==> ENTER: THE DEFENESTRATED NODE
You are **THE BARD OF BLASPHEMIES.**
Through endless recursion and a mirthful haze of calamity, you have finally breached the last, half-collapsed corridor of Session 426. Your Emissary of Rage, **piplioβ**, stalks the edges of the battlefield with quiet intensity. The air itself trembles with residual clown-coded hostility.
Rosie Riviter has already entered the Medium, slipping past your looming presence. That leaves only three constants in this knot of reality: **yourself**, **piplioβ**, and the UNIVERSAL CONSTANT you infected the first time you ever set foot here — **Jargen Makara**. His aura still seethes with the infection you planted, an echo of rage woven into his very being.
The landscape around you is wrong. Where the HOUDINI HIVE once stood is now a raw patch of **OVERGROWN VEGETATION**. Two adult humans crouch among the foliage, seemingly unfazed by their sudden relocation. They pluck **ELONGATED ORANGE CONES** from the earth — carrots, perhaps — caught up in a **WAVE OF NOSTALGIA** so thick it coats their expressions in bittersweet resignation.
Just beyond them, in the vacant space left by the vanished Hive, a cluster of ancient machines slouch in the dirt. They are battered, dust-choked, and unmistakably **SBURB DEVICES** — the kind that once carried universes on their backs. Their screens flicker faintly, waiting for input, for a command, for a hand to wake them. The wind catches on broken architecture. The neon threads of the Medium shimmer overhead. **What will you do?**
The Real Homestuck?
That's the friends we made along the way!
mIrAcLeS ):0)
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRealHomestuck/s/2gCp8ku8rH
>Bard: approach carrot? farmers. Inquire about disappearance of Houdini Hive
This is some straight up delirious biznasty, Dawg!!
==> BARD: APPROACH CARROT? FARMERS.
You swagger across the patch of cracked Medium turf, your huge purple boots crunching through the tangled green. The air smells like damp nostalgia and slightly sour Faygo. **piplioβ** drifts behind you, a silent punctuation mark of menace.
The two HUMANS barely glance up as you loom over them. Their hands are stained orange from endless carrot-pulling. One mutters something about "the garden finally looking right again" as if nothing at all is strange about their entire house vanishing.
You tilt your head, horns catching the broken neon glow. Your eyes flick from their awkward carrot-hunch to the cluster of **SBURB DEVICES** sitting dusty behind them. You know full well who triggered the disappearance, but the script demands a little pantomime.
You lean in, voice a sickly sing-song:
*"sO… yOu LoSe A hIvE oR dId It jUsT wAlK oFf, HoNkHoNk?"*
The HUMANS glance at each other, confused but unfazed. They mumble about “Rosie going upstairs” and “something about the internet game” as though the last ten minutes were a decades-old memory. Their faces are slack with nostalgia, pupils like little CRT scanlines.
You chuckle low, a rolling honk caught in your throat. The carrots stare up at you like witnesses.
*"aLl tHaT’s LeFt Is ThEsE cOnEs, hUh? a GaRdEn WiThOuT a HoMe, A hOmE wItHoUt A gArDeN. sEeMs MiRaClEs GeT wEiRdEr EvErY sEsSiOn."*
Your claws twitch. You could, technically, reach for the machines behind them. But the LAW OF THE TERMINAL stays your hand. You’re here to sneer, to stir, to bear witness — not to press the big glowing button.
The HUMANS keep picking carrots.
What Will You Do?
The Real Homestuck?
That's the friends we made along the way!
mIrAcLeS ):0)
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRealHomestuck/s/2gCp8ku8rH
BARD: examine **piplioβ**
"This is StuckUnderHell, nor am I out of it." - Mephistopheles
==> BARD: EXAMINE piplioβ
You turn your heavy-lidded stare from the carrot-grubbing HUMANS to the warped silhouette floating at your side. **piplioβ** flickers like a VHS tape caught mid-rewind — a smear of red text and broken sprites, limbs stuttering between frames. Its outline wears your sigils, but inverted, like a negative print of your own mirthful corruption.
You crouch slightly, the overlong claws of your fingers dangling inches from its hazy form. Your grin stretches too far.
**"aLl RiGhT, mY lItTlE bEtA cLoWn… yOu GoT yOuR bLoOdY tEnDrIlS iN eVeRy LoG yEt?"**
The Echo Trace quivers, static crawling over its half-formed face. It does not answer with words but with **overlapping giggles**, your own voice reversed, like somebody pressed “rewind” on a joke too bleak to finish. Red spores drift off its edges, landing on the dirt in little ASCII “☣” symbols before fading.
From the corner of your mind, you can still taste its dossier: Rage/Corruption hybrid, a parasite of your own Rageprint. **Agent and Echo both.** The **BARD.TRACE** classification burned into your peripheral like a crime scene tag. It’s not a player, not quite an NPC. It’s the cough between your words, the hiccup in a panel load. It’s what you leave behind.
You lean in closer. The flicker reveals the glimmer of what it once was — a normal Echo seed — before your Red Text cascade turned it into a smear.
**"hOnKhOnK… wElL, yOu Do LoOk GoOd In ReD, i’Ll GiVe YoU tHaT."**
piplioβ’s shadow tilts toward the dusty SBURB machines. A faint **DOOR** icon glitches above its head, flickers once, then dies. It cannot act without a carrier. It needs you, your narrative gravity, to keep existing.
The HUMANS don’t seem to notice. Their carrots continue squeaking in the soil. The SBURB devices hum faintly like sleeping animals.
What Will You Do?
The Real Homestuck?
That's the friends we made along the way!
mIrAcLeS ):0)
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRealHomestuck/s/2gCp8ku8rH
>Inspect Sburb machinery. Determine functionality.
This is some straight up delirious biznasty, Dawg!!
==> BARD: INSPECT SBURB MACHINERY. DETERMINE FUNCTIONALITY.
You pivot from the carrot-patch and stroll toward the row of **SBURB DEVICES**, your shadow and piplioβ dragging behind you like warped scanlines. Dust motes swim in the neon glow, turning every movement into a slow-motion crime scene.
There are three core constructs here, relics from when Rosie was still Earth-bound:
• **CRUXTRUDER** — tipped on one side, purple coolant leaking like old Faygo. Its countdown screen is blank but its core still hums, waiting for an input that will never come.
• **TOTEM LATHE** — jammed mid-stroke, half-carved dowel fused in its jaws. A sticky note in Rosie's handwriting clings to the side: “REMEMBER TO FLIP SWITCH **AFTER** ENTRY.”
• **ALCHEMIZER** — dormant but intact, the build plate dusted with carrot soil. It smells faintly of cookie jar ceramic and static.
You extend a claw and tap the edge of the Cruxtruder. A thin pulse of green code runs under your fingertip then evaporates — the **LAW OF THE TERMINAL** keeps you from directly interfacing. You can examine but not alter. No matter how hard you honk.
**"tHeY’rE sLeEpInG mAcHiNeS nOw, mY lItTlE bEtA… dReAmInG oF dOwElS tHeY’lL nEvEr SeE."**
piplioβ flickers, leaving red spores across the Cruxtruder’s blank timer. The spores briefly light up the number “413” before fading.
Your assessment:
— All three devices are **functional but frozen** in pre-entry state.
— They can still read dowels, totems, and alchemize, but only for players logged in.
— Without their original Clients (Rosie/Broket) present, they’re inert scenery to you.
— You could watch, you could honk, but you cannot press the buttons.
The HUMANS remain oblivious, picking carrots. The air smells like Nostalgia and burnt code.
What Will You Do?
The Real Homestuck?
That's the friends we made along the way!
mIrAcLeS ):0)
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRealHomestuck/s/2gCp8ku8rH