STBLEstuck

The seizorb glows brightly the second the book hits it. When the light dies, the insanely grizzled face of Aquamare's sidekick, SeacoltSTALLION is floating in the orb. It seems to have taken its shape, though it remains bright pink.

Ocean stared at the face that had appeared within the orb, open-mouthed. Almost without realising it, she began typing.

TC: I can not speak for relative cuteness
TC: But I think I have just gone mad.

The Seazorb doesn't speak Ponglish, it just lets out a series of very manly, meaningless grunts and screams while grimascing. It doesn't seem to have any eyes. Just holes.

TC: I honestly have no idea.
TC: For the benefit of those who don't see the thing before me...
TC: Upon opening the Cruxtruder, an orb emerged.
TC: This orb then collided with a book of mine.
TC: And now I am staring at something which an overgrown colt might term 'gnarly'.
TC: I can not believe I just wrote that.

Ocean sighed, looking back at the floating orb... while trying to ignore the gaps where eyes should be. It was making noises...for whatever that meant.

" Can you...understand me?" she tried, with a sudden, foalish feeling.

The Seazorb gnashed it's teeth and snorted loudly. "YES I DO, TINY FILLY THING! I AM YOUR KERNELSPRITE AND I WILL ACT AS YOUR GUIDE THROUGHOUT THIS GAME! I AM ALSO SEASTALION! I WAS HOPING WE WOULD HAVE THAT UNDERSTANDING!"

Elacular wrote:The Alchemiter comes alive and scans the totem with its laser. A brilliantly blue crystalline cloud forms over the alchemiter, seemingly brimming with lightning and rain. The clock on the Cruxtruder is at five minutes.

While not unduly concerned by rain, Skynight was rather cpnfused by the presence of it in her living room


QP: What?
QP: What should I be doing about this weird raincloud thing?
QP: And please tell me we can clean all of this up

Skynight's cruxtruder clock has counted down to four minutes and seven seconds. In that instant, everyone can hear a loud noise outside of their homes.

c-c-cr-CR-CRRRRRAAAACK

"What the- Bright said out loud, efore going to her window and looking for whatever caused that sound

You don't see anything on the flat plane of the ground, but if you look up, you see that the pink magical shield is broken, fading away into sparks. The fireworks have stopped too and the world is eerily quiet. There are thousands of tiny, brilliant red dots in the blue sky, but one is bigger, almost the size of the moon.

As Bright looks up at the dots falling from the sky to the ground, she starts to sink to her knees. her mother's words come forcibly to mind.

So little of what one pony does really matters in the grand design.
Choice is an illusion.Once you accept that, you'll find peace.
If it happens, it happens, Bright. Don't worry about what you can't change.

If the shield fell, what was there to do? Bright couldn't have done anything to change this, and she couldn't do anything now. She had only scratched the surface of her studies of defying fate...

No.

That wasn't how Bright Future- how Destiny Paradox worked. They had a computer that created things from nothing, and they were going to do something

Bright went over to the computer and focused all her attention on the magic in the game, trying to get some idea of how the machine did what it did.

ooc:

When you scan the game, for the longest time, it just seems like simple magitech. Alicorn level magitech, sure, but still run of the mill. However, for just an instant, you can feel something. These two little discs are...you don't even know a word for it. But in that instant, you feel like those discs are linked to everything that ever has or ever will exist. For just an instant, the whole universe is in front of you, reflected in the back of a computer cd.

But it all fades away very quickly and you feel intensely tired.

Bright felt herself sliding to the ground from fatigue at her analysis, but fought it. There were much more important things to deal with.

dp:eVERYPONY....
dp: tHIS GAME ISN'T JUST A GAME, IT'S CONNECTED TO THE FABRIC OF REALITY.

For a moment, Bright's thoughts drifted to what shecould do with this "Game" if she had more time. But she didn't have time, that was the point.

dp: i DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU GUYS, BUT i THINK WE SHOULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS MESS HAPPENING OUTSIDE

The explosions outside manage to take Oceans attention away from the kernelsprite; she hurries to her window, glancing outside and up, at the tiny red lights dancing in the sky.

She takes a glance down as her PDA buzzes with Paradoxs latest message. Ordinarily, she would discard it as crazy ramblings, but...

Her attention turns back to Seastallion, glaring through her sunglasses.
"All right then game guide. Start talking. What the buck is going on here?"

Seazorb considers for a moment. "AS YOUR SPRITE, I AM SOMEWHAT RESTRICTED TO CONTINUAL NEBULOUS VAGUENESS. AND ALSO THE FACT THAT THE KERNEL IS STILL HERE IS MAKING IT VERY HARD TO THINK. IT WOULD PROBABLY SUIT EVERYONE BEST IF WE GOT INTO THE MEDIUM FIRST."

>Palette: Go inspect the thingies Ink left in your living room.

You're too busy writhing in PAIN, HOOVES clutched over your EARS, SCREAMING as loudly as possible, to even think of doing anything that investigative at the immediate moment! Maybe you can HOLMES IT UP once you've stopped feeling the UNIMAGINABLE PAIN that comes with the PSYCHIC BACKLASH of a million PATHWAYS closing themselves off to you and your friends at the same time.

The NOISE was just a coincidence, really.

Actually, now that your THOUGHTS are slowly shuffling back into whatever passes for ORDER, FACULTIES reinstating, you're realizing you know a lot more than you did about thirty seconds ago. Possibly all the different PATHWAYS made it harder to focus in on one specific one? Or maybe it's just a COINCIDENCE. Like the NOISe. At any rate, you think you already know what Ink put in your LIVING ROOM, as well as what that NOISE was. Also a lot of other THINGS.

VERY IMPORTANT THINGS.

You think you prefer the EXCRUCIATING AGONY to the knowledge you have just obtained.

You rush back to your COMPUTER as fast as you can, which is probably NOT FAST ENOUGH. You further forgo your usual ROTATING COLOR SCHEME and ATTENTION TO SPELLING and grammar in order to deliver this VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE as fast as possible. Sloppy work, but it's a rush job.

LF: Clock. Cloc kon the thingy.
LF: DON'T QUESTION IT YOU IDIOTS JUST LISTEN TO NME
LF: Meteor headed for your huose, Skynight. Clock's on cruxtruder is a countdown.
LF: Running won't help, area of impact iasi too big.
LF: You need too do...something with the thing on the alcimwhatever. Now. Sooner.
LF: Don't ask what, it's apparently "iomportant" that you figure it on your own
LF: Don't ask why, I don't know why.
LF: THings telling me WHAT won't tell me WHY.
LF: ALso I know they're 'things' now apparently? Not some part of me. Not ponies at all.
LF: More meteors headed for the rest of us so daisy chain's pretty important
LF: which one of you is the freaking cutest?

"Start simple then; what is a Kernel, and what is the 'medium'".

Her PDA buzzes with Palettes messages, and she scans over them. The frown on her face depends. Meteors?

" Okay, new plan." After all, no use knowing what those were if she was squashed to death by a space rock... or more likely drowned. If I crashed the ocean, it would probably start a tidal wave that would-
Okay, breath. Don't hyperventilate. Breath.

She leapt towards the alchemixter, looking for any kind of clue as to how the thing worked. Or was supposed to work. Or whatever.

Spoiler:

The Alchemiter is extremely magical, but mechanically, it's instantly apparent that it's a laser reader for three-dimensional disks. It's also clear that the smaller pedastal is the perfect size for one of those cylinders the Cruxtruder spat out with the Seazorb. These are almost certainly what the alchemiter would read to create the things it can create.

Spoiler:

It took the Pegasus a few moments to recognise the size of the pedestal, a few more to find the cylinders from before. She gathered them in her hooves- back up, better safe than sorry- and placed one on the pedestal itself, before looking for an on switch.

There isn't an on-switch (though there is a number pad on the side), the thing just instantly reacts to having a dowel on it. The laser arm unfolds, scanning the uncarved totem with a bright red beam, and three worthless, rounded green cubes about the size of a young pony appear on the larger platform. These objects are perfectly generic.

On Bright's end, the grist counter goes down to 174.

"WHAT!?" the unicorn shouted as she caught up on the chat log. "What kind of game is this!?"

QP: Okay, okay... Can somebody tell me what I'm supposed to do with this thundercloud, at least?

Bright groaned in frustration. What was the point of these machines if they couldn't make anything useful?!

She goes back to the items list, and looks over it again. Wan't there some sort of card in there? Maybe that would change the things that the lathe made.