Skizz Week 2, Day 5: Work/Rest
1.6k, no warnings, Skizz, Pearl, Impulse appearance
A breeze charge hitting Skizz in the back threatened to send him toppling off the edge of Level Three of his pyramid. He whipped around, scanning the far distance to see the perpetrator.
“HEY! Who’s being a jerk?” No reply. Figures.
He stretched his wings before pulling on the exoskeleton that helped him fly. Much more portable than elytra, even if it did pinch and chafe a bit. “I’m coming to get you! You better watch out!”
Crouching low for a moment, he pushed a button on his leg braces, catapulting himself into the air. Once at a high enough altitude, he flared out his wings and soared in a wide perimeter around the area, pulling out FailGuy.
“Jerkface,” he sang. “Come out, come out wherever you are!”
He flew low to the treeline, carving slow, lazy turns through the air. He was trying to bait his visitor. Sure enough, as he was passing by the trees near the north side of the pyramid, he get side-swiped, throwing him into a tight spiral for a moment before he pulled a cord that fully extended the exoskeleton, allowing him to almost completely stop his fall and land on a particularly sturdy tree. Once reoriented, he sprung up again and looked to the east, where he knew the charge had come from. Skizz began flying in a grid search pattern, squinting through the plush trees.
Another breeze charge missed him. He snapped his head down and to the right and saw a flash of white disappear into the trees. It was a postal uniform.
“POPPY!” He cried. He tucked in his wings close and dove towards the tree his friend was hiding in head first.
Once he was closing in on the tree, he pivoted in the air so his feet were in front. Luckily, the trees in the area were oak, and would be able to withstand the landing. He aimed for a sturdy section of exposed branch near the trunk. His feet hit the wood first, and he bent his legs to activate the leg braces. Small metal spikes extended from the platforms under his shoes and dug into the branch, helping him stick the landing. His arms caught the trunk of the tree as he landed.
Pearl’s long, wispy hair poked out from a cluster of leaves a few feet down.
Skizz hopped down to meet his friend, hugging her tightly.
“Hi there, Pearlie-Pop! What brings you by?”
“I live to bug you guys. And Impulse isn’t around to bop with so now I’m here.”
Skizz giggled. “That you do, kiddo. You almost knocked me into the pyramid with your charges.”
“I know. You shouldn’t be standing in such a tempting spot.”
He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You’re ruthless, Pearl. I love it!”
“I try,” she replied smugly. “Can I get a closer look at the pyramid?”
Pearl dropped out of the tree and activated her elytra, with Skizz following hot on her tail.
They landed on the new bridge Skizz had built and looked upwards. At this angle, Pearl was basically leaning fully backwards to get a view of the top.
“Lookin’ good. Definitely a pyramid.”
Skizz put on the arrogant air of a snooty artist. “Awesome, I didn’t know if it was going to give cone once I got the top on there, so I’m glad it reads ‘pyramid’.”
Pearl giggled, pushing Skizz gently. “Goof. Are you finished with Level One yet?”
“No,” Skizz sighed. “I have the basic course laid out, but I need to give more wiggle room. Right now, the thing is impossible instead of just really difficult.”
“You’ll get there, Skizz. You have plenty of time now, anyways.” Pearl elbowed the older man in the side gently. “Congratulations, by the way.”
“I can’t believe the last level went up so quickly, to be honest.”
Skizz was now in ‘condescending professor’ mode. “Well you see, Pearl. The incredible thing about the geometry of a pyramid is that even though the layers are the same height, the base is about uhhhh, a-million-times-bigger-than-the-point.” He rushed the last part of his long sentence before dropping the expression and winking.
“Still, don’t burn yourself out prematurely. Obviously being able to build and make stuff with us full-time is great, but you also gotta adjust, otherwise the smallest bump is gonna throw everythin’ off.”
Skizz put a hand on her shoulder. “I appreciate the advice, Pearlie-Pop. What else you doing these days besides being amazing?”
Pearl laughed. “Well, I’m trying to fight off these dags* from the Poe Poe that seem to think my beautiful mobile shops are somehow pop-ups! It’s an unqualified statement, and I’m going to fight them taking it down!” She looked at Skizz pointedly.
Skizz took out his sunglasses and put them on his face, speaking in his county accent. “Well, Miss Moon, you never heard a peeperooney outta me, but I reckon that those handsome, incredibly chiseled and generous Poe Poe officers have a lot of legitimate pop-ups they’re gonna have to move in a very short amount of time, and would not mind excuses to shore down that list at all.” He winked with a laughable lack of subtlety. “Wink.”
They both giggled while Skizz put his sunglasses away.
“Well, I appreciate the tip. By the way, if you want to slack off, I’ve got a new DyeDuction for ya~” Pearl sang the last three words.
“If it’s along the lines of ‘yucca’ again, I’m gonna lose.”
“It’s not intentionally hard, if that reassures you.”
“Yucca,” he said, which in this moment, meant ‘I do not trust your judgment, because you thought yucca was anything close to acceptable’.
“NoO,” he blurted. “I’m gonna crush it, let’s go!”
They flew over to the dye shop, commenting on the structures they saw along the way.
“Pearl, I’m on your side about that purpur shop, but I must say, this is not a pop-up.”
“Oh shush, are you gonna go hard more, or what?”
“Of course I’m going hard mode! I’m not leaving any room for nitpicking.” He pulled out a tiny notepad and began erasing some pencil markings.
Pearl peeked over his shoulder and burst out giggling. “Skizzly, did you draw a keyboard to help you with DyeDuction?”
“Shut up!” He whined. “Getting all the letters in a jumble hurts my brain. This is how I’m used to looking at the letters on my phone.”
“Alright, alright. It’s not cheating, and you are allowed to use pencil and paper to keep track of things so I’ll allow it.”
“Not all of us have redstone-vision like you and Tango and can just see the answer through the redstone.” He pressed the button to start the timer, and immediately started sorting through the metal letter shapes, submitting his first guess in record time.
“AUDIO,” he told Pearl. He finished sorting the remaining letters as the machinery processed his answer.
Only the letter ‘I’ was in the word, but not in that space.
Skizz shaded out the wrong letters and stared at what remained.
“Hm, I think that THINK is my next guess.”
“Am I allowed to ask why?”
Skizz started putting the metal letters into their slots. “It had T, H, and N, which are all pretty common letters, and it has the I in a different position than it was before.”
One ding and two thumps. The H and N were in different spots, but the I was in the right spot now.
Skizz wrote down this new result and stared down at the remaining letters, muttering to himself.
“H in first could have… no consonants fit in the second spot… H E I… that doesn’t seem like it’s anything. H can’t be in four because we know there’s no consonants that can go after. That I know of, at least.”
He flopped on his stomach, examining his notes again.
“N H and H N aren’t great combos, so they’re not together. Could be an ISH word. SNISH? ANISH? I P H? Glyph isn’t spelt with an I… Not T H… I C H? No, I think that’s always I T C H. G H, that could be it!”
“Three minutes have passed Skizz,” Pearl teased.
“Don’t put on the pressure, I’m almost there!”
He quickly put down _ _ I G H on the paper.
“THIGH? No, no T. Or H in that spot, dangit! Oh! N! Hold on, N has no consonants after!”
He scrambled to the machine, slotting the letters in. “I think it’s NEIGH!”
Skizz pressed the confirm button, and took a deep breath in to hold dramatically.
The sparkling sound effect and fireworks that signified a win went off, showering the room in orange sparks.
“YES!” Skizz yelled, pumping his fist. “WHAT’S UP!? I got a woo!”
“Woo!” Pearl echoed, clapping. She checked her watch. “Three minutes and eight seconds when you take away the machine processing the entries, not too shabby, mate.”
“I’m riding this high all day, Pearlie. Thank you.”
“You’re the one that solved it so fast, Skizzie. You should be thankin’ yourself.”
“You’re right.” He pat himself on the shoulder. “Great performance out there, Skizzleman. You showed focus and followed through on the punches.” He turned on his earpiece and rang Impulse.
“Just did DyeDuction; absolutely crushed it in three, nooch. And I did it in three minutes eight.”
Impulse gave a little ‘woo’ into his mic. “That’s great, buddy. Let me guess, you want me to come over and see how I do against that?”
“You bet your lemony butt I do! And Pearl is here, so you’re gonna get doubly humiliated!”
“We’ll see about that!” And then the call cut off.
Skizz giggled and rubbed his hands together.
Pearl put in her two cents. “I do not have enough time to rig this in your favor, just for the record.”
Skizz’s thought process for DyeDuction is actually just my attempt at yesterday’s Wordle! Color me surprised when I actually got it right in less than five!
*’dag’ is Aussie slang! It’s apparently an affectionate term for someone who looks or acts a little weird
