Jim continues to walk over the Pantalones house/condo (he was pretty sure it was a condo a few minutes ago, but now that he’s walking over to it he’s not so sure). He reaches for the doorknob, twists, and it opens. There’s a very nice doormat that says “eat stinky cheese bozo”. It’s quite soft.
Jim is greeted by various objects littered across what seems to be the living room, including a PS2 (it’s already 9 years old?!?!?) along with some games, such as Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3. God damn, does Jim love that game. Why, we shall never know. There’s also a white fluffy sofa in the corner, with a comfortably-sized TV on the wall, right next to the entrance to the kitchen.
“alright, there are many chairs to choose from. wait actually i have literally the perfect one for you. come down with me to the basement.”
Jim feels a tinge of nervousness, even though he was 99.9999999999% sure Pantalones was not actually an axe-murderer. All nervousness immediately evaporated when he glanced back at the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 cartridge, however. Pantalones takes him back to right where the entrance is, where there is a set of stairs going downwards to what is assumedly the basement. Pantalones starts down the stairs, gesturing for Jim to come with.
It is at this very moment that Jim remembers about his eugolahctpac (which I will refer to as a eugo from now on because eugolahctpac is incredibly annoying to say). He still has the lighter, matchsticks, matchbox, flint and steel, candle, flamethrower, and weapon of mass destruction that also just so happens to be yet another flamethrower! Instead of putting a chair into the prototype box, he can be smart about this and put the weapon of mass destruction that also just so happens to be yet another flamethrower into the prototype box!
He explains this to Pantalones, who agrees it would be even more awesome than the stupid-ass chair idea. Like, seriously, what were they thinking?
Pantalones takes Jim back up the stairs, and out the door.
“man you should have told me about this frickin rad hugeass flamethrower beforehand, or else i wouldn’t have suggested that you prototype a chair (although i still think the idea has some potential).”
“I just remembered I had all that inventory on me. But yeah the chair idea would have been equally as cool.”
Jim walks back over to the WKMD, and climbs on it to reach the prototype box. He unequips his WOMDTJSHTBYAF, or weapon of mass destruction that just so happens to be yet another flamethrower (it’s just a really big, really cool flamethrower), and it pops out in front of it with a loud ONOMATOPOEIA NOISE. As Jim approaches the prototype box thing, it floats back down the few feet it is in the air, hitting the floor of the WKMD.
The door thing opens, but much faster than Jim intended it to open. Almost as if some force pushed it incredibly hard, causing the door to smash against itself when the door hits its side. A little confused, Jim drags in the very large flamethrower, but it doesn’t quite fit, even though the box is also quite large. He tries to fit it in at a diagonal angle, in which it looks like it juuuust barely fits. The tip of the flamethrower (the part that throws the flames), which is shaped like a barrel, is poking out of the box a little, but it’ll probably be fine.
Jim closes the door of the prototype box thingy, and it closes with the same massive force that it opened with. Enough to—
“Oh, crap.”
Enough to crack the barrel of the flamethrower, completely throwing it off of the flamer (haha see what I did there). As the prototype box floats back up into the air, it looks like it’s getting brighter?
And brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter and it’s literally as bright as the sun now.
The prototype box explodes.
--
chapter three part two (chapter three was pretty short)
Jim’s body is thrown back, with his arms and legs following suit in an awkward, flailing position. He slides on his ass, and nearly off of the WKMD, but he swings his arms back and pushes his hands in the opposite direction, generating just enough friction for him not to break his neck on the ground below. It also burns his hands a bit, but this seems unimportant in comparison to the BS that just happened.
Pantalones’ frantically jumps up onto the WKMD.
“holy shit jim dude are you alright?!”
Jim slowly and idiotically turns himself around using his hands, and says “Yeah.” He seems to be relieved not to be dead. He pulls himself up, and wobbles a little bit before regaining his balance. He feels a little bit odd, however. He can’t exactly pin it this very second, but there seems to be a part of him that is . . . not human? Almost . . . metallic—
“JIM what the FUCK you have an arm that is METAL???? i am currently in the midst of a hurricane of confusion and disillusion god help me wait i’m not religious what the hell jim you have a metal arm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Pantalones says (more like mentally combusts).
Jim looks down. Jim faints.
Haha just kidding that only happens in books. Anyway, Jim is momentarily disoriented by the fact that he has an arm of metal, and attempts to move it. It moves. It seems to have weirdly shaped moderny-looking hinges at the shoulder and elbow part that seem to allow for the full range of motion Jim would be able to get with his other arm. The newfound metal arm looks exactly like the flamethrower that Jim had put into the prototype box, with the exception of the barrel that was broken off.
“PRETTY COOL, NO?”
“Yeah, I guess. Is this permanent?”
“PROBABLY NOT.”
“Fair. So . . . does it do anything? Am I able to like, shoot fireballs or some crap now?”
“WELL, IT—”
Jim’s new metal arm begins to glow a bluish-green looking light, and the outer layer of the thick metal extends forward, creating a new “barrel”, I guess you could call it. A small rectangular section of his metal arm slides open by itself, revealing what looks like a control panel. It has some weird-ass looking buttons with some weird-ass symbols that I can not even begin to comprehend. Neither does Jim, if that even needs to be said. Man, I feel kind of bad now. Apologies Jim.
“damn, looking pretty swagger. can you—” Something on Pantalones watch (Jim just realized he has a watch) blinks. “oh wait a second, my SOMEONE IS MESSAGING YOU ON SOME MESSAGE APPLICATION YOU PIECE OF SHIT application on my watch is alerting me. i think it’s . . . pratibaa?”
“Oh, yeah. I completely forgot about her today.” Jim laughs a little. “I guess we have been a little bit caught up in the BS of today.”
“yeah we should probably fill her in on all the crazy stuff that has happened in the past day alone. maybe we can send her lEVIT too?”
“That would actually be really cool. Wonder how this game works with three people.”
“i guess we’ll find out. wanna create a multi-golretsep channel?”
“Sure, come over to my house.”
“ACTUALLY, THERE’S A BETTER WAY OF DOING THIS.”
“what”
“I CAN’T REALLY JUST NOT TELL YOU THIS BECAUSE IT’S A PRETTY CRUCIAL PART OF lEVIT (OR AT LEAST WHAT I KNOW OF IT) BUT THERE IS A SORT OF . . . PROCREATION METHOD YOU CAN USE TO MAKE ANY OBJECT YOU’D LIKE.”
“Like a crafting system in a video game?”
“LIKE A WHAT?”
“Nevermind. How do you use this procreation method?”
“THERE SHOULD BE SOME SORT OF TABLE RIGHT BESIDE WHAT THE NARRATOR CALLS THE “WKMD” SOMEWHERE . . . AH, HERE IT IS.”
“wait did you just say ‘narrator’? what the hell does that mean? is there someone . . . watching us?”
“JUST IGNORE WHAT I SAID FOR RIGHT NOW, BUT YEAH IN A SENSE THERE IS SOMEONE WATCHING YOU. YOU WON’T SEE THEM FOR A WHILE THOUGH.”
Oh well. There goes my cover. Thanks, SBMIII.
“SHUT UP LOSER.”
Rude.
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
“rude.”
“NO NOT YOU PANTALONES. THE NARRATOR.”
“oh. alright i guess.”
“YEAH SORRY. ANYWAY COME OVER HERE TO THE TABLE.”
Man, this cat does not know how to handle narrators these days. SBMIII used to be so much cooler, especially in the LS timeline. Damn, was that a cool timel. .``q11q
SBMIII looks a little pissed. The narrator looks a little pleased. I mean, me looks a little pleased. I looked a little pleased. Sigh. Being a narrator ain’t easy sometimes. Anyway.
SBMIII leads Jim and Pantalones over to a medium-sized metal table. It has not four legs on each corner, but one large cylindrical leg in the middle, engraved with an elegant nature-inspired pattern. On the table, there is a very large, but thin rectangular sheet of . . . well, it’s not exactly papyrus paper, but it’s not printer paper either. Something in between, sort of like construction paper, except not really. Alongside the sheet of hybrid paper, there is an odd looking pen—it’s just a thick metal cylinder with a sharp looking tip at the end.
SBMIII looks momentarily confused, then more worried than confused. And then, after another moment, has a face more so pertaining to understanding than fear.
“you mind explaining this, sir bartholomew?”
“WELL, USUALLY THERE WOULD BE OTHER JARS OF INGREDIENTS AND SUBSTANCES THAT YOU WOULD PUT INTO THE PEN TO DRAW YOUR DIFFERENT OBJECTS. BUT—”
“wait so you would literally just draw what you need to create? how does that even work, like, how would this thing recognize any and every object in existence.”
“IF WE HAD THE INGREDIENTS AND CHEMICALS TO PUT INTO THE PEN, THEN YES THAT’S BASICALLY HOW IT WORKS. SOME MORE COMPLEX OBJECTS NEED DIFFERENT, HARDER TO FIND INGREDIENTS, HOWEVER. ALSO, THIS IS NOT THE ONLY ALCHEMY SYSTEM. THERE’S OTHER MUCH BETTER SYSTEMS THAN THIS ONE.”
“ah, so this isn’t a ‘sort of procreation method’.”
“I JUST COULDN’T FIND THE WORD AT THE TIME. YOUR LANGUAGE DOESN’T HAVE VERY MANY DIRECT TRANSLATIONS TO SOME OF THE WORDS I NEED TO USE.”
“i see. you were saying something about other systems?”
“YEAH SO THIS SYSTEM IN PARTICULAR IS CALLED A DRAWPID, WHICH IS A WORD I JUST MADE UP BECAUSE IT SOUNDS PRETTY SIMILAR TO WHAT IT WOULD ACTUALLY BE CAL1Q`LED IN ENGLISH.”
Jim raises his eyebrows slightly, for he thinks he heard SBMIII add in an extra “one” and “q” sound in his pronunciation of “called” (or “CALLED”, I suppose). And there seemed to be a little bit of a stop after the pronunciation of the 1 and Q? Weird. I guess it must be an effect of something coming nearer. No clue what, but something. Just narrator’s instinct. Also, pretty sure I might have pronounced the word “sure” with the same one and q and stop sounds around 20 minutes ago, when I first started narrating, as that was a similar feeling. Wonder what the WKMD timer is at now.
“yeah alright so you were mentioning that there are better systems than this? how do we get one of those and also all of the ingredients that we need apparently to make a computer which i think is what we’re doing here?”
“WITH ALL OF THE OTHER TIMELINES, THE INGREDIENTS HAVE BEEN THERE. OR AT LEAST THE ONES I’VE BEEN A PART OF. THOSE INGREDIENTS ARE KIND OF CRUCIAL TO GETTING ALL OF THE OTHER INGREDIENTS, BECAUSE THERE’S A CERTAIN OBJECT IN SPECIFIC YOU NEED TO MAKE TO GET ALL OF THE OTHER ONES.”
“i see. why aren’t the ingredients there?”
“I’M HAVE AN IDEA OF WHAT IS CAUSED THIS, BUT SAYING WHAT IT IS WOULD MESS SOME STUFF UP SO.”
“uh okay. so can we go back over to Jim’s house now to create the multi-Golretsep channel, now that we know we can’t do whatever we were going to do here?”
“I SUPPOSE.”
“The cat doesn’t exactly have dominance over us..”
“THAT’S WHAT YOU THINK.”
Jim and Pantalones both stare at SBMIII for a second. The cat stares right back. Jim then turns back around, Pantalones following suit. They both walk over to Jim’s house, with SBMIII trailing them. They reach the door, turn the knob, and push it open.
“Welcome to my beautiful house. It has various accessories, such as chair.”
“i sure do love me some chair.”
“Yeah, chair is pretty awesome.”
Lovely conversation.
Jim goes up the staircase and enters his room. They walk over to the [[from a top-down view, the bottom right corner]] of the room. Jim sits down in one of those comfor1q`table (crap I did it again) mesh spinny chairs he has, and turns on the computer.
“nice imac.”
“Thanks. It’s the newish one, released earlier this year.”
“yeah looks pretty modern. makes me wonder what they’re going to look like, i dunno, 019283123 years from now.”
“A good question, considering this design already looks really timeless. Maybe it would be better if it was wider. I’ve seen some PC setups that have really wide monitors and just look really cool.”
“oh yeah i have a friend who has one like that at home. should’ve shown you a picture he sent me of it while we were there.”
“Yeah. Maybe later.” Pantalones nods in agreement.
Jim attempts to log onto his Golretsep account. It is made more difficult now, considering he only has one hand to type with—the barrel of his new flamethrowy arm is too wide for precise typing.
“do you need help?”
“I mean, not with the password obviously but if you could type some messages for me that would be cool.”
“yeah, alright.”
Jim finishes logging on, being sure to click the “Remember Me” box.
“Wait, so how are you going to hop onto the Golretsep channel without your laptop?”
“oh yeah you’re right. i have no idea what i am doing just sitting here. let me go grab it real quick.”
“Sure. Can’t you use your shapeshifting powers or whatever to turn yourself into . . . I don’t know, a bird maybe?”
“i can try. i can’t guarantee that i don’t shapeshift into a planet or some shit though so sorry if a murder you somehow.”
“It’ll be fine.”
“yeah. anyway let’s try it out”
Pantalones walks back down the stairs, and out the doorway. Jim follows, wanting to watch. Jim also then realizes he completely forgot about the cat. Where the hell did SBMIII go?? He looks around his house, and finds SBMIII utterly entranced in the television. Confusedly (real word), Jim walks over to the Couchmobile 3000 (it’s patented), and asks SBMIII:
“What’re you watching?” He also realizes the cat has what looks like some sort of purple liquid coming from her eyes?
“IT’S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL ROMANCE STORY. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE CONTEXT WAS FOR THIS SHOW, BUT MAN IS THIS COUPLE BEAUTIFUL.”
“Did you just say ‘man?’ Weren’t you all like “you mere mortals will never understand” and shit earlier?”
“I’M ATTEMPTING TO ADAPT TO YOUR CULTURE. IS SAYING ‘MAN’ TABOO?”
“No, it’s just more of a slang term. And how are you adapting to our culture when, to my knowledge at least, you haven’t been anywhere else except for here?”
“I JUST GET A VIBE.”
“But what does that mean? Is it some sort of vision, a dream, you just know, what?”
“THE LATTER.”
“Okay, if I didn’t include that last option, or any of the options actually, how would you describe it.”
“. . . AS A VIBE.”
Jim is annoyed. SBMIII really needs a few lessons in American culture, that aren’t his magical vibes.
“Without using the word ‘vibe’?”
“HOW ABOUT A PULSE?”
“That’s not really any more helpful than ‘vibe’. Do you feel this pulse? Is it like a mini shock wave, or a sound wave, or something of that sort?”
“I DON’T KNOW HOW TO PUT IT IN YOUR LANGUAGE. THERE JUST ISN’T A WORD FOR IT. SOMETIMES YOUR CULTURE JUST . . . COMES TO ME, AND OTHER TIMES IT DOESN’T. IT’S NEVER CATEGORIZED IN AN PARTICULAR WAY, THAT’S MY JOB. AND YOU OBVIOUSLY HAVEN’T SEEN ME WALKING AROUND WITH ANY RECORDING OR WRITING UTENSIL RECENTLY, SO I HAVE TO SORT EVERYTHING MENTALLY, WHICH IS A LOT EASIER SAID THAN DONE.”
“I see. How often does this information ‘come to you’?”
“ALL THE TIME. AS A MATTER OF FACT, I JUST FELT SOMETHING PULSE ABOUT . . . A FRUITY LINE? FRUITLY POOPS? FRUIT CRUNCHERS?”
“Fruit Loops?”
“YEAH, THAT.”
“Ah. It makes a little more sense now.”
“WHAT DOES?”
“Well, you said the information didn’t come to you in any particular order or category. I guess the fact that Fruit Loops was just pulsed to you or whatever gives me a little more context in that regard.”
“AH, ALRIGHT. SAY, THIS IS A NICE CONVERSATION AND ALL, BUT WHERE DID PANTALONES GO?”
“Oh yeah, he said he was going to try shapeshifting into something to grab his laptop faster. We should probably go check.”
Jim and SBMIII walk back downstairs, and to the doorway. They peek out, and see khaki pants with wings (this will become a pretty normal occurrence. Pantalones lately has found himself shapeshifting into khaki pants for whatever reason, if lately is twice) flying towards them, with an arm protruding outwards from what seems to be the pocket. This arm is holding a laptop.
Jim stares. He’s seen some pretty wild shit recently, but this arm-pants-wing combination has to take the cake for the stupidest thing he’s seen within the past two hours. So he stares a little bit longer. Until the khaki pants land in front of the doorway, and there’s a FLASHITY and it’s Pantalones again! Another point for shapeshifting! Woo!
“A metal bump is obligatory for the 392 rad-points you just earned.” Jim says, raising his metal flamethrower arm out in a fist-bump gesture.
Pantalones carefully bumps his fist against his metal handthing, and gains +23 rad points, of which is now going to be some completely arbitrary system of measuring the coolness of others because it sounds fun (and I’d also like to see who has the most rad points at the end of this story. I guess I’ll have to determine that as we go).
They all go back upstairs, and into Jim’s room. Jim turns on his IMac, and Pantalones turns on his laptop.
“i’ll create the multi-golretsep channel.”
“Sounds good.”
Pantalones navigates the extremely complex Golretsep IRC messaging interface like a pro, first creating a new “thread”, which is required before messaging anyone on Golretsep. He adds Pantalones and Pratibaa as contacts to the thread, and then opens up the terminal in Golretsep, typing “add channel -t unlim -c 2+”. And thus the multi-golretsep channel is complete! While the process—---------------------------......,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,?/A?>./
. . . . . . .