GAMERQUEST

You will admit, you have become endeared to Pasta the Cat.

Gaming has never really been your thing, but being stuck indoors more often than not with at least one console at your disposal is beginning to slowly change that. You’d whittled through the small games library Chrome and Tabitha had on their Uss™, and then without even prompting, Chrome just kind of dropped about 20 more games in your lap one day.

Going through them, it was kind of obvious he had just picked up the ones with the most interesting boxart. At least one of them was a “Horse Game”, which only served to enlighten you with the horrible knowledge that horses here are mostly unchanged, except for being more colourful and actively omnivorous. (Though the colour thing may just be because it’s a game for little girls specifically.) You played it for about 10 minutes before the motion controls drove you insane.

But there has been at least one good game in there so far- Penne of Peril: Shadow Kingdom, starring your favourite new boy, Pasta. He has a sword that is also a gun and looks to be about 3 feet tall. A perfect combination. This game is filled with great combos like that. The princess? A cool fuckin ghost, and not even in distress about it. The gameplay? Both action and adventure. The villain? _Hot. And how could you forget to mention the god-given blessing that is being able to use a normal fucking controller instead of motion controls? This game has it all.

Unfortunately, included under the umbrella of “all” is what all brave men fear... A bit of the game that is kind of bullshit, not gonna lie.

You have been stuck on this fucking stealth mission for about an hour too long. Like, it wants you to go fast, but also stay sneaky? Pick one, asshole. How are you even supposed to do that? Not to mention it’s decided this would be the perfect time to introduce precision aiming puzzles.

You’ve tried it all. Video walkthroughs, written walkthroughs, those websites that claim to have cheats but mostly just list unlock requirements? None of it has worked, and so you think a thought that nobody has ever thunk.

You need a gamer.

... You message Lavender.

Ali(en): Stuck on a game because I'm bad at video games :( 
Are you a gamer, perchance? Or do you know any?

Pawpurrl: i am not a Capital G Gamer but i have played games
Pawpurrl: what game is it?

Ali(en): Penne of Peril: Shadow Kingdom

Pawpurrl: oh the one with the gay little knight yeah ok
Pawpurrl: looked it up its on the uss right. i still have one of those if u 
wanna bring ur game over im not doing anything rn
Pawpurrl: i havent played it but i played one of the other penne games a bit 
so i can maybe help

Ali(en): Is Pasta actually gay or

Pawpurrl: no but its the vibes

Ali(en): RIP but I can respect the vibes
Ali(en): Anyway I’ll head over.

You pack up the game disc and pop out the SD card, since you’re tech savvy enough to know that's where the save file goes.


At this point you’ve gotten a pretty workable short-distance disguise: Scarf to hide your neck, neckerchief to hide your face and hood up to hide the rest of your strange, ape-descendant head. The main thing that makes you suspicious is the lack of tail. Well, that, and how horrifically the colours clash.

Shuffling your way out the door again you leave a note as to where you’re going, as is now customary. Gotta let your keepers know where you last were headed in case they need to track you down before a government agent does a saw trap on you. Anyway, shouldn’t dwell.

Within a minute or so you’re at Lavender’s door, and you let yourself in.

“There you are!” Lavender calls out. “Come over here, I still have it plugged into my TV, so I didn’t have to dig it out or anything.”

“Is it an old console?” You ask. You kind of presumed, given the Wii-esqueness of it all, but you couldn’t be sure.

“Ehh, it’s like a decade old at this point.” Lavender wiggles her hand in the air. “But everybody still has one. They’re everpresent.”

Ah, very Wii-esque then. The motion controls win over yet another universe.

You kneel down and pop in the SD card and Disc in sequence, gently placing Lavender’s SD card on the top of the console. And the two of you get to playing. There’s no meaningful co-op mode, so you’re mostly just passing the controller between the two of you, getting increasingly frustrated.

Lavender gets caught by the instakill guards for, by your count, the 9th time, and very gently and very deliberately places the controller down on the table in front of you.

“Ali, this is some fucking bullshit.” She says, voice as quiet and sweet as ever.

“Yeah? Just a little bit?” You respond, mimicking her cadence.

“Yeah, just a touch.” She laughs, but you can tell there’s some genuine gamer-rage under there.

She stands up to go get you both some food and drinks, asking you to go look up a video walkthrough, even though you both fullwell know the issue isn’t with knowing the solution, but executing it. Still, desperation is as desperation does.

With Corn Chips™ and drinks in hand, round two begins. The walkthrough is opened but quickly discarded as you both reaffirm that it’s giving you zero new useful information. So you simply try again. You die early on, spending too much time trying to hit one of the targets and getting caught, so you hand the controller off - and to the two of you’s utter fucking amazement, and several sustained minutes of stressful terror, Lavender manages to barely scrape past the stealth segment and into a cutscene. Holy SHIT. Or as they say in gamer parlance, fucking poggers.

The two of you high-five with both hands and grin with giddy excitement... only for the game to put you in a second stealth segment. You exchange horrified glances and Lavender steels herself. She opens the pause menu looking for a save button and you inform her that nope, this game saves at physical checkpoints on the map, but there was a cutscene, so surely…

She’s caught by the first searchlight and no, the game puts you right back to the start of the first segment by the save statue.

Lavender stares into the middle distance for a little while.

“Hm.” She turns to you. “We may need a more seasoned gamer.”

You nod solemnly.

But where are you to find one? You’d text Adder, but based on his social media posts that you saw while lurking today, he’s busy having his big break being a P.A. on some music video that’s shooting a couple miles away. Good for him. The music did sound terrible, though.

Lavender posits that you risk disrupting some poor teen’s day by asking Lupus for the location of any gamers, since she knows basically everybody by virtue of accosting every new person she sees.

Hmm, that’s not a bad idea. You ask Lavender if she has her number but it is revealed to you that that is a non-question.

“Oh even if I had her mobile number, she absolutely doesn’t have it on her.” Lavender wanders over to a front-facing window. “Our best bet for finding Lupus is to literally find her. She’s basically always just around, outdoors.”

Yeah, that checks out from the time you’ve spent with Lupus. Though now that she mentions it, you have seen her wander past Chrome and Tabitha’s from time to time, though usually she was carrying crates of kindling or wood?

“Oh, yeah. People around here just kind of pay her to carry heavy stuff around, and when she’s not doing that she basically just wanders around until somebody else needs things doing. If she was carrying firewood that was probably for the Inn guys.”

Man, that sounds like the life. Not the physical labour, mind, but the making money by doing various odd jobs thing. Lavender’s picking up a few odds and ends, clearly getting ready to head out on your Dogquest, so you ready up too.

You’d barely rounded the first corner out the door before you spotted her. Huh, you were expecting that to take longer. She’s dangerously close to the sheer cliff-face that is this place’s namesake, and is diligently hammering together a perhaps waist-high picket fence along its perimeter.

Lavender greets her cheerily and you shuffle after, trying to look as normal yet hidden as possible.

She bounces up from her crouched position with a lack of cliff-edge based fear that you personally find terrifying. “Hey, you two!!”

You give her a little wave, stopping a good four feet from the cliff edge just to be safe. And after giving one to Lavender, she bounds over and gives you a very energetic hug that lifts you off your feet and nearly knocks your hood down. Wow, where was this overwhelming sense of canine love and loyalty back with your werewolf friends huh? Hrm. Werewolf friend, you mean.

Anyway it’s hard to dwell with how genuinely overjoyed Lupus is to see you after only like, two days. She eagerly asks what you’re out doing, before clearly remembering that you’re supposed to be hiding and dropping into an almost comical whisper. Finger to lips and everything.

You can’t help but smile, and you explain to her what’s up.

“You know just about everyone around here, right? Is there anyone you’re friends with who’s good at video games and wouldn’t mind helping me out with one?”

She puts on a thinking face for a second and you continue. “And remember, they have to be someone who wouldn’t freak out too much seeing an alien. Someone who can keep secrets.”

Lupus’s eyes light up with an idea. “Oh! My sibling is good at games, and they’re not doing anything important right now.”

Oh, a sibling is the most excusable type of stranger to be introduced to, this should work great. Especially if they’re related to someone as fun and carefree as Lupus. Though, you of all people, know to be wary of a sibling announcing that another is doing “nothing important.” But you digress, and off you go.

This is the furthest you’ve gone into the populated areas of Cliffside- at least, in daylight and while conscious, that is. It’s pretty here, though once you get into the more heavily residential area rather than the cute storefront and cottage area, the number of brightly painted pastel buildings drops off significantly. The architecture is still pretty nice, though, lots of facades. People don’t seem to be looking your way a lot, which is nice. You suppose there’s no real reason for them to, after all. But, it is giving you a nice survey of the actual species in this world, since who knows how accurate video games and TV really are.

You spot a couple people who are solidly recognisable as “birds”. Beaks, feathers, that sort of thing. Then there’s some more reptiles, like Ess and Adder. Standard fare there. And then there’s mammals who seem to be generally canine or feline in nature. Overall, pretty comprehensible. It’s not even like all of them are as brightly coloured as Lavender or Adder, though some are. You did see one cat that was brown with green highlights, which was pretty cool. Makes you wonder how popular dying your fur is, as a practice…

And you’re here! Lupus alerts you, welcoming you and Lavender into a semi-detached looking two storey house.


The two of you shuffle on in, and upon hearing the distant clattering of what sounds to be cookware in another room followed by an ‘Aw fuck’, remember that parents are a thing. Quickly sidestepping to Lupus, you ask like, what’s the situation, since you probably shouldn’t be seen by those.

Lupus pauses. She had not thought about that. “Hmm. No, she would not like an alien, probably.” She replies.

Lavender butts in. “I have an idea… If we sneak Ali up to your room- since that’s where you have the games, right?”

Lupus nods silently yet vigorously.

“Yeah, we sneak Ali up there, get the game set up, and then Lupus… You and I sit downstairs and pretend to be having a Girls Night, er, Day, so I can message and warn Ali to hide if we see your Mom approaching the room…”

You nod and give a thumbs up, that sounds pretty solid. You’ve definitely heard worse plans.

“Then let’s go, we shouldn’t risk standing in the doorframe for too long!” Lavender half-whispers.

The three of you make your way upstairs in comical sneaky unison and Lupus opens the door to a shared 2-bed bedroom. Inside you can see the back of yet another pastel purple person sitting in a gamer chair at a pc, at an adjacent angle to the door. My god, it’s all purples all the time. And the chair confirms the gamer-credentials. ...Though, absolutely nothing about their silhouette looks even remotely like Lupus? You can only see the back of their head from here, but they’ve got massive, almost fan-like cat ears, and what look to be a small pair of darker purple horns between them.

Lupus closes the door behind the three of you and goes to disturb who you presume to be her sibling.

“Hey Markus, I brought some friends over!”

“Hmmn? Which ones?” They pull an earbud out of one ear and begin to turn their chair around.

“Lavender, and one of her friends! Do you think you could help get them unstuck in a game??” Lupus wiggles the chair back and forth on its spinny-axis using the armrest.

They’re turned around enough for you to see them make a bit of an ‘Oh, what now?’ expression with their big… Black eyes, huh. Cool. They finally turn their head to look at you and Lavender, and do a bit of a double take, since it’s not like your disguise holds up under even mild scrutiny.

They turn back to Lupus nonchalantly and reply. “Yeah, what game?”

Lavender pulls the game box out of her hoodie pocket and rattles the sd card inside. Markus immediately nods their head in clear recognition.

“The stealth level?” Oh, a great sign.

“How’d you know?” Lavender responds, handing the box over as Markus rises from their gamer chair. Their tail unfurls somewhat, held in a raised position that leaves it’s tip just behind their head. It immediately takes the cake on ‘most impressive tail you’ve seen thus far’, beating out Adder’s. The base of the thing looks to be the width of your torso.
 
Markus’ eyes keep flicking back to you, but they sure ain’t bringing it up. You will also gladly not bring it up. They swap out the game they had in and just toss it in the game box closest to them. You’re pretty sure it is not it’s proper box, but who are you to judge? With a minute or so of shuffling wires behind the moderately sized tv in this room, they have the right console hooked up. Unlike yours and Lavender’s white ones, theirs is red, the gamer colour. Hmm, or is the gamer colour green? Well, you sit down on one of the beds, jury still out on that thought. As you settle, you finally pull your hood and neckerchief down so you can breathe again.

Markus sits down next to you and starts loading the game up. Oop, nope, they have to find batteries first.
…

…

Okay, they’ve cannibalised the batteries from a more conventional controller. Now the game is being loaded.

Lavender breaks the silence, turning to Lupus. “Well, that’s the cue for our half of the plan.” She grabs what looks to be a lidless trading card tin from the shelf nearest to her. “If we can’t think of any other ways to act natural, just teach me how to play this.”

“Sounds good!!” Lupus gives her a thumbs up, then turns and gives you a thumbs up, and she and Lavender leave the room to place themselves as strategic timewasters for any parents who may be passing by.


Markus quietly watches them leave then quietly turns their attention back to the game, finally getting past the file-select. They wiggle the character in place a bit, glancing back at you a couple times. Hoo hoo this is awkward, you hadn’t thought through the potential ramifications of being left alone in a room with a stranger. You’re about to try and make some smalltalk, when they finally say something.

“Okay, cut the shit. What the fuck.” You hear the pause noise at least, that’s polite.

You’re about to give the gentle version of the ‘So I’m an aaaalien’ speech, when they rise to their feet and stand over you. Ohhhh this guy is over 6 foot, huh.

“What the hell are you?” You could say the same yourself, honestly. The more you look at this guy the less sure what animal they are. They’re supposed to be Lupus’ sibling?

“Uhm… It would probably be most apt to call me… An alien?” You squeak, watching them watch you. They sidestep over to the other bed, presumably Lupus’, still watching you, and from the foot of it, pick up a dumbbell with one hand. Then, instead of bludgeoning you with it, they place it gently in front of the door.

Haha, cool.

“What do you mean you’re an alien?” They step toward you again. Aw man, you should’ve known not to trust a gamer.

You shuffle off the bed enough to stand up, and they grab your arm with a distressing degree of force. You get dangerously close to pleading territory with your next statement.

“Listen, if you wanna know about alien tech, or how I got here, or how to do intergalactic travel, I can’t really help with that one, buddy. I teleported here on accident and there’s no way I’m phoning home, so to speak.” Nice ET reference, asshole.

“Nah, I’m far more interested in biology.” Their sharp blue eyes focus in on you, the aforementioned black sclera making it all the more genuinely threatening. This bitch is gonna dissect you, huh.

You realise a little too late that your instinctive attempts to put distance between the two of you had simply helped them back you directly into a corner. Your back bumps up against a wall and they get right up in your face.

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, huh?” They gloat. “How much about your own biology do you know, off the top of your head?”

“Oh, well I know a surprising amount about skeletons.” Jesus christ dude, you could fucking die here, what the hell was that?

They ignore your excruciatingly dumb comment and squeeze your forearm again. Genuinely, ow.
“You’re warm-blooded, though I wonder what colour it is…”

“Red.” You inhale.

“Ugh, well that’s boring.” They roll their eyes, loosening their grip a little. “But colour isn’t the only thing that matters..” They lean even closer to you, pinning your other shoulder to the wall so they can get a good look at your face. You look at theirs in return. There’s scales under that fur, somehow.
You’re about to weigh the risks of yelling for help when something loud startles the two of you, loosening Markus’ grip enough for you to shake their hands off you and…

Wait, that noise. It’s a ringtone. It’s Markus’ ringtone.

And it’s a showtune.

“A theatre kid?! You’re a theatre kid?!?” You can’t stop your voice from breaking into a shrill cackle.


Suddenly, any semblance of confidence drains from Markus’ face, and they pull back. You take your shot and elbow them hard in the chest, knocking them to the ground. “Oh you wanted to monologue at me so bad, didn’t you?” You take yourself to the ground with them, pinning them with your forearm across their chest- and more importantly, with your ego over theirs.

“All a bluff, huh?” You bare your strange, omnivorous teeth. "What was your end goal? Where's your equipment? Do you even have a scalpel?"

They’re more than a little shamefaced, having had you forcibly rip the winds out of their sails like that. “I could've improvised.” They mumble.

“Bullshit.” You lean in. “Everybody knows musical kids can’t do comedy.”


The two of you lock eyes, sizing each other up. Markus may be several times your strength, physically, but you have the upper hand. Size doesn’t matter because this specific chip on your shoulder is deep enough to be worth clawing and biting until your roots bleed. You won’t be losing to someone who’d ruin the ancient art of the play with fucking musical numbers.

Then, once the sound of blood rushing through your head subsides, you can hear the gentle melody of the pause menu, and remember what you were actually here for. You turn your head to face the screen. “But we can make this work.” You smirk.

You stand up, moving with an uncharacteristic swagger, and extend your hand to Markus below. “How about we compromise. Beat the level for me, and while you’re doing that, I’ll get you some blood.”

Markus accepts your hand and stands up, with an expression you can only really describe as a pout. “Alright. Though how do you intend to actually get to your blood?”

“I’ll just find something sharp, duh.” You state, opening a dresser drawer on what you presume to be Markus’ side of the room.

“Hey-- Look, I don’t have anything particularly sharp in this room.” Markus pushes the drawer closed, and shoves you a little, clearly having regained at least some confidence.

“Damn. Weak shit huh.” You say, being the kind of person who collects cool magic knives for … Well mostly it’s just for practical reasons. Magic rituals need magic knives sometimes.

“I’d ask you to bite me, but I doubt you have the stomach.” You rummage through your pockets for your focus, your quill pen, and pull it out alongside the notepad who’s spine loops it’s tucked into. “Anyway. Game for me, I guess.” You pluck a display piece media-branded mug from a shelf and wipe the dust from inside it.

Markus very purposefully rolls their eyes at you and finally picks the controller back up, and then immediately drops it again as you dig a small gash across the back of your forearm with the square edge of your pen’s nib.

“What the fuck?! I didn’t think you were serious!” They yelp pretty loud.

“You really were totally bluffing earlier then, huh?” You hold the mug to your arm to catch the blood as it drips. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t at least partially doing this to fuck with them.

“I mean, no, I wasn’t, I really was gonna, ahh, uh,” Markus stammers. You know, for once in your little life, it’s nice to turn the tables on someone.

The door pops open just a crack and you hear Lavender chime in. “How’s the game going?”

Markus startles and rushes over to the door, sliding the dumbbell away from it’s placement as ‘threatening doorstop’ with their feet. “Aha yeah, we’re still a little stuck on it. Man this level sure is worse than I remember…” Ouch, dreadful acting.

Lavender opens the door wide enough for her and Lupus to slip in. “Your Mom just went out, so I think we should all be safe to hang out in here for a bit!”

“Yeah, we were just taking a break to discuss biology.” You raise your eyebrows, cup still to your forearm.

Markus shoots you an angry but panicked glare, picking the controller up once more.

Lavender looks at your arm quizzically. “Biology?”

“Yeah, since I’m an alien and all. Markus has kindly offered to do a little research on our biological differences, pinpoint some stuff that could be dangerous for me.” Not exactly a lie now, is it.

“Oh that’s nice!” Lavender smiles.

Markus forces a grin and unpauses the game. “Yeah. So. I’ve been trying to beat it normally this whole time, but it’s still a little too annoying so…” And not exactly the truth.

You turn your attention to the screen, and watch as Markus pulls some weird bullshit. Huh? They pause and unpause the game rapidly while dashing into a wall and then pop! Into the wall they go. From there, they just walk around all the obstacles and skip the segment entirely. Lavender gasps an amazed ‘How did you do that?’, and Markus makes swift work of the second half of the level using the same exploit. It takes literally five minutes. Ugh, gamers. But you’re not ungrateful.

A new cutscene plays, Pasta sneaking into the storage of a large sailboat. Markus saves at the next available statue, putting the controller down gently on the bed next to them.


“Man, I don’t get videogames.” Lupus remarks.

“And here’s your payment.” You hand Markus the mug, about 1/16th full of blood.

“Thaanks.” They respond, with feigned politeness. You’ve no idea if they’ll be able to do anything useful with it, but based on the response, you very much doubt it.

Lupus smiles. “Even if I don’t get videogames though, it’s really fun that you’re making friends so quickly, Ali!”

“Yeah, it’s almost making me think that soon we won’t need to worry about you having to hide all the time!” Lavender addends.

“Maybe!” You respond, energetically popping the hand of your bloodied arm on your hip.

“Anyway!” Lavender stretches her arms and spins a quarter-circle on one foot, landing gracefully on the bed, hands in lap. “Do you think we have time to hang out a little longer, play some more game until your Mom gets back?”

“Yeah, sure we do!” Lupus practically jumps onto the bed, noticeably bouncing Lavender and Markus as she does.

“Yeah.” Markus nods, leaning over the two of them to place the Novelty Merch Mug full of Blood on the bedside table. “That’d be great.”

You sit yourself down right next to Markus. “Sounds like a plan to me, then.”

The body language presumably makes itself evident, much as the two of you politely play pretend. In any other circumstance people like the two of you would avoid each other like the plague, but now, this friend group has become a shared one.
And you realise this, this is what you’ve been missing, isn’t it? A little bit of conflict, some spice.

You’re just going to have to see how this particular dynamic shakes out.