Posts #628-632: 25 April 2000

Post #628, by SaturnAl

After an hour of surfing, Alan thought he should catch up with Osman. All of a sudden, Alan saw a gold statue-Alan's nightmare!
"Dude! What a tubular statue!"

Tubular (adj) Of or pertaining to a tube. (Seriously.) 

"Like, I am not a statue, man. I'm your dark side. I'm that tsunami that'll take you sometime."
"No way! I can surf any wave!"

I am genuinely curious about how SaturnAl became this obsessed with surfing. I would also be curious as to whether he had, at this point, ever actually surfed in his brief life. I'd give odds of 4-to-3 against.

With all that anger, Alan became conscious of a new PSI--Tsunami
Alan used PSI Tsunami! 1300 HP of damage to Alan's nightmare!
Alan's Nightmare used PSI shield Beta! He was protected by the psychic power shield!
With all his might, Alan took his surf board, and whacked the nightmare with the fin. SMAAAAAASH! 978 HP of damage to Alan's Nightmare! You Win!

After the battle, Alan saw Osman and his Nightmare.
"PSI TSUNAMI!"

If I were PSIOsman, in my next post I would get killed by the PSI Tsunami. You've got to take these guys away from what they expect. Make them think.

...to be continued

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Post #629, by PajamaManV4M

(well, my plot is starting to get smelly, so I want to join another part.)

By "smelly" he presumably means "dead" or "ignored". The parenthetical comment is unnecessary, as reading the post would make obvious that he is abandoning his attempt at starting a plotline and tagging along elsewhere.

Zakk, PajamaMan, and Moo-Heimer continued through the Lumine Hall. It was completely empty. Zakk seemed to become the all-powerful leader, and PajamaMan and Moo-Heimer were just little sidekicks. As they took another turn, Zakk made more weird expressions on his face as if he was sensing something. All of a sudden, he turned around.

I still have no clue who Zakk is.

"I sense evil. Very large evil power."
With that, Zakk busted through the roof of Lumine Hall, and headed towards Lavos.

(is this OK?)

Noooo! Don't show weakness. Now they'll pounce and tear you to shreds. 

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Post #630, by pogopunk

satisfied that F4lx0r had departed, pogopunk settled down in his recliner and went back to sleep. he had just about dozed off when an oozy, slimy, plate of jell-o landed on his face. "ooooooh.." he moaned.

"heheehehehe" luna snickered, and she ran off. turning over, he started sleeping, unfazed by the jell-o. it started spreading around him, and by the time he woke up, it had covered him completely. groaning, he went upstairs and took a shower. he thought he could hear luna chortling nearby.

Add that to the "I can't believe he got that past PSI322" file. 

after he got back out, he went to the beach, and listlessly played with the sand, bored. his only joy was screaming "baby eater!" to the various passerbys. "hee, hee, hee" he giggled, laughing at their misery.

I do not think anyone's reaction to a 12-year-old screaming "baby eater!" at them would be misery. It would range from "scurry away and possibly notify the police" to "grab him by the ear, toss him around a bit and look for his parents". 

[this marks the going-away of me for awhile. i just dont find this fun anymore. maybe if something interesting happens, i'll post again. bet you wont miss me! ]

That's the third poster to proclaim he's leaving forever and don't try to change my mind I'm dead set on it I'm leaving now bye. Like the other two, he'll stay away for no more than 20 or 30 posts. If that.

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Post #631, by Anyone

AnyoneEB appeared near the rock where Chis and co. were 'resting' and asked where's the action? He found that he sould join Pajama Man in Lumine Hall and teleported immeditialy. He asked if he could join their group and help get the Lumine Hall medialy.

(Wait a minute, someone already got it!)

The odd thing is that this post was not edited after being posted, meaning he knew Team PajamaMan was already to Lumine Hall and gone, but posted this anyway. Bizarre.

Also bizarre: I don't know why AnyoneEB dropped the EB from his user name when he registered on the new Starmen.Net forums.

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Post #632, by TsuramiSea

Oh god. Get ready for it. TsuramiSea was possibly the most prominent of the Tengulings, and he resembled Tengu Man more than any other poster that wasn't actually Tengu Man multi-accounting. He didn't have Tengu Man's controlling personality, but he could nearly match his writing skills, and he usually wrote very... very... long... posts. And generally he aligned with Tengu Man in every thread, and was the designated guy that talked to guruzeth and tried to convince him Tengu wasn't a bad guy. Didn't work. Eventually that got Tsurami shunned and then banned; actually, if I recall correctly, it will be later in the Gathering that he and guruzeth flip out and get in a piss-fight. Good times coming!

I won't be annotating this very long post very much. Just thought I should give you an introduction to a guy that will be one of the major players in this thing from here forward.

(Back on the shore of Eagleland Island....)

A boat pulled up to the side of Eagleland Island. A single figure stepped off, and the boat pulled away. It was a boy dressed in long clothes (not very befitting of the heat there) and sneakers. He glanced around. He was finally on "Eagleland Island". He had found out about this place on SM.Net. A big fan gathering was to be held here. However, he was days late, and it was almost over. Before he got ready to go, he had to beg and plead his parents to let him go, promising he'd be okay and that he'd come home safely. Then, using a weird teleport device he got from UPS, he transported himself to the official "Eagleland Island ferry" that the SM.Net staff had set up. He was glad to have such an easy way to get to the island. He wasn't sure whether or not he would be given a ride home or not after it was all over, but he didn't worry about that at the moment. He walked along the shore of the beach with a suitcase and a backpack on his back. "Hello?" he called out. "Where the heck is the big party? HELLO?" Nobody answered. "Pfffft, I guess I have to find it myself...." The boy walked along the beach until he came to a solitary figure sitting upon a rock.

Not very exciting, but you see that the above is actually a structured, on-point paragraph, which marks it as about the fourth such paragraph in the Gathering so far. I also notice--I don't remember noticing this at the time--Tsurami seems to write in long strings of short sentences. I think there are more periods in the above post than in every loid post combined.

"Hello there," said the figure, another boy, with a smile. "Who are you?"
"Hi," said the first boy nervously. "I'm wondering if you know about the SM.Net gathering on this island?"
"Sure! I was one of the people in charge. You might know me as Chris, moderator on the SM.Net forums." He extended his hand.

You'll also note that Tsurami, unlike almost everyone else, is willing to wade right in and write dialogue for an AC that his AC had not spoken with before. Most people avoided that for a good reason: it carried a high risk of pissing off the other poster.

The first boy shook Chris's hand. "Hello."
"Who are you?" asked Chris.
The boy looked at the ground and said, "I'm TsuramiSea." He said it in a very plain way.

Well, it does make sense, since Tsurami's writing style, while refreshingly coherent, is also very plain.

Chris looked him over. "So, you're TsuramiSea, huh?" He laughed. "You're not as hyper as you act online."

Oh god yes. Actually, Tsurami on the IF board was usually almost Anthaddian in his seriousness and attentiveness. This marked him as very, very different from Tsurami on the other forums and in #earthbound, where he was a typical hyperactive 12-year-old with a twist of Tengu for seasoning. I think this dichotomy developed mostly because when he wrote on IF he was emulating Tengu Man, who he kind of idolized.

"No, that's for sure," remarked TsuramiSea. "So, where is the big party?"
"Disbanded," explained Chris in one word.
"WHAT?!" shouted TsuramiSea, startling Chris with the sudden loudness. "I came all the way here and missed it?! I guess I should've known it was a waste of my time!"
"Wait a minute, it's not over," interrupted Chris. "Actually, it's supposed to be still going on. It's just that everyone else left. They forgot about the party and went to explore the island."
"Explore the island? Some party activity," mumbled TsuramiSea.
Chris smirked. "It's because Eagleland Island contains the REAL Eagleland on it inland, as well as Foggyland and Chommo."

I have no foggy idea what Foggyland and Chommo are. But he forgot to mention the Chrono Trigger crossover everyone else is bananas about right now.

TsuramiSea blinked. After some moments, he remarked, "Wow, a video game I like turns out to exist on our world. Pretty weird. So, what time frame is Eagleland in right now?"
Chris sighed. "Well, Ness and the others weren't up and saving the world, but another evil was attacking. So we had to go collect the Melodies. Then Falcon24 showed up, but he's evil for some reason, so he wants to destroy the world. And now Lavos came down when Falcon24 summoned him."
TsuramiSea frowned. "Falcon24 always did seem a little volatile. Oh well.

Hahahaha! You noticed, huh? Can't slip anything past ol' Tsurami.

If everyone's trying to save the world, why are you here all alone?""I got tired of adventuring," shrugged Chris, "so I just came back here to think about what's happened. I suppose you'll want to explore Eagleland too?"
TsuramiSea thought for a moment, and looked at his backpack. Then he answered, "Nah.... I brought along my mallet for fun, but I'm not a real hero. I'd probably be a coward in a real dangerous situation like this. I'll just stay here."
Chris seemed pleased. "Great. Maybe you'll join me, and we can talk?"
TsuramiSea smiled a little. "Well, that sounds all right... but first I want to see what the party was like. Where are the main area and the buildings? I'm assuming we weren't staying outside the whole time."

Let's think about why Tsurami seems so intent on befriending Chris (with or without Chris's approval for the moment.) Is it...

a. Because he, like, Chris, finds the violence detestable?

b. Because he wants to ingratiate himself to an administrator and guruzeth is AWOL (and scary anyway) and PSI322 is too lofty for mere mortals?

c. Because Tengu's trying to extend a tentacle in Chris's direction?

d. Because it seems like the safest thing to do, since Chris always seems to welcome companionship, whereas jumping into someone else's violence may have unpredictable results?

You decide! The only guidance I'll offer is that, based on Tsurami's writings elsewhere, (a) is unlikely.

Chris pointed inland. "The main SM.Net area is around the coast and slightly off of it. You can explore it, but no one's there. Hope you'll join me later, I wouldn't mind the company." He paused. "By the way, TsuramiSea's not your real name, is it? Or do your parents have strange tastes?"
TsuramiSea looked at the ground again. "Sorry, too paranoid to say."
Chris gave Tsurami a mock-scolding look. "Do I act like a stalker?"

ROFL. That is the single funniest line in the Gathering so far. Give that kid an Awesome Point!

(In case you haven't read much Gathering before reading this, the Gathering could feasibly be subtitled: meticulous documentation of Chris being a stalker. And said documentation isn't even close to complete yet. 

Tsurami laughed. "Well... okay, but for now, don't tell anyone else...." He whispered his name in Chris's ear.

This is getting a tad uncomfortable. Can't wait to see how Chris responds to this.

Tsurami is not doing this on purpose; he's 11 or 12 years old and may not even have hit puberty yet. He's just trying to communicate Chris that I trust you, you can trust me!

Chris nodded. "Okay. Well, see you later, I hope!"
"Sure thing, Chris!" called TsuramiSea, headed toward the SM.Net special buildings....

(Yes, this is really me, not the magic-using adventurer. Don't pull me into the Lavos plotline. If I want to enter it, I will. I just want to see the party for now.)

Now that is right out of the Tengu playbook.

Posts #567-570: 24 April 2000

Post #567, by Fritz42

Fritz42 would later be known as `Frieza and was an interesting character in early starmen.net history. I'll tell more of that story some other time.

Pj and moo suddenly see a blinding flash of light and a rip in the time space thingie pull's `Frieza from out of nowhere Standing before them He lifts his Mighty hand and takes a mighty bite of his mighty corndog!!!.

* He speaks!

" So um.. Hey whats goin on?"

JUST then the rip reopens and `Frieza is Sucked up and never heard from "on this If" again... Or is he???

Moo and Pj are Baffled as to what this Craptacular cameo can mean But they continue on anyway.
LOL. Admit you laughed. It was funny.

There is nothing at all in this post that was even a little out of character for `Frieza. He was--and I say this affectionately--a weirdo.

---

Post #568, by Tengu Man/Makron

Back at the Giygan Spaceship.

"Guys, we have to go back to Fire Springs. There's people standed there!" Paula suddenly sensed.

It's handy to have Paula around because she's the Gandalf, i.e., the Instant Plot Expositor. There's never any doubt what your next mission is.

"I feel it too." Diamond said, it being HIS home.

I'm not sure if Tengu is establishing Diamond Dog's masculinity or the fact Fire Spring is, emphatically, Diamond Dog's home and no one else's. It's doubly troublesome to ponder since no one has ever called either fact in question. Though I would call in question why a character would instantly sense whatever's going on in whatever his home is.

Diamond used PSI Teleport Gamma and sent them[including Mog] to the Fire Springs cave.

Once again Mog is but an insect. With a single bracketed comment Tengu returns the railroading favor.

Also, oh god, I just realized Tengu is responding to PP/QC's plea for attention. Presumably he's about to check and see if new Tengulings can be recruited here, although a cursory glance through a PP/QC post should establish he's not really Tenguling material, even if he passes the schizophrenia test with flying colors.

They got in just in time to see Jenny send Matt flying into a wall.

Oh, right. I forgot. That whole Matt beating on Jenny thing. Tengu could never resist a chance to jump into a hitting a girl situation and always--always--immediately reverse it so that the girl is physically (as well as intellectually and emotionally) superior.

*CRASH!*

"STOP!!" Mog yelled.

"Gah... other people..." Matt jumped, "Can you teleport!?"

"I can." Diamond Dog told them, "You must be the ones stranded. We'll get you back to Twoson."

Diamond Dog teleported Jenny, Matt, and his own group back to Twoson, but other problems were occuring in the Lost Underworld...

So the way I read this, and maybe I'm wrong, is that this post is Tengu telling PP/QC, "no hitting a girl on my watch, bucko." It's appallingly devoid of plot development for a Tengu post.

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Post #569, by PajamaManV4M

Zakk and PajamaMan were glad that Moo-Heimer had finished off the Big Pile of Puke, because it would've probably arose after some time... however, the fact of a swampy cow all of a sudden flinging into a giant pile of vomit was kind of odd.

Well. Can't dispute that point.

I forgot who Zakk was. Who's Zakk?

"This is obviously another enemy, PajamaMan!" Zakk declared, flexing his muscles.
"No!.. we have to find out who it is."

Really, if you wanted to keep with IF tradition you'd eviscerate first, ask questions later.

"I'm Mooooooo-Heimer."

---

Post #570, by Mog116

All of a sudden, a comet fell out of the air and killed Mog.

Rocks fall everyone dies.

(If you can't tell, I have a very miserable life.)

(We could tell.)

I'm pretty sure I called that one in like the second Mog116 post.

I can tell when noone wants me to help write the story, and I can also tell when everyone hates me. I can tell that time is now.

I can tell you won't stay away for long. Because, as you said yourself, your life sucks. What else do you have to do except write crap on the internet and hope somewhere, somehow, someday, someone praises you for it?

And where's Pikachu3164 when you need him?

Posts #531-535: 23 April 2000

Post #531, by pogopunk

screaming, pogopunk ran from the evil shape coming from the ceiling. "aieeeeeeee!"

"stop screaming you ninny," it said, "anyway, falcon's destroyed this sanctuary, so my work here is done..now on to another sanctuary..mwehehe" snickering to itself, the figure melted away, off to wreak more havoc.

No, I don't recall ever hearing about any evil entities from the ceiling, either.

"oh craps! this place is falling apart!" pogopunk said, to no one in particular, since ice had vanished.

That's refreshing honesty, isn't it? He's acknowledging no one is listening to him.

"ugh, i'm getting outta here!" teleporting out of the cave of pink cloud, he appeared near a dalaamese shop. after munching on a bowl of rice gruel, he debated what to do next. he could try and stop falcon24, but he knew some other group would take him.

Translation: Oh wow, I just realized how boring this whole trying to oppose Falcon24 thing is.

[stinks, i'm stuck in a cell, those spoony happy-happyists] luna sent out. [anyway, someone help me, i hate it here]

I know I said this already, but it's funny the way teenagers were dreaming of cell phones before the technology to make it happen finally got there. Good thing the technology took its time; I don't think I could have tolerated a Gathering where everyone is txtn each other.

perking up his ears (even though that doesnt really help receive psychic calls) pogopunk sent out a message of his own.

[ok luna, i'm gonna come and help you bust outta there. it wont be pretty, so sit tight]

[yeah yeah, just hurry up. i'm feeling claustrophobic, plus it smells in here!] she said.

and so paying for his meal, pogopunk teleported off to the mountain cabin to free luna. arriving there, and batting a couple of spiteful crows out of his face, he entered the cabin. "phew! it does smell in here! geez, those happy-happyists are reallly in need of a shower or something," he said, covering his nose up. "ok, lemme try and bash it down with my pogostick." rearing back his stick, he took a deep breath and smaaaashed the bars. a loud metallic ring reverberated through the mountains, and pogopunk found his shiny new stick with a dent in it.

"silly pogo, you didnt do anything. sigh, do i have to do everything myself?" taking a hair clip, she bent over and picked the lock. "there, all better."

The bending over was the important part.

dumbstruck, pogopunk mumbled, "umm, well, er, good job, lets get going!"

luna and pogopunk made their way out, but were stopped by a small group of happy-happyists. "blue blue, loud ring you made, blue blue, not nice, blue blue, suffer!"

"so, what do you suppose we do know, luna?"

Talk about IF-as-fantasy-fulfillment. For the not EarthBound initiated among you, pogopunk just re-enacted every teenage boy's very favorite scene from EarthBound, the one where you rescue the pretty girl who's being held captive in a jail cell. (Yeah, deep down, it was mine, too. Teenage boys are predictable that way.) Except, of course, he put Luna in there instead of Paula. You might wonder what the hell that was all about seeing as how Luna effortlessly let herself out of the cell. It's because she was waiting for someone as dreamy as pogopunk to come and rescue her. Duh.

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Post #532, by Godeg

Give Godeg credit. He's already hung around longer than I expected he would.

Mike arrives at pink cloud just in time to see Falcon24 hurl a large chunk of rock. Without hesitating, Mike powered up his weapon systems and fired upon the rock, saving the group that the rock was originally intended for.

How exactly does Mike know that Falcon24 isn't the hero, just about to save the world from certain doom by crushing the group of nefarious villains beneath said rock?

Well, yeah, I know he's Falcon24. But 'Mike' doesn't know that, cool mech thing be damned.

"Hrm... this looks bad. Maybe i should have just turned around when i had the chance" Mike thought. Mike sees Falcon24 turn around, directing has hand toward Mike's battle walker. "Oh carp. I'm screwed." Mike realized that he was in trouble.

The Department of Redundancy Department approves of those last two sentences.

Chunks of rocks started flying at Mike's walker from all directions, and the walker was destroyed. The resulting explosion launched Mike from pink cloud out into the Peaceful Rest Valley area, leaving him unconscious.

Though the mech was cool, you'll see (assuming Godeg continues posting) that it made no effective difference whatsoever on his AC, who will continue teleporting around and generally being invincible as normal.

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Post #533, by Foppy King

(Ok please respond to me. Anybody. Do you now how boring it is to be ignored. PLEASE? I will join anyone. ANYONE.)

There's something almost charming about his raw pleas for attention. You're thinking, 'yeah, no doubt this kid killed himself eight or nine years ago,' but you'd be wrong. He's still around SM.Net now and again.

The cry for attention thing on its own isn't that big a deal. What's annoying is how damn lazy this kid is. This is four or five times now he's posted nothing except 'PLZ TO PAY ATTENSHUN TO ME?'. Zero content. It's not like it takes much effort to just write yourself into somebody's group, and they won't pay any active attention to you, sure, but they'll probably attach your name somewhere in their next post. But that's too much work for our friend Foppy King.

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Post #534, by PajamaManV4M

Well.. I have about ten minutes. So I'll make this one quick.

Thank God.

PajamaMan was in trouble.

Any way we can skip past the 'trouble' part and move straight to the funeral? Or burial, even better.

No one had responded to his call for help.

Well, color me shocked. Shocked!

How would he be able to get through Deep Darkness with a bunch of mean baddies hiding in the swamp? He was scared of the swamp. He didn't know what enemies lurked below, and he felt like a huge serpant would arise and swallow him whole. And what worried him the most was that he kept getting a vision of a large, pink cloud getting the energy sucked out of it. All seemed grimy.

Where the hell did 'grimy' come from? SimCity 2000's random adjective generator?

Then, from the sky, he could see a small thing headed this way.
"Great! More trouble!"

It came down faster than he thought, and soon landed it's feet on the ground. It looked like a Flying Man, only the fact that his head was bright green and the rest of his body was dark green.

"Hi. I'm Zakk. You can call me Flying Man 6."
"Wh-who are you?"
"Zakk. I'm going to join your party."

Like hell you are. You're only allowed one AC in this story, son.

No, really, as with SuperSpeedy and whoever else, I presume he'll get away with working an AC, since PSI322 isn't reading his posts, and neither is anyone else. As long as he steers clear of Tengu Man no one will ever notice.

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Post #535, by Dr. Andonuts

Nathan decided to teleport back to Pink Cloud and see what was happening. He hit a button on his laptop and appeared just in time to see Mike get hit. "Thats got to hurt," he thought.

That was quite unnecessary. "That was a totally irrelevant and redundant piece of dialogue," thought the reader.

Seeing that Falcon was using the energies of the Sanuary locations he took out his Sound Stone and used it counter Falcon's earth energies. Nathan then sent out a quick psyic call. [Anyone with a sanuary melody send half of their sound stone to Pink Cloud, quickly. We need the melodies to netualize Falcon's use of them.]

Oh, come on. Even ignoring the ridiculous number of spelling errors, this reads like an experiment to find the most weak-ass effort at opposing Falcon24 theoretically possible. I'll be shocked if Falcon24 uses more than two sentences on disregarding it, and doubly shocked if anyone besides Dr. A ever mentions it again.

Posts #516-520: 23 April 2000

Post #516, by PajamaManV4M

PajamaMan had no time. He needed help.
Anyone who can hear me.. help.. I am stuck in Deep Darkness.. anyone..

If anyone wants to help PajamaMan, get to Deep Darkness.

Add yet another entry to list of People Crying For Attention. At the rate this is going, it doesn't look good for the rain forests.

This was posted two minutes after PMV's post #516. I suppose he didn't know how to use the 'Edit Post' feature.

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Post #517, by PSIOsman

(Does anyone else think this should be compiled into a fanfic?)

Ten years later, I'm the first person to compile it into anything. And it's not really a fanfic. To try and actually edit the various grammatical problems and disorganization out of the Gathering... well, if there's a particular room in hell for editors, I'm sure that's on the to-do list there.

PSIOsman, Scimitar in hand, ran through the dark halls of the Stonehenge base. He saw the remains of battles with Starmen and Mooks all over.

"The guys must have been through here…"

He heard a ferocious battle up ahead. HE ran through a door, and saw Tim, Juliana, and Sir defeating the last pair of Superb Starmen.

I highly approve of the way he went out of his way to not only ignore but pretty much spit on Liyoshi's attempt to force someone to write a long fight scene.

"Hey, guys! I have something to tell you it's about Poo! He--- uh…"

They all turned toward him.

"What?" Asked Juliana. "What about Poo?"

"B-b-behind you…" Osman stammered.

They turned back around to see the Supreme Starman hovering in the air.

Maybe it's just because I'm so awesome and plebeians can't do it, but I could have told them about Poo and mentioned the Supreme Starman, all in one sentence.

"Uh oh…" said Sir.

The Supreme Starman started flying around the room, firing laser blasts at the group.

Scary.

PSIOsman leaped and dodged, but he got grazed in the arm. The Diamond Scimitar skittered away across the floor. Tim, Sir, and Juliana scattered, trying to avoid the laser fire. Sir pulled out his light bazooka with SAM attachment and took aim. The shell locked on. Sir fired… and the shell exploded seven feet away!

Thus blowing Major Asshole's face off?

"CRAP!" Yelled Tim. "He's got a shield."

(a) This would appear to be Osman's way of saying 'ha ha, Major Asshole, no bazooka for you this time!'
(b) Are you tired of everything having shields and a big deal being made of it all the damn time? I am. JESUS CHRIST IT'S GOT A SHIELD WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO NOW OH GOD WE'RE SCREWED

PSIOsman got up. The Supreme Starman turned to him and started charging up his Supreme Beam.

Well, that's pretty stupid of it. Its standard beams were doing the job pretty well. Damned set-in-stone AI scripts.

Wait! Don't tell me what happens next!

Osman ran to his Scimitar, and in one motion jumped, leaped off the wall, and brought the Scimitar down just as Supreme Starman fired. The blast reflected off of it, and struck the Starman's shield. However, Supreme Starman was a bit shocked, as was PSIOsman…

PSIOsman makes a totally awesome move to save the-- DAMMIT! I told you to wait!

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Post #518, by Chris

(Ladies and gentlman: Due to the fact that Ice had to close the original topic due to its incredible length, I've created a Best of Interactive Fiction archive. For now, it's the only IF in there, but more may be added as time goes by. Just letting everyone know.)

Yes, from the bottom of my heart, thank you, Chris. Without your efforts, I wouldn't have the entire Gathering archived on my computer (and on various backup media) to this very day.

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Post #519, by Mog116

Long time no see from one of the active posters back at party time.

Mog opened his eyes. "Huh!? Wnere am I?" There was a Nurse by another bed at the hospital. "You fell down a flight of stairs."
(I really did, My mom got me a get well Video-Game because I pulled my leg. I've been playing it)

Mog avoids naming the video game, because if he did that, some people might say something like 'oh, that game rules! What do you think about (insert plot event here)?' and then Mog would be forced to admit he's lying.

If Mog weren't lying, you would think he'd be giddy about his new game and bragging to everybody about what game it is.

Short version: Mog disappeared from the IF board for a week, was staggered by the volume of posts during his absence, and came up with a mildly exotic-sounding story to explain his absence and hopefully garner some sympathy. He still has nothing on EBaholic, who faked his death and got half the community to believe it, even though he claimed to have died of cystic fibrosis even though he had posted numerous pictures of himself showing that he weighed 250 pounds*. SM.Netters weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, as a bunch.

* One of CF's telltale symptoms is that its victims get deathly thin before they expire. And CF is a horrible disease, and faking it because everyone hates you and you want to read a bunch of posts from people saying nice things about you, is deplorable.

"Oh." Mog got up, tripped over his duffel bag, pickecx up his duffel bag and went outside. [Hm... We need the Melodies so... PIKACHU Send me a sound stone!] All of a sudden, a rock fell from the sky and hit Mog. [Look for the Ninth Your Sanctuary spot] Mog realized the power of PSI Teleport Omega! Mog realized the power of PSI Sound Omega! Mog realized the power of PSI Summon Omega!

I don't quite understand why people find it necessary to add various superpowers to their AC's for no plot-relevant reason at all right in the middle of the story. Why don't you just cut to the chase and state right at the beginning that your AC is God?

Mog Uses PSI Teleport Omega to teleport to The Lost underworld.

I once theorized that many people in the EarthBound world have Teleport Omega. Evidence: Go into the empty room on the third floor of the Fourside Department Store, stand in the far bottom left corner of the screen (next to the door) and use the For Sale Sign. Observe that your customer will arrive from the right, where there is nothing but a solid wall.

"I'll start here." Mog walked up to the Lost Cave. This place has had really strange music, Mog thought, Mabye I should start here. Mog turned left and saw something gleaming. He walked to it, and, in a bright flash, A PSIer (My version of an Earthbound Esper, It teaches you Different PSI) Mog realized the Power of PSI Float! Mog used PSI float to cross the gaps. After a while, he stopped to Examine his PSIer.

Name:
Stray: Confuses enamies.
PSI:
Float: Makes character float, cross gaps.
Mimic: Mimics last command.
Warp: Exits dungeons.
Quake: Earth damage.

Mog eguips it, and proceeds to climb the muontain.

For some people, IF is nothing more than literary masturbation. Oh, yeah, MY character has THIS power and THAT power and THAT power and HAHAHAHAHAH POWER! UUUUUNLIMITED POWER!!!!

---

(Note: I want to write about the song I find. Anyone who wants to help may help, though. Just let my reveal the giygan Spacecraft From Mother1, were the last song is found. WHOOPS! Well, ya know m=y plan, so anyone can reveal it)

Sadly, his plan to make himself important by naming the 'Ninth Sanctuary' has a fair chance of succeeding. You'd think people would just ignore people randomly spouting something like this without bothering to write any plot about it--Mog's post here contains nothing except the aforementioned literary masturbation--but... well... I don't know why they do what they do.

---

Post #520, by Falcon24

"Get AWAY from me!!" Falcon kicks pogopunk to the other side of the cavern. "You have no idea what you're doing!!" Falcon scrambled onto his feet, grabbed the Sound Sapper,and raced towards Pink Cloud. "No one will stop me!!!!"

Three exclamations, three quotes straight out of the Generic Villain Handbook. I'm certain at this point that Falcon24 is doing that on purpose.

At Pink Cloud at last, Falcon scrambled to fling the switch on the Sound Sapper. The black rock emanated with pure evil energy as the world, and music around the sanctuary became distorted. The Pink Cloud began to turn a shade of grey...

Hey, question: If you wreck Pink Cloud, mightn't you fall through it as it disintegrates and plummet to your violent doom three thousand feet below? I mean, obviously Falcon24 personally wouldn't, with wings and all. But it sounds plausible, right?

Posts #510-515: 23 April 2000

Post #510, by icEFusioN

The other thread got messed up cause of so many posts. Continue on in here.

Yes, that's right, welcome to the very first second thread of a forum topic in starmen.net history. The first one got so long it broke the s--- out of the forum.

---

Post #511, by Little Yoshi

Tim(or at least, I think I'm still at Stonehenge, I haven't been mentioned here in a while)

Boo hoo. Cry us a river.

You've surely noticed the frequency with which people toss into their posts little comments whose purpose is to complain about not getting enough attention, no?

ran down the dark corridor, Masamune in hand, trying to dodge the Superb Starman's devasting lasers. Once in range, he gace it an Aqua Slash, a move he invented by using Rainy Circle's power, and Leap Slash together. It wasn't easily defeated however. This gave Tim's friends(I'm not sure exactly who all is here) time to catch up.

Not so fast, partner. What's this business about you having friends?

Juliana bashed it with a SMAAAAAAASHing hit, and defeated it. They moved on, only to be greeted by a pair of Superb Starmen. They started firing long range weapons at Tim, Juliana, and Sir, who had caught up. Tim had a good defense, and great armor. He tried to protect Sir and Juliana by getting the blows.

I think 'absorbing' or 'deflecting' was the word he was searching for her to describe his amazingly manly activities. When in doubt, toss in a form of 'to get' and move on with your life.

They reached the duet, and attacked, full force, defeating them quickly.

LOL @ 'duet'. The Superb Starmen were singing while firing frickin' laser beams! ('Duo' is the word he wanted, and either couldn't quite grasp it or tried to be fancy.)

They rounded the bend, and saw a Supreme Starman! This guy looked very similar to Final Starman, but bigger, and with a jetpack.They knew this battle would not go quickly(and please people, don't make it short!)

The world wants to know: If you're so concerned about someone else simply writing 'so Sir whacked the Supreme Starman and we all moved on' (a legitimate concern, because nobody except Timmy wants to read a long battle sequence, much less write one), why don't you write it out yourself right now? Right: Because it's boring.

Here Liyoshi is trying to clamp down limitations on what other people are allowed to write, which is a monstrous IF no-no. Made worse by the fact that one of those people is the Supreme-Dictator-For-Life of the forums.

---

Post #512, by pogopunk

still frozen in place, pogopunk noted that falcon had defeated the guardian. he saw falcon bring out his sound sapper, and at that moment everything clicked. "OHMIGOSH, HE'S GONNA DESTROY PINK CLOUD!" pogo exclaimed. "gwaaa! you cannot have it!" lunging himself at the bewildered falcon, they wrestled on the floor, falcon trying to get into the sanctuary, pogopunk trying to knock away the sound sapper. ice just sorta stood there, with his mouth open, halfway drooling. he stared dumbly at the two, when suddenly he threw himself into the two. biting and snarling took place, when suddenly a loud rumbling shook the floor.

"grrrr! pogopunk, ice! get outta the way and let falcon destroy this place. he must continue to rid eagleland of the sanctuaries, so i may take over! nyahaha!" boomed a mysterious voice. the group stopped wrestling and stood in fear, wondering who the evil shape coming through the ceiling was...

[note: lets not have it be pokey or giygas. be creative!]

Once again... well, just see the annotations to the above Liyoshi post. IF is a constant struggle for control, which is why it's called 'Interactive' rather than 'Cooperative'. Big difference between those two concepts. Cooperative fiction is never done on a private forum; it's done between a small, select group of writers who are usually friends or at least friendly acquaintances, one or two of which everyone knows to be the alpha dogs with final decision making authority; it used to be done via email, but now is typically done via a private forum; and the plot is typically planned out ahead of time.

Waaaay back in the day, I was part of a group of five writers... I think it was myself, PSI322, Anthadd, TsuramiSea and Falcon24, but don't hold me to that. We all agreed IF had gotten to be more of a bother than it was worth, and we should write our own cooperative fic, which we called 'Project: Spectrum'. It petered out after a little while. Sometime later, just PSI, Falcon and myself did one (on a private forum) called 'The Nightmare Rock' which was actually quite good, but once again, it just kind of died on the vine eventually.

Sometime after that, after I had vanished from the scene, Falcon joined with PSI, SimonBob and various other luminaries to produce the humbly titled 'Greatest IF Ever', which really was excellent and I think is still in the starmen.net fanfics section, along with various other successful collaborative fics. If you tire of the unintentional comedy of the Gathering and want to see cooperative fiction that works, go look those up.

As usual, it turned out I was the problem.

---

Post #513, by Godeg

[Onett, near giant step]
Mike was sleeping, when all of a sudden alarms started going off.

"What the freak? What's goin on?!" Mike exclaimed, as he was confused from being jerked out of sleep so suddenly.

The battlewalker's radio came to life, and started throwing out a series of messages. "Sir, it appears as if a massive energy signature has appeared on the island that you are on. It seems to be in the vicinity of pink cloud. It is advised that you stay away from there."

No points for guessing what happens next.

Nitpick: If the guy's using the intentionally vague phrase 'in the vicinity', he should probably be saying 'of Dalaam', not the very specific 'of Pink Cloud'.

"Shuh, yeah right. I'm goin over there. Gimme the location." Mike ordered, and the location was downloaded to his walker's nav computer. "Alright, im gonna go there... just as soon as i go check out the sanctuary."

If you find your mech hacking through underbrush, you know you're on the right track.

Mike sets off to Giant Step, and just as he was about to arrive there, he was confronted by a humungous ant. "Holy cow! What the freak is that?" Mike wondered, bewildered by the insect that was as tall as his walker.

"I am Titanicystein Mk. II. I am the guardian of this sanctuary... take it from me, if you dare." the gigantic ant stated, and a battle started.

Wasn't that guy already whacked? Maybe he's actually Titanicystein Mk. IV, but they have a Guardian Digger-like complex where they all think they're II.

The ant started to attack Mike, and Mike started freaking out. Alarms were going off everywhere, and the situation wasn't looking good. "Cycle shield harmonics! Target lasers to strike between the carapace!" Mike exclaimed, and the walker's computers executed the orders. Lasers of many colors were fired, and all scored a hit between the head and thorax of the ant. The ant exploded, and Mike was free to go on to investigate the sanctuary.

The Enraged PETA Activist and his cohorts came after you!

[Giant Step]
In the sanctuary, Mike could just barely hear a melody being played. Mike wondered where it could be coming from, and decided to dismiss the thought. The left display in Mike's walker started to glow, and the computer said that a melody was recorded and saved. "Hrm... thats kinda cool... kinda. I'm off to pink cloud now to investigate this energy fluctuation." Mike said to nobody in particular. Mike activated the autopilot, and the walker was headed in the direction of pink cloud, just as he was falling asleep.

You have to admit that long-distance transportation that operates itself while you sleep or do whatever else you'd like, currently available only to those wealthy enough to own private jets, is an awfully nice concept. You think the world's a small place now because of the intarwebs, you ain't seen nothing yet, son.

---

Post #514, by Foppy King

At Stonehenge Base...
Tim had been fighting off Starmen and Octobots, and was growing tired. Then, a Starman fired a Multi Bottle Rocket. "AAAAAHHHH!" he yelled. Suddenly, the Foppy King rushed into the area and casted Shield Omega.

Which, if you had the HP of an EarthBound character, would not prevent you from getting killed by the Multi bottle rocket. Even at half damage you're still talking around 800-1000 HP there. But these are AC's, of course.

The Multi Bottle Rocket was deflected. The Starman was defeated. "It's you again." said Tim. "I would like to asist you." said the Foppy King. Tim replied...
>Yes >No
(For Tim to decide)

'Good. You just did. Bye!'

---

Post #515, by PajamaManV4M

PajamaMan traveled through the murky swamps of Deep Darkness, getting such-n-stuff on his pajamas.

What makes Deep Darkness such a desirable spot for people to wander around in, anyway? Was it just the PSI322 Effect, or is it that people for some reason are actually attracted to the notion of slagging through an endless, thick, filthy, poisonous swamp full of critters that want to kill you? It's not as exotic as it sounds.

He was glad that it washed the mud off, though. To keep his head up above the swamp, he kicked his legs up hard when his head started sinking.

Not gonna work, Junior. You can't tread pudding.

He started to get used to the murky depths of Deep Darkness. No problem. he thought. It was perfectly silent, and it seemed nothing could stop or threaten him at all. He took a right turn and found a nice amount of land, just enough to crash for a little. There was a broken helicopter which seized to work on the land(you can guess where he is now),

What the hell does any of that sentence mean?

but he didn't pay much attention to it. Everything was A-OK.
..
..
..
"WHARGH!!!"
PajamaMan barely avoided a huge pile of barf aimed at his head. From the water arose the biggest pile of puke he had ever seen.
The Big Pile of Puke.
"DROWN IN PUKE, SPANKY!" the Big Pile of Puke hollered, throwing up at PajamaMan.

You have to admit, that is a very masculine taunt.

He jumped behind the helicopter, and almost threw up himself when he saw the vomit comit splatter on the windows. The Big Pile of Puke was going insane, barf flying on the trees. Soon, he stopped.
PajamaMan slowly sidestepped to the right, thinking that he went away.
"HAHAHA! ATTACK!"
An Even Slimier Little Pile flew out at PajamaMan, screaming at the top of it's tiny lungs. He had almost no time to react.
PSI Nachos Alpha!
"Huh?" the Even Slimier Little Pile gasped as psychic cheese and nachos flew at him.

I would think a smily little pile and/or big pile of puke would love to be smothered in nacho cheese.

The mexican beam worked it's way quickly toward The Big Pile of Puke, sending them both against a really big tree. They were both KO'ed.
"Niftyness!"

Posts #501-505: 23 April 2000

Post #501, by PsycoPyro

[[Anytime, QC. call me PP, mmk?]]

Oh, brother. I mean it, guys: this kid really has issues.

I looked behind and saw HIM!!!!
"NOOOO!!" I screamed. Only I am THE PYRO!!! You are a phony! A phony!!"
PPyro smirked at me and I whipped out my guns. I shot rounds.
355 HP Damage to PPyro. PPyro is defeated.
"There. No more PsycoPyro Wannabes!!! Now let's head for the hot springs!"
We journeyed to Hot Springs to find...

I mean... what do you even say to something like this? You say, 'okaaaaaaay', and move along.

[This message has been edited by PsycoPyro (edited 04-23-2000).]

---

Post #502, by Queen Catherine

Hey, look, another phony!!!

...everyone leaving!
"Wait for us!" I called out, but it was too late.
Everyone teleport and left us back in the Hot Springs.

He keeps saying 'hot springs', when he means the Fire Spring. Because, again, he never got that far in EarthBound, so he wouldn't know.

"We're left behind again!" I said, gritted my teeth."Well, at least I was right about them being here." Matt said.
I sighed, not knowing where else to go. We were stuck in The Lost Underworld. Trapped until someone could teleport us out...

Praise the Lord and pass the ammo.

---

Post #503, by Godeg

(Alright, here i go. This is my first IF entry ever, so be nice alright? I just went and read the entire IF today, so if ive got some screwed up stuff, im sorry)

He won't be sticking around. Guys like this usually don't, as (a) Godeg was a popular starmen.netter and usually busy socializing and (b) Godeg is not that interested in IF, but rather was sucked in by Gathering Mania, leading to (c) Godeg will quickly discover that the mind-staggering volume of new posts that accumulate in even a few hours far outstrips his interest in reading them to keep up.

[On board the Starcruiser Denterion]

The less-than-greater-than symbols were a lot more popular in 2000 than I remember them being, now that I have to replace them all with brackets. You'd be amazed how fast I've gotten at CTRL+H-lessthan-tab-[-tab-tab-tab-tab-enter-tab-tab-greaterthan-tab-]-tab-tab-tab-tab-enter. It would take your breath away.

"Ahh yes, finally our tactical advances in the Delta Sector have paid off. I think its time for a little break", Mike (me), commander of the Denterion, said to his Operations officer.

Why do people always feel it's so important to notify everyone that the AC they're introducing is (me!)? We know.

"Well, sir, it appears as if a whole bunch of sm.netters have gotten together for a little gathering. I think it would be to your advantage if you were to go and attend that.", the Ops officer stated.
"Hrm... i think you're right. I'm there. You're in command until i return", Mike said. "I think ill go and prepare my battle walker, considering that i may run into trouble."

I guess he's sharing with us a little tidbit on what a badass Mike is, or something. You'll notice how the probability any other writer/reader will ever in his/her life care about any of the above is 0.0%, but that doesn't stop people from writing it.

[Denterion Walker Support Bay]
"Alright, im ready. Ive got my battle walker all set... shield harmonics are normal, and weapons are operational. Life support is online as well. Beam me down to the gathering, Ops." In a flash of light, Mike is beamed down onto the beach of Eagleland Island.

I'm getting teary-eyed and nostalgic, wishing the halcyon days of wrecked aircraft littering the beach would return, if only for a day. *sniff*

By the way, did you guys hear about that 14 year old girl that fended off a goddamned shark with her goddammed boogieboard? That is pure distilled awesome. Not that I'm going to have her whacked or anything--I'm actually very fond of her--but if I ever lose my wife and manage to recover from the grief, I am tracking that girl down and marrying her, just as an experiment to see what the theoretical maximum Awesome rating of a newborn child could be. If she's already married, well... I won't know that guy, so I won't be above having him whacked.

I imagine the guy that runs badassoftheweek.com has already been deluged with emails on the subject.

[Eagleland Island: Beach]
"Hrm... looks like they were kickin it pretty good at this party. Looks kinda deserted, though. Wonder where everybody is at." Mike thought aloud.

Why do people insist on giving us internal monologues that tell us things we already know?

At this point, the battle walker's radio starts stating a message.

"Sir, it appears as if this island is based on the eagleland from Earthbound. The other people have gone on adventures trying to secure various sanctuaries. Perhaps you should go off on your own for now, like off to Giant Step in Onett" the radio said.

"Hrm... onett, eh? I think ill just request the location of that place from you guys up there, and have autopilot take me there. I think ill sleep for awhile... yes, that sounds good." Mike thought. Mike's battlewalker accepts the location of onett, and starts walking off in onett's general direction, as Mike drifts off into sleep.

That's wonderful. This post provides nothing useful or entertaining, which I suspect was intentional on Godeg's part; he likely didn't really expect to hang around. It's just a cameo.

---

Post #504, by Falcon24

Falcon shouted! "What are you waiting for, pogo!? Help me!!" Falcon noticed that pogo seemed to be in an almost catatonic state, "Oh, for crying out loud...Fine!!" Falcon struggled immensly, and at last broke free of Thunder & Storm's grip. He did a double backflip away from the monstrosity and then held out his hand.

He got the double backflip from Super Mario 64, naturally. Z plus A for the win!

"PSI Hypnosis Omega!!" An endless spiral seemed to come forth from Falcon's hand, directed at Thunder & Storm.

On whom Hypnosis very rarely works.

The hypnosis waves smashed into the apparition. It fell asleep! Falcon ran up and started kicking it. "Take that!! And THAT!! And some of THIS!!" it wasn't until he saw everyone staring at him did he stop.

"Errr...yeah...guess I should probably defeat it already..."

Yeah, pretty much. My kingdom for a writer who knows how to write a half-decent IF fight scene. Honestly, 'I kill Thunder and Storm' is far superior to anything anyone in this crew has belted out. Watching a cat play with a mouse is only interesting for about ten seconds at a time.

Falcon's hand reared back, a blast of arctic PSI Freeze encasing his hand in a shimmering blue glow. Then he released it, showering the guardian with a blast of freezing wind. Thunder & Storm froze right through, and Falcon merely had to tap it to cause him to shatter into thousands of tiny pieces.

"Well, now that that's over...a melody awaits."

---

Post #505, by PajamaManV4M

wow.. this is a huge post. oh well. I can never back out on a 3rd person writing interacting thing, so, I'll try this.

He's not kidding. I've never heard of this guy; as best I can tell, he wrote a handful of posts on the Gathering, a handful of posts on the Beyond EarthBound board, and promptly vanished into the ether from whence he came. Lifetime post count: Less than 20. The thing is, his few Gathering posts are ridiculously long. This is by far the longest post the Gathering has yet seen, and probably is a strong contender for longest post in the Gathering even after it's all done and we've seen Tengu and Chris's finest efforts.

Since neither of us cares about this guy, I'm not going to annotate his monstrosities much.

---------------------------------------------

PajamaMan had been cruising around in special Pajama Boat, one of his most worthless things. He'd won it in a contest to see who could come up with the most silliest outfit to wear every day.. and to think, all he had to do was accidently drop his nachos onto the stage.

PajamaMan thought what he would write in his journal for today.
4/23/00
I've been cruising around for a long time. I thought I'd reach land a long time ago, but-*%!581.
PajamaMan was tossed out the window of his Pajama Boat, and into some mud.

"Ugh.." moaned PajamaMan. "that was not nifty." He got up out of the mud, and brushed off his PJ's.
"The pajamas are OK, but my boat isn't."

I like to think they're feety pajamas. Feety pajamas are awesome.

He looked around. He saw a big, rock wall to his left, impossible to climb. On the right were some swampy trees, going in a line foward and then taking a left turn. And dead ahead was swamp water. It seemed useless to go ahead-but then he saw a monkey in the trees!

"Hey! Help!" yelled out PajamaMan, hoping the little monkey would understand what he said.
"What?"
PajamaMan was a little shocked..
"I'm waiting for an answer.."
"Uhh.. hi. Me human. Me need... h-e-l-p. Understand in me?" PajamaMan blurted.
"You confuse me.. come inside and let's talk."
PajamaMan took it a bit more seriously, and responded.
"Where?"
"Over here."
PajamaMan followed the voice and found a hut, and the monkey.

The sad thing is, is this better than 90% of the writing we've seen so far. It actually has a sprinkling of that, whatyacallit, plot.

Inside the hut..

"Where am I?" PajamaMan asked.
"You're in a place called Deep Darkness. It became a whole lot brighter when some kids threw a Hawk's Eye into the water. Better watch out, because there are many enemys lurking in the water, and the water is very deep." the monkey replied.

It's sludge more than water, really.

"WHAT?! Deep Darkness?! That's not even in the USA!"
"It is in Eagleland."
PajamaMan was silent.
"... I need help."
"SQUAK!"
"What was that?" PajamaMan got up.
A Telephone Myna Bird flew into the room.

I was under the impression they were kind of tethered to the pole they sit on, or at least that they had to be sitting on said pole in order for the phone to work.

"A TELEPHONE! I'LL CALL FOR HELP!"
PajamaMan grabbed the Myna Bird and started pulling on it's head. The bird got ticked off and started scratching PajamaMan with it's talons while screeching. Eventually, he got smart and let go.
"Don't mess with those." the monkey pointed out.
"Thanks anyway.. where is the next village?"
"Not far from here. Infact, it's right up on that small hill."
"The big rock wall? Can you get me there? My boat crashed."
"Sure! You'll get some help there."

PajamaMan and the monkey stood on the edge of deep swampwater.
"Uhh.. you go first." PajamaMan nudged the monkey a little.
He probably wants me to go in there!
"Sure." the monkey agreed and just went in.
"Whoa!"
The monkey was at the other side in no time.
"Now it's your turn, PajamaMan."
"How'd you know my name??"
"The kids that threw the Hawk's Eye into the water also taught a monkey PSI. They taught him only Teleport, but he soon became one of the biggest people in PSI."
"Ooo.. can I learn it?"
"Sure.. if you get over here."
PajamaMan looked at the swampy goop and sighed. He had no choice, so he took a deep breath, and jumped. He landed right in the middle, and quickly swam across. He gasped for air, with the length of the swamp and all.
"Follow me."
The monkey took a short trip up a hill and PajamaMan saw monkeys, humans, and huts. He took PajamaMan to a tree, where a white, floating monkey was meditating against a tree.
"Kickikiyo, we have a human who wants to learn the art of PSI."
"..."
Kickikiyo started glowing blue, and the monkey who escorted PajamaMan vanished.
PajamaMan, I assume.
Huh? Who is this?
My name is Kickikiyo, the monkey meditating against the tree.
Umm.. ok. Please explain what is happening.
I have just taught you telekienisis. I can tell, because I can hear you through your thoughts.
.. you did?
Yes. To use it, just simply put the image of the person into your head, and start thinking words. If you have a good mind, you can talk to many people at once.

*sigh* All of that just for yet another AC God Mode masturbating session?

Awesome. This is PSI?
Not really. This is simply the start. What is your favorite thing? Mm, abidaba... ah, pajamas. That won't work. Next favorite thing.. nachos? Heh. I guess this will work. Now, do this. Not through minds, say PSI Nachos Alpha.
"PSI Nachos Alpha!"
PajamaMan's hands started glowing. He lifted his right hand, and some outlined glowing rainbow nachos flew at the rock wall behind the tree. He lifted his left hand, and VERY hot rainbow outlined cheese flew at the wall.
"Awesome."
Now, take this.
An old backpack appeared in front of PajamaMan.
"What's this?" PajamaMan grabbed the backpack and opened it up. It was filled with truffles and bread rolls.
You'll need this to get through Deep Darkness. If your PSI doesn't work, eat one or two truffles. If you feel unhealthy, eat a bread roll or two. Overtime, you will gain new PSI.
"Uhh.. ok."
PajamaMan walked away from the tree, wondering what that was all about.

In my defense, I would wonder what this is all about, but I just can't quite bring myself to care. Moving right along...