In Fourside, TsuramiSea explored and tried to find out how to reach Chommo.
You probably forgot and I don't blame you for it, but: I'm pretty sure 'Chommo' was the word Tengu Man came up with to describe the non-Eagleland area of EarthBound. Yes, I know it's stupid, don't look at me like that.He fought some Extra Cranky Ladies, but they weren't as generous as the Cranky Ladies in Twoson.
I don't even know what this means. Extra Cranky Ladies are worth a lot more money than their more primitive sisters, and drop Handbag Straps at the same rate. So I can't tell what makes them less generous.However, after getting some extra money, TsuramiSea bought a bicycle helmet for protection.
Don't laugh. Oversized coins provide a ton of protection in EarthBound, and I don't even know where you carry them on your person. You'd think on a rope around your neck, but then for most of the game you're already wearing a pendant, so who knows?Then, he looked around for some kind of ship headed for Chommo. He found out that many cargo barges and cruises went to Chommo (mostly to Summers, but Scaraba also).
Yeah, okay. At least I correctly remember what 'Chommo' is, besides a very stupid word.TsuramiSea decided to STOWAWAY on a large cargo ship.
I don't have the foggiest idea why he had to capitalize STOWAWAY, and we will never find out. It was probably a long-forgotten inside joke. Or maybe it's a reference to some famous anime or something that you all know about but I've never heard of.He felt a little nervous, because it was against the law. But, he wanted to get to Chommo very badly and didn't have enough money for a cruise. Besides, he thought he could find a good hiding place. Tsurami boarded a barge to Summers carrying various fresh vegetables, and nestled himself tightly between a group of close-set crates.
Well, that one definitely goes in the "didn't think your cunning plan all the way through" file. This ship will be at sea for, minimum, half a day, possibly as much as two days. He has no idea how uncomfortable it's going to get staying wedged in that position, in that spot, for 30 freakin' minutes, much less two days. And that's without even considering what most of us must do at least a few times every two days.At last, the boat set off, and TsuramiSea headed off for Summers, not knowing what to expect....
Post #992, by Traceh
guruzeth was awaken by a pecking noise and an 'Ooof! Get AWAY from me you mindless creature!" He sat up and looked around, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
Couldn't have said it better myself, Traceh. Wait... what do you mean she wasn't saying that to guruzeth?
Come to think of it, isn't that exactly what PSI322 has been wanting to say to Chris for 900 posts now and has been to polite to? Pretty much verbatim, right?A few feet away was Tracy, shooing away some strange bird. It finally got the hint and flew off and Tracy turned to him.
I guess we won't be naming that bird 'Chris', then."Ah, finally awake? I would probobly still be sleeping if it wasnt for that squaker, and the prickle of this bush.
Apparently both of those things woke her up at the exact same instant. I do like to think she was making fun of the stupidity of sleeping in/under a bush.guru stood up and helped Tracy to her feet and they brushed the sand off their clothes.
It's like 99.96% that Traceh not specifying they each brushed the sand off their own clothes was accidental. But given the general tone of this particular arc, it would have been much better for all of us if she had. I would start tallying instances of guruzeth and Traceh making physical contact the way I did with loid typos--it's been about a consistent 3-5 times per post for a while now--but what's the point? loid typos didn't make us feel vaguely uncomfortable for reading them."It's just starting to warm up," he said. "Why dont we test the water?"
They picked up their belongings and strolled towards the bank of the river looking for a good spot to ease into.
"Are you sure about this?" Tracy said. "It could be more dangerous then we would expect."
You ran headlong into a cursed pyramid without hesitating for a second--with guruzeth--but you're having second thoughts about swimming?"Pretty sure," said guru. "After all, you do know how to swim, right?"
Tracy flashed him a look and slowly waded into the water, waist deep, guruzeth folloing suit.
Traceh really needs to be more careful with choosing her verbs. That's all I'm saying.She floated her backpack while tieing a cord from it to her wrist.
An excellent plan, assuming your backback is both waterproof and watertight. And assuming you don't mind the substantial risk you run into some rapids and get strangled to death by the cord.After a few deep breaths and 'good luck's, they released the grip on the rocks at the shallow bottom and let the current take them.
They held tight to eachother's arms
Oh god.I'm honestly not even sure how to picture what she means. I'm pretty sure she was envisioning hands-on-forearms, but even that isn't helping me view this as an innocent survival tactic. Either the river is relatively calm, in which case the arm-holding is unnecessary (and then presumably a stand-in for hand-holding), or it's relatively active, in which case it's insufficient. If they'd known what they were doing they would have grabbed a log or something else that floats and shared it; that's their best shot at staying together if the river is tumultuous. So either way this really comes across as approaching Romance Rule boundaries. I still think Traceh was clueless of all that and just had an impressive talent for picking unfortunate wording. But I distinctly remember PSI322, at the time, strongly disagreeing with that assessment and being very irritated at this particular part of this particular post.
I don't know, man. guruzeth wasn't worth fighting over.and floated down the river for what seemed like only minutes before the mouth of the river started to widen. "Hold on, okay? I wouldnt want just one of us to make it," guruzeth spat through the water. Not that Tracy heard more then a mumble with her plugged ears.
There's this thing called 'treading water' that they really should have learned before they came up with their river-semi-swimming plan-type thing. Or does she mean Tracy actually applied earplugs before getting in the water? If so, I'm at a loss for why she wasn't wearing them the whole time, to muffle guruzeth's voice.Up ahead the river emerged into the ocean and Tracy became somewhat hystarical, splashing a bit and shaking (not just from the water temperature).
I have no idea why they didn't simply swim to shore and emerge from the river as soon as they saw the shore coming up. Assuming rivers worked that way, which they usually don't. But hey, this is IF and these are teenagers that don't really know anything about rivers and don't really care. But since you care: people got the idea of putting barges on rivers because it was a fast way to ship piles of stuff. Not because swimming downstream is a better way to reach the ocean than walking. Rivers wind and twist a lot (easily negating whatever speed advantage over walking they might have offered), and frequently run into things like rapids and waterfalls that are generally fatal to swimmers. But hey, ACs.They could see waves far off in the distance which neared and were apon them in no time flat. Despite all fighting to stick together they were separated by the waves, each watching the other float off into oblivion.
The next thing guruzeth remembered was being shook by someone.Dang, I was hoping for more detail as to how exactly they fought to stick together. Sounds hot.That's not really how oceans work, either, especially at the mouths of major rivers. (Major rivers are the only kind that run directly into oceans, generally at deltas.) But I'm probably boring you with pointing out what to you is probably obvious.
"guru! Are you okay!? guru wake up....oh I hope you arent dead or something!
I really fail to see how that would be a bad thing. I keep telling you that you should have left him to his fate in the Pyramid.Come on, wake up!" Tracy shouted as though to penatrate his sleep-like state.
Penet... okay, yeah. You see what I mean about Traceh and picking unfortunate wording."Hey, we are so lucky we washed up on the same beach, or even washed ashore at all!"
"...Huh?" he asked, dazed. "What happened? where are we?"
Great opportunity to pull a Calvin's Dad on him and she's going to whiff on it."We washed up on the shore. Look over there, I think we're back at the mainland beach that everyone started out on. If Im correct, the hotel should be just over that hill," Tracy exclaimed. "Should we go back yet, or not?"
Just in case you missed that, they not only sort-of-swam downriver but they crossed the ocean into wherever the hotel was (it definitely wasn't in Scaraba).
You know what to me is really interesting? That Traceh, not guruzeth, took the initiative to get them back to the hotel where they know PSI322 is waiting for guruzeth's arrival. Maybe she knew that was their inevitable destination and resigned herself to it without wangsting on and on the way Chris is doing (Traceh is actually a cool enough person to have done this). Or maybe she actually secretly has had enough of the soloing with guruzeth and wanted to hang out with someone else for a change. We would hope that's the case.
Either way, that concludes the guruzeth-Traceh arc, also known as the "way too much touching for anyone's comfort arc", and we are about to enter the guruzeth-PSI322 arc, also known as the "still today the all time record holder for angst and general pissiness arc". Fun times are ahead, my friends!
Post #993, by t0nberry22
(Sir, please. It's Dark TON, not Tom. So please stop callin' him that!)
Yeah, but I LOL every time I see 'Dark Tom'. Harriet Beecher Stowe must be turning around in her grave like a basting turkey.
Dark Ton had reached the Huge Lavos Shell in Saturn Valley. "At last..." He said. "Finally, a chance to show my TRUE power!"
Is it really true power if you have to go out of your way to locate a large MacGuffin to activate it?With that, DT started glowing...
Meanwhile, Ton had made it to the sewers in Fourside. "Alright Ton... Here I go!" Ton climbed down into the sewers. After about 20 minutes of trudging thru sludge, Ton saw a group of people fighting a giant rat...
(And PSI, techically DT isn't another AC, just a evil side of my AC. Plus, he's interesting.)
If "I think he's interesting" was a valid cause for exemption from the AC rule, Tengu Man would have 130 ACs in this thread by now. Not gonna fly, kid.
The "DT isn't another AC" thing is at least an attempt at a semi-logical argument, but it miserably fails. Dark Ton fits every criteria of a second AC: only you can control its thoughts and motives, and it can be in a separate plotline from your primary ACs. That's an AC. Sorry. And I am 100% serious when I say that if he'd gotten away with that, it would be about ten posts before Tengu announced that there are twelve Dark Tengus, each one representing a subtly different part of his personality. And then twelve more Dark Roll Busters (you don't seriously think you've seen the last of Roll Buster, do you? Ho ho ho).
Post #994, by loid
"Pikachu, can you hear me? Come on! Gotta wake up now."
"Lemme try Tim, PIKACHU! BUTTERFREES HERE AND HE BROUGHT EXPRESSO AND PEANUT CHEESE BARS!.... I dont think he's waking up. Poor little guy."
I have little doubt loid was intentionally giving Liyoshi a middle finger with that exchange, wherein Loyoshi just shakes him and can't wake him up. loid is in my top five posters for sure right now."Is, is he..."
"No, he's still breathing which is always a good sign, maybe the melody will heal him."
I wouldn't worry about him too much, I mean, he's an AC, any moment now a plot contrivance will come along and he'll be fit as a fiddle.Just then Ton noticed all of them there
"Kiyo? That you?"
"Ton?"
"Hey Kiyo, do you two know each other?"
"Whats it look like. Ton, we got kindof a problem here."
Kiyo explained to Ton all about Randite and the battle with the Plague rat and his new allies Pikachu, Poryhydron, shockbird, Tim and Nathan.
Actually, not only am I not going to sneer at loid's lack of exposition skills, but I wish a lot of published novelists that also lack exposition skills would follow loid's lead. You could save a lot of pages just writing "Dirk explained to Jigger everything that was going on from pages 114 through 198."Ton said
I didn't miss anything; that's where the post ends. loid's not an ellipsis kind of guy, you see.
Post #995, by guruzeth
It took guruzeth over an hour to get a post up making sure he gets to the hotel. That's longer than I was expecting. He was probably busy being a jackass in #earthbound.As he gradually returned to full consciousness, guruzeth fell into a violent coughing spasm as he expelled all the water he'd taken on.
guruzeth showing off that he watched a TV show once that explained what tends to happen when water gets places it's not supposed to go. And also acting injured.
You can tell that I have always, from the dawn of IF, been annoyed by rampant AC God Mode. Unfortunately I did the usual teenage thing and overreacted. The result is what you see, guruzeth hardly ever writing a post without his AC getting injured.When he'd recovered, he said, "The hotel is just over the hill, you said?"
This is, of course, the very same beach where guruzeth and Traceh first met up and started their wacky adventure. For all guruzeth's technical excellence, the truth is Traceh was a better writer."Yeah, I think it is anyway," said Tracy. "We can go look... are you OK?"
guruzeth coughed a little again and dried the tears in his eyes. "Yeah," he said, rising to his knees and then his feet. "Yeah, let's go see if we're where we think we are, and if there's anyone at the hotel if it's really there."
You'll remember how the hotel was derelict and abandoned for hundreds and hundreds of posts, and within 15 posts of PSI322's showing up there guruzeth also appears there. This was no accident.The two of them trudged side by side through the sand,
Awwwww.and then through the grass that began growing in spots and gradually grew thicker. The hill was farther away than they'd thought; after about a half hour they finally eclipsed the top of it, and off a thousand yards or so in the distance they saw a large building.
He probably was thinking of that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where they keep flipping back and forth, for like two full minutes, between the same five second cut of John Cleese running toward the camera and a random redshirt guard peering carefully at him."Is that the hotel?" asked guruzeth, peering into the fading night.
"I think it is," said Tracy, "but it looks deserted. Let's go check it out, maybe someone's there!"
"Is that a desert?" "I think it is, but it looks dry. Let's go check it out, maybe there's water there!"Quickening their pace a little, the two began walking toward the building they had seen, hoping someone they knew was merely a few minutes away...
Yeah. Someone.
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