First published on 2026-01-17.

rangifer’s diary: pt. cxlviii: 1000 levels of Shpongled cerpidity

Hi hello & welcome back to the charmingly mischievous adventures of Shpongle (Taima, Kokeshi) the shiv knight, lv1000boss (Lv1Crook, Macer) the blagger, & yorze chrooly, cervid the mightgician! Oddjobs role out!!

Weight, whole don. We do have just one (1) Oddjobs-adjacent order of bizniss 2 take care of b4 wroaling out. As the underling of the group (I’m still a level −8 crook), I was tasct with gathering up all the equipmental miscellanea in the land, by hook or by (level −8) crook — or by the book — so that we’d have enough goofy junk to keep those odd juices flowing.

💡 Did you know? The real reason I’m not allowed to wear the Necomimi (猫(ねこ)耳(みみ)) is because combining cat ears with deer antlers would be too powerful, generating a mammalian land animal iconicity singularity event (≝ MaLAISE) that could threaten to destroy human culture as we know it.

Necomimi certainly have some import given that they (1.) defend goodly (2.) lack class/stat requirements & (3.) 🐱. But the real sh∗rt is finally getting our hands &/or hooves on not just any handsaws & snaths, but only The Real Deal.

lv1000boss models the Saw & the Scythe — Thank you lv1000boss, very cool. You may exit the runway to your left.

All aboard The Flight 2: Electric Boogaloo!

Transcription of the chatbubbles in the above image

Thief Job Instructor: lotta new students today.

Warrior Job Instructor: maybe we should make the test harder?

Magician Job Instructor: i think BJI over there has been making the archers do long-form essays

Hokay I know we ended on a kliph-hangar lass thyme so let’s fr∗∗king do some g∗sh d∗ng’d job-advancing??

The Gang heads east of Kerning City for The Second Flight purposes

Our first stop on The Second Flight Express^® was the Sconstruction Site Snorth of Skerning Sitty, or as we call it in the biz, SSSSS (pronounced /🐍/). Already, lv1000boss was getting off the choo-choo trane so he could engage in a heated staring contest with Thief Job Instructor until the latter eventually folded, leaving him with no choice but to write a glowing recommendation letter.

Staring contest (F6)

💡 Did you know? Using Dark Sight during a staring contest is considered cheating, and is punishable by a 24-hour sentence to the Squishy Liquid Room.

But Shpongle & I wouldn’t know anything about that. We’re not thieves, we’re worriers. So let’s keep heading up norf to Berry On, yez?

Shpongle & cervid on the way to Perion (Shpongle: Poker Haunt Us)

Ahh, Perion. My hometown. I feel a great nostalgia swell within me whenever I smell its dry air, get its blasted littol dry pebbles stuck in my hooves, and rest my gaze upon its, erm, rox & stuff.

Meeting with Dances with Sitting Bull (Sitting Bull: Do you want to become a warrior?)

Transcription of the chatlog in the above image

Shpongle: time to visit the Perion Job Instructor
together, since we’re Warriors

cervid: yes
Mr. Dances with uhm
something…

Shpongle: you mean
Sitting Bull

cervid: Dances with Sitting Bull!
its good to see you again

Shpongle: agreed

cervid: last time i had 35⁢ str just like you asct

💡 Did you know? Sitting Bull used to be named Dancing Bull, but he’s been stuck in Baddha Koṇāsana since 1978, so he had to get a name change.

Dances with Sitting Bull promptly directed us to hit up The Other Warrior Jobbing Structor, a.k.a.… Mr. Thunder? Yeah, that seems rite.

Mr. Thunder

Transcription of the chatlog in the above image

cervid: is this him

Shpongle: i think it this way

cervid: oh

💡 Did you know? Mr. Thunder actually is a job instructor, but he’s only responsible for advancing John Smiths to blacksmiths.

Haha oh, my bad. Brane fart! 😅

Anyway, once we do find where the warrior life-coach is, assuming he doesn’t just wanna sell us supplements & a subscription to his Substack^®, I’m gonna need to prove myself. That means sharpening up my warrior skillz that I most definitely possess to an adequate degree of competency.

Demonstrating my warrior skillz on a Stump — I know Power Blast isn’t usually crackling with a bright blue energy, but I gotta stand out from the other warriors somehow. Think of it as like… a visual trademark.

Naturally, our sought-after knightly career professor was found taking a breather from a lengthy grind sesh @ the ol’ WRMIV (pronounced /🪱4️⃣/).

Regrettably, *WJI* is pronounced /ˈwɛd͡ʒi/, so he was bullied a lot as a kid.

Before commencing our respective trials, Shpongle beshtow’d upon me a shingle Pig’ Shed, ash ish tradishonal amongsht warriorsh.

Receiving a token Pig’s Head from Shpongle

Transhcription of the chatlog in the above image

Shpongle: as a token of good faith
good luck in the test

cervid: thank you, you too

Shpongle: fellow arrior

cervid: fellow warrior
cough

As my own token of good faith, I let Shpongle enter the examination chambre (that’s Fr∗nch for “chamber”) first. Then, when I phelt reddie, I took a deap breth and asct WJI to take me away. To my soup rise, WJI pointed to his left, indicating an entirely different passage.

A portal to Ellinia markt with a Fusion Mace banner opens up next to WJI — [*portal opens*]

💡 Did you know? The portal from WRMIV to The Forest North of Ellinia existed in beta versions of the game, although it always required the PC to be a mage wielding a Fusion Mace. It was removed for release, due to complaints that it was turning perfectly innocent mages into gishes.

A—all right. I guess I’ve no choice if I wanna take The Second Flight…

cervid falling from WRMIV to The Forest North of Ellinia — [*portal woes*]

Great, now I’m in some place with ultrahyperinfinitytall trees and I gotta find MJI (pronounced /ˈmæd͡ʒɑi̯/) somehow.

MJI demonstrates his powers of teleportation — And I think I’m seeing double, which is really not helping.

💡 Did you know? There’s only one MJI. He just has powers of GM Teleportation that allow him to stealthily follow you around The Forest North of Ellinia. 🌲👀🌲

Anyway, I found himb(s). Oh geez oh sheesh oh gosh I’d better pre-🍐 myself before I enter the test chamber designed specifically for me oh h∗ck it might have a Barlong in it‽ Or a—

Getting yoten into the test chamber (MJI: go.) — Uh, rood!! 🤕

💡 Did you know? MJI is actually a 5^th-job character. He possesses skills you could scarcely dream of. For instance, you know how sometimes you really need to sneeze but you just can’t? He has a spell that fixes that. Crazy, right?

Thancfully, the test was easier than I 🥚’s pecktid. Basically I just had to beat the literal cr∗p 💩 out of some Curse Eyes Jr. & some Hornèd Mushroombs Too.

cervid beating up Curse Eyes 2 and Horned Mushrooms 2 @ Magician’s Tree Dungeon

Kinda gross nasty, but you know what they say: if you polish a turd, it’s still a turd but at least it’s less disgusting in a way. Or something like that. Anywho, eventually I polisht 30 of ’em.

30⁢ Dark Marbles stinkin’ it up — I knew my Turd Polisher Deluxe^® toolkit would come in useful someday.

💡 Did you know? You too can purchase a Turd Polisher Deluxe^® for a mere 999⁢ mesos on RS right now from Sly at the Leafre Department Store.

This was surely sufficient stool to summarily summon Sleepywood’s scariest superintendent, its strongest Satan-supplicant, its superlative Sanctuary-sentinel: Senior Balrog.

cervid killing Jr. Balrog with a 999999-damage stab — It seems his WDef has declined precipitously in his old age.

More after the break: The STRongest cleric ever?

Transcription of the above

→ Breaking now

The STRongest cleric ever? / MNN^®

Top News: Shōwa becomes first town to legalise downjump | Ergoth finds way into Free Market, 17 dead | 10% scroll pass[…]

That last part may or may not’ve happened, but certainly Heinz^® has no choice but to book me a seat on The Second Flight now that I bested the Blarog of blegend.

cervid advances to cleric (Hines: Alright! You have become) — In which I achieve nirvāṇa, in accordance with the 57 varieties

Okay, no. Sorry, Hines, I cutchya off there. What have I become, exactly?

Hines: Alright! You have become the Cleric! A Cleric fights with all of his might and soul! Using healing powers, they can heal other Magicians

Ah, that’s too bad. I was hoping I’d be able to Heal nonmagicians as well. On the bright side, I can most definitely teleslash. 😎

And, not to brag or anything, but, er… heh… I unloct the 4bidden downjump. 😏

Downjump: unlocked — [*illegal downjump 😳*]

Now that we’d officially upgr8’d to STR clerk, brig&, and dagger fighter (≝ one who fights daggers as retribution for their daggerly crimes), respectively, ’twas time to move on.

Beating MapleStory 1 — Not sure if you could tell by the contents of this here diary, but I’m something of a fan of MapleStory 1 if I do say so myself, so maybe this whole “moving on” thing ain’t for me. We’ll see.

MapleStory 2

As it turns out, MapleStory 2 is not a little, shall we say, wacky(racer).

Fastly vibrating Green Mushroom — [*optimisation noises*]

He’s unloct his true potential

Transcription of the above

lv1000boss: what is going on today man
it must be a bug from server lag
or something

cervid: the last patch said
there were ‘performance optimisations’
that is one optimised grushie

lv1000boss: this looks optimal to me

cervid: indeed
he swiffed
he vibrate optimal

lv1000boss: hes unlocked his true potential

Not to be outdone, a certain Turkey made me a titular character in the single-episode (regrettably it never made it past the pilot stage) television series cervid Vs. Phasianid™.

Turkey from above (cervid vs. Turkey) — [*aerial Turkey assault*]

💡 Did you know? The turbo-optimised critters that you see above were spawned by Ergoth as reprisal for all the times we barged into his Lair when he was just trying to play some MapleStory.

Sadly, although I was fortunate enough to survive this incident, lv1000boss was not so LUKy. A stray utility pole made like a wayward Turkey and hurtled down at himb from the sky, dealing a devastating 99999999999⁢ damage in one fell swoop. Unfortunately lv1000boss had only 99999999998⁢ HP left so he fucking died. Ahem, sorry. He tragically past away before our very eyes. 😔

lv1000boss takes 99999999999⁢ damage from a falling telephone pole — 🪦
lv1000boss 2025〜2025

💡 Did you know? MapleStory 2 received a 15+ rating for its graphic depictions of telephone pole violence.

After tearfully delivering our eulogies and cleaning the Turkey poop off his corpse, Shpongle & I wandered the land. Perhaps we were directionless before, but this was a new low: no more MapleStory 1, and worse still, no more lv1000boss. Who would be our mob boss now? Does it still make sense to have a kingpin (queenpin?) of a mafia with only two mem(b)ers? How do you even play MapleStory 2? Is it 3D now? Do you think it’ll run in Wine? What would a Blushroomb write if it could write poëtry?

i am an icon / you put these words in my mouth / Gaîa’s meadows sigh — Yeah, prolly something like that.

Anyway. Let’s get a-wanderin’.

Shpongle & cervid wander from KC to Lith Harbour to Sleepywood

We all process grief in diverse ways.

In Shpongle’s case, after going through the stages of denial (“telephone poles just don’t do that… there’s no way”), anger (“Ergoth did this. I vow to enact avengeance against the Skull King no matter the cost”), bargaining (“maybe Heinz^® has a resurrection spell? — the fabled 58^th variety?”), & depression (“Oddjobs is cookt… there’s just no point anymore”), she entered what was, with any luck, the penultimate stage: paranoid delusion.

Ergoth could be anywhere… — My ignominy knows no bounds

The swamp of serendipity

But then, something shchrange happened. When Shpongle & I went to drown our sadness by taking a shchroal along the marshy bogsh of Curning Shitty’s shewer shwamps, a Door of Dimension opened seemingly out of nowhere at Monkey Swamp II.

lv1000boss comes flying out of a Door of Dimension — I just knew these Doors of Dimension must be good for *something*.

💡 Did you know? Just one (1) Door of Dimension is 9001% of your reference intake of time-travel. Bon appétit !

Wait… what‽ Although Shpongle & I were no doubt overjoyed to see the ol’ boss again, we were too baffled to even manage a “wb”.

On second thought, we did come across an inexplicable time-machine that one time… Which time, exactly, I’m not sure. There are prolly at least like four different timelines by now.

Inexplicable time-machine @ The Forest East of Henesys — I guess I forgor to include this littol detail in the relevant diary entry…

Well gee whiz, time-travel is real confusing! 😵‍💫

Unfortunately, just as soon as we were reünited with lv1000boss, he was taken away from us again.

lv1000boss is slain by a freak lightning strike — Life is a precious & fragile thing.

💡 Did you know? The last time anomalous lightning struck the Swamp of Despair, it hit a Ligator and turned them into a giant red birb known in Kerning City urban legend as ~~“Dial”~~ “Dyle”.

The inside of a sewer was the last place Shpongle & I expected a freak lightning strike to reduce to ashes our once-slain but newly restored by the power of time-travel friend. It was also, purely coïncidentally, the last place we expected another freak lightning strike to reärrange a serendipitous collection of atoms & organic molecules from the surrounding swampstuffs into an exact physical replica of that same friend.

A new lv1000boss is materialised by another freak lightning strike — What fortune!

💡 Did you know? The probability of this occurring is still higher than that of me ever finishing a weapon in RS with non-100% scrolls.

It was a whole rollercoaster of emotions. But since we were in the Swamp of This Pear (this one ➡️ 🍐) anyway, we decided to do s’more of what we do best. That’s right — it’s Quaypi Queue (≝ QQ) thyme.

cervid vs. inaccessible KPQ stage 1 Ligators (PC) — With the use of my hitherto unheard-of ~~downjump~~ down-TP powers, I’ve become the first RevivalStory player to ever kill the ’Gators (PC) on this platform.

In stage 4, we found out that lv1000boss was still experiencing residual timey-wimey effects from his many & various temporal travels.

When we arrived at King Slime’s crib, he was happy to see us, and even had the protection money all ready to go. But for old times’ sake, we decided to beat hymn up anyway. 😊

Shpongle: i cant wait to max dagger mastery and booster — Tell me about it. Soon as I max Bless, I’m getting me some BW mastery & booster. 💪🏽

For our display of excessive violence, Cloto awarded us with Bloob Am Boo H@s symbolising STRength.

Shpongle: Blamboo is huge — completely blamboozled

Now that every member of Oddjobs is sportin’ the ol’ Blam, you can call us the Blue Bam-Boo Bunch™, or BBBB for short (pronounced /ʙ̼̊ːː/).

To go with our fresh azure headwear, Cloto also awarded lv1000boss a single (1) Helmet for DEF 10% scrol.

💡 Did you know? Scrolls can smell your desire for them to pass. Attempt to mislead them with words all you like, but they nonetheless cognise your true intentions.

Speaking of true intentions, what are the Oak Barrels in stage for truly intended 4, anyway?

Anywho, on account of our previous murderificatory efforts outlined above, King Slime is dead…!

…Long live the King’s Lime!! 👑🍋‍🟩

The Gang vs. King’s Lime

All that is left of King Slime — Just ignore the Bl∗e B∗mboo H∗t lv1000boss is wearing. I would never introduce a continuity error into my 110% factual diary enchrease.

And long live KPQ, g∗sh d∗ng it. I’m getting dangerously close to the dreaded 🤮level 31🤮, so let’s make sure we all get just one (1) more go-round on the KPQ express.