Fandom [Homestuck] Hadron Kaleido

[SpectrumCrow]

> Cait: Examine surroundings

Ow. Your eyes. You… really hope that meteor wasn’t real and just part of the game. Probably is, but you’ve got a feeling in your stomach that it might not be. And your sprite seems a bit different…. Guess that’s about what you expected from a plant. Glancing around, you notice the situation your house is in… yikes. Hm. That’s not good. Not at all. Instead of thinking about it too hard, you decide to check in with Dani and make sure she’s okay. ​

Spoiler: Show Pesterlog

AA: yo
AA: dani
AA: have you messed with the machines yet
GC: Cait !
GC: Please tell me that you’re okay !
AA: yeah im fine
AA: was about to try and warn you about that stuff but seems like you noticed already
GC: I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore …
GC: Most of the farm is gone
GC: And I’m trapped in some ice cave !
AA: yikes
AA: im hoping that this is again some augmented reality stuff and isnt real
AA: keyword hoping
AA: are you safe though
GC: There’s no way out except for a hole at the top
GC: It’s like I’m in some ice volcano
GC: It’s a little chilly too, so I think it really happened
GC: There was a storm, and a meteor that nearly smashed me to bits !
AA: im guessing that the walls are ice too right
AA: so no climbing
AA: im in a similar situation
AA: kind of the opposite visually but
AA: my house is on this tall pillar of rocks in the middle of an ocean
GC: I just got back to my aunt’s computer
GC: That looks so dangerous !
GC: I’m so worried about what’s going
GC: I can’t find Nan, and I hope that this is all part of the game
GC: As someone who plays them, do you know what we do next ?
GC: I need to get back to the farm as soon as I can !
AA: do you also see those spiral things in the sky above your house
GC: Possibly ?
GC: It’s hard to tell because of the cave’s shape
GC: Wait, I think I might be able to make one out ?
GC: I dunno, I’d have to get closer
AA: i think that might be our goal here
AA: there isnt anywhere to go in any other direction for either of us
AA: so that only leaves up
AA: the program had some building capabilities, so maybe we can build our way up
GC: That would explain the building tool thing …
GC: I’ll build on top of your home, then ? Hold on …

You decide to take a look around while Dani fiddles with the controls, looking for anything out of the ordinary… oh and also for Ada. You wonder if she got brought into this. ​

 

[Squad141]

You are... thoroughly freaked out. You were just about to be blown away by one of the most gruesome natural disasters the world may ever see, and now as you peer from your porch, a light shines down from above, hitting the slick walls of the icy cave you find yourself trapped in. Small ice crystals twinkle above you like stars in the night sky, but this doesn't help ease the tension. You quickly grab your phone, and get in contact with the person who may have seen what happened.

Spoiler: Open Finnlog

GC: Finn …?
GC: Please answer me
CT: uhhh
CT: sorry
CT: i was busy not actually dying
GC: Oh no, you too ?
GC: I think I was moved somewhere
CT: um, yeah?
CT: me too??? Weirdly???
CT: what the fuck is going ON?!?!?!
GC: I think it’s this game …
GC: Finn, I’m not in Kansas anymore
GC: I’m in this strange ice column area
GC: And I can’t find my aunt …
GC: What’s happening to you ?
CT: uh
CT: i’m
CT: uh
CT: in the dark
CT: nothing much else to report on haha
GC: So you’re safe ?
GC: You’re home and alright ?
CT: im...in my home?
CT: i guess???
CT: it doesn’t feel as hot
GC: Okay, that’s good
GC: I’m going to try and find a way out of this cave (?)
GC: I’ll let you know whatever I find out
GC: Stay Safe!
CT: don’t...die?
CT: i guess?

At least the others seem to be experiencing similar situations, but this doesn't make you feel loads better. Eureka gives a calming cluck and nuzzles up in your arms, the sound echoing across the cavern. You decide to take stock of what's left after the trip through the fiery cyclone.

After a few minutes, you gather your thoughts. The biggest areas that survived the storm are of course your farmhouse, then the barn, the chicken coop which sits directly in front of the farmhouse, half of your family tractor, and much of the cornfield where the alchemiter sits. You're unsure if the rest of the farm disappeared around you, or, if you're theory is correct, these parts were ripped from the earth along with yourself and Eureka. Despite the lack of a farm, lots of produce got swung around in the storm alongside other debris; several smashed fruits and vegetables, but a number of surprisingly uninjured Pumpkins. Your books and parts of the wall managed to keep each other in place, so at least you can read before you go to sleep in whatever strange chamber you've found yourself in.

Before you can investigate any further, you get a ping from your fliphone, and make your way back to the study, where the computer thankfully wasn't pulled from the wall. You have a conversation with Cait that we've already seen, and you suddenly feel a little more invigorated. You've discovered a way forward, though limited by a strange conceptual resource that Cait doesn't seem to have enough of.

Without any further idea of where to go from here, you confront the one thing that did change: the orb, which seemed to have split in two.

Dani: …
Dani: Hello …?
TYPEWRITERSPRITE: clack clack clack clack clack
Dani: Hm …

It continues clicking and clacking at you, but it's too bright to read if it even has any loaded paper. A thought enters your head: what if you simply need to type back? You begin to reach up to it, but you worry that touching a being of such strange energy might not be the best idea. Eureka seems to have crawled from your basket that you set on the ground, and pecks at something that was launched half-way through the side of the porch during the storm: the scarecrow from the cornfield, only a little mangled.

Dani: Okay, let’s try you …

With a few hefts, you managed to position the straw man on top of your body, and hold up it's right arm. With one of the hands lazily pointing at the shiny typewriter, you move forward and-
With a blast of light, the two items merge. The scarecrow is now one with the grey creature, with parts of it's ripped body replaced with a rolodex and keys that rarely push in and out, like it's breathing.

Dani: So …
Dani: Is that any better ?
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: that’s better…
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: 0_0
Dani: Oh my !
Dani: Are you alright ?
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: yeah…
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: i’m okay 0_0
Dani: I didn’t expect you to speak when I use his -
Dani: Or I suppose your hand
Dani: Just who are you ?
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: i’m your sprite…
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: your guide during your journey in the medium… 0_0
Dani: A sprite, as in a fairy ? A guide, though, that seems to make sense
Dani: You were adamant about trying to block me doing certain things out of order earlier
Dani: And this medium …
Dani: That’s where I’ve landed, is it ?
Dani: If you’re a guide, then you must know some way to get back home ?
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: no…
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: there’s no way back, you must move forward… or up…
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: that is how you unravel the ultimate riddle… 0_0
Dani: No way back …
Dani: But up, you say ? Then Cait was correct !
Dani: She always was better at games than I was
Dani: So we have to construct our homes upwards to reach the end of this game ?
Dani: Or, as you put it, this Ultimate Riddle ?
Dani: That doesn’t sound too difficult
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: it will be…
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: this is a game of cosmic scale and profundity…
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: and yours especially will be more…
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: trying… 0_0
Dani: Oh my …
Dani: That doesn’t sound particularly fun
Dani: Cosmic Scale ?
Dani: Hm …
Dani: What about you ?
Dani: You’re a guide, yes, but else will you be doing ?
Dani: Ooh, will you be joining me for this journey ?
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: a little…
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: but this is a story of you and your friends… we sprites will only guide you so far…
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: you must unravel the riddle yourselves…
Dani: Aw, that’s too bad, I’m sure you’re lovely company
Dani: Well, I suppose I’ve only a few questions then
Dani: The most important is the actual construction; I tried to do it on Cait’s home but it only let me go so far
Dani: How do we get more ‘grist’ ?
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: you fight…
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: the underlings will be arriving in this world as you do… they will provide you the needed material…
Dani: Fight !?
Dani: But surely if they were twisted away from their homes as well, we could come to some sort of agreement ?
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: they are malevolent beings bent on the destruction of this land…
SCAREWRITERSPRITE: that is how the denizen made them… 0_0
Dani: Well, we’ll see about that
Dani: I was made just as rowdy when I was young, but I think I turned out fine
Dani: I guess I’ll be on guard for an encounter with these ‘underlings’, then
Dani: I’ll have to contact Finn . In the meantime, make yourselves at home !

With that, you go to prepare for some uninvited guests, but you pause at the sound of rustling in the corn a distance away. You pause and squint as the stalks rustle. You take a step forward to begin investigating, but some sudden footsteps startle you. You twist around to hear a number more of the small pitter-patters coming from inside the house. Tentatively, you step inside with Eureka hot on your heels, croquet mallet in hand.

You enter the kitchen, and listen. The sounds stop as you go deeper inside, but you know this must be because they are aware that you're close. You take the mallet in both hands and hang it low to the ground, and... from one of the lower cupboards, a grey creature with a slight hump bursts, pointed fingers raised, pointed teeth bared. You raise the mallet and whack it in the torso, sending it across the kitchen. Were these the 'underlings' Scarewritersprite mentioned? You hold the mallet close. These weren't beings that seemed able to reason, like they were mindless. Like they had no free will of their own...

You can't dwell on that forever though, since Eureka jumps as you feel one of the floorboards shake. With a yelp, you use the stick end of the mallet to poke the ground beneath you. How had they gotten below the house!? In a tense game of tiptoe, you manage to get a few of them in the eye before they stop muttering, likely all damaged from the solid lacquered wood of your chosen weapon. Pulling the stick up, you investigate the substance that comes with it, an ashy dust that to you smells like late nights when you would fall asleep in front of the fireplace. Soot?

As you think this, the one on the wall sort of... falls apart? Into a number of hexagonal pieces which you now recognize as grist. This must still be all part of the game. With a small will boost, you walk into the sitting room, when the sound of something heavy coming down the stairs stops you. Three of those impish fellow run down with Ol' Grandfather Clock in tow, giggling to themselves. They don't seem to notice you immediately, so you hold out your mallet, tripping one, hitting one in the head, but missing the third. You captchalogue your favorite timepiece, and smush the two that were knocked down. The third one backs off, and you almost feel like it looks afraid. It jumps to attack a second later, but you bunt it with the blunt stick of the mallet into the restroom (the only room in the house without a window), and lock the bathroom door with a piece of furniture. Maybe you can change at least one of these beast's minds, and maybe even get some information that your guide wouldn't be able to diverge.

 

[SerbianMounted]

===>

You eventually emerge from the sarcophagus after having a conversation we've already seen with Dani, to find your house ENGULFED in flames. You feel more than a little uncomfortable by the idea of your house still mimicking its final moments of being destroyed. But waving your hand through the fire causes your neither pain nor pleasure. Like a ghostly afterimage, your descent into the sarcophagus has sent you into a strange limbo sta-

Anyways. No time for poetry, especially when there's apparently fucking MONSTERS to be taken care of. You preside over Dani's conversation with her sprite and are filled in to the details of her predicament, watching her kinda futz about her house in her characteristically gumption filled way. Hah. What a dork. You see that she takes the opportunity to slay some IMPS defensively. You look towards your sprite as it tweets at you.

You decide against prototyping anything secondary at all. You imagine having to sit through some long, boring exposition, wasting your time and testing your patience, and you figure it's more a hassle anyways. Better to save it for when you could use it for something USEFUL anyways, you'll figure it out, you're sure. Build a house or something, right?

===> Finn: contemplate if magic is now real

Your situation is BIZARRE AS FUCK. And there's no two ways around that. Maybe this means that your dreams of becoming a PYROKINETIC are possible? Not that magic and psychic powers are the same thing, after all. They're kinda super different. Well, only one way to find out.

...you stare at a cup in your dining room for like five minutes, scrunch your brain really hard, and nothing happens. Eh. Well. Maybe not yet but-

You are accosted by a beast! You feel your shoulder get SCRATCHED BY AN IMP and you IMMEDIATELY RETALIATE by grabbing the imp by the skull and slamming it head first into the hardwood floors. Its body crumbles upon contact, pieces of TAN COLORED GRANITE cracking and splintering into in game currency. Aw fuck. See, your first instinct was using your damn mitts. You even EQUIPPED YOUR GLOVES as a reflex. You should rely on using your LATENT PYROKINESIS more.

Which you totally have.

===>

You find another imp, which is just trying to STEAL YOUR CUTLERY. And it sort of looks....confused, as you hold your hand out and try to LIGHT IT ON FIRE WITH YOUR MIND to no success. More and more seem to amass as time passes, and your house begins to get CROWDED. You sigh, and pull out your MITTS. Fuck man, you just wanna be cool.

You crack your knuckles and start to get to work.

​

 

[GamerKitty205]

> Hydi: Assess​

So you’re stuck in a tree. A very very large tree, one of almost mythical proportions. You assume, all you know if you can’t see much past the leaves and branches. However, considering this is a game with pseudo-magical elements, you don’t know why it wouldn’t be a massive, unrealistically sized tree. This game is already connected with what you’re going to boldly assume is the end of the world, so you don’t think anything is out of the realm of possibility.

Speaking of which, you still have a job to do. Namely, whisk whichever of your remaining friends out of the way of a storm of meteors. It’s either Beau or Adam, and you’d rather not go around trying to reconstruct which you’re supposed to be linking with, so you’ll just send them both a message.

Spoiler: pesterlog

CC: Adam, Beau. I sent you both the same message separately
CC: So it will read weird
CC: Which ever of you haven’t connected to two others
CC: text me immediately
CC: You probably won’t see this right after I send it
CC: So don’t waste any time
CC: I want to minimize dead friends
CC: I’ll stick near my pc
CC: For whoever has
CC: Hit tube, grab cylinder, carve cylinder, throw something in seizure ball and then put cylinder on platform
CC: I’d apologize for spoiling
CC: But like I said
CC: No dead friends.
CC: Have fun.

Now for the next order of business. The seizure orb has become considerably less so, but has traded it out for being misophonia bait! Fun. You assume you need to give it something other than a teddy bear for it to start making sense. You’ll find something in your room.

On your way to your room, you spot a weird creature tearing at the wallpaper, leaving long strips of it on your carpet. You give it your best death glare, which seems to make it pause a bit before continuing to deface your house. You sigh, and decide to just lock the door to your room.

Thankfully, the ghostly plush has followed you in, still making its weird... not-bear sounds. You look around at your room. If giving it a teddy bear has only allowed it to make weird teddy bear sounds, the logical conclusion would be that giving it something with something that can talk would allow it to communicate more effectively. Unfortunately you don’t have any corpses on hand, so something full of words will have to do. You chuck your poetry book into the ghost.

 

[Eidolon Astronaut]

> Cait: Investigate house.

You search your home, wary for any changes and for the safety of your family and belongings. With the exception of the mysterious disappearance of your guardian, everything is roughly where it should be.

You begin hear a strange clattering from your KITCHEN, and cautiously begin to check the source of the sound.​

===>

Two SALT IMPS and three SEABIRDS have begun RAIDING YOUR REFRIGERATOR. Curse you, monsters with thumbs!​

> Dani: BOOM.

After imprisoning the SOOT IMP inside your bathroom (hopefully you don't have to use it anytime soon) you hear a loud BOOM outside in the cave, and immediately go and check it out through the window like any self-respecting youth would do.

Ah.
Seems your 1/2 TRACTOR exploded out in the field. Something about being chopped in half by a magiscientific beam of transportalizing light must not be very conducive to NOT BLOWING UP. Seems some UNDERLINGS were messing with it, judging by the loose grist by the remains. SMOKE billows from the charred and mangled machinery and drifts out the cave entrance above you. If this place is crawling with monsters, that's a surefire SIGNAL to your exact location.​

> Finn: Grind levels and increase stats to unlock Psychic Powers skill tree.

That would be awesome, if that actually existed.

But instead you are here destroying a variety of strange GRANITE IMPS in your somehow-on-fire-but-not-burning home with nothing but your BARE HANDS, like some kind of LOSER. You seem to be climbing your ECHELADDER and increasing stats like GEL VISCOSITY and CACHE LIMITS, but no PSYCHOKINESIS stat or anything of it's ilk. What is the MANGRIT stat and why is it increasing faster than any of the others?

It is during this ponderance that a GIANT FUCKING LASER blasts through the imp you were fighting, shot from the mouth of Birdsprite. Huh, you didn't know it could do that.​

> Hydi: Wax poetic.

You will do no such thing, you are somewhere STRANGE AND UNKNOWN, you don't have time to engage in flowery language! Your newly-prototyped sprite on the other hand...​

Spoiler: Show Spritelog

TEDDYSPRITE: O COURAGEOUS AND RAMBUNCTIOUS DAY / A WONDROUS GAME THEY'VE YET TO PLAY
TEDDYSPRITE: ONCE A BEAST SO HORRID AND FRIGHTFUL / NOW A POET OF LANGUAGE DELIGHTFUL
TEDDYSPRITE: TO YOU MY KNOWLEDGE I DO CONCEDE / WHAT, PRAY TELL, DOST THOU NEED?

 

[SpectrumCrow]

> Cait: Investigate

You can’t help but feel a bit worried for Ada. Maybe she didn’t get brought with you? But if even your beehive and bees came along, why wouldn’t she? That sound from the kitchen could be her… Oh. That’s not Ada………………. Whatever those are, they’re raiding your kitchen.

Oh hell no.

> Cait: Strife!

Your (fake) sword appears in your hands, it feels a little heavy in your hands, but that doesn’t matter. Imps and birds are stealing your shit! Raising the blade, you move forward and strike one of the imps, causing it to drop the handful of shredded cheese it had scooped up. It looks at you, scowling as it lunges at you with its claws raised. You manage to step back just in time, but the other salt imp manages to scratch your arm and- ow holy fucking shit that hurts. Talk about rubbing salt in the wound.

Adrenaline from the attack causes you to move instinctively, slashing the imp’s arm off. It slides off of the creature and dissolves into a pile of goop. Ew. It staggers back, snarling loudly. Before you can take advantage of the momentary stun, the birds begin to swarm and peck at your head. They’re just normal birds so you don’t want to hurt them, but god DAMN are they annoying. You shoo them away and two of them leave, although one is persistent.

You can worry about that one later, you’ve still got two more salt imps after you. Whether it’s through fast reactions or sheer luck, you manage to dodge another attack from the healthy one. Using your momentum from said dodge, you land another blow on the injured imp, causing the thing to burst into grist. Sweet.

Still leaves the other imp, who manages to slightly scratch your cheek. The remaining bird is now trying to peck it and get some of the cheese it still has. Truly, there is no such thing as an ally to a bird. Only instincts. Only survival. Only cheese.

Let’s check in with someone else while the young girl deals with the final imp and tries to clean up the mess in her kitchen.

> Be someone else​

 

[SerbianMounted]

===>

You grab an imp by PALMING ITS FACE, lifting it off the ground and slamming it headfirst into a wall. It crumbled into DUST and then more GRIST for you to collect. You've been steadily grinding for a bit. And have ascended from the rung of JUVESQUIRT to the far more appreciable BOISTEROUS BUCKAROO. What...what the fuck does any of this mean? You shuffle about, you're getting pretty tired of killing imps, and they all seem to be MORE AFRAID OF YOU at this point than you are of them. Why aren't your latent psychic powers activating or whatever? Man, if this weird ass game has to drag you into a FIRE DIMENSION the least it can do is give you pyrokinesis.

You walk around your house to INVESTIGATE more of your surroundings to find much the same Hydi did. Your BRO appears to have scampered off to god knows where, and meanwhile the house's only inhabitants seem to be these imps that have a pesky habit of ruining all your brother's shit. Wait, their antics give you an idea.

===>

You grab one of your Bro's FIRE EXTINGUISHERS and break it over the lock sealing your WELDING STUDIO DOOR shut. The lock comes off its hinges, and you kick the doors apart. Ah! Sweet, merciful christ! It's just as you left it. Metal sculptures populate shelves and counter space. The room's windows are shuttered with BLACKOUT curtains to keep teh studio's lighting controlled. A large FLOURESCENT LIGHT IS OVERHEAD to make sure your work is well lit. And....oh god YES! Your MIG WELDER with WIRE ELECTRODE, the 8th birthday gift that started it all.

===> Finn: make out with wel
der

Haha, very funny wise guy. But this thing is a delicate instrument that could really BURN YOUR FUCKING FACE OFF. God the amount of safety videos your dumb brother made you watch so you could use this thing. You swear it was so close to brainwashing it couldn't be condoned by the Geneva convention. The unnerving thing is how much it stuck.

You pick up your ANGLE GRINDER. What a beautiful instrument. You would go ahead and sit down....but now's really not the time. An imp peeks it head around the corner, and you stare it dead in the eyes, you turn on the grinder, and place it slowly down against a piece of SCRAP on your STUDIO TABLE. Sparks fly, and on the horrible grinding sound, your eyes never part. The imp visibly gulps, and vanishes behind the corner. Yeah, go tell your friends.

===>

You try to seal up the studio to no avail. Hopefully your intimidation tactics worked. You walk around, and notice that the outside of your house looks like some kind of HALF FORMED M.C ESCHER PAINTING. Looks like Beau's been taking up his duties of SERVER....acceptably? You plug away a little at DANI'S HOUSE, at least as much as her grist horde will allow. She has a weirdly diplomatic approach you've noticed. And uh, it kinda sucks at getting her anywhere.

Your approach to alchemy is...uh, well, remedial, at best. You struggle for QUITE A WHILE to figure out the mechanics behind alchemy, trial and error has you largely wondering why the fuck you'd need to duplicate so many FIRE EXTINGUISHERS. That is until you start combining. You reuses grist constantly, creating and destroying objects with alchemy to see what works and what doesn't. You sort of just punch in random codes for a good THRITY MINUTES just to see what kind of random shit pops up. It's mostly half formed junk: a JETPACK with like a bunch of shit in it, a flute that is weirdly also HALF A SNAKE PLUSH, a DIONSAUR TOY THAT HAS HUMAN HANDS. Man this is....this is garbage.

You sort of wear yourself thin of the process and get bored of it. Eh, you have grist but you're not really interested in much beyond what you have now. Who the fucks needs 16 phones anyways? Oh actually....

You make a pair of TAN COVERALLS. Nice. Red's your favorite but Tan is a cool color. Matches the mountains. You always wanted coveralls too.

===> Pick up Esmerelda

You pick up ESMERALDA, your Flower Beetle, from her terrarium and let her gently walk along your arm. You think she deserves to look around too. She should be safe, so you put her in her portable terrarium. She seems PATENTLY UNAMUSED by this whole thing. Haha, what a spoiled little thing. Time to walk up these SHITTY STAIRS that Beau made. ​

 

[GamerKitty205]

> Hydi: Realize your mistake​

The words spoken by your sprite are music to the ears. Rhythm and rhyming that seemed fitting for the stuffiest of Shakespeare plays, or the most pretentious of larpers. It was melodious and ornate and A HUGE MISTAKE.

Spoiler: Spritelog

HYDI: Oh no I’m an idiot
HYDI: Oh, of course you speak in poems
HYDI: Hhhh
HYDI: Uhh, questions
HYDI: I
HYDI: Hmmm
HYDI: Can we go back to earth? Ever
TEDDYSPRITE: NEVER YOU MAY RETURN TO THE WORLD BEFORE / EVER ONWARDS DOES SKAIA WISELY IMPLORE
HYDI: Skaia? Is that where we are? Or an objective—
HYDI: Or
HYDI: Hh, nope start basic stuff
HYDI: Go back later
HYDI: What’s the main quest?
TEDDYSPRITE: SIX MUST CLIMB, FROM GREENTIKES TO BOY-SKYLARKS / TO REACH SKAIA’S HEART, AND DEPOSE IT’S FOUL MONARCHS
TEDDYSPRITE: ASCEND THROUGH GATES AND SAVE THIS LAND / FREE THIS WORLD OF THE DENIZEN’S COMMAND
HYDI: Okay, so it’s standard rpg stuff.
HYDI: Gotta kill a bunch of bosses, and then the final ones
HYDI: simple I guess
HYDI: What happens when we do— no that’s a spoiler
HYDI: What is skaia?
TEDDYSPRITE: A FONT OF POWER AND LIMITLESS POTENTIAL / IT’S FATE IS ENDANGERED AND SAVING IT, ESSENTIAL
TEDDYSPRITE: THE SUN OF THIS REALM, IN THE HEAVENS EVER FIXED / A WAR BETWEEN KINGDOMS, SKAIA LIES BETWIXT
HYDI: That is entirely unhelpful.
HYDI: This is a lore dense game isn’t it
HYDI: Sigh
HYDI: Is there anything else I should know before I go off adventuring?
TEDDYSPRITE: WHAT WOULD YOU NEED MY HELP TO FIND? / SEEKING TRUTH IS EASY FOR THE MAGE OF MIND
TEDDYSPRITE: ASCEND THROUGH THE GATE INTO THE WORLD BEFORE YOU / TURN THE UNKNOWN INTO THAT WHICH YOU KNEW
HYDI: I’m the Mage of Mind?
HYDI: Guess I dont get to pick my class
HYDI: Damn
HYDI: Okay, well thanks Teddy
HYDI: I’m sorry for ruining your existence twice
TEDDYSPRITE: RUIN OR ENLIGHTEN? THERE IS LITTLE DIFFERENCE / I AM NOW FREE FROM CORPOREAL IGNORANCE
TEDDYSPRITE: YOU HAVE NOT BURDENED, MY LIFE HAS IMBUED / DO NOT THINK YOUR ACTIONS WERE VILE OR CRUDE
HYDI: I’m going to be honest, being an all knowing ghost obligated to speak in poems sounds like hell
HYDI: But I appreciate the sentiment.

You look down at the notes you’ve been taking during the conversation. Simple assumed definition for the general terms, and a few brief bullet points on the lore. The gates and getting gear seem like the most pressing issues, but you do make a note to look out for the kingdom you’re supposed to ally with. Probably a good place to find allies and/or information on the ‘Monarchs’.

You also start another page, and simply title it “Worrying Revelations.” There are just two. Namely, you may have started the apocalypse and doomed your entire society to destruction via a single uninformed decision. You... You are just not going to look at that page again anytime soon.

The title your sprite mentioned is also interesting... Mage of Mind? You just decide to keep an eye out for any particularly magical phenomena originating from your. Also a skill tree or similar thing for gaining abilities. If it seems vague and obtuse, you just aren’t going to worry about it. Magic mind powers seem unwieldy anyway— The last thing you want is to start hearing thoughts or getting mind control or something.

> Leave Room​

After collecting your thoughts, you decide that the next course of action is gear. The alchemiter seems like a good place to start. You open up the door and—

> Scream​

You let out an embarrassingly shrill and loud noise as an imp lunges at you. You quickly slam it shut, catching the imp between the door and its frame. A honestly sickening crack (which might be your door) can be heard before the imp disappears in a poof of... ethereal game smoke? Either way, it leaves behind grist which means that is not the first murder you will have to commit today.

You let out a deep sigh, and equip your SKETCHBOOK and step out into the enemy filled hallway. The various gouges and—IS THAT YOUR CLAY SMEARED ON THE WALLS. Oh, these things are going to regret being born.