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“So this is what my own mind thinks of me, huh???”
Build, Ephemeralquest

Masonquest is a set of three image-only cutscenes created by TwinBuilder for what would become Meanwhile, In The Future in response to One Year Older and Infamy. They tell the story of Build's experiences in between his arrival at the Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron HQ (as shown in One Year Older) and his arrival at the Zeroth Server's Yggdrasil (as shown in Destroy the Godmodder 0rigins' Over Nine Thousand Trillion Years Older). The cutscenes forming Masonquest are Daddyquest, Corporateclusterfuckquest (or Corporatequest), and Ephemeralquest, which is in progress.

The cutscenes resemble a cross between an MS Paint Adventure and a normal webcomic. They contain only images, with dialogue being handwritten inside them (bar sections of Ephemeralquest that intentionally contain text to reference Destroy the Godmodder 2's cutscenes), an idea never before attempted in the Destroy the Godmodder series. Masonquest was initially uploaded on the DTG Discord, but was eventually reuploaded to its own server, which would become the MITF Discord. Daddyquest and Corporatequest were uploaded in real time - as soon as TwinBuilder finished a panel, he uploaded it. Ephemeralquest strayed from this format, with various parts being released in chunks, or "Acts," though eventually "Acts" were released in increments as opposed to all at once. After some time, Ephemeralquest was reuploaded to MS Paint Fan Adventures, where it updates concurrently with the MITF Discord.

Daddyquest and Corporatequest were uploaded before Infamy. Infamy's fifth and final part both explained their nature and directly set up Ephemeralquest. 

Daddyquest

Daddyquest began with DADDY, a corruption of Dad Egbert from Homestuck created by the Refiner's Fire during Jeff the Scientist, talking directly to the members of the DTG Discord. However, shortly afterwards, the screen filled with green as Build reclaimed control of the narrative prompt. (During Infamy, there was revealed to have been an offscreen fight between DADDY and Build. Build's victory in this fight is what let him retake control.) Build then muttered angrily as he walked across the screen, before stopping and turning to the screen, noticing something.

A pink glow swarmed across the screen, Build's red glasses turning bright pink. The view shifted to show a blob of pink fire hovering next to a warped view of the Destroy the Godmodder Discord. When Build tried to talk to the fire, it spun out of control, images flashing across the screen as Build ran away. Shadowy hands streamed from the fire in hot pursuit. Build, apparently knowing that the members of the DTG Discord were watching him, asked for help in the fight, but when no effective help was offered, the hands converged on Build's position.

Out of nowhere, an amber figure sliced clean through the swarm of hands, disposing of them in one strike. When Build asked who the figure was, they responded "good question," though their goggles, distinctive coat, and amber text was meant to be clues pointing towards their identity as the Scribe. When Build asked where he was now, the figure responded with "the Ends of the Earth, of course." This sent Build into complete shock, with the Scribe telling Build that if he let the Scribe open the Gate, Build could finally go home. The adventure ended with the Discord sign-in screen.

Corporateclusterfuckquest

Corporateclusterfuckquest, otherwise known solely as Corporatequest, was significantly longer than Daddyquest. It began with Build walking through a formless grey void and making small talk with the members of the Destroy the Godmodder memo, who he once again knew were watching. After a short time, Build's destination was revealed as a grey door framed against an amethyst sky. 

Once Build made it to this door (which contained the symbol of an 8), he was greeted by Malpeiyc, a character from TheLordErelye's DTG-unrelated text adventure, Abyssal Oddity. Malpeiyc was confused at how Build didn't recognize him, despite the fact that he himself played Abyssal Oddity. Upon hearing the phrase "abyssal oddity," Build's glasses turned to a shade of navy, and he became completely confused that the game was being reference, since its universe was non-canonical to Fiction. Malpeiyc replied that anything was possible within a dream, and that Build should capitalize on this experience to figure out what was on the other side of the door.

When Build opened the door, he exited the other side from a set of amethyst curtains, falling flat on his face and disturbing a meeting involving many characters from Abyssal Oddity. The characters involved were Azure Lapis, a half-gem half-human serving as the game's protagonist, the R4 Council, four different gems known as BASILISCUS, CALBALAKRAB, FOMALHAUT, and TASCHETER, a blue cube named the Godhead, a black door known as S.O.L.I.D.U.S., and one of Malpeiyc's eyes. Build, realizing he'd disturbed something important that didn't concern him, resolved to run away entirely. However, using her hydrokinesis, Azure flung Build back into the room with a water hand, saying that he did need to be at this conference.

Azure continued, saying that Build was meant to represent Fiction within the conference, and everyone else was to represent Abyssal Oddity's own Fiction (referred to in the adventure as Masonic Fiction and Kalarean Fiction, respectively). The purpose of the conference was to sort out Adagnitio Science's (an organization within Abyssal Oddity's universe, presumably) purchase of the entirety of MTT INDUSTRIES. When Build expressed incredulity at the notion of buying MTT INDUSTRIES, Azure said that all the kinks in the process had already been dealt with, and that this was meant to finalize the deal - immediately after Build signed on the deal, "[his] company would be property of the Kristalli Imperium."

Now expressing confusion that Azure called MTT INDUSTRIES his own company, Build asked what she meant, revealing that she had mistakenly believed he was Jeff Mason (codenamed Interrobang), a member of the Advanced Superiors that oversaw the organization's activities. Just as this came to light, Interrobang himself entered the room. Interrobang told Build to leave, and that he would handle the deal. Build left in a rage, now upset that he'd miss what would likely be an interesting meeting.

Leaving through the curtains, Build started walking back down the path, directing his anger at Malpeiyc by flipping him off. Now amused by Build's attempt at anger, Malpeiyc told Build that he could help him sneak back into the meeting undetected by giving Build his suit. Build hesitantly agreed to the deal, and was promptly revolted when Malpeiyc took off the suit, revealing his grotesque endoskeleton underneath. Build hurriedly put the suit on and headed back through the door, with no one noticing his presence.

Build came back in time to hear Interrobang describe the root cause of the meeting - Adagnitio Science had filed a complaint at MTT INDUSTRIES because the company was in league with a force called Athena's Parliament, whereas Abyssal Oddity also contained an elite group known as The Parliament, prompting a lawsuit and eventual takeover attempt. Interrobang proposed an alternative - instead of buying out MTT INDUSTRIES, the company would just change Athena's Parliament's name. It would be significantly harder, but MTT INDUSTRIES would come out relatively unscathed.

Malpeiyc's Eye objected to this, viewing it as an excuse to get out of the merger when all the tedious paperwork had already been sorted through and the deal was so close to completion. Interrobang said he'd never hand the keys of existence over to Adagnitio, and the Eye replied with "maybe you won't. But he might," promptly shining a red beam of light onto Build's position and revealing that he knew his existence. However, no one else was able to see him - the Eye was only aware since Build was wearing his own suit.

Interrobang flew into a rage at this, accusing the Kalarean forces of conjuring up meaningless and charades to distract him from the truth, and saying it was a mistake to involve him. The Eye countered by saying that he didn't even need to involve Interrobang, and that he could take MTT INDUSTRIES all on his own. Right when it seemed that the two were about to engage in an epic battle, the Eye crushed Interrobang's head instantly, killing him. His red sunglasses landed near Build, who put them on right as the Eye was about to attack him as well.

Using his sunglasses and Interrobang's, Build invoked the powers of the ten Curses of the Order, charging up some kind of final attack as green energy spiraled around him. Malpeiyc's Eye warned everyone to meatshield the impending attack - they'd survive since they were only mindscape clones, but since the Eye was solely an incorporeal entity, he would die for real if he was caught in its blast. When Azure asked what the attack contained, Malpeiyc's sole reply was "DEATH."

Build proceeded to apparently metamorphose into/summon a gargantuan cloaked figure with six arms, six wings, a geometrical necklace, and an obscured head gleaming with white light. The figure closely parallels previous descriptions of Metatron. This figure covered the entire field in white light. The adventure ended with the Discord sign-in screen, referencing the end of Daddyquest.

Ephemeralquest (There Is No Exit)

Ephemeral000

Ephemeralquest, formally known as Ephemeralquest (There Is No Exit), is the third and final installment of Masonquest. By far the longest of the three quests, is intended as a finale to their story arc, which was continued through Infamy. It is the longest cutscene ever created for Destroy the Godmodder, with 688 released images so far. Due to its size, Ephemeralquest is split up into parts, acts, and segments.

  • Parts are clearly delineated in the story with special logos and names. Each part represents an large chunk of the story with its own challenges.
  • Acts are delineated in the MITF Discord. Every act and intermission represents a chunk of the story that was created over the course of multiple weeks and uploaded in one day by TwinBuilder. However, Acts 4 and 5 broke from this format, with TwinBuilder uploading batches of images as he created them.
  • Segments are internally delineated by TwinBuilder. Every segment represents a "scene" where Build faces a new memory (or memories) and is forced to interact with them. Neither intermission counts as a segment.

Part 1 consists of Act 1 (Segments 1-3) and Act 2 (Segments 4-5). Part 2 consists of Intermission 1, Act 3 (Segments 6-8), and Act 4 (Segment 9-13). Part 3 consists of Intermission 2 and Act 5 (Segments 14-17).

Background Info

In Infamy's fifth and final chapter, Metal Rain, Build was escorted to an infirmary within the Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron HQ due to his odd and frequent dreams and headaches. He was carefully examined by the titular Metal Rain, a device that could enter his mindscape and display his dreams to personnel. This revealed that the earlier two quests were dreams within Build's mindscape. Despite Corporatequest containing Abyssal Oddity characters, they were hypothetical representations of those characters placed in a scenario created by Build's mind.

Build being able to create such vivid scenarios involving characters existing beyond Fiction was revealed to be caused by his broken mind, which was still fractured from his tumultuous Shatter and his then-recent separation from the Operator. The only possible cure was to fundamentally change his mindscape, and it was probable that this process could remove him from reality. 

As Build exited the infirmary, he was ambushed by Goanna67. Previously thought to be a troll that popped up randomly and did nothing of substance, Goanna67 was gradually shown through DTG2 and MITF to be incredibly powerful, intelligent, and charismatic. He broke out of the Lotus Eater Machine he had been contained in during Trial 6 and swore revenge on TwinBuilder, who Goanna knew was responsible for trapping him within the machine. As payback, Goanna blasted Build with a shotgun that knocked him into a coma, dragging him into an unknown land after referring to him by his real name, Adam Mason.

Part 1: A Look Inside Your Mind (What Do You See?)

Ephemeral001

Act 1: Everything is Grey Today

Segment 1: We Wait For Eternity

Ephemeralquest began with Goanna and Build in a blank space. Goanna had shed his organic form, presenting himself as a bare mechanical body known as Goannabot. He activated a rectangular prism surrounding Build, covering him with panels similar to the Metal Rain machine. Now, Goanna could view Build's torment as he was locked within his mindscape "for eternity."

Asleep within his mindscape, Build started falling through a limitless void, urging himself to wake up. Once he did, he tried and failed to prevent himself from falling. After adjusting to his surroundings, Build was overcome with disgust that he was trapped inside his mindscape once more. Remembering the events of Infamy, Build resolved to wake up and fight Goanna, even if he had no idea how. As he was reflecting on this, Waluigi appeared within his mind.

Segment 2: Thyme of Need

Build told Waluigi to get out of his mind, but Waluigi revealed that he was his mind - this was just a mental projection of Build's own consciousness speaking to him in the form of Waluigi. Not caring, Build prepared to attack Waluigi, but Waluigi urged him to stop, saying he had a gift. Waluigi promptly summoned a bottle of Waluigi Thyme that only had one remaining use, going on to say that he had a vision of Build using the Thyme in a time of need. Weighing the odds, Build decided to take the Waluigi Thyme, and ran off when Waluigi announced that he had plans to kill Build in the future. Irritated that his gift was repaid with fear, Waluigi left in disgust.

Segment 3: Doors I (A Maze)

Some time passed, with Build not finding much other than emptiness within his mindscape until he saw a pedestal on the horizon. Running to it, he pulled Oblivion's Guardian out of its top. Armed with a proper weapon, Build was left to wonder what he'd need this sword for. He was then startled when a large set of goldenrod curtains materialized behind him, with a staircase leading up to them. Build ran up the staircase and looked through the curtains, which contained inky blackness.

After Build walked for a brief period of time, the lights clicked on in the chamber, revealing a massive expanse populated entirely by floating stone doors. Every door had a symbol on them, and every door represented a memory. When opened, the door would reveal the corresponding memory. Finding a door whose symbol depicted a person running through a pair of portals, Build opened it. On the other side was a wounded Build without his green jacket standing within Old Aperture. Build slammed the door with distaste, resolving to try another one.

Build opened a door containing a pentagon with a circle at each of its points and a circle in the middle. This revealed a view of the corkboard within his bedroom, full of images of ideas for stories Build wanted to tell. Slamming this one too, and now properly angered, Build yelled to Goanna, saying that if this was a joke, it wasn't funny, and that Build was preparing to kick his "shiny metal ass." Realizing he just accidentally quoted Gutza1, Build slipped further into rage. Angered that he spent his entire quest so far doing nothing, Build resolved to start doing constructive things, starting with the very next step he took.

Act 2: Colon Backslash

Segment 4: You Can Do Anything

Build's next step was over empty space, as he was standing above an open door. Pulled in by an apparently magnetic force, Build was powerless as he tumbled through the doorframe and into an open door. It closed behind him, revealing its symbol as a Tiger Claw. Build proceeded to tumble through a dark area filled with smoky clouds. Once he touched down, Build drew his sword and encountered a black silhouette with a crudely drawn green face.

The figure, whose identity was unknown, proceeded to dematerialize Build's sword, telling Build to be quiet. Before anything else could happen, the black figure glitched out and exploded, destroying the black void in a column of smoke. Build coughed and complained of a headache, followed by an unknown voice saying that of course his head would be hurting, as he's inside his head right now. The being introduced herself as Roxxanne, a character of The_Nonexistent_Tazz from Destroy the Godmodder: Terraria Edition. She had no intention to kill Build like he feared, and instead wanted to help him. Attempting to assuage Build's fears that she was just a representation of his mind and not real like Waluigi was, Roxxanne told him that it was much easier for his mind to 'fake' someone he'd seen before than someone he'd never seen, meaning that Roxxanne was almost definitely real.

Build then asked if she knew the identity of the black silhouette, which Roxxanne said was just a way for her to make a flashy entrance. She then told Build, when asked why she was in his mind, that her "employer" (identity unknown, and not someone Build would easily remember) sent her to gather information. Sensing that Build's rapidly increasing disbelief in Roxxanne's trustworthiness, she urged Build to not always overanalyze every situation he was in and to stop letting forces of plot dictate his actions and paralyze him, instead forging his own independent path based on impulse and his feelings. However, Build countered by saying that every time he did something based on how he felt (like joining Minecraft and starting DTG2) it always turned out poorly for everyone involved. Build's theory was that his overanalyzation was a result of his mind attempting to overcompensate for its newfound lack of the Operator's omniscience, leading to his emotional stagnation since DTG2's end and his unwillingness to feel and act on his own.

Roxxanne said that although she knew how Build felt and understood how tumultuous his history in the Godmodding Wars was, she didn't think his reasons to be afraid were valid. Build shouldn't let his past mistakes define him; he should conquer and learn from them. Furthermore, since he's a Descendant, he was perfectly able of doing it, since Descendants can do anything. This allowed Build to realize that his quest was to become a better person and learn from his past, so that he would have the power to defeat Goanna and make his own destiny when he woke up. Roxxanne congratulated him for regaining his spark, and Build thanked her for the inspirational speech.

After Roxxanne messed with Build by lying about him being unable to leave the memory, she gave him a useful tip - he could always leave a memory through the door which he entered from, which will usually never change position and usually stay intact. Build's final question was what this area was a memory of, since it was just a blank Roxxanne-occupied void. Roxxanne explained that she took one of Build's memories and turned it into a memory of their conversation (the conversation itself was visible infinitely repeating in the distance) just so they could talk. Although Build was angered at Roxxanne for manipulating his memories, his anger subsided quickly. He told Roxxanne his codename of Build (admitting that it wasn't his real name), and left the memory on good terms, flying to the door that he came through.

Segment 5: Doors II (Forever and Ever Dot Com)

Build exited the memory with Oblivion's Guardian in hand, resolving to continue his strategy of heading through other memory doors on the road to confronting his past. The first door was inscribed with the logo of MS Paint Adventures. When Build opened it, he saw a younger version of himself in his room, looking at Homestuck for seemingly the first time. Build wondered if he was on the wrong site, since its art looked at odds with the usual layout of webcomics, leading him to ask the camera who would waste their time reading Homestuck, calling out the numerous fans of the comic within DTG. Build shut the door shortly after, wondering about what could have happened if he hadn't read Homestuck, and how differently DTG2 might have turned out, if at all.

The second door was inscribed with the profile of the front of the Twinmobile. When Build opened it, he saw himself (combined with the Operator) within the Twinmobile, staring at the Earth from above. Past Build reflected on how he always wanted to go to space when he was young, and that although orbiting the Earth wasn't as earth-shattering as entering another universe, it was still a notable sight. Before he could talk much further, a teleporter began activating in the middle of the Twinmobile. Fearing an attack from Project Binary, Past Build's hand lit up in green flame. However, when the teleporter fully activated, it was the Duck that emerged from it.

The Duck immediately squawked and pulled a Quad Laser on Past Build. Sensing the Duck's latent power, Past Build surrendered, putting his hands up and attempting to stop the Duck from shooting by lying about their fake past friendship. The Duck believed the lie, dropping the Quad Laser and kicking it to the other side of the room at Past Build's insistence. Build introduced himself to the Duck, saying that the Duck could join Build as long as he could handle the harshness of the Void. The Duck decided to join Build, although he immediately regretted this decision.

Build shut the door, reflecting on the good times he shared with the Duck during Acts 3 and 4 of DTG2. He then decided to keep opening doors. However, after many were opened without meaningful consequence, and Build encountered forty-nine consecutive memories of him simply updating DTG2, he asked his mind for "a sign." Immediately, Build was plunged into pitch-black darkness, with a beam of light shining on a door lacking a symbol. When Build opened it, he entered a real-life entirely monochrome room containing, among other things, two windows, a bed, a Minecraft poster, and a desk. Build stared in complete shock, tentatively sticking his hand through the open door. As Build's hand passed through the boundary, it turned real and monochrome until the door abruptly slammed shut, severing Build's right hand off of his body. He merely stared and cried in disbelief as the scene faded out, ending Part 1.

Part 2: Me and Myself (Like the Sun and the Moon)

Intermission 1: For They Know Not What They Do

Ephemeral173

Ephemeralquest resumed with an intermission from Goanna's perspective. Goanna, seemingly ignoring Build's mental struggles, had decided to watch Hot Fuzz in the meantime. Although he was enjoying the movie, he was interrupted by a phone call from Ellavagod, a notable noob from DTG2 who, within Ephemeralquest, was presented as his blatantly overpowered in-game character - a frighteningly tall and imposing assassin/deity - but spoke in just as bad grammar as the actual Ellavagod. Ellavagod said that he, and some of his friends, wanted to join Goanna's "movie night." Although Goanna was seemingly upset at how fake and contrived Ellavagod's deity-like powers were, he said that he "wouldn't have it any other way," inviting Ellavagod and his friends. Ellavagod hung up, saying that "the time has come."

Goanna decided to dress up for his guests, turning his naked robotic form into an actual Minecraftian form, still clad with a shotgun. Immediately afterwards, Ellavagod and his friends entered Goanna's pocket dimension. His friends (also Goanna's friends) were revealed to be other noobs from DTG history: Kaijulord, a perpetually happy child(?) with a large blue sword that spoke of an impending kaiju invasion, Nulitor, presented as a black silhouette that cast a shadow on anything and everything, Thartler, a figure glad in grey-purple armor with a quiver and a plasma cannon, and Dungkaka, a clone of Build that highly resembled him, but in completely wrong colors.

Goanna welcomed his guests, asking what movies they wanted to watch. The conversation was interrupted when Dungkaka noticed Build hovering in the Metal Rain-esque container. Notably, his speech seemed to consist of stitched together letters taken directly from DTG2 (primarily its original post). Goanna insisted that it was nothing important, but when Dungkaka kept pressing the matter, Goanna told him that he was a clone of Build, to which Dungkaka reacted with surprise. Seeing Build gave Goanna an idea; he decided the night's movie would be Ephemeralquest itself. Goanna switched the television to channel "1207" and started the movie. The scene then abruptly switched to a view of red curtains on a black background, beginning Part 2 proper.

Act 3: The Great Enemy Called I

Segment 6: Next Level of the Nightmare

Build began slowly walking out of the curtains, clutching his arm in apparently intense pain, which had been dripping green blood since the incident behind the blank door. Build came to a rest at the foot of a ruined green pillar, lamenting at how his attempts to change led to him losing his hand. After he sarcastically thanked himself and heard a voice reply "You're welcome," Build turned to see The Operator floating behind the pillar. This incarnation of the Operator had holes seared through his head where his eyes would be, with red orbs in the middle of the open cavities, and shards of dripping red glass around his head. Interestingly, he also lacked a right hand, and instead had a pool of red liquid.

Though Build was initially curious as to how the Operator could be alive, he deduced from what Roxxanne said that because he'd seen the Operator outside his mind, that meant he was a figment of his mind. The Operator sarcastically congratulated Build at correctly exercising simple logic, offering to "give him a hand" - which literally meant lowering his severed hand on a chain from the nonexistent ceiling. The Operator taunted Build into retrieving his hand, but when Build tried by cutting the chain with Oblivion's Guardian, the severed hand burst into flames before Build could use it.

Build looked back at the Operator, whose hand had smoke curling off of it. The Operator sarcastically apologized, saying that his hand had "slipped." The Operator then Build he'd showed up to give Build advice and torture him. The Operator also mentioned that he would explode in three minutes' time due to paradoxes. When Build legitimately asked for his hand back, the Operator launched into a diatribe about how Build's subconscious mind was intentionally rebelling against his conscious desires for his hand, as somewhere deep inside Build's mind, he felt that the loss of his hand was jus and wouldn't be corrected until Build had atoned for his mistakes - until he'd changed who he was. The Operator discussed how Build was keen on calling himself and the representations of mind that he'd encountered separate entities, when they weren't - they were just hidden layers of Build himself.

When the Operator suggested that Build's subconscious was actively working against Build's conscious desires to "go home" (seemingly linked to the door slam at the end of Part One), Build, fed up, yelled at the Operator to shut up, conjuring a flaming ball of emerald that he then condensed into a single cueball-like projectile. It was shot through the Operator's chest, leaving a hole that slowly corrupted him with paradoxes, just as prophesied. As the Operator deteriorated, he told Build that although he believed he was incapable of change and that his inability to accept the truth would hurt him, the end-goal of his journey was to reach the "edge of his mind" - a location that was able to exist since Build's mind had been cleaved in half by a Shatter years prior.

After telling Build he would "pay" for his warped views about himself, the Operator regressed into a warped, static mockery of his former self, pillars of paradox energy forming around him. Build ducked for cover behind the green pillar, the only object left standing in the maelstrom, just as the Operator violently exploded. As the smoke cleared, Build found that the explosion had left a hole in the floor that led back to his mind proper - resolving to head to the edge of his mind, Build jumped down the hole, landing back in the expanse with the doors containing his memories.

Segment 7: Doors III (Just Some Mockery)

Continuing his strategy of opening doors to confront his memories, Build opened the first door he saw - it was emblazoned with the image of a triangle with a dot inside of it. The door opened into a purple expanse that Build didn't recognize, although the figure inside it did. Having hijacked Build's mind was The Voice Inside Your Head, a figure from the lore of SiIvaGunner. The Voice choked Build upon entering, pondering what exactly he was - a Figment or a Human - before deciding that he was a tumor. (This scene matched up with a command output from the Pinary ARG that described the Voice locking Build in a chokehold and interrogating him.) The Voice continued to explain that it wasn't meant as an insult - he classified himself as a tumor too, as both him and Build were bringers of unparalleled change that spread quickly and irreversibly from the inside.

Reprising his role as a rebooter of canon from SiIvaGunner, the Voice proposed that Build should join him in the new reality he would strive to create, one free from "weeaboo bullshit," "pesky noobs," and "Minions." Build dismissed the Voice's argument, saying that someone else was already trying to reboot reality, and the Voice should talk to him insterad. However, the Voice responded that he already had, transforming into a behemoth far beyond his normal dimensions - the Voice Inside Your Head was an alternate identity for the Shadow. Build's glasses turned black as he questioned why an Agent of the Conflict was inside his mind.

The Shadow reiterated his offer for Build to join his ranks, as he viewed Build as one of the "most potent" bringers of conflict in the Destroy the Godmodder series, and felt that Build would appreciate the opportunity to strike against the Descendants, those who had consistently attacked him since DTG2's end. However, Build echoed Roxxanne's words by saying that he refused to let forces of plot boss him around. Though upset at Build's denial, the Shadow refused to attack him on orders from his superior, Goanna himself. Goanna had explicitly stated that Build was meant to be kept alive in his mind so he could be tortured for as long as possible. Build's incredulity led the Shadow to explain Goanna's hatred - not only had Build locked him in a Lotus Eater Machine for several months, he had also, according to Goanna, "taken away someone close to him," although he was unable to remember exactly who it was.

In a similar manner to how the Shadow acted in the Godmodder's many nightmares, he then raised his foot over Build's body, giving him a choice to either stand his ground or run. Build, remembering how the Godmodder staying put was what led the Shadow to stop attacking him, stayed still in complete panic. Though Build passed the test of character as a result, the Shadow urged Build to not borrow the plans of others, and to instead build his own victory. The Shadow then prepared to leave, still expressing shame at how Build couldn't understand his (and the Conflict's) advice, but commenting on how his "brother" had, the identity of whom is uncertain.

As the Shadow prepared to leave, Build, wracked by paranoia about Roxxanne's comments on determining what entities were real and fake inside his mindscape, asked the Shadow if he was just a representation of his subconscious. The Shadow, picking up on the doubt Roxxanne had planted in Build's mind, warned Build not to trust her, and said that entities Build had already seen weren't necessarily fake - they could be either/or. After conjuring a white portal and commenting to Build about how Build should "make [his] own luck," the Shadow departed, filling the area with white light. Blinded, Build struggled to find the exit door, eventually succeeding.

Segment 8: Doors IV (ME)

Build wandered for a bit before finding a door with the image of a door on it. Opening it revealed a circular platform in a black expanse; the other end of the circle held another door with the image of a door on it. Opening it revealed another circular platform in a grey expanse lit by faint light, with yet another door. This continued a few more times until Build entered a vast white expanse with shimmering sunbeams. From infinity, Build heard a voice boom in Cyrillic, and assumed an expression of fear and shock in response. The voice urged Build to shut the door and leave, as "the darkness" from it was bothering them. Once Build did, the voice thanked him. Build proceeded to stroll out of the series of chambers, completely determined to never return.

Act 4: You Must Recall

Segment 9: Bits of Truth

After leaving, Build contemplated what he'd seen, deciding that he had no memory of the figure or the white room, so it was just another intruder. However, at this, Build's glasses flared up with red energy, causing him visible pain. Each time Build insisted that he'd never seen what was on the other side of the door before, his glasses flared up again, even beginning to talk, calling him a "liar" and a "fool." As Build's vision darkened, he pulled off his glasses in anger. Immediately after doing so, Build was warped into a jagged monochrome version of himself, and his surroundings became black, but only for a split second. Expressing confusion, Build asked his glasses about the disturbance. When the "warp" occurred again, effecting the doors around him, Build ran from the spot, dropping his glasses in his haste.

Though initially outrunning nothing in particular and just trying to escape whatever the "warps" were, each successive warp saw a series of three red memory doors (and shadowy clones of Build) pursue him. Two doors shot beams of scarlet energy at Build that urged him to tell the truth (in the real plane) and showed an image of an eye (in the warped plane). The doors spoke with the voice of Build's glasses, saying that they another representation of his subconscious, and that if he refused to remember what had happened, then they would force him to.

The third red door proceeded to open every memory door in a large radius around Build simultaneously, flooding the area with conversations from each memory and giving him sensory overload, all while the "warps" continued to occur. Build's pleads for the din to stop and the doors' repeated insistence for Build to tell the truth led Build to confess that the figure in his memory was Metatron, and that he'd seen him in person before. Build's vision "warped" one last time, showing an image of Metatron himself before deteriorating in an explosion. As the smoke cleared, a staircase leading to a new area materialized in front of Build.

Segment 10: Speak of the Devil

Build addressed his glasses' voice, saying that he'd told the truth and asking if it was happy. After an uncomfortable silence, Build saw that he'd regained his right hand, which was white and had a sixth finger. Holding Oblivion's Guardian, Build walked up the 344-step staircase, falling at the top due to exhaustion and poor vision. Build realized that ever since he'd taken off his glasses, his vision had been deteriorating, even though he didn't his glasses to see. A red bolt of energy then passed through his head, burning the ground - Build's red glasses had returned.

Build's glasses spoke, saying that Build needed them to "truly" see, that "it all comes back to the sixty-four bits," and that without them, he would be incapable of change. Build, deciding that he'd already come too far, put his glasses on, stopping the voice entirely. Build reminisced on Metatron; although He'd died before Build "got here," He was responsible for something serious that Build refused to discuss further. As Build talked, a memory door with the [AG] symbol appeared via red flame behind him.

Sensing that he was about to seriously confront his past, Build readied himself, but right as he was about to open the door, a set of words interrupted him that belonged to Build's subconscious representation of his "narrator self," which had appeared several times prior. The Narrator offered to narrate whatever Build saw behind the door in text form, turning Ephemeralquest from an image-only story into one structured more like the cutscenes of DTG2, albeit only temporarily (since the door would show events from DTG2's era). Feeling that it was fitting, Build agreed to the plan.

The memory door led to GodCraft's Battlefield during the Homestuck Invasion of Act 2. What proceeded was a recount of the End-of-Turn Battle on Page 235, in which, according to the wishes of TT2000, TwinBuilder had been forced to successfully damage the Godmodder in combat or be hit by TT's 100-Post Cannon. The two trash-talked each other and discussed life and death before TwinBuilder utilized the Narrative to deal 4 damage to the Godmodder.

The Anti-Godmodder players of DTG2 rushed to TwinBuilder, carrying him off to the Forge and celebrating his heroic act. As the AGs gathered into the Forge, they explained that they wanted to learn about TwinBuilder's true nature; some worried that TwinBuilder's godlike powers could be used as a threat, and were unsure of how to deal with the creator of their game standing before them. Trying to salvage the conversation, TT2000 suggested that everyone shared a piece of trivia about themselves to make it fair, to which all AGs present reluctantly agreed. For the most part, each Anti-Godmodder responded in character. During a backstory rant from Champlain_Grimaldus, TwinBuilder stood up suddenly, saying that it was his turn. Recognizing that the AGs didn't think they could trust him, TwinBuilder explained his role as the Game Master. He described how he was meant to bend the Narrative on a path where the Godmodder was destroyed by the AGs through DTG2 itself - he was on their side more than anyone.

However, his speech had an unintended effect, as players began to wonder why TwinBuilder didn't just use his powers to damage or kill the Godmodder whenever he felt like it, and why he'd even bothered to make a game requiring players if he could influence plot himself. TwinBuilder attempted to explain that the game didn't "work like that," and his presence on the Battlefield itself - not behind an Update Terminal on Earth - weakened his powers. Yet the argument continued, almost tipping the Anti-Godmodders into civil war.

TwinBuilder began yelling that DTG2 only resembled a game to the players because of his actions, and that he saw it as more than a forum game. Irecreeper asked TwinBuilder to go out-of-character - a comment he ignored - and Piono commanded the subject be dropped, since he didn't see why everyone would want to suddenly stop playing DTG2. TwinBuilder continued ranting, saying DTG was "literally" his life, and how he wanted to tear apart its "constructed unreality" and "go back," acting as though he was physically incapable of breaking 'character' - as though he fundamentally was his 'character.' Eventually, TwinBuilder's cries reached a breaking point as he lamented that him and the AGs - the players, not their characters - were separated between "an endless divide."

Realizing he'd gone too far, TwinBuilder apologized to the Anti-Godmodders and stopped the memory short. He decided that he'd retell his secrets to the AGs at another time, and effectively retconned the encounter with the AGs from happening. The memory restarted just after TwinBuilder dealt 4 damage to the Godmodder, but this time, the AG players didn't carry TwinBuilder to the Forge and just dispersed, with TwinBuilder updating the thread as normal until the sun set. This left Build sitting down on the field alone.

Build yelled at the Narrator to stop narrating events, instead talking to him directly through text and expressing his confusion at the preceding memory. Build had no recollection of it, and unlike the memory of Metatron Build had subconsciously repressed, Build suspected this memory had been directly removed from his mind. He hypothesized that TwinBuilder's retcon erased any knowledge of the memory from the minds of everyone in DTG2, including himself, leaving only an instinct to not tell any of his secrets to the AGs until the time was right or necessary. Though the Narrator confirmed that TwinBuilder had retconned something, he told Build that he didn't have the whole story.

The Narrator was unable to say exactly what had happened, but he gathered that the memory Build had seen was fabricated by TwinBuilder using the Narrative, and that the actual memory had been erased. He couldn't say why - presumably to hide something worse - or what the memory was, and warned Build that it would be incredibly hard to find the answers. However, Build came up with an awful plan. A retcon is forcefully altering plot on a new path, and Build possessed an item that could do exactly that - one dose of Waluigi Thyme. Build could, hypothetically, use it to reverse the plot-alteration that had deleted the memory, allowing him to view the real deal. Despite the Narrator's warnings that Build would have no control over his own mind and the chance of him successfully finding the memory was negligible, Build swallowed the Thyme, and his mindscape warped into a flaming pink abyss.

Segment 11: Terrible and Purple

When Build awoke, he was suspended in chains, and Waluigi had taken over his mind. Waluigi had grown into a behemoth dwarfing Build in size, his pupils had become his Γ symbol, he had a flowing mane of hair (stolen from Weird Al Yankovic), and he looked more grotesque than ever. Waluigi demanded that Build re-awaken the Narrator, who had shut off when the Thyme had been ingested, or else he would use Build's body to terrorize Fiction. After some unsuccessful attempts, Build successfully awoke the Narrator and began talking to him in secret.

The Narrator was furious at Build for following through with the plan and then shutting down in the face of the challenges that he'd known would be there, telling Build that Waluigi was even worse than what he'd originally thought. Now that Waluigi was in control of Build's mind, unless Build managed to destroy him, Waluigi would become the "realest" thing within Build's mind, shutting off his subconscious entirely and preventing Build from finding any memory doors or getting guidance from anything in his mind - rendering his quest useless. The arguments of Build and the Narrator alerted Waluigi to the latter's presence. Now that the comic had shifted to a text-based medium, Waluigi was able to hijack it entirely, replacing any meaningful dialogue with walls of "WAAAAAAAAA" repeated over and over.

Build and the Narrator were able to yell to each other sparingly through Waluigi's spam, which was being done to turn Build's thoughts into background noise, erasing what remained of his mind so Waluigi could have complete control. However, the Narrator devised a plan: he would appear in the next image to distract Waluigi (although this would drain the last of his power, leaving Build on his own), and Build would tell Waluigi he wanted to play a game of tennis with him (tennis being Waluigi's alleged favorite game). Build reluctantly agreed.

Waluigi's WAA spam was shut down in the resulting image, and as he tried to figure out what was going on, Build posed his question. Waluigi was wary but interested, asking Build what his terms were. Build explained that the winner would get control over his mind, and the game was tennis. To that, Waluigi erupted into hysterical laughter, freeing Build while tormenting his poor decision - Waluigi, being a master of tennis, would trump Build easily.

Segment 12: !ping, PONG!

Build awoke on a purple tennis court in a flat green expanse, with Waluigi continuing to laugh about his mastery of the sport. When Build asked where the tennis equipment was, Waluigi replied that none would be needed, since they would be playing Tennis For Two. The interface for Tennis For Two then lit up, dominated by a pair of white "eyeballs" with purple brackets on either side and a stylized "vs." sign in between. Tennis For Two demanded for Player 1 to STEP UP, and after instruction by Waluigi, Build did. Waluigi then STEPPED UP as Player 2. Build, having no clue how to actually play, watched confusedly as Tennis For Two told Build to "!ping" on "THE COUNT OF THREE." After asking Waluigi for advice and being told only to "think it and focus," the game's "eyeballs" ejected titanic beams of energy at both Build and Waluigi on the count of three.

Taking the Shadow's advice to stand his ground in the face of danger, Build stared the beam down, but was promptly incinerated by it. Waluigi took the point, leading 1-0, as Build again lamented how he was unable to play the game properly. As the balls prepared to fire again, Build mulled over Waluigi's words, realizing a solution. He turned to the members of the MITF Discord reading along, telling them to say "!ping." Pope Bill did first, so Build took his message and wielded it like a bat, swinging it at the beam of energy and dispersing it successfully. As Build acted faster than Waluigi did, Build took the point, tying the game 1-1.

Waluigi swore to Build that he would break the tie by winning the game, and threatened Build not to cheat, or else he would face unmentioned consequences. Build and Waluigi readied for the next round as the "eyeballs" counted to three, but Build fell victim to a trap laid by the game. Instead of saying "THREE," the eyeballs said "7HREE," yet Build deployed his !ping anyway. Since 7hree is not Three, Build was automatically disqualified. Waluigi took the point, leading 2-1. Build was now furious, saying that if that wasn't cheating, he didn't know what was, but Waluigi commented that he had merely played the game correctly, and Build was at fault for not following the rules. He further told Build not to hate the player, but to hate the game, before the next round began. Thinking to himself, Build realized that Waluigi's words were meaningless since it was just his subconscious talking to him regardless, but then realized that he was missing his !ping bat.

Waluigi cackled, telling Build to look at him as the eyeballs' counting skipped "three" entirely, moving to "four" and continuing onwards. Waluigi held the !ping bat in his left hand, mocking Build as he snapped it in half with a single gesture. Build thought back to how that happened, and realized that the (Γ) symbol in Waluigi's hat (which was sentient and had floated out of his hat at the start of the game, acting as his method for !pinging) had stolen it while Build was ranting about the "7HREE" maneuver.

Coming to the conclusion that if what Waluigi was doing was legal, anything was legal, Build decided to exploit the game too. As soon as the eyeballs actually counted to "three," Build invoked "ザ・ワールド," stopping time for everything but himself. He climbed up Waluigi's right arm, jumping off his shoulder to grab the (Γ)-eye Waluigi used to !ping. Upon landing, time flowed normally again, with Waluigi having no time to react or defend himself as a purple beam of energy incinerated him. Meanwhile, Build successfully used the (Γ)-eye to !ping, once again tying the game 2-2 - whoever scored next would win the game. As Build commented on how easy that was, Waluigi remotely detonated the (Γ)-eye in a pink fireball, and revealed that the beam had burned half of his head off, revealing bright pink muscle and pale bone. His right eye socket contained a red pupil, and his left arm and hair were now on fire.

Waluigi and Build, emerging from the smoke, agreed that it was time to end this. Waluigi summoned a flaming tennis racket and Build summoned Oblivion's Guardian as the eyeballs counted to three. Waluigi immediately deflected his beam at Build, with Build slicing at both beams to knock them at Waluigi. Waluigi countered with fire breath, with the Build/Waluigi beams and pink fire colliding in midair.

As Build struggled to keep his end of the beam-of-war going, he realized that Waluigi's pink fire was identical to the pink fire of Daddyquest - the Refiner's Fire. He then used his white hand - which he called "the Hand of something that I think might be God" - to conjure up a pink triangle, presumably letting him manipulate the Refiner's Fire. As a result, a white hand lurched out of Waluigi's flame and grabbed his face, slamming him into the ground while grabbing the Build/Waluigi beams from Build. The figure, standing in the plume of smoke left by the fire breath, revealed himself to be the reincarnation of DADDY. DADDY taunted Waluigi and turned the two beams into an Ace of Spades playing card, throwing it at Waluigi and bisecting the panel he was in, incapacitating him. Build asked DADDY if HE forgave him for killing HIM in Daddyquest, and DADDY indicated his approval, telling Build to "BE A MAN" while melting back into the Refiner's Fire, which had become a pool of lava.

The top half of Waluigi, barely alive, called to Build from a pillar in the middle of the lava. He started telling Build that he wouldn't like what he saw in the contents of the real [AG] door, but was interrupted by the Tennis for Two interface, who declared Build the formal winner of the game and sentenced Waluigi to "exile." The game then purged Waluigi from Build's mind, giving Build complete control of the Waluigi Thyme's power. With it, Build summoned the [AG] door and bathed it in purple fire. When it emerged, it was tinged purple and had a new symbol - a set of strange elliptical shapes.

Segment 13: The Recent Past

Like the [AG] memory door, this door led to GodCraft's Battlefield during the Homestuck Invasion. Unlike the [AG] door, it led to the edge of the Battlefield, right near the forest separating it from the rest of GodCraft. Build also guessed that the memory was a few turns away from the [AG] door due to differing entity placements. Build's inner dialogue about the cliches of this new memory was interrupted as Doc Scratch appeared, seemingly talking to Build while drawing his Deudly Magnum at him. Despite Build's insistence that Scratch couldn't be talking to Build, as he was just a memory, Scratch confirmed that he was by systematically and verbosely debunking everything Build had said thus far.

Build compared Scratch's method of essentially talking to nothing while aware that, long in the future, the recipient of his conversation would hear his words to give the illusion of an unbroken conversation to the plot of the Doctor Who episode "Blink," but was then unaware of how he remembered the episode, as he claimed he'd never seen it. Scratch, however, claimed Build had seen it, and the fact that he had no overt recollection of how was an important facet of this memory. As Build's complaints about Scratch continually aiming the Magnum on him escalated, Scratch fired the Magnum, revealing it was empty. Scratch also pointed out that he wasn't aiming at Build, but at "the figure that has been behind [him] this entire time;" when Build turned, he saw only his shadow.

Scratch reiterated the importance of "Blink," claiming that Build's subconscious understood its relevance even if his conscious mind didn't, and that he would understood how he had come to see the episode soon. Scratch warned Build to "pay attention" before teleporting away. As soon as he did, Build heard footsteps on the horizon. TwinBuilder was running across the Battlefield and into the forest, and Build followed in hot pursuit, neither stopping for several minutes. Eventually, stuck deep in the forest, TwinBuilder stopped and vaporized a tree in anger, furious about how he was unable to escape GodCraft and lacked the mastery of his powers that Scratch had.

Soon, both TwinBuilder and Build heard a new set of voices in the forest. Though TwinBuilder initially seemed wary about what to do, he recognized the voices before long and stood in place, completely surprised. Eventually, four players wandered to TwinBuilder, with Build recognizing one of them and becoming as surprised as TwinBuilder was - Kennydies42, a future member of the Robomonkey faction who personally knew TwinBuilder before DTG2's events.

Kennydies42 stared at TwinBuilder incredulously, with TwinBuilder hastily confirming his identity as Adam Mason to him. Kennydies42, whose real name was revealed to be Matt, demanded to know how TwinBuilder had become so embroiled in the Godmodder's war with the Descendants and how he wasn't a normal Minecraft avatar, with TwinBuilder's offhand comment that he was a "walking Homestuck cosplay" being misinterpreted by Matt as TwinBuilder succumbing into the Homestuck Invasion. Build and TwinBuilder watched angrily as Matt walked away in disgust, yelling at him to "SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO ME FOR ONE DAMN SECOND!" TwinBuilder's power knocked the four players over, and TwinBuilder demanded that Matt not interrupt him right after asking him for questions.

TwinBuilder declared himself the controller of "this fake reality," "practically" the owner of GodCraft, and the sworn First Guardian and protector of Minecraft, demonstrating his skill by turning Matt's three companions into sand, striking the tree behind Matt with lightning, and mimicking Matt's voice. Matt attempted to bring TwinBuilder back to reality, reminding him that neither he nor his brother had showed up to school at all, and that they'd missed many days the year prior. When Matt asked if TwinBuilder cared at all, TwinBuilder replied that everyone and everything he knew, including Matt, Twin's brother, and all of GodCraft, was fake, with TwinBuilder being the "only actual person." TwinBuilder accused Matt of reminding him of "everything" and "everywhere" he isn't, with Matt simply replying that he was confident he and Twin's brother, revealed to be named Jeff, were real, but that he wasn't sure Twin was after all.

At this, TwinBuilder entered a rage state, his First Guardian powers warping his physiology and igniting green fires across the forest. Right before he prepared to utilize the Narrative to unleash a tremendous attack, the memory was abruptly cut off by an unknown flashback. One person told another that they wanted to go outside for some "alone time," despite it being a cold December day. When the memory returned, it was shown that TwinBuilder's completely alien rage had altered the Narrative so much that GodCraft lagged, stopping everything in Destroy the Godmodder from functioning normally, including his attack.

After several seconds, the memory was cut by another flashback. One figure, speaking in Metatron's spaced-out Cyrillic formatting, told another, speaking normally, that there was "no hope" for them, despite the other figure's pleas to "get [them] back" from an unknown land. When Metatron asked "why do you defy the word of God?" the other figure responded with "Because... Because..." before the memory returned.

The lag stopped as abruptly as it had started, the server's various glitches fixing themselves and TwinBuilder falling to the ground, his attack completely cancelled. Matt innocently asked TwinBuilder what had happened, with TwinBuilder entering a state of total panic. He accused Matt's presence of triggering a mental breakdown that led him to screw up "the one job [he's] explicitly supposed to have," and expressed fear and shock at the idea his actions could lag GodCraft. Seeing Twin's decline, Matt threatened to leave his computer and call for help on Earth. Before he could, TwinBuilder used his First Guardian powers to physically prevent Matt from leaving his computer and prevent his Minecraft avatar from moving.

TwinBuilder declared that he wasn't angry at Matt, but rather what he stood for: TwinBuilder's lack of control over himself, especially when it came to parts of his past that, when reminded of, would prevent him from acting normally. In an effort to fix what Matt represented, TwinBuilder pointed his fingers at Matt like a gun and "fired" it, glitching and distorting the environment and Matt's avatar as kaleidoscopic flame wrapped around his hand. Speaking "outside of existence," TwinBuilder commanded Matt to forget that the encounter had ever happened and leave. Matt was forcefully teleported away. TwinBuilder then "fired" at himself, commanding himself to forget about the entire encounter, to forget about the unsettling intricacies of his past and never mention them unless absolutely necessary, to create an alternate set of memories for himself (the [AG] door), and to forget about these powers.

When TwinBuilder came to, he had no recollection of the encounter with Matt or running into the forest at all. He was then interrupted by the Godmodder, who had come by asking if TwinBuilder knew anything about server lag the Godmodder had detected earlier. After TwinBuilder denied any recollection and left, the Godmodder made some disparaging remarks and left as well. Build, who had been hiding behind a tree the entire time, walked onto a fallen log and reminisced on the memory. He now remembered that Matt, who avidly watched Doctor Who, had shown the episode to Build and his brother years ago; he also began remembering many other memories from his past, wishing he could forget them once more. He realized that he must have made up the [AG] memory to hide the one thing worse than alienating his audience - alienating the physical representation of his past. Build slipped back into lamenting his inability to change and TwinBuilder's actions burdening his present self with anxieties about the past, walking out of the forest and back to the exit door.

Build, locked in a depressive state, curled up in a ball at the foot of the exit door before being interrupted by Interrobang, seen only as a black silhouette. Build cut to the chase, making Interrobang confirm that he was only a subconscious representation and not the actual person. Build and Interrobang then engaged in a long dialogue about Build's refusal/inability to change, with Interrobang mocking Roxxanne's words of "you can do anything," and Build claiming that he'd spent years trying to mimic the Descendants' ability to change whatever they wanted, but now he was forced to realize that he's "not them" and has an "empty void" he doesn't know how to fill. Interrobang demanded that Build fight on and not give up, with Build describing his fear that he's remembering more and more of his past, including his fear of "going home," "unfinished mistakes," and Interrobang himself.

Build described something about his "search" for Interrobang, with Interrobang saying that this was a step in the right direction, since Build had never openly discussed that search with anyone. Interrobang suggested that Build's continuing trips through doors were directly helping him to confront his past, and as such, they were important and useful, contradicting The Operator's earlier warnings. Interrobang warned Build that for him to truly change, he'd need to "recall the recent past," summoning pure kaleidoscopic flame into his palm. Build, not entirely understanding the advice, nevertheless took it, though he continued to express fear about memories he'd spent so long keeping under wraps resurfacing. Interrobang assured Build that he didn't need to worry about his secrets alienating anyone, and that his mission should be to come to terms with himself, and himself alone. He also expressed confidence that Build wouldn't give up, and that he might be "the one."

Build and Interrobang, now much more at ease with each other's presence, talked for some time. Build's final question was why Interrobang would help him when MTT INDUSTRIES seemed to be against him. Interrobang replied: "I suppose I just thought it would be nice to have two brothers not fight to the death for once." Interrobang handed Build his nameplate, with only an interrobang on it, and disappeared. Build stared at it and put it in his inventory. With one final, cursory glance at the memory, Build walked through the exit door and resumed his trek across his mindscape as the scene faded out, ending Part 2.

Intermission 2: Forgive Me As They Forgave You

Ephemeralquest resumed with an intermission from Metatron's perspective, continuing the flashback that had interrupted the memory with Matt. Metatron's question of "Why do you defy the word of God?" was met with an actual response that revealed the other figure in the conversation to be Build: "Because I'm young, arrogant, and hate everything you stand for." Metatron replied only with: "We will see, Mason. We will see." One of his hands, charged with the powers of the Godhead, created a hole in space that revealed Earth, with Build falling into it as the screen went white, beginning Part 3 proper.

Part 3: Until the Day I Die (It Will Live Inside of Me)

Ephemeral566

Act 5: [EPISTAXIS]

Segment 14: [GLADLY]

Build was seen walking across his mindscape after some time had passed, with a voiceover version of himself narrating the events that had passed in the interim. As Build got closer to the edge of his mind, memory doors became more infrequent, yet Build looked through almost every one he could. Build claimed he was remembering things beyond his conscious mind, citing that some doors were showing him his dreams.

Much like Daddyquest and Corporateclusterfuckquest, Build theorized these doors showed alternate continuities and highly improbable events. Their content, incredibly surreal, ranged from a car driving off of what looked like a long wooden rollercoaster (with Build inside), a decrepit, melting version of Build emerging from red pillars of flame while Build's actual body hung from a noose, Interrobang being displayed on a television screen, and Build attending Ronald Reagan's "Empire of Evil" speech.

Build also saw a variety of doors containing events from the Godmodding Wars, such as TwinBuilder and the Duck obtaining the Deudly Magnum while traveling through the Void, TwinBuilder fighting off the Eclipse, TwinBuilder summoning the Twinmobile while escaping his house, and TwinBuilder killing Project Binary with Chemotherapy. However, in addition to other various odds and ends, Build encountered blank doors with no symbol, like the one that severed his right hand at the end of Part 1. These doors also offered monochrome glimpses of real-world environments, including a person, a ceiling light fixture, and a shot of a neighborhood colored entirely in red. Build described them as his "special hell."

As Build sought to avoid a repeat of the loss of his hand, he only opened the blank doors a little bit and looked through them with his right eye. Unbeknownst to Build, constant exposure to these doors had eaten away at his right eye, replacing it with a photorealistic image of his eye with a white pupil that constantly leaked energy. Contemplating his inability to see out of his right eye, Build walked towards yet another door. Its symbol depicted a person running through a pair of portals: the exact same symbol as the first door Build ever opened, and the first time a symbol had recurred on a door. Deciding that now he was more prepared to face what was behind it, Build opened the door triumphantly.

Just as before, it depicted a younger, wounded Build missing his jacket and standing on a bridge in Old Aperture. This Build, henceforth referred to as "Adam," cried softly to himself until GLaDOS began berating him over the facility's decades-old communications systems. Adam surprised GLaDOS by actually responding to Her, telling Her to "stop talking." The two engaged in a back-and-forth argument, with GLaDOS cross-referencing Adam's voice with his appearance to uncover his actual identity; allegedly, his legal name was "Twin Builder."

After GLaDOS made yet another reference to Adam's supposedly dead parents, Adam countered that he knew they were alive because he'd seen them just days prior. Build watched with wonder as another memory door emerged from red flame with those words. Curious, Build jumped down to ground level and walked through the door while Adam and GLaDOS continued arguing. The door led to Adam's aforementioned memory of seeing his parents, seemingly in their own house. Adam (completely unwounded and sporting his green jacket) frantically attempted to address them, but they both seemed to completely ignore his presence, even ignoring when he turned on the television. It showed static, but the audio still came through; a news anchor mentioned the date as December 10th, 2012. Realizing that his parents noticed the television turning on, Adam threw the television remote directly at his father, forcing his father to acknowledge his presence for the first time.

Bizzarely, the memories of Adam's parents didn't match up at all with Adam's own: they claimed that the family surname was Mason, that Adam's brother was named Jeff, and that they were both 31 years old (not 11), with both having long-since finished college and moved to pursue their respective careers (Adam at a studio in California, and Jeff at Aperture Laboratories in Michigan). Additionally, they were unable to see Adam beyond a hazy blob. However, when Adam insisted they both look at him clearly, they were able to see him when they focused hard enough, with Adam's set of memories entering their head in addition to their own, despite their complete confusion.

Build expressed reluctance at having to watch "those first days," but understood their importance and exited the door-within-a-door. Back in Old Aperture, Adam decided to explain his current predicament to an uncaring GLaDOS, who continued calling him a lunatic. As Adam spoke, more memory doors were summoned, opening themselves to provide visual context.

Adam claimed he came from "the REAL Earth," not "this bullshit one," and that the memories and lives of his brother and parents differed between them. Everything on the alternate Earth refused to recognize Adam's presence unless he forced them to (explaining the incident with the television remote). Adam was able to make his parents remember their lives on the "real" Earth by forcing them to acknowledge him, yet those memories had no knowledge about where Adam's brother, Jeff, could be. Only their alternate lives had clues - Jeff's Aperture Laboratories ID card and some newspaper clippings. Desperate to connect with his brother, even if it was an alternate universe version of him, Adam resolved to travel to Michigan himself. Despite his parents' insistence that he stay, as soon as Adam walked away from them, their "real" memories disappeared and they stopped acknowledging him.

After Adam commented that he might actually be crazy for flying out to Michigan and telling GLaDOS all these things, Build interjected that he should stop talking about it. In response, the memory abruptly changed to a large black expanse in which Adam walked, seemingly having just entered Aperture for the first time. Soon, a camera representing GLaDOS activated, believing Adam to be sent from Area 51 and selecting him to be an unwitting test subject. Adam attempted to run, but a blockade of Turrets prevented his escape, with GLaDOS instructing Adam to acquire Long-Fall Boots and a Portal Gun and to enter an elevator to begin the test.

Adam, having played through the Portal video game series, was already very knowledgable about GLaDOS' test courses, and completed most of them without significant trouble, even while GLaDOS lectured him on the link between humanity's determination and insanity. However, Adam's insistence on remaining silent led GLaDOS to compare unfavorably him to Chell, Portal's protagonist, to the point that GLaDOS decided to cut the testing short and give Adam a corporate-mandated "surprise" instead. By this time, Adam had suffered a facial wound from Turrets and lost his Portal Gun in toxic sludge, so Adam rebelled, pulling off a wall panel and running through a narrow hallway. On the other end, however, was empty space, as GLaDOS had rearranged the testing chambers to create a sheer drop with another large wall opposite of Adam. After GLaDOS threatened to create a portal to the Moon on the wall, Adam, weighing his options, jumped down the bottomless pit instead, hopefully beyond GLaDOS' reach.

When Adam hit solid ground once more, he had landed on the first level a long elevator shaft, sustaining no injury due to his Long-Fall Boots. Various walkways jutted out of the shaft at random levels, leading to hidden chambers. This such walkway led to an archive containing an old computer, with which Adam attempted to search for information about Jeff's whereabouts. He found that Jeff had worked on building GLaDOS from 1999 to 2003, but had since left the project and was now missing (presumed dead). Unbelieving, Adam searched for all basic-clearance employees, finding that each one was either missing or dead. Still vowing to find Jeff, Adam left the chamber and jumped down to the walkway on the next-lowest level, with GLaDOS continuing to taunt him. She warned Adam that he'd find nothing but "skeletons in closets," and to not blame her if he activated any kind of defense system on his journey.

Adam attempted to search offices and stairwells for Jeff, insistent that he find him personally, not just a hint of his existence. Before long, however, Adam was cornered by a particularly resilient Turret model that fired volleys of lasers and ammunition at him, chasing him back up the stairwell and through the walkway. Adam suffered more wounds and was forced to discard his green jacket after it lit on fire, jumping down the entire elevator shaft while dodging the army of Turrets' ammunition pouring through the walkways. As Adam fell, GLaDOS told him she considered him not human, but "a very, very convincing fake," and that wherever he was going, he deserved it.

Segment 15: [EDGE OF THE MIND]

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Segment 16: [THE CHOICE]

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Segment 17: [END]

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Hidden Codes

Ionian

The Ionian alphabet. It reads ABCDEF/ GHJKLM/NPQRST/UVWXYZ. I is to the left, O is to the right, and IO/OI is at the top and bottom. The brackets at the corners represent quotation marks.

Ionianpunctuation

Ionian's punctuation. The single repeated word is "TEST."

Misspeak

The Misspeak alphabet. The upper 26 characters are uppercase, and the lower 26 characters are lowercase.

Throughout Masonquest, an assortment of hidden messages can be found, encoded through various methods.

The most common cipher is Ionian, a script invented by TwinBuilder that replaces 24 of the 26 letters of the English alphabet (all except I and O) with their corresponding symbol in the 6x4 grid to the right. An Ionian word is meant to resemble an unbroken symbol, since there are no spaces in between letters. I is the dash to the grid's left, and O is the circle to the grid's right. If I /O comes after a letter, the dash/circle is placed above that letter. If I/O comes before a letter, the dash/circle is placed below that letter. If I and O are next to each other, the symbol to the top and bottom of the grid is used as a full letter. Ionian also contains limited punctuation, as demonstrated in the image below the grid.

Other encrypting methods include changing English letters to their corresponding transliterated Cyrillic characters (which can be observed here) and Misspeak, another script by TwinBuilder which has two sets of 26 characters - both uppercase and lowercase. The lowercase script was designed to hyperexaggerate mistakes TwinBuilder made when writing those letters, and the uppercase script adapted the lowercase script into alternate forms.

(Some symbols are shared between Ionian and Misspeak. Both have the same symbol for L and R, Ionian's H is Misspeak's N, Ionian's N is Misspeak's T, Ionian's U is Misspeak's H, and Ionian's ‽ is Misspeak's G.)

The following is a list of Masonquest's hidden messages.

  • The text in panel 7 of Daddyquest reads DADDY REFINERY UNIT in Ionian.
  • The text in panel 15 of Daddyquest reads DIE., OBEY, and KILL in Ionian.
  • The text in panel 21 of Daddyquest reads ENDS OF THE EARTH in Cyrillic.
  • The text in panel 28 of Corporatequest reads HAKOFA in Cyrillic, which is a Drenovian slur referring to humans (Drenovian being a fictional language used in Abyssal Oddity).
  • The text in panel 3 of Ephemeralquest reads SHOTGUN in Ionian.
  • The text in panel 4 of Ephemeralquest is a miniature diagram of the Ionian alphabet.
  • The text in panel 45 of Ephemeralquest reads SWORD IN THE STONE in Ionian.
  • The text in panel 64 of Ephemeralquest reads WHAT TO DO WHEN I MAKE A STORY DEAL STORY in Ionian.
  • The text in panel 141 of Ephemeralquest reads YOU LOST THE GAME and OBLIVION'S GUARDIAN in Ionian.
  • The two symbols in panels 176-181 of Ephemeralquest read Y and N in Ionian.
  • The text in panel 183 of Ephemeralquest reads FATHER, FORGIVE THEM, FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO in Ionian.
  • The text in panel 185 of Ephemeralquest reads PURIFICATION IN PROGRESS... and PLEASE STAND BY... in Ionian.
  • The text in panels 191-193 and 197 of Ephemeralquest reads SHOTGUN in Ionian.
  • The text in panel 231 of Ephemeralquest reads STARS IN HIS EYES, WHEN THE PLANETS COLLIDE, EOTE, HELP, and OP (though the rest is obscured, it has been confirmed to read OPENYOU) in Ionian.
  • The text in panel 232 of Ephemeralquest reads an excerpt from some kind of text in Ionian. The full text is as follows. AND ALL THE WORLD TREMBLED IN DESPAIR FOR THE CLOUDS HAD PARTED AND BEHELD AS THEY SAID "LO, HE COMES AS THE TRUMPETS CALLED THE RECKONING. ALL MAY STAND AT [THE] FOOT OF THE GATE AND KNOCK. AND THERE WAS SILENCE FOR HALF AN HOUR IN HEAVEN AND IN [HELL] AS ALL PEOPLE WITNESSED THE GATE SLIDE OPEN AT LAST. A SINGLE HAND POKED THROUGH, AND REALITY SHUT OFF. IN THE BEGINNING, THERE WAS NOTHING.
  • The text in panel 233 of Ephemeralquest reads WAKE UP, ANGINDIS (though the text between the G and I is obscured), SINS ARE SHA, YOU WILL PAY, DEAT (most likely DEATH), MTTN, OPENYOU, and KEK in Ionian.
  • The text in panel 277 of Ephemeralquest reads "I AM AS REAL AS YOU ARE FAKE" in Ionian.
  • The text in panels 300-305 of Ephemeralquest comprises a one-sided dialogue in Cyrillic from Metatron. It reads as follows. "WHAT IS THIS." "SOMEONE IS LOOKING AT ME." "YOU. UP THERE. BY THE DOOR." "YES, YOU." "DO YOURSELF A FAVOR. CLOSE THAT DOOR. THE DARKNESS IS BOTHERING ME." "THANK YOU." This matches an earlier non-sequitur dialogue the Overseer said during the Pinary ARG.
  • The text in panel 324 of Ephemeralquest reads, clockwise from top-left, YOU ARE TRAPPED, ST, NO EXIT, LOOKS CA BE DECEIV (most likely LOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING), GAME OVER, and RECURRING SYMBOLS RECURRING NIGHTMARES in blurred English.
  • The text in panel 327 of Ephemeralquest reads STOP in Ionian.
  • The text in panel 341 of Ephemeralquest reads SPEAKER OF NAMES in Ionian, though much of the text is obscured by. Also visible are the Mandarin Chinese characters "我是," which translate to I AM.
  • The text in panel 346 of Ephemeralquest reads AND NHEN NHERE WAS LIGVT in Ionian. It is meant to read AND THEN THERE WAS LIGHT, but several errors were made in the original message due to confusing Ionian characters with Misspeak characters.
  • The text in panel 355 of Ephemeralquest reads TWOSZQNLJTW[O] in Misspeak. The last character is cut off, but was confirmed by TwinBuilder to read O. This makes the character string 2SZQNLJ2, which corresponds to this Pastebin. When every space is converted to a 0 and every █ is converted to a 1, the Pastebin reads the following message after being translated from binary code:
    • But a Shatter is never really finished.
    • It just stops moving.
  • The text in panel 565 of Ephemeralquest reads an excerpt from some kind of text in Ionian. The first four lines are as follows. OH GOD ALMIGHTY HEAR MY PLEA / (GIVE ME THIS DAY MY DAILY BLOCK) / FROM CAVE TO CHUNK FROM SKY TO SEA / (FORGED FROM THE ORDER OF THE ROCK). The other twelve lines remain unsolved.
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