chapter four, part two.

“you mind telling me more about where the hell we’re going now that my friend is probably fucking dead now?? and also who you are??”

They’re traveling in a narrow dark gray tunnel. The person looks concerned, but Pantalones looks horrified. He’s not entirely sure what to think, or do, or say, or feel, or how exactly to be at the very moment, considering he just abandoned one of his only friends, and. Well, I can’t communicate with him just yet. But.

“I’m sorry, everything w4s just so fr4ntic over there. M4ybe if we could just settle down a bit, c4lm down—” the person says.

“how. how the fuck do you calm down when you leave your friend to die and you’re not even close to being close to their position!? and you haven’t answered the question. either, actually.”

For the first time, Pantalones’ laid-back demeanor takes a drastic turn. Surprising to see, but if I were to have my best friend in an unknown state, dead or alive. Well . . . well . . .

Sigh.

“I’m sorry. 4g4in. Would you mind just letting me t4ke you somewhere before I explain everything?” the person replies.

Pantalones sighs. He still looks very worried, and with a glint of anger in his eyes, but he seems to have calmed himself down relatively quickly. Impressive, really.

“i guess. could you at least tell me your name?”

“Sure. I’m Sam. p-Sam, as some c4ll me, but I’ll t4lk 4bout th4t more a little l4ter. Your n4me?” Sam says (I realize now that some typing quirks will be more clear than others, and so I think I’ll need a new system that’s not just let you figure out who’s talking. Perhaps simply a semicolon after the quote and then their name will do it. Seems manageable enough. Although whether or not I should implement the new system for the characters we already know . . . hm. I think I won’t include the semicolon for them, as they’re all pretty recognizeable. Thanks for listening to my quick narration rant, by the way :D)

“pantalones.”

“Exotic.” ; Sam.

“i guess. i mean, it does translate literally to ‘pants’, so not exactly your most conventional name.”

“Suppose I’m in the opposite situ4tion here. There isn’t re4lly much that is more generic th4n Sam. W4sn’t re4lly my decision though, believe it or not.” ; Sam.

“not sure if that’s better or worse than having an ‘exotic’ name.”

“I’d s4y worse. I’ve known other people th4t know m4ny other Sams, so I would 4ssume th4t it c4n be 4 little h4rd to distinguish between 4ll of the Sams.” ; Sam.

“reasonable enough. how far away is this place you’re bringing me to?”

“We’re 4lmost there, 4ctu4lly.” ; Sam.

Pantalones squints to see as far as he can down the tunnel, but doesn’t come to a conclusion as to where they were going. Actually, it looks like they’re coming to a dead end.

“is there some sort of portal or whatever that transports us there, because i don’t see any like, entrance or anything.”

“I guess I should expl4in to you wh4t NPMing is.” ; Sam.

“huh”

“Ye4h so, NPMing is kind of h4rd to expl4in, but it’s b4sic4lly just a w4y of shifting your perspective of 4 room in 4 w4y th4t 4llows you to see wh4t w4s built there using a levosh.” ; Sam.

“a levosh.”

“It’s shovel b4ckw4rds, except switch 4round the ‘s’ 4nd ‘h’.” ; Sam.

“ah. so you build these rooms with a tool, and then npm or whatever to be able to see that room? or are you like, transported to that room or whatever?” ; Sam.

“B4sic4lly. NPMing just 4llows you to see the room, but you h4ve to sidestep to 4ctu4lly be 4ble to inter4ct with the room, or go in it, I guess you could s4y.” ; Sam.

“so you npm to see the room or structure or whatever built with the tool, then sidestep to go into it. can you still interact with with the previous, real world room afterwards, or see any of it?”

“No. You c4n only be in the 2R, or second re4lm or 1R, or first re4lm 4t 4 time. However, you’ll 4lw4ys be 4ble to RNPM to see the 1R when in the 2R, in which you c4n see 4nything th4t is h4ppening in the 1R. 4nd vice vers4. ; Sam.

“speaking of, what does uh, NPM and RNPM actually stand for?”

“Prob4bly should h4ve expl4ined th4t first. NPM st4nds for Navigational Portaldimension Mapping, 4nd RNPM is just Reverse Navigational Portaldimension Mapping. There’s 4lso d-sidestepping, which stands for downwards sidestepping. Not sure why it isn’t, like, r-sidestepping inste4d, 4s th4t would be more consistent, but wh4tever.” ; Sam.

“mm. just to summarize again: npming allows you to see shit in the 2R, and then you sidestep to go into it, without being able to make further contact to the 1R, which we’re in right now. and then you can rnpm and d-sidestep to get back in here. and all the shit in the 2R is made with this levosh or whatever.”

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Almost as if Pantalones knows someone is reading. That’s his third summarization . . . (he doesn’t know I swear I’m just saying ;-;)

“B4sic4lly. You don’t necess4rily h4ve to NPM or RNPM to get b4ck to the 1R or 2R, 4lthough unless you would like to sidestep into 4 w4ll 4nd suffoc4te to de4th, I wouldn’t recommend it.” ; Sam

“noted. so, how actually do you do these two things?”

“With . . . this.” ; Sam says, as he pulls a peculiar object out of his pocket. It’s a three dimensional heart, surrounded by a disk, just like Saturn’s . . . wait. I remember describing this before. Right when Jim retrieved the lEVIT package! The object looks just like that of the logo on the disk or package or whatever the hell it was, except this heart is yellow for whatever reason, and it’s obviously three dimensional, as was just said.

“what that or fuck i mean what is that. sorry old habits die like a piece of dog shit or however the saying goes.”

Sam chuckles lightly. “Ye4h, I know the feeling.” He clears his throat. “4nyw4y. It’s e4sier to demonstr4te how to use the lORB when you just take it. So.” Sam hands the orb, or lORB or whatever to Pantalones. Pantalones holds the object by its disk, and it glows lightly. Thin yellow pillars appear around Pantalones at the corners and edges of the room, and they stretch in the form of rectangular tunnel around him. The rectangles fill in with some smoothly textured material, creating walls around him, and eventually a room is formed, in the same structure of the room, although the previous room is now gone. There’s one difference though (besides everything being yellow for whatever reason): there’s a door in the 2R, where there was only a dead end before.

“that is really fucking cool.” Pantalones walks up to the door, and tries to turn the doorknob, but his hand goes right through. “oh, right. so how do you actually sidestep into this?”

“Drop the lORB on the floor.” ; Sam.

Pantalones does that. The lORB shatters, and he feels a lightwave of tinnitus come about his hearing. He can see the yellow room around him more vividly now.

“so uh.”

With a flash of (also yellow) light, Sam appears right beside him.

“care to explain how you did that without a lORB”

Sam reveals the inside of his suit, which has patches full of the small lORBs. Pantalones nods.

“so whats inside the door. am i going to combust if i open it or something”

“Possibly, if you don’t h4ve the right code.” ; Sam.

“good to know. i guess you’re going to open the door then?”

“Ye4h.” ; Sam. He walks up to the door, and presses his index finger inside the middle of the doorknob. A part of the doorknob gives way, and a panel of wood slides inside the door, revealing a number panel, although there aren’t numbers, just symbols Pantalones doesn’t recognize. Sam presses one of them, and the door opens.

“Come, before it closes on us.” ; Sam. He walks through, and Pantalones follows.

Upon entering the room, Pantalones is greeted with various sights and unknown objects. The room itself is a somewhat dark blue, like a less vivid color of that of Sam’s hair color. There are three chairs scattered around the medium-sized room, with computer displays lining many of the walls. There are graphs, what look like spreadsheets, and countdowns on these displays, along with one large display on a very large desk in the middle of the room. It’s shaped like an backwards “U”, meant for someone to stand near in the empty middle part for access to all of the various items scattered around the three sides of the desk.

“So, uh. Here’s where I spend 4 good chunk of my time. Most of this stuff is just for rese4rching stuff 4bout the g4me, 4s I still don’t know m4ny different things 4bout it, even 4fter h4ving pl4yed the g4me for so long.” ; Sam.

“yeah so what exactly we are meant to be doing right now. can you just like, explain some stuff. like the overarching goals of the game, etc.”

“I would love to in the future, but there 4re 4 few problems with th4t: firstly, we don’t re4lly h4ve the time 4t the moment, 4nd secondly, well. There isn’t re4lly 4ny secondly, we just don’t h4ve the time for questions 4t the moment. Wh4t you need to know 4bout the g4me right now is this: it’s not just a g4me, 4nd whether or not we lose it will determine the f4te of pretty much everything, 4s much 4s I h4te s4ying something 4s cliched 4s th4t. The scope of this g4me is much, much bigger th4n 4nything you could ever im4gine, 4nd I don’t think you know wh4t you’re getting yourself into by p4rticip4ting.

“But b4ck on-topic (4g4in we’re re4lly rushed for time right 4bout now); there 4re different timelines run by the g4me, 4nd e4ch of these timelines 4re interconnected in some w4y, 4s in wh4t you do on one timeline will 4ffect 4t le4st one other one. Right now, we’re on the CORE timeline, which is the timeline which you st4rt on when pl4ying the g4me. Once the g4me is st4rted, which w4s 4bout 4 ye4rs 4go now, multiple new timelines 4re cre4ted depending on the new pl4yer’s 4ctions. Usu4lly it’s only two new timelines, but it could be m4ny more. Right now, to s4ve Jim, we’re going to h4ve to venture into 4 completely different timeline 4nd destroy it, in 4 sense. I s4y in 4 sense, 4s wh4t we’re re4lly doing here is cre4ting 4 paradox. This is c4n be 4 pretty complex process but I believe I know how to 4ctiv4te this one in p4rticul4r. Questions before we le4ve? 4nd, with 4s little offense 4s possible, ple4se m4ke it quick.” ; Sam—he rushed through those sentences very fast, but Pantalones seemed to have digested most of them.

“uh. many. but i guess i’ll just ask a few. do we exist on all timelines?”

“No.” ; Sam.

“okay cool. other question: where are we going to save Jim, and who might we face, just so i know what’s gonna happen here.”

“We’re going to go into the 3R, of which our enemies do not know of yet, and then from there tr4vel b4ck in time, 4nd do 4 sort of ste4lth mission to m4ke sure we’re undetected, bringing Jim to our timeline. We h4ve to tr4vel to the 3R first bec4use our enemies h4ve 4 w4y of monitoring time tr4vel in the 1R 4nd 2R, so they would know we’re coming.” ; Sam.

Pantalones had to resist interrupting after the whole “in which Jim never died” part of that sentence.

“wait what the hell? you can just revive the dead in that sense??”

“Ye4h, sort of.” ; Sam.

A look comes about Pantalones’ face. Of what, I can’t be sure.

“i see. other question, who exactly are our enemies?”

“Th4t’s 4 complic4ted question, but to keep things simple right now, the two m4in enemies trying to t4ke over the g4me is 4 sentient sh4peshifter c4t known 4s Sir Bartholomew Mittens III, 4nd my counterp4rt, Sams.” ; Sam.

“wait so the cat that was in our session was a villain?”

“Ye4h.” ; Sam.

“oh uh that makes sense i guess a little okay final question. do we have any other allies?”

“Yes, but they 4re 4ll re4lly busy with something else I c4n’t expl4in 4t the moment.” ; Sam.

“alright, good to know. we gonna get going now?”

“Yes, 4nd let’s hurry. I’ll get us to the 3R.” ; Sam. He speedwalks over to the main computer device thing, opens up the terminal, and types in a command. With a flash of light, Pantalones and Sam are both transported to the 3R.