Pinesquest 2D, a Romance of the Second Dimension
Ch.1
-Unknown-
"We burned this world to the ground…Finally, we can make a brand new world…A perfect world, just for us and everyone like us! And the best part is…It'll be OUR world! We'll rule it together! And I'll be by your side for all of eternity…Right? You're all I have now…without you, I'm all alone. And I don't ever want to be alone again. So you'll stay with me…forever…WON'T YOU?"
-middle of the woods-
Dipper opened his eyes to see the pine forest of Gravity Falls stretch out around the clearing he was in. Which was strange given that the last thing he remembered was closing his eyes on the bus taking him and Mable back home to Piedmont after the crazy and magical summer they had there.
"Hun? Where am I?"
After looking around to better look at the trees and remembering Wendy's lessons on the topic, he realized that this was the part of the forest near the Mystery Shack.
He then realized he was holding something in his hands and looked down to find a pamphlet.
"Where'd that come from?"
He opened it up to read about how to walk, run, and fight with a spear. There were also instructions on how to read the pamphlet he was currently reading.
"O…Kay..?"
He then realized something significant and began to panic.
"MABLE! Where's Mable?"
He hastily shoved the pamphlet into his pocket and looked more closely around. He noticed he was in the middle of a path with two signs nearby. Unfortunately, they were just arrows. One pointing to a fenced area of some sort and the other pointing deeper into the woods.
"AUGH! DIPPER, HELP!"
Dipper had heard that scream too many times for comfort over the summer at this point, but he recognized it instantly.
"MABLE? I'M COMING!"
He then rushed to the right and deeper into the forest.
Seconds later, he came across his sister surrounded by gnomes again. Her grappling hook was on the back of one of the gnomes. Between Dipper and the group was the spear he got from the Manotaurs embedded in a rock.
"Mable! What's going on?"
Mable slapped another of the gnomes, but they continued to grab and bite her.
"I dropped my grappling hook, and the gnomes are being buttfaces again!"
Dipper marched up to the gnomes and tried to grab one of them.
"HEY! How many times do we have to tell you she doesn't wanna be your queen!"
The gnome turned around and hissed before trying to chomp on Dipper's fingers. Luckily, Dipper's reflexes were honed enough at this point to quickly get them out of the way before he lost any.
"Euph!"
Realizing that the gnomes meant business this time, he looked around and felt his eyes stop on the spear in the rock.
"Don't worry, Mable! I've got a plan!"
He then rushed over to the spear in the stone and jumped on top. He planted his feet on either side of it, grabbed it with both hands and pulled with the might of a 12-year-old who had survived the apocalypse.
SCHWING
Dipper held the spear above his head in triumph.
"Ah-ha!"
He then charged to the gnomes surrounding Mable spear-first.
"Get away from my sister!"
With a quick swipe with the flat of his spear, he knocked one of the gnomes away. Though, before he could react, another one clamped his jaws around his ankle.
"Hay! Get off!"
He struck the gnome with the butt of his spear hard enough to dislodge it, with the gnome he had already sent flying, recovering, and heading back his way.
The other two gnomes harassing Mable looked at their occupied brothers but decided to focus on keeping Mable out of the fight instead.
"Get 'em, Dipper! I'll join you as soon as I can!"
Dipper wound back his foot and kicked the dazed gnome next to him hard enough to send it flying through the air into the charging gnome, taking both out of the fight.
"Ha! Take that you-"
POOF
POOF
The two gnomes turned into smoke that wafted upward. All that was left on the ground were some shiny coins.
"-smoke and coins?"
While Dipper and Mable were staring at the remnants of the gnomes, the other two decided discretion was the better part of valor and ran for their lives. The one holding her grappling hook dropped it as it fled.
After a few seconds, Mable shook off the shock and picked up her grappling hook before heading to Dipper.
"Thanks, bro-bro! Those guys came right out of nowhere!
"Speaking of nowhere… where did those gnomes go, and how'd we get HERE? Last thing I remember, we were on the bus."
Dipper shrugged. "I was about to ask you the same thing. I remember being on the bus too, but now it looks like we're back in Gravity Falls, somehow."
"Maybe we went through a wormhole… and the giant space worms from the future ate the bus but spat us out…"
She then gasped as she grasped her face in panic. "Or, what if we've been cursed so that we can never actually leave town!?"
Dipper scoffed at hearing that. "What? No way, we're not cursed!"
His confident demeanor evaporated instantly after he said that and was replaced by his more nervous one. "…at least I hope not…"
With the adrenalin leaving her system, Mable then noticed something else that was strange.
"Hey, you got your old hat back too!"
"Hun?" Dipper blinked before reaching up and feeling it, confirming that it was his blue and white trucker's hat instead of the trapper hat he got from Wendy.
"Whoa, you're right! What the heck is going on here?!"
The hat wasn't the only thing Mable noticed was different.
"Wait a second! Where's Waddles?!"
She then rapidly looked around the forest, calling for her beloved pet pig.
"WADDLES? WADDLES?"
Dipper reached over and touched her shoulder to calm her down.
"He's probably around here somewhere. Don't worry, we'll find him! After that, let's head to the Mystery Shack and figure out what to do from there."
Despite being worried, Mable found herself giving Dipper a comforting smile.
"I guess not everything's back to normal yet after all…"
Dipper returned that statement with a small chuckle. "Yeah, guess not…"
The two chuckled before wandering over to the small piles of coins the gnomes had left behind when they had disappeared.
Mable then bent down and picked up the coins on the ground.
"Dipper, these are gold coins! Look at the design."
Dipper knelt and looked at them. Based on the metallurgical lessons Stan gave them (one of the few educational things he insisted the kids do), he could tell they were indeed gold. One side had a six-sided star with three eyes, while the other had a cute-looking head with tentacles coming from all directions.
"Aww, that looks cute. What is it?"
Dipper looked at both sides in confusion.
"I have no idea, and they don't line up with any of the magic symbols I saw in the Journals or Ford told me about." He then turned to Mable while holding a coin. "What do you think we should do with them?"
Mable shot him a cute smile. "What else? Collect them, of course. Let me just put them in my-"
She stopped as she realized that there was now also a small pouch clipped onto her skirt.
"Where did that come from?"
Dipper then reached down and found a matching one on his side.
Both were about the size of a dice bag, but while Dipper's was white with a blue pine tree on it, Mable's was a fuzzy pink with a smooth textured pink, yellow, and blue shooting star on it.
"Curiouser and Curioser." Mable then giggled. "Ok, the next time I see a rabbit hole I am jumping down it. After Gravity Falls, Wonderland would be a piece of cake."
Dipper wasn't paying attention to her. Instead, he was reaching down to the pile of coins to pick some up.
ZAP
All the coins except the one Mable was holding vanished.
"MY YARN EMPIRE! Where did the gold go?"
Dipper blinked in confusion as Mable continued to panic before she stopped in her tracks.
"Dipper, how much gold was there?"
Dipper was confused before a number instantly made itself apparent in his head.
"60 pieces, 59 are in the pouches, and one is in your hand right now."
Mable reached into her pouch and pulled out a handful while hiding the exact amount removed from Dipper.
"4 are in your hand, leaving 55 in the pouches."
Dipper then did the same thing, with Mable correctly guessing the amount.
"Ok, so we have a magic joint account for gold coins that automatically fills up when we touch gold coins. That's cool." The twins then placed their gold coins back into their pouches.
"Ok, so let's put a pin in that to worry about later. For now, let's find Waddles."
As Mable was about to head deeper into the woods, Dipper stopped her.
"Wait, Mable. I saw a fence back there. If we're lucky, someone living there can help us."
Mable gasped in joy. "And Waddles would seek out safe places to hide if we are separated! Let's go there first!"
The two twins then turned around and backtracked across the path Dipper found himself on when he first arrived. As they walked, Mable realized that Dipper was hurt.
"Wait, bro! You got hurt fighting those gnomes, yeah? Here, watch this!"
She held out her hand, which started to glow. In a sudden flash of light, Dipper's wounds were instantly healed.
"Oh my gosh, I feel great now! How'd you do that?!"
Mable held up a matching pamphlet to the one Dipper had in his pocket.
"I found this pamphlet thingy that showed me how! It said if I concentrate really hard and think warm and fuzzy thoughts, I can make a light that heals people! I always knew I was a witch! Just you wait, Dipper; when we get home, there's gonna be two letters waiting for us that say we've been accepted to wizard school!"
Dipper rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "I'm not so sure about that, but could I see that pamphlet? I actually found one, too."
Mable shrugged and handed hers over. Dipper began to read some of the mechanics of how it works, including mentioning an inner pool of energy, or "Mana," that was used to cast said spells.
"There's also something here about how to cast elemental spells during battle… I'll have to try that the next time those gnomes come after us again!"
After handing back the pamphlet, the twins noticed they were in front of the fenced area. Mable then proceeded to rush through the gate, yelling for her pig.
"WADDLES? Where are you? Is there anyone here?"
After crossing the fence, they quickly realized where they were.
"A graveyard? Since when has there been a graveyard all the way out here?"
Dipper went over to the nearest gravestone to look at who it was for, but they weren't written in English.
They all had strange symbols written on them that Dipper couldn't make heads or tails of.
"Ok, who is buried here? Why are they in the middle of the forest?"
Mable then tripped over some uneven ground in front of a large stone slab monument in the middle with a flowery, triangular design in the middle of it.
"Why is the ground here so uneven?"
After standing up and dusting her skirt off, she noticed a purple box covered in chains that was in the corner of the graveyard.
"Hay Dipper? What's that?"
The twins then headed over to the box when Mable realized something.
"Hay, I think I saw something about this in the pamphlet."
She and Dipper pulled their pamphlets out and looked through them for mentions of the box. Dipper found it first.
"Here we go. It looks like it's a puzzle box. The chains are illusions representing that the puzzle hasn't been solved yet. We can still open it and pull out a piece of paper with the riddle. If we solve the riddle, we get a prize."
While Dipper was reading, Mable found out something else useful.
"Hay, there's something in here about the pouches! They also work with items as well as gold!"
Her smile grew as ideas of infinite yarn storage danced in her head.
"Sounds good, Mable, but how about we try to solve this riddle first? Maybe it'll be something that can help us get to the Shack faster or find Waddles."
"Or maybe Waddles IS the prize!"
Mable then threw open the lid and pulled out the paper before Dipper could answer.
"From the journal of Mr. Caear: ZXR LV WKH OHDGHU RI WKH JQRPHV?"
Mable looked at it for a few seconds before handing it over to Dipper. "I've got nothing. What about you, Dipping sauce?"
What do you think the answer is?
Hello, Gravity Falls and PinesQuest2D fans! Last year, my New Year's resolution was to upload a 2k-word or greater chapter of any fanfic a week. This year, my goal is to upload a 2k-word or greater chapter of the SAME fanfic a week.
I like Nova Starlyght's fan game PinesQuest 2D, and I was disappointed when real life convinced them to abandon the project. After finding all the notes they posted about where the game would have gone, I decided to try and novelize it. I have no idea how good or bad this will be, but as of January 3rd, I have 29 chapters prewritten for the story.
If you want to support 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. See you next week. Depending on my schedule for Friday, I will post either very early on Fridays or very late on Saturdays.