User blog:GamerNerd i/Transcript: It's About (Messing With) Time - Act II

Okay, NOW we have exploration. There was a suspiciously short gap between this and the last recording. Granted, the last one was only a meeting. Ai also said that he intended to visit someone. I'd expect neither to really be time-consuming. Hehehe.... I'll assume that you know what's coming. If not, then maybe you should catch up on what's happening.

Transcript
We're in Ai's room again. He doesn't seem to be wearing his summoning robes this time. The again, the blue jeans and green T-shirt with a classic joystick on it are probably transmogrified for comfort. As usual, the View is latched onto his glasses, but this time he's at his computer, clicking his mouse and hammering on the keyboard like a frenzied pianist. At the same time, he's chatting into a mic attachment to the View.

"Defend that fort, KingTeiji! No, not that one; top, you doofus! Fight4Dreams, go with TheAlexBot and grab that tribute! Zeroskill, help me with this merc camp. When you two are done there, get out fast and help us with the boss. We need this final push!" Despite his exasperated tone, he seems like he's doing really well in whatever he's playing.

Amidst this apparent display of gaming skill, N slowly descends from... the ceiling? She's wearing a jacket covered with white words over a dark purple shirt and black leggings under a navy blue knee-length skirt. Again, I assume that it's actually her summoning robes.

She glances at Ai and shrugs, then plops into his bed and pulls out the iTome (the Tome in iPad form) and begins to read.

"Almost... almost... aaand..." Ai mutters, before exclaiming loudly, "YES! We got it! Nice job guys! I, uh," he glances at N in his bed. "I've gotta go now. GG all!"

As he shuts off his computer, another kid comes into the room. N quickly pulls a sheet over herself to hide. Rotom hits the desk quickly. "Kuya?" the boy says, "Can you help me with this problem?"

"I..." Ai takes a deep breath. "Okay. Let me see." He takes the paper and looks at it for a few seconds, then grabs a nearby pencil. "So, what you're going to do is..." He begins writing and talking to the boy simultaneously, teaching. After a minute or two he's done and the boy is out the door.

"You two can come out now." He says. "Or at least, stop trying to hide." N uncovers herself and stands up from the bed. Rotom just floats again.

"Awww..." N says in mock admiration, "Look who's a good big brother!" She giggles.

Ai rolls his eyes. "Sorry about that. I keep telling him to knock, but you know how siblings are."

"I actually don't, but I think I've about figured it out." N replies. "Shall we begin?" She gestures to Rotom. "This guy's already started recording."

"I know. Let's just jump right into it. He knows us already, and he'll figure out the objective as we go." He opens up the zigzagged portal again, but this time I see a cartoony Sphinx through the crack. He glances at N before walking through. "You might want to shed the jacket," he says. N follows through, then Rotom.

N looks around while Ai closes the portal. "Oh, now I see why no jacket. Very well then." She throws it up into the air and it disappears. "This is amazing... the energies in this time make magic so much easier!"

"Of course it will. This is the source of all that, after all." He gestures to a nearby Sphinx. "Welcome to Ancient Egypt. Well..." The Sphinx is rather cartoony looking. It resembles.... "I guess technically this is Zgypt. For some reason Dave's face is everywhere in this timeline."

"As are Zombies, evidently." N glances behind her. She pulls a black fabric and wax doll, the same that she used when entering the Player's House. "Hide yourself!" She mutters a word of power and becomes like a mirage. Ai focuses for a second and becomes transparent blue again.

Despite their disguises, everyone still tries to crouch behind a sand dune as the Zombies approach. There's a huge horde of them and they're each carrying something metallic. Some are holding gears, others springs, and others... rockets?

"What the heck..." N mutters, "Should we attack them?"

Ai starts to walk away. "Nah," he says casually. "He's gonna finish building that eventually, regardless of what we do. Better to let him finish it soon and take him out quickly." He turns around briefly and beckons. "Come on, I'm sure the plants here require some assistance."

As the group walks away from the line of mummies, Ai takes a few orbs from his pocket. Each looks like an eye, colored with shades of blue, green, and black. He tosses one straight up into the air. It begins to move on its own, and the group dashes after it. Soon the orb drops and Ai has to throw it into the air again. This goes on for a good five minutes.

"Ai, hold on a sec," N pants. "There's something over those dunes. I can hear it." She points to her left and moves toward there. "Wait here, I'll scout it out."

With that, she spins and shapeshifts into a falcon. Rotom peeks over the dune as N circles overhead. A few Zombies are guarding a sealed metal box. Something inside the box is trying to get out, and the box shudders every few seconds. The Zombies are talking to each other, and Rotom manages to pick up some of the conversation.

"Why must we obey this unbeliever, ra ra?" asks a Zombie with a bird like headless and scepter with a sun on it. "He appearad out of nowhere, ra, and then makes us work for him? Who does he think he is, ra?"

Another Zombie begins scratching himself like a dog, despite his jackal-like hat. "I don't know. But he helped us round up the problematic plants. Speaking of which..." he hands the bird Zombie a stick. "Throw this for me."

The bird rolls his eyes. "Fine. Fetch, ra ra." He tosses the stick as the jackal Zombie bounds toward it. Then he looks up and sees N. "Today must be a good day, ra ra. The he-ra-ld of the sun watches over us." Then N dives toward him and he freaks.

"Raaaahh! My lord, what have I done?" He attempts to shoot N down with fire from his staff, but N dodges it nimbly. As she lands, she transforms into a crocodile. The bird reacts accordingly. "Wha- an imposter! Begone, foul cra-ture of Chaos, ra ra! Back to the Nile with you, Sobek!" Put simply, N "chomps" Ra.

"Hey! That was my friend!" The jackal yells, as he returns from fetching. "Give him back!" He spits up bones from his mouth and begins throwing them at N, who's still chewing. The bones harmlessly bounce off her hide, but wherever they hit the ground a grave pops up. Eventually N is walled in by these graves. But that was okay, since N just transformed back into human form. She puts out a hand palm up and then flips it so that the palm faces the ground. At the same time, the sand under the jackal flipped up from under him. He falls over, and in a comical way. gets his head stuck in the ground. His feet wiggle in the air as he struggles to free himself.

Ai comes over the dune and looks at the scene. "Where'd the Ra Zombie go?" He asks with skeptically.

N's face turns into a mixed shade of red and green. "I, uh..." She stops suddenly and runs behind the metal box, covering her mouth. I hear disgusting noises and see Ra's scepter come out from behind it. Ai appears unfazed, while I'm also making disgusting noises.

"You ate him, didn't you?" Ai says flatly. "I heard something about Sobek. Crocodile?"

N emerges from behind the box, embarrassed. "Uh... I didn't expect to retain my human taste receptors?" She makes a gagging noise and turns to... regurgitate... out of sight.

Ai sighs. "Okay then, Ghom. Let's get these guys out of here." He pulls out a strange white gun and shoots at the base of the box. Then he opens a portal and shoots into it as well. The box falls into a hole and I hear it clang onto a hard floor within the portal. "I think Rotom's almost out of battery too, so we should cut the recording."

It's at this moment that I realize that I'm hearing snoring in the background. Apparently Rotom running it of battery means it'll take a nap.

N stumbles through the portal in the background as Ai approaches the camera. "So," he says, "The bad news is, we've got a few sick people to take care of, and not just N over there. The plants probably need some help too. But the good news is, I'm feeling signals more strongly here. Maybe we're getting closer. I sure hope so. Until next time... See you." He grabs Rotom and hits a button, then the footage goes dark.

Final Commentary
So... Yeah... I don't think there's much new to say here. Other than that Rotom has a battery level, despite being an electric ghost. Oh, and that Ai is an older sibling. (I know how that feels, trust me.) And that apparently certain things, such as the contents of one's stomach, carries over between shapeshifting.

Besides that... I've got nothing. So I'll be patiently waiting until next time. Thanks for reading.

Trivia / References

 * The implication is that Ai is playing the Blizzard game Heroes of the Storm, a MOBA featuring characters from all other Blizzard games. I can even distinguish the map; "tributes" are the special gimmick of Cursed Hollow.
 * //Each name Ai says is the username of one of my actual Battle.net friends. One of them is on this Wiki.
 * //Ai's exasperated tone also well reflects the way I usually sound when I play HotS.
 * Ai also uses HotS's stealth mechanic. Again.
 * Naturally, N utilizes a lot of Egyptian magic. These are pulled from Rick Riordan's The Kane Chronicles trilogy.
 * The first is the use of an interdimensional "locker." The objects are stored in the Dust, the spirit realm of Egyptian myth.
 * The cloaking spell is used again. She really likes it, doesn't she?
 * N also shapeshifts. According to Egyptian myth, mortals would sometimes become hosts to one of the deities. This grants the host limited powers if they can "Agree" with the deity within them. In this case, N appears to host Ra (falcon) and Sobek (crocodile).
 * N's sand moving may be traced to Geb, the god of the earth.
 * Ai refers to N as Ghom, the Demon Lord of Gluttony in Blizzard's Diablo franchise.
 * Ai has a portal gun from the game... Portal.