==> Everything's Collapsing

[TORY WOLFFE]

==> Enter the Medium

LAND OF BRICK AND CYCLONES.

Your land, at first glance, is very hectic and, in fact, terrifying. Cyclones and thunderstorms regularly rip through your land, leaving patches of grass displaced and any trees that pop up bare. However, not all is lost, for the real world in your world is under your world. There are vast networks of brick tunnels and brick structures, almost underground communal houses if there were any humans living there. The consorts, blue IGUANAS, are the little things who live there, and always seem to want to complain that the ceilings are too tall. Underground, you can't hear the storms above, and none of them will touch your actual home. The tunnel system is accessed by using a trapdoor right outside the front door. Go in and explore. Talk to the consorts a bit, even, they won't tell you much. Maybe venture above ground and brave the storms to find the lair of ABRAXAS. You'll need to eventually, he's collapsing the tunnels and rooms. If you hear rumbling, I'd suggest you run.

==> Tory: Pester Pete.

Are you in the medium? It sure is dark outside, kinda like how it was with Mila, your Mother is still has a pretty firm grip on your arm though she isn't exactly dragging you towards the door anymore. Venus-jisan seemed to have calmed down by a bit and you have no idea what you should do next except maybe expect imps to come crawling through your windows and through your door at any minute. You decide it's best to take it one at a time and pester your server, your hands are pretty shaky as you type because seriously, who wouldn't after coming face to face with in oncoming meteor.

MP: hey...u.uh, ppete
MP: you sttillll therre?

[PETE WASUPON]

==> Pete: Reassure Tho-WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT

You are rudely shoved off your seat as an almighty shake rocks your entire house. Startled and a bit more than a little frightened now, you scramble off the floor and peer out the window again, pointedly avoiding the lava stain.....thing. Alright. So you couldn’t see anything anymore, because there was this big something blocking your view. It was a bumpy, smouldering sort of something too.
Thor’s time didn’t run out, but it looked like yours was.

==> Pete: Check on Ama

Casting a brief, apologetic glance at your screen, you rush to the other side of the floor and press your ear up to the door of your Grandma’s room, bare feet slapping against the wood. Quiet. Wow, she really was losing her touch, if she could sleep through something like this. You close your eyes and quickly wish that this would all be over soon, for her sake. You return to your room.

==> Pete: Reply

NC: yeah, im here man.
NC: somethin shaky just hit up here, too. im pretty shaky myself, to be honest.
NC: howre you doin? hows your Mum?

[MOTHER]

==> MOTHER: Sheisse , what now?
There had been this immense quake and a blinding flash of hot light outside, and now everything was dark. Instinctively, you pull your son closer and flick your bronze eyes over to the floating thing, curling your fingers round your crowbar. It looked suspiciously like that dead plant that used to be in the bathroom, and it was glowing teal, which was never a good sign in your books...now why would you think that? Hrm. Strange. The idea was gone now. Well, it wasn’t doing anything but hovering and gibbering out some string of words, so you suppose that it was benevolent.

==> MOTHER: Talk

MOTHER: Tory, what is this all about?
MOTHER: I have a strange feeling that I should be familiar with this, but I am not.
MOTHER: But I do know that whatever’s happening is dangerous, so stick with me.
MOTHER: Get whatever you have to fight with out. I can feel something close.

[TORY WOLFFE]

==> Tory: Answer Mother and reply Pete

MP: you better be caareful allright..?
MP: oh..and we're fffine
MP: for now, i uh...know that there're probably imps coming any ssecond
MP: my mother can..uh...sense it too
MP: for some reason

==> Tory: Equip strife specibi

You're getting pretty worried bout Pete, seems like the meteor's hitting down pretty fast. You grabbed your strife specibi and realized that you haven't exactly answer your mother yet either, wow rude much? But you're not sure what you can actually tell her, you can't possibly go "hey, this is the game i ordered online and now the world's ending!", yeah, that's probably not a very good idea.

==> Imps incoming.

Thank you mysterious voice in your head. Though even without it you could already clearly see them coming from everywhere, the hole in the wall, from your room, even the toilet. They looked a lot less than how you'd expect them to be, these were...leafier, greener, more...tree-rooty-like hands, now what are you going to do?

==> Tory: Strife!

Your baseball bat came into contact with one of the tiny wood-like bodies of the plant-imp and it went flying across the room and exploded into plenty of those blue fruit-gusher lookalike build grists. More took it's place in front of you and you hope Pete would get on with dropping some heavy furniture on them soon.

[PETE WASUPON]

==> Pete: Take stock of the situation!

Finally, some decent action! You envelop your mouse with an eager hand and observe the dark green imp things sprawl into Thor’s kitchen. Now that you look at it, it looks like some kind of zombie apocalypse last stand type thing, with Thor and his mum in the centre of it all. Too cool. Speaking of his mum, she looked like she saw this kind of situation every day, smashing that jet black crowbar around like nobody’s business. Again, way too cool. You were a bit surprised that Thor would have a parent like this, being the way he was. Blue grist blocks were sprouting up from felled imps in brief springs, and you made a mental note to remind Thor to collect all that loot. Loot was everything in games. Boy, do you love loot.

==> Pete: Aid your friend!

Seizing the fridge with your bare (hands) mouse pointer, you bring it down on a cluster of the imps repeatedly, taking a savage pleasure in seeing them squish into grist. You see one of the little buggers advancing behind Thor and fling the fridge at it, narrowly missing he whom you were trying to save and causing the imps behind that one to be flattened also. Unfortunately, this action was short-sighted, as the fridge eventually went through the window, leaving a big gap that was soon letting imps in by the pound. You continue utilizing large appliances, and think gratefully that even though there were tons of the imps, they were only foot soldiers whose strength lay in numbers. Meanwhile, Venus-jiisan was taking part too, snapping up the occasional imp in his wrinkled maw, spewing the grist remains out once he finished doing whatever to it.

NC: ok, i have to type fast cuz its not like i have five hundred hands or anythin. have to man the mouse too, 55.
NC: i think this is just the welcomin wave, you know? after this, therell probably be a break so i can build before some big boss imp comes and takes the cake.
NC: i got your back, man. this is epic.

[MOTHER]

==> Mother: Do what you love to do

And that was fight. You’d grown up on the streets, and literally had a brawl every other day. You had lost your fair share, won your own glory, knocked out more people than you care to remember. You never drew blood, however. Well, except for that one accident. But it was a double-edged sword: you could continue fighting with an airy heart if they were just K.O-ed (blood made your guts churn), but K.O-ed contenders could get up again. And that was annoying.

But these little green men were a different story. One solid hit and they were killed, no blood, no mess, just a pile of blue things in their place. Treasure, some form of currency? Something like that, perhaps. It really didn’t matter to you, since now you could go all out without worrying. So you do, swinging your weapon with practiced ease, never straying far from Tory, and noting with satisfaction that he is able to hold his own...relatively.

You notice bits of furniture moving themselves of their own accord, demolishing the green men in hordes, especially the horde that flooded in once the refrigerator went through the window. Which was alright, you supposed, since it was their fault in the first place, so they should try to amend it.

MOTHER: Tory, what is going on with our furniture?
MOTHER: Not that it is a bad thing, but still, I’d like to know.

[TORY WOLFFE]

==> Tory: Multi-task

MP: right, uh..i hear you
MP: oh and..mind the waurnrhjure
MP: walls
MP: not that i mind the help
MP: really appreciate it ;;;

Tory: um, you know that...thing i told you about my friends on the internet..?
Tory: uh, one of them are controlling our furniture
Tory: his name is pete
Tory: we're..kinda in a game right now, and not really, because this is also real life

All as you fought off the seemingly endless stream of imps that seem to be flooding in from wherever there's an opening in your house. It's pretty hard to ignore them now that there are imps coming in from left right and centre. Fortunately, like Pete said, they begin thinning out as you, your mother and not to mention venus jii-san got rid of one of the last wave of imps. No doubt a bigger, more stronger foe would follow soon after, as do most games. At least there was time to take a quick breather.

==> Tory: Collect the loot!

It seemed near impossible to take two steps without collecting the grist, not that you minded it. The amount of grist you collected was enough to nearly fill up three quarters of your grist bar. How's that for an achievement? Though now it's probably best to rebuild the walls of the house so at least there weren't so many areas where the imps could get in.

MP: alright, i think this is the point where we..uh..get some down time
MP: i think there should be enough build grist to rebuild the walls.. ><

[PETE WASUPON]

==> Pete: Start rebuilding

Thor was right. After that superb loot collection he’d executed just a moment ago, you now had more than enough grist to build stuff. And it was probably a good idea if you seized the moment and built up Thor’s fortifications. You select different options in your menu interface and dragged your mouse across what was left of your friend’s apartment. It must be kind of disturbing, seeing the world around you change, you think, putting yourself in Thor’s shoes. His mum was probably thinking the same thing too, but by the exceedingly calm way she had handled the situation, probably not.

You finish pasting the walls over with new ones, taking the liberty to do the same with the gaping hole in the glass window. Scrolling out, you see a lazily pulsing whatcha-ma-callit, spirograph hanging above the apartment complex. You consult the walkthrough and find out that you have to build up to it to let Thor through.

There was no sign of imminent danger, yet.

You check the overall height of the building and decide that you’d need five more floors or something to reach the first gate. You start constructing stairs and building basic floors around them, wisely not just building one huge staircase.....

==> Pete: Psych!

.....Unfortunately, that’s what you wished you did about thirty seconds later. Yes. You had built one grand, sprawling staircase up to the gate. It started from the roof of the building and just went in a spiral upwards. Just looking at it made your stomach curl: your fear of heights had finally chosen to pipe up and scold you at the sheer monster you’ve created. You would not go up those stairs even if you were paid to do so.

==> Pete: Add a little extra

You'd missed the little now-coloured icon in the Phrenalia Registry: the Punch Designix. Also, something simply labelled 'CD' was there too. You decide to deploy the Punch Designix at the cost of a hefty amount of normal grist and five units of something called larimar. It was contained in a special counter on your screen, one represented by a pretty, light blue rock thing. You assume that this is Thor's very own grist speciality thing.

The fresh Punch Designix (a very useful thing, according to the walkthrough. Unfortunately, the walkthrough stopped there, so you're on your own now) is placed in front of the new wall section that lay between the glass windows. The CD simply fell onto Thor's head. You mutter a quick apology.

NC: uh, Thor.
NC: im kinda sorry, but, i uh.
NC: i built up to the gate, just so you know. youll see what i did once you get to the roof, yeah?
NC: yeah.
NC: also, new gear. i have a general idea of what they both do, but if i do, then you must know it all already, 555.

[MOTHER]

==> MOTHER: Comprehend

To the best extent you could, which was surprisingly quite well, you grasped the situation and just took it in your stride. You reflect that, in ordinary circumstances, you wouldn’t be able to handle the sheer reality-changing load of all of this, but then...this was no natural scenario. Indeed, this was mightily supernatural, but again, you feel as if you’ve been here before. So everything was put in place in your mind fairly without struggle.

==> MOTHER: Investigate the rest of the house

Or what’s left of it. When you check the bathroom, you figure out that, indeed, the floating teal plant was made from the dead Venus Flytrap that was there for some time. The toilet seems to be missing also. Hrm. That might make things quite complicated.
You trot over to your room and find that apart from a few things on the floor (that weren’t there before; there were always things on her floor), everything was in good order.

MOTHER: Alright, Tory.
MOTHER: As much as I hate to admit it, though I seem to understand fairly well, you are more in charge here, if by sheer knowledge.
MOTHER: You may lead on. And tell your friend that I appreciate his help.
MOTHER: Which friend is this?
MOTHER: Also I have a feeling that we should hurry upwards. Up pulls me.

[TORY WOLFFE]

==> Tory: Reply to everyone

MP: thanks for that
MP: and i know about the punch designix, not so sure abouthis...cd thing though
MP: but um, i'll check it out
MP: and alright ><
MP: don't apologize, uh, i know there's quite a ways to get up to the gate
MP: there's no need to apologize > <
MP: anyway...um, venus jii-san still needs his second prototyping...
MP: and..uh, i'm going to leave it up to you alright?
MP: since i don't think there'll be much things up top for me to prototype
MP: and...i'm sure it's a lot easier for you to head up than it is..for, well, me and my mother
MP: so yeah, go crazy : )
MP but...not too crazy alright..?
MP: at least something not too dangerous > <;;
MP: oh, and my mother says thanks for the help

Tory: Uh..alright
Tory: we need to head up
Tory: there's a floating gate above the apartment building..
Tory: um...he's the one from Thailand
Tory: yeah, we should head up soon
Tory: but we need..um, stronger weapons before we do
Tory: we need to use that machine there...and there, and that one too
Tory: it's a rather tedious process.. ;;

==> Tory: Alchemize

You pointed over to the Alchemiter, Totem Lathe and punch designix to show your mother just what machines you were talking about before moving over the punch designix, after picking up the green and white CD that's been plonked on top of your head. You took out one of your empty sylladex cards and proceeded to make more after going through the process of carving cruxite dowels and then placing them on the alchemiter. With more sylladex cards. You begin captchaloging items (with the permission of your mom because most of the things you got belongs to her) that seem like they would put a hurting on imps and ended up with several pieces of broken glass, a bowling ball, a pair of oven mitts (why would you even- nevermind) and a springy excercise equipment that you have never known what it's called (it's called a chest expander). You then rinsed and repeat the process of punching the sylladex cards, bringing it to the totem lathe, then over to the Alchemiter.

==>

By combining your baseball bat, the chest expander thing, the broken glass from the windows and a bowling ball, you get the Pummelnator! Not too shabby a name if you do say so yourself. It works just like a flail with the baseball bat as the handle, and the bowling ball over laid with broken glass as the..attacking end. The spring from the chest expander working as the chain. Not too practical, weight wise but it would most definitely put the hurting on the imps as well as anything else that tries to get in your way. It also took up a flip ton of grist to make it but, well...you could always get more.

==> Ascend

You made your way up to the last floor of the apartment building with your mother, all the while fighting off the imps with your new strife specibus and finally made it up to the roof and realized just what Pete meant by "sorry".

[PETE WASUPON]

==> Pete: Prototype Venus jii-san…..or, attempt to

But first you take a moment to admire Thor’s new weapon approvingly. The Pummelnator, eh? Wonder who came up with that amazingly kickass name. It looked like your recent deployments really forwarded everything, and you take a moment of self-satisfaction in that too. You indulge in a grin.

Ok, enough of that. While Thor and his mum worked their way upstairs (you brace yourself for the moment they see your insane blunder), you stare at the gently glowing plantsprite who decided to stay behind for some reason. Maybe Venus jii-san knew that his second evolution was coming up. Now, what to do, what to do. Your friend entrusted you with this cool job, so you really have to make it worthwhile. Scrolling around the apartment garnered nothing interesting, unless you wanted to have a Micro-plant on your hands (what would it do, cook enemies? Gah.).

==> Pete: Discover the treasure trove

And then you saw it. Thor’s collection of video games, hidden away in some corner that took some navigation of the screen to see. Brilliant. You had a few of those titles yourself, too. Most of them were zombie apocalypse-type affairs, and you spend a few more precious moments scanning them through and sometimes humming in approval or clicking your tongue in disapproval. Suddenly, you are gripped with a radical idea. Why not one of these? If there’s anything cooler than a Venus Flytrap sprite, it’s got to be a Zombie Venus Flytrap sprite, right? Anyways, there wasn’t anything nearly as interesting as what you have here.

You decide on it and pick the bloodiest, most hardcore cover you could find and take it to Venus jii-san, soon to be ZOMBIE Venus jii-san.

==> Pete: Prototype!

You have a feeling that after you do so, the weird plantspeak that you were able to understand earlier might dissolve into incoherent garglespeak. So you put on your headphones again to hear Venus jii-san’s potentially last words.

FLYTRAPSPRITE: bad THINGS are COMING separation SEGREGATION no MORE like SEPERATION yes YES that’s IT
FLYTRAPSPRITE: what IS that THING boy WHAT are YOU doing
FLYTRAPSPRITE: you HAVE bad TASTE

You are taken-aback and make a flat face. Alright, if he wants his last words to be ‘you have bad taste’, so be it! Hmph! Although you are vaguely surprised that he addressed you almost directly, but by now, you have had your fair share of surprises.

You drop the game onto Venus jii-san (a tad bit spitefully) and you quickly shut your eyes when the blinding flash of light happens. When you open them again you see ZOMBIE Venus jii-san in all his glory. Which isn’t much. He still looks the same, but he is now dripping a thick, teal slime that you wouldn’t have touched even if you were paid to. His flytrap is riddled with decay and you can see lively maggots squirming around everywhere. He groans and the air he exhaled is friggin’ visible.

You feel as if you’ve created some sort of super poisonous monster.

Flippin’ cool.

==> Pete: Address your blunder

Slowly, ZOMBIE] Venus jii-san makes his way upstairs too, following Thor’s path. You zoom out and zoom into the roof in a flash of a mouse scroll and start your apology.

NC: uh, hey.
NC: yeah, you mightve noticed this thing.
NC: sorry. I guess I wasnt really thinkin straight, now was I, 555.
NC: 5….5…..ah, yeah.
NC: by the by, ZOMBIE Venus jii-san is comin up, so you had better wait for him otherwise he might let me understand him again, 555.

[MOTHER]

==> MOTHER: Arrive on top

Quite literally as well. Tory seems to have made himself a new weapon, and while it looks makeshift, certainly, there is a complete feel about it too. You’ll have to have him alter your crowbar later. The little green men that get in your way don’t stay in your way for long, and in no time (how proud you are of him), both you and your son make it to the roof in one piece.

The first thing you notice is a gigantic white staircase spiralling squarely up to a pulsating circle. You assume that that’s where both you and Tory have to go through. Alright, simple enough. Just climb the stairs.

==> MOTHER: Ears prick

You hear a faint growling sound, and immediately the crowbar is raised and ready. It seemed far away, but they had better hurry before that something got closer.

MOTHER: Tory, let us go up now.
MOTHER: Don’t be scared! The stairs aren’t even that narrow.[/style]

==> MOTHER: Ascend the steps

Swiftly you take the stairs three at a time, your long legs coping to this challenge like they have with any other: with grace and skill. But you stop suddenly, and look back. You hadn’t gotten very far until you heard some sounds again. What’s more, from the opening in the roof where you had come out of, you see…oh, it was that Venus Flytrap from before. Only, it looked sicker now. Ugh, and it was dripping some kind of liquid. Thank goodness that it wasn’t red, otherwise you’d have had an embarrassing show of weakness in front of your son.

MOTHER: Tory, come on!
MOTHER: beeil Dich!
MOTHER: I sense trouble, and your plant pet is here now.