Overstuck Main Roleplay

[Admin]

OVERSTUCK
PROLOGUE

This is the day the world died, this is the day the world began,
the day chaos ruled, the day order rose,
the day darkness won, the day light shone on.
This is Overstuck.

It seems like everyone’s been talking about the game SBURB.  Already rated Game of the Year before it was even released, SBURB promises “an experience like no other” - a game where you can control your client’s environment as you wish, build, explore dungeons, and create new items with the in-game Alchemy system.  Sounds great, right?  Well let’s just say things don’t exactly go according to plan...

stolenFable - New York City - 11/30/16
Lucas paced around his condo in distress.  “Come on, come on,” he yelled to no visible person, “just do something, dammit!”  He checked his phone for new messages, but his server was nowhere to be found.
[05:51] SF: THE END OF THE FUCKING WORLD IS UPON ME AND I'M SMACK-FUCIGN-DAB IN THE CENTER OF IT
[05:51] SF: DEPLOY THE SHIT
[06:00] SF: WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!
He glanced out his window at the meteors raining down on the New York City skyline, lining the sight with smoke and flame.  From what Lucas saw of the trail heading towards him, he had about 12 minutes left before his house went the way of the rest of New York, but he knew how to stop it.  That, or what caused it in the first place.  That game… he thought to himself, that fucking game.  I wish I’d never encountered it in the first place.

11/28/16
Lucas walked through the crowded streets of Times Square with a frown.  Ever since he’d gone straight, he wasn’t having nearly as much fun as he’d used to.  That, and he wasn’t actually making any money.  Not that the money was the reason he conducted… illicit extracurriculars - that was just a side bonus - it was to sate the addiction.  He’d gotten used to the thrill, the rush, of thieving and conning, and at this moment it was taking all of his willpower not to go back to that life.  But he had to do it.  He couldn’t put anyone else in danger again.
Lost in thought, Lucas accidentally bumped into someone head-on.  “Hey, I’m walkin’ here!” the man called out, though Lucas was already on his way.  Funny thing about Times Square: on average five-hundred thousand people walk through on a daily basis, brushing past each other in a rush to get to their destinations, like a mosh pit with sidewalks.  With all the hustle and bustle, it’s nearly impossible to avoid pickpockets.  Wait, pickpockets?  As Lucas reached the other side of the sea of people, he checked his jacket pockets, only to find one… two… three?  five?!  five people’s wallets inside.  Old habits die hard, I guess.  He quickly ducked into an alley to check his spoils, throwing most of the wallets in the gutter after pocketing the cash.  He didn’t bother with credit cards; he didn’t need to.  He already had more than enough money to live on, and it wasn’t worth the risk.  He started examining the final wallet, then stopped suddenly, his eyes fixed on an inscription lining the interior of the leather.
Lucas Holden
He stared in awe at the oddity.  He’d never used his real name with anyone, yet here he found it embroidered on someone else’s wallet.  He searched the rest of it frantically, trying to find some semblance of who the owner might be.  There were no credit cards, no cash, no ID, nothing, save for the name.  It couldn’t be a coincidence, he pondered, Someone wanted me to have this.  But why?  A clock chimed 10, and peacekeepers started announcing curfew.  Not wanting to be caught, Lucas decided to obey and head home, eager to finally have some adventure back in his life.  Who owned the wallet?  Why did they want me to have it?  How did they know who I am?  What does it all mean?  The fact that his formerly-mundane life had been populated with these questions excited him beyond measure.

When he got back home, he quickly got to work unraveling the mystery.  The first thing he found was a hidden flap in the wallet containing two strange cards that appeared to have pictures of items on them.  Or were the items in the cards?  As soon as the cards were removed, the wallet underwent a shift, changing into a Captchalogue Modus.  The interior pockets designed for cash and credit cards morphed into slots for captchalogue cards.  Or at least, that's the best way to imagine it.  The whole thing is a lot of metaphysical bullshit that can't really be explained.  Surprised yet not alarmed, Lucas pocketed the wallet and turned his attention towards the cards.  From examining the pictures on the front, they appeared to contain... SBURB discs?  Now that's just silly, right?  Going through all this trouble of making him pickpocket a wallet with his name in it and everything just to give him a stupid game?  Lucas had never thought about playing SBURB - why would he?  Up until a few weeks ago, he'd had all the adventure he'd wanted; he had no desire to waste his time with video games to attain that.  But of course, the circumstances surrounding these discs' presence intrigued him greatly, so he quickly decided to pull out the SBURB client disc.  He metaphysically retrieved it from the captchalogue card (I don't even think I want to know how) and walked over to his computer to check it out.  However, before he even got halfway there, the disc just disappeared without a trace, as if it had never existed at all.  Lucas froze for a few seconds, shocked.  He just kind of stood there, completely speechless and unmoving.  Then, suddenly, he started to chuckle.  He chuckled in incredulity for about a minute, then abruptly yelled out an angry "WHAT?!"  He dropped to his hands and knees and searched the floor, convinced it must have just dropped somewhere.  It couldn't have just vanished.  Things don't just vanish out of thin air like that.  What the hell was going on?  He started feeling like his sanity was slipping and tried desperately to grasp at possible reasons why this could be happening, when his thought process was interrupted by a noise from his computer, despite the fact that he distinctly remembered turning it off before leaving the house.  He walked over and checked the monitor, when his eyes locked on a window:
SBURB version 1.0.2

© SKAIANET SYSTEMS INCORPORATED.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

SBURB client is running.

Waiting for server to establish connection...
At the sight of this, his face took a wild turn, slowly changing from frustrated to straight-faced to a wide-eyed mad grin.  He held this expression for a few seconds, his right eye twitching, before quickly screaming "FUCK THIS" and walking to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

??? - Prospit - ??/??/??

The messenger sighed as he lugged his bags of mail up yet another spire.  God, how many spires do we need?  It’s not like the kids ever wake up or anything…  Regardless, he trudged ever upwards to deliver mail to the fourth resident of their dream moon.  It’s too bad I can’t fly like them; this would be a whole lot faster.  He soon made it to the top and looked upon the sleeping figure as he caught his breath.  “Look at him,” he remarked to himself, “so remarkable, those humans.  They can fly, they can control reality, they can read the clouds… and yet they just sleep the cycles away.  It’s such a waste.”  He glanced up at the scrawled letters adorning the walls on all sides as the boy shifted in his sleep.  “He writes, though he never awakens.  If these are the ‘heroes of legend’ we’ve been waiting on, then I’m not sure they deserve it with how lazy they’re being.”  The messenger placed the package he came there to deliver on the human’s desk and sighed.  “You’d think they’d leave the job of saving the world to somebody more capable…”  And with that, he once again made his 1000-step journey down the tower.

[@stolenFable]

stolenFable Journalog - 11/29
I woke up this morning with little memory of yesterday’s events, for no discernable reason.  In fact, when I saw my journal on the table, I hardly recognized it.  I went and reread what had happened the day before, but it all seemed foreign to me.  I don’t know why.  The client disc was still gone, and the client window still sat there on my desktop, waiting.  I tried to close it, but it seems to be hardwired into the PC.  It’s invisible to the task manager, and I can’t shut it down via command line.  It’s like a ghost.
Anyway, today I went and connected with my old chums from back in the day.  First on my list was a very old friend of mine: torpedoArson.  I wondered if she was still as much of an asshat as she was before.
[13:40] TA: HEY FUCK YOU ASSHOLE!
Still just as charming, I see.
My chumroll seemed exceptionally sparse save for her, so I went and did some random encounters.  I made a few friends, like this one guy who says he has MPD and this user who’s actually a pretty darn cool guy.  We chatted about SBURB and such and he asked me to make a torrent of the server disc for him.  I retrieved it from its card for the first time, and surprisingly it didn’t disappear as soon as I held it.  I scanned it (without running it; I don’t want to get too much into this before I know what it is) and it appeared to just be a normal copy of SBURB, save for a lack of DRM.  Why someone wanted me to have it, and especially wanted me to attain it in such an unsettling way, I don’t think I’ll ever know.  But against my better judgement, I extracted the server files and set up a torrent, hosting it on my website.  By the end of the day, it had 8 views, so I guess he must have spread it around.  I don’t know why I don’t care.

[neolithicCoder]

I get up after a long nap; staying up all the time has really taken a toll on me. I go about my daily activities: checking around the hive, making sure no robot has grown sentient and is trying to murder me or something. After making sure everything’s alright I go to my computer, noticing I had gotten trolled while I was sleeping. It’s stolenFable, and he doesn't seem too happy. Nevertheless I contact him as he seemed pretty panicked.
[6:20] NC: Are y0u dead yet

[@stolenFable]

[6:21] SF: You'd be surprised.
stolenFable - New England Wasteland - 11/30
Lucas looked back at the smoldering remains of his condo and grimaced, feeling a pang of loss for the life he once led.
[6:21] SF: You know, some people expect their servers to stay online when playing and not take 30 minutes to jerk off mid-apocalypse.
[6:21] SF: I paid good money for that condo, you know.
[6:21] SF: Jackass
Lucas' eyes scanned the ruined scene before him.  The city was nigh-unrecognizable.  The entirety was completely obliterated, with nothing but a few scattered pieces of rebar to indicate that the second-largest city in the world had ever existed at all.  The entire area emanated a sense of solemnity.
[6:22] SF: The meteor shower seems to have stopped here, though I think I can see some falling far off in the distance
[6:23] SF: Likely going off to go destroy the rest of the world
Lucas started walking slowly down the streets he once knew.  Nothing remained; not even a piece of asphalt to show where a road was.
[6:24] SF: It's so weird
[6:24] SF: There aren't any bodies
And so there weren't.  Despite the chaos, there weren't any signs of anyone, living or dead.  The air was eerily silent, as though every living thing had been ripped from the face of the earth.  There was no noise whatsoever - not a single sound at all - save for the noise of Lucas' shoes softly striking the dirt as he walked.  The city that never sleeps, sleeping at last.  He loudly released his breath, unaware that he was holding it at all.  Dust, carried by the breeze, clouded the pocketed expanse.  It looked exactly like what he imagined a post-apocalyptic world to look like, yet still completely foreign.
[6:28] SF: I think you should go on ahead; I don't doubt that you're next.
[6:28] SF: I... I'll be a while.
-- stolenFable [SF] ceased pestering neolithicCoder [NC] --

[neolithicCoder]

neolithicCoder - Shadow's Respiteblock - 11/30
Deciding to see for myself the damage of the meteor showers, I pull up the viewport and observe.  Seeing the wreckage, it finally clicks that I’m likely next on the chopping block, and feeling that it’s of my best interest and well-being I contact my server player as soon as possible.  However, I realize I’m not at all prepared, so I decide to go for an item hunt around the hive, looking for anything of particular use.  The first thing that comes to mind is, of course, the Claymore - my preferred weapon of choice.  I move over to where I last remember left it, hanging on my door, as bloody as when I placed it.  Small pockets of rust lie scattered within the dried blood-spatters.  Seeing my blood adorning the blade brings back memories of my last FLARP session.
The battle had become a one-on-one, me matched up against another troll - one wearing a bandana, which I hadn’t given much thought to at the time.  A long series of evenly-matched attacks and blocks later, she never appeared to tire, though my strength was failing.  Finally, I faltered, letting my guard down momentarily.  However, as she struck with her weapon, I swung mine, both connecting simultaneously.  My sword caught her bandana, ripping it off, revealing a third eye underneath.  We both froze, shocked.  All sound ceased, save for my blood sizzling on the ground.  Due to the circumstances (mutations are highly-stigmatized against), we ended the battle with a truce, deciding not to ask the other about their mutations.  Since that incident, we’d become good friends, happily chatting on occasion.
I snap out of this memory, remembering that I have to be prepared for the foretold doom.  I grab my sword, wiping it down with a cloth.
You found the Claymore!
/* boy if you don't shut up */

[@stolenFable]

stolenFable - New England Wasteland - 12/9
So Lucas walked.  He traveled the new land he'd been dropped into, never staying in one spot, moving by the light of the moon and resting during the day.  In a way, it was almost comforting, moving around like he used to, yet now it hurt.  For the first time since he left home, he felt lonely.  Even when he stayed unrooted, there were still people, whether they were just passing by or chasing him.  But now… there was nothing.  A week passed, and all Lucas saw was dust.  Forests, cities, oceans - all become naught.  The entirety of human civilization, just gone in a single day, as if it had never existed at all.
And he hadn’t seen it coming.

Lucas had been walking for about a week or so, and had traveled hundreds of miles from his original location.  It seemed as though the meteor storm had stopped around the world, lasting for only 24 hours.  Why would anyone destroy earth like that?  Summoning meteors to bash the planet out of existence?  Why-  Lucas hit the ground with a whump as his foot betrayed him, sending him face-first into the sand.  “What the he-HOLY SHIT?” he screamed as he struggled to get back on his feet.  He was prevented from doing so by a small hole which his foot had fallen in, his attempts to retrieve it only causing sharp bursts of pain to shoot up his leg, provoking cries of agony.  “Y..yup,” he muttered, struggling to speak, “that ankle’s broken.  fffffffffffUCK that hurts.”  He spent several agonizing seconds twisting his leg around so he could reach the ajar lid on the hole when he froze, his eyes locked on the icon adorning its surface.  A spirogram.  “Of course it fucking is,” he snarled, “can’t have pain without that goddamn game involved somehow, right?”  He pushed the lid over, freeing his entrapped ankle.  Without hesitation, he quickly shifted his ankle back into alignment.  If anyone were still alive on the earth, they’d likely hear a blood-curdling cry no matter how far away they were..  Nursing his wound for a few seconds, he quickly retrieved a few feet of fabric and some long sticks from the Pile of Assorted Items he’d collected in one of his captchalogue cards and fashioned a rudimentary splint and crutch, making the ankle barely usable again.  “Probably the first time I’m glad I got drafted,” he lightly jokes to himself before grunting from another stab from his ankle.  He peered down the hole, and noticed a little ladder on the side.  “Well, I guess I’ve got to at least try,” he mutters before strapping his crutch to his back and struggling down the tube.

At the bottom, he saw a room about the same size as his bedroom, the walls made of grey metal, and a large monitor adorning the wall on the left side.  Below the monitor sat what appeared to be a normal keyboard, save for a large “====->” button next to it.  Intrigued, he pressed it, causing the screen to light up with a feed of a girl sleeping in her room.  “What the…  What kind of perv...”  He nearly left to go explore the rest of the base, when he noticed a morning cityscape through her window.  He realized now that he wasn’t looking at a live feed, but a recording of the past.  He looked closer at the girl’s face, and a hint of recognition flashed across his face.  “Nicki?”  Below the image lay what appeared to be a command line.  Despite not wanting to mess with anything, curiosity got the better of him, and he decided to test something out.
> HEY ASSHOLE, WAKE UP

torpedoArson - California - 11/28 [Collab with torpedoArson]
You wake up with a start, and, as usual, feel vaguely vitriolic. What time is it, anyways?
5:34??? What the hell? Your sister was probably the one who woke you up, she always finds a way to pull this kind of crap...
Lucas jumped back from the screen astonished, then clutched his injured leg in pain.  After waiting a few seconds for the pain to subside, he thought out loud about what just happened.  "Wait, what?  That's gotta be a coincidence, right?  I couldn't have just communicated with her in the past; that's just not possible.  I mean, I'm not even going to talk about the fact that we don't have the technology - we've kind of established that a lot of crazy shit is possible now - but even if we had the tech faster-than-light communication would require tremendous amounts of power, not to mention the fact that it's TRAVELING IN TIME.  No, it's got to be a coincidence."  Regardless, he wanted to make absolutely sure, so he posted another command.
> GO CHECK PESTERCHUM
Well, you feel too energetic to get back to sleep, and its too early to go get breakfast... Might as well get started on your daily trolling practice.
You get out of bed, and walk over to your desk to retrieve your LAPTOP. You are currently naked, but that's perfectly normal. Who the hell sleeps with clothes on, anyways?
Lucas quickly shut his eyes as soon as Nick pulled off her blanket.  Why does he not consider these things when it matters?
Not wanting to be even more of a perv than he already was, he locked his eyes on the keyboard and typed.
> GO GET DRESSED FIRST
For some reason, you decide to put on clothes, even though you're in your room, the curtains are drawn, and are confident that your SIS would not be depraved enough to put cameras in your room.
You just throw on a shirt and some underwear. The incredible torpedoArson has some trolling to do.
Lucas waited with his eyes closed for a few minutes just to be safe, then slowly opened his eyes to see a (finally fully-clothed) Nick DeMageo sitting at her computer.  "Good, finally.  I wonder if she can refuse commands?
...this is really weird."
> GO SEE IF THAT GUY LUCAS IS ON PESTERCHUM.  I THINK HE MENTIONED HIS USERNAME WAS STOLENFABLE OR SOMETHING
Um. It looks like you're entering a random username into your Pesterchum client.
You feel kind of confused, but go along with your seemingly-random urges without much complaint.
> PESTER LUCAS
You try to pester this "stolenFable" you put into your client only moments ago. Somewhat surprisingly, you actually find someone on the other end of the connection. You sort of expected it to not exist yet, considering you made it up just a few seconds ago.
> CALL LUCAS A NICE PERSON
Wait.
Okay, what the hell?
You could have sworn you just had the urge to... be nice to someone.
... Who the hell is this "stolenFable" person, anyways?
[05:34] -- torpedoArson [TA] began pestering stolenFable [SF] at 05:34 --
[05:34] SF: heya
Crap, it looks like you were too confused by the sudden urge to act like a half-decent person to properly introduce yourself with a well-placed "FUCK YOU." You can't let them get the upper hand.

Show Pesterlog:

stolenFable - Command Station Gamma - 12/9
"...woah.  That just happened.  Aaaaand it explains a lot."

[technologicalPacifist]

technologicalPacifist - Faulin's Respiteblock - 11/29
A young troll wakes from his slumber. He gets up and stretches a bit, then grabs his glasses.  He walks over to his dresser and grabs a match box. Handling it carefully, he walks over to one of the candles that illuminated his room and lights it, then walks to the next candle and does the same, and continues this process until all of the candles in his room are lit. Great. At least we have THAT out of the way. Then he walks to another room, one full of bookshelves. You've seen this room more than a thousand times. He picks up a book and sits down. A FUCKING BOOK. The end of the fucking world is about to start and this kid is reading a book. What a great use of his time. If he could hear you, he’d probably keep reading just to spite you. Well then, what was this boy’s name? Despite the fact that you’d rather name him “Oblivious Egghead”, you doubt that kind of pettiness would get either of you anywhere, so you use the name displayed on his placronym: Faulin Ashiro. You didn't pay much attention to the kid anytime before this, but this time is URGENT. Ignorant of what’s about to happen, Faulin just keeps reading. What a huge waste of time. You’d love to be able to make him get up, but some jackass stole your command station, so you’ll just have to wait.
After about thirty straight minutes of reading, Faulin gets up and puts the book back on its shelf. Finally having something to observe, you pay him notice. Faulin gets up and starts walking down stairs. Three whole sets of them. Where is he even going that takes THAT many stairs? Whose house has four floors? Well, once he finishes descending, he seems to be on the bottom floor of his hive. You wonder why he made his room specifically on the top floor, but that’s irrelevant. Faulin grabs his laptop, which has a navy blue peace sign right in the middle of it. You still think this is one huge waste of time, but at least he’s doing something. Faulin once again walks up the 3 sets of stairs. Why doesn’t he just keep his laptop in his room, instead of wasting 15 minutes traversing stairs? While you were busy filling up on your daily sodium requirement, he’d already made it back up. Why are you so impatient? He opens up the laptop and clicks on the SBURB.exe file on his desktop, displaying a countdown timer that appears to have been active for a few months. He’s checked that timer quite a few times since he’s gotten the computer, and why wouldn’t he?  A mysterious laptop appearing out of nowhere - one not even slightly grub-related like the normal computers in this world - containing a time-locked file? Who wouldn’t be intrigued?
Faulin opens up Trollian, and despite seeing several users online, he doesn’t care to start a conversation. Why’d he even open Trollian if he didn’t plan to use it? Now that you think about it, what’s with him today? He’s seemed a bit off, what with his solemnity and isolation. Normally he’d be perfectly up for a conversation, but right now he seems almost dissociated. Could he sense his impending doom? Nah, that’s impossible. You realize that you shouldn’t logically be this mad at him for misusing his time when he has no way of knowing its value, but your anger has another source altogether. Who the hell steals a command station but leaves the screen?  It’s not like you have anything better to do, so you keep watching, bored out of your mind.  Something’s got to happen soon, you know it. After all, you’ve still got to look forward to the impending doom, right?  Whilst you were occupied arguing with yourself, Faulin seems to be reading again. That kid reads too much. Suddenly, Faulin puts away the book in a hurry. What? That boy never shifts his attention that quickly unless… You get a bad feeling in your stomach as clattering sounds echo from below. Faulin descends the floors anxiously frightened, as if he had seen a ghost. When he reaches the bottom floor, it turns out all that clattering was MORE stuff that was hidden away from Faulin. Spare parts? Faulin instantly grabs them and starts working.. They remind you of… you can't think of a tech piece quite like the one Faulin is holding.

[spiralingSpirit]

A young troll wakes up as everyone else is going to bed. He immediately check his Trollian and sees that no one has attempted to troll him. This isn't surprising, as it's been like this for a while. What is this troll's name?
ASSHOLE BANDIT
His expression turns to anger as he points at his placronym, which displays the name "Nojair Hizfal".
>Nojair: Take a walk
Nojair never takes walks without his two favorite knives. He refuses. Too many big gross spiders.
>Nojair: Grab knives
Nojair grabs his black knife and his white knife. Nojair prefers to call them his Knights.
>Nojair: Take a walk
As he is outside he notices a large figure. Oh shit it's a spider.
>Nojair: GET HOME FAST
He runs as fast as he can flailing his arms in the air forgetting he is holding his "Knights". He cuts his wrist but makes it to his house.
>Nojair: Open door.
He goes inside and sits on his bed. He notices the cut on his wrist and wonders if he should clean it. He also wonders if he should clean his Knights.
>Nojair: Clean wrist and knights
He cleans his Knights than his wrist and decides to lay down a little longer.
>Nojair: Don't go to bed and stare at Trollian to see if someone trolls you.
Nojair successfully didn't go to bed. Now he waits.

[Sponsored content]