SBURB: the Bienvenidos Ultra Chaos Dunk

You trip over the pile of books next to your chair as you rush to your computer, then sigh as you sit up, rubbing your jaw. You've been meaning to start reading those for a while now, but just haven't managed to rustle up the motivation. Not when you've got so many good webcomics to catch up on, acapella youtube music videos to watch, old games to replay, homework to do, and especially when the new SBURB beta comes out today SQEEEEEEE!
Then, you look over at your room.
Yes, miss Jaye Friggasdottir, you have some massive cleaning to do before you can even leave. Summer holidays really don't work when you've modified your room to act as a kitchen, and your ensuite has the most comfortable showerbath you've ever experienced. Your door is blocked off partly by the piles and piles of dirty laundry you've just shoved there, and partly by the hundreds of pounds of books that fell off your shelves during a particularly spirited singing session that you never really bothered to pick up.
You should probably do something about that, buuuuut.... Your friends look like they're online, and you want to chat for a bit before you get into any of the really heavy stuff.
You open up your browser, Hephaestus, and log onto the "hip" chat client you and your online friends have been using, your handle of cardamomCultivator sitting there as patiently as ever, your habit of SwappIng around your capItalIsatIon as the letters one would fInd on the "most eXceptIonal of beneVolent clocks", as your father would put it.
(Sometimes, you suspect he was particularly eloquent in these matters simply to allow these sorts of introductions and puns, but when you consider that he didn't even know your quirk, you find that unlikely.)

You step away from the computer, frowning a little, but the posters on your wall always cheer you right up. That hilarious one of Death in his farmer's outfit is probably the best, but the hand-drawn one of the "Men in Saffron" is also pretty sweet. Then, you just stand there, admiring your full-scale poster of one of the the hunkiest hunks known to good science fiction TV shows.
David Tennant.
Mhmhmhmhmhmhmhmhm....
It got to the point that, for a while, even hearing the number "10" would cause you to go weak at the knees. But!
It's been a while, and your pocketwatch is telling you that the mail for the day has been here for at least a couple of hours. You get "cleaning" (read: CAPTCHALOGUE-ing everything in front of the door into your SYLLADEX), and finally leave your roo- Oh, how could you forget to add your Replica Death Scythe to your strife deck? Although honestly, it's been a while since you last sharpened it.
No time for that, it's time to...
Oh goodness. It seems you left the cage for your pet hamster unlocked. That rascally rodent is running around the place somewhere, and if you open the front door, he might escape.
You should start looking for Pawzrael.

> Be the Other Guy
There's actually a bunch of other guys here, but you decide to just be someone you haven't been yet.

You, now a teenage boy sporting trademark headphones, stand in your room, decorated with posters of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and some assorted musicians. You suppose you could let the audience try to guess your name, but you are struck by the premonition that doing so would somehow morph into a colossal waste of everyone's time, so you'll just come clean and say that your name is Mark Owens. Your chumhandle is clarionAcoustic and you typically talk in a breezy, sing-songy tone of voice~

Looking around your room, you see that your sheet stand is still hopelessly messy, with some scattered note sheets lying on and around it. In addition to a PC and study desk situated next to the window, there's also your handy Bass Guitar in the corner, which you really should pick up before you do anything today. Before that, though, you decide to log-in with your laptop really quickly and see if your chums are online.

Really, you should have taken better note of the date. But last night your uncle had challenged you to one of his silly musical duels and you accepted the challenge, you sucker. You don't even know why you do this to yourself; he's a professional, and he's simply the best you've seen, so there's no beating him in a jam-session. But anyway, now he's definitely going to be overzealous to see how well you play. It's his hiatus right now, so... you had figured you'd better humor him. Now you're kind of regretting this decision.

You chance a peek out of your window. You can't actually make out the mailbox from here, but it was worth a shot. Plus, you aren't really looking forward to stepping out of your room and alerting Uncle. He knows when you're out and about. He always knows.

> Be the crazy uncle.

Uh, no. Like, super-ultra no. It is like a law of the universe that you cannot issue commands to a Guardian. You can, however, be the crazy uncle's equally crazy nephew, which you decide to do since that's the next best thing... right?

Well, you are now Mark Owens, like it or not. What's your move, champ?

> Examine room closer.

Okay. Like you said before, there are some posters of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog adorning the wall. Incidentally, you think that's like the best thing you've ever seen. I mean, Billy was such a nice villain until Penny died! ... Okay, so you kind of saw that coming, it's a Joss Whedon thing. But still!

There's also a bookshelf housing a collection of CDs, DVDs, books (obviously) and a few figurines of Dr. Horrible characters. Not much else stands out. Unless you want me to describe in immaculate detail the wallpaper and carpet. Really, they're beautiful, but not worth our time here.

> Take Captain Hammer figurine.

Ugh. Really? You hate this guy. Captain Hammer's kind of a jerk. You're really, truly certain you want to captchalogue this horrendous thing? ...You're sure you don't want this sterling Dr. Horrible one instead? Really? Come on.

Okay, fine, you captchalogue the stupid thing under the G note. Oh, right, your Fetch Modus is set to Clef. Whenever you play or sing a different note or chord, it gets you a different item. The obvious problem is that if you actually need to practice with an instrument, the contents of your sylladex are forcibly ejected in quick succession as you play. You cannot see this possibly going wrong.

While you are at it you figure you'd better grab your Bass Guitar too. It's not only your primary method of sylladex retrieval, it's also set in your Strife Deck. So, yeah, definitely no way for this to go wrong.

> Captchalogue some CDs.

Sure, okay. Not sure why exactly you want to do that, but you go ahead and file a bunch of them under different notes. This is going to make that Jam Session really, really hilarious or it's going to kill your pet cat or something.

> Captchalogue a towel just in case.

You take a page from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and remember that you should always, always bring a towel with you wherever you go. As everyone knows, towels are vital to anything. You can sleep under them, wave them as distress signals, dry yourself off with it... your towel-savvy would make Douglas Adams and that hoopy frood Ford Prefect proud.

> Go out there and have that music duel!

Yeah. You guess there's no point in delaying it any longer, your Uncle is gonna just bust through the wall like an angry Kool-Aid man if you keep him waiting much longer. So you open the door, walk out and OSHI--

You are suddenly accosted by a wild Character Select Screen! Who are you now?

UPDATE: (open) UPDATE: (close)

I am no longer allowed to be a page, as I be female now. From now on, I am a rogue.

>Be the absent-minded one.
Which absent minded one?
>Seriously? You're asking this question, when you're the one writing the post?
Okay, okay. You are now Jaye Friggasdottir, and you can't be bothered typing out your name in full anymore, so you will henceforth refer to this young lady as simply Jaye.
You look around the cluttered room in front of you, and-
Ah! There's that scampering beastie! Let's see if you have anything that can help in your sylladex.
You bring up your easy-to-use ARRAY FETCH MODUS, having updated it as soon as you could to stop all that tedious business with those other, over-complicated fetch modi, and take out a cardboard box (which you got when you bought a bunch of second-hand Terry Pratchett novels), a small replica scythe (blunted, of course, from your Death figurine), and your hamster treats. Aren't you lucky that you didn't have to go on some stupid fetch quest, wasting time like that! Placing the trap, you delicately place the scythe and food under the box, preparing the trap.
Oh, look! Pawzrael has scampered up to you and into your hand! How acquiescent he's being! Fortuitous indeed, seeing as the mailman has just knocked four times. You know it's him, because ever since you downloaded the last few episodes of David Tennant's run as "The Doctor" for him, the "heartbeat of a Time Lord" has been a bit of a signal between you two. It's surprising how many people you can form connections with through a combination of a shared interest and a small act of kindness, like when you volunteered at the local library to update their archiving technology. You pop Pawzrael back into his cage, locking it securely this time before you walk out to the front door and open it, having a quick wave at the delightful delivery man before walking leisurely towards the mailbox, joyously noting that the little red arm-swingy-dealy thing or whatever it is called is flipped up! The glorious scent of orange blossoms floated down onto the small path to the street, beside which your father planted six trees beside the path on the day he adopted you. A small tear springs to your eye as you sit down on the large stone in the middle of the herb garden, surrounded by the chilli, chives, coriander and cardamom that you've let grow rampant in the surprisingly wet summer you've been having. Fortunately, your reverie doesn't last long, as the shadows haven't grown by too much while you've been sitting here.
>Shut up about your precious guardian and get the beta already!
You get the beta, jeez! Relax, already! It isn't like the end of the world is at stake, or anything.

> Engage in music duel that most certainly will not be interrupted.

Your enthusiasm and lust for action is not shared by the character in question, but you switch to Mark for a moment to see how he's doing.

He really, really wasn't all that excited for this. Musical duels in this household had roughly a 120% chance of turning into actual duels. You don't know how the mathematics work out on that but that's just sort of how it is. Somehow. Don't question it. Even Mark can't figure it out entirely.

Anyway, he made his way down the stairs and into the lobby. Truthfully, he hadn't actually explored the entire house that much. A lot of it was under lock-down during Uncle's working times, and he wasn't generally allowed into a lot of it. Something about how there was really valuable stuff in there and how he wasn't ready yet. There was also, of course, the fact that every time he WAS here, he'd always challenge Mark to--

Suddenly an electric guitar crashed into the foyer, into where Mark had been shortly before his instincts told him to Youth Roll the heck out of there. Uncle jumped into the room from who-knew-where and took it up, thrusting the instrument in his nephew's direction. Mark responded by producing his own guitar. For a moment the two stared each other down before they began to...

> STRIFE!

Mark began with a few rounds of Aggrieving (really just playing some notes and chords) that threw a rondo of CDs at his Guardian; however, the latter quickly used his own instrument to Auto-parry them all, rapidly adjusting the Electric Guitar to block and subsequently shatter all of the disks.

Uncle knelt down with a smile, and began to whisper into Mark's ear. It was the Guardian Rubric, Protips! Mark tried to Abjure the awful murmurs, but this vigorous shaking of the head left him open to a blow from Uncle's own Bass. Flying back, Mark caught himself on a pillar and swung back around to Aggress. One Bass guitar's back met another in a loud crash, but the younger Owens played a chord as they met that launched a certain hated figurine from his Sylladex that bonked Uncle in the head. Invigorated by this small victory, Mark kept playing bars and advancing, placing more weight on his instrument as he did so. However, it wasn't long before his Uncle broke the lock and began to play as well, and the discordant noises of two dueling Basses were heard in the lobby that day, two musicians battling out their souls together. For a few minutes it looked almost evenly matched, as though they were two were of the same band. But it became more and more evident that Mark was weakening. The sounds from his playing grew weaker in comparison to the intimidating crescendo that his Uncle played, drowning in a sea of notes. A final blow from Uncle finished the duel in one fell swoop, amplifiers suddenly appearing to mark his triumph. Mark himself played the last desolate note, throwing a towel into the ring to signify the end.

Satisfied, his guardian left him alone for the moment to retreat into the kitchen, in a vastly improved mood. Mark, however, was most certainly not in a good humor. Yet another defeat. Mark it on the calender. Ugh.

He went outside, barely taking notice of the large house, nabbed the Beta as well as the other mail (which he deposited on a desk inside) and trudged back up to his room, checking the chatlogs.

>Be the silly girl.
Which silly girl?
>...There are a total of two girls in this session. This limits the available options to, as stated before, two. Now, of the two remaining options, you have "Jaye", already stated to be absent minded, who obsesses about a british man portraying a fictional, time-travelling alien, and has spent the seven minutes prior to her collection of the beta in a state of meaningless contemplation, in comparison to Rita Jocelyn, a girl who knows what's what and is all about serious business, to the point that she even owns the application. Which do you think is the silly girl I'm referring to, you misogynistic prick?
...Fine, you grumpy grumpster, it was just a joke. You are now Jaye.
With, I might, add, the beta disc!
>Wait, beta disc singular?
>I demand that you chase after that angel immediately?
What angel? All you see is the retreating back of the friendly mailman.
>That angel! That man, that you are so readily allowing to escape!
Wait, angel? You don't get why you're calling him that. But, if it means so much to you, you'll follow him. Darn, it's a hot day though. You can barely draw the breath required to call out to your friend.
He hurries over, and... what were you meant to do next?
>Ask about the beta, and how many discs were in the mail for you!
He says there was only one, and he's a very honest man. You can trust him.
>But there are at least TWO discs required to play the sburb beta! The Rita girl mentioned it!
What?!
You thank the postman, and after a reasonable amount of time, ensuring that no-one would be around to see, you proceed to "flip the fuck out", as it were, your previously-unseen "hysterical panic meter" having been filled from empty to full in but a moment.
What on earth could have happened?!
You demand to be someone else immediately, so that you have time to comprehend the situation in its entirety, and hopefully reduce the amount in your H.P. Meter .

==>:
After realising just how petulant that demand sounded, you relax and take a look on your situation. Sure, you may not have the other disc, but it's not like you won't have the chance to fix any mistakes with the mail system, or get a new one by mail (if getting an e-copy from your friends won't work) or anything. You really don't know what all this fuss was about.
>Well, head back inside I suppose. If it truly won't matter, then rushing around out here will only give you heatstroke.
Good plan, brain! Wait...
Why are you talking to yourself?
Heh, why are you asking that? You always talk to yourself in the confines of your own head. It helps keep the multiple trains of though you have running on separate 'tracks', as it were.
Anyway, back inside, through the... lovely... treeeeeeeeeeees....
NO! Back inside for you, you need to tell Rita what's going on, and check on your buddies.
Oh, no! It looks like that blasted rock-obsessed boy from down the road is challenging you to a contest again. His axe against your scythe and voice. You really hate musical duels.
And, oh, look. He's brought along his nintendo-fan-club buddies.
OH GOD NO.
HE'S DROPPING HIS AXE AND DOING SOME A CAPELLA!
It's... so.... catchy....
Man, you really love the sounds of male harmonics. Even when below average in terms of voice quality and arrangement, there's just something there...
BUT! You must not be outdone!
You immediately bring out your solo rendition of a recent kiwi artist's song. You've always been incredibly lucky that your range is so immense that you can almost, nearly pull off parts of the harmonies yourself.
This really makes you wish that there were more of you, but! The boys seem to have backed off.
"See ya, Queen Bee!"
One especially cheeky rascal dashes off, closely followed by his mates as you joke-threateningly wave your scythe at them.
Back inside, you check your mail, the electronic kind!

That's a good question, one you'll have to ask Rita when you see her pop back online; she seems to be off at the moment.
Honestly, you're a little too excited about this game with your friends to be thinking about the complex machinations and optimisations, something that you've never really enjoyed all that much. You've always preferred jumping in, analysing, then seeing what you could've done better, or what could've been done better. You learn either way, but yours is faster and more fun XV.
Meanwhile, you decide to message your friend Greg:

> Be the Mark. Do the thing.

You can be Mark. You don't know if you are THE Mark, because that could refer to any number of vaguely-defined objects ranging from a tattoo to someone who just got duped in a con. Also, you'll have to be a bit more specific than that.

> Well, nobody's answered you yet, so you should probably get some snacks. TC makes this game sound pretty hardcore.

Uh... are you... are you quite certain? Usually your Uncle does the cooking. Especially since he has several exotic ingredients in there. Like, imported-from-Soviet-Russia-exotic, because you're pretty sure your kitchen is the only one in the entire world where snacks try to eat you. It's connected to this huge botanical garden and there are carrot-men and... stuff. That one time with the tomatoes ended really badly and you will never again be comfortable around the scent of garlic.

> It's that or check out your Uncle's sealed rooms...

RIGHT THEN. TALLY HO, WE VENTURE FOR SNACKS.

As you approach the kitchen you shiver, in spite of the warmth from inside. With a slight tremble you open it and, not giving yourself time to back out, cross the room and try to access the fridge.

And then the botanical garden door swings open and a load of Onion-headed things the size of liliputians run in. Oh wonderful. So much for that pizza.

> Drop some bass, quickly!

You'd love to, but you don't think these philistines would appreciate the music, and not just because they lack ears. You instead pull a BATTLE AXE and start dicing. As you do, you begin to hum a few bars.

Singlong (open) Singlong (close)

CA: A maaaaaan's got to do what a maaaaan's got to do~
CA: Doooooon't plan the plan if you caaaaan't follow through~

You, uh, oh dear. You're crying and the kitchen is rapidly becoming a mess of onion peels and fumes. You really don't think you should be fighting Onion-men with an axe anyway. This was a dumb idea and you have no real defense for it. Maybe you should be someone else real quick before this backfires any worse.

> How is that ingredient-gathering going?

Poorly. You--you here being Mark--have managed to subdue the onions. The bad news is you don't like onions. So now you weep among your fallen foes, not for sorrow, but for the oxides.

> Check the fridge. There must be something there.

Oh, you checked. There are things. Just nothing inside that's worth wading through the blue fuzz in there. It kinda creeps you out. So instead you nab a bag of nachos from the pantry.

> That leaves just one thing...

Yes, yes, you are well aware. You hate it. But you are aware that it is time to venture into Gourmet World over here and hope not to die. Or get slimed. Or anything else that might happen in there. Bit of a toss-up, really.

Anyway, you head into the arboretum. You will obtain something to make some form of dip, or your name is not Mark!

...You do decide to keep your weapon out at all times, though. This place is like a jungle, and you'll need to keep your wits about you. If you recalled correctly, there were avocados near the far side of the gardens, that you could use for guacamole... or you could take a more frustrating route to the core of the gardens to find the things necessary to make some salsa.

You are going to check up on the latter path, first...

And shortly down the path you find that the foliage has overgrown its space. Of course. Well, you're going to be here a while hacking your way through this.

>Be a different guy.
You are now a different guy. A young man stands in the middle of his room, and the only light in the room is coming from the boys computer screen. The boy has a look of frustration upon his face. His name was... Umm... What was his name again?

>Enter Name
Treehugger Soilpants.
No way, the boy absolutely refuses to be called Treehugger Soilpants. He would rather eat dirt, than have soil in his pants.

>Try Again
Chad Hudson.

>Examine Room
Your name is Chad Hudson. You have a love for all things ELECTRONIC, but your internet reception is VERY BAD. You also have an immense distaste for the OUTDOORS. You prefer to stay INSIDE AND CHILL OUT. You simply adore ROBOT MOVIES, and your room is full of posters from these movies. Your computer desk takes up a good corner of the room.A large set of stairs takes up a good portion of the right side of your room. You like to play GAMES sometimes, but you mostly like CODING them. Your chumhandle is technologicalTitan, and you type in a rather normal manner. Always taking your time to type everything correctly.

>Examine Iron Giant Poster.
This is one of your favorites. You always loved the giant metal robot. It seemed like the directors knew just what they were doing. It was an amazing movie, but the ending kinda stunk. It made you think it was going to have a sequel, but it never happened. You gently brush the poster as you whisper to yourself. "Souls never die."

>Examine Transformer Poster
As much as you would like to, you can't waste any more time. Today was the day you were going to play a game with your friends. You don't have time for admiring all your posters. You mark that on your to do list for tomorrow, of course.

>Log On To Your Computer
The boy sits down at his computer. Several various files cover your desktop, including your digital schooling application. Its the only reason you have your computer in the first place. You have to go to school online, because you live way too far into the countryside, and you would prefer not riding a bus for 2 hours before getting to school.

>Open Up Pesterchum
As you open up pesterchum, an error message appears. It appears your internet is down again. Sighing, you put your computer to sleep, and attempt to figure out why your internet is down this time. It always seems to be down, You often have to take your laptop to the local library to get any schooling done. Speaking of Laptops, you should probably captchalogue yours.

>Captchalogue Laptop
You pick up your laptop of your bed and place it in your sylladex. Your current Fetch Modus is set to your Focus modus. You retrieve the object by thinking about it. However, this does sometimes cause some hilarious predicaments. Especially when talking to someone, your mind drifts and BOOM, out comes your object. The modus also came with another called the Distraction modus, where you retrieve your objects by not thinking about it. But this required too much effort for you to use it longer than five minutes.

>Head Upstairs
You grudgingly step up stairs out of your room. Choosing the basement as your bedroom was perhaps the best idea you ever had. You get a lot more time to yourself, plus your Mom refuses to come Downstairs. She is afraid of the dark, so you never have to worry about cleaning your room. As you head upstairs, you open the door a bit, keeping an eye out for your mom. With her seemingly nowhere around, you fully open the door and walk through it.