Pinesquest 2D, a Romance of the Second Dimension
Ch.5
Dipper and Mable looked through the notebook of items for sale, their descriptions, their prices. What was for sale and what he claimed they could do were surprising.
Some of them were things they had already seen, such as soda that heals, plushies that remove fear, and batteries that restore magic. Others were cut from the same cloth but new to the twins. These included CDs that wake you up, cameras that let you speak, and scrapbooks that remove confusion.
There was also an entire section with weapons and clothes claimed to be armor. Dipper was eying up the Jousting spear while Mable looked at the Bezazzled hook.
"How much for our weapons?"
Tad floated over and looked over the spear and grappling hook the twins presented.
"50 gold each."
The twins looked at the catalog, their weapons, and each other before nodding.
"Here are our weapons and 900 gold. We'll take the Jousting Spear and Bezazzled hook."
Tad nodded and proceeded with the exchange. "Anything else?"
Mable looked in her pouch at the much-diminished gold amounts. "How about a battery and Pitt? We're still a little beat up and low on mana."
Tad looked at them worriedly. "You are? Good heavens! Then, I would recommend that you head over to that spark and touch it. The energy it expels can restore you to perfect health and full strength by touching it only once."
The kids then turned to look at the floating purple square surrounded by sparkles near the register.
Mable looked at it briefly before shrugging and doing as he suggested.
"Mable? Do you think touching the floating purple light is a good idea? We don't know what it is?"
"We don't know what anything is right now! At least the one friendly person we met is voguing for it."
As soon as Mable touched it, she and Dipper felt fully healed, and the ach associated with low mana was gone.
"Wow! This is amazing! We should figure out how to get one of these back homes. No more doctors, dentists, or vets; think of all the money we could save!"
Dipper grinned excitedly at the prospect. "Maybe we could also make money off it! $100 a use, everyone uses it once a month, that is definitely cheaper and more effective than normal medicine. And if we can figure out how to make more, write up a few scientific papers on how to make them, this could be world-changing!"
Tad floated over between them and placed his hands on their shoulders.
"Calm down there. That is a result of a combination of factors that would be difficult and dangerous to replicate elsewhere. Best to do some research and experimentation to ensure you don't alter gravity, the speed of light, or turn everyone into statues."
Mable cringed at that while Dipper sighed in disappointment.
"Of course, it wouldn't be that easy. Well, thanks for telling us, Tad. We'll be on our way now since we already have a Pitt and battery."
Tad tipped his hat at the pair.
"Pleasure doing business with you."
The two headed to the door, with Mable stopping in front of it.
"One second, Bro, I wanna see what the fortune-telling machine says."
She walked over to it, pushed the button, and read the card.
"'That gum you like is going to come back in style.' YES! 'sprinkles' will return as a gum flavor!"
She then skipped over to her brother and out the door. When they exited the store, she turned to Waddles and petted him on the head.
"You stay here where it's safe, Waddles."
With a friendly oink, the two shared a smile before the twins headed in the direction Tad had indicated.
After a bit of walking, they came across another garbage can. When Dipper grabbed the lid, Mable glared at him until he unhanded it. As they moved past the golf carts, they came across something they hadn't seen before.
"Ok, there was never a cave this close to the Shack, right Dipper?"
He nodded before readying his new Jousting Spear, made of metal instead of bone like his last one. "Let's check it out."
With a last check of the launching mechanism (fires with more force than the original) and held in a ready position, Mable followed Dipper into the cave.
-The Cave-
The two gazed upon a room filled with doors, all with eye decorations and blank signs in front.
"Whoa… what is this place?"
Both twins looked around in wonder.
"It's like some sort of spooky hideout!"
Dipper's grip on his spear tightened.
"Let's take a look around but be careful!"
Mable flashed him a cheery smile, but she kept her finger on the trigger guard, ready to fire immediately.
"Roger that, Dipping Sauce!"
After looking around, they noticed that the cave contained ten doors. Nine of them had closed eyes, blank signs, and were locked. The tenth had an open eye, a sign with illegible text, and was unlocked.
"What do you think that is?"
"I'm not sure. Come on, I thought I saw a library in the back. Maybe it has documents that explain what this place is."
The two headed to the rear of the room, finding a small hill with an empty sign in front of it. Right behind it was an angel statue with a single eye in place of its face. To its left was a pile of antiques, including globes, axes, barrels, paintings, and more. The right had a small library, where Dipper immediately examined the books.
"Humm."
He then took one down and began to thumb through the pages. Mable looked over his shoulder curiously.
"What book is that?"
Dipper stopped at a random page and stared at it.
"I… have no idea. It's all written in weird symbols I don't understand. In fact, I'm kind of getting a headache just looking at it… It could be some kind of alien language… or a secret code! We'll have to come back here later with someone who knows more about this stuff."
He then put the book back, and the two walked out of the library, heading to the door with an open eye.
"So I guess the only things we can do now is either wait in the Shack for someone we know to show up, wait in this spooky cave with doors for someone to show up, or go through the mystery door and hope we find someone."
Mable shrugged. "Since when have we just waited in the Shack when we could adventure in the valley?"
"Fair point. Let's go."
Dipper grabbed the door handle and opened it.
Despite being a door frame in the middle of a cave, the other side of the door led to a forested area.
"Hun, a magic portal. Mable, can you try and shoot that tree on the other side?"
Mable smiled and aimed at the tree.
"I'm knocking that branch with the newspaper trapped in it off the tree. BANG!"
She fired and, in fact, knocked the branch off the tree with a single shot. The hook then recoiled back to Mable, bringing the newspaper back with it.
Dipper sighed in relief.
"Good news, then. This looks like a two-way portal. It should be safe for us to go, though."
"FORWARD!"
Mable and Dipper then stepped through the portal together into the forested area. The ground was rockier than in the Gnome Forest, making it apparent they were in a different part of the valley.
"Hay, where are we now?"
Dipper looked around and tried to use the skills Wendy taught him.
"I think I see a cave up ahead…"
He then realized that he had been here before.
"Oh, I know this place! These are the caves where the Manotaurs live!"
Mable looked at him in confusion. "Manotaurs?"
Dipper then remembered that he hadn't told Mable that much of his time with them beyond him not doing something horrible to be accepted by them. Her only interaction with them was during Weirdmagedon.
"The, uh, cow monsters. Remember?"
Realization crossed her face. "Oh yeah, I love those guys."
"Let's hope they still like US and don't start attacking us for some reason like the gnomes did."
"And if they do, we'll show 'em not to mess with the Mystery Twins!"
Dipper and Mable then walked together, weapons at the ready, into the cave. It was much as Dipper remembered from his last visit. It was slightly damp and smelly, like a gym that had never been cleaned, with bits of laundry strewn about and lots of lightning from torches and holes in the ceiling.
What was different from the last time he was there was Soos standing in front of them with his back turned.
"Look, it's Soos! SOOS!"
Soos then turned around and smiled before it gained a worried expression.
"Dipper? Mable? What are you dudes doing here?"
Mable shrugged. "We dunno! We were on the bus when all of a sudden, we were back in Gravity Falls! We went to the Mystery Shack but no one was there!"
"Nobody human, anyway."
"So we went looking for you!"
Dipper looked at Soos with a hopeful expression. "Have you seen Wendy or Grunkle Stan or Great Uncle Ford?"
Soos shook his head. "Nope, sorry dudes. I gotta be honest, I have like, no idea how I got here either. There's definitely something supernormal going on."
Dipper cocked an eyebrow. "Don't you mean supernatural? Or Paranormal?"
"I mean like both, dudes! And I bet if you two wanna get home we'll have to get to the bottom of this especially paranatural phenomenon!"
"You're probably right. Let's keep searching and see if anyone else is here too!"
Soos then began to look nervous. "Uh, you sure about that, Hambone? These Manotaur guys seemed kind of mad about me crashing their bro-cave…"
Dipper sighed. "I don't think we have much of a choice if we wana make sure everyone's alright."
Mabble smiled as she took Dipper's and Soos's hands.
"We'll be fine as long as we stick together!"
Soos smiled as he pulled his hammer from his tool belt.
"You got it, dudes! ONWARD TO VICTORRYYY!"
He then turned around and charged forward at full speed; his hammer held high, ready to take on the world!
Or a wall in the face as he was running the wrong way.
"Sorry, dudes. I just got so excited that I didn't look where I was going."
Dipper looked at the hammer he was holding in realization.
"Wait, Tad was selling a hammer in the Shack! We should probably head over and buy it before going deeper into the caves."
Soos shrugged. "Sounds good to me. Though I only have $20 cash, a credit card, a debit card, and a punch card for Tacos Bro's that's one punch away from a free taco. Will any of that work?"
Just as the kids were about to answer, a green flash of light appeared on Soos's belt. When it cleared, a dark green pouch with a lighter green question mark on it was tied to his belt, matching him to the kids.
"Hun, that was strangely convenient. Is that how you guys got your pouches?"
Mable and Dipper shook their heads. "Nope, we just got them when we showed up. Can you open it and see if any gold coins are inside."
Soos did so and pulled a coin from the pouch.
"Ok, I somehow know exactly how many coins are in the bag without counting. Did I become a math magician like those schoolbooks always talked about?"
Dipper reached into his pouch and pulled out a coin in response.
"Nope, these pouches are all linked together. They can hold the gold we've been collecting and all the other stuff we found while looking for you and the others. This is how we bought stuff from the salesman we found at the Shack."
Soos shrugged. "Sounds wild; how about you tell me more about it while we head there so we don't bore the audience more with stuff they already know?"
-one explanation and travel to the Shack later-
"Ah, I see you've found one of your friends! A. Tad Square, the pleasure's all mine, good sir!"
As the group entered the Shack, Soos looked Tad up and down with a curious look.
"A. Tad Square? You look more like a… Dot Matrix."
Tad gave a small chuckle. "You wouldn't believe how often I hear that! Not to mention, I'm always getting mistaken for a fellow named Tad Strange… Must be our similar names!"
"That and you both totally know how to rock a necktie!"
Tad smiled in Mable's direction. "Why thank you, dear girl! But all that aside… would you like to buy something?"
Soos nodded as he held out his hammer for inspection.
"Is this 50 gold like the other weapons?"
After a quick examination and confirmation, Soos traded it and 4500 gold for a Premium Hammer.
"Hun, this will also buff my spells along with hitting harder. Thanks square dude. Can I get two batteries and Pitt's? Before delving into a dungeon, you should always stock up on healing and mana potions."
"I don't know exactly what you mean, but I will gladly supply you for the right price."
As Soos and Tad exchanged goods, Dipper's eyebrow began to twitch. When Mable wasn't much better, looking wide-eyed at Soos with wide eyes. The two slowly repeated what he had said.
"healing and mana potions…"
"delving into a dungeon…"
"WE'RE IN A VIDEO GAME AGAIN!?"
Honestly, given that this is inspired by Pinesquest 2, where the kids get trapped in a video game for the third time after the games "Rumble's Revenge" and "PinesQuest" and they are traveling with Soos, who is a big gamer as revealed by "Legend of the Gemulets," it stands to reason they figure out that they are in a video game pretty quickly.
Hello Gravity Falls and PinesQuest2D fans! Last year my new year's resolution was to upload a 2k word count or greater chapter of any fanfic a week. This year my goal is to upload a 2k word count or greater chapter of the SAME fanfic a week.
I really like Nova Starlyght's fan game PinesQuest 2D, and was disappointed when real life convinced them to abandoned the project. After finding all the notes they posted about where the game would have gone, I have decided to try and novelize it. I have no idea how good or bad this will be, but as of January 30th, I have 48 chapters prewritten for the story.
If you want to suport Nova Starlyght, please check out their works on the Disclaimer page.
If you want to support me, please check out my work on the Disclaimer page.
Thank you for reading this and see you next week. I will be posting either very early Fridays or very late Saturdays, depending on my schedule for Friday.