The Strange Tales of Peter James Martin: #90 Whoops + Short Diversions: Brennan in the Game

Happy Blog Day Everyone!

It's Short Diversions time again, and Brennan and Riz are up front and centre! Well, Brennan mostly but you'll understand why once you've read it, this format allows me to experiment a lot like this!

Before that though, let's check in on the pair's comic (mis)adventures!

The Comic Tales of Brennan and Riz

It's a trope by now but I have to (again) apologise for the quality of this strip. I was under the weather when drawing this (still am at time of writing!) so this is why Brennan looks so off model here (aka the Wish/Temu version), and why the colouring is even more haphazard than usual!

The idea itself is a fun one though as I can absolutely imagine Riz doing this to himself. Also 10 strips to go before the big 100, where has the time gone!

Short Diversions: Brennan in the Game

Yes, Brennan and Riz are returning quite quickly to Short Diversions, with another idea that I've been toying with but couldn't quite justify more words than what you're getting here, at least, not currently anyway. Hands held high, I must say that this was inspired by Tron, at least in terms of general plot, sadly Brennan won't be going up against the MCP in this story.

So without further ado, I present to you this weeks Short Diversions!

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Brennan in the Game

At first, all I remembered was that my head was hurting to hell and back. I tried to look around but my body refused to move. What I could tell from my blurred vision, was that I was somewhere bright, somewhere with very green grass and…annoying music? Of course, I couldn’t tell where this music was coming from just that it was there, and it was the kind of tune that you knew you’d be humming for days on end, and hate yourself all the same. There was a sense of familiarity with this tune. I should know it, I told myself. The question why not factoring in right now. Another thing I noticed that was both refreshing and disturbing, was the fact that I was alone, or at least, I thought I was alone. I think I was alone before, but it had taken on a new meaning, in this world of…wherever I was.

Wanting to explore a bit more, I took a step forward, and found the ground a little springy, like walking on a mattress. It was then that I tried to turn around…and instantly did a one eighty, facing the opposite way with nothing in between. I attempted it again only to encounter the same phenomena. I looked ahead, wanting to see any clue as to what was going on, and realised that, to my horror, it wasn’t a case of blurred vision preventing me from seeing things, it was there wasn’t anything to see as all there was ahead of me, were lines that built up to make objects that I couldn’t comprehend at this moment. It was then, when my confusion had reached its peak, did a voice break through from somewhere completely outside of my perception, and the miasma in my head instantly cleared up.

“Gud grief dis game looks like shit now, it ain't aged as well as me!”

It was Riz, and I was both dismayed and relieved to actually be able to remember him.

“Hah, da main character kinda looks like Bren. Don't remember dat.”

“It is me you stupid prick!” I shouted as loud as I could. I didn’t know what form my speech would take, if Riz would have heard it or if it would have just appeared as a speech bubble above my head.

“Bren? Wat da heck ya doin dere?”

“A parcel turned up in my name. I thought to check it since I knew I hadn’t ordered anything, and wanted to make sure you hadn’t. Inside was this old game console and this game with a note from a client we did a job for recently.”

“Nd ya jus plugged it in fer a game?”

“As if you wouldn’t have done the same thing! Anyway, all that seemed to check out, till I turned the game on and the original developer was crossed out and replaced with Gallows productions.”

“Ohh, dat twat. He cursed da game so who eva played it got sucked in, like Tron? Crafty, gud thing I waz takin a nap at dat point. Otherwise we’d be up shit creek.”

“Right, you’ve caught up, now get me out of here!”

“Keep ya fukin hair on, lemme get da controller.”

“Wait, what are you doing?”

“Wat do ya fink I’m fukin doin? Dere’s only one way ta get ya out of dis, nd dat’s by beatin dis game!”

I heard the sound of distant movement, which I guessed was Riz moving around the office, wanting to find the controller that I dropped onto the floor when I was sucked into the game. Then my body jerked forward, my power to move it being ripped from me and transferred to Riz. I was not looking forward to this.

“Found it! Now, let’s figure dis out. Is A jump again or waz it up.”

I started jumping up and down on the spot like a lunatic, before Riz clearly started experimenting with diagonal jumps, one of which sent me crashing into those ill-defined shapes from before. The last thing I needed clarifying here, was the news that any pain I felt here, was one hundred percent real. Yay.

“Dis is gunna be e-z p-z. I know wat I’m doin, now, let’s get dis game on!”

True to his word, my body started moving, and I had no idea what was going on, I was ducking under lines, jumping over others, till I stopped.

“You bored already?” I asked in dismay.

“Nah, jus lookin ta find da enemies health on da screen, of if everythin haz one hit one kill on.”

I really hoped it wasn’t the latter, but enemies weren’t something that I thought about before. I summarised that like everything else in this game, at least from my perspective, the enemies would look indistinguishable from all the platforms I was presumably hopping over.

“Are there any enemies on screen now?”

“Yup, three cutesy lookin skeleton things comin at ya ta give u a great big hug…Oh shit I didn’t see dem comin up behind!”

Before I could question anything, I was pushed forwards and felt an intense pain from behind me, as though I was being stabbed and crushed to death at the exact same time. My hands flashed red, and I was relieved that the game was still going. Riz made me jump into the air three consecutive times, and I could tell I was landing on something.

“Enemies ‘re ded, fer now nd gud news, I found your health bar, it waz sorta hidden in da corner of da screen.”

As I knew you could never have good news without bad news, I braced myself for what he was about to say next,

“Da bad news is, dat well, ya supposed ta ‘ave five ‘arts.”

“And how many hearts do I have right now?”

“Two.”

“Terrific. Absolutely terrific. You better be watching the screen now like a hawk! I’m not taking the chance that this game has continues built into it!”

“Relax will ya? I used ta play dis nd tonnes of games like dis back in da day…Well, back in da 1980s, da 1880s waz a real heady time, I can tell ya dat for a fact!”

“Riz, focus! Get me the hell out of this game and back into the real world!”

“I can only do dat by gettin ya thru it!”

“Get on doing that then! And no more lives lost, okay!”

“Sheesh, wat eva!”

I started moving again after that, jumping haphazardly around, landing on lines that looked barely there and stomping what I could only hope were the enemies that Riz spoke of.

“Okay, time fer a runnin jump!” I heard Riz announce. I moved slightly back and then my body was propelled forward. I glanced down into the pit of nothingness. Given that I had no control over what I was doing, I prayed to whatever otherworldly being could hear me that I landed safely. In what I could describe as the longest two seconds in my life, I drifted over that chasm, my trajectory uncertain from what I could tell till I put both feet on the ground. The relief was tangible, till I heard Riz utter one word:

“Shit.”

The floor I was standing on started to give way, and Riz must have been too slow on the uptake to move me, as I slid backwards into the darkness, knowing that my hearts were definitely not going to survive this. At the last second though, my right arm lifted up, and a hook with rope launched out of it. With a satisfying clang, the hook found something to dig into and I was pulled up and dropped to safety.

“I have a hook?”

“Ya didn’t know dat? I thought ya knew dat,” Riz answered nonchalantly.

“I’m sorry, I can’t really have a look at myself like this, how the hell would I know I had a goddamn hook!”

“Well, now ya do, now hush! I’m gunna save ya ass!”

My arm lifted again and I was flying again, well, dragged is probably more accurate as the hook shot out every three seconds it seemed, sending me up, sending me down, sending me back the way I came. The flurry of movement only seemed to subside when I landed with a thud and heard a cheery little jingle.

“Is it over?” I asked, wanting to be on the other side of the screen again.

“Yup, level one is dun nd dusted!” Riz boasted. “Only another nine hundred nd ninety nine levels ta go!”

“Wait, what?”

“Oh yeh, dis game’s got a thousand levels, nd dey get pretty extreme from dis point on, ya ‘ave ta do it all on one life as well or ya get yeeted back ta da main screen!”

“Did I get my hearts filled back up?”

“Wat do u fink? It's supposed ta be a challengin game! Hence all da buzzwaws on dis level.”

I tried to move back as far as I could but found out the hard way that it was impossible. I was shocked and sent forward again.

“Great! Now ya only got one frickin heart left!”

“Riz, you have to do something! One more hit and I'm history!”

“Alrite, alrite! Keep ya hair on! I'll jus put da level select code in.”

“You'll put the what in?”

Riz clearly didn't have time to answer as my body started jerking. I jumped up twice, crouched twice and got dizzy as I looked from backwards to forwards, then backwards before forwards once more. To cap it all off I shot off my hook and then everything went black. I was still awake though, it was just the screen that went black.

“Ah dere it is!” Riz declared as everything turned to the original colour scheme that I had been greeted with here. I thought I was on the first level again, and I prepared, in my head, the biggest series of insults I could hurl at Riz when some different music played and a robotic voice said:

“You are winner! Congratulations!”

Before I had any more time to question things, things went black, and when I opened my eyes, I was standing in front of the TV as the game reset itself to the press start screen. I wisely unplugged it before Riz got any ideas.

“Well, ain’t ya gunna thank me?” Riz asked, putting his paws on his hips doing a little pout.

“Thank you?”

“Ya welcome.”

“Riz, when could you have put in that level select cheat?”

“Uhh…I don’t wanna answer dat.”

“Then answer this. Why didn’t you do that when you realised I was trapped in there!”

“I used ta be ace at dis game! I jus wanted ta play it again!”

“So, you put my life on the line to play a game?”

“Yeh, pretty much. Wanna try two player mode dis time?”

“No!”

“Suit ya self, I’m gunna ave fun!”

People would probably view me badly if I put him in a cage wouldn’t they…Another day in my life!