Chapter 1: First Place Advantages

Chapter 1 Poster

Chapter 1 was created by Punch-Holer on 22nd August 2017 and ended on 31st January 2018.

## Synopsis

#### **EFAR #1**

Silica was woken up by a group of object-kind surrounding him in a grassy field and clear blue skies. He woke up to find that Badgey was about to pour a bucket filled with water on him. All of them introduced themselves and then suddenly, the ground begins to rumble and a strange metallic cylinder appears from the earth.

#### **EFAR #2**

The doors of the metal cylinder slides open. A mysterious character shows up and introduced himself as Snake, the host for his reality show, Abject Reality. Pinky dissents by mentioning that she didn’t remember signing up for his game, which was swiftly shut down by Snake Oil. Without further answers, he sends everyone tumbling down into an earth fissure with a push of a button. Pinky chips her nail upon impact from the fall.

Snake then instructs that all of them have to find an exit out of the dungeon to find a door. The catch was that there were boulders falling behind them. Everyone needs to act quickly if they want to survive his game.

#### **EFAR #3**

The focus is on Amulet, Badgey, Clove, Jeans, Wet Wipes and Z, who ended up being together as they ran away from tumbling boulders. Badgey had a narrow escape as he slid through the boulders with the bucket intact.

Wet Wipes complains about Amulet and Badgey’s obsession with the bucket when Z told everyone to pay attention to him. Sternly, he told that they have to co-operate, with Jeans being the fastest runner and Badgey not getting too distracted.

There were two paths in front of him, but the group had to make a fast decision as the boulders were catching up on them. The took the path on the left as they ran on. While running, Badgey asks Z if he’s worried about his brother. Z tries to reassure him that Squiggly will be fine on his own.

#### **EFAR #4**

Squiggly shouts into the caverns, desperately looking for his brother, Z. Basket, annoyed by his yelling, told him that he has been yelling at nothing for hours. Squiggly tearfully snaps at Basket, and told him that he doesn't understand his situation and his closeness towards Z as bothers, and assumed that his brother is dead. Styrofoam reassures him that his brother is safe, and that he is there to support him when he is in need of help, which gained the trust from Squiggly.

Rocks continue to fall, as the trio stumbled upon a green door. Snake congratulates them, but taunts them about missing out on 'first place advantages' should they decide to backtrack and look for Z. Both Styrofoam and Squiggly declined to enter the green door, but Basket ponders on whether he should go through with it.

*In this page, viewers were requested to vote whether Basket should ENTER THE DOOR by himself or BACKTRACK with the rest of his group.*

#### **EFAR #5**

As Pinky, Silica and Swabs traverse the caverns together, Silica is tired as he feels that they have been walking around in circles, with no door in sight. Pinky, frustrated with the situation she is in, becomes paranoid about how Snake is watching their every move and mistook Silica as Snake's ally.Silica is afraid of Pinky's threats and anger towards him, with her threatening to 'take him with her' the next time she faces Snake. Swabs quickly grabs Pinky away from Silica, afraid that she will hurt him and herself.

In the nick of time, Styrofoam's group joined forces with Pinky's group, as Styrofoam promised them to show them the way out, Squiggly asked if they have seen his brother, but to no avail, as they have not seen him at all. They eventually discover a blue door, where it was also implied that Basket went though the Green door that they had encountered earlier. Pinky does not mind Styrofoam's group tagging along with her, as they entered the blue door.

#### **EFAR #6**

Jeans leads her team, as they raced towards the red door. In the next room, they were shown a scoreboard from Snake Oil, with Basket in the lead, and Z at the bottom of the list.

Snake Oil assets the fact that his game involves everyone fighting for themselves in an attempt to break up the group, but Z is against separating the team. Snake Oil singles out Z and continues to mock how he is in last place, and even tries to get Badgey to distrust Z. Z tries to hit Snake, only to realize that the Snake Oil in front of him is nothing but a hologram. The hologram glitches, as Snake shows the team the bronze door, leaving the team with their decision on whether they should split up or stick together.

*In this page, viewers were requested to vote whether the red team should STICK TOGETHER or SPLIT UP.*

#### **EFAR #7**

Jeans is confident that her team should stick together, but Wet Wipes have second thoughts. She thinks that she would be better off alone, and tries to walk towards the bronze door on her own, only to be stopped by a wailing Clove, who refused to let her go. Clove implored Wipes to stay, as Z told them that they have to stick together or the team won't be the same without her. Wipes dismissed Clove, and thought that she would be a hindrance to her own team by being 'slow and sad' and also being in a lower position than the rest of the contestants.

Jeans supports Clove by stating that even if they have just met, they could protect each other as their strength is greater in numbers. She confides with Z, and praises him for being a caring brother. She manages to rally the team together as everyone cheers and agrees with Jeans, even with the dour Wet Wipes easing up on her thoughts.

Meanwhile, Snake watches them from his control room, promising himself that he will make them all pay for being resistant to his taunts.

#### **EFAR #8**

This scene is set in the aftermath of Pinky fighting the holograms that Snake Oil has set up. Despite the holograms being severely glitched out and damaged, he makes fun of the fact that she chose to fight him in futility instead of just going through the silver door. The holograph explodes in a glitchy mess, sending every member of the blue team in different locations on a snowy area.

Swabs walks up from the snowstorm, and uncovers a buried Pinky, more damaged than before. Pinky wakes up in surprise, as she is still angry and eager to fight Snake Oil. Swabs tells her to give that plan a break, as they decide to find a place to rest and recover, and then find the rest of their group mates. The duo later chanced upon a wooden cabin, which has an unlocked door.

#### **EFAR #9**

Continuing from the previous page, Pinky immediately settled down comfortably on a rug near the campfire. She encourages Swabs to lay down as well, with Swabs being nervous around Pinky. They both rest on the carpet for a while, until Swabs began to notice a wooden frame with glowing eyes. She ignores the frame, and continues to rest.

Meanwhile, outside the cabin, Styrofoam, Silica, and Squiggly travel through the snowstorm. They found dug up areas and footprints of the duo, that are headed towards the wooden cabin. Silica complements Styrofoam for his competence, and the latter is happy to have some deserved praise, and stating that he doesn't get noticed for his efforts often.

#### **EFAR #10**

After the Red team collectively decided that they want to stick together, they entered the Bronze door, leading them into a room with golden tiled walls and stairs in the middle of a deep pool of water. Most of the team are enthusiastic about going into the water, but Z is reluctant to get into the water. Jeans wanted to help him out, by offering to carry him across the pool.

As the team swam across the pool, Wet Wipes struggled to keep her head afloat, and Jeans offered to help her as well by hitching a ride on her back. Amulet finds a lever, and activates it despite Wet Wipe's warning. The lever caused the water to be flushed away in a whirlpool, revealing the iron-meshed floor and tunnel ahead of them.

The team encountered a hidden room, with Snake greeting them once again on a television screen. He reads out the instructions on how the lever works, and tells that that lever B within the hidden room causes the water level to rise again, allowing the team to ascend to the upper level where a door will be available.

Z is sure that he will enter the hidden puzzle room as a de-facto leader, but wanted to take someone with him to solve the puzzle together, Amulet offers to pull the other lever along with Badgey and Clove, leaving Jeans or Wet Wipes to be chosen by Z as his puzzle solving partner.

*In this page, viewers were requested to vote whether Z should choose JEANS or WET WIPES as his puzzle solving partner.*

#### **EFAR #11**

Swabs wakes up from her sleep as the picture frame falls over and pieces of glass shatter onto the carpet. Swabs notices this, and tries to wake Pinky up as the scene around her increasingly distorts. Pinky later wakes up to find that her and Swabs are trapped in a void, with a figure staring at them. The ghostly figure greets them, as Pinky assumes that they are one of Snake's holograms. However, the mysterious figure does not seem to recognize who Snake is.

Outside the cabin, Silica knocks on the locked cabin door. Styrofoam plans that they have to get in through another entrance, which is the chimney, but Squiggly is against the idea of entering the chimney due to how dangerous it is due to the fireplace below. Styrofoam then assures Squiggly that Silica will be going down the chimney instead, which Silica gleefully accepts. Squiggly panics, pleading Silica to stop going up the chimney. Styrofoam is in unease of Squiggly's lack of trust in his plan.

The figure lead the duo through a passageway, trying to show them a way out as Silica enters through the chimney, He leaves the chimney mysteriously unscathed despite flames below him. He could not find Pinky or Swabs, but found a strange wooden frame. Styrofoam excuses himself so that he could investigate the frame alone, aghast at the fact that the duo are trapped in the mirror hidden in the frame.

#### **EFAR #12**

Z chose Jeans as his puzzle partner, leaving the rest of the team at the previous platform to wait for them. Despite his calmness and reassurance at Wet Wipes that they will be okay, he has a bad feeling about what's to come from the puzzle room.

Jeans tries to pull the lever that is supposed to raise the water level and solve the puzzle, but it was stuck. Snake appears, and told that that they haven't completed his puzzle, and manages to lure them both into his trap as a revenge for their stubbornness and their placement in the scoreboard. Metal bars sprang up around Z, as Snake gives Jeans a 6 minute time limit to find the key underneath the metal grilles outside the room, but warns about the metal blades beneath the floor.

#### **EFAR #13**

Jeans hurriedly runs on top of the cage and leaves the puzzle room through the gap on the ceiling. In a panicked hurry, she searches for the key, and sees a glint of light from the floor. She tries to grab the key with her legs, but she got scratched by the blades as she recoiled in pain. The key is dropped, but saved by Jean's quick reflexes as she grabs it.

She runs back the the puzzle room, and takes a deep breath before diving into the flooded puzzle room to unlock the cage and save an unconscious Z. As she unlocked the cage with her key, the lever activates as the door to the puzzle room opens. The area starts to flood, as Jeans held onto Z for dear life while swimming out of the submerged puzzle room.

#### **EFAR #14**

*This page is in an animated video format.*

As the rest of their team await Jeans and Z to return to the surface, Jeans kept on swimming towards the previous stair area. However, there is a new threat underneath the floors of the level, where the bladed motors reveal themselves. These motors cover the stairs, and Jeans tries to dodge them, only to be caught by a motor on one of the steps and tore at her clothed legs, untangling strings of fabric around the blade. This stops the blade from spinning, but Jeans is caught in place.

Unfortunately for Jeans, the blade starts to spin faster, dragging Jeans under and she ends up hitting herself against a wall, losing Z. As Z floats to the surface, he is ultimately brought back to safety on a dry platform where the rest of the team are.

#### **EFAR #15**

Z wakes up from unconsciousness, waking up to Badgey and Clove tearfully hugging him, relieved that he made it out alive. Wet Wipes has managed to fish out his sunglasses, and all seems well until Z notices that Jeans is missing.

Amulet is the first to speak up, that Jeans had 'Just vanished'. Z is getting agitated and angry at her vagueness and yelled at her, demanding to know where Jeans was. He knew that Snake had something to do with her disappearance, and called upon Snake. Snake later revals what happened to Jeans onto the screen, leaving the team despairing on Jean's death. Z was so devastated that he broke down, leaving Wet Wipes to command the team by asking Amulet to pull the lever and Badgey and Clove to help Z over to the next door.

#### **EFAR #16**

Continuing form EFAR #4, Basket enters through the green door, only to find Snake in the room. Congratulating Basket for being first in the scoreboard, Snake offers basket a gift box. Inside the gift box, is an artificial A.R.M, which stands for Appendage Replacement Mechanism. This gadget allows objects to use it like an extra arm.

Basket is hesitant, and ungrateful to Snake's gift. Basket tries to attach it to himself, and declares the invention as stupid. Snake gets angry, but retorts that the mechanism is just a prototype, and that it doesn't start out perfect. Basket snarks back at Snake, comparing himself to Squiggly, who he considers as a 'One-armed freak'. Frustrated, Snake points Basket to the exit, as Basket continues to make fun of Snake Oil's invention and how much of a letdown he is, and slams the golden door at his face.

## Polls

This chapter introduced interactive polls where the readers get to make a decision for the characters in the story, which could drastically change the fate of the characters, where the majority vote determines the eventual outcome.

## Trivia

This chapter has a drastically different art style compared to the rest of the series, with aliased line art. Notably, Basket and Wet Wipes's designs have been modified over time, with the former being a darker shade of green and the latter with beige edges.

This chapter is named after Snake Oil's quote about 'First Place Advantages' towards Basket in EFAR #04.

This chapter features the Red, Blue and Green doors, signifying the team colors and also the Gold, Silver and Bronze doors, which represents the color of trophies in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd placement.