."
"Oh dude, you are so on!"
With that, the two children and one man-child ran to Soos's truck and headed into town. Meanwhile, Stan was falling, annoyed with the world.
'I wish I had something to do. The first time wasn't so bad because I had those troublemaker's stories, but now all I've got are my own. I'll just look through my memories. Yeesh, that was a bad idea. Huh, what's that?' Stan pondered, seeing an old book falling beside him. 'Wait, could it be!?' Stan threw himself towards the book, catching it and looking at the front. 'No, it's not another one, but what is it? A Record of the Great Potato War? Well, I've got nothing better to do.' Stan thought as he opened the book, written by someone named Odin Terracrafter.
The main text was preceded by a forward: This is the true story of one my friends, an example of a brilliant tactician in a stupid war.
'Hm, must be a fantasy novel. Bet Dipper would like this.'
The war started because of literature, so remember kids, books are bad for you. Technoblade, Famous in many circles for being a great warrior and earning the title of Blood God, needed some books made out of baked potatoes to enhance his armor. Applying earlier lessons [see volumes 1,3,4, and 7 for more information], Techno solved it using the best method available.
After farming enough potatoes, Techno had farmed enough Potatoes to reach top 50 in all potatoes farmed, making around 242,000 potatoes a day.
'That can't be right; there aren't that many potatoes in the world. Probably.'
Techno decided to become the number one potato farmer in Ș̵͎͒̑͜͝k̴̺̱̅ý̸̮̈b̴̲̺̒l̶͙͌̈̎o̵̝̳̍c̶̻̭͌ḳ̶̗̀, kicking off one of the larger wars he would take part in. Techno changed his lands production from somewhat generalist to potato farming exclusively. After making the transfer, Techno reached 309,000 potatoes a day inside a building known as the potato pyramid.
Technoblade believed this would be able to defeat any other competitors, but desided to consult the classics anyways. In Sun Tsu's The Art of War, Sun Tsu says, "If you know yourself, and you know your enemy, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." , So Techno began looking into other prominent Potato farmers for those who could challenge him. Techno found one man as dedicated to the art of potato farming, a squid humanoid named Im_a_Squid_Kid.
Techno infiltrated SquidKid's island in order to get a feeling for how many potatoes squid's farm could produce, being around 310,000. Techno fell temporarily into despair, as Squid's island was so far into debt to keep farming potatoes, it would be incredibly difficult to surpass Squid. Not only that, Squid also ran a painting reproduction on the side to keep costs down.
'A bit of a schemer, eh? I like it!'
Techno wasn't specifically worried about the difference in potato income; he was more worried about Squid's head start. A head start of an absurd 7.5 million potatoes. Techno almost caved to the mounting difficulties, but the sunk cost fallacy didn't allow it.
'Ah, the good old sunk cost fallacy. It's robbed me and given me money more times than I can count.'
Techno revitalized his farming method further, shutting down his mines to make more potatoes in a new building called the potato dome, producing 337,000 a day. Techno got so desperate he tried manually farming potatoes in addition to the industrial method. It only lasted an hour before he gave up, but Techno really wanted to be number one.
Techno discovered a fatal flaw in Squid's farming operation. Squid's peasants were working to close together, meaning if someone were to watch them they would make a mistake and waste time, taking down Squid's production by as much as 90%. Techno had a man named Whitelisted go to squid's island, and keep watch over Squid's peasants.
'Industrial sabotage, I respect it.'
Techno didn't trust sabotage alone to keep him in the lead, so he began to look at alternative items to feed his minions. Thanks to the drugs, Techno's farm reached 450,000 a day. Eventually, Squid caught on to Whitelisted, and began to question him. Whitelisted claimed he was just there to see the paintings, which Squid seemed to believe. Squid began to leave sign asking Whitelisted what he wanted.
Techno found a better performance enhancing drug, and began applying it to his minions, reaching a total of 893,000 potatoes a day. Shortly after, Techno reached third most potatoes farmed globally, and investigated second place. When he visited Second place's island, Techno was almost sick at how inefficient the farming was, decrying that "you could get away with such a poor farming technique in some garbage vegetable like carrots, but potatoes? How dare you" and "I've seen Irish famines with more potatoes than this farm.". Against such a week foe, Techno easily took second place while continuing to fight towards first, with only a lead of 3 million standing in his way.
One day, while Whitelisted was visiting Squid's island, a pair of guards showed up and began asking about Squid. They left, and Whitelisted told Squid about them. The pair were never heard from again, and there are rumors Squid killed them.
Squid's lead was disappearing rapidly, but he was blissfully unaware and even put up a sign of gold claiming to be the number one potato farmer in Ș̵͎͒̑͜͝k̴̺̱̅ý̸̮̈b̴̲̺̒l̶͙͌̈̎o̵̝̳̍c̶̻̭͌ḳ̶̗̀. Techno achieved number one, and visited Squidkid's island with Whitelisted and Whitelisted's brother, Whitelisted2. Squid was incredibly confused as to why the champion of gladiators was on his island, and Techno finally confronted him about who was number one.
Techno: Your potato rank 1 spot, is now mine!
Squid: What!
S: How!
T: For years my machinations lay undetected.
S: You ruined my life.
S: This is all I have.
S: Had.
Techno then showed Squid a critical flaw with his island. The sign claiming number 1 in potatoes had the wrong number on it. Thus ended phase one of the great potato war, but Squid was not defeated, not yet. A coalition of millionaires, billionaires, and many others would be formed, solely to defy Techno's victory. But for now, peace reigned.
END OF VOLUME 1
'huh, that was interesting. A little short, but it was made up for by pictures. I sure am glad I got to see these pictures, this story wouldn't be nearly as good without these pictures. I wonder were volume 2 is?'
.
.
Stan sat in the darkness. If not for the tail on his fez, you wouldn't know he was falling. After finishing the first volume of the Great Potato War, he became bored again.
'I'm strangely invested in this story, if only I could find volume 2. Oh wait, there it is.'
Stan reached out and grabbed the second volume, excited to learn what happened next.
Within a week of Squid's dethronement, his farm was improved to be stronger than Techno's, thanks to a cabal of millionaires and billionaires. Techno hired new goons and hide the inside of his potato dome, following the wisdom of Sun Tsu, "Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.". Techno even conquered another world to distract Squid, before increasing his farms production to 1,067,000 potatoes a day.
'Another world? I wonder… that machine is supposedly able to punch between dimensions, so I suppose it wouldn't be impossible.'
In order to increase the farm further, one could create flycatchers from the remains of the massive tarantulas at the peak of a mountain. Techno realized that Squid was attending a prestigious acadamia, and so was often unable to farm manually. During an event hosted by lord Hypixel, Techno received a skeleton horse as a pet, one that could destroy crops. Of course, Techno wouldn't do that, he's a good person [It was too inefficient].
Back on Techno's island, a secret route into the farm was discovered, so visitors formed an orderly queue to break in, before eventually forming a cult that worshiped potatoes. Techno was unsure how to react to the cult, but left them alone in return for them protecting his potatoes.
'Accidently starting a cult? I can relate.'
Finally, Techno's upgrades were complete, reaching 1,129,075 a day. Squid's army was not slacking off either, a he achieved the strongest farm two weeks later. Now, the only way for Squid to catch up to Techno was farming by hand, which Squid had already started. Techno built a massive farm, sized about 11,000 one cubic meter blocks, and borrowed Death's scythe to plow his fields.
For a few in January, the automatic farms were only making 33% of what they were supposed to. Techno immediately used this to make Squid paranoid and think Techno had done something to his farm. Techno got so in depth with potatoes that once he fell asleep and when he woke up he had no idea how long he had been asleep, until he saw his potatoes, at which point he could tell, "Ah, these potatoes have been growin' for three and a half hours."
At this point in the war, Squid had farmed an extra million potatoes by hand, while Techno had farmed over five million potatoes by hand. Squid hid how many potatoes he had in total, but Techno, using math and infiltrating Squid's farm, was able to make an estimation of an about twenty-two million potato lead.
'That would take a while to farm. Heck, I don't think I could fleece that much, unless I got a massive rush of tourists.'
Then, a series of new discoveries rocked the land. First, A new, more efficient way to create flycatchers was found, increasing Techno's farm to 1,231,718 a day. Second, a way to tame animals and make them into familiars, which would increase some aspect of your island. Techno and Squid immediately set out to find one, with Squidkid going with a Squid, while Techno went with a rabbit.
The rabbit that Techno chose was of a specific breed that had a unique bonus of increasing farming speed, something Squid did not discover until four days later. The level of bond between a master and familiar dictates how strong the bonus the owner gets, so Techno began brewing potions to level up his rabbit, reaching 96 out of 100, while Squid only reached 65. Thanks to this bonus, Techno's farm reached 1,586,452 a day. On seventh of March, Techno had farmed, in total, 158,051,492 Potatoes. In a speech to rally his allies, Tehcno said, "This man [Squid] has been playing checkers, while I've been farmin' potatoes! You think I've been crazy so far, I've got so many strategies I can't share with you because Squid hasn't found them yet."
And so, the stage is set for the finale. Both factions have massive industrial capabilities and massive amounts of income, and neither will go down without a fight.
END OF VOLUME 2
'Hmm, that wasn't as exciting of an end as volume 1, but it was still good. Probably because it just covers the middle. It is pretty nerdy, I bet the kiddo will love these. Does seem slightly biased towards Techno, maybe the author is related to him?'
.
.
'I wonder how this great potato war ends. It certainly seems like it will a climactic finale, probably with a war crime or two. Hey, is it getting brighter?'
As Stan began to be able to make out his surroundings better, he prepared to exit the pit. 'Alright Stan, here we go. Bend your knees and roll, bend your knees and roll, bend your knees and' "Aaaagh! Oof, I'm getting to old for this kind of thing. Dipper! Mabel! Come help your Grunkle up!"
Stan landed on his back on the rim of the pit. He was stuck like a turtle for a few minutes until he finally heard footsteps approaching.
"Hey Mr. Pines, whatcha doin'?"
"Wendy? Where are the kids and Soos?"
"They said something about going to the arcade. You need help getting up?"
"Yes please."
Wendy sighed at her boss's antics as she helped the old man to his feet. Stan brushed dirt of his shoulders. "Thank you"
"Could I get a raise?"
"I'm not THAT thankful."
"Good to see you didn't hit your head when you were doing whatever weird old man thing you were doing."
"Ah, shut up."
As Stan and Wendy were walking back to the shack, they heard a car driving up the driveway. When Stan looked over, it was Soos's red truck. Wendy kept walking into the shack, while Stan crept up to the truck.
"Thanks for bringing us to the arcade, Soos!" Mabel said as she hugged Soos goodbye.
"No problem dudes, I don't have much else to do. Besides, I'm always willing to school a dude in nort."
"Says the man with the 0 in 5/0."
"Dude, we both know I was going easy on you."
"Yeah right. Just admit it, I'm the greatest at nort."
"You will not claim my throne so easily, dude!"
"Bring it!"
"You're so on, dude!"
Stan coughed, drawing the attention of the three hoodlums who had abandoned him to the bottomless pit. "Hello, it's me, your Grunkle Stan! You know, the one you left in the pit?"
Soos screamed and peeled out of the parking lot, abandoning the Pines twins to their semi-irate guardian.
"Grunkle Stan! We didn't know how it would take for you to get out of the pit, so Soos took us to the arcade! I got you a pair of Groucho glasses. You aren't mad, right?" Mabel said, attempting to butter her Grunkle up.
"No sweetie, I'm not mad. Why don't you two get cleaned up. Wait, Dipper, I got something for you."
"Yeah Grunkle Stan? What is it?"
"I found these while falling, it's the first two of three parts, and it seems like your kind of nerdy."
Dipper's heart caught in his throat. Was this thing Stan wanted to give him the first two journals? If they were, then it would help him figure out who the author is. I mean, it's not like Stan actually believes in the oddness in Gravity Falls, so he would view any journals discussing them as a fiction.
Stan, unaware of the rapid increase in heartbeats from his nephew, handed Dipper the two volumes of The Great Potato War. "I don't know where the third part is, so you'll just have to make it up or something."
Dipper was disappointed when he noticed the lack of a six-fingered hand on either cover, but didn't let it show on his face. "Thanks Grunkle Stan."
"Yeah, yeah. Let's get inside; it's starting to get late."
"Ok"
.
.
Of the nether's forces, the strongest and most diverse were the piglins. Although not as strong as a majority of species in the nether, they made up for it with the ability to, as a race that was still alive, reproduce.
Nether skeletons, Zombie Piglins, and Ghasts are both undead. Blazes are an artificial defense construct created by the Ć̷̡̢̡̨̛̞̩̤̩̟̰̳̲̹̘͒̋̓̐͆͝ř̵̢̢̢̯̣̰͔͓̰̖͉͎͉̇́̓̕͝ȁ̶̢͉̯͔͇̗̺̳̰̥̞̹̳̣̳f̸̢̛̺̟͉͉͎͈̉͆́̾̀t̶̢̹͎̟̯̙̣̜͛͗̓̉͂̀͌̊̍̕͠e̷̥͚̝̜̘̳̠̬̘͍̘̺̽̃̃͋̈͒̈́r̷̪̣̱̍̅͂̋͒̈́͋ͅs̸̱̊̇̍́̅̔ to defend their fortresses. Magma Cubes grow from heavy lava at the bottom of the great lava oceans, and Striders have no combat abilities. Hoglins are technically their own species, but are in the process of being domesticated by the Piglins. The Endermen are not native to the Nether, and are unable to reproduce in the Nether, forcing them to either teleport in from the End or Overworld.
After the first Nether war, most famously chronicled by [then] Captain Sparkles, the Nether was left almost entirely lifeless, with a few Endermen popping in and out at random. Then, one day, a portal opened for the first time in hundreds of years. A son, long lost, returned to his birthplace, and made a request of his adoptive father. The adoptive father acquiesced, and returned life to the nether, and created an eternal chunk of ice for his son to rule from.
Years passed, and different factions formed, worshiping the son as their god, for while the father had returned life, the son had given them the opportunity to live. Eventually, though, the son passed, and the entirety of the Nether mourned. For the first time since its creation, the Nether had pools of water from tears. Unbeknownst to the father and son, the denizens of the Nether had prepared emergency shelters in case something like the first Nether war ever happened again.
Equipped with cryo-freezing technology, harvested from the son's seat of power, a majority of the Nether's populace was frozen, set to be unfrozen when the son returned. A few of the shelters malfunctioned, releasing the populace back into the Nether, but they were unable to control more than a few locations located in the ruins of ancient buildings.
There are many factions of Piglins. The Hog Riders, who ride Hoglin into battle and believe in going very fast. The Frozen Pork, royal guards of son and commanding officers. The Pig Skins, scribes, scientists, and consuls. The Oinkers of the Divine, priests and the main church. The Swine Frondeur, cultists who interpret the son's beliefs as a call to action against all government.
There are many other, smaller factions, but as they often only exist in a few regions or are extremely niche, they will not be mentioned here.
.
.
Finished 5/27/2023, Words: 3,160, Written using a pirated copy of Microsoft Word 2007.
AN2: I'm literally finishing this at 11:30 in my aunt and uncle's basement because I babysat their kids while they went to a wedding.
So Epic Games free game has been crazy for the past two weeks, first was death stranding, and this week is Fallout New Vegas. I really wasn't expecting New Vegas to ever be free, so I was incredibly surprised.
Also, a few people have been saying this is the best thing they've ever read. I don't know if it's because of the concept, or because of the writing. If it's because of the concept, thank you, this concept comes directly from my sleep-deprived ass. If it's because of my writing ability, I'm not sure how to put this politely, but go read Lord of the Rings or something, because I'm not that good of a writer.
One last note, I'm two days early POG.