Metagaming

by Snowday_Pegasus

03_Redrawing-Canvas

The tunnel opened into an empty space obscured in a haze. Nothing was visible in any direction and the only sound was the turbulent wind that was buffeting them.

“Where are we?” Yearling yelled.

Fading into view in front of them and slowly growing larger was a vast array of brightly colored pixels depicting numerous images. Faint white clouds became visible and whizzed by as they approached the odd video screen. Slowly, a feeling of gravity came over the four creatures and they realized they weren’t flying towards it; they were falling towards it.

“Couldn’t we at least get a battle bus?” Discord asked.

Fizzy replied, “We need a parachute– umbrella– something!”

Discord frantically tried casting different spells. Laser beam shark. It took a snap at Discord’s nose. Definitely not! He flung it away. Jar of mayonnaise? Bing bong! He tossed it. Solar-powered flashlight? Oh, come on, when would I ever need that? Discarded. Giant ball pit? That will do. Discord aimed downward, pressed the button, and a bolt of energy streaked from his sphere to the ground. A vector outline of a ball pit formed and then it transitioned into a solid object. The four creatures landed into the pool with a plasticky splash, sending colorful balls flying everywhere.

“Let’s not do that again,” Yearling said. The solar flashlight landed in the pit beside her. Splash!

“Good job, Discord,” Fizzy said.

“It was blind luck more than anything,” Discord groaned. The jar of mayonnaise plummeted into the ballpit. Splash!

“Don’t complain. We made it.” Caballeron said.

Splash!

Discord chuckled nervously. “Umm– the shark made it too.”

“¡Madre!” Caballeron yelled. The four creatures screamed and frantically scrambled out of the pit.

“Pup of a Diamond Dog,” Yearling cursed.

The shark peeked its head out and asked, “Don’t you want a free hour in the ball pit?”

Discord huffed. “Go away.” With a shake of his globe, the pit and everything in it was deconstructed. The field of pixels they were standing on no longer looked flat as it had from high above. They were actually massive cubes of varying heights, like densely-packed buildings in a city. Some seemed stable, but others kept changing color and elevation at regular intervals, giving the appearance of a landscape in the midst of some kind of cataclysm. Discord said, “Hmm, we’re being attacked by a Tetris puzzle.”

Caballeron asked, “What’s a Tetris?”

“Fizzy, what are we looking at?” Yearling asked.

“I’m…pretty sure this is r/place.”

“Your place?” Caballeron asked.

“No, not our. R!” Fizzy said.

“Arrrrrrrrr, shiver me timbers,” Discord joked.

Fizzy growled. “No! R…slash…place!”

“Not following,” Yearling said.

Fizzy shook her head. She attempted to describe a metaphor about how homes need addresses, “Reddit” was the street name, and “Place” was the house number, but the two ponies just stared blankly at her. She decided to just explain the nature of the canvas: an abstract game, where players could set the color of a single pixel every couple of minutes, and by working together, they could create pictures. But she also mentioned that some players were just out to destroy the works of others.

“Well where has our little feral Digimon gone off to, then?” Discord asked.

Caballeron scanned with the Search Bar. “That way.”

Fizzy warned, “Be careful. These ‘blocks’ keep changing. One wrong step and we could fall through the canvas, or be crushed.”

“But we can pull ourselves out with the codeword, remember?” Caballeron said.

“Let’s just make sure we don’t have to use it before we’re ready,” Discord warned. “Lead on, Doctor Caballeron, Keeper of the Mighty Search Bar.”

As the four of them crossed the canvas, Fizzy felt that something was off about it. She knew the last r/place event had ended months ago, so this pixelscape shouldn’t have been here to begin with. But there was more. Fizzy had just gotten a splendid bird’s-eye view during her unpleasant skydiving experience. But while nearly anyone who had seen r/place could have recognized this for what it was, specific details seemed out of place.

Caballeron’s Search Bar did its job and led them to TantaByte. It looked to be about four times larger than before, and it was no longer an amorphous blob. It now resembled an octopus with a polygonal body, and it had traded its sparkly shimmer for an intricate orthogonal pattern. Its tentacles stretched and whipped around, smashing blocks. As the others looked on, Fizzy was typing away at her gauntlet and managed to access a top-down view of the canvas. The blocks that TantaByte was destroying were from a piece of art that depicted a sleeping Rainbow Dash, with her mane forming a heart that dangled behind her. At once, Fizzy realized what was off. She knew the art image well: it was the centerpiece of Brony activity during the 2017 version of r/place!

“The ‘Sleeping Heart Rainbow Dash?’ This shouldn’t be here. It’s from years ago.”

“Is this some kind of old recording?” Caballeron asked.

Fizzy said, “I’m not aware of any recording of r/place that captured every pixel change so accurately. But if it’s a recording, how is the Tantabus changing it?”

“What are you saying?” Discord asked. “We went back in time?”

“I hope not!” Fizzy said. “If we did, the Tantabus is altering history.”

Caballeron said, “Well, what are we waiting for? Worst case scenario, it’s changing the past. If it isn’t, we still can’t let it run wild on the internet.”

“Good point. To arms!” Fizzy ordered.

Discord giggled. “Do you mean our arms? Or the octopus’s arms?”

Cyan-colored low-resolution flames emanated from Fizzy.

“Sorry, sorry. Continue.”

Fizzy smiled at the chance to use a nostalgic battlecry. “Protect Dashie!”

“Leeeeeeeeroyyyyyyyyy Jeeeeeeeenkiiiiiiiins!” Discord bellowed in response.

Yearling threw her disc ahead as they all rushed in. The sudden attack knocked TantaByte off balance. Yearling yanked the disc back and threw it again. A third time, and it embedded itself in the ghostly cephalopod, knocking it over. Yearling felt the weight of the creature pull her forward, as if the threads of energy that linked her to the disc were made of solid rope. She braced herself and tugged hard; nearly yanking herself forward in the process. The disc obediently returned to her.

Fizzy accessed the console on her gauntlet again. Punching a few commands, she managed to bring up info on TantaByte’s integrity; it was going down. “We’re dealing damage!”

Caballeron leaped through the air and swung with the Search Bar. TantaByte winced and flailed at Caballeron, only managing to shatter a block. It swung again, and Caballeron knew he couldn’t dodge in time. An attack from Yearling’s disc sliced the incoming tentacle right off. TantaByte shrieked in pain. Caballeron was about to hit it again, but had to dive away to prevent a block from crushing him. TantaByte tried to capitalize and attack Caballeron again, but a spray of Nirik fire from Fizzy forced it to flinch.

Discord tried casting spells with the sphere, but as before, it was a roll of the dice. No, I don’t need rocky road ice cream…or a hairdryer…or a– oh, come-on! The fourth try created ten duplicates of Discord, dressed in tuxedos, complete with top-hats and canes. That’s more like it. “Other me’s, Charge!”

All of the Discords raised their canes up like swords and rushed into the fray. “Tally ho!”

TantaByte was focused on Fizzy, who had just rammed into it with her horns, when it was suddenly blitzed by the platoon of dapper Discords. “Draconequus pile!” They all repeatedly beat on it with their canes…courteously. “Jolly good shot, Discord!” “You as well, Discord.” The army of sophisticated chaps proved to be too much for TantaByte to handle. It bulldozed past its elegant assailants, clambered up a cliff, and rushed across the pixelscape.

The Discord clone-army, having done all it could, tap-danced its way into oblivion.

“How are we going to get up there?” Fizzy asked.

Recalling what had happened when she attacked the Tantabus, Yearling threw her disc at the top of the cliff, and it embedded itself in the ledge. Giving a gentle pull, she could feel the resistance. “Grab hold of me,” she yelled. The other three held on, and with a flick of her hoof, the tendrils propelled them all to the top of the cliff. Yearling grabbed hold of her disc, and with a little effort, dislodged it from the block.

TantaByte was quickly gaining distance from its pursuers. Caballeron was smug, knowing he could track it wherever it went. TantaByte abruptly came to a stop, looked to its right, and then frantically fled left.

“What’s it running away from?” Yearling asked.

“Does it know something we don’t?” Caballeron asked.

Fizzy looked at her gauntlet and then stopped in her tracks. “Oh, no.” A sea of black pixels was expanding in every direction. “It’s the Void!”

“The what?” Yearling asked.

“Just run!” Fizzy yelled. She took off, but the others looked in the direction of the approaching threat; it was like a tsunami of darkness, obliterating every block in its path. Immediately they all ran after Fizzy.

“Where are we going?” Yearling asked.

“I don’t know, but what’s good enough for the Tantabus is good enough for us right now,” Caballeron replied. “What is that thing?”

Fizzy answered, “A rival faction with one objective: consume everything!”

“Faction?” Yearling asked. They fled from the swarming dark until they reached a wide chasm. Yearling threw her disc but it came back before it connected with the other side. “It’s too far away!”

“Now what?” Caballeron asked.

Fizzy stopped and poked at her gauntlet.

“What are you doing?” Discord asked.

“Getting us across this fissure!” Fizzy just stood there typing while the void creeped ever closer.

– Transposition –

X: 0.0
Y: +30.0
Z: 0.0

The group was snatched away from the Void’s frigid grasp and placed safely on the other side of the gorge. A short distance away, the Tantabus could be seen going through a door. Discord attempted to dive in after it, but the door momentarily ignited into flames, throwing him back. A ‘lock’ icon appeared on the door, and Discord sneered in pain as the others helped put out the fire on his arm.

“It put up a firewall!” Fizzy said, and then raised her gauntlet up to the door. As she tapped away at the keyboard, thin tendrils of energy reached out and connected with the lock. While Fizzy was working, the others looked back at the incoming black storm.

Discord gazed at the Void with all the wonder and awe of a child. “It’s beautiful.”

“And it's about ten seconds from eating us,” Yearling warned Fizzy.

“I know!” Fizzy snapped back. “I think I– yes! I got it.” The lock icon vanished. “Go, go!”

The four of them vanished just before the entropic shockwave consumed the door and everything around it.