Chapter 17: No spoon

A fragmented memory of before, unwanted and unbidden, tears its way through my subconscious. Bubbling up from that deep place where it was safely hidden away.

It shifts, in that way memory does when you can't quite get the details right, the mind filling in the blanks with its best guess.

I must have been 4 or 5, placing this as one of my earliest memories. I was playing with my father, as this was a time when he still tried to love me— or perhaps just liked the idea of me, liked the idea of him having a son.

He has me in his lap, and in a terrible, out-of-key voice, he sings.

“Great, green, gobs of greasy, grimy, gopher guts.

Mutilated monkey meat.

Itty bitty birdy feet.

Great, green, gobs of greasy, grimy, gopher guts.

And I ain't got no spoon~”

***

“Ah, yeah, right.” The other me says, snapping his fingers and breaking me from my forced flashback. “You don't have that in place yet. Sorry, it's muscle memory at this point. Ya got time?”

At this he throws his mangled head back and laughs maniacally, the exposed muscles of his face twitching and contracting horrifically.

He wipes a messy tear from beneath the eyepatch and flinches slightly.

“Just a little running gag between us.” He says.

“What… what?!” I yell.

“Who the fuck are you? Are you me? Is this some kind of trick? And who is that guy? And– will you stop doing that!?”

As I shout questions at him he lifts his one remaining hand, and the glove opens and closes in a mockery of a mouth while he tilts his head side to side, half-mouthing ‘blah, blah, blah.’

“Wow, I really was childish and paranoid back now huh? I didn't believe future me, just thought I was being a jackass. Don't worry kid, the paranoia saves our ass pretty often.” He says, jumping back into the conversation.

“Just—” I begin, with a sharp intake of breath. “Just, what the fuck is going on?”

Future me pulls up a chair— my chair, for the record, as it's the only one here— and says to me.

“We're cheating in the Game of Gods. Try to keep up.”

He begins to move his one arm in a complicated motion as he tilts his head and I see his eye flash. A small slit opens in… the world. Reality. Everything and nothingness– it defies explanation but the best I can think of it as— is that it isn't there, but I remember a small zipper of a portal being there in the air before him. He reaches into that nonexistent portal and pulls out a raggedy, duct taped and stapled 3 ring binder made out of previously white plastic, now stained with blood and time. Loose papers stick out from it as well as several ribbons, sticky notes, and what looks to be a shrunken head dangling by its hair. I can see as he sets the binder down, that on the front is scrawled the phrase:

Good luck, kid

Other me also pulls some incredibly tiny spectacles from the tear in reality and sets them on the very tip of his nose.

“Alright kid, we're gonna pull a ‘bootstrap’, a ‘Virgin birth’, and a ‘future self’ in way of paradoxes so shit’s about to get funky. We've also got predetermination in play here so do your best to be absolutely clueless and not pay attention or believe anything I say OUTSIDE of what I say about the binder.”

“Whuh?”

“Perfect. Keep it up. But now I need you to pay attention, this is the most important thing… though I know you're gonna mess it up here and there cuz I sure did.”

He opens and flips through a few pages of the binder before flipping back to near the front.

“This is a near-complete record of everything that you'll need to know up until tier 4 when we get an upgrade.”

At this, he doesn't even reach into the breach, but instead just raises his hand and it is as if the black leather journal he holds was always in his hand. And in much the same way, as he lowers his hand, it disappears.

He begins flipping through the pages again and then motions me over. Cautiously, and resisting the urge to stare at the space the tear in reality should be, I sidle over to peek over his shoulder. He flips forward to around page 7, and I can see a few bullet point items in a to-do list fashion as well as a few doodles and diagrams.

“You'll have to steal a 3 ring binder and a shitload of paper from the 3rd floor. The dungeon you'll be heading to is in-and-of-itself a paradox so we had to hide it in an area The Great Work dedicated to a Backrooms style infinite office area. Only sort of place it'd survive being in.”

“By the time you reach The Wider World you'll need to have copied everything over to the new journal, which in turn is and always was the original journal. The binder is predetermined to get destroyed near the end of the 3rd in order for The Great Work to fix the Virgin birth Paradox. It's the pickle jar— Oh. You— You'll figure that analogy out later.”

“The binder contains all the knowledge we've gained up til the 4th tier, to do lists, underground contacts, pass codes for ancient vaults, you name it. Even an incredibly shitty bestiary between the index and the glossary. Use it to cheese and cheat your way through the game and do your best to follow the important bits.

I'm you from the 4th tier by the way. Going forward I'll need to fill out the book myself. Check out the last entry in your binder, before the index.”

He inserts his fingers into the binder and with one big chunk of paper he flips to the back of the binder. In my handwriting, the last entry says:

Once you've “acquired” the book from Meldwin's Magery— and, unfortunately, before you've recovered— immediately travel to Day 4 Skygarden to drug and kidnap Skrak.

With Skrak subdued, drink the potion, hand off your stuff, and climb into his bag of holding.

Wait for the Mark of the Learned to be activated, then make first contact.

Hand off the binder to Day 4 Prime and give him the skinny. Try not to freak him out.

Improvise from here on out.

Good luck, kid.

“Oh, and it'll say as much on page 5, which goes over this interaction, but I should restate before you meet the merchants on the 3rd floor. Don't spend a dime. You're gonna need every single gold piece you make in order to get your hands on the book upgrade.

And lemme just clarify that you're not saving up to buy the book. You're saving up to pay the bail of a guy who can steal it. You'll—”

His words are cut off as, from that memory of a rift emerges a full skeleton of a monkey, prehensile tailbones and all. It leaps from the rift and latches onto his head, beginning to gnaw and claw at him. With an exclamation and a flick of his wrist the skeleton’s movements slow to almost nothing, and he quickly grabs it by the spine and shoves it back in the rift before zipping it shut.

“Undead monkey. Ignore that.”

I just stare at him, mystified and baffled. My head is spinning trying to keep up with this. So, I have to clarify. I need it in no uncertain terms.

“Wait– hold on— hold the fuck on! This is time travel. Is there time travel in this game?”

“Yes and no.” Other me replies, looking down at the binder. “For the most part it's just us, a few anomalies, some fairies or other esoterically powerful natives that the rules don't quite apply to, and a very persistent paladin.”

I fail to take all that in— like the fact that he said fairies— and just settle on the bigger question.

“How?” I ask.

He looks up to meet me in the eye, and says

“Spoilers.”

Infuriatingly.

The muscles of his jaw contract and his mandible shifts to show how he would be smirking if he could.

“Thanks.” I say, dripping with sarcasm. “But— oh fuck! Does that mean I lose my arm?!”

“Sorta also spoilers, but yeah. Don't worry about it; It'll grow back.” He says. Causing my forehead to somehow crinkle even further in confusion.

“Why do you care about spoilers!? If you're giving me a whole binder of knowledge won't I know all this stuff anyways?”

“Oh, no,” he says with a chuckle. “One of the main rules of the book, page 1, is to avoid reading ahead. The less we know about the future the better. Keeps things in flux. ‘The effects of belief on predestination’ or ‘the predestined free will theory’, pages 9 through 13.”

My balance shifts, and I find myself slumping against the wall and sliding to the floor, head in my hands.

“I— I… I don't know what to do with all of this. I feel like I should be excited, this is exactly the kind of thing I imagined when they talked about reality-bending powers and you're telling me I'm gonna succeed but— god damnit man, this is overwhelming!”

He slowly gets up from his chair, and kneels down next to me. He reaches out to pat me on the shoulder, and I flinch back remembering something from TV about ‘touching your past self tearing a hole in reality’ but, after a second, he touches my shoulder, patting it gently and says:

“I know, kid. Trust me, I know. But hey, you get used to it.”

“You're gonna be okay.”

Genuine sympathy is in his voice. I look up to meet his eye and something… more… dwells deeper within it. Some sincere emotion he feels looking at me in this moment that I don't have the emotional taxonomy to categorize.

That, out of everything else right now, scares me.

“C’mon, can’t really slow down but I can simplify. Ironically enough we don't have a lot of time here, so try not to focus on the bigger picture stuff and I'll walk you through what you need to do next. One step at a time.”

He offers his one hand to me, I take it, and he raises me back to my feet. I take a seat at the table and he leans over it next to me.

“The goal is to get you to the Wider World with everything you need. Funnily enough, you’ve already qualified to leave floor 2, but you’ve got some stuff to do before then.”

“Yeah, where is the door to the next floor? We killed the spider queen.” I ask.

Future me laughs dryly. “Heh, yeah, no, you didn’t need to kill her.”

…

“What?!”

“Nope. Fully optional. That is not how you make it to the big waiting room that is floor 3. Though killing that thing was necessary to have this little meeting, so in that way it was required. There’s a few branches where we didn’t. They— irrelevant, nevermind.”

“The qualifier to leave floor 2 is to have everyone you’re trying to leave with at level 5 of tier 1. Demarcus hasn’t slept in a few days, so he’s still level 3. Don’t let him sleep or he’ll bounce all the way to 5. And even if ya gave him a drop of blackout juice he’d stay conked the fuck out cuz he’s TIRED. Gotta wait til ya save Isabella.”

“Who is Isabella?”

“Bard. Currently being eaten by vale spiders. Don’t worry, she’s holding her own, but you’re gonna have to hurry.”

He opens that rift again and kicks the monkey that immediately leaps out of it back through the rift before pulling out a pitch black bottle and a small purple bag. He sets them on the table.

“This is all written in the binder but you won’t really have time to read all of it before ya need to start booking, so I’m saying this now:

First thing you’re gonna do once this meeting ends in about…” He bites his sleeve to pull it back and reveals a large smooth brassy contraption covering most of his left wrist and forearm. I can’t quite see it from here but it looks to have several ‘screens’ jutting out from the interior of his wrist.

“8 minutes, is you’re gonna drink a drop— only a drop— from this bottle.” He says, pointing to the pitch black bottle.

“This is blackout juice. One of the first potions we figured out how to make. One drop and you’ll pass the fuck out for 3 seconds. Great for getting a power boost by leveling mid-fight and waking up with new or upgraded skills. A full dosage will knock someone out for hours. Useful for kidnapping an Aarakocran [Professor of Esoteric Magics] and highjacking a Mark of the Learned.” He gestures vaguely at the unconscious bird behind the table.

“You’ll get a new class and some skills. Then, get Mato to drink a drop. Do not let Demarcus sleep, or you’ll leave early and get branched.”

I begin nodding, this much is at least easier to follow so far— though I still don’t know what “branched” means— but I catch my attention drifting as I look at my future self. Despite the grievous injuries, he looks… fuller. More color to his cheeks, a casual confidence in his movements but not done intentionally to keep up appearances. He even has his hair tied back, hiding nothing.

Though he really should cover up the exposed sinew. Emphasis on ew.

“This stuff is made from vale spider venom, super valuable stuff. You’re gonna wanna collect a bunch from the spider queen before ya run off. Page 3 has a list of which of your alchemical ingredients are easily replaced, so ditch those and fill the bottles with the venom.

Save Isabella, get her and Demarcus to drink the blackout juice, and you’ll blink and be on floor 3.”

“You’ll have time to read this next bit, so I’m just gonna summarize. Floor 3: first thing’s first you’re gonna bring this—” and he pushes the purple bag forward. “—bag of time sand to a blacksmith named Yang Xuan, he’s an incredibly skinny Taiwanese dude.”

I look at him, sarcastically. “Time Sand?”

“Yeah, I know. It’s probably got some big fancy name that the folks at the Church of Forever call it but… Time sand.”

“Ya drop off the sand, tell him to make glass, then you go north by northwest. Don’t let anyone buy a damn thing!”

“Won’t we need better gear? Or are you supplying it?”

“Ha. Again, yes and no. There’s a lot of ‘yes and no’ things. You get used to it.”

“I couldn’t bring my bag of holding cuz I got here in Skrak over there’s bag of holding— Can’t put a bag of holding in another bag of holding. Bad idea.— So all I’m working with right now is my [Time-locked Vault]. All you’re getting from me right now is the blackout juice and the time sand. But!...”

He looks slyly at me.

“We’re time travelers. We’ve got you covered.”

“Ya know how most of the places in this tutorial are borrowed from something supposedly real? Well, ancient ruins aren’t so ancient to us. We left you some presents. The whole thing will be edited by The Great Work so you won't get the scroll of [Galefex's Army of Blood] but the stuff you do get will give you a good headstart.”

“You made your own ruins? What kinda stuff am I getting? ooOOH did ya get me a staff or something?” I ask, getting a little excited.

“It's all in the binder kid. The more I say in person, the more we risk predetermination and branching. Thankfully I've learned how to improvise consistently so I don’t have to worry too much about fucking up predetermination. Page 9, Read it.”

His speech begins to quicken, almost to the point of rushing.

“Oh, and the ‘gopher guts’ thing? That's a passphrase to verify we actually are you. Either you or the other guy says ‘gopher guts’ and the response is ‘no spoon’. Ya got that? ‘No spoon.’ If anyone ever messes up the passphrase, kill them immediately. Doppelgangers, vengeful outliers or anomalous timelines, and all kinds of weird and scary stuff will try to mess you up. Don't tell anyone about the passphrase or it doesn't work. The whole point is we’d never tell anyone about that, so only we would know.”

I nod and mutter “Gopher guts, no spoon, gopher guts, no spoon” repeatedly under my breath.

He picks up the binder, the potion, and the bag of sand and shoves them into my arms and begins quickly speaking.

“We’re just about out of time here, so one last thing.”

He looks me dead in the eye, and then past it, into me. A sad, nostalgic and apologetic smile calmly spreads on what remains of his lips. He puts his one hand on my shoulder.

“Good luck, kid.”

***

I find myself standing back in the vault, clutching tightly the items given to me by Mutilated Future Cy.

Mato and Demarcus’ ongoing argument which I appeared in the middle of is cut off as Demarcus runs over to me.

“C! Are you alright man? What happened?”

Shellshocked, I look up at him, not even feeling him holding my shoulders. His eyes drift back up to meet mine after he finishes looking at what I'm carrying.

I take a deep breath, and quietly, I say:

“A one-armed, half-faced version of myself from the future just gave me a binder that can tell the future and told me that we’re time travelers. He also told me that now, I have to scoop out some venom from the spider queen before we run off into the forest fire to save some bard lady currently being eaten by spiders because apparently we’ll be getting to floor 3 with her so we can conquer some ancient ruins that I made or will make and we'll get some magic swords n’ shit from there.

Oh, and no one is allowed to spend any money cuz I need it all to pay bail.”

They both stare at me, blinking uncomprehendingly, until Mato speaks up.

“What?”

I wave him off and uncork the bottle.

“I’ll explain later. Right now I have to drink this blackout juice and pass out for 3 seconds so I can become a time traveler. Then it’s your turn Mato. Don’t let Demarcus sleep.”

***

Level-up!

Class change!

Tier 1 [Mage], Level 4 ⸻ Tier 1 [Half-baked Time Traveler], level 5.

Maximum level reached for this floor. Additional levels deferred until floor 3.

Skill earned: [Traveler’s Journal] (passive)

Skill earned: [Lesser Paradox Resistance] (passive, upgradeable)