Aranea Serket, John Egbert, Vriska Serket
Act 6, page 5982-6008
ARANEA: Anyway, where was I?
JOHN: the heroine story ends and the villain story begins.
JOHN: i think...
ARANEA: Yes, that's right.
ARANEA: It is with the predomin8tion of her son that our heroine's story ends, and the story of our villain 8egins.
ARANEA: 8ut as we all know, 8eginnings are not always so easy to pinpoint in paradox space.
ARANEA: One could say his story 8egan the day he claimed immortality. Or the moment his 8eing was inexplica8ly confined to a juju, allowing him access to any realm in which his vessel would capriciously materialize.
ARANEA: 8ut for the sake of linearity, we may as well say his story 8egan the day he and his sister hatched.
ARANEA: When a cheru8 hatches, the two undeveloped personalities mingle together in the same 8ody. There is not yet a clear division 8etween the two.
ARANEA: It will then consume the egg shell for the vital nutrients it contains. The sugary snack is irresisti8le to the starving wiggler.
ARANEA: Once it finishes its first meal, the two personalities will 8e pulled apart for good, and the child will pup8.
ARANEA: The two halves then 8egin vacill8ting with their sleep cycles, as I descri8ed.
ARANEA: As you might expect, the female child was as cheerful and friendly as could 8e.
ARANEA: She took after her mother in every way. At least, the way her mother used to 8e, long 8efore she was hardened 8y centuries of isol8tion and o8sessive pursuit of justice.
ARANEA: And to just as little surprise, the male child was an insuffera8le 8rat.
ARANEA: It is just as well that cheru8 parents a8andon their offspring. Raising such a child 8y the familial standards of any race would 8e a monumental challenge.
ARANEA: Nevertheless, it would seem there were those who tried.
ARANEA: Details in my research suggest our villain had a num8er of acolytes oper8ting in the shadows, preparing for his arrival.
ARANEA: We will pro8a8ly never know who these scurrilous conspir8tors were. 8ut it is evident that at some point the cheru8 was locked in a room, either out of exasper8tion, or for its own good, until it was old enough to enter the session.
ARANEA: The children were left with everything a young cheru8 could ever want. Meat, candy, computers, a lifetime supply of special stardust, and of course their precious jujus.
ARANEA: The acolytes had clearly gone to gr8 lengths to harvest such items from all over the cosmos, so they could lavish their young master with gifts.
ARANEA: They may have 8een prisoners, yes. 8ut if you ask me, these children were very spoiled.
ARANEA: While the female was preparing for a colla8or8tive approach to the game, the male was plotting furiously against her. He never had any intention of working with her.
ARANEA: As far as he was concerned, the game was his and his alone to conquer.
ARANEA: One day, he put his plan into motion. He had his sister's dream self assassin8ted on Prospit.
ARANEA: The next time she went to sleep, she would never wake up again. When her 8rother woke up, he 8ecame the sole occupant of the 8ody.
ARANEA: He then freed himself from his chains, and launched the session 8y himself.
ARANEA: 8ut this game was never meant to 8e played solo.
ARANEA: Its format is inherently cooper8tive. The diversity of players, the com8in8tion of their efforts and aspects, this is what awakens the true cre8tive potential of the game. Without them, a session will wither and die.
ARANEA: If one enters alone, it completely alters the nature of the game. It changes its purpose.
ARANEA: For a solo player, a challenging quest 8ecomes an insurmounta8le one. A reward of infinite promise 8ecomes a 8oon far more sinister.
ARANEA: The gauntlet which the player must overcome is seemingly designed to 8e impossi8le. For all intents and purposes, it is not actually a game at all. It is a death sentence for any player foolish enough to accept the challenge.
ARANEA: 8ut it 8ears repeating.
ARANEA: This was very special cheru8.
ARANEA: He entered what is called a dead session.
ARANEA: This qualifies as 8oth a null and void session, 8ut is even less than either of those. Compared to a typical session, it is almost unrecogniza8le.
ARANEA: 8efore the game 8egins, Skaia is 8lotted out with a dark layer of clouds. Its light is extinguished for good.
ARANEA: There is no planet w8ting for the player in the medium.
ARANEA: So instead, he 8rought it with him.
ARANEA: 8ut when he arrived, there was no heroic journey for him to em8ark on.
ARANEA: There was nothing. No sprite, no consorts, no underlings.
ARANEA: The land had no name.
ARANEA: Those things all needed to 8e unlocked.
ARANEA: To unlock his true quest, he was forced to undergo a series of excruci8tingly tedious trials.
ARANEA: Only then would the way to the planet's core 8e revealed. There, he would consult with the most monstrous denizen of all.
ARANEA: And while such trials might discourage most players from even trying, our villain's response was quite the contrary.
ARANEA: He was only em8oldened 8y the mind num8ing chores. He took to them with gusto, as if performing them out of spite.
ARANEA: With perseverance, he found the final door and unlocked it.
ARANEA: W8ting for him on the other side was a terri8le creature named Yalda8aoth.
ARANEA: His denizen would allow him a 8rief audience. One just long enough for him to make The Choice.
ARANEA: No denizen has ever 8een mistaken for pleasant company. 8ut the self-proclaimed god of all monsters is notoriously inhospita8le to his players.
ARANEA: His choices are known for their wild extremes.
ARANEA: And to this player, in this session, he offered his most extreme choice of all.
ARANEA: It was the choice 8etween a path of conquest, and a path of sacrifice.
ARANEA: 8ut this is putting it lightly.
ARANEA: In a tongue only his player could understand, he descri8ed what the path of the martyr entailed.
ARANEA: In short, it involved nothing.
ARANEA: The player chooses to walk away from the tempt8tion of power. To surrender all am8ition, and to welcome death.
ARANEA: In exchange for this pledge comes a promise. The player's sacrifice is assured to 8enefit all who will ever live.
ARANEA: In death, the player would later 8e in the position to help 8ring an end to a force of unfathoma8le evil and destruction.
ARANEA: A force which was unleashed, for instance, 8y someone who once opted for the other choice.
ARANEA: Yalda8aoth then descri8ed what it meant to choose the path of the conqueror.
ARANEA: It was a path for a more active player, to 8e sure. The player's mettle as a conquering force would 8e tested directly, and repeatedly.
ARANEA: One 8y one, he would have to conquer and destroy a num8er of planets spawned for him in the session. Each would 8e more difficult than the last.
ARANEA: After destroying them all, his true land would 8ecome unlocked.
ARANEA: He would then return to face his denizen again, and defeat him in com8at.
ARANEA: If successful, his reward would 8e unprecedented.
ARANEA: He would receive the 8oon of unconditional immortality, where resurrection would not 8e linked with the just or heroic nature of death.
ARANEA: It is unclear how this 8oon would 8e awarded, since to my knowledge it is 8eyond even the a8ility of a denizen to allow this.
ARANEA: 8ut through whatever mechanism the 8oon is 8estowed, immortality is only the 8eginning.
ARANEA: The player is somehow also im8ued with a limitless supply of power. Enough to destroy anything he wanted, for as long as he wanted.
ARANEA: And knowing the villain of our story, anything he wanted would be everything. And as long as he wanted would be forever.
ARANEA: Yes, knowing our villain, the choice he would make is quite clear.
ARANEA: Knowing him, in fact, proves it could hardly 8e considered a choice at all.
ARANEA: It was at this point the real game would 8egin.
ARANEA: Skaia would undergo a dramatic transform8tion, 8ecoming even darker and heavier.
ARANEA: Soon it would 8ecome a very massive solid sphere. It would 8egin to gener8 heat within due to rising density.
ARANEA: The surface would 8egin to crack.
ARANEA: The resulting explosion is known as the First 8r8k.
ARANEA: From the primordial 8last would emerge fifteen planets for the player to conquer.
ARANEA: They would scatter and ricochet at high velocity 8efore settling into or8it in the medium.
ARANEA: The 8r8k is a very violent phenomenon though. Not all planets will necessarily clear the 8last 8efore the Skaian de8ris settles into its final st8.
ARANEA: The vast amount of resulting matter then collapses into a 8lack hole.
ARANEA: Its gravit8tional pull is tremendous. Any o8ject within range will 8e sucked in and destroyed.
ARANEA: Those planets which settle into or8it will 8e safe, for the time 8eing.
ARANEA: 8ut in the case of our villain's session, three of the planets did not make it and fell 8ack into the hole.
ARANEA: This was a very lucky 8r8k for him!
ARANEA: It meant that he would only have to conquer twelve planets instead.
ARANEA: This 8it of good fortune could very well have 8een the difference which allowed him to overcome a nearly impossi8le challenge.
ARANEA: His task was to destroy all of these planets in order, each within a time allowance that gets shorter with every planet.
ARANEA: To destroy a planet, first it must 8e conquered.
ARANEA: He would have to overcome all forces of resistance on the planet, and ultim8tely defeat whatever powerful underling ruled there.
ARANEA: Then, much like he did to unlock the quest in the first place, he would have to travel to the planet's core.
ARANEA: There he would retrieve a 8om8, and return to the surface.
ARANEA: If he did not accomplish this in time, the 8om8 would deton8 in the core, and the game would 8e lost automatically.
ARANEA: The 8om8 is not powerful enough to destroy the planet alone.
ARANEA: In fact, its purpose is not to damage the planet at all, 8ut to move it.
ARANEA: So he must 8ring it to a design8ted loc8tion on the surface.
ARANEA: When it explodes, the planet will 8e knocked out of or8it, and sucked into the hole.
ARANEA: Of course he must make sure he has moved on to the next planet 8efore this happens!
ARANEA: He repeats this process for each planet until they are all gone.
ARANEA: There is one caveat though. He must skip the eighth planet.
ARANEA: If he sinks that one 8efore any of the others, it will result in the destruction of the entire session.
ARANEA: Thus it must 8e the final planet he conquers.
ARANEA: Upon destroying the eighth planet, his true land will reveal itself.
ARANEA: The dead planet will come to life, and there he must prepare for 8attle with his denizen.
ARANEA: He may sharpen his com8at skills, craft new weaponry, anything he can do to improve his chances against a very powerful endgame foe.
ARANEA: Fortun8tely for him, he would not have to face the monster alone.
ARANEA: 8y then he will have accumul8ted a party of loyal minions.
ARANEA: With each planet he destroys, he will 8e awarded a new leprechaun follower.
ARANEA: Even if a planet was destroyed in the 8r8k, he will still 8e awarded that planet's leprechaun upon destroying the planet preceding it. Sort of like a two for one deal!
JOHN: wait.
JOHN: leprechauns??
ARANEA: Yes, John!
ARANEA: I'm delighted to see you have pounced on what is clearly the most interesting part of the story thus far.
ARANEA: Leprechauns are a fascin8ting mythical race, although there is some dispute among scholars as to whether they are actually a 8reed of gnome.
JOHN: ...
ARANEA: I can't say I 8lame you for 8eing speechless. There are no dou8t hundreds of questions swirling in your head at once a8out these wonderful creatures.
ARANEA: Where do I even 8egin? You must forgive me, I find it very difficult to resist going on at length a8out them. I just think they are so gr8.
ARANEA: For instance, I can and have given lectures for weeks at a time on their marvelous and widely varying magical a8ilities.
ARANEA: More intriguing yet would 8e any medium-to-longform harangue on the topic of their culture and customs, most of which revolve around luck.
ARANEA: 8ut most captiv8ting of all, and the su8ject upon which I will now assiduously expound, would 8e the positively scintill8ting su8ject of leprechaun romance.
ARANEA: The pro8lem is that when the su8ject of leprechaun romance is 8roached, our overly o8essive troll intellects instantly assume the most ingrati8ting posture of admir8tion imagina8le.
ARANEA: Which makes it hard! Hard to give it proper academic focus I mean, 8ecause of how gr8 it is.
ARANEA: 8ut we will do our 8est to understand regardless.
ARANEA: Trolls have only four forms of romance. And though we consider it a complic8ted su8ject, spanning a wide range of emotions, social conventions, and implic8tions for reproduction, it is ultim8tely a superficial slice of what leprechauns consider the full 8ody of romantic experience. Our concept of romance, in spite of its capacity to fill our art and literature and to rule our individual destinies like little else, is still just that. A single, quaternary concept. A concept usually denoted 8y four sym8ols.
ARANEA: <3 <3< <> o8<
ARANEA: Leprechaun romance is more complic8ted than that. Leprechaun romance needs nine sym8ols.
ARANEA: The nine quadrants of leprechaun romance are considera8ly more nuanced than our quaint notions of romance, and certainly more alien.
ARANEA: In fact, so conditioned is my own understanding of romance that I can't help 8ut refer to them as quadrants, when in fact they are not quadrants at all! They are referred to as charms.
ARANEA: One of the charms is characterized 8y romantic love, as understood 8y 8oth trolls and humans. 8ut after that, all 8ets are off. There is no division 8etween 8lack or red, concupiscent or conciliatory. Instead their charms comprise a spectral continuum of more su8tly varying types of relationships, most of which are esta8lished in mutual chicanery, such as the exchange of pranks, coy riddles, slapstick shenanigans, and games of chance. Furthermore, a pair of leprechauns is not limited to a single charm. A relationship may 8e defined 8y multiple charms at once! In fact, some of the most interesting relationships arise from exotic charm com8in8tions. A sta8le relationship consisting of three or more charms is called a trove. These advanced relationships are often viewed as the ideal end result for a romance, much the way certain pairing rituals are for humans.
ARANEA: No charm is specifically tied to procre8tion, though any type of relationship could 8egin waxing concupiscent if lady luck should so decide. Certain charm com8in8tions are known to 8e more conducive to fertility than others. If the leprechaun pair has 8een so 8lessed, they will 8egin an ela8orate coupling procedure culmin8ting in a lively m8ting jig. The jigs are specific to the charms of course, similar to how different kinds of music lend themselves to various styles of dance.
ARANEA: While their romance is endlessly captiv8ting, leprechaun reproduction may 8e the most interesting su8ject of all. Particularly from a perspective of detailed anatomical study, which I will get to shortly. 8ut first it 8ears pointing out that while for humans reproductive relationships are exclusively heterosexual, and for trolls they are 8isexual, for leprechauns they-
VRISKA: WOW, WHAT A STORY!!!!!!!!
ARANEA: 8ut I wasn't fin-
VRISKA: WASN'T THAT STORY GR8 EVERYONE?
VRISKA: WOW!!!!!!!!
ARANEA: Hmm.
ARANEA: You really liked it that much, Vriska?
VRISKA: Hell yeah!
VRISKA: Oh my god. That leprechaun stuff? Soooooooo good.
VRISKA: Right guys?
ARANEA: Wow. Well, I would 8e happy to continue then, if you-
VRISKA: Mindfang, have I told you how gr8 it's 8een to get to know each other, and team up on adventures and stuff?
VRISKA: I really feel like you've helped me get in touch with my ancestral roots. Mainly as a kickass storyteller.
VRISKA: It was like this whole part of my personality I was never aware of. Like the part that's compelled to just outright explain tons of really interesting things to people, while sparing no detail whatsoever.
VRISKA: It's made me feel a lot closer to understanding my aspect, as well as closer to you. So I just wanted to say, thanks!
ARANEA: Aw, you're welcome!
ARANEA: I feel the exact same way a8out my time with you.
ARANEA: You have really helped me get in touch with the true pir8 within. I saw in you the adventurous spirit I always wished I could 8e.
ARANEA: You helped me finally understand the virtue in rationalizing questiona8le decisions, and 8ehaving unscrupulously for the gr8ter good!
VRISKA: Haha, stop! You're going to make me start tearing up.
VRISKA: Get over here and give me a hug, alpha sister.
ARANEA: ::::)
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