I can only assume that we have all heard of the vile Count Nostalgia at some point. Whether you were among those of us who fought a fierce fight against him and his four Generals or not, or whether you were a victim of his precise strikes on the cities of Agorix and Toidtopia, surely you must know of the Count. It is truly unfortunate that none of you ever knew him like I did. …Yes, I do admit that I knew him before the events that unfolded before us. However, there are some details that you should understand first, a little history lesson before I tell the tale of my experiences with the Count.
I come from another world, effectively exiled from my own home by my Queen, and I happened upon this world, your world, by pure chance. It has been about sixteen of your years since I first appeared here, and at first, all was well. I gathered a set of core, loyal employees to start up the first iteration of my famed business, TGOT Incorporated. That first iteration… was lost to time and space, for lack of better words. I gathered knowledge from the accident and gathered more resources and rebuilt my business, but it was an unfortunate time to rebuild, since there was a great Conflict that was happening at the time. Luckily, it was then that I made a pact with the one known as Thatguy, and together we were a mighty force, the likes of which you have not seen. This alliance quickly crumbled, due to factors beyond our control. My then-ally was …corrupted, for lack of a better term, and then he just vanished. For a time, it seemed as if your very world was ending itself, but even worse troubles were waiting for us.
Skirmishes were happening all over the world, and nobody made any attempt to stop any of them, for fear of retaliation. All of Agorix was promptly thrown into the Shadows, and it was all thanks to one miserable mage whom I will not recognize, for her sake. The time I had spent learning the ways of your world was wasted, and I had to learn the ways of this new world, although Agorix itself served as a beacon, the last remnant of your world. The technology in this new world took some getting used to, but the magic of this world was comparable to that of yours, and perhaps even to that of mine. In this world, they revealed themselves to me, and perhaps even to her. They promised us a speedy return back to your world, in exchange for my services, myriad as they are. I reluctantly agreed, and all that I will say on the matter is that I got to travel. A lot. I also met the one man you know as Count Nostalgia while working for them.
This despicable man loved tinkering with virtual reality technology, although his VR tech was different from both the VR tech of the new world and the VR tech of your world. He claimed that he was exiled from them, but I believe that he was talking about a different them than the them I normally talk about. If only I had recognized what he would become in the year to come. I could have crushed him like the wretched insect he was right then and there, for he was somewhat frail and ancient. We soon formed an alliance, to replace the one that my old friend Thatguy unwillingly shattered. Right after we agreed to work together on a new endeavor, they told me that it was time for all of us to return home, to your home. And so the entirety of Agorix walked away from the Shadows and back into the Light.
With the Count’s intellect and his technological know-how, combined with the vast resources that I had obtained throughout the years, we had created something beautiful. The ISLAND. I do not wish to talk about it, but I shall talk about it anyway, for the truth of the Count must be told. This first iteration of the ISLAND required nine subjects, and these nine subjects would be participants in one of the Count’s many ‘social experiments.’ One would be designated as a Murderer, and the others would be designated as Survivors, and they would be pit against each other, to see who lives and who dies. My role in this was to supply the subjects, and I traveled over to the Cutter’s Cove and kidnapped nine of the Covegoers. They were knocked unconscious, and they were strapped into these helmets, where they would be placed in a virtual seaside scenario that would lead to them crashing onto an island. The events that ensued afterwards would serve as data for future social experiments for the Count. At the end of this experiment, the Murderer outlived the other eight Survivors through a combination of cunning and pure luck. Deeming the experiment to be a success, the Count filed it away and ordered me to take care of the bodies of the Covegoers, dismissing me for a short time.
Several weeks had passed since then, and the Count asked me to return to his abode, for a new experiment was in the making. This time, he would need twenty subjects, so I went back to the Cove, but I was only able to scrounge up eighteen more Covegoers. I brought this up to the Count, since we were two subjects short, and he decided that the both of us would be the last two subjects, just so he could witness firsthand the madness that was sure to unfold. However, this experiment was not like the last one. There were three teams, all vying for control of a mysterious base on the planet Neptune and all the power that it entailed. Unbeknownst to them, the Count had rigged the portal to teleport everyone who stepped through it to the Island from the previous experiment, where he would reveal himself and what he gathered everyone for. In the end, those who survived were bewildered to realize that they were just pawns in Count Nostalgia’s latest game. After the experiment was over and the simulation was terminated, the Count declared that I was of no further use to him anymore. He demanded that I destroy the eighteen Covegoers in a similar fashion to the previous nine Covegoers, for he would need new subjects if he was to continue his experiments.
But do not think for a moment that I was content to simply walk away from this and let the Count continue with his social experiments. No. I tried to heal the mentally-fried Covegoers as best as I could and I sent those that were not rendered vegetative home. When I returned to the Count’s abode, I attempted to destroy his ISLAND technology, our magnum opus, but it refused to be reduced to nothing more than ashes, almost as if it was protected by some external force. I certainly did not remember shielding the tech with any of my magic. I then tried to extract any vital data from the system, but I was completely locked out; none of the passwords that I knew worked, and any workarounds I tried failed. The dastardly Count Nostalgia, for reasons unknown, had foreseen that I was going to ruin his life, and he had a counter to the methods I had in mind. Eventually, I realized that I would need some external help, and so I recruited a local ‘software and hardware technician’ to extract the information. Even then, they were only able to retrieve one scrap of information: the details of the Count’s third experiment.
This third experiment would be a return to the original Island, and it would require ten new subjects. That was the extent of the information I had, but I knew that it would take the Count a while to gather up new subjects. I gathered up my own team of Covegoers, armed them with knowledge, and sent them to the Count, so they could take down his operation from within the machine. Unfortunately, I underestimated the Count. I was whisked away by them under the pretense of official business, although they just wanted me to do some menial task for them. This task was also fairly confidential, but after it was completed, they informed me that my operation to strike down the Count failed.
It appeared that the Count had defeated my team and had uncovered an ancient secret while performing his latest experiment. He had then gathered up a team of four, or his Generals, if you will, and sent them off to protect key interests. I had directly aided the Count’s attempt at world domination through cooperating with him in the past, and I felt that it was my duty to knock him off his pedestal and defeat him once and for all. And so I did.
It was not a solo effort, for if the Count himself had defeated my admittedly not-so-elite agents, then surely he and his Generals would best me in direct combat. Luckily, there was a force gathering for the express purpose of defeating the Count and his Generals. The one you once knew as Llama led the crew, and I signed on fairly early. Soon, there were ten of us, and we were all prepared for this latest quest. There was Electros, Spikeboy, Toidenheimer, SmashBro, Crunchy, Hilman, TheDoc, Isaac, and Galactan. And then there was me, TGOT.
We struck at Dictator Birdbot’s Sky Fortress and defeated Dictator Birdbot, the first of Count Nostalgia’s four Generals. We invaded Castle Hitleg, and we toppled Rudolph Hitler, the second of four Generals. We met two of my old foes from the great Conflict of many years ago at the Castle, and defeated them as well. Crunchy became deluded at this point and believed himself to be the dead man Felderson, but we all shrugged this personality change off. Having defeated two of the Count’s Generals, we rejoiced for a short while before Llama informed us that Agorix was being sieged by some of Count Nostalgia’s forces, so we defeated his forces and came face to face with an old friend… Thatguy…
I knew him well during the Conflict, and I did not see him for a while after the Conflict’s end, believing him to be dead. And there he was, standing before us, fighting for the Count. I thought that he was simply a simulacrum, a copy of my former ally, but he struck with the full force of the Thatguy I once knew, and we all fell, the ten of us.
Our advisor, Llama, rescued us and allowed us to recuperate while we made our next plan of action. Once we were all healed up, we attacked Mr. Shadow’s Mountainside Stronghold and won a duel against Mr. Shadow, the third of the Count’s Generals. It was at this point where Crunchy, or Felderson as we came to know him, completely lost his mind and self-immolated. There was nothing we could have done for him, but luckily we picked up another teammate to replace him: Ceridran.
Once that was dealt with, we tackled Sir Phillip’s Majestic Mansion, only to realize that Sir Phillip was actually Robot Blathers, the nefarious laser-wielding automaton. No expertly-crafted disguise could have prevented us from defeating any foe, and so Robot Blathers was destroyed, the last of the Count’s four Generals. Thatguy was sitting in the background, congratulating us on our latest victory. I… feared him. I was not prepared to see my old friend once more after he triumphed over us in our last battle. We clashed our blades, dagger against katana, and we all engaged in another battle. The ten of us found the strength to defeat Thatguy, but he simply did not stay down. He was only there as a ruse to buy his Count more time… but for what?
As Llama picked us up from the Mansion, the sky shimmered for a brief moment before we saw the face of the fiend, the vile visage of Count Nostalgia. He told us how he had finally obtained the shards of the Gamma Crystal, a gemstone long thought to give raw, unlimited power and immortality to its wielder. He demonstrated his newfound power by showing us an image of Toidtopia right before he engulfed it in a series of vortexes, engulfing all structures and vaporizing all lifeforms within their vicinities. I believe that we all felt absolute terror during the Count’s demonstration, but we must have learned to ignore it, for we needed to succeed in our quest: to kill Count Nostalgia. The Count challenged us to come to his domain, the Gamma Dimension, where we would see who would be the ultimate victor.
Our favorite advisor directed the airship towards the portal to the Gamma Dimension, but the Count cast a spell from deep within his domain that struck the airship with extreme force, setting it on fire. We were all panicking, and we leaped off the airship and into the portal.
Llama did not come with us.
We walked onward with determination, conquering the strange manifestations that the Gamma Dimension was throwing at us. We soon approached this mysterious being, which said that it would provide us with the power needed to defeat the Count, if we could complete the ultimate test. And what was this ultimate test, you ask? We had to defeat our own shadows, doppelgangers that matched us in every way possible, except for our personalities. I know a thing or two about copying the abilities of others, and yet these Shadows seemed to know everything we were going to do. The Shadows, however, did not realize that they could fight as a team, and so we eradicated them. The being kept its word and empowered us, giving us strength that would match that of the Count’s.
We proceeded to march forth, further into the Gamma Dimension, and it was there that we refused to believe what we saw. Count Nostalgia’s Generals were all alive and present in front of us. Whether or not they were holograms or the real deal, they still had fighting spirit in them, and they all refused to be defeated. I realized that the Generals were only there to guard the Count’s Computer, which I recognized as the ISLAND. The very thing that had enabled the Count to become so powerful was here, and it looked so helpless. I didn’t sense the aura that protected it back in your world, so I knew that it was safe to touch. We then worked on disassembling the ISLAND, dodging and occasionally parrying the Generals’ onslaught, and once we succeeded, the Generals dropped to the floor, deprived of their strength. The Generals tried getting up, but only Dictator Birdbot and Rudolph Hitler were able to escape, with Mr. Shadow and Robot Blathers staying on the ground.
We moved beyond the Count’s Computer Room, and once again we came face to face with Thatguy. He too was given strength by Count Nostalgia, and he was invigorated, ready to tear us to shreds. It was a dire battle, with each of our blows being traded for many of his sword slashes, but we bested him yet again, and it seemed as if he ran out of life force. Galactan tried to strike him while he was down, but I commanded him not to. Even though Thatguy was on the side of the Count, he could be reformed, and perhaps I could rekindle the pact we once had.
And then, there he was. Count Nostalgia. He descended from the skies, holding his beloved cane, undoubtedly an inferior clone of my then-missing scepter. He continued to berate us, declaring that he would be the one to triumph over all, and establish his rule over your world and perhaps even all other worlds. He was not the frail old man I once knew him as. He struck with intensity and precision, casting powerful spells that no mortal or immortal should know. I do not know how we defeated him, but we managed to. However, once he fell to his knees, he pulled out the Gamma Crystal from underneath his lab coat, and infused his own aura with it. His eyes glowed and he radiated absolute power, releasing intense waves that knocked us all away. We stood our ground against this new, upgraded Count, but then he whisked five of us away elsewhere. I was one of those five.
We did not know where we were, but when we got to our feet, we saw a giant version of the Gamma Crystal and three smaller versions of the Gamma Crystal. They were all encased in a protective aura that none of us could penetrate, and we played the waiting game. Eventually, their auras dissipated, and we could finally strike at the Crystals. They all each had their own repertoire of spells that were specially designed to obliterate us, but we resisted them to the fullest extent of our abilities, and we went on a full offensive, shattering the smaller Crystals before attacking the Gamma Crystal. The protective aura came back a short while later, and we took this time to rest up, before we had to finish the fight. Only a few seconds passed before we got another chance to attack the Gamma Crystal, and we finally saw a crack in it.
However, the Count materialized as an aural projection, and gave us a choice: we could either destroy the Gamma Crystal and risk the destruction of all Dimensions or become his new Generals to rule over your world. I will assume you know which choice we picked. The Count was displeased with us and summoned explosions all around us, coming exceptionally close to killing us. He taunted us once more and tried repairing the Gamma Crystal, only for aural projections of the rest of the party to appear as well. Nevertheless, the Count was genuinely surprised to see projections of our allies. He stopped repairing the Gamma Crystal, and realized what was about to transpire. And so the final offensive began.
Isaac played the Chant of Chronos, freezing the Count in time.
Hilman set himself ablaze, leaped in the air…
SmashBro completed the Elemental Set of Magic, blasting the Gamma Crystal with his three strongest spells.
Ceridran unleashed a flurry of tornado kicks on the Gamma Crystal, spinning it around multiple times.
…and Hilman landed on the Gamma Crystal, hopped back up, and landed on it again, further cracking the Gamma Crystal.
Toidenheimer discarded his bow and tackled the Gamma Crystal, knocking it backwards.
TheDoc fired his own three strongest Elemental spells into the skies and crashed a comet into the Gamma Crystal, cracking it even further.
Galactan consolidated three of his own spells into a bomb and launched it at the Gamma Crystal.
Electros threw a Sun Sword and then a second Sun Sword at the Gamma Crystal, with the second Sun Sword being thrown with a little bit more flair.
Spikeboy… kicked the Gamma Crystal.
Count Nostalgia soon regained his ability to move, and he spoke with such fury, but he also emanated an aura of desperation. He incapacitated all of us with a large bolt of electricity and proceeded to ignore us as he started repairing the Gamma Crystal. Once more, he ridiculed us. Once more, he put us down. He doubted our ability to triumph in the face of adversity.
And I… backstabbed the Gamma Crystal.
The Gamma Crystal shattered, and intense light flooded the area, blinding all of us, and we heard the agonizing scream of a man being engulfed by raw power, being absorbed by the light, and then the light disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. The only thing that remained from the Count was his cane. A portal appeared underneath us, and then there was nothing.
We all came to, waking up in an airship that was more extravagant than Llama’s was, and from that moment I knew that our quest was completed. A voice spoke to us, and I felt partly startled and partly relieved. The voice belonged to Thatguy, who was bound to Count Nostalgia through the power of the Gamma Crystal. Everyone had questions for Thatguy, and he answered them all sufficiently. The one we knew as Electros revealed himself to be the one known as Slen, and he leaped off the airship, lost to time. Thatguy thanked us for saving the world. He thanked us for completing our quest. And so we watched the sun rise on that day, knowing that we had made this day and many others possible.
It has been three years to that day. Ever since the end of our Quest, I have been content to do nothing more than rebuild my company to be better than ever, harass the locals, and work with them. I even took some time off to visit my true home, and nothing has really changed over there. And now, another Conflict appears to be brewing. But I have heard from them that a new team has been assembled to confront this newest threat before it threatens to throw the entirety of your world into turmoil once more. A team of six, with my former ally acting as the leader and as the seventh member. Apparently, this team has also been organized by an old friend of mine I presumed dead many years ago. I genuinely cannot believe that they have come back from the dead. What we… what I… experienced many years ago… was something that we should not have survived. And yet I did.
So, today, we learned to never converse with a Count. If I had learned that way back when, then we could have prevented all of this from happening. Fate is fickle sometimes, and we must recognize that. We must continue onward with our lives. For the glory of whomever we fight for, whether you fight for your family, for your friends, for your superiors, or for yourself. And perhaps you shall, in time, lead your own force of brave adventurers in a mighty quest to vanquish the ultimate evil.
..At least, whatever constitutes evil in your world.
And by the way... Those tales that I have just recounted to you?
You shall forget them.
All of them.