34_Praise be Larry

"Well those are some tasty sunflower seeds, good job Heartsun." Herman said, holding a small pile of the delicious seeds in one hand and patting the head of the beaming sunflower monstrosity with the other.

"Flutter flutter rattle." The sunflower chieftain replied gleefully, akin to a puppy happy to have pleased its master.

The plant had joined them somewhere along the way. According to him, he was scouting the area in search of better lands with fertile soil to colonize.

"How could you eat that?" Polya said, disgust plain on her face. "I mean… the seeds are part of his body… he grew them, like, on his head…" She said, while visibly shivering.

"Oh come on, don’t be like that. Here, try some, they are quite tasty." Herman said with a wide smile, stretching his hand and offering the pile of seeds to his squeamish companion.

"Eww, Staple, tell him that is disgusting." The woman pleaded to her mechanical companion.

"Is it though? Aren’t humans eating all sorts of organic junk to begin with? Why is this any different than eating normal sunflowers? They too grow on living plants." The bot said in a calm and logical manner.

"Well, yes, but, but…" Polya stammered, the logical arguments of the mechanoid putting a wrench in her position. "I mean, Heartsun is a sentient being. It's like we are eating his hair. You wouldn't eat human hair would you?" The chickenmancer tried yet again to prove her point, whatever it was…

“I thought you humans liked hair in your food. I always made sure to add a few strands to all my recipes.” The bot replied, genuinely bewildered.

"Argh Staple! What the hell!? Don’t tell me you are actually serious!?"

The bot just shrugged and continued walking, her expression devoid of emotion.

"Oh my god, that’s disgusting! Blergh, blergh! Robot cooks, never again! Blergh!" Polya doubled over, retching as the horrific realization hit her, recalling every meal she had ever enjoyed at the inn.

As Staple caught up with her other companions, Herman conspiratorially whispered. "You were joking, right?"

The bot tilted her emotionless face at the old human, meeting his gaze for a few seconds.

"Yup." She finally answered, her face transforming into an impish grin.

"Pha, I knew you were messing with us!" Herman said, though he sighed in relief on the inside. "Should we tell her?" He then pointed to the retching Polya, who looked paler with every passing second.

"Eh, give it a few more minutes." The bot replied, the mischievous grin still etched on her face.

In an instant Staple’s cheerful demeanor vanished. She shifted into a combat stance, her four hands spreading around her and brandishing her daggers.

"I hear something... Get down!"

___

"So what do you think they are doing?" Polya asked.

"Something to do with the respawn booth, that’s for sure, but what exactly is anyone's guess…" Herman replied, equally as baffled.

The party lay flat on the sand, hiding behind the rubble and observing the bizarre scene in the distance.

There, a crowd of humanoids had gathered around the fully functional and repaired respawn booth. All of them sat on the ground in silence, watching the swirling vortex of pixels inside the respawn booth. They all wore white robes with hoods shaped to resemble toad heads.

On closer inspection the party was shocked to realize that the humanoids were actually warefrogs. But unlike the feral ones they have encountered before, these ones seemed tame.

Each of the warefrog cultists reverently held a plump green toad in both hands. The tiny critters observed their surroundings with unblinking ever watchful crimson eyes, their gazes radiating a sense of keen alien intellect.

After meeting the gazes of the creepy amphibians, both Herman and Polya visibly shivered.

"Brghgh, did you feel that? It was like those creatures peered straight into my soul." Herman said as he rolled his shoulders uneasily, trying to shake off the sensation.

"Those are some creepy frogs." Polya added, equally as disturbed by the unpleasant feeling.

"Rustle shiver." Heartsun communicated, quietly agreeing with his companions as all the leaves on his body wilted from the unpleasant experience.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the others, Staple stood still as a statue. The glow in all of her mechanical eyes rapidly flickered in and out as she stared directly at the gaze of the nearest toad.

…

As the vortex of pixels inside the respawn booth slowed, the warefrog cultists lifted each one of their chubby toads high in the air and began to chant.

"O Glorious Spawner, god of the pixel realm."

"May your code loop eternally. May your world never crash."

"Respawn us in madness. Respawn us in eternity."

"For we are his faithful servants."

"Praise be his name, praise be Larry."

"Larry, Larry, Larry…"

"Ribbit, Ribbit, Ribbit!"

The chubby toads added, perched on the outstretched hands of their larger warefrog brothers, using them as living pedestals as they also joined the ritual with their demonic croaking.

The cacophony of chants and croaks climbed in strength and intensity until it reached a crescendo, then abruptly fell silent as the respawn booth door hissed open.

From the transparent plasteel door appeared a startled human.

"Wha… what’s going on? Who are you people? What are y…"

The confused man didn't manage to say anything more before the nearest warefrog cultists seized him from both sides, driving him to his knees and placing him directly under the unblinking stare of one of the green toads.

"Let me go! Who the fuck are you creeps! help heeelp!"

"Gah!"

The man shouted as the chubby toad lashed out with its tongue, striking him on the forehead and leaving a gray wound that rapidly expanded.

"Rejoice brother, this is the moment of your rebirth. Remember it, cherish it. For we are all Larry’s servants."

"Lary, Lary, Lary…" The hooded cultists chanted, their smaller brothers croaking in eerie harmony, utterly indifferent to the convulsing person before them.

Suddenly the convulsions ceased, making the human freeze still. All signs of pain vanishing as his body flickered in and out of existence accompanied with digital fragmented arrays of pixels snaking across his avatar.

Then the mass of visual glitches and corrupted code wavered and settled. With one final flicker, the human’s form vanished. In his place stood a warefrog cultist clad in a white robe with a frogish hood.

The newest member of the cult looked at those before him, then rummaged inside his sleeve and drew out a chubby green toad. He lifted it high with both hands and said…

"PRAISE BE LARRY!"

Which in turn prompted the rest of the cultists to follow up the chant.

"Larry, Larry, Larry!"

Eventually, the impromptu celebration quieted. Everyone gathered around the booth and began to chant as the respawn booth hummed back to life, summoning the next human from the queue.

"O Glorious Spawner, god of the pixel realm."

"May your code loop eternal…"

___

"Wow, that’s horrible! We gotta go and help!"

"Hey, hey ,where are you all going, stop skulking away and let's go and help. That respawner is going to materialize someone new any moment now." Slippy said with urgency and a tinge of accusation.

Unfortunately the digital slip had just woken up from his nap, and had witnessed way too much from the gruesome ceremony, or whatever the fuck was happening over there. Herman was relieved that the slip hadn’t been too affected by his encounter with Beth, and despite everything he still genuinely wanted to help humans in need. On the other side though…

"Slippy… this isn’t a fairy tale or one of those cartoons where good always wins. We can’t just barge in there and hope that the power of friendship would save us." The man patiently explained, as if to a small child or a particularly smart golden retriever.

“But you don’t have to, you are Super Duper Legendary strong now!” Slippy countered.

“The chicken lady is tough as hell, Staple is badass assassin, and the, oh hi Heartsun it’s nice to see you again.” Slippy waved excitedly at the plant monstrosity, the gesture being mirrored by the sunflower, who just as eagerly waved back with a single vine.

"My name is Polya, or the Chicken Defender." Polya said with a deadpan voice. "But I do have to agree with Slippy here. We have to go an help, what heroes are we if we don’t offer aid to the ones in need." The mighty chicken defender added.

"Who the hell said we are heroes, this is real life and we… Wait a second, why am I against this? That is precisely why I came to the virtual world. For challenge, adventure and fishing. Sigh… I miss fishing…" The old man lamented, his eyes far away as he recalled the fertile rivers of his home village.

"So we are going?" Slippy said excitedly as he interrupted the daydreaming of the old man.

"No we are not going!" Staple said. "Confronting those lunatics isn’t why we are out here. We need to find Topo, and we aren’t gonna get far if we stop at every little disturbance along the way."

"What about all the humans who will get assimilated. Don’t you care about them?" Slippy said with big wide puppy dog eyes.

"Care? For those racist apes?! They deserve everything they got. The queue gangs, the Escaldians, and every other human in the real world. They are all the same!"

"B..but… What about Herman and Polya? What about Lord Mecron? They are all humans and they are nice. Are they not?” The baby slip said with wide teary eyes. Struggling to comprehend how the real world worked. His logic circuits working overtime to make sense of reality and the people in it.

"T..those bad humans who tried to turn me into a vegetable also hated all machines, regardless if they were innocent or not. Don’t be like them Staple, you are better than that."

"I…" Staple hesitated, looking at the young baby AI with newfound respect, struggling to argue with his unusual insight. Finally she gave up and slumped her shoulders down in defeat. "When did you became so smart…"

"I choose to take this as a compliment (:" The slip said with his characteristical cheerful demeanor. "So we are helping?"

"Urgh… yes, yes we are helping…" The bot groaned with frustration.

"Yaaay." Slippy cheered.

___

"Aaaaa!" Slippy cried as yet another slash missed him by millimeters.

"Join us! JJJjJooin US!" Staple rasped as she yet again lunged for Herman. Her voice stammering and full with audio glitches.

"Staple! Snap out of it! STAPLE!" The old man shouted, trying to reach his friend’s mind.

Snap snap snap!

"GAH!" Herman cried out as the cultists chasing them struck him with their magic missiles, the gray projectiles hitting true and, to his surprise, inflicting real damage. The wounds rapidly turned pale as the gray shards infected his flesh and began to spread their corruption further.

"Rrrriibbbiiit!" A toad leaped for Herman’s face, then got blasted away by a barrage of sunflower seeds. The tiny projectiles quickly converting the critter into a cloud of pixels.

Slash!

Herman felt his skin tingle as the assassin mechanoid used the distraction to launch yet another attack. To his shock and horror, his forehead bore a long but shallow cut, a thin trickle of blood running from the wound. It wasn’t deep enough to kill him outright, but his HP bar had dropped sharply from that single strike.

He knew the bot was strong, yet the force she was showing now was staggering. If she had struck a few centimeters deeper, he would have been instantly killed.

"Summon fish!" Herman said, as a meter long plump fish materialized in his hand in mid swing. Instead of taking the hit as he expected, or even showing surprise, the mechanoid’s four blades flared with a red glow and whirled with unfathomable speed, turning the fish into sushi in milliseconds and shearing a few of his fingers clean off.

"Aaargh!" Herman cried with actual honest to god pain, as several of his fingers flew through the air.

He didn’t know if to be horrified or thankful that finally something managed to break through his cheat like defences. Though he somehow knew that he would be paying for this later, as the resistances and health regen level up notifications were even now creeping at the edge of his vision.

"STAPLE SNAP OUT OF IT!!!" The man cried as the barrage of popups assaulted him yet again.

- 300 health

+ 10 bleeding

You have been poisoned!

+ 15 extra bleeding from assassins bane poison effect

- 1 hp

-5 hp

-10 hp

New skill unlocked, troll regenerations, new skill unlocked, steel bones, new ski……

"God fucking dammit, not now!" Herman cursed at the damnable popups as well as his foolish decision to abandon all weapons or armor in favor of the fucking fish skill!

"I am on it!" Slippy pitched in, as he appeared inside Herman’s digital overlay. This time he used the stereotypical Escaldian sci-fi trooper armor to blast the flying popups with his bulky heavy rifle.

"H..Herman… arrgh!" The bot struggled to speak, her speech full with digital glitches and other mechanical sounds. The mechanoid assassin froze mid swing, one of the blades hovering millimeters away from the man’s eye.

"G..ggggg gGeeet Slippy out of hhherrree.."

"vVirus, n..nnanoids…"

The robot stammered, her voice sharp with pain as she pleaded with the human to get the vulnerable baby AI out of there.