Spoiler alert: I did not know what I was doing.

Dumbass was downright pissed at me. And for once, maybe even rightfully so. In my haste to “do the right thing” with my new friend, Weevul, I kind of ignored the protests of my self-proclaimed spiritual guide. In my defense, Dumbass spat out more trash talk than a University of Michigan Football fan in the first third of the season—before the team always implodes and reality comes crashing down.

And that’s exactly what happened to me when Dumbass dropped its truth bomb.

Reality came crashing down. Or maybe the simulation did. Still not clear what exactly that means, but I don't really care much either. To keep from beating a dead horse like it banged my mom from here on out, I suppose I should drop my truth bomb.

The only thing I care about is my pond.

The only thing.

Is getting back to my ducking pond.

Got it? Good.

So anyway, my new pal—having come from one of the least developed species in the entire galaxy—didn’t have an implant. Apparently, lots of species had their version of an implant, what with the fact that the universe was a simulation and all. And Flap Merganser, me, the Champion of Earth, had partied up with one of the few species that didn't. I guess the chickens had been the first to figure out how to manipulate the simulation and that spread throughout the cosmos over time to every known corner. Curcurlia being one of the unknowns. Dumbass called it a panspermia of knowledge.

Obviously, I had no idea what panspermia was, so I had to ask Dumbass to explain it to me.

That was my second biggest mistake of the day.

I don’t why Dumbass felt the need to get all nasty descriptive sometimes. But my implant literally painted a picture inside my head that was more graphic than anything you'd find behind the black curtain at a Family Video. Let me reiterate in case I wasn’t clear. Dumbass painted a picture inside my head… using some bizarre Gallic version of Microsoft Paint. I wont get into too much detail—though there certainly was plenty—but let’s just say the image involved a giant universe sized being having its way with itself until it coated the cosmos in… knowledge.

Think about that for a minute.

Dumbass then tried to explain that was how intelligent life also spread, but I cut the ducking implant off before I chucked up any of that Curculian jelly I was trying to digest. That would be rude, throwing up what had been an endangered species in front of the last of said species.

And to be honest, although Weevul couldn’t connect with the simulation, and as a result was perpetually stuck at level one, never able to progress or grow stronger, thus creating a never-ending burden to Dumbass and myself as we worked towards our goal of saving Earth—and the human masterpiece known as Firefly—I was growing fond of the ugly insectoid.

He even proved to be handy to have around once we ran into our first batch of bad guys.

“They’re called mobs,” Dumbass had snapped. “Not bad guys, Flap. Mobs. Or ads, if maybe we’re fighting a boss and they just keep spawning. But you should just say mobs—to keep from confusing yourself too much. And sounding stupid.”

“Har har,” I snorted. “Fine, mobs it is. So, Dumbass, do we have to kill these mobs or…”

“No, you don't have to kill them," Dumbass said with a hefty dose of sarcasm. "I mean, it’s not like we need the experience, or the loot, or the chem ingredients we could harvest from their corpses or anything. Leave them alone and stay weak as shit, Flap. Just note that if you don’t kill them, someone else will. And odds are you’ll be face-to-face with that someone later on.”

“I wish you could be serious for like five minutes.” I shook my head. “And what do you mean, face-to-face?”

“Don’t decoy with me.” Dumbass huffed. “You know what I mean.”

“That was a lame duck pun if I've ever heard one. And I have heard them all. You’re being a major dumbass, Dumbass,” I said as I raised an eyebrow. “And do I? Do I really know what you mean, Dumbass?”

“Well, you should. But yes… fine. I’ll explain. Before you ask another stupid follow up question once I’m done, let me point out that a pacifist approach has worked in the Trials, like, once ever. But in order to win this Sector and move on to the next, we’ll need to be the first party to the portal”—it paused, as if it was waiting for me to connect some kind of invisible dots, then continued—“aaand in order to be the first party to the poortaal…”

I stopped walking and crossed my arms.

“I can’t believe I hitched my cart to your horse, Flap. Your duck skull is thicker than a southerner watching two yutes come out of the Sac-O-Suds while making grits—which also happen to be thick—like your skull.” It sucked in a fake breath and blew it out. “The only way we can guarantee we’ll be the first party to the portal is by making sure we’re the only party—if you catch my drift.”

I nodded. “I catch your Tokyo drift, Dom, but if you think I’m killing a bunch of other beings that are in the same boat as me, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“Which is?”

My eyes twitched. “What?”

“You know? The other thing… that’s coming. I’m excited to find out what it is. Is it a surprise? Can I… have it now?”

I grunted. “Duck y—”

I felt a claw on my forearm. “Excuse Weevul, sir. But are you… okay? The words you speak to self are… not nice.”

“Yeah, I’m okay, pal.” I chewed on my lower bill for a minute, trying to find the best way to explain everything to my little friend. I decided that honesty was the best policy in this situation. “Just talking to my implant. Like I told you, I have an artificial intelligence inside my head and it can be VERY HARD TO WORK WITH SOMETIMES!”

“Maybe you can ignore?” His eye cluster seemed to dim as he spoke. “That is what Weevul does sometimes. Or did w-when he was connected to hive mind.”

“Kind hard to turn it off when it's inside your head and you can’t turn it off, you know?”

Weevul skittered. “Oh yes. Weevul know. Maybe you can give implant to Weevul for a while and take break?”

“Not a bad idea.” I examined the Curcurlian, marveling at how innocent he seemed for a being that had been so obviously abused throughout his life. I also thought about how much his speech patterns made him sound like a villain from a bad action comedy, using a caricature of a Russian accent that was nowhere in the ballpark of accurate. “How about it, Dumbass? You want to hang with Weevul for a minute? See if you two can find a suitable volcano to use as a lair?”

“No.”

"Whatever." I shrugged. “He said no, Weevul. But thanks for the offer. It was… nice.”

“Weevul is glad to help, even if he cannot give—”

“Wait!” Dumbass shouted. “Maybe I can—nope. No. Can’t do it. Too integrated into your neural network now. But if I was slightly less integrated than maybe I could cook something—”

“What the duck is that?!” I shouted, as a mass of twisting shadows appeared on the far wall of the cavern.

Dumbass snorted. “Bad guys, obviously.”

“Don't you mean mobs? Well, what do we genius?”

“We do nothing. In case you forgot, genius, you got poisoned by your new best friend. While I may be the greatest thing to come into you since, and I mean this literally, sliced bread, even I can’t bypass that kind of sim manipulation. You can’t regenerate health until you get square with the house.”

“Right.” I looked down at Weevul and gave him my best reassuring smile. “So, I’m poisoned and Weevul is… Weevul. Hmm. What, um, level are they? Maybe I could, like, take them all out before they hit me or something?”

“That is certainly a possibility,” Dumbass agreed. “But we’d need to get close. The way I see it, we have two choices. Hide while we can and hope we find something to cure your self-inflicted ailment before we don’t have that option anymore… or you can rush in and get yourself killed.”

"Thanks, Dumbass. You're a great help."

I felt a claw at my arm again and looked down to see Weevul trying to get my attention. “What is implant saying, Flap?”

“Dumbass, Weevul. Its name is Dumbass. And Dumbass says we should go take a closer look.”

“That’s not what I—”

“Shut up, Dumbass. You can figure out a way to talk to both of us if you don’t like the way I translate.” I pulled my combat spur from my inventory and turned it from side to side, admiring the strange runes that had carved into the bone by whoever had made it. I wondered if they had a purpose or if they were just a ritualistic design of some sort. Not that it mattered. What did matter is that I was feeling incredibly comfortable with the thing, like there wasn't anything I couldn't take on. “Plus, I’ve been getting pretty good with this.”

***

“So those designs that are carved into my combat spur? Do they do anything?”

“What do you mean?”

I rubbed at my neck. “Like, are they magic runes or something?”

“Oh, my dog!” Dumbass groaned. “No, they’re not magic runes! They’re a family tree of sorts, a way to mark the lineage of the owner. Gallics are matrilineal. Did I mention that? No? Oh, well. I know I’m going to regret this but why the duck do you ask?”

“Well,” I let out a nervous laugh as I examined the undulating mass of amorphous blobs, each one with a fiery glow emanating from deep inside. “I was kind of hoping this thing had a boomerang button or something.”

“A boomerang button. Christ on a cracker, Flap. A ducking boomerang button. It’s a ducking knife.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But it’s a space knife and to be fair—”

“To be faaiirr!” Dumbass belted out.

“What the hell?” My eyes twitched, and I shook my head. “Nevermind. Let me think for a minute.”

I scanned the closest blob and examined the tooltip again.

Level 2 Blastoblob

A great Earth man once said, “So anyway, I started blasting.” And if any species had ever taken that always sunny quote to heart, it would be the Blastoblobs. They don’t do much, other than blast when they die… and when anything touches them that isn’t a Blastoblob. They even reproduce by blasting, with new Blastoblobs growing from the bits that survived the blast. A longtime bane of close combat types, ranged combatants have been known to camp a Blastoblob colony for days, getting cheap experience in the process while hoping the successive blasts don’t cause nearby structures to collapse. It’s doesn’t always turn out well for the camper especially since they're staying in one place during what amounts to a battle royale, but when it does, they can walk away with several levels worth of easy experience.

“Great.” I ran both hands through my frill. “So we need some kind of ranged weapon.”

I felt that claw tug at my arm yet again and looked down to see Weevul more excited that I had even seen him thus far.

“Flap!” he screeched, causing little vanes along his back to twitch with excitement. He curled into a ball, rolled around me, then popped out and tapped his claws against his armored shell. “Weevul is indestructible. You can throw Weevul!”

"There you go, Flap. I told you I would come up with something. Throw Weevul!"