ARCADE SESSION: REBOOTED

[knux400]

THE FIRST PORTION OF THIS QUEST IS MISSING FROM THE FORUMS DUE TO TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES! IF YOU'RE NEW, I'D STRONGLY RECOMMEND READING THE MSPFA MIRROR TO GET CAUGHT UP, OR USE MY SHODDY GOOGLE DOCS ARCHIVE OF THE DELETED PORTION. THANK YOU FOR READING!!

DISCUSSION THREAD

The screen flickers momentarily, as if the power went out for a split second. You feel... Different. You quickly shrug it off and remind yourself of what you were doing. You're leading Echo on a rescue mission of sorts to locate Topaz, the canary you spawned for her. Along the way, you met Clemont, a mysterious but friendly TCP with a pitchfork, and... whoever this is.

So... What do you think of Clemont, Echo?

He's... interesting. He seems friendly, but careful at the same time, I think? I'm not sure yet.

Once you arrive, you're greeted by a familiar voice.

Ah, there you are. I was wondering if you'd show up.

The structure appears to be a wooden door set into the stone wall.

You don't recall seeing anyone like this before, but you do recognize the voice as the one Clemont was talking to while you and Echo were eavesdropping. You tell Echo to apologize for being late and to ask how long they were waiting. Echo seems confused, but does so.

Sorry I'm late! How long were you waiting for me?
You'll have to forgive my attitude... It's been a stressful day and we weren't expecting so many visitors. To answer your question, I haven't been waiting long. I was wondering if you would also pay us a visit after I heard you talking with Clemont outside.
You know Clemont?
I only met him a few minutes ago, but yes, I suppose I do.
Oh! Well, my name's Echo!
Orkahm. Nice to meet you.

Orkahm steps forward and offers his hand to Echo. It takes you a moment to realize Echo doesn't know what shaking hands is, which would explain why she's just sort of standing there.

[seppawku]

>EXAMINE orkahm and explain to echo about shaking hands! i was going to say TEACH, but i don't think we can since we're out of our base huh.. maybe have her apologize and say we're not used to having company.

[victorianflorist]

Quickly tell Echo to grasp Orkahm's hand and shake gently.

Before we EXAMINE, we should ask Echo to ask Orkahm's God/Caretaker if it's okay for us to examine him..
If it is so, >EXAMINE Orkahm.

[knux400]

Thinking quickly, you tell Echo to grasp Orkahm's hand and gently shake it. She does so, and Orkahm seems satisfied despite Echo's confusion.



That's called shaking hands. You're supposed to do that whenever you meet someone.
Oh.
Oh what?
Nothing.
Would you mind asking them to ask their god if it's okay to EXAMINE them?
Uhhh, Trinket wants to know if it's okay with your god if she examines you?
...Okay with who if you do what?

There is a short pause.

...What's a god? I think I would know if I had one, which I don't think I do. Is it some kind of tool, or something you make?

You figure it would be pretty harmless to EXAMINE Orkahm, and frankly you're curious why he seems to have no clue what a god is.



You swear there's something nagging at the back of your mind that you're forgetting here...

[MarxzVulpez]

Talk to Echo and say:
Hey Echo, I think Orkahm might be one of the kobolds we spawned a while ago, could you ask them if that's what they are?

[knux400]

Hey Echo, I think Orkahm may have been one of the kobolds we spawned a while back, could you ask them if that's what they are?

Echo seems even more confused by your question, but obliges.

So... Are you a kobold? Trinket spawned some kobolds a while back.
...Yes, I'm a kobold. I don't remember anything about being 'spawned', though. Although to be fair, no one in our village can remember much of anything at all.

Orkahm pauses.

...I shouldn't have let that slip, should I?

Orkahm sighs and shakes his head.

Well, you seem harmless enough anyway. Why don't you come in and I'll explain a bit more?

Echo is hesitant, waiting for a response from you.

[1011686]

uh, guys, we never explained the whole "game" nature of this thing to Echo. Pretty sure that's what's confusing her right now. I'm not sure if we should? or at least how to phrase it if we do.

[skinstealer]

i say follow, but be wary!

[seppawku]

it should be safe to go w him.. it's up to echo's comfort tho

[victorianflorist]

Go for it! He seems friendly.

[knux400]

You tell Echo to follow Orkahm, but to be careful. She nods, and follows Orkahm through the door. The moment Echo steps through the door, a large section of the wall disappears, revealing what would be a cozy little house... if it weren't for the fact that it looks like a tornado hit it. Objects and furniture are knocked over and strewn everywhere, there's food on the floor, and there's a trail of gemstones leading out the door.



Just, uh, grab a seat anywhere. Sorry about the mess.

You quickly inform Echo what Orkahm means by this, and she obliges, taking a fallen stool and sitting down on it.

So... First, I guess some introductions are in order. I'm Orkahm, you know me already. The one cleaning the counter over there is Ihu, the one picking up the dishes is Taipu, and... Tamaru's probably in his room.
Hi! Are you a new person?
Oh, hey.
So... What's your name? The last person to come here had one.
...I'm Echo.
Echo. Nice to meet you.
Hi Echo!!!

Orkahm quietly motions for Taipu to quiet down a bit, and she does so, still looking at Echo curiously. Ihu is content to clean the counters, offering the occasional glance in Echo's direction. You can't see Tamaru, but it looks like there's still some closed doors in the back.

...So, to my knowledge, the word 'spawn' means to create or reproduce. You seem to think this Trinket person spawned us, and while I'm still not too sure what that means, you somehow knew- or at least had an idea- of what we were before we even said anything. We didn't even tell Clemont that we were kobolds, but you... You got the idea right away. Or this Trinket person told you.
Ohhhh, Orkahm's pontificating again!!
Shush, Taipu.

Orkahm briefly glances at the two before turning back to Echo.

So to explain what I said earlier... We've been having memory issues as of late. As in, we can't remember anything since we woke up this morning. Nothing at all, just a complete blank. The strange part is that we all know who each other are, and we know that this is our home, and we even have some semblance of a daily routine. But no actual memories, just... feelings. We act like we've been living together for years, and everything we can find in here points to us having a history here, but we can't remember a single second of it.
Like this necklace, for instance.

Orkahm is holding up a handmade necklace with an emerald neatly woven into the center.

I know I made it, but I don't remember making it. It just feels like something I would make.

Echo seems unsettled as Orkahm looks her straight in the eyespots. Ihu has taken an interest in the conversation and is looking in Echo's direction, too.

If I had to guess, you would at least have some idea as to what's going on.
...And if you know anything about the creature that attacked us and tried to steal a bag of gems, that would be helpful, too.

Echo hasn't the faintest idea what's going on. She's just sitting there, staring at Orkahm with a stunned expression.

[seppawku]

...this is a pretty intense convo to have Thru echo. would we be able to talk directly to the kobolds if they were willing to come back to our base? i dont want to hide things from her, but it’s not fair to have her be caught in the middle and overwhelmed.. i think we should tell the truth despite that tho

[victorianflorist]

Echo, would you be okay with helping the Kobolds clean?

[knux400]

This isn't the type of conversation to be playing telephone with, you think. You type /talk orkahm into the console, but...
ERROR: INVALID TARGET.
...It looks like it only works on TCPs or other players.

Um, Orkahm, you should probably chill. She looks a bit scared.
...No, I'm fine! It's just Trinket's being kind of quiet right now and I'm not sure what to say. I could try to explain who Trinket is?
Sure, I guess that would be a good place to start.
Okay! Do you want help cleaning this up while we talk?
Yeah, why not.

Orkahm leads Echo to the southern part of the house, and Echo begins straightening the rug as Orkahm collects scattered gemstones from the floor.
 

So... Trinket is like this person I talk to, except she's not really there.
An imaginary friend?
No, not like that. She's... somewhere else, I think. But she can see me, and what I'm doing, and she gives me advice sometimes.
...Go on.

Echo begins explaining who you are and what you can do- you're not entirely sure it's a good idea to be quite this up front about things, but having Echo stop talking now wouldn't look good. Should you say something or let Echo finish?

[seppawku]

let her finish! she has a right to talk abt it i think

[knux400]

Echo and Orkahm enter one of the back rooms, which seems to be a workshop of sorts. Well, it was a workshop anyway. Tools and materials are scattered everywhere, and the door is completely broken. The two begin cleaning the workshop as their conversation resumes.
 

Oh, wow.
Yeah, my room was closest and it had the bag of gems in it, so I guess it just went straight for that. Anyway, you were saying?
Right! So Trinket can make things, like the clothes I'm wearing or the house I live in. She also seems to know a lot, and she's really smart, even if she can get kind of... carried away sometimes.
How exactly does Trinket make anything if she isn't there?
Uh... I don't know! Stuff just sort of appears wherever Trinket wants it to.
...Go on.
So... Trinket also teaches me stuff, and tries to take care of me. Right now we're trying to find Topaz, my bird. He got taken by something we didn't see.
Something just took your bird from your house without you or Trinket noticing?
Well, I was away doing something else at the time, and I guess Trinket can only see what's right around me.
Is there anything else?
...That's it, I think! Did you want to ask anything else?
One thing. You said when we first met that Trinket "spawned some kobolds a while back". When exactly was this?

Thinking back, you couldn't have spawned the kobolds more than a half hour ago, but you also didn't tell Echo about it at the time.

All the kobolds are watching Echo. Even Taipu has fallen silent at this point. They can hear from the tone of Orkahm's voice that he's very close to something, but they're not sure what yet.

What should you say?

[cosmo]

i’m not sure exactly how we should explain but i do think it’s important to be honest. we want echo to be able to trust that we’ll tell her the truth in the future and the best way to do that is by telling her the truth now, even if it’s upsetting.

[seppawku]

..i guess, tell her when? i don’t know that it would help for them to know that we spawned her too, but if clarifying that might be important.. this isn’t something we should lie about

[1011686]

Telling them the truth probably is for the best, but I think it would also help to not go into depth on what this session is to Trinket and what it means to her (that is to say, a video game, and not all that much). Explain (to Echo, and then have her pass it on) that the world started as a blank slate, and we had the power to fill it with creations, so we did. The kobolds were one of those. We don't have control over the things we make though, so we wouldnt want the kobolds to feel like, they're indebted to us or anything.

[knux400]

You freeze for a moment, and Echo follows suit, clearly waiting on a response from you. After a few moments, you decide to tell the truth- just not all of it.

Trinket says it was about a half hour ago.
Well, there's no way that's a coincidence, because we only woke up around a half hour ago.
...Yeah.

There's an awkward silence while all four kobolds think about the ramifications of this new information.

...Trinket says the world started as a blank slate, and she had the power to fill it with things, so she did. But she doesn't have control over the things she makes. She doesn't want you to feel indebted to her or anything like that.

...If it helps at all, she also made me.

...Orkahm?

...Fuck.

Orkahm sits down slowly, placing his head in his hands.

So we're just... things.

After a long, uncomfortable silence, the kobold in the back speaks.

You know, this doesn't really change anything, if you think about it.
How can you say that? It's all fake.
No, listen- we started today not having any memories because of this weird group amnesia thing, right? But we still had a sense of being a family, and we were able to move past the whole memory thing pretty quickly because of that. Now we know we never had any memories to begin with, and yeah, that sucks, but nothing's actually different. We've got exactly what we had before- each other.
...
Trinket gave us a home and a sense of family. That's really all we needed.
...Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Thank you, Tamaru.
...Are you all okay?
I think we are. It's still kind of jarring, knowing we were just willed into existence by some higher being, but Tamaru's right- Trinket knew to make sure we had everything we needed, even if she couldn't give us memories. I can see why you trust her so much.

You sit there awkwardly, thinking to yourself how little actual thought you put behind your CREATE commands. Probably best not to correct them on that one.

She did say-
Oh, I don't feel indebted to her at all. In fact, I'd very much prefer it if things stopped barging in out of nowhere, but I've given up the hope that's going to stop anytime soon.

Orkahm chuckles, Echo nervously following suit.

So... All this existential stuff is great and all, but there's still a thing out there stealing our stuff.

Right. You almost forgot. It looks like Echo and the kobolds are pretty much done cleaning up. What now?