modarchive internet pub

by Kruser

* * Prologue * *

...After several mouse clicks, there was just a second or two of pause.

Beep, beeeeep...
Tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet.
...

(Any attempt to onomatopeize the following noises could tear off the fingers of the writer, inflammate the eyes of the reader and generate throat cancer to anyone who would try to pronounce it. In short, we skip it)

The noise (that is so strong, that any attempt to onomatopeize it would tear off the fingers of the writer, inflammate... *has this just been said? Déjà vu? Déjà moi? WTF? Oh well...*) ended. The monitor displayed the message: "Verifying username and password".

Another second or two of nothingness.

Three seconds.

Four.

Why?

It takes time for these things. It is a modem, you know...

Oh, right.

Anyway, connection has been made and all the necessary conditions were met for the flying suit to take off and follow its destination.

A word or five about the suit.
It is a flying suit.
That is five words. YESSS!

No, seriously. It is a standard flying suit of version mIRC 6.0, i.e. the newest version to the date of writing of this text. So far it has not failed, and even if it would fail, it would display the message "Connection reset by peer" so its pilot would have somebody else (i.e. peer) to blame. mIRC was an advanced artificial intelligence concept (it was not really intelligent at all, but it pretended to be and thus managed to convince everybody that it was; hence the term "artificial").

Destination: ModArchive Internet Pub.

It was necessary to enter galaxy DALNet. The first available portal was irc.eu.dal.net, so our hero directed the suit towards and through it. For some crazy reason (which is beyond comprehension, rather complicated and totally irrelevant), the first system where our hero could land was borg.se.eu.dal.net, so the portal set the suit's destination towards it.

After arrival, our hero was required to identify to the system. Since the name of our hero was already taken, as well as all abbreviations, friendly names, callings that our hero has ever got, etc. etc., borg.se.eu.dal.net decided to grant the name Guest31337 to our hero. Guest31337, upon receiving the nick, heard the following special message of the day:

"YOU ARE GUEST31337 OF BORG.SE.EU.DAL.NET! RESISTANCE IS FUTILE! YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED!"

Guest31337 replied: "Why?"

And borg.se.eu.dal.net crashed.

It took traveling to the next available system, which was quite a trip: all the way round the DALNet galaxy, to land at powertech.no.eu.dal.net (the reason Guest31337 has traveled all around the DALNet galaxy was that if only he had chosen the opposite direction, he would have arrived very quickly, without the need to make a BIG circle around the galaxy, as powertech.no.eu.dal.net is just one step in the opposite direction of the one that Guest31337 has initially chosen).

After landing there, Guest31337 had to go through the same administrative procedures, only there was less fuss about the nick this time. Apparently, the prefix Guest was quite common, but the ordinal number 31337 had a very special effect on all the creatures (living or undead) that Guest31337 has encountered.

Be as it may, the gates of the all-famous ModArchive Internet Pub snow stood before him.

Guest31337 has been informed beforehand that this was a place of weird, wacked, whoopsy, whirlpoolish, wigwagged and other w-based adjectivized creatures, so he decided to take it carefully. Nevertheless, the w-based adjectives all derived from the Wisdom that radiated from the channel. It seemed that whatever a creature entered it, it would immediately be adjectivized with a w-based word. The note on the entrance spoke very clearly: "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US! WREALLY!"

Guest31337 took a deep breath, filled all of his 101 lungs with air and exhaled. The winds thus generated were sufficient to blow away any iron door, so ModArchive Internet Pub realized it would be wiser to let this new character in.

* * 1 * *

The sight was spectacular: A circular bar the size of a large swimming pool was at the center, and creatures of all shapes and sizes were strewn all around. Guest31337 took it carefully and decided to first learn the customs of the residents of this all-wise place.

Guest31337 noticed a strange creature with lots of mouths on its face. Upon entering, the creature smiled with 10 of its mouths, which had a strange result. One of the creatures inside the bar thrusted forwards its remote-controlled leg (set to kick anybody who would laugh with 6 mouths and more) that flew towards the butt of the smiling creature and kicked it out. The smiling creature returned, smiling a bit less, with a large red "Megasmilies are doomed" sign on its butt.

"Gargoyle0, I'm sorry, I didn't notice you. Hello." it stated. And smiled a lot again. And was kicked out by Gargoyle0 again. And returned again.

Guest31337 realized the nick of the kicker and the kickee: Gargoyle0 and Kruser, respectively.

Gargoyle0 was, unsurprisingly, a gargoyle, of the type Deutsche Garg Oyl (not related to Olive Oyl, Popeye's girlfriend). He was made up completely of granite, with not too much moss. Being a gargoyle, he was, naturally, always stoned.

Kruser, on the other hand, did not look nearly as spectacular. He was of the species Homo Sapiens Makedon Smiling-Heck-Of-A-Lot and looked extraordinarily human; two legs, two arms, one head and 101 mouths on it. Guest31337 felt instantly closer to this creature: they both had something in common: Guest31337 had 101 lungs, while Kruser had 101 mouths. Guest31337 felt closer to Kruser for another reason: Kruser saw him and approached him, thus reducing their mutual distance and bringing them geographically closer together.

"Hello Guest31337" Kruser said.

Guest31337 questioned the state of Kruser's butt and Gargoyle0's leg, but nevertheless replied: "Hello".

"How are you?" Kruser said.
"Pretty good. You?" Guest31337 replied.
"Fine... Could be better, if Gargoyle0 would stop megakicking my megasmileys", Kruser said.
Lots of smiles again from Kruser.

Kick again from Gargoyle0.

Return again from Kruser.

Gargoyle0 said: "Kruser, how may times do I have to tell you? YOU ARE ANNOYING!"
Kruser said: "So are you, Gargoyle0, but you're an op, so it is your job to be annoying. You have my pity".

Megasmiley.

Kick.

A strange creature on the other side of the pub watched this scene, as well as Guest31337's reactions. This creature could be loosely described as a cat with a big horn between its eyes. It was a classic example of the species Testis Lanternis Quebecis, in its free time called BardCat.

BardCat said: "Hello Guest31337".

Guest31337 was getting amused with all the kicks going on, so BardCat's greeting was a bit of a surprise. He turned and said: "Hello."

Kruser entered the pub once again, grudging: "Gargoyle0, you are really getting the kicks off kicking, aren't you?"

Kruser wanted to megasmile with 10 mouths again, but his butt was hurting quite a lot, so he stopped at 5; just enough so Gargoyle0's leg would not be triggered automatically once again.

BardCat blinked seductively at Guest31337: "Would you like to play ball with me?"

Guest31337 was a bit surprised to hear such a talk at such a place of Wisdom. Still, remembering the sign at the entrance, he chose to try and let all his base be belong to others, so he was about to say yes. Kruser was quick to yell, though:

"GUEST31337! JUST SAY NO! YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW AWFUL A TRAP BARDCAT IS SETTING UP FOR YOU!"

Guest31337 was stunned. There was a moment of silence, when another leg was launched from behind the bar toward Kruser's butt. But it was not from Gargoyle0 this time, but from another creature, very dark and eerie. Guest31337 could only barely detect signs of life from this creature, belonging to the race of spiders called Spider-Netus Dominus Sverigenis, called Stary`. It seemed as though Stary`'s time in the universe is multiplexed between being in the DALNet galaxy and another part of the universe, unknown to most creatures.

Kruser was kicked out yet again and returned yet again, this time painfully complaining about the state his butt was in. A new fresh sign was present there, asking very politely to stop yelling, or else.

Guest31337 was getting more puzzled with each passing second, so BardCat asked again: "Will you play ball with me, then?"

Guest31337 agreed. After all, there was nobody else to tell him otherwise (Kruser's butt was aching way too much to let him speak).

BardCat's eyes glowed. He quickly stripped his pants and underwear, laid down on his back with his legs spread and made certain his testicles would be reachable for Guest31337. "Now, play a ball or two with me!" he said.

Kruser, knowing how shocked new visitors of the pub could become from BardCat's behavior, asked help from BardCat's biggest fan. The fan was very user-friendly and would blow very vigorously whenever BardCat was needy (which he was at the moment). BardCat thus reached nirvana in 7 seconds and justified the purpose of the Testis Lanternis species: the area between his legs glowed strongly in the dark.

"Yuup... There's the testilantern glowing again" said Kruser.

BardCat's fan has finished the job and turned away to unplug itself and let its propellers rest for a while.

* * 2 * *

Guest31337 nearly fainted from all the things that had happened in the past several seconds. Kruser rushed to him, saying: "Please excuse BardCat. He is very horny, as you can see from the big horn between his eyes. Sometimes he just can't control himself".

"It's ok, I'm fine", Guest31337 stated, although his blood pressure has risen to very high levels.

This was a common thing, so Kruser quickly climbed to very high levels and returned the blood pressure to Guest31337. Upon return, Kruser said: "Have you been here before?"
"No, this is my first time" Guest31337 replied.
"Well, then let me introduce you to this place" Kruser said. "See the big bar? Behind it are the ops that take care of all that is happening in this pub. It is their job to keep this pub running at all time."
"Even by kicking?" Guest31337 said.
"That is actually not a common thing for most ops to do... I say MOST, not ALL" Kruser saw Gargoyle0 with half an eye.

Gargoyle0 reached his remote control, ready to launch his leg again.

Kruser turned his look away.

Gargoyle0 turned his hand away from the remote control.

Kruser breathed out a sigh of relief.

"Hi Guest31337. I've not seen you here before" Gargoyle0 said.
"Well, it is my first time here. Apparently you guys are having fun. I'm beginning to like this place", Guest31337 said.
"Good for you, Guest31337", said Kruser and megasmiled halfway through.

Gargoyle0 did not react.

Good.

"Say, Kruser, how is your butt?" said Guest31337 and smiled.
"Still usable for sitting on, thank you for asking" said Kruser and smiled with just 3 mouths.

"Oh, you two look like teenagers from my neighborhood!" BardCat yelled after he finished being in ecstasy. "You talk like girls!"

"BardCat, it is a bit dark in here... would you enlighten this place with the wisdom from your utter, please?" said Kruser.

"Kruser, do you like a big stick up your arse?"
"BardCat: I'm a bit busy showing Guest31337 around... hold that thought for later, please".
BardCat opened his head, pulled out his thought and sat in his corner, idling.

Kruser took Guest31337 to the bar. "You've already met Gargoyle0, the Annoying Guard". Gargoyle0 and Guest31337 shook the sockets on their suits. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Guest31337", said Gargoyle0.
"The pleasure is all mine", said Guest31337.

Gargoyle0 got extremely jealous of the pleasure and launched his entire arsenal of legs on it.

Kruser continued: "See the dark eerie creature at the center? That is Stary`. He is the webmaster of this place".
"The webmaster?" asked Guest31337.
"Yes, he is the master of the web". Kruser pointed to the spider web at the ceiling.
"Oh..."
"He is usually dormant... I'd say he is away with his thoughts right now..." Kruser started talking but could not finish the sentence; a leg was launched from Stary` that kicked Kruser out. Kruser returned, grudging "No, Stary`, I DON'T wanna bet!"

The new sign on Kruser's butt said "Wanna bet?"

Stary` grinned with his eerie voice: "Hehehe".

"Gargoyle0 may be the Annoying Guard around here, but Stary` is the Evil Guard. Ph34r him!" Kruser said to Guest31337.
"Ph... What???" said Guest31337, not understanding what Kruser just said.
"Oh... I'll explain later in more detai1", said Kruser.

Guest31337 could not shake the feeling that the last letter "l" sounded a LOT like the number "1".

* * 3 * *

There were some muffed screams from behind the bar. Guest31337 leaned over to see what is going on, and saw two very strange creatures tussling and turning and screaming. Having knowledge of the species of this galaxy, he recognized that one creature was female, of the race Equa Wildae Grlae Canadiae, and the other was male, of the race Equus Australis Tamponis Utilizis Bloody Horribilis. They were known as Grl and Libris, respectively and both belonged to the horse species. The interesting thing about them was that they were able to walk on two legs when necessary and that they had all fingers, unlike most horses, and could speak, also unlike most horses.

"Are these two... ahem..."
"Heh, yeah... They are getting to know each other", Kruser acknowledged and smiled.
"But... why?"

Guest31337 has apparently become an expert in asking shocking questions. At that very moment the entire ModArchive Internet Pub stopped its activity and all its creatures turned first towards Guest31337, and later towards Grl, on top of Libris, and then towards Libris himself, still holding a tampon in his hand, ready to use it in a bloody horrible way.

"So we would know each other better?" said Libris.

That was a satisfactory answer. The creatures in the bar resumed whatever they were doing.

Guest31337 sighed. Kruser megasmiled (very lightly). Gargoyle0 was content. Stary` was eerie as always. Grl and Libris kept on getting to know each other intensely.

"I see you are getting along fine in there, Guest31337. You have learned the way of this place", said Kruser.
"I have? Wow!" said Guest31337, lightly surprised.
"Yup. You read that this place is w-based at the entrance?"
"Yeah. What does this mean?"
"Well, it means that you'll be using the letter W in more cases than ordinary (and necessary) in here."
"How come?"
"Well, I don't really know... It all started way back in the past. I think it was some sort of an arbitrary rule that people came to accept, rather than fight to change it."
"I don't know what you mean..."
"See?"
"What?"
"See?"
"NO! See WHAT?"
"The letter W. It was (and is) present in all the lines you have spoken just now."

Guest31337 was so shocked to find that out that his bodily functions froze and his mind issued a general protection fault.

Kruser sighed. "Gargoyle0, would you help Guest31337? I think he needs to reboot."
"I don't think he is wearing boots now, or that he had any before", said Gargoyle0.
"That's why he needs your help, Gargoyle0".

Gargoyle0 put a boot on one of his legs and directed it towards Guest31337, who was booted out. His suit was designed to auto-return from the place of being thrown out, so Gargoyle0 rebooted him. Guest31337 promptly returned again.

"Ahhh, thank you Gargoyle0, I really appreciate that", said Guest31337.
"I'm here to serve and protect", said Gargoyle0, while stripping the boot off his leg. He felt good about beig praised.

"Ok, Gargoyle0. I'd like a hamburger, served with French fries, but protected from foul odors, please", said Kruser and gigasmiled.

Gargoyle0 put a mountain-climbing shoe, one with spikes, on his leg, and launched it towards Kruser.

There was just a slight software on Gargoyle0's Leg-Of-Death, so it helped Kruser to avoid serious damage, because it caused connection abort, saving at least his connection to the Internet universe, if not his presence at the DALNet galaxy.

Nevertheless, it became apparent that Kruser would be away a bit longer this time.

* * 4 * *

Guest31337 found himself alone in the middle of ModArchive Internet Pub, with nobody to talk to. Gargoyle0 was very interested in which position had Grl and Libris taken on, so he could try to interfere and additionally learn how to use a tampon in a variety of ways; Stary` had not changed his look one bit and was still dark and eerie; BardCat was still holding his thought in his hands, with an open head, idling.

Remembering that he came to search for Wisdom, Guest31337 started to look around for signs of it. He found lots of strange signs, like the aforementioned "All your base are belong to us", followed by the strange "You have no chance to survive make your time", then the guidance "Be alert. The world needs more lerts", the confession "I'm not feeling like myself today. I could be you", the obvious "A closed mouth gathers no feet" and lots of more signs with mystical messages. There was also one dark, simple sign, seemingly with no meaning, in sharp contrast to others.

At that time, a creature walked into the pub. Guest31337 reflexively turned to the door, but had no time to inspect the creature more thoroughly: the sign next to him instantly started blazing with light. It was so intense, that Guest31337 had to take a step back, to protect his eyes and ears (the sign could sing, too; it is just a simple task of swapping the positions of the last two letters of the word "sign" into "sing", and we know how far Artificial Intelligence has gone... but, on to the story). Like a grand concert, sights and sounds could be heard from all over:

"POIK!"
"POIK!"
"POIK!"
"POIK!"
"POIK!"
...

Eventually, it ceased.

"Poik!" the creature said.
"Poik!" responded Gargoyle0.
"Poik!" responded Grl.
"Poik!" responded Libris.
"" responded Stary`.
BardCat idled.

As the creature passed by each and every other creature, the latter would exclaim "Poik!" in an ecstasy-like manner. Guest31337 concluded that the new creature must be very important to this place and the creatures inside. True enough, this new creature took its place behind the bar, among the ops. Guest31337 had time to identify it: a male specimen of the class of warthogs, called Igbay Igpay Atinlay Peakingsay Orwegiannay Arthogway Chabudasay, or in short, Schabuda.

This one was an immense male: about 3 meters in size and 2.5 meters in width. His body was apparently tough and muscular, but his face was unusually calm and gentle. Guest31337 spoke to him: "Hello!"

"Poik!" Schabuda replied.

Guest31337 wanted to establish some communication and said "Poik!"
Schabuda smiled and said: "Ouyay reay ewnay erehay, ightray?"

Guest31337's brain was close to malfunctioning and issuing a core dump, when the Pig Latin Interrupt Handler (which was forgotten in the address CHILDHOOD in Guest31337's brain) translated the text for Guest31337: "You are new here, right?"

Guest31337 was delighted to have a way to communicate with this creature, so he carried on in Pig Latin (the discussion will be translated, to prevent the readers' brains from going on strike): "Yeah, sort of... Though I think I'm feeling better being here with each passing second".

"Glad to hear it. I hope you learn lots of new things and leave some pleasant words in here" Schabuda said and smiled.
"Why? If I don't, you will punish me or something?" Guest31337 winked.
"Nah... It will just be noted and kept in a log for one month."
"You keep track of everything that has been said?"
"Not me" said Schabuda, "ModStats does."
"ModStats?"
"Yes. MODSTATS! POIK POIK GRUWFL SNURF IZRRIG!" Schabuda said. The last words must have been in an obscure language commonly known as Pig Swiny, Guest31337 thought.

Incredibly, Schabuda's chest had opened like a closet, and a tiny worm-like creature emerged from within. The creature had a face with contained of lots of eyes, and a big, BIG mouth. It was ModStats!

"WOW! I have NEVER seen anything like this!" Guest31337 exclaimed, thrilled to see an organism living inside of Schabuda.

ModStats opened its mouth and closed it, letting go of a gulping-like sound. Quickly afterwards, it said: "-ModStats- I don't remember seeing anything like this".

Guest31337 was amused. "Have all people in here, like me, met or seen ModStats?" he asked Schabuda.

ModStats opened its mouth again, closed it and gulped again. Then it said "-ModStats- If you can't see ModStats, you probably need new glasses".

And then, something strange happened. Schabuda forced ModStats inside of him and slammed shut his chest. His face variated through all the colors of the rainbow, and his eyes started to turn around. He put both of his big hands on his mouth. He seemed like he was about to throw up.

He rushed to the entrance of ModArchive Internet Pub and slammed the door open to the outside. A loud strike and a loud "OWCH!" were heard and after that there was a sound of a body falling on the ground. Guest31337, being inside, behind Schabuda and shocked from this new turn of events, was unable to see just who was the unlucky creature being smacked in the face and thrown on the floor by the entrance door.

Schabuda was teetering. He could barely stand still to reach his tail (which was, by the way, short, stick-like and thick, with a sign, or a tattoo, inscribed on Schabuda's back, above it, saying "LOGS") and turn it around. There was no end to surprises for Guest31337: Schabuda could turn his tail around in cycles!

Schabuda started to shiver and shake from his legs all the way up to his head. Guest31337 thought that maybe something is wrong with Schabuda and ran to the door to maybe try and help. Too late: Schabuda's mouth opened and he started throwing up lines of text!

Guest31337 was bewildered! Schabuda was actually throwing up lines of text! The first ones thrown out of Schabuda were actually the lines that he had spoken to Schabuda when they met.

As Schabuda kept on throwing up his textual vomit, his size started decreasing, and he reached the size of a piggy bank. Guest31337 was so shocked, that he started moving backwards towards the bar and sat down on a chair, needing a break. Schabuda, being about 10 times smaller than he was before, turned to him and said (in a very squeaky and snorty way): "Aaaaahhh... That felt better. One more line of text and I would have exploded".
"I think you just did, Schabuda", said Gargoyle0.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: creatures that have had intense contact with the Wisdom know how to speak and understand Pig Latin too).

Grl and Libris were apparently concerned with Schabuda's health and new bodily state, so they decided they would get to know each other better even more a bit later (actually, they just pretended that they did not know each other at all, so that their mingling with each other would be more exciting). Grl came up to Schabuda and cuddled him (something she frequently did to her own piggy bank at home, as well as just about everything and everybody else).

Libris, in his standard, cool way of speaking, said: "Schabuda, you look like hell. Need a tampon?"
Schabuda gratefully accepted the tampon from Libris and ate it.

Guest31337 was sitting on the bar, trembling from excitement. "This is weird... This is TOTALLY weird. This is unlike anything I've ever seen". He leaned towards Gargoyle0 and said: "Gargoyle0, do weird things like this happen frequently here?"

Before Gargoyle0 had time to answer, Schabuda's chest opened and ModStats peeked from inside, saying: "-ModStats- If you can't see Gargoyle0, you probably need new glasses".

Gargoyle0 said: "Nah, not really... only after 30 days. You see, ModStats lives inside of Schabuda. His foods are the lines of conversation that we speak here. He literally eats them, digests them and excretes them into Schabuda's organism"
"Excretes?" asked Guest31337.
"Yeah... Craps them in" said Gargoyle0. "That is why Schabuda grows that big."

* * 5 * *

After several moments, the entrance door slammed open. An enraged creature walked in, with a bruise on its eye and lots of textual vomit all over.

"Allright, who is the jackass who pushed the door in my face and puked on me???!!!!" it yelled.
"That would be me" said Schabuda, with his newly thin piggybank voice.

The puked-on creature pulled out a large trout and started slapping Schabuda all around.

"HEY! Go easy on Schabuda! Everybody gets sick once in a while!" said Grl, trying to protect Schabuda by putting him in her pocket.

"Being here may get you mentally ill, but it is NOT an excuse to start vomiting all around!" the pukee kept yelling. He could not be stopped by reason alone, so he kept on slapping the place where Schabuda should be, i.e. Grl's pocket, so, consequently, Grl herself (EDITOR'S NOTE: Even horses, especially female ones, like to dress in nice clothes. Having clothes means having pockets. Well, not necessarily, but in the case of Grl it was true).

It was strange, Guest31337 thought, but Grl did not seem to be affected by trouts. "You should be ashamed of yourself! You are hitting a grl" said Grl and smiled, apparently being amused by all this trout business.

"No way! He's gonna pay, even if it means slapping him to death!" raged the textvomited creature.

A leg was thrusted from behind the bar, which flew towards the vomitee and kicked him out.

He promptly returned, with a bit less text on him and a huge sign on his butt, saying "Extermination of trouts". The kick seemed to work: he seemed less enraged now.

"Stary` appears to be lagging... There were two trout slaps and he kicked AcidDose only once" said Gargoyle0.

"I think he is ready for a netsplit" said Schabuda from inside Grl's pocket.

Guest31337 found it wiser to stick to the side and learn a bit more about this new creature, which is so fond of trouts and still with lots of text, than to say anything at this particular moment. If there were not so much textual vomit on him, this AcidDose creature would surely be an example of Acidis Dosis Über Codis Canadiensis, a type of caterpillar with fingers on their legs, drawn to places with an abundance of Wisdom. These caterpillars could grow up to 10 meters in length and 1.5 meters in height and were known to be masters of typing on a keyboard (it is something they are born with - while in their eggs, they would have to write code in C++, in order to pass it to the egg, which would either open or not. Thus, Über Codis caterpillars had to be great coders even before being able to hatch out of their eggs).

While away in his thoughts of analyzing AcidDose, Guest31337 nearly missed a spectacular sight: Stary`, Gargoyle0, Libris and Grl started spinning around into a vortex. They got lifted from the floor by an unknown force and were literally blown out of the front door of the pub. Guest31337 had witnessed occurrences such as this, so was not very surprised. Schabuda fell off Grl's pocket while she was being twisted and turned by the unknown force, so he dropped on a floor, letting go a simple, squeaky "OUCH!" before taking his place behind the bar. Guest31337 approached him and said:

"Say, was this a natural disaster of some sort? I have seen people being thrown out by netsplits, but it is more common for them to simply disappear, rather than being literally thrown out."

ModStats emerged from within Schabuda's chest, saying: "-ModStats- I haven't seen people being thrown out by netsplits, but it is more common for them to simply disappear, rather than being literally thrown out before" and returned inside Schabuda.

"Oh, that is typhoon.va.us.dal.net" Schabuda replied. "A special system in the DALNet galaxy. Sort of like a bonus level; everything is more spectacular if you enter here through it."
"But the netsplit affects only ops? What if all of us were to enter the pub through it?"
"Those four, and them only, would be thrown out by the netsplit. I am on typhoon.va.us.dal.net too. So is AcidDose and BardCat."
"So how come you were not thrown out?"
"Well, I am too small now, so it would be no fun tossing ME around. BardCat has no wisdom to demonstrate at the time... Look, he's idling, holding a thought in his hand and not his head."
"Oh, right... If you only knew what kind of a thought it was..."
"...And AcidDose... Well, look at him. If he were to be tossed and twisted around, he'd splatter textual puke all over, which would harm typhoon.va.us.dal.net's reputation. typhoon.va.us.dal.net is an advanced artificial intelligence concept, and really cares about its image."

Meanwhile, Stary`, Gargoyle0, Libris and Grl (in no particular order) returned and took their places behind the bar.

"HEY!" AcidDose yelled. "WILL YOU GET THIS PUKE OFF ME THIS YEAR???!!!"

"Oh all right... Just don't whine. Your voice gets even worse than when I squeak" replied Schabuda and approached AcidDose. He opened his chest and ModStats emerged, sucking all the text off AcidDose and into Schabuda. Immediately, Schabuda gained his original massiveness, and rushed out to the front door, cycling the logs (i.e. his tail) and throwing up outside again. Luckily, nobody got in the way this time.
"THANK YOU!" AcidDose said angrily.
"Oh, what is your problem? You will be remembered as the creature who has spoken most text in here anyway" said Schabuda.
"Because you puked on me???!!!"
"Yeah, well... All that matters is which nick has the most text lines next to it. Since ModStats sucked them off you, to him you are the greatest chatter around here."
"BECAUSE YOU PUKED ON ME????!!!"
"Sheesh" sighed Schabuda. "You immortalize them and they get picky about nothing."
"NOTHING???!!! MAN!!! I STINK!!!!"

Schabuda did all his best to calm AcidDose down, who, in turn, was determined to prove his point that throwing up on him is a bad idea. As it turned out, this could take years and years.

* * 6 * *

The great argument would have gone on for a long time, if Guest31337 had not been there. Finding himself ignored, he turned to BardCat, who was still sitting in his corner, idling, with his thought in his hands. Guest31337 liked to get to know him better, so he took BardCat's thought, put it back in his opened head and closed it.

BardCat's thought of sticking a big stick up Kruser's arse has just been activated. He quickly pulled out a big stick (from out of nowhere, or at least a place to mortals unknown, obscure and irrelevant) and ran as quickly as he could to where Kruser stood and rammed the stick up the arse of the creature he thought was Kruser.

Unfortunately for AcidDose, he was standing exactly where Kruser stood and he took the stick exactly the same way that was intended for Kruser by BardCat. Needless to say, AcidDose did not appreciate this very much, which was demonstrated by loud cries, painful yellings and obscenities directed at BardCat, that Guest31337 has not heard of before.

Guest31337 and Schabuda were shocked and paralyzed.
Gargoyle0 was stoned.
Stary` was eerie as always.
Libris and Grl were busy getting to know each other from the beginning.
BardCat was happy to finally stick a stick up somebody's arse.

AcidDose pulled out a can of beans (which he would eat to use his acid superpowers), opened and ate all the beans and bent over, his butt facing BardCat. Not a second had passed, when a loud acid fart came out of it, launching the stick towards BardCat. The stick flew with supersonic speed and hit BardCat right between the eyes (exactly at the base of BardCat's horn).

BardCat was stoned out cold and fell on the ground.

"STINK ALARM! STINK ALARM!" Libris started yelling and giving tampons to every living creature inside the bar, so they would put them in their nostrils and attempt to survive the horrible acid smell.

Gargoyle0 sensed danger for the pub, so he asked help from BardCat's biggest fan. Unfortunately, the fan was deeply mourning BardCat's stonification and could not blow. This was a dead-end situation. Libris' tampons could not withstand the acid smell forever. There was a danger of eradication of all life and Wisdom in the pub.

Having Guest31337 in the pub at that time was a real blessing. He took a deep breath, which was filtered and cleansed by Libris' tampons well enough, filled all of his 101 lungs with air and exhaled. Immediately, the stench was blown outside and the air was once again breathable, though there were still traces of acid left in the air.

The creatures slowly put down their tampons and could breathe more or less normally. They turned to Guest31337 and watched him with awe, gratification, as well as questions how the hell did he do it. Nevertheless, Guest31337 was the savior of the pub and all it stands for and contains.

Creatures started cheering Guest31337's name all around and he was given the highest praise possible: a place in the topic, given by Libris, who knew how to appreciate great characters at troubled times.

"This place is yours, Guest31337" he said. "You are our hero of the day".
"My hero!" cried Grl and ran towards Guest31337 and cuddled him all over.

At that very moment, all Guest31337's base started to belong to ModArchive.

* * 7 * *

After the initial euphoria had passed (and Grl and Guest31337 finally stopped cuddling), life in the ModArchive Internet Pub carried on more or less normally. There was still some acid in the air, though.

"NEAT! What kind of an acid is this in the air?"

All the creatures in the bar turned towards the entrance door, seeking to find out who said that. Guest31337 recognized a specimen of a type of llamas called Suomillama, nicknamed Laamaa.

"Hydrochloric" replied AcidDose. "And I farted it out" he explained, grinning.
"Excellent! Just what I needed: an acid fart! With HCl even. SUPERB!"

Laamaa then kneeled and held his arms above his head, facing upwards, chanting:

"Oh, Wisdom. Grant me some NaOH. Let me use your base, as all my base are belong to you!"

Miraculously, a glass of water appeared before Laamaa.

"Thank you, oh Wisdom, oh" said Laamaa and stood up, taking the glass.
"HEY!" shouted Guest31337. "How did you do that???!!!"
"I didn't, the Wisdom did" said Laamaa and smiled. "It gives me glass to use this salt water... How thoughtful. After I use up the water, the glass will perish."
"SALT water?"
"Yeah, you know... HCl in the air plus NaOH from the Wisdom gives NaCl plus H2O. NaCl dissolved in H2O gives salt water."

Guest31337 took some time to figure out the exact chemical equation that had taken place. Then he asked: "Why would you need salt water?"

"Oh, I forgot to put in some salt in my sandwich" said Laamaa and pulled out a sandwich from his pocket (EDITOR'S NOTE: Suomillamas wear clothes, too). "I'll just dip the sandwich in the salt water and eat it like that. That way I'll have both salt for my sandwich and I'll drink water to satisfy my thirst."

"Gee, Laamaa, you really like chemistry, don't you?" said Libris and smiled.
"Not really... Just that it gets useful at times" said Laamaa and took a bite of his sandwich.
"I don't think I'd think of a wiser way to use chemistry..."
"*munch munch* It comes natuwawwy *gulp* I mean, naturally. For example, *bite* when you *munch munch* when you faww in wove *gulp* ahm... when you fall in love it is chemical beyond comprehension *bite* *munch munch munch* *gulp*"

"Love?" said Libris.
"Love?" said Grl.
Libris looked at Grl.
Grl looked at Libris.
Libris pulled out a tampon.
Grl ran towards Libris, knocked him on the ground and fell on top of him.

Love was in the air indeed (as well as some acid dose from AcidDose and tampons that would fly out of Libris, courtesy of Grl).

"Say Guest31337" said AcidDose "could you please blow away this remaining acid in the air? You're really good at it, I see."
"Sure" said Guest31337 and filled all of his 101 lungs with air again and exhaled. This time all of the acid was blown away.

"Ah, thanx" AcidDose said. "I really need clean air to code."
"Code what?" Guest31337 asked.
"My tracker."
"Tracker? The thing to make MODs with?"
"Yup."
"Is it going to be as acid as your dose?" Guest31337 said and smiled.
"Indeed. Each channel will be able to have its own settings, filters, delays and so on. It will be totally ACID!"
"Because... already all your base are belong to us?"

AcidDose was stunned, surprised and very glad to have heard that. "You are talking the words of Wisdom, my friend" he said.

A broad grin appeared on his face; so broad, that Gargoyle0's leg thought there just had to be more mouths than one there - no way a creature can smile THAT much, so it got launched automatically and kicked AcidDose out.

"Hey Gargoyle0! What was that all about?!" asked AcidDose upon coming back in, with a fresh "Megasmileys are doomed" sign on his butt.

"Uh, this is tiresome... My leg is thrown all around the place... And I need it to play football. Okay, I'll tell it to stop kicking smiling people... You people are SO annoying and there's NO way you'll ever learn!" said Gargoyle0 and fixed his leg to start kicking a football, instead of butts.

"Say, does anybody know why BardCat stuck that stick up my arse?" said AcidDose. "It is not uncommon, I know... But I just want to know."
"He meant to stick it up Kruser's arse" Guest31337 said. "You just happened to stand in the same spot that he did, that's all."

Just then, Kruser entered the pub. "Uh, the road to ModArchive Internet Pub is so twisted.ma.us.dal.net" he said. "I had to perform a search on a global.mo.us.dal.net scale, only to discover that in order to reach metropolis.uk.eu.dal.net, you must first be cast away into elysium.ga.us.dal.net and fight your way against several dragons.ga.us.dal.net with a wombat.va.us.dal.net, so you could win your liberty.nj.us.dal.net (as well as some coins.my.as.dal.net)"

AcidDose turned to Kruser and said: "Will you EVER stop being corny?"
"No, AcidDose, because corn is very healthy when you eat it. So it would be wise for you to indulge in this form of agriculture"

Kruser megasmiled.

No kick.

No kick?

"Gargoyle0?" asked Kruser. "You're not kicking? What happened?"
"Somebody set up the bomb", Gargoyle0 replied.
"Who?"
"AcidDose."
"How?"
"With an acid fart."
"Why?"
"Because you were not here and I had to take a stick up my arse that was intended for YOU, you CORNER!!!!!" AcidDose raged.

Kruser turned to AcidDose and remembered the conversation between him and BardCat... He remembered it was about sticks, arses and thoughts, so he turned to BardCat, only to find him still stoned out cold on the ground, with his biggest fan mourning him.

"Good" said Kruser. "Now we can have some peace. BardCat is still in one piece. Maybe we could wake him up with peas, though after that we should hope that he is calmed and not poops or pees..."

"KRUSER!" AcidDose yelled. "STOP THE CORN!"

Stary`'s leg was triggered from the CAPITAListic way AcidDose had expressed himself, and thus AcidDose was kicked out.

"Ahhh... AcidDose, you always knew how to produce the best acid", said Laamaa, after finally eating up his sandwich, just when AcidDose was reentering.

This calmed AcidDose a bit. "Yeah, I'm so 1337" he stated proudly.
"So... what?" asked Guest31337, who had seemingly been forgotten.
"50 1337" AcidDose replied.
"???" said Guest31337.
"So leet" said Kruser. "It comes from eleet, which is another way of saying elite."
"Sounds like you have to be really good to be elite..." said Guest31337.
"Nah, not really" said Kruser. "You don't need to be very good at anything to be 1337, just be yourself, and..."

Kruser stopped halfway through the sentence.

AcidDose got stunned.
Gargoyle0 got stoned.
Grl and Libris stopped getting to know each other instantly.
Stary` was as eerie as always.
Schabuda did not move.
ModStats opened his mouth about to eat up some text, but did not.
BardCat was still stoned out cold.
BardCat's biggest fan stopped mourning.
Laamaa stopped digesting his sandwich.
Guest31337 did not understand any of this.

All of the above slowly turned their looks towards Guest31337 (he himself pulled out a mirror from his pocket, to be able to see himself).

Guest31337 found lots of eyes staring at him.

"Hmmm... eh... erm... what happened?" he said.

There was an outburst of loud cheers.

"Man, you are SO 31337, it even shows on your nick!" said Kruser. "No wonder there is a strong aura of 1337n355 coming out of you wherever you go!"

Guest31337 looked at his nick and realized this. It was too much of a surprise for him and he nearly fainted. This new, fragile state of his, resulted in the evil General Failure reading his drive, so Gargoyle0 rebooted him. Twice, just to be sure.

"Guest31337, you are already 1337 enough. I don't need to explain the 1337i5m more to you. Just talk 1337 1ik3 7hi5 and you are all set" said Kruser.

"1ik3 7hi5?" Guest31337 said.
"Pr3ci53ly!" Kruser said, cheerfully.

"Guest31337," said Libris "you are ready to become a part of ModArchive. When the almighty ChanServ comes back and visits us in his daily quest for Wisdom, you will be given the chance to be initiated as one of us.
Meanwhile, have a tampon."

* * 8 * *

After a short time, the doors to the pub opened and another creature entered. It was pretty tall, almost 2 meters in height (195.58 cm, to be exact), but thin, equipped with light chest armor and a thin bladed, light sword. The armor had a brownish golden color. The eyes of this creature were quite large, and a mixture of gold, red and brown, hidden behind a pair of glasses. He had a pair of horns and light brownish - blondish hair, long, kept together with hair bands. He had a long tail, pretty tough looking but very flexible. He also had quite a long, brownish beard. The sword was placed on the creature's right hand side, so, as Guest31337 correctly guessed, this creature must have been left-handed.

"RALESK!" Kruser shouted. "How are you?"
"Hi krukru" Ralesk responded in a voice which could only be described as arcane. It was deep but full of sound; something like you'd get if you reverb something a bit more than necessary.

Guest31337 took the time to analyze this new creature: it was a draconian of the type Homo Draconis Magyarorszagis.

"I see your beard is still your pride and joy" said Kruser and megasmiled.

Ralesk just put a wide smile on his face and revealed his shiny white, razor sharp teeth.

"So, how was your life today, oh Beard Master, oh?" said Kruser.
"Pretty good... I had to inspect several worlds of comics and take care of the beards of the characters in them" said Ralesk.
"How is Jack?"
"Uh, not too good... I have heard that he had just received a weird case and that there could not be any good judgment for it... So he was forced to return the passed away back to this world. His beard is fine, though".
"WOW! So this creature will return as an undead?" Kruser was amazed.
"Yeah... And I fear it may be someone from here, from ModArchive..."
"How can you tell?"
"I sense familiarity in his beard"
"Oh..."

"Excuse me" Guest31337 entered the conversation. "Who is Jack?"
"Jack RULES!" said Ralesk.
"Jack 0WNS!" said Kruser.
"Jack DANIELS!" said AcidDose.
Ralesk started slapping AcidDose around with a printed copy of IT 2.14 manual.

"No seriously... Who or what is Jack?"

"Jack is the one that carries you to judgment when you die" Kruser started telling, since Ralesk found slapping AcidDose around with a printed copy of IT 2.14 manual very exciting. "He is the one that finds you wherever you are and takes you to be judged and sent to heaven or hell, depending on what you have done in life."
"So, this new creature that could not be judged... What has IT done in life?"
"IT comes from Impulse Tracker, a program used to make music without the need of professional studio equipment..."

"NO, NO, NO!!!" Guest31337 yelled to make Kruser stop talking. "I meant, this case that could not be judged... Why can't the creature receive judgment?"

"Oh..." Kruser was a bit shaken to find out exactly what Guest31337 was talking about. "I guess he or she has done precisely the same amount of good and bad things... So he or she can not be sent either to heaven or hell."
"So he or she will come back to life?"
"Not really... Since he/she has passed away, technically he/she cannot be alive... So he or she will exist as an undead."
"I see... Come to think of it, I think I saw some strange creatures on my way here... They may have been undead, now that you mention it..." Guest31337 recalled.
"Hmm, so we must be very careful" said Kruser. "Undeads have special powers that may help us or create lots of damage."
"Don't worry, I'll handle them" said Ralesk, upon finishing slapping AcidDose around with a printed copy of IT 2.14 manual. "If the undead creature is the one I think he is, it will be no problem."
"How will you make sure he does not create problems?"

"I'll take away his beard if he does."

"...Beards make the world go 'round..." Kruser said to himself.

There was a general aura of expectation and tension in ModArchive Intenet Pub after the notion of undeads possibly entering the pub. All creatures started to act more carefully.

Grl and Libris started getting to know each other in slow motion.
Schabuda adjusted the volume of his voice to low.
ModStats started skipping eating lines.
Laamaa prepared his llamic spit, in case he needs to defend himself.
Kruser's mouths took a neutral position.
Gargoyle0 was as cool as stone.
BardCat was stoned out cold still.
BardCat's biggest fan was still mourning him.
Ralesk pulled out his sword and trimmed his beard with it.
AcidDose coded a virus to implant in the undead creature, should it become hostile.
Stary` showed no signs of stopping being eerie.
Guest31337 filled 50.5 lungs with air, ready for exhalation.

Everybody was expecting the unexpected, so everybody was surprised when the expected person came in.

* * 9 * *

It was a Buddhist monk, dressed in a simple red robe, with bare feet and hands. Still, an unusual tattoo on his left shoulder revealed a strange sign: "007".

The effect of this creature entering the pub was as follows:

Grl and Libris carried on getting to know each other.
Schabuda started poik-ing.
ModStats kept on eating lines with a faster pace.
Laamaa spat on the side, somehow disappointed and unhappy that he did not have to chance to spit somebody in the face, just for the fun of it.
Kruser megasmiled at the new creature with open mouths.
Gargoyle0 remained stoned.
BardCat started tossing sideways, apparently waking up, with a heavy bruise.
BardCat's biggest fan started blowing vigorously in joy.
Ralesk finished trimming his beard with the sword and returned it to its place, around his waist, on the right-hand side, after cutting off his nose by accident.
AcidDose coded an anti-virus, to neutralize the virus he has just coded and returned to coding his tracker.
Stary` was as eerie as always.
Guest31337 exhaled a semi-tornado of relief.

This new creature did not say a word and headed towards a corner of the pub, apparently seeking privacy. Kruser would not let him have one, though:

"Hello James-Bond, oh Idle Master, oh. I bow to thee."

The creature smiled and saw how Kruser pulled out a bow and pulled its string. Noticing that he lacks an arrow, he put an arrow in Kruser's bow and replied "Hello".

The bow, armed with an arrow, was now faced towards James-Bond (Guest31337 identified him as Homo Sapiens-so-much-that-any-word-of-his-is-flooded-with-Wisdom-so-he-decides-not-to-talk-and-be-idle-instead). Kruser was a bit surprised to see that he has the power of shooting James-Bond with an arrow and possibly killing him, so he raised the bow above his head. The arrow was now facing the roof of the pub. Kruser released the bow.

The arrow flew towards the roof and hit it so hard, that a piece of the ceiling was broken out of it. The piece fell on the ground and struck BardCat in the head, just as he was about to stand up.

BardCat was stoned out cold again, and his biggest fan started mourning him again.

"Whoops" Kruser said as he had just noticed what he had done.
"He'll be OK" said AcidDose, who had just coded his AcidTracker to track acids and transform HCl into H2SO4 and vice versa (the details of this complex chemical process will be left to the extreme chemists, as well as to people in love, to discover). "His horniness will keep him alive. I bet he's dreaming sweetly now."
"I hope you're right, AcidDose" Kruser replied. "It's no fun having anyone out of here, once he's entered already."

"Really?" Guest31337 joined the conversation. "Once you enter this place, it actually wants you to stay?"
"Well, I guess so, as long as you contribute to the Wisdom" Kruser replied.
"If you don't we'd gladly kick you out... But if you do, you're welcome" added Gargoyle0.
"Oh? Does that make me SO wise, that you don't want to kick me out anymore?" Kruser said teasingly.
"No, you just dosed me so much, I can't risk doing damage to my leg anymore. Besides, your butt has hardened... It's not even fun kicking you out" Gargoyle0 replied, somewhat saddened.

"Well, thank you Gargoyle0" said Kruser. "That was really Wise of you."

Just seconds later, a netsplit occurred. Apparently, it was the season of typhoon.va.us.dal.net, so Gargoyle0, Stary`, Grl, Libris and Schabuda were pulled upwards in a vortex and thrown out of the pub.

"Hmm... I guess Schabuda grew big enough to be fun to toss around" Kruser said and smiled.
"But... There are no ops in here right now?" said Guest31337.
"Oh well... Even they need a break sometimes. Besides, now is the real test of Wisdom. Let's see how well we behave when there is nobody to tell us what to do, nobody to reward us, nobody to punish us... Sort of like a test of how mature we are."

Gargoyle0, Stary`, Grl, Libris and Schabuda returned again (in no particular order) but did not take their places behind the bar.

"Why aren't you going behind the bar?" asked Guest31337.

"I guess ChanServ wants to see how some of you behave when there are no ops" Schabuda replied.

"How does who behave?"
"I think it would be you, Guest31337" Schabuda said. "You are the new one here but you have proved your worth in the times of trouble. Now is the time to see how much your base are belong to us really."
"And how will you know?"
"We won't... ChanServ will. When he returns to give us our op titles back, he'll tell you whether you've been accepted or not."
"What will happen if I am?"
"You will be given a new name, one that is yours to keep and be known by."

"And if I am not?"
"You will remain a Guest here, but with a different ordinal number every time you return... Never as 31337 as right now, never as known as right now, easily forgettable and ignorable."

The stakes and the risks were high; Guest31337 felt very uneasy.

* * 10 * *

Life went on as usual in ModArchive Internet Pub: lots of fun, jokes, occasional flares of temper, but all within the Wisdom that was so notable in this place. Guest31337 was not a part of any of those, though. Not yet. He had not even learned what the Wisdom was all about. If the Wisdom was all about giving base to people who ask for it, so they could make salty water from acid farts, it was clearly a disappointment, Guest31337 thought. It cannot be all about chemistry; there simply MUST be something else. But Guest31337 could not figure out what. The ops were eagerly expecting ChanServ to arrive, which would mean that Guest31337 would be tested for his skills, abilities and whether all his base are really belong to ModArchive. This was a one-time test only: he would be either in or out for good. He was well aware of this and felt anxious and scared at the same time.

"Say, Ralesk" Guest31337 finally decided to speak, "what were the undeads you were talking about before like?"
"Erm... Not alive and not dead at the same time... That would be the best way to put it... (OUCH! Hhhhsssh... this stings!)" Ralesk responded, after putting on some aftersword lotion on his chin, now skilfully shaven with a sword (with a few nasty scars here and there, not counting that he had cut off his nose before. You see, draconians are very tough and can ignore all sorts of pain for a long time).
"But did you recognize some of them? (Nasty scars, man! Will you be like that until forever now?)"
"No, not really... Although one of them looked like he could be a ModArchive visitor (Nah... we draconians have an ability to return to our original form and appearance after injuries very quickly)"
"How can you tell? (How quickly?)"
"I've seen him around here before. (Ten minutes, at most)"
"Well, who is he? Or better, who WAS he? (In ten minutes you'll be able to grow an entirely new nose? Like the one you cut off with your sword while shaving?)"
"He looked like Safyre_ a lot (Sure man... We reptilians 0wnz th3 r357 0f j00 411 4nyt!m3)"

"Safyre_???!!!" Kruser asked shockingly. "He DIED???!!!"
"ARG! Ne UNdied, Kruser!" Ralesk said. A nostril appeared from his scar tissue.

"But you said he was returned back by Jack... That must mean he had to die first in order to be brought back... What happened to him?"

"Somebody set up him the bomb! He got signal."
"What!!"

"Main screen turn on" Ralesk said. At that very moment, the big TV screen that was placed on one of the walls of the pub was turned on and all creatures turned to it immediately.

The creatures present in the bar had no idea that they would witness a very important lesson about Wisdom.

Ralesk had another nostril appear from his scar tissue. This was NOT, however, the part of the Wisdom. Instead, we will now display the TV show as if it were real.

* * 11 * *

A scene of a big bat facing and a huge floating humanoid, with half a face turned to iron, appeared on the TV screen.

"It's you!" the bat spoke.
"How are you gentlemen!" the humanoid spoke, in a robot-like, metallic voice. "All your base are belong to us! You are on the way to destruction!"
"What you say!" the bat screamed.
"You have no chance to survive make your time! HA HA HA HA!" the humanoid laughed diabolically and disappeared.

"Take off every 'zig'!" the bat spoke.
"You know what you doing?" a smaller bat, next to him, said with horror on its face.
"For great justice! Move 'zig'!" the bigger bat said.

Small spacecrafts started taking off from the big spaceship the two bats were in. The spaceship thus became lighter and could gain more speed. The ship and all smaller crafts (called 'zig'-s) accelerated and flew towards the ship of the humanoid creature that appeared in the bats' spaceship. The ship of the humanoid creature was overwhelmed and outnumbered - there was no way it could win the upcoming battle.

The ship of the bats and all of the 'zig'-s approached the big ship to just several hundred meters of distance. Suddenly, the ship of the humanoid exploded with what seemed like an atomic bomb detonation.

After the explosion, there were no ships or crafts. Both the ships of the humanoid and of the bats, as well as all the 'zig'-s, were destroyed.

* * 12 * *

After the movie ended, there were several moments of pause.

Guest31337 was the first to break the silence: "Who were the bats?"

Everybody was too shocked and saddened to answer. Kruser responded, quietly: "The bigger one was Safyre_ and the smaller was Mutee". He stopped.
"And the humanoid?" Guest31337 was persistent.
"That was ChanServ, the founder of this pub". Kruser's head was still looking downward.

"THAT... was ChanServ???!!!" Guest31337 almost screamed. To have such a creature determine one's fate was indeed a scary thing. After seeing what happened to Safyre_ and Mutee, Guest31337 thought that he was sure to be left out of ModArchive.

"I'm sorry for Safyre_ and Mutee" Kruser mumbled. "It did not have to be like this for them."
"They chose their own fate" said Ralesk, who had already grown half a nose. "If they had let all their base be belong to us, they would not have had to die like that. But I suppose they did not know that they have to let go of their base to be belong to us. I guess that is why they are being sent back."

Those words had a therapeutic effect on Kruser. "Let's just hope they have learned their lesson."
"And what lesson would that be?" Guest31337 asked.
"The lesson that they have to let go of something to gain something else. They did not want to let all their base be belong to us, so they were on their way to destruction. They decided to fight, so all their base was destroyed and they will have to start all over, this time as undeads (That is, if Mutee is also being brought back)"
"Shame for their base. (He is, Kruser)", Ralesk replied.

"Is THAT the Wisdom?" Guest31337 asked. "Let go of something that is yours, give it away in order to belong?"

"Yeah, sort of" Kruser replied. "All your base are belong to the Scene, actually. This pub is one of the main places of the Scene of computer music, i.e. MODs, S3Ms, XMs, ITs and others, to be a little more specific. If you want to belong, you must give all your base to the Scene. We are a part of the Scene, so if you want to belong, we must be able to have access to all your base."
"But AcidDose? He is made up of acid completely and has no base of his own..." Guest31337 asked.
"That is because all my base are TOTALLY belong to the Scene" AcidDose replied, taking a break from coding. "All I do are belong to the Scene. My music, my programs... All are belong to the Scene. I think I overdid the belonging" he said and smiled.
"I'm not the only one, though" he continued. "I think that my Brother in Acid should come in soon... I sense his H3PO4 in the air..."

"That is your feet, AcidDose" Kruser said and megasmiled.
"I am made up of H2SO4, damnit!" AcidDose replied. "Don't mix acids - you could get burned. I can differentiate acids by smell."
"Yeah, I bet you have had an Acid overDose from yourself by now" Kruser said and megasmiled.

AcidDose pulled out his trout and started slapping Kruser around. Having no op around to exterminate trouts (ChanServ had not come yet), Kruser could have taken some serious beating. Still, he remembered something:

"AcidDose! Don't make me wake up BardCat!"

"Uhh..." AcidDose stopped slapping, because he remembered the nasty stick by BardCat. "Okay, but don't insult my H2SO4 with H3PO4 anymore! We acid creatures are very sensitive about it. I take pride in my sulphuric acid. R35p3c7 m3 or ph34r my 7r0u72!"

Guest31337 understood the 1337 part of AcidDose's statement; he was becoming more 1337 with each passing second, if not anything else. He wondered, though, if that would help convince ChanServ.

* * 13 * *

Just as AcidDose finished his sentence, the door of the pub opened and a very strange creature entered. It was an acid elemental, Guest31337 figured, without a body, made up entirely of acid spiritual matter. It belonged to the class of Spiritu Acidis Regni Unifici and, as AcidDose correctly stated, it reeked with the smell of phosphoric acid.

"Ey Soul! How are you, bro!" said AcidDose and went to hi-five the acid elemental. Realizing that the elemental has no hands or extremities of any kind, he just gave him a spit of H2SO4. He received a flow of H3PO4 as a return greeting.
"Hi AcidSoul" said Kruser.
"Soul" said Gargoyle0.
"Hey AS" said Schabuda.
"Sup AS?" said Laamaa.
"Hi AcidSoul" said Grl.
"Ey AcidSoul" said Libris (from below Grl).
"Hi AS" said Ralesk, who has grown a full new nose and was very proud of it.
"-ModStats- If you can't see AcidSoul, you probably need new glasses" said ModStats.
"Hello AcidSoul" said James-Bond.

"Wow! James-Bond! You speak?" said AcidSoul, as he turned towards James-Bond with what could be described as a head.

"Yes! Apparently it is a trend to greet you and so I join the party" said James-Bond. "Now I go back to idling."

Stary` was eerie.
BardCat was still unconscious.
BardCat's biggest fan was getting bored with mourning him so he decided to blow a bit, in order to wake BardCat up.
Guest31337 approached Kruser from behind and said "Hey, what is this thing about AcidSoul? Why is he so special that EVERYBODY must greet him?"

"All his base are belong to us. And I mean ALL his base - even his body" said Kruser. "He has reached the zenith of baselessness."
"Wow! Seems like a kind of a guy I could learn from..."
"Sure, go and ask him if he'd like to teach you how to make all your base totally belong to us. But beware: if you can't survive his Acid Soul and Body, you may get severely burned. He is well known for producing Acid Rain while taking a shower."

...To leave a long story short (and cut out the bargaining between AcidSoul and Guest31337), we'll just say that AcidSoul accepted Guest31337 as a student, because the latter could always blow away any acid that he AcidSoul could produce, just by blowing out of 10 lungs. That was a sign enough for Guest31337's worth to AcidSoul.

"But you must be initiated first" said AcidSoul. "You have only a temporary name, and no matter how 31337 it is, it will not last. And I cannot risk losing any space of my home to an unstable nickname.

Guest31337 sighed. "So I guess I should be eager to wait for ChanServ?"

"Yes" said AcidSoul. "To end your suspense and finally know your destiny, if not for anything else."

Guest31337 sat on a chair by the bar. He felt insecure, scared and unable to do anything.

Laamaa approached him and said: "Don't look so scared. It doesn't matter whether you'll become one of us or not. You will always have yourself and your 101 lungs. That alone makes you 1337 enough, even without your ordinal number right now."

"Gee, thanks Laamaa" said Guest31337. "I really appreciate it."
"No problem. Just trying to help."

Laamaa's words really did help. Guest31337 felt a little more confident. Although ChanServ had his destiny in his hands, he did not have his soul. Even AcidSoul's soul remained intact, regardless of the fact that everything else had already belonged to the Scene.

Guest31337 was determined to become a part of the Scene now. Laamaa's words only increased his ambition.

* * 14 * *

"MooooooOOOOOOO!"

Several glasses and bottles were broken apart by this high-pitched cow voice.

As the door of the pub opened a spectacular creature entered: it had the body of a cow, but the neck and head of a giraffe. Guest31337 recognized this creature as a specimen of Camelopardalis Bovis Tenor Sverigenis.

"Cryssalid, you've been practicing your voice, huh? Your neck has lengthened quite a bit" said Libris. All other creatures' ears were overloaded and could not hear, speak or move. Not Libris, though; having spent his childhood as a farmer's horse, he could sense and distinguish cows from a distance. Sensing Cryssalid's approach, he quickly put tampons in his ears, protecting himself from this breaking of the sound barrier in the pub.

Grl had tampons in her ears too; she just thought it would be cool to get to know her fellow horse with tampons in her ears for a change, so she had asked for some from Libris. She had been on blind dates before, but never on deaf dates.

Cryssalid responded to Libris' remark, but Libris didn't hear any of it (he had tampons in his ears), nor did anybody else in the pub (Grl also had tampons in her ears, while all other creatures were paralyzed from the noise. Ralesk's eardrums had even exploded, so he had to grow another pair; he was the only one that was truly deaf at the time, although temporarily).

A scary thought suddenly flashed in Libris' mind: singing cows always come in pairs (one cow is a solo voice; two cows make a choir. Cryssalid was a choir cow, so he had to have a companion). He quickly figured out who the next cow might be, and that thought completely scared him. He knew that the next outburst of moo in the pub would be much more devastating than the one by Cryssalid, so he ran to all creatures in the pub and stuck tampons in their ears. He finished just in time - even with tampons he could hear the devastating sound:

"MoooooOOOOOO0000000UUUUURRRRRPPPPPP!!!!!"

All things made up of glass were lifted and splattered in mid-air.
The door of the pub got broken in half.
The bar, previously circular, was elongated and became elliptical.
AcidSoul mutated from a creature made up of H3PO4 into a creature made up of H2CO3.
AcidDose's code got scrambled all over the pub.
Kruser made a reverse triple somersault due to the sonic outburst.
Ralesk's beard fell off.
Laamaa, previously a llama, was now a camel.
Schabuda grew to gigantic dimensions, because ModStats ate up all sound.
Gargoyle0 broke apart.
BardCat was in a coma now.
His biggest fan was also.
Libris and Grl, having tampons in their ears from the very beginning, were unaffected.
James-Bond had mastered the Ancient Art of Idle and was also unaffected.
Stary`, being totally, completely eerie, was unaffected as well.
Guest31337, who has not been initiated yet, was spared by Chanserv (who had monitored the events in the ModArchive Internet Pub for some time, although he had set invisible mode to himself, so nobody knew).

Cryssalid was thrilled: "WOW! That was a good one!"

Guest31337 saw a spectacular sight: the creature that entered was half cow, half synthesizer! It could walk on two legs and his hands all had 33 fingers each, which could create a 6-octave keyboard, when put together. His chest consisted of two high-pitch speakers, while his stomach was one big sub-woofer. His eyes were knobs that could modify the produced sound via filters, resonance, vibrato, tremolo and all sorts of effects.

Guest31337 recognized the species of this creature: a typical example of Synthesizer Bovis Netherlandis Megaburpis.

"Thanks Cryssalid. Just doing my job" he said.

Libris looked around. Things were slowly coming back to normal: the bar became circular again; the doors got repaired by themselves (they were artificially intelligent as well); Kruser landed on his feet; Ralesk has grown a new pair of eardrums and started growing a beard; Laamaa became a llama again; Schabuda cycled the logs, threw up outside and was a piggybank again; Gargoyle0 got reassembled; BardCat's coma ended and he was now sound asleep with his biggest fan next to him.

Libris finally spoke: "RedHeat, you are REALLY having fun when doing that, aren't you?" He pulled out his tampons from his ears in time to hear the answer:

"I was just testing my reverb and panning. It turned out better than I thought. Still, I'll have to ease off a bit; it's no fun having everybody mutate if I have the urge to release gases from my mouth after drinking some soda."

Everybody saw RedHeat's mouth move, but nobody heard him speak (Except Cryssalid, Libris and RedHeat himself, of course). It took some time for them to realize that they had tampons in their ears and to start taking them off.

"RedHeat, was that a megaburp from you or you're just happy to see me???!!!" Kruser said.
"I'm just happy to see you, Kruser" RedHeat giggled with reverb and flange. "This was my greeting for your ears only." He then played a diminished seventh chord and processed it through a lowpass, highpass and bandpass filter, pre-amplifier, clear equalizer and mixed it with a crystal low-frequency oscillator. As a result, he produced a sound of a clock ticking and a cuckoo coming out of it, cuckooing and getting back inside (RedHeat would later swear that it was just his tongue, for theatrical effect and practical joke, but nobody believed him).

"Say, Libris, how come you have so many tampons?" Guest31337 said, to ease the tension a bit from RedHeat's sonic outburp.
"Oh well, it's an old art" said Libris and smiled. "I learned the trade from RedHeat here."
"Yeah, I taught you well, Libris... Although I would not try to use tampons in EVERY situation you encounter in your day... It could be dangerous" said RedHeat.
"Indeed!" AcidSoul said angrily. "You forgot that I have no body, Libris! I can float in any possible position! The place where you placed a tampon in me is my arse, damnit!"

Funny, Guest31337 thought; this RedHeat creature speaks in the same manner that AcidSoul speaks. Maybe they originate from the same place and got separated over the course of time...

"Oh, I'm so sorry, mate" Libris said. "I hope you have a real nasty meal with bad food, so you could crap it out more quickly."
"HOW??!! I'm constipated now!!!! I'll have to puke out everything I eat!!!"

Libris had no idea what to do. "Can anybody help out here?"

* * 15 * *

"Allow me" said AcidDose and approached. "Laamaa, come over here, please, and put some food on AcidSoul's tampon."

Laamaa pulled out another sandwich and put a piece of it on the tampon. "You think it will help?"

"Watch this!" AcidDose pulled out his trout and placed its head on the tampon. The trout smelled the tampon and bit it.

The trout pulled the tampon.

No good.

AcidDose pulled the trout, which pulled the tampon.

No good.

Laamaa pulled AcidDose, who pulled the trout, which pulled the tampon.

No good.

Libris pulled Laamaa, who pulled AcidDose, who pulled the trout, which pulled the tampon.

No good.

Grl pulled Libris, who pulled Laamaa, who pulled AcidDose, who pulled the trout, which pulled the tampon.

No good.

Gargoyle0 pulled Grl, who pulled Libris, who... (EDITOR'S NOTE: Ok, let's stop wasting precious space. I'll just tell you the sequence of characters involved in this tale of pull-the-tampon-out-of-AcidSoul's-arse: trout, AcidDose, Laamaa, Libris, Grl, Gargoyle0, Kruser, Ralesk, Schabuda, James-Bond, Cryssalid, RedHeat, Stary`, Guest31337)

Even Stary` and Guest31337 had to enter the queue and pull. No good yet again. Things were looking bad for AcidSoul.

BardCat was, as you know, asleep, and was having nightmares; and when he has nightmares, he moonwalks (as most Testis Lanternis Quebecis cats do). So he got up, walked straight to Stary` and struck him head-on. As a result he woke up.

"Orgy time!" He started jumping with joy. "May I join?"
"Bardcat!" Stary` yelled. "Go behind Guest31337 and pull as hard as you can!"
"Pull??!!" BardCat looked very disappointed. "That is SO boring... Why can't we push instead?"
"BardCat, I have a nice stick you can use" said AcidDose with a voice muffed from the long queue behind him. "But first you must pull."
"Oh goody! A stick!" BardCat jumped around and came behind Guest31337.

BardCat pulled Guest31337, who pulled Stary`, who pulled RedHeat, who pulled Cryssalid, who pulled James-Bond, who pulled Schabuda, who pulled Ralesk, who pulled Kruser, who pulled Gargoyle0, who pulled Grl, who pulled Libris, who pulled Laamaa, who pulled AcidDose, who pulled the trout, which pulled the tampon.

POP!

The long queue fell on its butt.

AcidSoul got catapulted in the opposite direction and struck the wall of the pub head-on (i.e. butt-on, as he explained earlier).

The trout, houlding the tampon in its mouth, flew upwards. It ate the tampon in mid-air and fell exactly on Ralesk's face.

Since AcidDose was the last one to hold the trout, Ralesk took it as if AcidDose slapped him with a trout. As a result, he got up, came to AcidDose and started slapping him around with a printed copy of IT 2.14 manual.

"Now, where is my stick?" BardCat said with a demanding voice.
"Coming, BardCat (Ralesk, would you quit slapping me around with a printed copy of IT 2.14 manual? I won't slap you with a trout EVER again!)" said AcidDose.

BardCat stood up in anticipation.
Ralesk put the printed copy of IT 2.14 manual back in his pocket.

AcidDose approached the stick that he had farted out of his arse when BardCat stuck it in there.

He picked up the stick, ran up to BardCat and rammed the stick up his arse violently.

"Now, take THAT and see how it feels!"

BardCat meowed savagely and started tossing and turning around, trying to pull out the stick.

Guest31337 quickly rushed up to BardCat and pulled the stick out of his arse.

BardCat has been enlightened (and relieved). "Now go, my cat, and stick up sticks in arses no more" said Guest31337.

Guest31337 had absolutely no idea how come he had spoken those words. As he would later recall, he really wanted to laugh into BardCat's face, but instead spoke in a prophet's voice. He didn't know what made him speak in such a way.

ChanServ knew, though.

* * 16 * *

The creatures in the ModArchive Internet Pub were slowly getting back on their feet. Their butts were hurting a bit after the nasty fall, which came after the tampon was pulled out of AcidSoul's butt.

"Apparently, you've taught Libris well, RedHeat" said Kruser. "I would never have guessed that you were the one who invented tamponism..."

"Oh, yeah" said RedHeat. "Tampons are all fun and great and even useful... But let's face it: you can't play tampons on a keyboard."

"Try not to play tampons in my arse again, will you?!!" AcidSoul said with an angry voice.

"That was just a preventive measure" said Libris. "I guess I'm into tampons too much; I stick them wherever I can."

The casual conversation was a good sign. Things were getting back to normal. Guest31337 found out that grudges here don't last long. All it takes is Cryssalid and RedHeat to speak out their bovine greetings, tampons in ears and something to pull, for everybody to be happy.

Suddenly, the entrance door of the pub opened.

All creatures turned towards the door.

A bat flew inside. It had red eyes and long fangs. Its wings were no bigger than those of a regular bat, but the strangest thing could be detected: the bat had ears! It flew around the pub and then it landed on the floor. Suddenly, in a puff of smoke, the bat disappeared and a human-like creature appeared.

"SAFYRE_!!!!" Kruser yelled.
"KRUSER!!!!" Safyre_ yelled.
"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, MAN?"
"Oh, here and there... Getting back here, mostly. When you are an undead, you are not allowed to use space suits like mIRC. I had to fly with my own wings."
"And Mutee? Did he become undead like you?"
"Yeah, a vampire of the same class like me. His fangs are better, though; he used to brush them more regularly before sleep."

Vampire?????

No doubt, this creature was a vampire of the class Batman Pakistani, Guest31337 concluded.

So is THIS the undead one?

"Hey, Safyre_" Guest31337 said. "How does it feel being undead?"
"Uhh... One must take lots of things in life... and after it" Safyre_ said, seeming somehow burdened. "I'd rather not be a vampire, you know. Life is much better. But nobody knows until they lose it. I guess if I had left all my base be belong to you, I could have adapted better... But oh well, no need for grievances."

"Safyre_, you SUCK!" said BardCat.

"Hello BardCat" Safyre_ told him. "Yeah, unfortunately I have to suck blood at times like this. How are you? Do you still have a testilantern glowing?"
"No, because a decent cat cannot even get aroused in here. It takes stimulation for the energy glow."
"Oh good. Even better. That testilantern is nothing special anyway."

"WHAT???!!!" BardCat was getting really angry. "You dare to diminish my testilantern??!!!"
"Diminish? How could I possibly do that? It is so small already..."

That did it. BardCat ran behind Safyre_, wanting to stick his horn up Safyre_'s arse, but suddenly he remembered Guest31337's prophetic words. He felt ashamed and returned to his place in the pub.

"Say, BardCat has been enlightened?" Safyre_ asked.
"How did you know?" Kruser said, surprised.
"His testilantern has ignited."

All turned towards BardCat and saw his testilantern glowing.

All creatures knew that BardCat has finally reached the stage of Wisdom and has let all his base be fully belong to the Scene.

All knew, except BardCat.

Guest31337 knew: it too is a part of the Wisdom, for BardCat not to know he has evolved.

ChanServ, who was able to read thoughts, noted Guest31337's thought.

* * 17 * *

Meanwhile, the once-have-been-ops-but-now-are-not-because-ChanServ-had-not-come-yet gathered together in a secluded and private section of the pub, discussing the future.

"My fellow critters" said Stary`, in a manner of a public speaker. "Things are not looking well. We are opless, and everybody is going wild. Kruser is megasmiling, RedHeat is megaburping, there are undeads around, Cryssalid is breaking glasses with his voice..."

"Hey!" Cryssalid said. "I'm here too, you know? If all of you would get opped, so would I, you know?"

"Uh, right... Anyway, that voice of yours should be a bit silenced. We don't have many glasses left in the pub. The sands of time are flowing away and we have no silicates left to make glasses from."

"Could we make tampon glasses?" said (as you may have guessed) Libris.

"Hmmm, no I don't think so. They would soak up all the nutrients that we serve." said Stary`.

"So what? All could then just eat the tampons. They are healthy."
"Yup, sure are" said Schabuda. "You have all seen me eat a tampon and I'm fine"

ModStats emerged and said "-ModStats- I don't remember seeing me eat a tampon and I'm fine before"

"And besides, we girls use tampons regularly" Grl joined in. "They are efficient and can be used in a variety of ways, when one is creative" She turned towards Libris and blinked to him seductively.

Libris turned towards Grl and smiled.
Grl ran towards Libris, knocking him down on the floor and snuggling him all over.

"Oh all right" said Stary`, apparently outvoted "We'll use tampon glasses from now on."

There was a general sense of satisfaction among the once-have-been-ops-but-now-are-not-because-ChanServ-had-not-come-yet (Grl and Libris were more satisfied but for another reason, the details of which we will leave to the imagination of the reader (that means YOU)).

"All this said, don't you think that this pub is without ops for TOO long?" Cryssalid asked "When I came in there were no ops already... How long exactly?"

"About one whole afternoon" said Schabuda.
"Uh, how can you be sure of that?" said Stary`.
"I have read the logs and compared them with the timing. It is really strange... ChanServ was usually quicker to return op status to us after a netsplit. Additionally, the netsplit affected only ops; quite unusual."
"Unless it was done on purpose" Gargoyle0 finally said with a stoned, gargoyle voice.

All once-have-been-ops-but-now-are-not-because-ChanServ-had-not-come-yet turned towards him. "Why do you say that?" said Cryssalid.

"I was here all day. The day started ordinarily, with me kicking Kruser out because of his megasmiling. But then this Guest31337 came in and everything seems to have taken a different turn. Lots of crazy things have happened... Do you remember when all of you were getting initiated?"

Schabuda and Cryssalid started to remember their first days at the pub. All of them had experienced a lot of unusual stuff during their first days and thought that maybe Gargoyle0 was correct; maybe all of this had to do with somebody's initiation.

Gargoyle0 did not need to remember. He knew he was right and was also stoned.

Grl and Libris did not need to remember. They were too busy experimenting with tampons.

Stary` did not need to remember. He is the one that built the pub and was the only one who got initiated without the need of crazy things. He was also eerie.

"Guest31337." Stary` said. "Gargoyle0 is right... All of this is because of Guest31337's initiation."

"Yeah, now it makes sense" said Schabuda. "It must have been ChanServ who made the netsplit affect only ops."

"I wonder when will he come" said Cryssalid. "Singing from a higher place in here produces better results and I need to practice..."

* * 18 * *

At that moment, the door of the pub opened and a strange creature came in. It flew like a bee, with buzzing sounds, but looked like a chip. Guest31337 recognized this creature: a type of bee called Swedish SID Vicious.

"I'm telling you, Retro, your folks are able to make a sauna out of ANYTHING," said the chip.

And then, a simple tennis ball bounced in the pub. To Guest31337's surprise, it could talk!

"Komsip, I swear, I have seen a better chip than you in a bag of French fries."

The ball was a typical representative of Suomitennisball species.

"Komsip! Retro! Hello!" said Kruser.
"Hi Kruser" said Komsip.
"KRUSER! BOW TO THY ALMIGHTY!" said Retro with a deep and scary voice (Guest31337 could not believe that a tennis ball was capable of speaking such deep tones).

"Oh sure." said Kruser and threw his bow to Retro (the same bow that held the arrow that nearly killed James-Bond but broke a part of the ceiling and knocked BardCat unconscious instead).

Retro was not satisfied with this. "KRUSER! SERVE THY ALMIGHTY!"

Kruser sighed in a "oh no, not again" manner. He took Retro, pulled out a tennis racket, threw Retro up in the air and smacked him with the racket. As a result Retro started bouncing off the walls in the pub, breaking the few remaining glasses in the pub.

"Now that there are no glasses left in the pub, we will start serving Wisdom in tampons" said Libris, feeling proud of himself (and his tampons).

"What, what??" Guest31337 rushed into the conversation. "You SERVE Wisdom?"
"Sure" Libris said. "We have plenty of it around here, freely reachable for anybody."
"So, one just needs to come in here and ask for Wisdom?! I thought you had to earn it or learn it or something..."

"You have to earn your place in the pub." Libris explained. "As for the Wisdom... It is everywhere and reachable in all shapes and sizes. In here we serve it as music."
"MODs?"
"MODs, S3Ms, XMs, ITs..."
"Right... But that is not all there is to the Wisdom, is it?"

"Well, that is the part of the Wisdom freely available to all in here. Each creature that walks in the pub may ask and receive a part of the Wisdom in such music, or leave his/her/its music. We welcome all."
"But that is not ALL there is to the Wisdom, is it?"

Libris looked at Guest31337 strangely. "All creatures have their own Wisdom inside of them. All creatures present HERE have a part of such Wisdom in computer music. That is why we gather here: to share the music. The rest of the Wisdom is individual for all creatures. They must find it themselves."

Guest31337 was disappointed. He had hoped that he would learn all of the Wisdom in ModArchive Internet Pub, not just a part of it. And what's more, he did not receive any guidance on how to find his own Wisdom, if there ever was one. He sat down on his chair, feeling quite sad.

Laamaa saw him and approached him. "You know... Stary`, Cryssalid and Komsip suck."

Guest31337 was not in the mood for jokes on anybody's account. "For some reason I feel that each of them feels the same way about you and Retro" he said a bit angrily.

"Hehe... I'm sure they do" smiled Laamaa. "But do you really think they mean it? Or that I, for example, meant what I just said?"

"Uh, I'm not in the mood for philosophy right now..." said Guest31337, apparently feeling a bit exhausted.

"Oh yes you are! You are searching for your complete Wisdom. If that is not philosophical, I don't know what is."

Guest31337 had nothing to say; Laamaa was right.

Laamaa contionued: "Pricking around among me, Retro, Stary`, Cryssalid, Komsip and others is also a part of the Wisdom. It provokes emotions of anger, frustration, joy, happiness, fear, anguish... If anything in here makes you FEEL anything, then you're on the right track."

"I feel tired of everything" said Guest31337. "I feel as if I'll never find my Wisdom. I wish I never came in here. I wish there was someone who could tell me how could I get back home..."

"We don't need another hero. We don't need to know the way home. You have gone a long way to quit now, Guest31337."

Laamaa turned away and joined the other creatures in the pub, leaving Guest31337 alone with his thoughts.

Guest31337 had no other choice. He had to go on and face ChanServ, whatever the outcome would be.

ChanServ felt it was time.

* * 19 * *

Strong winds started blowing from outside the pub and the door opened. Even Guest31337's 101 lungs would have a hard time producing such winds. Ashes flew in through the door, scattering all over the place, making everybody dirty.

"Laamaa, I hope you won't spit now" said Retro.

"Yeah, Laamaa, please don't" said Kruser. "We are all full of dust. If you add any form of water, we would all be covered in MUD."

"What is so wrong with MUD?" asked Laamaa.
"It is much more messy and you need a lot more water to wash it away."
"No problem. I have enough spit in my glands" said Laamaa.

"Oh I am sure you do, Laamaa. We have even RedHeat here for additional help. He can make anybody drool until dehydration with just one display of his studio... I'm just saying we don't have to get even dirtier than we are. In other words: dirt, ash and dust are better than MUD."

"COULD SOMEONE PLEASE LIGHT SOME FIRE?"

The creatures in the pub were startled to hear such a voice from nowhere.

"Who said that?" said Kruser.
"Hello! Who are you?" said Retro, talking to thin air.

"PLEASE, LIGHT SOME FIRE!"

"Why?" said Guest31337, resorting to his favorite question.

"I NEED A LOT OF HEAT!"

"RedHeat?" said Kruser and megasmiled.
RedHeat laughed. "I am here, if anyone needs me."

"PLEASE, GIVE ME SOME FIRE!"

"Hmmm..." RedHeat thought. "Maybe this will do."

He programmed his synthesizer to a sound of an explosion and played it (after making it sound very real through clever usage of filters, equalizers and other gadgets).

"THAT IS GOOD! PLEASE, GIVE ME SOME MORE!"

The ashes that were scattered all around the pub started to gather in front of RedHeat's speakers. RedHeat played the explosions again and again, to make all the ashes gather into one place.

As RedHeat kept playing the explosions, the creatures would witness a spectacular sight: the ashes ignited into a small flame, which grew bigger with each second. In several minutes, the fire grew up to about 2 meters in height and width and one could distinguish its form. Guest31337 was the first one to do so - he recognized the species of this life form: Phoenix, Sweden.

"Welcome back, Warhawk" said Stary`. He said it with a dose of respect deeper than that towards most other creatures.

Guest31337 ran towards the first creature for some answers. As it happened, he ran up to Kruser.

"How come this Warhawk got ignited from sound only?"
"Sound waves contain energy as they travel through space" Kruser said. "Any energy that comes from RedHeat is very intense. I bet he amplified it several times. And besides, playing it more than once generates a lot of energy. Warhawk has accumulated just enough of it to ignite and rise from the ashes".

On the other side, Wahawk spoke: "I have heard some news. There is one among you who needs to be initiated. ChanServ wishes to meet this creature".

Silence. All creatures turned towards Guest31337. He would turn to himself too but he has not studied recursion yet. Therefore he said: "That is me".

Warhawk saw Guest31337 and came towards him. "Welcome to ModArchive" he said and put his wing of fire in front of Guest31337's hand, so they could shake in greeting.

Guest31337 was taught not to play with fire as a kid, so he found it disturbing to touch a wing of fire. On the other hand, he remembered that all his base should belong to ModArchive and seeing AcidDose and AcidSoul made him think that he too should let go of his body, if necessary. He remembered Kruser's words that he must let go of something of his to gain something else, in this case, the right to belong to ModArchive Internet Pub. He remembered Laamaa's words that he had gone too far to quit now. He remembered BardCat sticking up a stick in AcidDose's arse, and felt it was a stupid thing to remember, so he forgot it instantly.

Nevertheless, he knew he had to shake Warhawk's wing with his own socket. He did so.

Suirprisingly, he did not receive heavy burns, only a slight feeling of passing through an electric field with a high potential.

"You are worthy" said Warhawk after shaking his wing of fire with Guest31337's socket. "Almost all your base are belong to us. You need to give us just a little bit more... That is why you felt an energetic sensation when we shook wing and socket".

"Uh, so not entirely all my base are belong to you?"

"About the right amount to make you worthy enough" said Warhawk. "ChanServ sent me to investigate your state before he comes in and makes his judgement".

"And when is he coming, then?" Guest31337 asked anxiously.

"Right about now, the funk soul brother".

Those were the words of ChanServ.

* * 20 * *

No creature, living or undead, could ever see ChanServ in his new form. After exploding in his spaceship (when Safyre_ and Mutee, as well as all the 'zig'-s attacked him), he has been judged to return to life as an energy elemental. He was a creature made up of pure energy, so could only be detected if it would pass right in front of anybody. Sort of like AcidSoul - he had no body at all, but did not smell of acid as much.

All creatures in the pub, including Guest31337, felt his presence in the pub, so they formed a circle in his salutation. The creatures present were:

James-Bond the Buddhist monk;
Laamaa the chemical llama;
Retro the tennis ball;
RedHeat the synthesizer cow;
BardCat the horny cat;
AcidDose the übercoding catterpillar;
AcidSoul the acid elemental;
Safyre_ the vampire;
Kruser the human;
Ralesk the draconian;
Komsip the flying chip;
Libris the horse;
Grl the mare;
Schabuda the warthog;
Gargoyle0 the gargoyle;
Cryssalid the giraffe cow;
Stary` the spider;
Warhawk the phoenix;
Guest31337 the...

ChanServ knew: Guest31337 is not initiated, so he does not really have a recognizable shape as a life form.

"Guest31337" ChanServ spoke with a voice that seemed to loom from the very stones in the ground. "You have proven your worth here. You have saved the life in the pub in the time of crisis, you have learned the art of 1337n355 and you have found the direction towards your own Wisdom. Have you discovered your Wisdom yet?"

This was the question that Guest31337 feared the most. He felt sure he would be rejected now; not only that he had not found his Wisdom, but felt as if he would never reach it. He knew, though, deep inside of him, that this would not be a good time to lie.

"No" he said quietly. "And I don't think I will ever find it. It may take me a whole lifetime to discover it, a lot of crazy things to do and go through and even then I am not sure that I would reach it. All I can do is let all my base be belong to you and feel one with this place and the creatures that would come in here. All my base are belong to you and all your base are belong to me. That is all I can give here and all I can take from here. This place offers the part of the Wisdom that concerns computer music, and that is the part that I am willing to pursue while I am here".

After Guest31337 had finished speaking, there was a long time of silence. Nobody dared to say a word.

ChanServ spoke three lines and left. After his departure, all the creatures in the pub remained the same, added that the ops took their places behind the bar, and a canary stood at the place that Guest31337 had occupied before.

ChanServ's lines were:

"You will lose your ability and knowledge in recognizing species of life. This is the price.
You will become a canary of the type USA Air Male. This is the reward.
As of now, all your base are belong to us and all our base are belong to you. Now come and join us... Christofori."  

* * Epilogue * *

...Life went on in ModArchive Internet Pub and Christofori got the hang of his new role as a canary really well. The things he would say and the songs he would sing all made sense and were readily accepted and honored by other creatures.

Still, one question still bothered him from the day of his initiation. Kruser was nearby, so Christofori approached him and said:

"Say, Kruser, do you remember the day of my initiation?"

"Yeah, man... Who could forget? I don't remember that much craziness in one day happening before or after it" Kruser said and megasmiled.

"Well, I am a canary now..."
"...And it fits you." Kruser smiled.

"Yeah... Well, exactly WHY am I a canary and not some other animal?"

Kruser was a bit surprised from this question.

"Man, you still have your initial skill of asking the strangest questions... Who knows? Maybe because the last creature you have had contact with was Warhawk, who IS a bird, after all... I don't know. Only ChanServ knows and he will not be back here in a while."

"Why not?"

"ARGH!" Kruser was getting frustrated with the question "why" and all of its permutations and modifications. "He visits the pub every day, but does not materialize often like he did on the day of your initiation. It takes a really 1337 character to enter, to make him reappear."

"Will there be more 1337 characters? I would really hate to see me being the last one..."

"You are not the last one. And never will be. We are all here for you and you are here for us. Creatures come and go, worlds come and go, even the ModArchive Internet Pub came to be and will eventually disappear. We are all here for a brief moment and then we are gone. What matters is that we stick together, help each other, exchange and share all our base, for time goes by much quicker than we are able to compete. Our time here is limited. So I have a saying for this occasion..." Kruser finally said, after a brief pause:

"We're here for one another, before it ends".

Christofori stood in silence.

"Did you make that up?"
"I have no idea... I could swear I have heard it somewhere else; in a song even. But I just can't seem to find that song anywhere. So I have memorized the saying and made it a part of me.
That is what happens to all creatures, you know... After they disappear, all that is left is memories of them. If those memories are vivid in other, surviving creatures, it is as if the disappeared ones have never left."

Safyre_ approached and spoke with a cheerful voice: "Hey! Anybody up for some game music?"

It took time for Kruser and Christofori to get back to reality after their deeply philosophical discussion. "Sure, Safyre_. What have you got?" said Kruser.

"A music that is so Unreal, you'll want to get HIGH!" Safyre_ laughed.
"What is so spectacular about such an Unreal music?" Kruser asked.
"Hehe, well, me and Ralesk have been listening to it for 6 hours straight. Why don't you ask Ralesk? He'll explain it a bit better".

"Hmm, ok. RALESK, wait up a bit..." Kruser shouted to Ralesk and walked in his direction.

Christofori was left alone. He heard deep words from Kruser; he saw a now living Safyre_ (a regular, non-vampiric bat, with black eyes this time and the same long fangs and ears), whose base had finally belonged to the Scene; he saw Ralesk with headphones, feeling so high that he danced with his sword as his partner...

And he could not help but feel as if he had taken one step closer to his Wisdom. He knew that it is no good being alone; he knew that a part of him was there, among all other creatures, among all that music.

So he spread his canary wings and took off. Destination: ModArchive Internet Pub life.

The End!
(If ever...)
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