This Ain’t No Game… Or is It? (1/2)

A story starring two original characters by Pancak3, posted here with permission.

It was a nice sunny day. The sky was blue, the temperature was warm, the birds were singing, the air was clear etc. It was truly a nice day to be outside…

…except a certain someone wasn’t spending the day outside. That someone was Pancake.

The flame-tipped Siamese cat was in front of his laptop playing this hot new RPG called YouQuest. It was the talk of the Internet and for good reason; the game wasn’t just a typical RPG, it was one where how it turns out is entirely up to the player. Not only do they get to design their own player avatar, but they also get to choose from certain plot setups and even determine the course of the story through their actions. But arguably the best features of all…

…were that the player could set the game’s tone and even the severity of evil in the antagonists to their tastes! This was a welcome accommodation for any player who likes sad, violent or funny games and doesn’t like the other options. No wonder it was so popular. Naturally, the game also had anthropomorphic animal characters and that helped its popularity quite a bit (in a world populated by them. Go figure). And for some reason, it also came with a flash drive.

As for Pancake’s take on the game, he customized it as follows: since he liked emotional things, as they helped him appreciate those closest to him as well as the very finite and unpredictable nature of life, he set the game to include emotions… as well as some silly stuff so the game would feel like one of those animated movies he adored as a kitten… perhaps better.

And the cherry on top… he designed his own player avatar: a male cat who worked as a farmer until he uncovered a mana necklace during his morning chores. It granted him the ability to conjure a sword incarnated from the spirit of the necklace’s former owner at will and dispel his emotions into bursts of element (air, water or fire) as its creator was capable of.

But as mentioned before, Pancake was enjoying the game a little too much, at the expense of the beautiful weather outside. In fact, he had been playing for over three hours since he found it on his gaming account after breakfast. It was just very engrossing for him.

“Pancake! I’m going to workout, would you like to join me?” Pancake’s roommate and best friend Pudding, a mixed-breed dog wearing a white undershirt and navy blue shorts and a gym whistle around his neck, called from outside the living room entrance. But no answer. It’s almost as though Pancake didn’t hear his pal at all. “Pancake?” Pudding called his name but once again, no answer. This repeated a few more times, with each intonation progressively more frustrated (c’mon, did you really think I would employ repetition?).

Pudding gave up on trying to say his name, so he decided to take a more… umm, proactive approach to getting Pancake’s attention. He walked over to where his bestie sat, still staring at the laptop with no movement other than his fingers on the keyboard and the occasional blink of his eyes.

He tried putting his right paw in front of the laptop screen and waving it up and down in the hopes of catching his attention…

…and got no response. Pancake was just that wrapped up in the game.

Pudding was not just frustrated, but also confused. How did that not get his best friend’s attention? Well, if a paw in front of the screen didn’t, then his gym whistle ought to. So he blew the gym whistle and it made a loud “TWEEEEEEE!!!”…

…that also didn’t stop Pancake.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. I might lose my ability to even hear dog whistles from this thing and he’s still staring at his laptop?” he thought to himself. But being a pooch who regularly exercises, he remembered he was always taught to try again and again, and to persevere.

So he tried smashing a bottle, blowing an air horn, striking a gong, doing a one-man band and even turning on a can opener… but none of them worked.

By this point, Pudding’s patience was virtually spent. All he wanted to know was if Pancake was interested in working out with him or not, why was it so hard? But he remembered there was only one thing left to do…

…he closed his friend’s laptop.

On his paw.

Pudding’s pupils narrowed and he thought, “Oh crap!” before immediately opening the laptop back up… whereupon Pancake started yowling in pain. Considering he’s a Siamese cat, it’s hardly a pleasant sound to listen to. Poor mutt covered his ears, straining his face into a look of pain. “Forget my whistle… that’ll make me go deaf!” he thought.

Pancake jerked his hurt paw from the keyboard and held it in front of him as he stopped his screeching fit. When he looked at it, he saw it was red, swollen and throbbing. “You’re gonna pay for that, you mangy menace!” said Pancake, talking rather differently than usual.

“Wha-? What did you just call me?” Pudding asked incredulously. “You heard me… mangy menace! Now begone, before I call forth my Spirit Sword!” Pancake threatened, talking more like a generic hero than his usual happy-go-lucky self. “Spirit Sword?” Pudding was even more confused, “I’m sorry… what are you on about?”

“The intrepid Chama shall have his revenge on the fleabag who dared to crush my paw!”

“Pancake?”

“No one dares try to disable a carrier of mana and gets away with it!”

“Pancake?”

“Prepare to be vanquished, aggressive amputator! For the power of the Spirit Sword is-”

“PAAAAAAANNNCAAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!???”

…Pudding yelled with enough force to blow the furs on Pancake’s head backwards.

Pancake sat there dazed for a second, straightened out his head fur and asked “Hi, Pudding. What brings you here?” Pudding sighed in frustration, then said “I was trying to ask if you’d like to work out with me.” “Sorry, buddy. No can do. I’m too busy playing YouQuest.” Pancake shook his head.

“Oh, c’mon, you’ve been playing that game for at least three hours now. It’s high time you took a break and went outside for some fresh air on this lovely day.” Pudding groaned.

“But I can’t rest now. The fate of the universe rests in my paws.” Pancake complained. “Pancake… it’s just a game.” Pudding pointedly replied. “It’s more than just a game. It’s an amazing life-changing experience. It’s… it’s… it’s a work of art!” Pancake argued.

“Someone ought to print your insightful review on the box,” Pudding snarked, “but anyway… video games are nothing more than just a waste of time, and they’re basically the same thing except with different features so you think you’re playing a new game when you aren’t actually.” Pudding was not as fond of video games as his best friend, and it showed.

“They’re not a waste of time, they’re challenging. And they help you figure out patterns, strategy and stuff. They’re good for your brain!” Pancake tried to argue with his friend, but Pudding fired back, “Well, exercise is good for your body! If you continue to sit around and play video games all day, it won’t do your body any favours.”

Pudding sighed in defeat, realizing he was flogging a dead horse. “Fine. But when you become a grotesque blob who can’t move, don’t come crying to me.” “Ewww… I’m not into that sort of thing.” Pancake cringed, missing the point entirely.

—————-

After a little while, Pudding had gone to work out and Pancake continued to play his game. He was really getting the hang of it!

…or at least he did until something strange happened.

His avatar sprite was walking towards an ancient temple built into the side of a hill in a gloomy abandoned town. But he only managed to get to the temple’s entrance when all of a sudden…

…the image froze and the game’s audio locked up…

…then a strange dialogue box unlike anything he’d seen on the Fortuna OS popped up. Inside a red gradient rectangle were these words in a white font:

“You cannot enter this area because the game is experiencing technical difficulties. Please insert the enclosed flash drive to continue your progress”

“Wha-?” Pancake vocalized in disbelief that his game just froze up on him. “What’s going on? How dare the game try to hinder my progress in saving the universe! Why I ought to-” he was interrupted by noticing that the dialogue box had a pulsing glow to it in similar rhythm to a steady heartbeat… and was making a low synthesized noise fading in and out whenever it did.

“Whoa… I’ve never seen breathing dialogue boxes on a Fortuna computer before!” Pancake was awestruck at this strange warning. “Wait…”, he took a closer look at what it said, “’insert the enclosed flash drive’”.

“Ohhhh, so that’s why I got a flash-drive in the mail when I received the game” Pancake realized…

…then proceeded to tear his room practically apart looking for the flash drive. By the time he was a bit worn out from checking practically every square inch of his room at least 3 times, it was an utter mess. You’d think a cat had been there or something!

Pancake panted with exhaustion, “I just… know I had it here. I’m… sure”. So he got up, ready to simply shut off his game and do something else instead…

…when he saw the flash-drive sitting right where he left it on his bedside table.

“Oh.” Pancake said, processing his mistake. He quickly grabbed the flash-drive, removed the cap, plugged it into the USB port and clicked the “OK” in the dialogue box once it became visible… but then things got weirder.

The flash-drive began to have an electrical surge and glow blue. “What the-? Flash-drives don’t glow! What’s going on?” Pancake was confused. The electrical surge increased in intensity as did the glow. “I better get this out before it fries my laptop!” Pancake panicked, and instinctively reached out his right paw to grab the flash-drive…

…but the the glow began to envelop his paw. “Wha-?” Pancake exclaimed, as the glow travelled along his right arm and all across the outside of his body. “What’s happening?”

Then before he knew it… a FLASH of light! Brings a whole new meaning to “flash-drive”, doesn’t it?

(to be continued in Part 2)