Chapter 41: The Solution to Feeling (Soul-)Bloated is, Like The Solution to Many Other Things, Killing Yourself in Novel and Unique Ways?
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Chapter 41: The Solution to Feeling (Soul-)Bloated is, Like The Solution to Many Other Things, Killing Yourself in Novel and Unique Ways?
January 12, 2010, Tuesday. Brockton Bay, Dave's Apartment.
Dave woke up, slowly went through his morning routine, feeling strangely bloated, and prepared his tea, orange juice and bagels, then sat down with a sigh of relief at no longer needing to stand and walk around.
Dave nodded thoughtfully, before slowly hobbling over to the toaster to retrieve his bagel.
Man, soul bloat is such a pain in the ass. Dave thought to himself, annoyed at needing to hobble to grab a bagel.
"So what happened to you?" Lisa said, after being let in to his apartment. Bella had already left for her classes, and Lisa had been eager to get to test her toys until she saw Dave's current state.
"I stuffed my soul too full today. I have soul bloat. It's terminal." Dave told her, then perked up as an idea came to him.
"Maybe killing myself will help?" He said, before grabbing a banana and shooting himself with it.
It didn't work.
"Well that's embarrassing." Dave said, upon realizing he had grabbed a real banana instead of a banana pistol.
"Um…" Lisa said with confusion.
"Don't mind me, I'm just trying to figure out a non-messy way to kill myself now that plan B for Banana has failed. Do I have a plan A for Apricot?" Dave mused to himself.
"Really? Apple was right there." Lisa pointed out.
"I'm soul bloated! Give me some slack woman!" Dave cried out dramatically from his spot on the couch he was laying down on.
"So…" Lisa said slowly, "your power is… overloaded? No, that's not quite right. Your power grabbed too much too fast and this is the consequence?" Lisa guessed. "It's kind of like your version of a Thinker headache right?" She said after a moment, a little more confident in her deduction.
"Eh… Close enough." Dave said miserably.
"Did you try healing yourself? Your healing methods work on me, and Thinker Headaches are normally nearly impossible for Parahumans to help with, so it might help with your issue? What did your power even give you that cause this much of an issue?" Lisa asked.
"Murgle furgle burgle mffsms, manft." Dave explained as eloquently as he could, directly into the couch cushion and getting a bunch of couch directly in his mouth for his troubles.
Dave peeled himself off his couch, plopped out a Health Station and began trying to heal from it. Then turned on his Paladin Aura. Then also took out a hotpocket from the Health Station and started eating that as well. Then he took out a Health Potion and took sips from that like it was a tasty beverage that went with the hotpocket.
He felt, ever so slightly better, but he didn't actually feel like the healing had helped much if at all, it might have simply been his soul expanding slightly from the new experiences of drinking a Health Potion for the first time and trying all his current healing methods simultaneously.
He finished off his burrito and health potion.
"Nope, barely helped." He told Lisa.
"I'm gonna try killing myself, you take this," he handed her a Defibrillator, "And you can use it on me. Those things will revive anyone that has their brain mostly intact — so if you die, make sure you don't get shot in the head so I can bring you back—just use it by focusing on my body for a bit with it while having the intent to bring me back to life. You do need to hold it rather close to my body, but I'm sure you'll figure it out." Dave told Lisa responsibly.
Then, Dave pulled out a real banana pistol, deepthroated it as far as he could until his eyes were bulging and he was about to throw up, then held down the trigger to unload the full magazine into himself. He died instantly.
There, take THAT soul! How's THAT for growth huh? I've never been revived by a defib before, AND I've never deepthroated a pistol OR a banana, let alone a pistol that WAS a banana! How do you like THEM bananas!? Or apricots or whatever?
Ahh, I truly am a genius. Dave thought to himself with contentment, while Lisa was internally screaming.
Lisa and Dave teleported to the woods where Dave had left some of his teleporter receiver pads after he went collecting mud samples.
Lisa was wearing a temporary, unfitted costume that Parian had sold her for only $1000, claiming it was too simple and rushed to be worth more. It was made of just normal materials, so it didn't offer anything special, and was a fairly simple purple and black combination that Parian had thrown together with her power within the time they had visited her yesterday.
Meanwhile Dave, had 'returned to Monke,' as he had told Lisa, and was in his Mud Scientist 'outfit'. Outfit being in quotations, because monkeys don't wear clothes.
Dave happily faceplanted into the mud as soon as he arrived, before slowly flipping over and beginning to make a mud angel.
"Alright." He said seriously, craning his neck up while his arms were still in the process of making his first mud angel. "Ground rules are: don't test the flare gun in the woods. Uhh…" He trailed off. "Don't shoot yourself in the head with any guns, or stab yourself in the head with the knife, or bash your own head in too hard with the crowbar." He added after thinking for a moment.
He plopped his head back down. "I'm such a good chaperone." He mused aloud.
For some reason, Lisa began twitching when he said that.
Lisa began happily abusing the packed burritos of healing, along with Dave's Paladin aura, to mix her testing of the equipment with exercise. Apparently, to a fitness enthusiast, the perfect calory and nutrition thing was a huge deal by itself, and the instant muscle-healing from his aura making unlimited pleasant work-outs a real possibility would make Dave get worshipped as a god in some circles.
As someone who had never really handled a gun, Lisa's aim was rather shit compared to everyone else's Dave had seen, that being himself and Miss Militia; though Lisa claimed that was just more reason to practice, and the quieter sound of Dave's guns (making her not need ear protection), along with healing in case of injuries, and an unlimited supply of bullets, meant Lisa was determined to practice as much as possible.
Unfortunately… "I rely almost entirely on my power to shoot guns." Dave told Lisa when she asked for guidance on how to hold one of the guns. "I don't know why I need to do what I need to do in a given situation, or if what I should do is also what you should do in that same situation. If you really want to practice…" He trailed off.
"You have three options. Panacea is currently learning how to shoot firearms, so you could take lessons with her and New Wave will be able to defend you while you are there. Or you could try to figure it out on your own, though you seem pretty confident doing so is a bad idea already. Finally, I can ask if Miss Militia or Challenger is willing to teach you. I'm fairly sure Miss Militia at least would be happy to do so, and I need to keep in contact with Armsmaster anyways for the big project." Dave gestured at the woods around them when referring to 'the big project.' "So I would be right there with you at the same time in case of an attack, and you could tell them as much or as little about your powers as you want." Dave said.
"Protectorate." Lisa said quickly, slightly alarmed at the mention of New Wave. "I trust you can keep me safe, just remember the PRT is already infiltrated by the people after me, and the Protectorate is an affiliate of the PRT, so it is possible for anything the Protectorate finds out to get back to whoever is after me."
"I can ask for Miss Militia and Armsmaster to use their discretion. I was thinking of introducing you to the Protectorate soon anyways, as you will likely be an important part of the big Tinker base and its design. I was also going to see if you could help me out with an experiment of mine regarding helping Tinkers find their specialties. If it worked, it would be another point towards building up the Tinker base project." Dave said.
"For now," Dave rolled over again to make a new mud angel next to the previous one. "You can just test the various toys and exercise and stuff. You can worry about actually improving your aim and skill with firearms after we meet with them. I'll ask for a meeting tomorrow, and I'll mention you to see if they have somewhere you can be taught with a little more discretion. In the absolute worst case, I did plan for there to be a variety of testing facilities in the Tinker base, including a firing range, and you can always learn there, since anyone going into the base will be vetted to the best of our ability, which includes being personally vetted by you."
"You know…" Lisa said. "Your serious speeches are hard to take seriously while you're making mud angels." She informed him.
He looked at her, then down at himself, then over to the side where a row of his previous mud angels lay. "What are you talking about? There is nothing more serious than mud. This mud will change the world!" He informed her dramatically, waving his muddy arms around a bit in the process.
"Uhuh." She said doubtfully.
Dave rolled over again to make a new mud angel, only to find himself face to face with a frog.
"Ribbit," the frog croaked.
Dave looked at the frog. The frog looked at Dave.
"I know what I must do." Dave said, and took out a sniper rifle from his inventory, and placed it in front of the frog.
"Ribbit."
"So you press the button," He began explaining the sniper rifle to the frog, "and it makes that part shoot out a thing that destroys what it is pointing at."
"Oh, so you'll teach a frog how to shoot but not me?" Lisa groused.
Dave looked at her. "It's not about that." He protested. "It is simply the natural way of things. Everyone knows frogs are natural snipers. If someone got sniped in the head, it was probably a frog that did it. I'm just helping this one live up to its full potential." He told her.
Lisa just looked at him dubiously.
Author's Note: Another chapter down. Wanna know something weird? The day after I wrote this chapter, the Yogscast Main Channel released a new episode of Dread Hunger, which they haven't played in years. I wrote this chapter on 8/20/26, the new episode of Dread Hunger was released on 8/21/26. Bizarre eh?
Oh, you wanted to know what was causing Dave's soul so much bloatiness? Well, I'll tell you that particular item is similar to another item he already has that has been implied but not directly revealed. This new one was basically out of Dave's 'price range' so to speak, but he was just barely able to handle it by having gotten the Dread Thrall role, which doesn't do all that much, along with how incredibly connected this item is to both the Yogscast and Dave himself; it is probably the most 'discounted' item he will ever receive from TTT in fact. Even then, it is basically limited to what it does in TTT at the moment despite the many obvious upgrades it can get from Dave's soul expanding with it. Dave also was smart enough to not actually buy it just yet while his soul is settling.
Of course, at the moment, the other item that Dave already has had for a couple days has already received some upgrades, even if we haven't seen it on screen yet, so that one is actually better than his new one for the moment.
Bounty: One Terrorist Point for whoever first guesses the other item that has been implied, and one Burrito Point for whoever first guesses this new item that he got today.
January 12, 2010, Tuesday. Brockton Bay, Dave's Apartment.
Dave woke up, slowly went through his morning routine, feeling strangely bloated, and prepared his tea, orange juice and bagels, then sat down with a sigh of relief at no longer needing to stand and walk around.
| G'day Dave. G'dave? G'Dave. |
| Things happened yesterday, you grew your soul some, you met people, you went new places, you healed people, etc. Yay! Stuff! Stuff, as in—Then your soul got stuffed like a Christmas Turkey, and is now bloated to full by a single new item when combined with your new role. Seriously, this item barely fit, and that is after taking into account how absurdly well-attuned it is to your soul. It's a big one, and the effects of what it does will become more real and permanent as time goes on and your soul grows more. Right now, it won't do a ton, but eventually it will be exactly as amazing as it seems… mostly anyways. Anyways, your new role is the Dread Thrall! That's right, the traitor role that is based on the Dread Thralls from Dread Hunger! You can do things by (harmlessly) stabbing yourself with a bone charm knife thing you will have in your inventory. You can summon a strong fog for up to 90 seconds (you decide how long at the moment you stab yourself, the current maximum is 90 seconds); you can summon up to 8 zombie cannibal things (you decide how many, with the maximum being 8) that will attack a specific person, then attack anyone they see (including you) after that person dies; and you can enter a Spirit Walk, which will make you invisible and increase your speed slightly, as well as let you walk through thin walls. You can of course, improve these abilities over time as your soul grows, as normal. Oh yes, each use of an ability costs a single Dread Thrall credit, so you can't just maintain a permanent fog forever or anything, though it might seem like you can to others if you save up enough credits first. |
Dave nodded thoughtfully, before slowly hobbling over to the toaster to retrieve his bagel.
Man, soul bloat is such a pain in the ass. Dave thought to himself, annoyed at needing to hobble to grab a bagel.
"So what happened to you?" Lisa said, after being let in to his apartment. Bella had already left for her classes, and Lisa had been eager to get to test her toys until she saw Dave's current state.
"I stuffed my soul too full today. I have soul bloat. It's terminal." Dave told her, then perked up as an idea came to him.
"Maybe killing myself will help?" He said, before grabbing a banana and shooting himself with it.
It didn't work.
"Well that's embarrassing." Dave said, upon realizing he had grabbed a real banana instead of a banana pistol.
"Um…" Lisa said with confusion.
"Don't mind me, I'm just trying to figure out a non-messy way to kill myself now that plan B for Banana has failed. Do I have a plan A for Apricot?" Dave mused to himself.
"Really? Apple was right there." Lisa pointed out.
"I'm soul bloated! Give me some slack woman!" Dave cried out dramatically from his spot on the couch he was laying down on.
"So…" Lisa said slowly, "your power is… overloaded? No, that's not quite right. Your power grabbed too much too fast and this is the consequence?" Lisa guessed. "It's kind of like your version of a Thinker headache right?" She said after a moment, a little more confident in her deduction.
"Eh… Close enough." Dave said miserably.
"Did you try healing yourself? Your healing methods work on me, and Thinker Headaches are normally nearly impossible for Parahumans to help with, so it might help with your issue? What did your power even give you that cause this much of an issue?" Lisa asked.
"Murgle furgle burgle mffsms, manft." Dave explained as eloquently as he could, directly into the couch cushion and getting a bunch of couch directly in his mouth for his troubles.
Dave peeled himself off his couch, plopped out a Health Station and began trying to heal from it. Then turned on his Paladin Aura. Then also took out a hotpocket from the Health Station and started eating that as well. Then he took out a Health Potion and took sips from that like it was a tasty beverage that went with the hotpocket.
He felt, ever so slightly better, but he didn't actually feel like the healing had helped much if at all, it might have simply been his soul expanding slightly from the new experiences of drinking a Health Potion for the first time and trying all his current healing methods simultaneously.
He finished off his burrito and health potion.
"Nope, barely helped." He told Lisa.
"I'm gonna try killing myself, you take this," he handed her a Defibrillator, "And you can use it on me. Those things will revive anyone that has their brain mostly intact — so if you die, make sure you don't get shot in the head so I can bring you back—just use it by focusing on my body for a bit with it while having the intent to bring me back to life. You do need to hold it rather close to my body, but I'm sure you'll figure it out." Dave told Lisa responsibly.
Then, Dave pulled out a real banana pistol, deepthroated it as far as he could until his eyes were bulging and he was about to throw up, then held down the trigger to unload the full magazine into himself. He died instantly.
There, take THAT soul! How's THAT for growth huh? I've never been revived by a defib before, AND I've never deepthroated a pistol OR a banana, let alone a pistol that WAS a banana! How do you like THEM bananas!? Or apricots or whatever?
Ahh, I truly am a genius. Dave thought to himself with contentment, while Lisa was internally screaming.
Lisa and Dave teleported to the woods where Dave had left some of his teleporter receiver pads after he went collecting mud samples.
Lisa was wearing a temporary, unfitted costume that Parian had sold her for only $1000, claiming it was too simple and rushed to be worth more. It was made of just normal materials, so it didn't offer anything special, and was a fairly simple purple and black combination that Parian had thrown together with her power within the time they had visited her yesterday.
Meanwhile Dave, had 'returned to Monke,' as he had told Lisa, and was in his Mud Scientist 'outfit'. Outfit being in quotations, because monkeys don't wear clothes.
Dave happily faceplanted into the mud as soon as he arrived, before slowly flipping over and beginning to make a mud angel.
"Alright." He said seriously, craning his neck up while his arms were still in the process of making his first mud angel. "Ground rules are: don't test the flare gun in the woods. Uhh…" He trailed off. "Don't shoot yourself in the head with any guns, or stab yourself in the head with the knife, or bash your own head in too hard with the crowbar." He added after thinking for a moment.
He plopped his head back down. "I'm such a good chaperone." He mused aloud.
For some reason, Lisa began twitching when he said that.
Lisa began happily abusing the packed burritos of healing, along with Dave's Paladin aura, to mix her testing of the equipment with exercise. Apparently, to a fitness enthusiast, the perfect calory and nutrition thing was a huge deal by itself, and the instant muscle-healing from his aura making unlimited pleasant work-outs a real possibility would make Dave get worshipped as a god in some circles.
As someone who had never really handled a gun, Lisa's aim was rather shit compared to everyone else's Dave had seen, that being himself and Miss Militia; though Lisa claimed that was just more reason to practice, and the quieter sound of Dave's guns (making her not need ear protection), along with healing in case of injuries, and an unlimited supply of bullets, meant Lisa was determined to practice as much as possible.
Unfortunately… "I rely almost entirely on my power to shoot guns." Dave told Lisa when she asked for guidance on how to hold one of the guns. "I don't know why I need to do what I need to do in a given situation, or if what I should do is also what you should do in that same situation. If you really want to practice…" He trailed off.
"You have three options. Panacea is currently learning how to shoot firearms, so you could take lessons with her and New Wave will be able to defend you while you are there. Or you could try to figure it out on your own, though you seem pretty confident doing so is a bad idea already. Finally, I can ask if Miss Militia or Challenger is willing to teach you. I'm fairly sure Miss Militia at least would be happy to do so, and I need to keep in contact with Armsmaster anyways for the big project." Dave gestured at the woods around them when referring to 'the big project.' "So I would be right there with you at the same time in case of an attack, and you could tell them as much or as little about your powers as you want." Dave said.
"Protectorate." Lisa said quickly, slightly alarmed at the mention of New Wave. "I trust you can keep me safe, just remember the PRT is already infiltrated by the people after me, and the Protectorate is an affiliate of the PRT, so it is possible for anything the Protectorate finds out to get back to whoever is after me."
"I can ask for Miss Militia and Armsmaster to use their discretion. I was thinking of introducing you to the Protectorate soon anyways, as you will likely be an important part of the big Tinker base and its design. I was also going to see if you could help me out with an experiment of mine regarding helping Tinkers find their specialties. If it worked, it would be another point towards building up the Tinker base project." Dave said.
"For now," Dave rolled over again to make a new mud angel next to the previous one. "You can just test the various toys and exercise and stuff. You can worry about actually improving your aim and skill with firearms after we meet with them. I'll ask for a meeting tomorrow, and I'll mention you to see if they have somewhere you can be taught with a little more discretion. In the absolute worst case, I did plan for there to be a variety of testing facilities in the Tinker base, including a firing range, and you can always learn there, since anyone going into the base will be vetted to the best of our ability, which includes being personally vetted by you."
"You know…" Lisa said. "Your serious speeches are hard to take seriously while you're making mud angels." She informed him.
He looked at her, then down at himself, then over to the side where a row of his previous mud angels lay. "What are you talking about? There is nothing more serious than mud. This mud will change the world!" He informed her dramatically, waving his muddy arms around a bit in the process.
"Uhuh." She said doubtfully.
Dave rolled over again to make a new mud angel, only to find himself face to face with a frog.
"Ribbit," the frog croaked.
Dave looked at the frog. The frog looked at Dave.
"I know what I must do." Dave said, and took out a sniper rifle from his inventory, and placed it in front of the frog.
"Ribbit."
"So you press the button," He began explaining the sniper rifle to the frog, "and it makes that part shoot out a thing that destroys what it is pointing at."
"Oh, so you'll teach a frog how to shoot but not me?" Lisa groused.
Dave looked at her. "It's not about that." He protested. "It is simply the natural way of things. Everyone knows frogs are natural snipers. If someone got sniped in the head, it was probably a frog that did it. I'm just helping this one live up to its full potential." He told her.
Lisa just looked at him dubiously.
Author's Note: Another chapter down. Wanna know something weird? The day after I wrote this chapter, the Yogscast Main Channel released a new episode of Dread Hunger, which they haven't played in years. I wrote this chapter on 8/20/26, the new episode of Dread Hunger was released on 8/21/26. Bizarre eh?
Oh, you wanted to know what was causing Dave's soul so much bloatiness? Well, I'll tell you that particular item is similar to another item he already has that has been implied but not directly revealed. This new one was basically out of Dave's 'price range' so to speak, but he was just barely able to handle it by having gotten the Dread Thrall role, which doesn't do all that much, along with how incredibly connected this item is to both the Yogscast and Dave himself; it is probably the most 'discounted' item he will ever receive from TTT in fact. Even then, it is basically limited to what it does in TTT at the moment despite the many obvious upgrades it can get from Dave's soul expanding with it. Dave also was smart enough to not actually buy it just yet while his soul is settling.
Of course, at the moment, the other item that Dave already has had for a couple days has already received some upgrades, even if we haven't seen it on screen yet, so that one is actually better than his new one for the moment.
Bounty: One Terrorist Point for whoever first guesses the other item that has been implied, and one Burrito Point for whoever first guesses this new item that he got today.
