[s] james: enter (lennart)

Lennart Ignatz let out an impatient sigh as he stared at the screen of his laptop. After buying the game and arranging to play with one of his only friends, James Alvey, he'd started to install it... only to discover that his nearly-ancient computer was installing at a rate of approximately 2% per minute.

The wild yet friendly snake that lived in his room had decided to slither on top of his desk. "Can you believe this, Rust?" Len asked her in a somewhat-incredulous tone. "This thing isn't going to finish installing until I'm eighty."

He rose from his chair and began to pace restlessly, but stopped when he heard a small ping. Glancing at the computer again, he noticed Pesterchum blinking. Lennart sat back down, clicked the application, and skimmed the message.

NO: Yeah, I'll be your server player.
NO: My laptop's taking forever to install the game, though.
NO: Only at 46% right now.

He had to look up his IP, since he didn't know it off the top of his head. Highlighting and copying the address, he pasted it into the chat window.

NO: 40.155.135.207

Minimizing Pesterchum, he opened the game's installation window again. 52%. Lennart gave a loud sigh, stood up again, and sat down on the edge of his bed. The laptop's fan was running at hyperspeed; he wasn't entirely sure that it wouldn't overheat before the installation was finished.

The eighteen year old boy laid back against his pillow as he listened to the whine of the computer's ventilation system. He could barely hear the Pesterchum notification now, and made a mental note to turn up the volume on his speakers later. Ping, ping... then a short pause, during which Lennart assumed that his friend was either thinking or typing a particularly long message. Soon enough, there came a third ping, followed by a fourth. This last one was lost in the din of the fan.

The cobalt-colored text probably didn't require his immediate attention. To pass the time while Sburb installed, Lennart grabbed a misplaced ping-pong ball from his bedside table. He tossed it idly from hand to hand while staring at the ceiling. It was several minutes before he finally crossed the room and stooped over to check the laptop.

Installation was actually moving along now. About time; he didn't think that it would be done within the hour. Rust gave a quiet hiss as Len clicked back onto Pesterchum.

NO: I'm just chilling here while I wait. 72% now.
NO: I don't think there will be any problems once it actually starts, though. At least... I really hope not. My computer usually doesn't crash or anything; it only runs super slow.
NO: To be honest, I hardly looked at the game until I'd brought it home. Whatever it's actually about is a mystery to me. Guess we'll find out?

He reached for a sticky note and scribbled down his friend's IP address in black ink, just in case. Lennart was awful about remembering numbers. He didn't want to have to ask for it again if he somehow lost it.

Opening the installation window again, he saw that the game was actually almost set up. The blonde boy grinned faintly. He watched the flickering icon and the swiftly-changing words underneath for a few seconds. Stepping over to the small window, Len cracked it open for some fresh air while he lit up a cigarette. A rather unfortunate habit of his... but he'd never been the most health-conscious person.

His back had started to ache a bit from all of the leaning over, so he plopped himself down in his computer chair. It looked like Sburb was fully installed now. Lennart's green gaze shifted from the laptop screen to the sticky note with the IP and back. There sure was a long list of clients to connect to. He clicked on James' address, then on Pesterchum.

NO: Done installing. I think it sent you an invite or something to confirm?

Lennart's fingertips drummed on the desk while he watched Pesterchum. A puff of smoke rose from the tip of the cigarette. Rust gazed at it for a moment and then slithered away, vanishing a few seconds later. As he'd learned earlier, the snake wasn't a huge fan of cigarette stench.

A new line of blue text flashed onto his screen. It looked like James was back from whatever had been distracting him. A fresh wave of anticipation flooded Len when he clicked over to Sburb. There was nothing for a few more heartbeats... and then James must have confirmed the connection, because the blond boy was suddenly staring at his friend's room.

He dropped his cigarette in shock, nearly setting his t-shirt on fire as he fumbled to grab it. A few small singed holes now marred the black fabric. Tossing the squished cig into an ashtray and making sure that his shirt was not going to burst into flame, Lennart returned his attention to his laptop.

It was still hard to believe what he was seeing. This was James' room, right? Lennart could see a black-haired teen sitting in front of a computer. Clicking on James revealed nothing - unless you counted the fact that it was apparently impossible to directly interact with the client. Hesitantly, Len tried clicking on something else - a bed in one corner of the dark green room.

To his amazement, it seemed like his cursor had picked up the object. Len tapped the center of the room, which appeared to be mostly empty, and the bed fell to the floor. Marveling at this, Lennart brought Pesterchum back up.

NO: It's working, I think...
NO: I can see your room - at least, I think it's your room. And it seems like I can interact with stuff inside of it?

Torn between fascination with the game that could influence the real world and confusion with what was happening, he returned to the Sburb window. Upon closer inspection, he could see a bunch of strange icons with numbers next to them, which appeared to be part of the game interface. Maybe they were some sort of currency? There were also small pictures of foreign mechanical-looking objects along the top of his screen. Lennart clicked on one of them, the cruxtruder, and placed it in the corner where his friend's bed had originally been. The numbers did not change; apparently this object was free.

NO: I just put down one of the weird machines from my control panel. Can you see it?

Lennart decided that switching between the Sburb and Pesterchum windows was going to get super annoying, and fast. He spent a moment rearranging them so that both could be shown at the same time, despite the fact that the game window would have to be somewhat smaller. James seemed sufficiently weirded out on his screen. Oops.

NO: Yeeeaah... sorry.
NO: I didn't think that I'd actually be able to affect anything., but apparently I can.
NO: I dunno, man. This is just completely strange. When you said Sburb would be a 'totally immersive experience', this definitely was not what I pictured.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, somewhat comforted by the fact that James' father couldn't shoot him from there. Or was he even at home? The rest of James' house was obscured from view. He hazarded a guess that he might not be able to see it unless his client walked over there. Len himself was home alone, unless you counted Rust. His grandmother had gone off to the store a while ago.

James was now examining the strange machine that Lennart had deployed before. The blond watched as he attempted to turn the wheel, but nothing was happening. Several seconds later, James returned to his computer and a new line of cobalt text appeared on Pesterchum.

NO: I'll see what I can do.
NO: And I can't see the study yet. After you figure out that machine, try going next door?

He clicked on the machine, but there was a small electronic denial noise. The numbers in the screen's corner flashed. Maybe he didn't have enough in-game money to lift up the cruxtruder? Well, that meant he'd have to do something else to bust off the lid on that thing. After a quick examination of his friend's room, Lennart noticed a huge book sticking off one of the many shelves in the room.

He lifted the book into the air with a tap on his mouse. Len noticed that this action appeared to use up a small amount of his grist; moving the bed earlier had presumably deducted a fair sum, but he hadn't noticed that. The thick tome hovered across the room as if it was being carried by some invisible force. Then, carefully positioning the book near the chimney-like protrusion, he sent it flying sideways. Loose pages scattered everywhere, but the lid had been removed by the impact...

Well, James probably had the right idea. With all sorts of weird stuff going on, keeping a record sounded like a good thing to do. It only took a short while for Lennart's friend to do that, and then he was off to the study.

The blond stared in amazement at his screen when he got his first glimpse of the room. It was very spacious; most of Len's tiny house could have probably fit inside. There were other things to deploy, and although he wasn't sure how big they were, he had no doubts that they could be placed here with plenty of room to spare.

Of course, now James was busy investigating the cruxtruder. Lennart squinted; he could see some sort of floating spherical thing that reminded him of the installation screen. It appeared to almost be alive. As he looked closer, he also spotted something like a digital clock on the machine.

NO: Wait, that's a countdown? I can't see it very well. Stupid laptop screen is too small.
NO: For some reason, I don't like the sound of that though.
NO: No answer on the orb. But hey, when in doubt, poke the weird thing with a stick. Right?

Len's client was now back to messing with the machine, which spat a solid-looking hunk of blue material out of its chimney. What a weird game.

NO: Yeah, I'm gonna place the rest of the stuff that looks like it's free. Check the study in a few minutes. In the meantime, see if you can try to figure out the things that came out of the first machine?

He promptly scrolled back over to the study. Yeah, there was definitely more than enough space to work with here. Lennart clicked hesitantly on the next machine-type object. After selecting a location in front of some more shelves, he set down the totem lathe - which was long, but didn't come close to taking up the entire room. At least it was rather narrow. Next came another machine, this one even larger. He decided to place it in the very middle of the room. There was still enough space to move around it, amazingly; Len stifled a pang of jealousy. He wished he had this sort of square footage in his own home.

Only one free object left to go. This one was a captchalogue card with some rectangular holes in it. Len put this on the floor near the doorway that connected the study to James' room, so that it wouldn't be overlooked.

NO: That should be everything that I can place for free. Two more machines and one card.

The most recent cobalt-colored messages caused Lennart to furrow his brow in concern. So it was a countdown. He reached for his phone and set the timer to 19 minutes, just so that he'd have some idea of when it would reach zero.

NO: Yeah, that doesn't sound good at all. I wonder if we can get it to stop ticking?
NO: Or for that matter, I wish I knew what's supposed to happen if it runs out of time.
NO: If this game can influence reality... I get the feeling that taking our time is a bad idea.

He was starting to feel stressed, so he lit a new cigarette. Hopefully there wouldn't be any major surprises in store within the next few minutes. Len didn't really feel like burning more holes in his clothes by accident.

With raised eyebrows, the blond observed while his friend poked around with the things that had come from the cruxtruder. He nodded as the cylinder was captchalogued; chances were that it would be important for something. Then James poked the floating orb with something that looked a lot like a turtle's shell. There was a blinding flash of light, and suddenly a strange ghost-like creature was hovering where the spirograph had been.

NO: Whoa, so it's alive! Does it speak or anything?
NO: I mean, I was never too big on TV shows, but that looks cool. Whatever it is.

He had to wonder what would've happened if the cruxtruder's orb had actually been poked with a stick. Would it have turned into a tree spirit? Furthermore, could this creature transform again if it was touched by something else? Maybe it was like a sort of chameleon that took on the form of whatever it came into contact with, instead of just the color.

Now James was investigating the study and its new furnishings. Lennart glanced at the three machines. He wasn't really sure what the newer two would do. But given that the first machine had produced the cylinder and the sprite, maybe those two things could be affected by the other machines?

NO: Our only lead seems to be that cylinder. Well, and the card.
NO: See if you can use them with those new machines?

Time was still ticking away, and Len didn't like it at all. He silently willed James to figure out something soon.

Lennart shot a glance at the timer on his phone. Apparently only half of the original twenty-minute time span remained. He frowned and let a puff of smoke rise up to drift around the ceiling. Movement on his leg told him that Rust was slithering around under his desk.

It was too bad that the turtle-ghost didn't speak English; he would've loved to figure out what its deal was. With a sigh, Len opened his internet browser and searched up a walkthrough for Sburb. It really wasn't very well-written, but it did provide some useful information as he skimmed it.

NO: I found a guide online.
NO: After you get the "cruxite" from the "cruxtruder", you put that pre-punched card into the "totem lathe" and it carves the cruxite for you?

He glanced back at the Sburb window and smiled. James seemed to have already figured that part out on his own, as a carved totem was now on the totem lathe.

NO: Looks like you've already got that done, though.
NO: The guide says that you're supposed to put that totem on the machine with the platform - the alchemiter - and it'll create an item for you.

Lennart hesitated when he saw James' mention of meteorites. There had been something about that in the online guides as well, rushed as they were.

NO: I haven't heard of any, but... it looks like the meteorites may somehow be related to Sburb. I'm not really sure.
NO: Did you see one in the sky or something?