User blog:GamerNerd i/Transcript: It's About (Messing With) Time - Prologue

It's been a while since the last message. I was beginning to worry that they'd gone on another adventure and forgotten about their messenger. Thankfully, they haven't forgotten about me. Last I saw them they were recovering from a Zomboss fight involving persona channeling. My guess is that they needed a break. Their last mission kept them in the present day, which was probably the period of PvZ1. If I had to guess, they'll be doing some time jumping this time. (Well, actually, a lot of time jumping. You'll see.) Their focus was to find the source some interdimensional communications. They probably didn't find anything, which is why they're still exploring.

Transcript

When the footage opens, it seems like Rotom is in a bedroom. Upon closer inspection, it's Ai's bedroom. There are gaming posters on the walls, and I see a set of shelves lined with merchandise. The ones I catch are a Peashooter, a Minecraft Creeper, and a figurine of some armored guy holding a fried chicken leg. Rotom is sitting on a desk with a pretty nice PC setup. The time on the computer reads 9:28 PM. Ai is on the opposite side of the room in his bed, looking at something in his lap. Rotom slowly gets up and approaches Ai. I notice that he's wearing the View, but his glasses are on top of his head. Ai glances up at Rotom but remains focused on whatever is in his lap.

"I'm in the middle of a gym right now," he tells Rotom. "What's this about?"

"Nadia wantzz to talk to you," Rotom replies. "She says she hazz a lead on the comm- hey, that'zz me!" He gets beside Ai's head and I can see that he's playing Pokémon on a 3DS. Sure enough, his active Pokémon is a Wash Rotom. Rotom giggles, "I liked that washing machine... I was zzztrong!"

"Rotom..." Ai tries to get him back on track. "You were saying something about N? She had something?"

"Oh, yezzz!" Rotom snaps back into business. "She zzaid something about the mezzzagez you were looking for... She wantzz to talk to you." In the reflection of Ai's glasses, I notice that a red light is blinking on Rotom's head. "I think that'zzz her."

Ai nods and touches the View, which projects a blank screen. "Put her up," he instructs.

N's face flashes onto the screen. I assume that she too is in her room, since the wall behind her is a huge bookcase that's crammed with books. She's holding an iPad and seems to be scrolling it when she looks up.

"A tablet?" Ai raises an eyebrow without looking at her. "Good choice. Less suspicious than a huge book." I realize that the iPad must be the Tome.

N rolls her eyes. "It's not your stupid 'transmog,'" She waves her hand over the iPad and it briefly becomes the familiar book. "Glamour. It's a Riordan thing. Similar effect, but you don't need a whole setup to do it. Anyway, I'm sending you this. Open it up and take a look." She swipes upward on the tablet and a separate window is projected on Ai's side.

He reaches out briefly to separate N's screen from the new window. It's a webpage. A very familiar webpage, in fact. It's my last transcript.

Ai gives the page a cursory glance. "So? Our friend on the other side's getting the word out. Isn't that what we asked?" His face scrunches in thought. "Did he say he wants to stop at the end? He-" Ai stops abruptly to grumble at his game. "Shoot. Wood Hammer. Welp..." Rotom makes sad noises as Ai's partner is defeated.

N makes an exasperated face. "Focus, Ai. Check out this part right here," She enlarges an area on her tablet and Ai's window does the same. "It's a good thing we have a third set of eyes, because someone didn't tell us about this."

Ai brings his glasses down and looks at the excerpt. "A note... Oh, poop. Of course. Zomboss always..." He looks expectantly at Rotom. "Do you still have that? I need to see it."

"Zzzrt! I forgot about that!" He quickly pulls it out and gives it to Ai. "You should alzzzo check the video. The Zzzombot dizzappeared in a weird way." Ai begins to scrutinize the note. "I hope it doezzn't have anything pazt due..."

For a few seconds, Ai mutters inaudibly as he reads it. "Okay, this is the stupid note about the music video," he concludes. N opens her mouth to object but Ai interrupts, "But I'm pretty sure there's something else here. There's an... energy. Something hidden." He touches the View, which makes an attempt to scan it, without avail. "Hm... Temporal and mystical. I think I know where this is going. You try," he says.

No joke, N reaches through the screen and her hand appears from it. Ai hands the note to her and she pulls it back to her side, shuddering. "That always feels weird," she comments as she too looks. "I'm feeling it too. Let's try..." She grabs the Elder Wand. "Aparecium!" She speaks, and glowing blue words appear on the back of the sheet.

"Now, tell me something," N says as she hands the note back to Ai, "Why the heck was there a magically hidden message when this was supposedly left by a guy with a giant robot?"

"Because the sheet was left by him," Ai replies as he inspects the new words, "but the message wasn't." His face twists into an expression of both surprise and confusion. "These symbols... I... they're not in any gaming language I've seen before. Although they're strangely familiar..." He stares at them for a few seconds and gives the note back to Rotom. "Hold this for me, I need to do some research."

Rotom looks at the text on the note. The characters appear runelike, and they glow blue with power. Several symbols are repeated multiple times between the runes: a flower pot, a shovel, a wheelbarrow, a flamingo (?), a boot (??), a lawn mower, a watering can and three fence posts. Either I'm jumping to conclusions too fast or Ai is just stupid, but I'm pretty sure this is gnomish language. That being said, only the symbols have been seen before, so... Yeah.

"I might have to revisit our... friend... Sometime," Ai adds. (Never mind, I guess he already knows that these are gnomish.)

N's face contorts in disapproval. "That guy? He's sketchy. I don't trust him."

"Neither do I, but if he's willing to help, I won't argue." Ai yawns. "I'm going to go to bed. See you." N waves as Ai turns off the View. "Oh, hey Rotom, could you upload that for me?"

Rotom is caught off guard for some reason. "Zzzzrt! You knew I wazz recording?" He sounds shocked by this (no pun intended).

"Considering that your light flashes red while recording," Ai gestures to something on Rotom's head. "Yes, I did. And I saw that you sent out the recording I told you to delete."

"What recording? I don't know what you could pozzzibly be talking about." His innocent tone indicates that he definitely knows what Ai is talking about.

Ai rolls his eyes. "Just... Just end this and send it. I'm tired. I need to sleep on this." He reaches out and switches off the light. "Good night."

"Good night, zzzleepyhead!" Rotom sits back on Ai's desk and... plugs himself in? (I guess?) Then the footage ends there.

Final Commentary

So, apparently this isn't actually anything. It's more like a meeting and discussion of how to move forward. Kind of disappointing, but that's fine. Hey, we learn more about these guys! Especially when they're not being awesome and heroic and not normal!

Rotom lives with Ai, with reasonable freedom. Although my assumption is that he can't leave the room without Ai concealing him. Granted, the body does resemble a speaker, so he can just sit on the desk unassumingly. But that's pretty disturbing considering that he could be recording at any time. I wonder if Ai has a signal word for when family come in? "Rotom, GO STUFFED!" Wait, no, that's not right. Rotom isn't stuffed, and... would Ai know that? He probably does, but that's from a kids show so... Yeah, that's not a trigger word. Whatever.

I didn't see N's room all that well, but it's filled with books in the same way Ai's room has a bunch of tech. Naturally, but now I see just how much of a fanatic they are in their specialty.

Another interesting thing is their handling of their... Relic, I suppose? They keep it on them or nearby at all times, even if it has to be "transmogrified." N's is simple enough, a book into a tablet is reasonable. But how does Ai hide his? A cap maybe? Or maybe he just keeps it in his pocket. Maybe others don't notice that his glasses rims are slightly bigger on one side? I'm just spitballing here.

Anyway... that's it. I'm wondering right now if they're actually going to go to PvZ2 places next though, since Ai mentioned Rux again. They probably will eventually if not now to do a complete search. But for now... I guess we just wait.

Trivia / References

• The figurine holding the chicken leg is most likely Leeroy Jenkins, a World of Warcraft player whose fail went viral. Blizzard, who develops WoW, has since embraced him as a character.
• Ai is playing Pokemon, if that wasn't obvious.
  • Wash Rotom is a forme of Rotom in the Pokemon games in which Rotom possesses a washing machine. It is said to be its most powerful for, due to its change to the Water/Electric type.
  • Wood Hammer is a Grass-type move, which is one of the few types that Wash Rotom is weak to. Its high attack power comes with the price of high recoil damage.
• N mentions glamour, which she says is "a Riordan thing." This process is used by modern Egyptian magicians in The Kane Chronicles trilogy. It hides magic objects from the sight of normal people by making the object look like something else.
• Players never see the back of the note at the end of PvZ1. Apparently there are spoilers on the back. Goddammit camera angles.
• Aparecium is the revealing spell from the Harry Potter universe. //I'm trying to stay away from HP but the spells just have to much utility!
• The images mentioned on the back of the note are the same ones that appear in the majority of gnomish technology. This is most apparent on the Multiplayer Portal.
• Yes, that was a Doc McStuffins reference on my part. Deal with it.