🐍 WELCOME TO ACE TOWN 🏠
The Quest Begins
I awoke to the sound or cries of Summer morning cicadas outside my window. Although I felt sluggish and wanted to sleep in, I knew that if I didn’t get out of bed now I’d get back to resting for another few hours. Before I could have a chance to convince myself that I’d just need "five more minutes", I hopped out of the bed and stretched out my muscles to get my blood flowing. I glanced around the room - there wasn’t much in it aside from my bed, a hanging wall clock, a CRT television atop a stand, and a coffee table with a single green GameBoy Color resting alongside a brown suede-like backpack on top of it. A black cauldron bubbled softly over the low flame in my fireplace at the far corner of the room. There wasn’t much to it, but I found comfort in its minimalistic and tidy home.
Feeling a bit more awake, I got closer to my clock to check the time. 7:55, a bit earlier than I expected to wake up. Maybe I should reconsider giving myself 5 more minutes to even things out at a clean looking 8:00. Ignoring the temptation, I made my way to the kettle to see what had been brewing overnight. Mushroom Soup. Looks delicious. I'd love to eat this with some Bread.
I took another glance around the room. No cabinets in sight, huh? I’m not sure why I was so surprised at that. Maybe I have some leftover bread in my bag. I returned to the center of the room. Of course the backpack was crafted from mushroom leather so although it looked like suede it had a slightly more plush feel to it, and a woodsy fragrance. I lifted the flap off the backpack and peered inside.
APPLE x1
BROCCOLI SEEDS x4
FISHING ROD x1
FARM MULCH x6
MEDIUM FISH x2
TOWN MAP x1
Hmm, no Bread? The Apple may be good for later, but I’d really like something to dunk into my soup. I dug into the small coin pouch on my hip. 3000g. That should be more than enough for a loaf. I pulled my Town Map from the bag. Though I of course knew where the market was, it felt somewhat calming to confirm how close it was on the map. I equipped my backpack, spun on my heel, and walked towards the exit. But mid-spin I could have sworn I caught a glimpse of a small green tail quickly crawling under my bed. I cautiously approached to confirm, but there was nothing underneath. With a shrug, I turned once again and departed on my quest for Bread.
The town was covered in lush green grass and bright blue flowers, with vibrant pink brick pathways to walk along. It was indeed just as small as the map had made it out to be, with only 4 other houses aside from my own and a market in its center. Although every house looked the same, mine was the only one with a garden next to it. I do prefer to grow my own vegetables whenever I can, it’s rewarding to successfully grow a large yield all by yourself.
The path leading to the north should get me to the market in no time. On the way there I came across a neighboring villager, and was compelled to start small talk with him.
“Isn’t this town the best? There’s never a dull moment. Did you get to check out the market yet? You can find some really good deals there!”
Indeed, I was just on my way to the market so haven’t yet seen today’s deals. I mentioned I was on my way there and thanked him for his suggestion to look out for any sales. It wasn’t long at all before I actually found myself in front of the store. A large sign roughly the same height as me stood out from the ground in front of it.
TOWN SHOP
Did they really need such a large sign for just that? I guess I had never really considered how much it stood out. Maybe I should have really given myself another 5 minutes in bed to shake off some of this brain fog. As I opened the door to the shop I was greeted with a welcoming little jingle. ~Ding dong ding dong~ the joyful sounding melody rang as the doors opened.
The market was a lot smaller than it looked from the outside, with only 3 rows of shelves and a cooler towards the back. Nonetheless, I walked to the shop owner’s counter and asked if he had any good sales today.
“You’re in the right place my friend! I’ve got nothing but the best deals in town!”
I wanted to say that considering this is the only shop in town I think that’s a given, but I politely smiled back and asked for his current inventory.
BROCCOLI SEEDS 100g
APPLE 50g
FIZZY SODA 20g
MEALWORMS 10g
SKUNKY MUSHROOM 420g
FROZEN TUNA 50000g
Not a very large selection. What are all of the shelves in this store even for? I inquired if he knew where I could get any Bread.
“If it’s Bread you’re looking for, your best bet is to visit Sam. He lives just west of here!”
I pulled out the Town Map from my bag and confirmed. There was really only one house west of here so there would be no mistaking it. Although I was a bit disappointed I couldn’t get my Bread now, I still thanked the shopkeeper for his help and politely left the store in search of Sam.
Inventory Management
Like every other house in this town, Sam’s looked exactly like mine from the outside. Just like the market, he had an equally large sign planted in front of his house.
SAM’S HOUSE
Well if anything, I can’t imagine the postal service ever getting lost in this town. As I knocked on the front door, it swung wide open without any resistance. A young man with a chef’s hat stood in the center of the room. Not only was the outside of his house the same as mine, but even the layout inside looked starkly similar. Minimalistic design is popular I see. At least he didn’t also have a GameBoy on his table like I did. He looked at me with welcoming eyes, so I made my way in and greeted him.
“Ah, you’d like some Bread? If you give me 5 Broccoli Seeds, I’ll give you my freshest loaf!”
Ah, 5 seeds? I checked my bag again. Only 4 in here. But Broccoli Seeds were 100g at the shop, so I would be willing to give him 4 seeds and 200g on top of it so he could get some extra seeds himself instead.
“Have you gotten 5 Broccoli Seeds? I’ll be waiting here until you get them!”
Not one for bartering, huh? The shop isn’t far at all so it’s not a huge deal. As I made my way outside I felt like I was being watched. I turned towards the edge of the town. A thick forest of uniform looking trees bordered around it. A small green snake peered at me from afar before about-facing and retreating into the trees. For some reason, the sight of him made me feel a little less annoyed at my failed attempt at a trade.
I made my quick trip to the market and back, now with 5 total Broccoli Seeds in my bag. Sam had not moved at all since I left, he had been staring at his door the entire time in the middle of his room. I glanced at the wall clock in his room. 9:55. Had I really spent two whole hours just getting this loaf of Bread? I don’t think I was ever good at keeping track of time, but it felt like I had wasted too much on this endeavor. I made a mental note that I’d never want to do something as tedious as this again for a loaf of Bread. If I could redo this morning, I wish I could just skip to this moment. With all of this, I’d finally have a fresh loaf of Bread to eat together with my Mushroom Soup. As I readied the Broccoli Seeds to give to Sam, he stopped me with a concerned expression.
“Whoa there, I’d love to give you this Bread but it looks like your bag is full! Come back when you’ve made some room.”
Huh? Well I guess now that I thought about it, I am carrying a lot of stuff with me but I didn’t even consider that my bag would be too full for the Bread. I took another look in my bag and realized it was too deep to even see how much space was left in it. I knew what I had in it but couldn’t really see everything individually. It just inherently felt like I recognized what I was holding. I dug in and pulled out a Medium Fish. I’ve been walking around all morning with this in my bag, do I even trust it to be fresh anymore? Actually it has been in my bag since before this morning so I definitely don’t feel comfortable eating this. There are two of them here so getting them out the way should make enough room. I asked Sam if there was a trash can nearby so I could toss it. He shook his head.
“There’s no trash in this town, you can just drop that outside if you need to make some room!”
Drop them outside? I thought for a moment about the snake who retreated into the forest. I suppose even if I wouldn’t want to eat them, there are certainly creatures out there that would be more than happy to take these fish off my hands. No sense in wasting them if they’re edible, I guess. I placed the fish at the top of my bag so I didn’t have to dig deep inside for them, and left Sam’s house and walked directly to the nearby forest. For some reason I felt like I shouldn’t enter the forest, so I simply stood 1 step in front of it. I hesitated for a moment and looked back, did he really mean I should just toss this outside? I was probably overthinking things, the fish would be taken care of by whatever wildlife stumbled on them. Perhaps that snake from earlier is still around, I'm sure he'd love these. I turned back to the forest and tossed the fish in as far as I could, and watched as they vanished into the tall vegetation. I looked again in my bag, it should have enough space now that I got that fish out of there.
x0
APPLE x1
BROCCOLI SEEDS x5
FISHING ROD x1
FARM MULCH x6
TOWN MAP x1
That sounds about right. Tossing that fish made my bag have 0 Medium Fish, right? Since I no longer had it? But why did that stand out to me, as if there was still something in there with the absence of that fish? Ugh, I really should have just slept in this morning, I’ll probably get rid of this unnerving feeling when I finally get some food in my stomach. I returned to Sam’s house and finally, he accepted my Broccoli Seeds in exchange for a loaf of Bread. I checked the clock on the wall again - 10:15. Ugh, really? I placed it at the top of my bag, thanked Sam, and left his house. Before I could make my way home, I should really make sure this Bread isn’t getting squashed in there. It'd be a shame if after all of this I ruined the loaf. I opened my bag once more to check its contents.
BREAD x1
?-E x0
APPLE x1
BROCCOLI SEEDS x5
FISHING ROD x1
FARM MULCH x6
TOWN MAP x1
... A shiver ran down my spine. Something was telling me not to think more about it, but curiosity took the best of me. I put my hand into the bag and felt around beneath the Bread. There was something...nothing, but something at the same time. I couldn’t feel its shape but something was there. I grabbed it - as I did, I was blinded by a bright flash. When my vision returned, the lush green grass and trees around me were now an oddly purple hue. The once pink cobblestone path beneath my feet was now bright blue. I’m losing my mind, what’s going on here? I shouldn’t pull this out of my bag, I should just head home, eat my soup, and get some more rest. Although I thought this, my hand didn’t stop. I slowly pulled something above the loaf of Bread and a deafening high pitched screech of static reverberated throughout my eardrums an-
...
Reload
I peered at the wall clock in his room. 9:55. Had I really spent two whole hours just getting this loaf of Bread? I don’t think I was ever good at keeping track of time, but it felt like I had wasted too much time on this. I made a mental note that I’d never want to do something as tedious like this again for a loaf of Bread. If I could redo this morning, I wish I could just skip to this moment. With all of this, I’d finally have a fresh loaf of Bread to eat together with my mushroom soup. As I readied the Broccoli Seeds to give to Sam, he stopped me with a concerned expression.
“Whoa there, I’d love to give you this Bread but it looks like your bag is full! Come back when you’ve made some room.”
As I heard those words, a knot formed in my throat along with the unmistakable feeling of dejavu. No, it wasn’t just in my head, I definitely heard this before. I remember being confused about my bag. I remember it was later than 9:55. I checked my bag...
APPLE x1
BROCCOLI SEEDS x5
FISHING ROD x1
FARM MULCH x6
MEDIUM FISH x2
TOWN MAP x1
What was wrong with it? This seemed fine, but I knew it wasn’t. These fish are taking up too much space. There’s something wrong with them. I’ll have to throw them out if I want to make room for my Bread. Without a second thought I walked to the forest bordering the town, two steps in front of it. As I looked deeper in, I could see a familiar sight - a green snake with wide white eyes peering at me from afar. Although I felt uneasy, the sight of him once again made me feel I wasn’t in the wrong, I wasn’t going crazy, I should listen to my gut feeling and get to the bottom of what’s going on. I turned back to the town once more. The vibrant green grass shuffled rhythmically in the wind, the pink cobblestoned pathways providing a strong contrast. I turned back to the forest, the snake was no longer there. I took the two Medium Fish out of my bag and placed them on the ground beneath my feet, just in front of the forest. When I looked back down, to my surprise, they were nowhere to be found. I checked my bag once again.
APPLE x1
BROCCOLI SEEDS x5
FISHING ROD x1
FARM MULCH x6
TOWN MAP x1
That sounds right. Right? I was slightly disappointed. Was I expecting something else? I tried to recall a memory, A memory of something that should have never happened. I want to try that again, what did I do differently this time? I wish I could go bac-
...
I peered at the wall clock in his room. 9:55. I’m in Sam’s house again. I once again have the Medium Fish in my bag. I was sure of it this time, I’ve been here before, I’ve done this before. I've somehow been brought back here again. I thought back to what I was doing before this. Before this? Or after this? It was hard to grasp where and when I was, but perhaps that wasn’t even important. I need to make room in my bag if I want to get Bread, but that didn’t seem to be the most important thing for me to consider right now. If I want to get to the bottom of this, I need to first put the fish on the top of my bag. It was right below my Bread, whatever it was. I didn’t want to take any chances, so I tried my best to follow the exact steps I did before. I tried handing the Broccoli Seeds to Sam.
“Whoa there, I’d love to give you this Bread but it looks like your bag is full! Come back when you’ve made some room.”
Of course, thanks for letting me know Sam. I moved the two Medium Fish to the top of my bag for easy access. I found myself again one step in front of the bordering forest. I looked back to the town, and then into the forest, and tossed the two Medium Fish into the darkness. I checked my bag...
x0
APPLE x1
BROCCOLI SEEDS x5
FISHING ROD x1
FARM MULCH x6
TOWN MAP x1
That was right. No, it was wrong, but it was the right type of wrong. I needed to talk to Sam and move the Medium Fish to the top of my bag before tossing them. I had to throw them into the forest, one step in front of it. It was very specific, but only in doing those actions in that order could this occur. For some reason I felt as if I could sense the different outcomes that would occur if I performed similar steps. This isn’t over yet though, there’s still something missing. I made my way back to Sam’s house and exchanged the 5 Broccoli Seeds for a loaf of Bread. I placed it on the top of my bag and checked the clock on the wall. 10:55, that felt correct to me. I quickly left Sam’s house and checked the contents of my bag.
BREAD x1
?-E x0
APPLE x1
BROCCOLI SEEDS x5
FISHING ROD x1
FARM MULCH x6
TOWN MAP x1
Bingo. With this in mind, I made a mental note. I know how to make this happen again, I don’t need to start in Sam’s house again if I make a mistake. This is what I’m looking for. This time I won’t pull that out of my bag. I reached inside and grabbed it. A bright flash blinded me momentarily, and the colors of the entire landscape had shifted into purple and blue hues. Instead of pulling it out the bag, I stuffed it down below the Apple. Going any further than just touching it will probably ruin everything, this is more than enough. I checked my bag again…
BREAD x1
DEVON x▒▒
APPLE x1
◣’ィ xβTOWN
BROCCOLI SEEDS x5
FISHING ROD x1
FARM MULCH x6
TOWN MAP x1
It was different, but still the same. I couldn’t even recognize what it was anymore, or how many of it I even had. Its quantity had been replaced by something else. Even though I moved it under my Apple, something else took its place. Devon. What was that? It felt so familiar, but foreign. I tried to think of what else could have changed aside from the colors around me. I checked my coin pouch: 999999g. I started with 3000g this morning but bought some Broccoli Seeds, I should have 2900g. I’m rich? Is this real? I traveled back to the market once more to see if the keeper would let me buy anything. I stared at the sign in front of his shop.
“ “
ERR09
That string trailed off the signboard itself. Although the sign was now empty, the writing was in the same style as it used to be. That ERR09 was just...floating...well below where it should be. In thin air. I ignored and entered the shop. What can I buy?
BROCCOLI SEEDS 100g
APPLE SEEDS 50g
FIZZY SODA 20g
MEALWORMS 10g
SKUNKY MUSHROOM 420g
FROZEN TUNA 50000g
I had enough money to buy whatever I wanted, but I should probably fill my bag up with as much as possible to see where that leads me. Can I fit 99999 Mealworms in my bag? I placed all my gold on the table and inquired.
“Sorry young lady, I can only sell you 255 Mealworms at a time.”
At a time? What does that mean? Is that all he has in stock? Fine, I'll take 255 Mealworms.
“255 Mealworms coming right up! Here you go, little missy!”
I placed them in my bag above everything else. They fit? Can I have 1 more Mealworms?
“1 Mealworms coming right up! Here you go, little missy!”
I put them into my bag and checked inside.
MEALWORMS x1
MEALWORMS x255
BREAD x1
DEVON x▒▒
APPLE x1
◣’ィ xβTOWN
BROCCOLI SEEDS x5
FISHING ROD x1
FARM MULCH x6
TOWN MAP x1
How did this all fit in there? I pushed my hand down into my bag and it now felt endless. I definitely shouldn’t be able to push my hand this far in, but I couldn’t reach an end no matter if I stuffed my whole arm in. The shopkeeper looked concerned.
“Is something the matter? You’re acting a bit strange right now. I’m not going to complain but the last time someone ordered this many Mealworms, they dug into their bag just like you and went mad.”
I sure feel I’m heading in that direction. What even is reality at this point? Why was I so comfortable with this even knowing it defies logic? Something was wrong. Everything was wrong. But I had to keep breaking it. This town was real, and I’ve lived in it my whole life, but when did that start? Did I start existing when I awoke this morning? Wait, did I actually just start existing this very second? He’s right, I am going mad. What happened to the last person who acted this way?
“They just acted kinda strange. Like pacin' around in funky ways, dropping all their things on the ground, saying they were seeing things that weren’t there. Then they yelled about something called the Death Cloud coming closer. Everyone tried helping, but it was as if they couldn’t see us anymore. Then one day they just...disappeared. Nobody could find 'em.”
Despite his warnings, I kept digging my hand into my bag, below my Town Map. Deeper, further...there was nothing there but I could keep going. I closed my hand to see if I could grab hold of anything, despite it diving into empty space. As I thought...something.
MEALWORMS x1
MEALWORMS x255
BREAD x1
DEVON x▒▒
APPLE x1
◣’ィ xβTOWN
BROCCOLI SEEDS x5
FISHING ROD x1
FARM MULCH x6
TOWN MAP x1
x0
x0
x0
░▛ヾ◢╗￥x◉▂◉
HORACE x◢▒
“Hey uh, you SS▒▒DEOVON◣&wtDFB8▧QUANTUMSHADOW░░
░-’S ゐkFUYUMI ] >╰░░“
The shopkeeper spoke. His voice reached my ears but upon grabbing this they became a shape I couldn’t understand. Perfectly square shaped holes materialized instantly on the walls and shelves around me, seemingly leading into empty darkness. Parts of the shelves around me had been replaced with other objects. Not just the items on the shelves, but the actual shelves themselves. Parts of the cash register were seemingly embedded into one corner of a shelf. The corner of a person’s face replaced one of the tiles on the floor, but it seemed to be an inanimate object despite clearly being a partial face. The shopkeeper continued talking, but making sense of his words were futile...so I left the shop to see what the outside had in store for me.
Corruption
As soon as I left the shop, I was greeted by a town that was familiar, and yet entirely alien to me. Blocks of text and numbers replaced buildings in the town, patches of water were simply floating where signboards used to be. The floating clouds above were replaced with zeroes and nines. The subtle sound of static white noise reverberated from somewhere in the distance, but I couldn’t even discern which direction it was coming from. All the colors in the town had been inverted into unnatural hues, including the sky itself. The floor below me was no longer a uniform and coherent field of grass and brick pathways, but now a chaotic patchwork of various items and partial structures, all perfect squares, mended together in an unnatural fashion. Ah, this is what I was looking for, surely.
I created this outcome, I willed it to reality. That is, if this can even still be considered reality at all. I summoned this through a specific sequence of events, in a particular order. I guess to any outside observer, it could only have been described as a ritual to perform a magic spell. Anyone not understanding what I was doing must have thought me to be mad, and perhaps in a sense they were correct. Through trial and error, I learned more and more how to destroy this world; and I intuitively knew what I was getting myself into...yet I longed to see how far I could twist and corrupt this existence.
As I walked around the distorted town I was prevented from moving forward despite no visible obstacle in my way. It was hard to even navigate, because seemingly invisible walls blocked my path every few steps. As interesting as this new world was, I had no way of fully exploring it. At some point white attempting to navigate this space, I was frozen by something. It wasn't an invisible wall blocking me this time, but every muscle in my body refused to move. My thoughts went entirely silent. The mind is always filled with constant chatter even when calmed, but this was complete and utter silence. Until that emptiness was broken with a single thought:
You’ve encountered Soul #3805.
I didn’t even know what that meant, there was no way that thought actually manifested on my own volition. I regained control of my body and mind, but had no clue what happened.
I glanced around this now malformed town, that only just barely resembled what it used to, and in the distance I noticed looked to be a Soul #6433 approaching slowly. Well, it moved forward as if it was a cloud, but it seemingly engulfed everything into it like a black hole. In the center of that darkness, there were two figures. Two fully cohesive and well defined figures in a world of malformed mashups of various objects. One seemed to be the shape of a man, but his entire body was as white as an eggshell. In his hand, an empty mug which he could not hold steady. His large hollowed eyes and wide agape mouth made it seem as if he was petrified, and yet he moved forward slowly at a steady pace, silently. Beside him, the skeleton of a canine, still walking forward with him as if it was alive. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure if the man himself was alive either. It didn't take long for me to understand what he was. After all, his arrival was already announced to me just moments ago. It’s Horace, and behind him must be the Death Cloud.
As the two paced forward, the looming darkness followed directly behind them. Despite everything in this town now existing as incoherent blocks of random things unnaturally merged together, any object he walked past seemed to erratically change form. What seemed to be half of a bike and half a tree began flashing into various other objects as Horace drew near it; until eventually the erratic shapeshifting converted it into 1’s and 0’s, which were promptly ripped bit by bit and sucked into that foreboding darkness that followed him. I couldn’t move, I could only stare at the horrified look on his face and wonder if I perhaps had was also wearing an expression of pure terror as he was. But I couldn’t move...the invisible walls that once stopped me from moving forward seemed to have entirely boxed me in and immobilized me. I don’t know what will become of me if Horace gets closer, but I had no choice but to simply watch as he did. I could not tell whether or not he was even the perpetrator of the destruction that lay in his wake, or a prisoner to it. Regardless, it seems as if I too will be annihilated by the horrifying Death Cloud that approached.
But as that thought crossed my mind, right when the last ounce of hope had been put to rest and I accepted my fate, I felt a tug on my sleeve. It allowed me to avert my gaze from Horace, and pull me out of my frozen state. A green snake slithered slowly up my arm and stared deeply into my eyes. A sense of relief poured over me. I had seen this snake before, his familiar sight was a reminder of what this town used to be. When he knew he had my attention, his forked tongue flicked in the air, and I heard his voice from within my head.
“Do you want me to help pull you out now?”
I don’t know what he was implying, but my head nodded automatically in response before I could even attempt to process it. I could hear a high pitched electronic buzz growing closer, but I dare not look away from the snake.
“You aren’t from this town. You aren’t even from this reality. You can escape if you can recall where you are really from.”
I took a moment to ponder on the snake’s words. I tried to think back, as far as I could, deep into my memory. He was right, I had always felt as if this world didn’t quite feel like home. It almost felt as if my entire existence, along with all my memories of the life before, were simply formed the moment I awoke this morning. At some point I even humored the thought that this entire existence was simply one formed randomly by entropy bringing a small pocket of matter within the universe into just the right formation to create what I perceive to be reality...and perhaps Horace and the Death Cloud were simply what I personified as the natural dismantling of that miracle; returning what I considered to be “me” back into the disorderly swarm of particles I had always been before.
But I knew if I continued that line of thinking, it was Game Over. If I didn’t face my epistemological crisis head on, I would ultimately meet my demise here and now. So I thought harder. I felt as if I couldn’t think of one single reality I’ve experienced other than this, but rather a myriad of different ones. I had been in many worlds, I had experienced many things, and I was unable to pinpoint which universe was one I could call my own. I resonated with a reality in which I tamed small creatures and traveled across the world on adventure. Then shortly after, I felt connected to a world where humanoid cephalopods dominated the land. So many contradictory lives, and yet I felt as if I had lived all of them. It was impossible to tell which one was my own. It was as if I was trapped in an infinitely large library, with bookshelves spanning far and wide, and I was told to find one single book without any clues as to what I was even looking for.
In my peripheral vision, I could see the object that was once the town market begin to flicker. The garbled shapes that made it up began frantically flashing into other objects, letters, numbers..ah, the Death Cloud draws near. Was I too late? Was there even an actual way out of this, or did I simply hallucinate in my final moments to cope with this finale?
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and ignored my surroundings for a moment. I thought harder, there must be a hint somewhere. I could feel the snake tightening his grip around my arm, but it didn’t feel aggressive at all. No, if anything, it felt more like an embrace. Like one you would give to a close friend going through something difficult. He cared about me, he was trying to help me. Ah, that’s right, whenever I’m lost I know I can count on him to help me find my way. In every reality I know of, I share the same single point of meeting him before the tree trunk of my realities splinter off into separate branches.
The terrifying screeching became louder. I did not know if this sound was coming from Horace, or the Death Cloud itself, but it was obvious my time was running out. And yet I was past the point of fear, because everything was coming back to me and a sense of relief. I recalled a reality in which I faced a similar problem, and was led out a labyrinth of despair by a single green thread rotating in a white room.
“Do you know who I am?”
The snake asked. Of course the moment he did, his name had immediately clicked in my head. Although I thought I didn’t know him at first, somewhere deep inside I had never forgotten him. I want to experience all that I can, and as a result I know I’ll get lost, but in the end he always serves as the one constant beacon to help me confirm who I really am.I closed my eyes and responded calmly.
“Of course I know who you are, Spinor.”
And then..silence. The screeching had stopped, I felt weightless, and behind my closed eyelids I embraced the darkness.
Game Over
A sweet earthy aroma eased me back into my senses. The air around me was warm, and I could hear the soothing bubbling of a liquid softly simmering. There was no mistaking that appetizing sound and aroma - creamy Canaanite milk and mushrooms were all you needed for an amazing soup. I opened my eyes and looked around at the spacious but cluttered room. It was far from the minimalistic house I had just moments ago considered my own. Unique trinkets and artifacts were haphazardly placed along the many shelves on the walls. It seemed like a disorganized mess, but there was a logic behind that disorder that I understood. I was home, at the Quantum Downs, in my shop of Otherworldy Goods.
My sense of touch came back to me, and I could feel Spinor slithering up my arm and onto my shoulders. He stared at me briefly to make sure I was really back in my own mind before speaking.
“Your mind got dangerously close to something from the Quantum Shadow back there. I know you told me not to help you unless it was an emergency, but you cut it pretty close there.”
I sighed in relief and looked down at the small table in front of me. A plate with partially eaten green mushrooms bearing a white spotted pattern lay there. No matter how many times I use these Quantum Mushrooms, I’m always overwhelmed by the journeys they take me on. And yet, no matter how close I get to losing myself, I continue going back to them.
“Well, did you find anything interesting?”
Spinor continued, knowing it’d be a moment before I was fully anchored down to earth. I thought back to what I had just gone through. The once peaceful town that up until what seemed like mere minutes ago was my home was no longer a place I could ever return to. Even if I had figured out how to revisit previous worlds, I’m unsure if that universe would ever be the same.
If there was something I wanted to bring back from that world, what would it be? I immediately thought of the minimalistic house I started in. Aside from the kettle of mushroom soup, it was almost entirely opposite of this messy room. It wouldn’t be hard to remember all everything there. Although I was lost in thought, my eyes were still fixated on the green mushrooms on the table in front of me. Ah, that’s right, there was a green device on the table of that room. What did I call it? ...GameBoy? I had never heard of that word in my entire life, and yet it felt like such a natural everyday device there. If there was anything that stood out, it was that.
“The small green device that was on that table. Could you fetch it for me, Spinor?”
And with that, a small round colorful portal appeared next to him. He slithered into it, and before his tail had fully entered the portal, another one near my lap opened up; where he slithered out of head first, holding the green GameBoy in his mouth. Well, although they looked like portals to me they were more like projections that I couldn’t go through even if I wanted to. Spinor had described it before as something akin to crawling into the pocket universes that bride realities, but I still don’t fully understand what they really were.
I grabbed the GameBoy from his mouth and stared at my own reflection on its screen. I had never seen something quite like it before, and I’m sure a game from another world could go for a pretty high price. But the more I stared at it, the more I remembered the world that it originated from.
“Hey Spinor, what did you see when you went there?”
“Sorry if it’s disappointing, but I don’t quite see anything when I slip between worlds. You tell me what to get, and I know how to get it. I can only observe realities when you yourself are observing them as well. In fact I can’t even view this world when you aren’t here either.”
“...Did I just destroy that world? Or did it all happen in my head? Actually, what difference did it make if the townspeople were unaffected and simply saw me become mad in the first place? In the end, the world was effectively destroyed from my perspective anyway. And yet it felt so fun and satisfying to do.“
Spinor’s tongue flicked through the air, and for a moment there was a pause for silence. His large white eyes not breaking their gaze from mine. Sensing my anxiety boil up, he broke my negative spiral.
“You're thinking too hard about it. You were only playing a game.”
He responded, matter of factly. I stared down at the GameBoy in my hand that he had retrieved for me. I intended to put this for sale within my shop, but I somehow felt an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia the more I looked at it. Although this object had never existed within this reality, and although I had never truly held this in my hands before, I felt overwhelming attachment to it.
“Funny how you can feel nostalgic for a memory that never truly happened. Perhaps I’ll hold onto this a bit longer before I list it for sale.”
"Arbitrary Code Execution", by Dmitry Petyakin
Entered by: 0x0f27…3907 and preserved on chain (see transaction)
🍄First Encounter With a Peculiar Fungus ✨
Magus Devon's first encounter with a Quantum Mushroom, animated by picassotrigger.
Entered by: 0x0f27…3907
