Pantalones looks around. Everyone has arrived in a medium-sized room with a sepia-lighting scheme of sorts. There’s a large, very cozy looking couch towards the front of the room, and a widescreen TV towards the front with a couple of game consoles below it, in the shelves of a cabinet. Behind the couch there’s a ping pong table, and a few more shelves with magazines covering various topics. On the walls, there are three guitars hanging, as well as some abstract paintings in frames. At the very corner of the room, there is a very odd smooth yellow door, with a texture similar to that of metal.
“4lright, if everyone would like to sit down on the couch or something, I’ll try to expl4in everything th4t just h4ppened 4nd shit. Or 4t le4st 4ll th4t I know, I guess I should s4y.” ; Sam. Both of the Pantalones’ and Jim sit down.
“yeah i mean, it’s been like a day and already all of this crazy shit has happened. would you mind if we, like, asked questions though afterwards or beforehand or whenever?” ; Pantalones.
“Honestly, I don’t re4lly know where to st4rt here, so ye4h if 4nyone h4s questions, just 4sk. I’ll try to think of 4 w4y to expl4in 4ll I know 4bout the g4me in the me4ntime. So, uh. If 4nyone w4nts to go first . . .” ; Sam. Jim looks at the other two, then at Sam.
“Yeah, sure. How about where are we?” ; Jim.
“Oh ye4h, I guess I should h4ve mentioned th4t. This is the rec room I designed for some other members of 4n org4niz4tion I’m 4 p4rt of, 4nd is where we used to spend 4 lot more time in, just to h4ng out, chill, wh4tever. Most of the time, though, when I w4s here 4lone, I spent my time in the room connected to this one, which you c4n enter through th4t yellow door over . . .” He turns around and points to the yellow door. “. . . there.” ; Sam.
“what’s that used for?” ; other Pantalones.
“Tr4ining my prototype, mostly. I suppose you three don’t know very much 4bout prototypes though?” ; Sam.
“i remember something about a piece, and specialty. that’s it.” ; other Sam. The other two nod in agreement.
“Right. Well, b4sically, your prototype is the embodiment of 4ll of your m4gic4l powers within lEVIT. It consists not only of your piece 4nd specialty, but 4lso your supporting element. These m4gic4l powers c4n be used in m4ny, m4ny different w4ys, like to fight, to heal others, to create vast structures or buildings, wh4tever, re4lly. 4lthough most 4re interested in the fighting 4nd self-defense 4spect of the powers.” ; Sam.
“wait but didn’t jim get his prototype? because that’s why he got that flamethrower arm, right? i guess what i’m trying to ask is how come he hasn’t like, been able to use them?” ; Pantalones.
“Yeah, I haven’t exactly been able to shoot fireballs from my arm yet.” ; Jim.
“Yes, well, to 4ctu4lly use your powers, you’d first h4ve to look 4t your little p4nel th4t you’ve got on your fl4methrower 4rm. It should h4ve some odd looking symbols on it.” ; Sam.
“Oh yeah, I think I know what you mean. It’s the little control panel right . . . here.” ; Jim. He points to the small grid of weird symbols enveloped by the bluish-green light from before, from when the control panel came to be after he got his prototype.
“Yes, th4t one. Now if you’ll press the button in the middle, with the symbol th4t looks like 4 little percent sign kind4, it will open up a display showing all of your st4ts 4nd shit.”
Jim looks to find the button, and presses it. The metal(?) sheet with the buttons on top of it rolls down beneath the barrel of the flamethrower to reveal a tiny display that’s cast into the air in the form of a hologram.
STAT OVERVIEW:
Piece:
Specialties:
Supporting Element(s):
Spiritual Capacity:
Fragmented Flame Generator
???
?% Air/Wind, ?% Other(s)
10 SBurn/m
“Woah, that is really cool.” ; Jim.
“Ye4h, it’s 4 pretty ne4t fe4ture. 4s it s4ys 4t the top, this is just 4n overview of your st4ts so f4r.”
“Right. What does all of it mean, though?” ; Jim.
“Ok4y, so first your piece is like the b4se of your m4gic4l powers, the concept th4t 4ll of your m4gic powers 4re built 4round. It 4lso includes your 4bility tree, which we’ll get to in 4 moment. Your speci4lties 4re wh4t you’re p4rticul4rly skilled 4t with your powers, 4nd evolve over time 4s you use your powers, which is why you don’t h4ve 4ny speci4lties yet—you h4ven’t used your powers. 4n ex4mple of speci4lties 4re the ones I h4ve, being Size Manipulation, Luck, 4nd Item Creation. Supporting elements—” Sam stops for a moment. He rolls up his sleeve, uncovering a watch. He checks it. His eyes widen slightly, and his mouth dips into a frown.
“is there something wrong?” ; other Pantalones.
“Ye4h, I guess I’ve just lost tr4ck of the time. There’s 4ctu4lly 4 re4lly import4nt meeting I’ve got to get to in 4round twenty minutes, so I guess I’ll just h4ve to skip the rest of the expl4n4tion right now. Follow me.” ; Sam. He gestures with his hand, and the two Pantalones’ stand up. Sam walks over to the yellow door, turns the knob, and pulls it open, revealing an giant room with blank white walls on the other side.
Oddly enough, the room is almost empty, besides another door at the corner of the room, of a modest gray color. There’s also what looks to be a protipication box at the left edge of the room.
“Here’s the room where I would often sp4r other members of the group I’d h4ng out using our prototypes, to sort of pr4ctice 4nd hone our m4gic skills. We’d 4lw4ys h4ve the one guy who w4s 4n 4m4zing 4nd super t4lented he4ler on st4ndby though, just in c4se shit got re4l. 4ll we’re re4lly interested in right now though is the protipic4tion box 4nd door.” ; Sam.
“cool. are we going to get our prototypes here?” ; Pantalones. Sam looks at the two Pantalones’.
“Yes. For the two of you though, your prototypes will likely just be 4n 4ddition to your sh4peshifting power, so just keep th4t in mind.” ; Sam. They four of them walk over to the box, and Sam opens it up.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“wait where are we going to get our object for the protipication box? something from that room back there?” ; other Pantalones.
“No, there’s 4 better w4y.” ; Sam. He walks over to the wall on the left side of the protipication box, and sets his hand on it. He leaves it there for a moment, and after a second, the wall flashes a light blue color. A panel, the very same white color as the wall, slides off, and reveals a compartment with small, neatly stacked square tiles. They have odd symbols on them, not so different from the ones on the control panel of Jim’s cracked flamethrower arm (or “Fragmented Flame Generator, as the stat overview display calls it.).
“These 4re c4lled characteristic runes, 4nd on e4ch of them is some sort of word th4t c4n be used to cre4te 4 prototype. There is pretty much every word you could possibly think of, so you c4n prototype pretty much 4ny object you’d like. It re4lly just 4llows for gre4ter flexibility when cre4ting your prototype, if 4nyone is wondering.” ; Sam.
“i see. right, well, i’ve actually thought a little bit about what i’d like to have as my prototype, and i believe i’ve got it: a standard deck of playing cards.” ; Pantalones.
“interesting, that’s rather similar to what i was thinking. i was going to say a deck of tarot cards, preferably with the standard 78 cards.” ; other Pantalones.
“Th4t’ll work just fine. I’ll gr4b the c-runes for both of those.” ; Sam. Sam reaches in the compartment, and taps a certain tile of the bottom of it with his finger. It lights up, and the tile and the surrounding tiles sink into the compartment, and slide away, revealing a very large keyboard, with all of the odd symbols one could imagine. Sam types in some of the odd symbols, and a couple moments later, several of the runes float up into the air and connect themselves, forming two different boards of the runes, I suppose you’d say. They then float down into Sam’s hands, stacked on each other.
“Right, here you guys go.” ; Sam. He hands one of the rune board thingies to each of the Pantalones’.
“neat.” ; Pantalones.
“4lright, now 4ll you h4ve to do is put your runesc4pe in the protipic4tion box, 4nd it’ll gr4nt you wh4t you’ve 4sked for 4s your prototype.” ; Sam.
“nice, thanks.” ; Pantalones says. The other Pantalones nods. They walk back over to the protipication box, and Pantalones inserts his runescape (as it’s apparently called) into the box. He closes it, and—
LOUD ONOMATOPOEIA NOISES the box explodes. This time, however, nobody is knocked back, like last time when Jim prototyped his object of choice. Instead, there is a flash of bright yellow light.
“That doesn’t get old now, does it.” ; Jim.
“It re4lly does not, no. Do you feel 4ny sort of bodily enh4ncement of 4ny sort, or perh4ps some sort of new feeling, some new 4ur4 of sorts?” ; Sam.
“uhhhhhh not really? actually.” Pantalones. He reaches inside the pocket of his pants, to reveal a 52-card deck in mint condition.
“that’s awesome.” ; Pantalones. On the back side, a bluish-green light emits, and a metal(?) sheet with the same buttons as Jim’s control panel is revealed. Pantalones presses the middle button, to see if he could see a chart like Jim did. He can.
STAT OVERVIEW:
Piece:
Specialties:
Supporting Element(s):
Spiritual Capacity:
Fifty-Two Card Standard Playing Deck
???
F16
7 SBurn/m
“niiice” ; Pantalones.
“alright, i guess i should go now.” ; other Pantalones.
“Whenever you’re re4dy.” ; Sam. The other Pantalones walks over to the protipication box, and places his runescape in the box. It explodes, and all that other shit.
“cool, looks like it’s in my pocket too.” ; other Pantalones. He pulls it out, and on the back is there very same control panel with all of the buttons with the weird symbols. He presses the middle one.
STAT OVERVIEW:
Piece:
Specialties:
Supporting Element(s):
Spiritual Capacity:
Seventy-Eight Card Standard Tarot Deck
???
Space
7 SBurn/m
“very cool. love this blue color design. very modern-y, i feel.” ; other Pantalones.
“Yes, r4ther futuristic. 4lright, now let’s he4d to the door over on the other side of the room.” ; Sam. He begins speedwalking to it, and the others follow.
“Ok4y, so this is the entr4nce, or 4t le4st one of the entr4nces to the ffakescient. H4ve you he4rd of it before 4t 4ll, or no?” ; Sam.
“I think I heard SBMIII mention something about it, yeah. Along with like, holographic text or whatever.” ; Jim.
“Yes, th4t is 4 sm4ll p4rt of it. B4sic4lly, the ffakescient is 4 world th4t is gener4ted person-by-person, 4nd is 4 sort of enc4psul4tion of your person4lities 4nd mind in one v4st pl4ce. It’s sort of like 4 mix of 4 tutori4l 4nd 4 test for those trying to progress in lEVIT, 4s it not only will tell you more 4bout the g4me,—mostly how to use your prototype 4nd the powers gr4nted from it—but it will 4lso me4sure some p4rt of you to see if you 4re “strong enough” to progress in the first pl4ce. I 4m not entirely sure wh4t it me4sures though. It is believed to be different for e4ch individu4l.” ; Sam.
“wait so does that mean we’ll have to traverse through this alone?” ; Pantalones.
“Yes, it does. But 4s long 4s you persevere, you will be ok4y. I won’t lie, though, it c4n potenti4lly be very d4ngerous. 4t le4st the test p4rt, in 4ny c4se. But there will 4lso be 4 gguidant there to help 4nd protect you.” ; Sam.
“didn’t SBMIII say something about being our gguidant though?” ; other Pantalones.
“Yes, th4t w4s 4 lie. She h4s, nor ever will be 4 gguidant. Th4t w4s just to g4in your trust. She w4s purposefully 4cting like she didn’t know wh4t w4s going on in 4n 4ttempt to m4nipul4te you, which likely would h4ve worked too. Just gl4d I could be of service 4t 4 time like th4t.” ; Sam.
“yes, especially considering how we saw her uh. true colors, we’ll say, back there.” ; other Pantalones. The other three laugh lightly.
“So, do we all just go through the door? Or.” ; Jim.
“No. I’ll h4ve to open it, h4ve one person go through, close it, 4nd repe4t. So whenever you guys 4re re4dy, we c4n st4rt. 4nyone w4nn4 volunteer to go first?” ; Sam.
“i’ll go first.” ; Pantalones.
“Ok4y.” ; Sam. Sam opens the door, and Pantalones goes through. He closes it. He opens it, and Jim goes through next. He closes it.
“So, uh. P4st-Pantalones, 4s I guess I’ll c4ll you, for l4ck of 4 better term.” ; Sam.
“yeah?” ; other Pantalones.
“If you wouldn’t mind, I’d 4ctu4lly like to t4ke you to the meeting I’m going to 4ttend, due to your supporting element. You’ll be 4ble to go through the ffakscient 4t 4nother time, though, if you’d like.” ; Sam.
“oh, uh. sure, i guess? is my supporting element a bad thing?” ; other Pantalones.
“No, it’s just very, very uncommon to h4ve it st4nd4lone. 4s 4 m4tter of f4ct, there’s only one other person I know of th4t h4s the sp4ce supporting element, 4nd it’s just 4 very odd coincidence.” ; Sam.
“i see? right well, if you say so. where is this meeting?” ; other Pantalones.
“Oh, it’s somewhere r4ther f4r aw4y. I h4ve 4 port4l th4t we c4n use to get there very quickly, however.” ; Sam.
“okay, cool.” ; other Pantalones. They walk off, and leave the white-walled room, leaving the other two to escape their own mind.