Exharks #4 - Ex-Positions

“Jeez, so he not only made his video game avatar a character, he made his own pennames into characters to do more stupid little adventures with? Jeez, what kinda cringe narco dweeb is this guy?”

Bobbi, Miner and Crafter Extraordinaire, was sitting on the edge of the bed, rolling her eyes after hearing Sharkerbob’s story of their quite similar origins. Sharkerbob came over with two bottles of water, handing her one as he sat down on the bed next to her. It was the only refreshment he could provide, and even the bottles had to come from Bobbi’s own inventory. For that matter, the bed was the only furniture to sit on.

He gave her a flat look. “We might not be him, but we’re what he’d be in our circumstances, and he’s what we’d be in his. So lay off him a little, won’t ya?”

Bobbi blinked and gave a little pout. “You’ve been sassin’ him this whole time, yourself!”

Sharker frowned. “Yeah. Because I’m most directly branched off from him, so I guess when I do complain about him, I feel like I’m complaining about myself, and I get easily caught up in that. Which is a habit I need to break, if only because I don’t imagine he wants this whole series to just be scenes of characters sitting around talking trash about him. I think the point has been made, multiple times over.”

She considered said point with a thoughtful little, “Hmmm,” before giving a small shrug. “I guess. I just… well, this metafiction angle isn’t really new to me, but I guess my perspective on the matter is still pretty limited. I only really remember the context of things relating to his experiences with Minecraft. And once I found out I wasn’t really him, I embraced that pretty quickly.”

Sharker nodded, and took a sip from his water bottle. “So, uh, what exactly happened to you after… I guess you blew up the Illusioner?”

Bobbi snorted. “That as far as you/he got?”

“Yeah. Burned out pretty severely after I trucked through three straight issues, and hit the wall of realizing Minecraft was really not ideal for setting up still-shots of fight scenes.”

Bobbi nodded. “Yeah, sounds about right. Well, a couple days after that, I felt sufficiently geared up to start looking for Shady’s Relics. So I did. Located Cali, got her to send me to the Fae Dimension. The artifact there was in one of the Summer Court’s Honey Shrines. All I had to do was help them beat up some monsters. The Winter Court had managed to migrate a whole community of Yetis from the Twilight Forest to help them take over some nearby territory, so I had to beat up the Alpha Yeti. That wasn’t too hard.”

She leaned back and ticked off the bullet points on her fingers. “Speaking of, the Twilight Forest’s Relic was in the Final Castle, where they still haven’t implemented that final boss. So, you know, I had to run the whole sequence of that mod’s storyline. Pain the ass, but old hat for me by now.

“The Everbright and Everdawn Dimensions were a whole other clusterfuck. Turns out that Illusioner had an alliance with a Summoner and an Alchemist from those worlds. They had a whole three-way racket of artifact hunting going on, and they each had one of the Relics I needed. Wasn’t able to beat them working together, and they tracked me back to my base, where they promptly TNT’d my entire island! Bastards! I really loved that starter area!

“Anyway, I got help from Bishop. Dude’s a frickin’ beast with magic power, so that was a huge help. We beat the two, barely, but I got both Relics. Aaaand it turned out the Illusioner had his tucked away in the Ancient City base I blew up. So, guess what, I had to scour that entire heckin’ cave to find where it had gotten blasted to, trying not to trip the Warden’s shriekers the whole time. That took a couple actual real-world days to find it; turns out it fell into a big lava pool. It was lava-proof, but it sank to the bottom instead of floating on top. Had to go run back to base and brew some potions so I could slog through the lava long enough to find it.”

She sighed and shook her head. “Pain in my ass. But anyway, went back to the Nether, their Relic was in a Bastion some 10,000 blocks away from my portal, so yeah, that was a fuckin’ pain to find. Fortunately, by then Bishop was able to use some of the Alchemist’s research notes to fashion a Relic Radar out of a Compass and some Gaia Spirits and some Carbuncle Gems, somehow. Unique cross-mod Shady must have put in. Guess she got impatient with how long it took just to find the Overworld Relic.

“Aaaand, speaking of Shady, I finally got to the End, beat up the Dragon, and instead of blowing up, the Dragon converted into the Relic. Went back home, put the Relics in the Lectern, and Shady herself showed up, albeit she looked like an Enderman-skinned Minecraft player. Told me I’d won my freedom, and that other worlds awaited and alla that. Opened up a portal, I stepped through, aaaaand, well, here I am!” Bobbi finished her story with a ta-dah flourish of her hands.

Sharker nodded sagely. “Yeah. Sounds about like what I roughly had in mind. Except for you ending up in the Frontier, where you actually went afterwards I was going to leave open-ended for the future.”

“Neat. I hope the Author enjoyed finishing my epic adventure in such an efficient manner of summarizing. And by efficient, I mean lazy and contrived.”

Sharker smirked. “I’m sure I could feel him wince just now.”

“Good!” Bobbi slugged back a long draw from her bottle, wiped her mouth with her sleeve, then looked to Dogoro. “Yo, Hat Man! You got any thoughts on this?”

Dogoro, who was perched on the control console of the Sky Shark, let out his trademark, “Hrmph!” He swiveled to look back at them. “I think you’re both lunatics! We’re all characters from the stories of some random human from a world without magic? Ludicrous!” He swiveled back. “That other Sharkerbob mentioned nothing about this.”

“He wasn’t an Author Avatar. There’s only two of us, really. Well, three, technically, but the third guy isn’t really an active character. Otherwise, I’ve had characters who were more just a self-reference. You know, as a kid, I played pretend, imagining myself as a superhero or a dream warrior, so basically not me at all, aside from using myself as the visual reference. That’s what that other Sharkerbob was. Sort of.”

Dogoro scoffed. “How many of yourselves did you make, you preening prat?”

Bobbi gave him a wary look. “There’s more of us?”

Sharkerbob sighed and through up his hands. “Self-references! Not self-inserts! And there’s only been a handful over the years, and most of them weren’t the main characters of their stories, and that’s compared to literally thousands of other characters I made, so no, I’m not just obsessed with myself!”

The two just gave him a flat stare.

“Look, okay? Alright? Okay?”

Bobbi blinked when he didn’t elucidate further. “Yes?”

“That’s all I got.”

Bobbi scoffed again. “So are we all called Sharkerbob?”

Sharkerbob waved her off. “No, no, this was coincidental circumstances, if anything. I was part of this comic book forum for years. Most of the core members had a Poster Persona, as they called them. Like a character based on their online personalities and forum in-jokes and whatever. I kinda joined in on that a bit, although it wasn’t until someone started a Poster Persona RPG that I deliberately sat down and fleshed out a character with the Sharkerbob name.”

He looked to Dogoro. “That, I’m assuming from your description, is the guy you met. The RPG didn’t really take off, only got a few pages in before it fizzled, but I guess it was enough to cement the idea of the character. The adventure was set in a place that was like a nexus of realities setting, a world composed of overlapping dimensions from across the Multiverse. Everyone was tasked to help fight off some big interdimensional threat. I guess, I dunno, when the RPG stopped, he technically became one of my floater characters, and I guess in traveling the Multiverse, he ended up here in the Frontier.”

He shrugged. “That Sharkerbob was a ludicrous, over the top, semi-parody character, much like everyone else had, but there wasn’t the gimmick of the Poster Personas being self-aware they were just characters being played by regular people on a forum. At least I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the case. In any event, that Sharkerbob wasn’t supposed to be aware of it. This was also over a decade before I did anything involving Author Avatars like myself.”

“Bully for you,” muttered Dogoro.

“So what’s he like?” said Bobbi. “I assume they’re a he?”

“Um. Raised by giant spiders. Fights using Pants-Fu, where if he uses pants as a weapon, he can perform superhuman combat feats. Doesn’t wear pants, but has a belt of swords, which he uses to simulate spider-combat techniques with the Way of the Eight Daggers. Controls a Giant Flying Underground Library Fortress, which he allowed a massive superhero team from across the Multiverse to use as a base during the big crisis.”

Bobbi blinked incredulously at him. “Jesus, extra much? What, were you in grade school when you made him?”

Sharkerbob pursed his lips. “College.”

“Cringe.”

He sighed and pointed at her. “I don’t want to hear that from a Minecraft fanfiction character.”

She made a more elaborate shrug. “Hey, you made me up, you’re not helping your case there.”

He gave an acquiescing nod. “Touche.” He looked to Dogoro, who had gone back to focusing forward on piloting the Sky Shark. A thought occurred to him.

“Speaking of, Bobbi. You still have your inventory?”

She brightened up at that. “Yeah! Shady let me keep that as a power. Pretty cool, huh? Although it’s not like the slots in the game anymore, it’s just, like, a storage closet lined with shelves I can reach into.” She reached forward, concentrated for a moment, and suddenly, a sweet berry was in her hand. “It does seem to preserve things like the Chests you have.”

She popped the little fruit into her mouth, then winced in surprise. Her brow furrowed as she savored the taste for a bit before swallowing. “Whew! Man, the flavor leveled up, that’s for sure!” She popped an apple and a piece of bread into her hands and took a bite of each. “Dang! I guess I never noticed it much during the adventure, but I actually forgot what food was supposed to taste like!”

Sharker chuckled. “Just be careful not to overeat. Our Author has a problem with that.”

Bobbi made that little pout again. “Hmm. I’ll bear that in mind.” She quickly gobbled the two items down, eating the apple whole, which Sharkerbob blanched at.

“So the food was flavorless in the game?” he asked.

Bobbi made a so-so gesture with her hand. “I mean, it had a kind of flavor, I guess, but everything was pretty bland, honestly. And in the game engine, actual hunger and thirst were, like, these muted sensations that I would almost literally interpret as an energy meter, more than an actual, you know, empty stomach.” She paused and tapped her chin in thought. “Actually, come to think, I don’t think I ever really even felt thirsty, exactly. I drank milk and potions and water sometimes, but I didn’t have a thirst meter.”

Sharkerbob grimaced slightly. “Count your blessings. Those extra survival mechanic mods are not fun.”

“Yeah, I remember from RLCraft,” she said, grimacing along.

“So how much of your stuff do you still have?”

Bobbi sighed. “Just some basic vanilla items. Some food, wood, stone, an elytra, firework rockets, a diamond pick-axe, and a stone axe. And once that’s all busted through, I don’t think I can just rebuild stuff like in the game anymore.” She popped a plank of wood into her hand. “Everything looks like a regular item now, so it’s not as simple as making a new crafting table and plunking some blocks onto it and poof, new diamond armor!”

She shook her head and sighed. “All my modded equipment is gone. And I can’t feel any of the mana in the air. What a rip.”

Sharkerbob nodded. “If I had to guess, the Author didn’t want to lean on the Minecraft gimmick too much, or keep using other people’s game content in a story that’s supposed to be about his own original Worlds. Also, while the Endless Frontier probably does have plenty of video game inspired World Shards, I don’t think most of them had actual video game physics.”

She pouted again, and looked herself over. “Yeah. Hell, I don’t even look like a Minecraft character anymore. It’s kinda weird, but kinda also, I know this is what I’m supposed to look like, you know? What the Minecraft avatar represented.” She paused for a moment, then looked down at herself again. “Speaking of…” She reached up to the collar of her shirt and pulled it forward so she could peer down her chest. “Yep. I really am a girl, huh?” She looked to Sharkerbob, gave him a studious once-over, then said. “I don’t suppose that implies anything?”

Sharkerbob blinked. “Like what?”

She gestured between the two of them. “Well… you know.”

“Elucidate, please.”

“Do you think he’s trans? Am I the manifestation of his egg energy?”

Sharkerbob sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “No. No, he’s cis, and straight, and does not have autogynephilia or any of that.”

“Okay. Just checking.”

Sharkerbob gave her a pensive frown. Bobbi looked young, had a slight figure, and was a head shorter than him, but given her consciousness had been born into a video game, with memories inherited from a middle-aged Player, this was one of those times where age was a crapshoot.

“What?” she said, noticing his inspection.

“How old are you supposed to be?”

Bobbi shrugged. “Search me, man. You wanna go by how long he was playing the game? Probably about six? You wanna go by his age when Shady woke me up? Forties?”

“Hmm.”

Bobbi grinned. “You wanna go by his actual mental maturity? Probably fourteen!”

Sharkerbob gave her a sardonic grin. “Hey now. He’s at least fifteen mentally.”

“Was that before or after the early on-set senility?” Bobbi said with a cheeky grin.

“I’ll get back to you when I remember what we’re talking about,” guffed Sharkerbob.

The two snickered.

“Hrmph,” came a now familiar mutter from Dogoro. “Great. They really are two peas in a pod.” The hat glanced back to them. “So why do you keep doing this? Making versions of yourself and sending them on these world-diving adventures where you pontificate about creation and art over and over?”

Bobbi looked to Sharkerbob with equal inquisitiveness.

Sharkerbob paused and thought about it for a few long moments. “Well, I’ll reemphasize that it really is a recent thing. I mean, authors meeting their creations has always been an interesting story gimmick for me, but I never took it seriously as a literally exercise of my own until the last few years. But I guess… I’m trying to find the answer to something. I’m not completely sure what the question even is, but it’s like… I don’t know. I feel like something’s fundamentally missing in myself. Like somewhere along the way, over the course of my life, I lost the plot, as it were. I took a series of wrong turns and did some kind of mental damage to myself, and ended up… like I am. Was. Like I was before I, specifically, got sent here as the Avatar.”

He sighed. “The worst part is, he’s still stuck in it, at least right now. Which is why I’m here in the Frontier, why I’m running into you all. The other Avatar is still a minor guest character in this other series he’s been writing, too. The next penname he’s lining up is already being fashioned into a character of his own. The Author’s just gone full metafiction with everything. It’s driving him a little nuts, and he’s trying to work his way out of it, and doesn’t know how. Or he was already going nuts and all this writing therapy is his way of processing it over and over until he figures out some kind of solution.”

“So, God’s lost his marbles, and we’re trying to help him find them via roleplaying out his adventure ideas?” said Bobbi.

“Seems that way,” said Sharkerbob.

“What a harrowing situation to be in,” Dogoro grumbled.

“Hey, if it’s any consolation, it means whatever bullshit plan we try to rescue Sustra with is probably gunna actually work, somehow,” said Sharkerbob.

“Oh, cool, so if I stick with you, I’ll have plot armor?” said Bobbi with a grin.

Sharkerbob paused. “I mean, I dunno if he’s totally over his propensity for tragic consequences. Being a protagonist means living in perpetual interesting times.”

Bobbi frowned. “Yikes.” She looked to Dogoro and hooked a thumb at Sharkerbob. “Hey, maybe after we spring your girl, you, me, and her should ride off into the sunset, and leave this guy holding the bag!”

“That sounds agreeable to me!” said Dogoro.

Sharkerbob pouted. “Hey, come on. At least wait till I can get settled somewhere!”

Bobbi pat him on the shoulder and smiled primly. “It’ll be a nice bag.”

Sharkerbob scowled. The truth was, he couldn’t really expect his own characters to just stick by his side on some kind of principle. Especially if his ultimate plan was to just settle down somewhere for the boring life as soon as he could manage it, he couldn’t imagine his adventure characters tagging along. Plus, he imagined it was a little existentially harrowing to be running around with the guy claiming to basically be a manifestation of their God, yet one who couldn’t even help them out with miracles.

Bobbi frowned a bit as she noticed he wasn’t picking up the quip. She paused for an awkward moment, then put a hand on his shoulder again. “Hey. I was kidding. I don’t know what to do with myself here, either, you know? Even if Hat Guy and Skunk Girl decide to take off, I wouldn’t mind sticking with you till we get our stuff figured out.”

Sharkerbob glanced to her and smiled, patting her hand. “Maybe we find Poster Persona Sharkerbob and make our own Sharker Guild.”

“Might be cool!” she said, grinning. She glanced around the Sky Shark. “Hey, you didn’t put our banner up! Or spruce the place up at all!”

“I’m not much for home décor,” he said. “Plus, I’ve had more important things to think about.”

“Aw, if it’s gunna be a few days before we even get there, we may as well keep ourselves occupied!” She went over to the Stasis Chests and saw what she had to work with for the Loom. “Hmm…”

“You really are a girl, huh?”

“Affirmative! And don’t get any funny ideas about that!”

Sharkerbob made a sardonic smirk. “Don’t worry, that’s the other guy’s oeuvre.” He stood up to join her. “Speaking of, we should probably make a bed for you, unless you got one in your storage.”

“Nah, I used up all the spares on the dragon!” She stared into space for a moment as she glanced through her materials, then popped out some more planks of wood and thought it over. “Hmm. Probably going to have to go with a hammock until I can get some cushions. Here, help me set this up.”

***

As the Sky Shark spent several days barreling over dozens of World Shards, Sharkerbob expressed his concern to Dogoro that the magic hat was going to burn himself out going non-stop! But the old wizard assured him that the vast majority of the power was actually being drawn from the Sky Shark itself, which he claimed had a seemingly bottomless well of energy. Where it was drawing that energy from, he had no idea. But True Relics, as opposed to devices crafted using established Magical Techniques, rather infamously had unique mechanisms that let them run in mysterious ways. The Sky Shark and its appliances were one such device, it seemed.

Sharkerbob explained that True Relics, as he had defined them, were pieces of artifice directly forged by gods in various storylines, blessed with some fragment of divine power that a mortal user could channel. Considering Tabitha herself had “arranged” the vessel to be present, he supposed she had gifted it similarly.

As such, Dogoro barely had to do much, other than refreshing the auto-pilot on occasion and monitor the pathway to make doubly sure they didn’t hit anything or come across any trouble. He likewise assured them that he didn’t really need sleep, leaving the two Sharkerbobs to assess their resources and abilities, rest and eat when needed, and formulate a plan in the interim.

“I’m telling you, I can handle some dumb vampire bitch!” said Bobbi, crossing her arms and giving Sharkerbob a stern look. Unfortunately, she was one of those “cute when angry” type of girls, so the effect wasn’t as impactful as she might have hoped. On the other hand, the fact she could summon a pickaxe into her hand to help debate her point mitigated Sharkerbob’s temptation to make any comments to that effect.

Sharkerbob held his hands up. “You’re not living in Minecraft anymore, Bobbi. Combat won’t be the same. We don’t even know how your body will react to damage.”

The girl frowned, then went over to the dented part of the Sky Shark’s wall, and punched it as hard she could. There was a sickening crunch as her fingerbones snapped against the metal, and Sharkerbob leaped up off his seat in shock. “What the fuck?!”

Bobbi grit her teeth in pain, but didn’t shout. She looked at herself, watched her broken hand for a moment, and frowned. Sharkerbob came over and gingerly reached for her, but didn’t touch the injured hand, uncertain of what to actually do for her. With her unbroken hand, Bobbi produced a golden carrot and chomped it down, trying not to tear up from the increasing pain. She watched her hand as she felt the carrot hit her stomach, but unlike in the game, she wasn’t suddenly regenerating from damage.

She sighed. “Yeah, guess I don’t have a health bar anymore.” She popped a red potion into her hand, popped off the cork, and dribbled some of the liquid onto her injury. In seconds, the hand reversed its swelling, and they could hear the bones click back together, Bobbi wincing and gritting her teeth through the process. “Ow!” she admitted through grit teeth. “Ow ow ow! OW!” But a moment later, she was able to flex her hand again without pain.

Sharkerbob quirked an eyebrow at her. “You have potions?”

“Of course I have potions,” she said, cocking an eyebrow at him. “What, you think I gunna face the bosses without ‘em? I know you never did, but no way I was just gunna die fifteen times to the dragon and keep warping back to him to whittle him down. Respawning fucking sucks.”

“So why didn’t you mention it before?” he said.

She shrugged. “In case I needed to fight you.”

He frowned. “You really thought you’d need to?”

She rolled her eyes. “I was dealin’ with Shady, man. You never know what she’s gunna pull. For all I know, this is all just a simulation she built while I was running around in Minecraft, and I’m still dancing to her tune.”

He shook his head. “I can assure you that’s not the case, but I guess I can’t blame you for being skeptical.”

“What’s her deal, anyway?” said Bobbi. “I know she’s a Goddess, but I have a hard time placing her. Like, what does she has to do with Minecraft, enough for her to be involved with me?”

Sharkerbob made a dismissive wave. “I briefly had an idea for a trickster Goddess in one of my superhero universes that of course never got nearly far enough to use her in anything. At some point after I got into playing Minecraft, I realized she kinda vaguely had the color schemes of an Enderman. Glowing violet eyes, black outfits, teleported around in puffs of purple smoke. I dunno, I thought it would be funny if she invaded one of my game sessions, and because she was a trickster goddess, she’d somehow be aware of me as the player and try to mess with me. I thought about doing that as a comic, but never got around to it because I couldn’t think of any good gags for it. But then, when I needed something to explain how you became self-aware in the game, I used her for that. I dunno, your whole comic was incredibly slapdash, so I just tossed that idea in there as I was constructing those pages.”

“Huh. Neat?”

“Sloppy,” he admitted. “By that point, pantsing things was pretty much the only way I could write anymore.” He shook his head. “The funny part is, you very easily could have been another me. I made your comic after giving up on SalQuest, which was supposed to be my big epic quest I was going to go on. When I started the comic, I initially did think I was going to have it be literally me in Minecraft. But when the time came to pull a reveal, I decided to make you your own person, independent of me. You have no idea what a sense of relief I felt that I was finally getting out of my self-insert quest phase by doing that. And then afterward, I fell right back into it again.”

“Our Author’s a real basket case, huh?”

He smiled ruefully. “Yeah.” He turned to her. “All that aside, I still don’t know if you’re ready for real-time action. You aren’t going to be much help to Sustra if you’re bleeding out on the floor, because your Minecraft powers don’t translate to effective combat ability.”

“Oh, puh-lease! I beat a dragon to death with a set of beds, I can handle a vampire!”

“A vampire that eats Demigods!” said Dogoro from the front. “If I’m to trust you to help me, you’re going to have to show me you have the power to hold your own. Otherwise, you’re just going to get us both killed!”

She sighed. “Alright, tell you what. You said you can’t hire Drifters, cuz you got no cash, right?” Bobbi held up her hands, and some perfectly cut diamonds and emeralds appeared in her palms. “There’s gotta be a place in this Frontier where a girl can still liquidate some precious gems, right?”

Sharkerbob and even Dogoro raised an eyebrow at her. They shared a glance. “Any place you know of?” said Sharkerbob.

“I’m sure some place might take them, if they’re authentic,” said Dogoro. “Or can pass as authentic. However, I don’t know where, precisely to go. We were new to the area when we got attacked, and I don’t recognize any of the Shards we’re passing through.”

“Shouldn’t you know where we can go?” said Bobbi, giving Sharkerbob a curious look. “You supposedly created this whole reality, after all.”

“The Endless Frontier is largely a template of possibilities. It’s one of those anything-can-happen type of realities, because it’s technically composed of every kind of reality I could possibly think of. Or, at the very least, every type of world I could think of that could reasonably have physical chunks of it attached to the infinite plane. But, you know, I’m just a normal guy, and normal people can’t process infinity. Most of the Endless Frontier is all Here-Be-Dragons territory composed of things I haven’t even made up yet, or reconfigurations of my old ideas I haven’t done the reconfiguring for yet. Most of the reality may as well not exist until I decide to write about it, at which point an existence is sort of retroactively applied to the area.”

Bobbi looked out the window, watching the terrain whip by beneath them. “Huh. So, like Minecraft, it’s basically procedurally generated, and you might recognize familiar stuff in the new areas, but otherwise, you have no idea what’s ahead?”

“I guess that’s one way to put it,” said Sharkerbob. “Although I thought of the Frontier way before I ever played Minecraft, FYI.”

“No one cares where you got your ideas, man,” said Bobbi, glancing back at him with a flat expression.

“I care,” muttered Sharkerbob. He looked out the window as well, seeing the radical shift in biomes as they crossed between Shards. It occurred to him that any other vessel would probably have been buffeted hard by the sudden atmospheric changes going from one Shard to the next, but even then, the Sky Shark’s personal atmosphere bubble seemed to shield them from changes. He really was supremely fortunate at how easy the Relic had made his life in the Frontier so far. It was shame he was probably going to end up losing it eventually, if the Author decided to throw some hard-hitting consequences at him down the line. The heroes typically lost their home base at some point if a series went long enough. So the sooner he could actually get established somewhere, the better off he’d been when the inevitable happened.

“Well, I guess our best option is to look around for any settlements we can check in with, once we’re close to our destination,” said Bobbi, returning the gems to her inventory. “I ought to have enough to net us something.”

“Try not to just forfeit your whole inventory when trading this time,” said Sharkerbob with a smirk.

Bobbi pouted at him. “Yeah, yeah.”

The two went back to watching out the windows, both wondering what potential story hooks and side-quests they might be blasting right past as they beelined through their current one.