No matter how far you walk, it’s always the same road.
it just goes on and on and on.
Darcia turns himself into a wolf, kills my friends, takes Cheza, tries to force his way into paradise, perished on the spot, the world ends and begins again.
Darcia turns himself into a wolf, claws out my eyes, takes Cheza, tries to force his way into paradise, perished on the spot, the world ends and begins again.
Darcia turns himself into a wolf, takes Cheza, kills me in front of my friends, the world ends and begins again.
Darcia turns himself into a pickle, the world ends and begins again.
Such is the curse of this endless journey, my journey. I see now why they say there’s no such place as paradise. Even when I searched to the ends of the earth, there was never anything there…
So in spite of that, why am I still so driven to find it?
I hear someone’s voice calling to me.
It says ‘Search for Paradise’
“I just don’t get it…” slumped Sarah at her desk, frustrated with her latest Branch and its Anchor in perticular. “He turned himself into a pickle! He’s called 'Pickle Darcia’ and you still sleep on it?! What the nuts!”
Her complaints rung across the hall and catch the ear of Murugan, reknowned Hindu Warlord and Sarah’s reluctant guide to godhood, was just conversing on the shogoth-chan boards with one of his forum friends when his pupil’s cries of annoyance echoed by.
FourSwordz: Heard Yosh across the hall, ttyl.
Murugan wandered into Sarah’s Studio where the mistress lay irritated. “Am I intruding miss…”
“Nah,” spoke Sozo, her fair-feathered friend. “In fact, she’s probably looking for some advice on how to handle in-canon Time Loops.”
“A destiny curse, huh?” chuckled Murugan. “That’s rough.”
“What’s that on your tablet?” Sarah reached out and took the mobile device for a glimpse at what Murugan’s colleague had sent him.
“Hello, everyone, I’m the PeanutButterGamer and- hey wait a minute! I’ve done this before! Aw geez, I’m starting to pull a AVGN and have somewhat-plots! AHHHHHHHHHHH!” Peebs screeched as he was at the beginning of his first review. Sarah watched in surprise as the YouTuber flailed around in terror, accidentally knocking a shelf onto himself and dying upon impact.
With the Loop crashed, Peebs became the first Looper to EVER go to Eiken as their second ever Loop. Satisfied with the turn of events brought about by his forum friend, Murugan smirked at Peebs’ misfortune and the reputation that would haunt him forever. “Y'know, it’s the little things in life.”
“Mur…” Sarah pieced together the revelation. “You’re a Mythos Hacker!?”
“I prefer the term Branch Modification Expert.” Murugan retorted. “I may be a violent warlord, but I do behave better than those clowns.”
Sarah stepped back. “But… aren’t you talking with them.”
“I take Branches and tinker with them, analyze what makes them tick, and share my findings with my fellow Administrators.” Murugan corrected. “Tolerating the actions of that hive of scum is a small price to pay for understanding…”
Sarah glanced to her four-armed associate. “How would I know you’re one of the good Hackers?”
Murugan fiddled a bit with his tablet and showed Sarah the proof she’d need.
There was a banging on Skuld’s door, and she frowned. She was in the middle of something, or rather multiple somethings. Hecate had submitted a complaint about Nyarlathotep. Apollo and Artemis were getting on each other’s nerves. And Tartarus had suddenly decided to do something for once, throwing all of Skuld’s plans for him down the drain. And to top it all off, the Spaghetti Monster was saying that he’d run out of Jello for the cafeteria. Suffice to say, Skuld was NOT happy to be interrupted. Grumbling, she walked over to the door, and threw it open.
Then she gasped. “Ares?!”
The Greco-Roman god of war and slaughter was lying on the floor. He looked completely exhausted. His body was drenched in sweat, and he was taking deep, heaving breaths. There were massive dark circles under his eyes. Skuld had never seen the war god look so… tired before.
But he was grinning. He was grinning wider than Skuld had ever seen him grin. It wasn’t one of his crazed grins of bloodlust, oh no. It was a grin of satisfaction, of finality.
With an extremely painful grunt, Ares swung his arm forward and slammed something onto the ground at Skuld’s feet. She bent down to look, and her eyes widened. It was a tablet computer, with bloodstains and a slightly cracked screen, but by itself, that wouldn’t have shocked Skuld. No, instead it was the words on the screen that pierced her very soul. “Wh-what is this?!”
Ares responded with a hacking, wheezing noise. It continued for quite a while, and Skuld realized he was laughing.
Dwarf Fortress
Status: Looping
Admin: Ares
Anchor: N/A (Attached to Bokurano)
Bokurano
Status: Looping
Admin: Murugan
Anchor: Sasami (Anime and Manga) Shirou Machi (Manga) Kana Ushiro (Anime)
Loopers: Takashi Waku, Jun Ushiro, Moji Kunihiko, Maki Ano, Kanji Yoshikawa, Takami Komoda
“Get out…” Sarah stood dumbfounded as her ankle-deep braid frizzed with excitement. “You actually hotwired them together?!”
Murugan smirked with satisfaction. “And I believe they complete each other quite well.”
The sound of a mighty boot to the head could be faintly heard from a few ceilings above, startling Sarah and snapping her back to reality. “Sounds like Ares just showed Skuld our handiwork.”
“Yep.” Sarah deadpanned to her senior before probing: “Quick question, by the way…”
“How did you do it?”
Ares smirked. “An Anchor needs to be constant, and last until the end of the Loop, and be present for the entire Loop, right?” he coughed. “…well, I looked for anything that remained constant and perfectly unkillable in the ever-changing game of Dwarf Fortress… and the only thing that remained a constant was Dwarf Fortress itself!”
“That doesn’t explain how you got it to work. There are too many issues. Dwarf Fortress isn’t sentient! It’s a manifestation of an auto-generated all-encompassing fantasy setting!”
“Is it?” Ares chuckled. “Yes, it’s a fantasy world, if you look at it from that angle. But really… it’s nothing more than a game following programming. And yes, it’s a setting, not a person. But it IS the only constant in that tree-accursed Loop!”
“It still shouldn’t have worked! How in the name of Yggdrasil and everything on it did you pull it off?”
“Ultimately, the best option was to give it a place where it can do its work without causing too much trouble.” Murugan then opened a video tab of inside the Branch. “That, mademoiselle, is where this quarantine favorite comes in.”
The footage in question featured two 500 meter mecha clashed against the open sea. “On the surface, it seems like a typical Mecha Anime. But there is a caviat to all this, the fighting is all part of a system that punishes those on the loosing end by annihilating their native universe!”
“Sweet Chrysler on Toast!” Sarah howled in shock and horror. “Next, you’ll be telling me that the system also kills off the winner.”
Murugan stared back at Sarah and lamented: ‘I am truly alone.’
“Zearth needed universes and worlds to purge from existence without reaching outside of its boundaries.” Ares concluded. “And what does Dwarf Fortress do when a player boots it up? Follow instructions for world generation, and then continue to follow its algorithm from there. Simple programming to produce expendable worlds.”
Skuld had sat down at her monitor, and was scrolling through line after line of code. “This is the worst coding I’ve ever seen! It’s a veritable disaster! I’m pretty sure some of these commands are recursive, and the variables are all over the place, and the various bits you stole from Ganesha are just squished in there like you were attempting to shove a planet through a bendy straw!”
“Yes!” Ares cackled. “But. It. Works! It doesn’t matter how painful and messy it is, no matter how many battles are lost, the WAR. HAS. BEEN. WON.”
Skuld seethed. In all honesty, this was not an event that was supposed to happen. Ever. Ares was supposed to have just quietly worked on Dwarf Fortress long enough to truly teach him humility, and then he would have been granted the chance to take over some of the newer Loops. Never would she have imagined this war-crazy moron of a god to actually get Dwarf Fortress Looping, and yet somehow he had done it.
Fortunately, she had a backup plan. “…Well done, Ares. Your next task is to get the Impossible Quiz Looping.”
“Already on it. The cat from the sequel is Anchoring, and it’s just running over and over again until it gets a perfect run, just like I Wanna Be The-” he was cut off by Skuld.
“What do you mean, already on it?!”
“There’s this funny story dating back to when we met up to set this plan into action.” Murugan mentioned to his junior. “We went to Valhalla for drinks and mutton when Athena walked by and told us to get a head start on it while we were putting our respective brain cells together.” Sarah giggled at the offhand joke the War God relayed. “Still, I had a feeling the little hammerhead had this as her backup plan so Ares got to work on that while I did all the dirty work of stapling the two together. I Imagine she’s digging for a similarly chaotic Branch to saddle Ares with.”
“She’s so mean…” Sarah lamented before a sudden thought hit her. “Wait, if the winning pilot dies? How the hell were you able to get six additional Loopers this fast!”
“Check your Inbox.” Murugan smiled as he finished typing at his tablet. Sarah obeyed her mentor and found a ZiP folder attached to a newly received email. “I’m sure you are aware of Le-Eyo and how he almost ended up unleashing the Tyranid hive mind upon Yggdrasil.”
Sarah shivered with unease, a bit creeped out at the thought. “That could have been messy…”
“Turns out there was a virus born in its wake, one that I thankfully managed to isolate.“ Murugan explained, a solemn-yet-relieved expression on his face. “I tested it on this Loop, knowing that they are two Branches stitched together but thankfully-“
“Yggdrasil only saw one.“ Sarah guessed to which her mentor nodded.
“With these six survivors now Looping and their life force energy protected by the Looping Soul’s ties to Yggdrasil, I came to the conclusion that the current setup of this hybrid is not considered a Fused Loop but rather a singular cohesive Branch.“ Murugan pressed his fingers to his chin. “You are free to use this program on the Branch you seek, but be warned… if my calculations are correct, Yggdrasil will certainly spread it throughout the multiverse if the program is booted up in a Fused Loop.“
Sarah looked to her hand, took a deep breath, and shook her master’s hand. “I won’t let you down!”
jacobvanloon
theartofmadeline
jbbartram-illu
tangentwithtanner
kaledo-art
andulkaphoto