Elsewhere in paradox space, we examine another planet, forgotten by time.

But we will strive to remember. What was this planet's name?

Oh, ha ha! Nice one, smartypants. Really hilarious.

But let's get real here. No more clowning around.

That is much better. In fact, as it happens, your guess is precisely correct. What are the odds??

We examine the planet ALTERNIA. Somewhere on this planet, there is a young troll.

This young troll stands in his respiteblock. It just so happens that today, the 12th bilunar perigee of the 6th dark season's equinox, is the day of this young troll's larval awakening, also known as his wriggling day. Though it was six solar sweeps ago he was given life, it is only today he will be given a name!

Six Alternian solar sweeps, for convenient reference, is equivalent to thirteen Earth years.

Earth, also for convenient reference, is a planet that does not yet exist.

What will the name of this young troll be?

You enter something predictably derogatory and this guy gets fed up by your shenanigans in record time.

This guy has a lot of troll pals and their adventures are going to be quite extensive and convoluted, to an even greater degree than one perhaps may be accustomed. He thinks that if you think that we have time to drag out every little gag and expected pattern along the way, you've got another thing coming. He thinks you should cram that sobering understanding in your chitinous windhole, and tamp it down hard with your ugly stupid looking cartilage nub.

Your name is KARKAT VANTAS. As was previously mentioned, it is your WRIGGLING DAY, which is barely even worth mentioning. It is an anniversary, if anything, to lament the faults of your existence, of which there are assuredly plenty.

Equally plenty, and somewhat related to that topic, are your INTERESTS. You have a passion for RIDICULOUSLY TERRIBLE ROMANTIC MOVIES AND ROMCOMS. You should really be EMBARRASSED for liking this DREADFUL CINEMA, but for some reason you are not. You like to program computers, but you are NOTORIOUSLY PRETTY AWFUL AT IT. Your programs invariably damage the machines on which they are executed, which is just as well, since you like to believe you specialize in COMPUTER VIRUSES. When you mature, you aspire to join the ranks of the most lethal members of your society, the THRESHECUTIONERS. You like to practice with your REALLY COOL SICKLE, but just wind up looking like KIND OF A DOOFUS BY YOURSELF IN YOUR ROOM.

You like to chat with some of your other troll pals, most of which drive you BATSHIT UP THE FUCKING BELFRY. You have been trying out a new chat client beta called TROLLIAN, and you are NOT REALLY SURE WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT IT YET. Your trolltag is carcinoGeneticist and you speak in a manner that is ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY ORNERY, ALL THE TIME.

Later, you will play a game with 5 other friends, and go on a big adventure with them. This game, for convenient reference, is a game that DOES NOT YET EXIST.

But it will soon.

What will you do?

It is your RECUPERACOON full of nourishing SOPOR SLIME. Every young troll enjoys the cozy embrace of such a vessel each night, and the relaxing ooze helps assuage the terrible visions of blood and carnage that plague the dark subconscious of your species.

It is so inviting... a few minutes couldn't hurt.

Ok, this sure is cozy and all, but you can't be napping all day like a chump. Dammit, you're a busy guy. You are sort of a big deal.

Goddamn slime. Now you have to change your clothes too. What were you thinking?

Luckily all your clothes are the same. Trolls think fashion is stupid.

Ok, it's time to get serious here. Sweet Troll Jegus. Let's get real and get down to some major business.

You space out and get caught up reading the titles of the films for about five minutes. Wow these movies are great. You don't care what anyone says. Pure magic.

Is that...

Is that John Cusack?

The thing that most people don't realize is that John Cusack is a universal constant.

This movie...

Ok, this one even you have a hard time defending. But still, it's so good.

The best thing about it is how Troll Sandler doesn't make you want to punch anything.

Like, nothing at all, really hard or anything.

You grab your trusty SICKLE with your ENCRYPTION MODUS. To retrieve it, you'll need to hack the code to open the CARD VAULT left behind.

This will obviously prove to be a completely ridiculous and untenable way of managing an inventory, and lead to a great many follies. Later on, you would swap your modus with your hacker friend, a guy who unlike you happens to be competent with programming. It would only make sense.

But for the time being it makes your life kind of a nightmare. There are so many stupid things that happen because of this modus. So many, you just have no idea.

GOD.

DAMMIT.

You hear some unhappy grumbling through the hole below. This was not the coolest thing you could have done just now.

You make quite sure NOT to captchalogue it, and simply pick it up and read it.

It is a thick programming manual called "~ATH - A HANDBOOK FOR THE IMMINENTLY DECEASED."

~ATH is an insufferable language to work with. Its logic is composed of nothing but infinite loops, or at best, loops of effectively interminable construction.

The above page in the intro section documents the simplest possible ~ATH code structure. Any code deviating from this basic structure will not compile.

You have a whole bunch of code samples you've been messing around with on your computer. It's been frustrating at best, and debilitating to your machine at worst.

You step outside your respiteblock, onto one of your hive's numerous extraterraneal landing slats. You were allowed to design this hive when you were young, after you emerged victorious from your trials deep in the brooding caverns. You have lived here with your CUSTODIAN ever since.

It's almost as if your people have placed great cultural importance on teaching children to become architecturally adept while very young. It has been this way since ancient times. No one seems to know why that is.

Getting to build your own hive at a young age using whatever meandering design you chose likely has left you jaded to the notion of customizing your abode. You certainly wouldn't get all that worked up about a game that happened to allow you to do such a thing.

At least not for that reason.

The lawnrings are empty. Blood skims the voids in your porous cranial plates, as if grazing the hollow of a threshed stem, or say, an abandoned cocoon. A sour note is produced. It's the one Agitation plays to make its audience squirm.

It is your sixth wriggling day, and as with all five preceding it blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Look.

You don't have time for fancy poetry. It's almost as useless as those arm-swing flappy things on mailboxes, assuming you even knew what those were, which you don't. Trolls don't have mail. Mail is almost as useless as poetry to them. Poetry is the swing arm flappy dealy of words, and mail is the red tilty lever doodad of giving people shit.

Frankly you don't know about things skimming voids or grazing hollows or whatever. You've got AMBITION. You were meant to be a bigshot. To be in charge of something huge and really important, and to be totally ruthless about it. You just haven't found the dominion in which you're destined for greatness yet. Or even a vague concept of it. You haven't found your purpose. But you will tonight.

You stew in your own impotent aggravation in the cool dusk breeze. During the dark seasons, it remains dusk for most of the day. It can stay dark for many bilunar perigees at a time. But even if it didn't, you would still have this feeling...

You have a feeling it's going to be a long night.

You head back into your block and hit up your computer station. No word from any of your loudmouth pals. No news is good news. Sweet music to your auricular sponge clots.

It's the latest issue of GAME GRUB.

This one appears to boast about "exclusive leaks". They all boast about that. You're not even really sure what it means.

It is a DVD of one of your favorite series, THE THRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR.

It's about a green threshecutioner cadet who sasses up the bluebloods in his flaysquad pretty good. Their blood is literally blue. Lousy snobs. But Troll Will Smith shows them all how to loosen up. He is pretty much your hero.

Troll TV shows have shorter titles than troll movies because TV is a much newer form of media in their society. Which is a good thing because it would be pretty hard to make this funny joke otherwise.

Ok enough messing around time to get some work done maybe a little programming or oh god.

It figures that installing this new beta chat client would open the floodgates. All your moron friends are going to be hounding you relentlessly. Not that they needed an excuse before.

You wonder what this chump wants.

Whoa what the motherfuck, who's this motherfuckin' motherfucker?

It's cool, life is like that sometimes. It's full of mysteries. You'll be doing one thing then something else hits you just like that and you roll with it. That's what you do when life hands you lemons. You sure as fuck don't make lemonade because who the fuck knows where that fuckin' shit comes from?

It's squeezed out of miracles is where.

So what's this motherfucker's name?

Your name is GAMZEE MAKARA.

You get pretty excited by CLOWNS OF A GRIM PERSUASION WHICH MAY NOT BE IN FULL POSSESSION OF THEIR MENTAL FACULTIES. You belong to a RATHER OBSCURE CULT, which foretells of a BAND OF ROWDY AND CAPRICIOUS MINSTRELS which will rise one day on a MYTHICAL PARADISE PLANET that does not exist yet. The beliefs of this cult are SOMEWHAT FROWNED UPON by those dwelling in more common lawnrings. But you don't care, you got to be going with what feels right at where your heart's up in, you know? You like to practice on your ONE WHEEL DEVICE, which you are GOD AWFUL AT because your FEET DO NOT REACH THE PEDALS. You enjoy a FINE BEVERAGE, and like to do A LITTLE BAKING SOMETIMES. You've got ALL THESE HORNS all over the place, and sometimes you step on them and SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF YOURSELF.

You like to chat a lot with your pal Karkat, who is usually pretty cranky, but he is your BEST FRIEND. You have a lot of OTHER GREAT FRIENDS who you also like a lot. Your trolltag is terminallyCapricious and you speak in a manner that is JuSt A lItTlE bIt WhImSiCaL.

What will you do?

You snag a bottle of FAYGO. To consume the beverage is what your fellow devotees refer to as KICKIN' THE WICKED ELIXIR.

It is captchalogued through your MIRACLE MODUS. You have absolutely no idea how this thing works.

And you don't want to know.

You take your HUSKTOP.

Sometimes you just like to pick stuff up and watch the colors. It's so beautiful. Life is beautiful.

You decide to give this diabolical contraption another shot. Maybe one of these days you will get one more suited to your proportions. For now this is all you have to work with.

You just have to figure out how to stay on the thing without flying off the handle.

You do some sort of acrobatic fucking pirouette off the handle and into a big pile of horns.

It is still piping hot but you can't help yourself. You sneak a taste of the SOPOR SLIME PIE.

You aren't supposed to eat that slime. It does funny things to a troll's head.

But you were never taught that on account of a lousy upbringing. Your custodian was always out to sea.

That is where he is now. Maybe you will go outside and see if you can spot him.

You grab a JUGGLING CLUB. You'll need it if you are going to go out. It is dangerous to leave unarmed.

You leave your hive and head out to the beach. There is no sign of your custodian.

You should not stay out here very long. The SEA DWELLERS are quite hostile.

Someone is bugging you. This is exciting. You're always down for shooting the wicked shit with anyone that who'll put up with you.

Now if only you could figure out how to get your HUSKTOP out of this stupid thing. It'll be a miracle if you can manage.

You say a short prayer to your beloved MIRTHFUL MESSIAHS, and splash a pinch of SPECIAL STARDUST in your face.

Your sylladex launches your beverage far, far into the ocean.

You wonder if you can just...

Just sort of reach over...

And...

Finally some peace and quiet. Now you can bear down on your coding. This will surely last all evening, without interruption.

You reopen one of your ~ATH projects you started recently. You are still horsing around with the conditions for terminating the loops.

What many ~ATH coders do is import finite constructs and bind the loops to their lifespan. For instance the main loop here will terminate on the death of the universe, labeled U. That way you only have to wait billions of years for it to end instead of forever.

You have bound a subloop to the lifespan of the code's author, which is you. Any routine at the end will execute when you die. You figure this might be handy for coding something to release a final will and testament. Or maybe some doomsday virus. You spend a lot of time thinking of ways to make the perfect doomsday virus.

Conveniently absent from ~ATH's extensive import library are entities with short lifespans. Like a rapidly decaying particle that only lasts a millisecond sure would be handy. Or even a fruit fly or something. But no, coding with this language is all about finding ways to trick it into doing what you want.

Your hacker buddy is obnoxiously good at it. He's sent you some files which you still don't understand, but you're not going to admit that. He is even better at making viruses than you, which really gets stuck in your nook.

This code, when executed, immediately causes the user's computer to explode, and places a curse on the user forever, along with everyone he knows, and everyone he'll ever meet.

Not surprisingly, later on you would run this code in a fit of stupidity.

You don't know how he does stuff like this. What does this even mean? It's nonsense. Is it even syntactically viable?? Are you allowed to color text like that??? ARGH. Maybe you should ask him about it some time.

Oh speak of the devil. Here he is bugging you about something. Time to put on your game face and pretend you don't think very highly of his abilities.

Sounds like someone downstairs is getting pretty crabby. This is not an encounter you are looking forward to. You'll probably put it off as long as you can manage.

Why, who's this young lady?

Your name is TEREZI PYROPE.

You are pretty enthusiastic about dragons. But you have a PARTICULAR AFFECTION for their COLORFUL SCALES, which you gather and use to decorate your hive. Though you live alone, deep in the woods, you surround yourself with a variety of plushie pals known as SCALEMATES. You often spend your days with them in rounds of LIVE ACTION ROLE PLAYING. You used to engage in various forms of MORE EXTREME ROLEPLAYING with some of your other friends before you had an accident.

You take an interest in justice, holding particular fascination for ORCHESTRATING THE DEMISE OF THE WICKED. You have taken up study of BRUTAL ALTERNIAN LAW, and surround yourself with legal books. You have no need for copies printed in TROLLBRAILLE, because you can SMELL AND TASTE THE WORDS. You hope one day to join the honorable ranks of the LEGISLACERATORS. Your trolltag is gallowsCalibrator and you SP34K W1TH TH3 NUM3R4LS TH3 BL1ND PROPH3TS ONC3 US3D.

You are presently the leader of the RED TEAM, poised to begin a mysterious game with 5 other friends, in direct competition with another 6 of your friends, comprising the BLUE TEAM.

What will you do?

It's pretty hard to live action role play when there is no one who is alive nearby. But all of your Scalemates are alive to you.

At least you pretend to believe that to annoy people.

You prepare a new campaign for one of your favorite scenarios, COURTBLOCK DRAMA. His HONORABLE TYRANNY presides. On trial is an especially detestable fellow, SENATOR LEMONSNOUT. You have sparred with this scumbag before. Tonight he faces justice.

You will play the role of the prosecuting attorney. On Alternia, there is no such thing as a defense attorney, or a defense. In a courtblock, the word defense itself is offensive.

Most of the interrogation is in the intimidating silence.

You don't want to slap too hard. Enough to sting, but not to bruise. It must be methodical, business-like. And persistent. You only stop when you smell tears.

Mr. Senator, you smell very nice. Your luscious yellow scales are like the sweetest gumdrops to the prosecution's nose.

But your deceit STINKS.

Did you honestly think you could dip your corpulent snout into the imperial beetle coffers like that and get away with it?? Did you think your revolting abuse of the public trust would go unnoticed??? THINK AGAIN, GOOD SENATOR. WHILE THE PROSECUTION MAY BE BLIND, REST ASSURED THE LEAGUE OF LEGISLACERATORS SEES ALL.

Oh, well played, Lemonsnout. Well played. The prosecution's key witness, murdered. How convenient! The courtblock has little choice but to acknowledge your cunning. You have earned just a teensy sliver of your respect back. For now.

But wait...

Oh my!

What have we here???

The prosecution begs your pardon, dear senator, but you appear to have dropped something. A personal satchel, perhaps? CHOCK FULL OF ILLICIT, EMBEZZLED BEETLES, WITH WHICH YOU HAVE THE UNMITIGATED CHEEK TO WALTZ BEFORE HIS TYRANNY, CONCEALED BENEATH YOUR ILL-GOTTEN FINERY??????

The prosecution requests a short recess from His Honorable Tyranny so that all law abiding and Mother Grub fearing citizens may go outside and puke.

As the prosecutor, it is your job to reach a final verdict and sentence the reprehensible felon, while His Tyranny watches in silence and submits grim approval.

But you take pity on this miserable bureaucrat. You are feeling merciful. You will give him a fighting chance.

You will flip a DOUBLE-HEADED TROLL CAEGAR to decide his fate. You do this quite often when making important decisions. Kind of like Batman's nemesis, Two-Face. Or that guy from No Country for Old Men. It turns out there are lots of badasses out there flipping coins. But those are Earth things and you've never heard of them. It's safe to say you borrowed this gimmick from one of the many, many troll things out there that's got hard boiled dudes flipping coins for major stakes. You base the habit on whichever one smells the most badass.

The coin tumbles through the air. Lemonsnout is sweating bullets!!!

A favorable flip. The senator exhales in relief.

But, what are you so happy about, Mr. Lemonsnout?

He looks a bit confused. He quivers his lowly proboscis at the coin.

See? The coin has exonerated him.

Coin? What coin?

Surely you jest, Mr. Senator. The prosecution sees no coin.

SHE'S BLIND, REMEMBER?

Another triumph for justice. The courtblock is adjourned. You offer final salutations to His Tyranny in the customary manner.

Ok, that's not customary at all. You're just kind of weird.

It's just that your red chalk is THE MOST DELICIOUS CHALK. You cannot get enough of it. Anyone who says there is a more delicious chalk out there simply reeks of deceit.

You sure had to go to a lot of trouble to do that.

You take your WALKING CANE, which you use as a weapon kind of like Earth Daredevil who you've never heard of. You will use it to wallop enemies when you enter the Medium.

Like this.

Your nose begins scouring your chumproll through the saliva smears on your monitor for potential teammates so you can start playing. Hmm, no not her. Nope, not her either. DEFINITELY not that guy.

Ok how about this girl. You like to roleplay with her sometimes via chat. You pretend you are a member of the mysterious and noble DRAGONYY'YD RACE, while she does her own goofy thing.

You don't have it in your heart to tell her that your chat RPing is meant f4c3t1ously I mean facetiously.

Oh no. Not Karkat. You were only going to ask him as a last resort. You wonder what he wants? You will try to avoid mentioning the game. Hopefully he hasn't caught wind of it yet.

After the KNIGHT OF BLOOD'S heroic arrival to the LAND OF PULSE AND HAZE...

You quickly crafted a new weapon, HOMES SMELL YA LATER. Plus some other cool stuff.

You're not sure why you did that, really.

There'll probably turn out to be a reason. There's a reason for everything. Understanding this lets you be reckless.

Whoever you are.

Somewhere else entirely...

Rubbish from the LAND DWELLERS. Makes you sick.

Whoever you are.

We return to the Land of Pulse and Haze, so that we can rewind a bit. Before all that paint got slopped on your hive and before that mysterious hole was made.

Man how'd that hole get made??

(It was when Karkat ran TA's cursed ~ATH program and his computer blew up. That's what happened. We'll see this happen later. It will be startling and unexpected.)

You go downstairs and confront your custodian, which is another term for a frightening beast known as a LUSUS NATURAE.

Your lusus has looked after you since you were very young in lieu of any biological parents, whom you have never known. No young troll ever knows his or her blood parents, nor could such lineage ever be accurately traced. Adult trolls supply their genetic material to the FILIAL PAILS carried by imperial drones and offered to the monstrous MOTHER GRUB deep underground in the brooding caverns. She then combines all the genetic material into one diabolical incestuous slurry, and lays hundreds of thousands of eggs at once.

The eggs hatch into young larval trolls which wriggle about to locate a cozy stalactite from which to spin their cocoons. After they pupate, the young troll with his or her newfound limbs undergoes a series of dangerous trials. If they survive, they are chosen by a member of the diverse and terrifying subterranean monster population native to Alternia. This creature becomes the troll's lusus, and together they surface and choose a location to build a hive. The building process is facilitated by CARPENTER DROIDS left on the planet to cater to the young. But only for building. They're on their own otherwise.

The vast majority of adult trolls are off-planet, serving some role in the forces of ongoing imperial conquest, besieging other star systems in the name of Alternian glory. The culture and civilization on the homeworld is maintained almost entirely by the young.

Trolls sure are weird!

You leap into the domestic fray in an attempt to mollify your nannying aggressor. After a lot of kicking and fussing and gnashing of teeth and carapace, you just pull out a few CHILLED ROE CUBES from the fridge to settle the beast down.

Trolls and their custodians have a peculiar arrangement of codependence. The lusus behaves as a lifelong bodyguard, caretaker, and visceral sort of mentor, while the young troll must learn to function as a sort of zookeeper.

We decide to agree this conflict is not a big enough deal to warrant a detailed examination of the action, or an embedded musical accompaniment. We also agree that while that would have been pretty sweet, we are also in kind of a hurry here. But if it were to be accompanied by something audible, it would probably sound something like this. We decide to listen to that track, close our eyes, and imagine what might have been.

Wow that sure was awesome.

Anyway, moving on.

In fact, we are in such a hurry, you could almost say we need to get moving...

ON THE DOUBLE

There's this pretty cool dude, ok? Some people seem to think he's cool. Sometimes. He guesses they're right. I mean, maybe. If they say so. Actually, you know what? They're right. This guy's dynamite lit in a box of hot shit. Screw the haters. Anyway, he's standing around being all chill, like cool dudes are known to do sometimes, when they're not moping around or nursing migraines or whatever. A cool dude like this probably has a real cool name. Or at least a name that doesn't completely fucking suck. Like at least not the kind of name that belongs to someone you'd want to just perpetually wail on. Maybe just a name that makes you cringe a little, but you guess you can deal with it if you've got to. It's just a guy's name, it's not like it really matters. Who cares? But he probably wouldn't just tell you what it was if you asked. He'd be way too moody for that. In fact, this guy probably thinks you've got some attitude and probably doesn't want a damn thing to do with you.

You could always try to guess his name. But instead of that, here's a better idea. Why don't you just fuck off and go to hell?

Here, name this kooky broad instead.

Ok, what's her name?

Wait...

You've got to be kidding me.

Looks like we're going back to the other guy again. Alright, hang on...

It appears this cool and moody dude had a change of heart. He feels pretty bad about flying off the handle like that, as if shit wanted nothing to do with the handle. Shit would like to reconcile with the handle, and perhaps seek marital counseling.

So what's his name gonna be?

Your name is SOLLUX CAPTOR.

You are apeshit bananas at computers, and you know ALL THE CODES. All of them. You are the unchallenged authority on APICULTURE NETWORKING. And though all your friends recognize your unparalleled achievements as a TOTALLY SICK HACKER, you feel like you could be better. It's one of a number of things you SORT OF BEAT YOURSELF UP ABOUT for NO VERY GOOD REASON during sporadic and debilitating BIPOLAR MOOD SWINGS. You have a penchant for BIFURCATION, in logic and in life. Your mutant mind is hounded by the psychic screams of the IMMINENTLY DECEASED. Your visions foretell of the planet's looming annihilation, and yet unlike the typical sightless prophet of doom, you are gifted with VISION TWOFOLD.

For now.

You have developed a new game, adapted via CODE PARSED FROM THE RUNES AND GLYPHS IN AN ANCIENT UNDERGROUND TEMPLE. You believe this game to be THE SALVATION OF YOUR RACE, though you are not sure how yet. To ensure success, you will distribute the game to two teams of friends, a RED TEAM and a BLUE TEAM. You will lead the latter group. Your trolltag is twinArmageddons and you tend two 2peak wiith a biit of a lii2p.

What will you do?

Why would you do that?

A high level psionic has no use for any particular specibus allocation.

You make short work of the specibus and...

Oh God, one of your BEEHOUSE MAINFRAMES. The silicomb was sliced clean through by your foolish maneuver. What were you thinking???

The workers pair up and dance angry messages to you in beenary code.

No!!!!!!!!!

You do not under any circumstance eat the MIND HONEY. The consequences are highly unpleasant.

You cultivate this honey for your lusus. It helps him not be such a complete idiot all the time. Merely most of the time instead.

Nap time.

You are always up to your nook in the newest and hottest games. It is hard to walk around the place without squishing them. Whenever that happens you are screwed, and you have to grow a new one from scratch. Or just pirate it you guess.

But tonight is no night for games.

Well, ok, it is.

But just one game in particular, and this game is no joking matter. It is delirious bugnasty.

That...

Ok that was completely meaningless. What was the point?

Whoever you are.

You are highly startled by the totally unexpected explosion.

Karkat and his friends and everyone they would ever meet thereafter would experience great misfortune on account of the curse unwittingly implemented through Sollux's esoteric MOBIUS DOUBLE REACHAROUND VIRUS.

Every troll's lusus would soon die. All but one of their kernelsprites would be prototyped with a dead lusus, each prior to entering the Medium. Upon entry, they would each have a bittersweet reunion with the creature after the kernel hatched, triggering the sprite's metamorphosis. For the first time, the trolls would be able to have verbal conversations with their custodians, and would be guided by them along their journeys.

Unfortunately, the underlings and warring royalty would gain the benefits of the monstrous prototypings as well. Each sprite, except for one, would only be prototyped once. The players would learn quickly that while one pre-entry prototyping per player was absolutely necessary for ultimate success, additional pre-entry prototypings merely empowered their enemies unnecessarily.

The game has no explicit rule that demands something dead for prototyping. But in practice, the kernelsprite has particular attraction to the deceased or the doomed. Across every session ever played, exceptions to this pattern are extremely rare.

Why did you send Karkat that code? It was such a bad idea. You suppose it was a boastful gesture to get a friend to think more highly of you. But why would flaunting your superior skills accomplish this? It was foolish.

You ought to wipe all these clever viruses you wrote off your computer. They can only bring more trouble.

While deleting your virus folders, you pause on one oddball file you have lying around.

You did not write this virus. You copied it from an obscure server, far beyond your planet's global network. This application is running on that server perpetually.

It is an extremely simple ~ATH program. Its main loop is tied to the lifespan of the universe. When the universe dies, a mysterious subprogram will be executed. You have no way of knowing what that subprogram does. It runs on a protected part of the server. It is completely unhackable.

You delete the file, but it won't do much good. The program is already running elsewhere. Luckily, whatever harm it will do will not be done for many billions of years. And even then, what harm could a virus do after the expiration of the universe? This file always struck you as quite odd.

But Sollux, even with his vision twofold, does not have the perceptional luxuries of our vision omnipresent.

When executed, the subprogram will summon an indestructible demon into the recently voided universe. This monstrous being with the power to travel through time is inconvenienced very little by his arrival upon THE GREAT UNDOING. He has the entire cadaver of the expired universe to pick apart at his whim. From its birth through its swelling maturity and tapering decay. In a reality he is known to have marked for predation, he will go about assembling followers through various epochs, even going as far as personally establishing the parameters for his future summoning.

Sollux couldn't know that the virus is essentially a formality.

The demon is already here.

Sounds like your lusus is agitated about something up there. You already gave him his serving of honey today. If he thinks he can get more, well that's just greedy.

You wonder what could be bothering him?

You keep your enormous BICYCLOPS chained to the roof of your COMMUNAL HIVE STEM. It is the only place there is room for him. Dueling with him on the roof during feeding time is a daily ordeal.

You are now one of the five other girls.

You are now no longer the other girl, or any of the other five for that matter.

What's the name of this dude sitting in his FOUR WHEEL DEVICE?

Your name is TAVROS NITRAM.

You are known to be heavily arrested by FAIRY TALES AND FANTASY STORIES. You have an acute ability to COMMUNE WITH THE MANY CREATURES OF ALTERNIA, a skill you have utilized to CAPTURE AND TRAIN a great many. They are all your friends, as well as your warriors, which you pit in battle through a variety of related CARD AND ROLE PLAYING GAMES. You used to engage in various forms of MORE EXTREME ROLEPLAYING with some of your other friends before you had an accident.

You like to engage in the noble practice of ALTERNIAN SLAM POETRY, possibly the oldest, most revered, and certainly freshest artform in your planet's rich history. You have a profound fascination with the concept of FLIGHT, and all lore surrounding the topic. You believe in FAIRIES, even though they AREN'T REAL.

Your trolltag is adiosToreador and you uHH, sPEAK IN A SORT OF, uHH, fALTERING MANNER,

What will you do?

You kickstart a rousing match of FIDUSPAWN, with the only friend you've got to play with in person, your loyal lusus TINKERBULL.

You take a look at the favorable hand you dealt yourself and crack a mischievous smile. With a HOST PLUSH at the ready, you quickly lob an OOGONIBOMB and catch your adversary off guard!!!

HORSARONI, I CHOOSE YOU!!!!!!

With a brooding whinny, Horsaroni shuffles his mighty hooves and makes short work of the fidusucker, boosting his vitals!

Horsaroni is now primed and raring for battle. Look out Tinkerbull!!!

You use your awesome bestial communion abilities and bend the ferocious stallion to your whim. Tinkerbull can't stand the suspense!

Nap time!

Everybody wins. Horsaroni gains a bunch of levels. In no time he will be ready to breed and you can put him out to stud.

Good game everybody. That was a lot of fun. Time to do some other stuff you guess.

This is how you get up to your recuperacoon when it's time to rest. It's kind of a production getting in and out.

You can't fit all the way in because of your huge horns. It makes it hard to get any solid shuteye.

Oh great, now you're covered in slime. Why did you do this? You're going to have to change your clothes. There goes another solid hour down the tubes.

Aw damn and there goes your four wheel device down the ramp. That happens a lot.

After a major cleanup rigmarole and a lot of crawling around your respiteblock, you equip your JOUSTING LANCE.

You like to practice your jousting outside. One day you hope to prove yourself worthy of recruitment into the halls of the dreaded imperial CAVALREAPERS. Assuming you are not slated for culling first on account of your disability. Or really any other arbitrary reason.

You wheel over to your favorite poster featuring PUPA PAN, which is your favorite thing. You have always fantasized that one day intrepid young Pupa would come and take you away, and together you would fly to a beautiful paradise planet of legend, that has all sorts of fanciful stuff like pirates, treasure, a cruel villain with a missing arm and a missing eye, and these weird aliens called "indians". You have left your window open since you were very young, just in case Pupa stopped by one night and decided to splash a pinch of SPECIAL STARDUST in your face.

You have had this interest far prior to your accident. Being paralyzed isn't what made you want to be able to fly. That would be dumb and would make no sense.

Being paralyzed does sort of make you want to be able to walk, though.

Over the course of your long journey, at one point you were fitted with a cool pair of robolegs. The guy who likes to build robots built them for you.

But then, he does like to break them more than he likes to build them. It's usually why he builds them in the first place.

Occasionally though, he will allow philanthropy to override misanthrobopy.

You were lucky enough to have a friend who didn't mind getting her hands dirty on account of your best interest.

A friend with a chainsaw.

The guy who likes to build robots just stood there and watched. It would always make everyone uncomfortable whenever he would just stand there.

And watch.

But before that you had to scoot around in your wheel device throughout the various worlds of the Medium, and endure all sorts of follies related to your disability, which on account of their great plurality and marginal relevance we will not get to see. Just as well.

Wow, look what happens when you space out and contemplate the future like that. The messages start piling up.

You make your way through the burning woods to meet the lusus you never had.

It's time for her to hatch. It's now or never.

Since the world is about to end anyway, you suppose it no longer matters if the DOOMSDAY SCALE is tipped.

The counterweight is the skull of an ancient mother grub, slain thousands of solar sweeps ago.

The egg contains a rare species of dragon which remains blind until maturity, using its other senses to survive. It has balanced the skull here for millennia, waiting for the warmth of a meteor-sparked forest fire before hatching.

In case it wasn't clear, dragons are real.

While she slept in her egg, she would communicate with you in your sleep.

After your accident, she would use your dreams to teach you to detect the world around you without vision.

As you learned, your dreams became more vivid. Where before there was darkness, odors and flavors painted a striking picture. You found yourself surrounded by bright honey walls, and in the sky was a huge tasty ball of cotton candy, which is this sweet troll delicacy we wouldn't know anything about.

The first time you caught a glimpse of this world in your dreams, there was no turning back.

The young lusus would take to the sky and promptly get herself killed. This would be much more shocking and maybe a little bit more sad if we didn't already know it was going to happen.

We already knew this. But of course, you didn't.

The dragon never smelled it coming.

She would fall to your treehive. On your return, she would be scooped up by a sympathetic ally and deposited into the kernelsprite.

Then you and she could talk! There would be plenty to discuss.

The doomsday device would display the amount of time you had to get back to your hive and enter the Medium before the forest was destroyed.

At the time, it wouldn't occur to you to wonder whether the device was directly responsible for the apocalypse, or merely served as its precisely calibrated harbinger. And it certainly wouldn't occur to you to cast doubt on any perceived difference between those two things.

It wouldn't until later, when you better understood the game you were about to play.

You are now the other other girl.

That's better. We can now be properly introduced.

Who's this spooky lady?

Your name is ARADIA MEGIDO.

You once had a number of INTERESTS, which in time you have LOST INTEREST IN. You seem to recollect once having a fondness for ARCHEOLOGY, though now have trouble recalling this passion. It nonetheless has led you to find your PRESENT CALLING, which came through the discovery of these MYSTIC RUINS on which you presently stand, and which you recently DESECRATED OUT OF BOREDOM.

Guiding you to this calling were the VOICES OF THE DEAD, which you have been able to hear since you were young. The voices have become louder as THE GREAT UNDOING approaches. This trend in escalation began after an ACCIDENT involving a CERTAIN KIND OF ROLE PLAYING, which might have been another of your interests once upon a time. It doesn't matter much anymore.

The accident resulted in the DEATH OF YOUR LUSUS, which prompted you to leave your home and take up these ruins as residence. On the instruction of your ANCESTORS, you have recovered MYSTERIOUS TECHNOLOGY from the ruins, and convinced a friend to adapt it into a GAME THAT WILL BRING ABOUT THE DESTRUCTION OF YOUR CIVILIZATION. And by convinced, you suppose you mean tricked.

He has tentatively named the game SGRUB, which is a word that is NOT TERRIBLY ELEGANT. If it were marketed by a legitimate game company instead of rapidly patched together by a young hacker, it would ostensibly be given a better title. He is presently mobilizing twelve friends to play it, including him and yourself. He believes he will lead the blue team. But he is wrong.

Your trolltag is apocalypseArisen and there is typically a pr0n0unced h0ll0wness t0 y0ur w0rds.

What will you do?

It's not up to you to decide what you retrieve from your sylladex. It's up to the spirits.

Looks like the spirits are being cooperative today, if a bit cryptic, as usual.

Who's this douchebag?

You found this baffling artifact some time ago on one of your digs. The creature on its facade is completely mystifying. You have taken to using it as your primary computing device on account of its bizarre novelty, as well as convenient portability.

Oh, look who's bothering you again.

She's always bugging you. Bugging and fussing and meddling. What's her deal! You guess it's flattering that she wants to talk to you so much though.

You're ok with it. You're ok with a lot of things.

Tick tock tick tock tick tock.

Waiting for the apocalypse is so boooooring.

You guess you'll check on Sollux to see how he's coming along with those teams.

Hmm, you wonder what she wants.

What's with all these girls bugging you? Bugging and fussing and meddling.

You try to be the mysterious spider girl and fail.

She's way too mysterious for you to be her yet! Seriously, what's up with those glasses? What's up with that robo-arm? What's her deal!

She guesses it's flattering that you want to be her though. She guesses she doesn't mind. It's cool.

We'll learn all about her a little later.

Ok, looking out this lousy stupid goddamn window.

Lousy stupid goddamn psychics.

Nap time.

When you would finally wake up, you'd discover all of your teammates had connected to each other and entered the Medium. You would be the last to enter. Your long nap would facilitate a series of important dreams that would prove essential in support of your teammates.

But here and now, the destruction of your hive would be imminent unless you could quickly establish a connection to the first player of the group and complete the chain.

The mind honey.

Thpppptthhhhhh.

Some of it got in your mouth.

YOU DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE EAT THE MIND HONEY

Since that moody kid is busy flipping his bifurcated lid, we might as well take a moment to get to know this silly cat girl.

Gosh who is she??

Your name is NEPETA LEIJON.

You live in a CAVE that is also a HIVE, but still mostly just a CAVE. You like to engage in FRIENDLY ROLE PLAYING, but not the DANGEROUS KIND. Never the DANGEROUS KIND. It's TOO DANGEROUS! Too many of your good friends have gotten hurt that way.

Your daily routine is dangerous enough as it is. You prowl the wilderness for GREAT BEASTS, and stalk them and take them down with nothing but your SHARP CLAWS AND TEETH! You take them back to your cave and EAT THEM, and from time to time, WEAR THEIR PELTS FOR FUN. You like to paint WALL COMICS using blood and soot and ash, depicting EXCITING TALES FROM THE HUNT! And other goofy stories about you and your numerous pals. Your best pal of all is A LITTLE BOSSY, and people wonder why you even bother with him. But someone has to keep him pacified. If not you, then who? Everyone has an important job to do.

Your trolltag is arsenicCatnip and :33 < *your sp33ch precedes itself with the face of your lusus who is pawssibly the cutest and purrhaps the bestest kitty you have ever s33n!*

What will you do?

You are always wearing your CLAW GLOVES. You never know when you might encounter some unsuspecting prey. Or when some prey might encounter an unsuspecting you!

On Alternia, everything is considered unsuspecting prey by everything else.

She sure enjoys a good scratch! POUNCE DE LEON is the best kitty cat. You and she go on adventures together in search of the FOUNTAIN OF CUTE. You ride your sure-pawed mount into the rugged frontier. And sometimes she rides you when she gets tired, which is frequently.

It sure will be sad when she dies. But who knows when or how that will happen. We might not even really have the time to find out!

Later there was a cave-in.

You saunter over to your DRAWING TABLET COMPUTER. You use this to draw... on a computer!!! It would be cool if this could somehow be adapted to serve as a fetch modus as well. That would be so much more fun than the frustrating one you're using now.

You wonder what this grumpy fellow wants? Probably something to do with that game. That seems to be all ANYBODY'S talking about lately!

You fondly recall your days of far more intensive role playing. It seems like so long ago now. Aside from a few unfortunate moments, it was a lot of fun. If you had to do it all over again, you suppose you would select better company. Maybe this game you are playing tonight will rekindle some of that excitement.

Tinkerbull?

You stand in your room on a healthy pair of legs and in a plucky little outfit. You are a low level BOY-SKYLARK, and you wield an inexpensive DAGGERLANCE, which is the closest thing to a jousting lance you can wield that is still compatible with your favorite class.

You are about to play a popular game called FLARP, which unlike most games published by major developers, was given a graceful and aesthetically pleasing name. It's a title under the EXTREME ROLE PLAYING genre, and playing it without caution can have serious real world consequences! But that's what makes it fun.

When you activate Flarp's grub, the campaign programmed for tonight will begin. TEAM CHARGE will duel TEAM SCOURGE as usual. This is going to be great.

Your campaign's GAMING FLAPSTRACTIONS hatch out of their eggs. These comprise all the data and procedures you will need for your adventure tonight.

They disperse throughout the terrain surrounding your hive. They follow both preprogrammed and live instructions by your CLOUDER, a member of Team Scourge, whose role is to provide you with a challenging scenario, while your teammate does the same for Scourge's other player.

You take your starting position in the field. The game is afoot, and anything can happen now. It's up to you to consult your maps and work with your teammate to discover the objective of the quest, find treasure, and slay monsters.

Your STAT BAT has bonded with you. This keeps track of every attribute for your character, including vitals. While these attributes in principle remain abstractions, due to the fact that this is EXTREME role playing, they will always relate in some way to your real life attributes as well. You've got to be careful out here!

You are now the other... oh.

Oh god.

You decide that we could probably stand to delay this guy's introduction a little longer. Why don't we see what someone else is up to.

Anyone.

You switch to a vague teaser of the final unseen troll in the nick of time.

You head back to your hive to get the blue team's session started.

It's been a while.

You revisit the remains of your quaint rural hive. Your lawnring and the small excavation sites you dug up for practice are all overgrown with vegetation.

You haven't been here since the night of the accident. On that night you found your CALLING. The voices of the dead grew louder, urging you to return to the ruins you discovered not long before. You left so abruptly, you didn't even have time to bury your lusus.

But that's fine, because trolls don't typically bury their dead. Leaving bodies to be consumed by wild animals is more customary.

You have an arrangement to begin the session as co-leader with one of the blue bloods. You understand this player intends to make a power grab, and take sole possession of the leadership role. Such subterfuge is typical of their caste. But you're perfectly ok with this. It's one of the many things you're ok with.

You allow your co-player to take the lead and enter the Medium first. You understand that the leadership role is essentially meaningless, aside from offering the distinction of being the first player to enter. You also understand that entering the game second was always your intention.

You have a server player connect to you, someone you personally selected for the role. The devices required for entry are deployed.

The kernelsprite awaits prototyping. But unlike all eleven other players, your dead lusus is not available. You have to use something else.

Prototyping with the frog head before entering the Medium would prove to be critical for later success. Just another of many assurances whispered by the dead. You've long since stopped questioning them, or doubting the future significance of even spontaneous acts of frivolous desecration.

Compelling your nonplussed server player to perform this task might have proven difficult. Luckily your telekinesis, an ability greatly magnified through your CALLING, would be sufficient to move the massive object, whereas the game cursor likely would not.

Your server player simply watched in mystification.

She really just had no idea what the hell was going on.

You enter the Medium, taking your place in the LAND OF QUARTZ AND MELODY as the MAID OF TIME.

Meanwhile, your client player has been exploring another world. The blue blood has a present for you. The present cannot be duplicated via alchemy at this stage of the game. It would cost too much grist, a detail which this player had not been aware of. The player would have to progress to the second gate of their own world, arrive through the gate above your hive, and deliver it in person.

Facilitating this delivery was one of the reasons why it was important for you to enter second.

Your server player's confusion is only in part due to learning the ropes of a new game. There is a more significant reason for her befuddlement.

While she followed your advice and went through the simple motions of game setup, at no point were you visible on her monitor. She saw your damaged hive. She saw the alchemiter and other devices she deployed. She saw the strange computing device on the floor, bearing the visage of a species she didn't recognize. She even saw a great big stone frog head fly through the air all by itself, and become the Frogsprite.

And though she would ask why, and you would always delay the answer, the fact remained.

She couldn't see you.

She couldn't see you up until the moment after the sprite's second prototyping.

Because you were dead all along.

We are all completely blown away by this stunning revelation.

Wow. Dead. Really? Like a ghost?

Huh.

Bluh bluh.

Your name is VRISKA SERKET.

You are a master of EXTREME ROLE PLAYING. You can't get enough of it, or really any game of high stakes and chance. You have persisted with the habit even in spite of your ACCIDENT. But then again, you don't have much choice.

Your lusus is VERY HUNGRY, ALL THE TIME. She can only be appeased by the FLESH OF YOUNG TROLLS. You cloud campaigns for teams of Flarpers, utilizing your abilities for ORCHESTRATING THE DEMISE OF THE IMPRESSSSSSSSIONA8LE. Your victories supply you with treasure, experience points, and SPIDER FOOD.

You are something of an APOCALYPSE BUFF, which is something you can be on Alternia. You are fascinated by end of the world scenarios, and enjoy constructing DOOMSDAY DEVICES for the hell of it. You are drawn to means of DARK PROGNOSTICATION and the advantages they offer, particularly in gaming scenarios. Your abilities in this department were hobbled with the loss of your VISION EIGHTFOLD, and you have since sought alternatives through various BLACK ORACLES. You consult with these ominous globes, but routinely destroy them in frustration over the PUZZLING GUARANTEED INACCURACY of their predictions. Breaking them has developed into a habit BORDERING ON FETISHISTIC, and with each you destroy, you add to an insurmountable stockpile of TERRIBLE LUCK. You have to stop. But addiction is a powerful thing.

Your trolltag is arachnidsGrip and your st8ments tend to 8e just a little 8it overdramaaaaaaaatic.

What will you do?

You drew your own role playing character for fun, as many Flarpers are prone to do. She is the best character, and you wish you were her. Oh wait, you are her! Your wish has been granted. Probably as a special boon for being so great at everything.

Her name is Marquise Spinneret Mindfang, scourge of land dwellers and sea dwellers alike, and worst nightmare to silly BOY-SKYLARKS everywhere. She has accumulated more treasure and gained more levels than any member of the PETTICOAT SEAGRIFT class ever. She gained all the levels. All of them.

Yeah!!!!!!!!

You have a lot to do. So many irons in the fire OW!

Lousy dice. You just can't ever seem to go anywhere in your hive without stepping on an errant D4. Pointy little bastards.

It's just your bad luck, you guess. You've had such terrible luck ever since your accident. And it just keeps getting worse. As far as you're concerned, the world can't end soon enough.

As you were saying. So many irons in the fire. Such a tangled web. It is a web full of flaming irons and mixed metaphors.

Tonight is a big night. You have a lot of meddling to catch up on tonight. Bugging and fussing and meddling.

You equip your enchanted dice set, the fabled FLUORITE OCTET.

It consists of eight D8, plundered from a ghost ship during a particularly challenging campaign. In ancient times such weapons were employed by roving bands of GAMBLIGNANTS, deadly marauders with a passion for chance. They all died off though. Took too many crazy risks.

Rolling the dice will execute a wide range of highly unpredictable attacks. Very high rolls can be devastating to even the most powerful opponents.

Of course with the luck you've had lately, you couldn't make a good roll to save your life. Got to do something about this awful luck.

Gotta catch a br8k!!!!!!!!

When you get worked up about stuff you put 8's in places that don't really make a lot of sense phonetically.

Time to get this show on the road. There are SO MANY people to meddle with tonight.

After you ditch an unwelcome solicitor first, that is. Doesn't she realize how rude it is to meddle??

You'll fuss with her meddling later.

What now?

Oh, him. You thought he'd washed his hands of you. Strange timing that he's bugging you tonight after so long without a peep from him.

More hollow comebacks. As hollow and wishywashy as the inside of one of these dumb black globes. What use is all that attitude against a guy who's never wrong? It's so depressing, you can't even work up the energy to smash this stupid thing.

Maybe you could stand to have some camaraderie wasted on you, even if it comes from a meddley meddler meddlefriend.

You go down the like fifty million stairs to her nest below. You wonder if any other kid on the planet has such a high maintenance lusus? You DOUBT it.

You pass by one of your completed doomsday devices. You promised you'd build it for an especially powerful and influential member of the nautical aristocracy, in return for his collusion during your campaigns. Some guy you were in cahoots with! You guess none of it matter now though.

It was tough to build, and isn't perfect yet. Luckily one of your pals nearby is pretty handy with technology. He can be tapped for parts and favors frequently.

You wonder if any other kid on the planet has as many irons in the fire as you.

YOU DOUBT IT.

See, look at this. She's fine. Fine and huge and hungry as ever.

You... guess you're relieved? Yes, of course. Whew! Why wouldn't you be. It would be devastating if anything happened to your dear sweet custodian.

You guess there's no delaying this guy's introduction anymore.

As long as we're in the neighborhood.

Your name is EQUIUS ZAHHAK.

You love being STRONG.

You are so strong, you would surely be the class of the elite legion of RUFFIANNIHILATORS. And while such a calling would be quite honorable, you would prefer to join the ranks of the ARCHERADICATORS, perhaps the most noble echelon the imperial forces have to offer. Unfortunately, you SUCK AT ARCHERY. You have not successfully fired a SINGLE ARROW. Every time you try, you BREAK THE BOW. You are simply too strong. You have broken so many bows, it has developed into a habit BORDERING ON FETISHISTIC. You have to stop. But addiction is a powerful thing.

You have a great appreciation for THE FINE ARTS. You use your aristocratic connections to acquire PRICELESS MASTERPIECES, painted in the oldest and most respected Alternian tradition of NUDE MUSCLEBEAST PORTRAITS. These striking depictions of the EXQUISITE FAUNA native to Alternia remind you of the PUREST PHYSICAL IDEAL that must be sought by anyone who professes a LOVE OF STRENGTH. When those of lesser bloodlines turn up their uncultured noses at such stunning material, it MAKES YOU FURIOUS.

Practically everything MAKES YOU FURIOUS. You have so much rage, it can only be expressed through STAGGERING QUANTITIES OF PHYSICAL VIOLENCE. You build strong and sturdy robots, set them to kill mode, and BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THEM in caged brawls. Sometimes you LOSE TEETH. But they usually grow back.

Your trolltag is centaursTesticle and with your bow and arrow ever at the ready, you D --> Take e%ception to 100d language unbefitting of b100 b100ds

What will you do?

Now where did that craven excuse for a custodian go. It makes you furious when he goes missing like this. Probably off somewhere nursing his bruises. You swear, the old boy is made of glass. You are starting to get agitated.

Aurthour! Where are you???

Oh, there he is. He was just preparing an ice cold glass of nutritious LUSUS MILK for you, with a thick foamy head on it, just the way you like it.

You cannot hope to beat Aurthour in a butler-off. He is simply the best there is.

You accept the frosty beverage and give the good fellow a grateful pat, as gently as possible.

Seriously, he's like a soft summer peach.

Lusus milk is the secret to being STRONG.

Actually it isn't. You like to think that though. The truth is you're really strong because you're kind of a freak. You were chosen by one of the strongest lusus species on the planet. It was the only sort of custodian that could handle raising you.

Whoops there goes the glass, as usual.

And as usual, it sends you into a rage. The spilled milk quickly evaporates.

Got to do something to calm yourself down. Let off some steam.

You mean equip.

A little archery practice ought to cool you off. But of course the piece of shit snaps like a twig the moment you pick it up.

Actually, the feel of the brittle wood giving way under the astonishing might of your mangrit is starting to calm you down already.

You equip it to your 1/2BOWKIND SPECIBUS, which is pretty much useless.

You also keep a plain old BOWKIND SPECIBUS in the event that you are able to fire an arrow some day. Because a boy can dream, right?

But for more practical purposes, you keep a FISTKIND card on hand. You stow them all in your STRIFE PORTFOLIO.

Remember the STRIFE PORTFOLIO? It still exists. It didn't stop existing or anything.

You proceed to have a conversation we read not all that long ago. It went mostly like this.

CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no

But when all was said and done, you are quite sure you convinced your good friend to stay on the right team. Not the team full of degenerates with swill coursing through their veins. You're starting to get worked up again.

Routine helps calm you down. Maybe you will talk to another friend. You talk to him every day for some reason. Though it's not exactly right to call him a friend, since you despise him. Your relationship with the fellow is difficult to describe.

It should be noted that in troll language, the word for friend is exactly the same as the word for enemy.

You delve deeper into your hive where you store many of your robotic projects. The lair doubles as the caged arena where you battle them.

Under the tarp is the completed gift. You of course have no intention of delivering this to your neighbor as promised. You naturally will doublecross your accomplice, just as you assume she has plans to doublecross you. You assume she is assuming the same of you. Business as usual for blue bloods.

You will deliver it to Aradia yourself to gain her favor, and then doublecross her and take your rightful position as team leader. How ironic that someone of your blood purity must work to win the favor of the lowest sort of peasant. Humiliating. Strangely titillating, even. But in the end, class order will be restored.

You reveal her sparkling new chassis. You have paid a great deal of attention to quality and detail in this model. She is perfect.

You don't know what to make of the feelings she stirs. For one like you to entertain thoughts of attraction for such genetic filth would be utter depravity.

Exquisite, delectable depravity.

Why, Aradia. It appears the red glass of your eye has caught the pink and green glint of the moons in their perigees. The sweet poetry almost makes a man forget how the grime that once filled your veins made his stomach turn. It is a good omen for illicit lovers. Could you imagine the scandal if anyone found out?? No one must ever know.

But worry not. Your heart will pump no more of that despicable red sludge. You have been given a new heart. You can be taught the ways of the class you were always meant for. No one is beyond redemption.

Be grateful, dear Aradia. For the first time in your meaningless life you have met a man with true compassion.

And just what do you think YOU'RE looking at??? Keep your cold, mechanical judgment to yourself. As if your own record is so spotless! Don't forget who made you. Oh, what's that? My, that is a smart mouth you have. That was the last straw. An example must be made of this insubordination.

The CATENATIVE DOOMSDAY DICE CASCADER is unfortuitously activated.

The lousy thing breaks.

You seriously cannot believe how unbelievably shitty this doomsday device is.

AURTHOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUR!

It's probably best you listen to the advice of your friend.

And yet, the voices are as lucid as ever. They urge you to make her pay.

It's a shame it had to come to this. You don't like summoning the spirits of the dead to settle scores.

But if she had to face her victims again, maybe she'd finally learn to feel remorse.

Of course he's right. Not much point in living with all these moaning spooks just to spite some guy you don't give a shit about.

But how to go about it? Can't control her. It can be difficult to manipulate the mind of the psychically gifted.

Let's see, who else is there. Terezi? Forget about it! What about that guy? Nah. Her? Nope. Not him either.

How about this guy? Unfortunately, you can only control him about half the time.

Then again, that should be all the time you need.

It must be a trick! He surely would have told you if he was making the trip all the way out here from his hive stem.

Sollux??

You try to be the white text guy, but fail to be the white text guy. No one can be the white text guy except for the white text guy.

The white text guy is known as Doc Scratch.

He is an officer of an indestructible demon known as Lord English. His job is to pave the way for the arrival of his master, who will be summoned upon the termination of the universe. He has worked at this task for many centuries, and will continue to do so until THE GREAT UNDOING.

Scratch is Alternia's FIRST GUARDIAN. Every planet destined for intelligent life has such an entity meant to protect it, and facilitate the planet's ultimate purpose. A first guardian is typically almost as old as the planet itself, and each has a unique, circuitous origin through the knots of paradox space. They can be born into a great diversity of forms, though they all share a common, especially potent genetic sequence. The code grants them near omnipotence, and when merged with a host of great intelligence, near omniscience as well.

What will he do?

It's up to him. All we can do is stand here.

And watch.

What's he up to now? Hard to say since we're not telling him what to do. Guardians can never be told what to do. Neither the omnipotent kind, nor the ordinary kind who raise kids in houses. It's a universal law of reality.

Looks like he's pondering over his next move in a game he is playing with some wicked troll girl down on the planet. Usually these matches are no contest, but she has been getting closer to beating him lately, and he has no idea how this is possible.

Uncertainty, though rare, is quite a troubling sensation for the omniscient.

What's this? It appears someone is contacting him. More bothersome uncertainty. How is it this youngster is able to relay an unsolicited message? He doesn't even have an account name.

She went too far this time and she knows it. She's got to pay. Justice is long overdue.

The only sad part is how easy it's going to be. It will take no skilled manipulator to orchestrate her downfall. She's a waste of your talents.

She can't be serious. What could POSSIBLY lead to your demise in a matter of minutes?

WHAT COULD IT POSSIBLY BE???

You consult with your MAGIC CUE BALL, an extremely rare treasure you recently plundered from an ancient crypt, and one of many rumored to be hidden across the globe. Each at one time belonged to the strange and powerful man fabled to live on the green moon, but have since managed to escape his vision.

It is said to make predictions with alarming precision and specificity. Unfortunately it lacks a portal on its surface that allows you to view the prediction.

So who could say for sure whether its predictions were accurate? It would require someone with x-ray vision.

Or, just maybe...

Someone with VISION EIGHTFOLD.

You channel your powerful eyesight through your customized lenses and whisper to the faithful little oracle: Should you be worried about Terezi's threat?

Ok, little ball. Fine. If you're so smart, then answer this! How is it going to happen!

HOW????????

One retrieves his dead custodian from the rubble below.

Another finds hers struggling to survive.

You guess you've got to put her down.

The question is, do you have the luck to get it done?

Would a sufficient roll even qualify as good luck in this case? You don't know.

Maybe the dead girl is on to something. Maybe the only way to beat your bad luck is not caring about the outcome.

Seven of the FLUORITE OCTET land, narrowing the field down from the full 8^8.

One tumbles through the air. It will decide among the eight remaining techniques.

Au revoir, spidermom.

Your mercy killing triggers another avalanche. More rotten luck!

And soon, in a place known as the LAND OF CAVES AND SILENCE...

This poses no challenge for you at all.

You consult your SHIPPING WALL. Clearly some changes are in order. You must admit you didn't see this one coming, even with your remarkable matchmaking acumen.

You should probably recolor all the Aradia panels so she looks like a robot too. It is a major commitment keeping up with all your ships, but it is worth it.

You find the kid you've been looking for. He's got a pretty sharp tongue and can't seem to keep it sheathed. He should learn up front you're no stranger to sharp objects yourself.

He still won't shut up. He doesn't seem to care about the wound. He's just going on and on about the freakish color of his blood. He doesn't want you to look at it. Just look away, he says.

You've got to admit. Now you're curious.

You don't see what the big deal is. Nothing special. This kid's out of his mind.

But he's still blubbering on and on about it.

It seems he's the only one of his kind with this mutant candy-red blood. An outcast. He thinks he was put on this planet covered in an ocean of his own blood to be taunted. Punished for something.

Saddest story you ever heard. Got to do something to shut him up.

You and your like-blooded accomplice soon put OPERATION REGISURP into motion, a contingency plan which the archagent conveniently had on file and named himself. If it were drafted by a legitimate contingency firm, it would ostensibly have been given a better title.

Your whole team executes the plan along the course of its journey, employing espionage, mind control tactics, political sabotage, vicious interrogations and cold blooded assassinations. Everyone does their part and you begin to learn the true meaning of teamwork, as well as this troll disease called friendship.

But before a single step is taken, Jack briefs you on the intelligence uncovered by one of his agents. It is an advantage over the queen you will seize upon while she has let her guard down.

With each prototyping by each player, the royalty of both sides would evolve. The queen with her RING OF ORBS TWELVEFOLD would first take on the claws and ridged carapace of your lusus. And then the wings and scales of Terezi's young dragon. And then the horns and gills and cloven hooves of Gamzee's fallen custodian. And so it would continue.

Though a queen is a vain creature, she is also sworn to her duty. She would be braced for the heavy load of augmentation ahead. She could certainly withstand the eight eyes of an arachnid. The fairy wings might at worst be frivolous, and the great bull horns could even be regarded as striking additions. For that matter, the sultry lips of a mother grub might very plausibly suit her. She perhaps would wear a brave face even behind a dignified mustache, and the centauring of her lower torso could transpire without much complaint. She would dutifully indulge a lactating udder. And when all was said and done, doubling her head count would surely be insult to elevenfold injury, but nothing she hadn't essentially endured already, all in the name of her kingdom.

But she would spare herself all of these additional debasements. Because before the rest came, there would be one corruption to her figure she could not abide. Her vanity wouldn't allow it.

She could not stand bearing the visage of the most loathsome creature known to existence. So vile is its appearance, so contemptible its purpose, all depictions of the creature let alone members of its population are permanently banned from any jurisdiction in the reach of her agents. Those of its kind go by many names, and so does the reviled patron god they herald - THE GREAT DETESTATION, KING PONDSQUATTER, SPEAKER OF THE VAST JOKE, or most commonly, BILIOUS SLICK.

His true name is of course forbidden. And wearing his face is where she drew the line.

She removed the ring and concealed it in the ROYAL VAULT while she was quite sure no one was looking. She then retired to her private chamber from which she would dispatch orders, no one the wiser of her disadvantage.

Or so she thought.

The operation in time would be a total success. The BANISHED QUASIROYAL would make the future Alternian wasteland her home.

Until she was given a new purpose.

But at the onset, you would know nothing of the queen's aversion to an amphibious likeness, or about her orbs twelvefold, or any such details. You were informed of her disadvantage, and would act accordingly. You and your red teammates would work to dethrone the queen in your session, while the blue team members would take on the entirely separate set of royal adversaries in their own session. This was to be a competition, after all.

Or so you thought.

You would begin to notice a strange pattern. The blue team's prototypings would affect the mutations of your session's underlings.

And your prototypings would affect theirs.

Though the signs pointed to two distinct sessions - two sets of mystic ruins, two opposing teams, two separate chains of connected players - this was all misleading.

You were joining a particularly unusual bifurcated session, meant from the start to receive all twelve players through two separate connection chains. A session with one Skaia about which twelve planets would circle. With one army of dark and one of light. With one pair of kings and one pair of queens. And with one cantankerous archagent and his typical disdain for authority. It wouldn't be until later in the session when the full chain was nearly closed that you would realize the truth.

The truth was it had always been the same session all along. That your teams were not competing, but cooperating toward a common goal.

In the more drawn out form of this adventure's narrative, figuring this out would have been a huge deal. We would have been completely blown away by this stunning revelation.

Wow. Same session all along. Really?

Huh.

But since we've decided to engage this epic in shorthand, you feel you must insist that we continue with this expository interlude.

It would turn out the arrangement of planets looked like this, rather. Bifurcated from each other, each team appearing to comprise a distinct chain in a distinct session without the luxury of the complete picture we see here.

It appeared that way until it was time to link the two chains, completing the circuit of twelve and uniting the teams.

For these final two links, Skaia had a plan, as it did with the order of every preceding link, and as it did with the paradoxical seeding of its own players on the surface of the planet it would later devastate to buy itself time. Its plan was as inescapable as all others, as inevitable as the reckoning it would ultimately face.

After watching the phrases MOBIUS DOUBLE and REACH AROUND toggle for a few minutes while in a sort of stupor, you finally snap out of it. Your attention drifts toward these two symbols.

You would try to be these mysterious characters but you suspect you would fail, so you don't bother.

They're way too mysterious for you to be them yet! Seriously, what's up with these guys? Do they live under water or something? What's their deal!

We'll learn all about them a little later.