kepler spun around in his wheelie chair and watched the VR world rotate with him.

he hadn’t played in a million years, what with work and Apocalypse and all, but given said apocalypse was looming he’d decided to boot up the ol’ glasses one last time for old fuck’s sake. he had some time to kill anyway while his simulator compiled all the data from the naganadel study he’d done with THEO BECKETT .

he picked his strongest character and set out to go about pwning some noobs while his computers whirred behind him, aiming to be the biggest jackass on the planet in his boredom. like a cat.

unfortunately he found someone had beat him to it and was busy being too stupid to truly experience the kind of misery he wanted to inflict.

taking pity on the guy, kepler swapped his skillset to ice and grass based attacks and launched an overleveled barrage of bullshit at the monster, depleting its healthbar in two keystrokes and saving the creampuff-- er, creampunk-- from deletion.

gallowsCalibrator im helping because you made me sad

.

[attr="class","mintag"] john nelson

In real life, Kepler had lifted the VR visor enough to let him see where he was going so he could cross the cold metal submarine floors to the fridge in his lab. Contained within were a collection of samples clearly labeled BIOHAZARD as well as his lifetime supply of peach Bangs.

He grabbed one and popped the top.

gallowsCalibrator it’s okay. We were all new once, i guess.

His avatar steps up to the pile of loot, the teal-red of his customized pyrite armor glinting in the green glow.

gallowsCalibrator no, you clearly need it more than I do.
gallowsCalibrator you can’t use it yet but if you don’t want to hold onto it you can break it down for crafting materials.
gallowsCalibrator or you can save it to use after some grinding

He cocked his head, in real life and VR.

gallowsCalibrator do you know where the blacksmith is?

[attr="class","mintag"] john nelson
thanks for not outing me as a homestuck, doe

Kepler had been that kid once, too. Running out of bullets in Silent Hill and being chased by weird, mutated, pixel monsters until he cried IRL and his mom made his nanny take away his Playstation.

Them’s was the days.

He cracked a smile at the emote, flashing a thumbs up that produced a Kirby-like star off the thumb twice in return.

gallowsCalibrator: sooo technically he was called the ballsmith because, you know, pokeballs.
gallowsCalibrator: but you can imagine how that went down with a target age range of teenagers.

Kepler ran in rapid circles around Creampunk, waiting for him to pick up the gear.

gallowsCalibrator: i’ll show you where he is. There are a couple of tutorial quests you can grab from him that ease you into the game. At the end of the intro mode you get to pick one elemental magic: grass, water, or fire. How original, right?

He threw up a Grass-type spell to illustrate, a burst of green energy that conjured vines and roots out of nowhere before dissipating back into pixels.

gallowsCalibrator: then after you level up you can put exp points towards new spells or new elements and eventually you can unlock a whole bunch.

[attr="class","mintag"] john nelson

It’s okay, Kepler had played this wonderful, piece of shit game since early access, and he, too, had laughed at the name ball smith. He had actually voted in the poll that was made to decide whether or not to keep or change it. He had voted keep.

gallowsCalibrator well, you can hack and slash it if you really want. Some people do builds like that.
gallowsCalibrator but idk idk i think magic makes it more fun

And he throws up the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ emote a couple of times for good measure.

gallowsCalibrator staple of boring.
gallowsCalibrator shit’s the cornflakes of game design.

He jumps in place, dipping in the direction he intends to go.

gallowsCalibrator blacksmith is this waaaaay

He starts running for the NPC’s forge, decorated in bronze and warm tones and tucked nicely into a mountain. The blacksmith was a very generic burly, black-haired, bearded gentleman whose idle animations had him going from the anvil to the front of the store, and back again.

gallowsCalibrator Here ye be. He’ll give you some intro quests about finding materials and fighting some level 1 baddies and shtuff.

[attr="class","mintag"] john nelson

Kepler is happy he has, at least, found a kindred spirit in views of the arcane arts. It heartens him to Creampunk, if only just a little. If he did a little inflection he’d find a predisposition towards those willing to invest some time and effort into mastering the finer points of the game, like the magic skill tree, and unlocking the power of combos.

But that was bordering dangerously on incel-ish thoughts so best to leave those alone.

gallowsCalibrator respect the classics’
gallowsCalibrator are you my grandpa?

After a beat and several belly-laugh animations, he added:

gallowsCalibrator spellsword sounds nice.

He flashes a dabbing emote a number of times out in front of the blacksmith’s shop.

gallowsCalibrator yeh np he’s just kind of fucking over here. Easy to miss.

IRL Kepler chuckled to himself.

gallowsCalibrator it’s ok. When they released the Scarlet DLC i ended up at the Fire-type cult hq camp and was wondering why they were kicking the shit out of me.
gallowsCalibrator it’s easy to do.
gallowsCalibrator i have to go do my big boy job but i'll shoot you a friend request if you ever need help or wanna do bosses or w/e

[attr="class","mintag"] john nelson