Geography Dash (Geometry Dash) - Tealy and the Crew

-

It had started, as many things started with DumbDird, with a text.

"DURR TALLY I'm playing Geography Dash"

Tealy looked at his phone.

"Geometry Dash," he typed back.

"DURR YEAH TRIGEOMETRY CHALLENGE"

"That's still not—"

"DURR TALLY ALGEBRA JUMP IS REALLY HARD"

Tealy put his phone down.

Picked it back up.

"It's Geometry Dash. Geo. Metry. Dash."

"DURR YEAH MULTIPLICATION MOVING I'M PLAYING IT RIGHT NOW"

Tealy stared at Multiplication Moving for a long time.

Then his phone buzzed one more time.

"DURR GEOING DASHO"

And then, before Tealy could respond to Geoing Dasho, which he was not sure he was capable of doing:

"DURR STARTING STEREO MADNESS"

The updates came in over the next four hours with the irregular frequency of a person who was deeply, completely, and entirely absorbed in something and was only surfacing to report conditions before diving back under.

Attempt 34: "DURR THIS IS HARD TALLY"

Attempt 97: "DURR I KEEP DYING AT THE SAME PART"

Attempt 143: "DURR TALLY THE LITTLE CUBE GUYS GOES ZOOM"

Attempt 201: "DURR I ALMOST HAD IT"

Dird, who had been added to this inadvertent live commentary by virtue of being in the group chat, reacted to every single update with 👍 without a single word of actual response, which meant there was a person somewhere in the world who had now given a thumbs up to the phrase "the little cube guys goes zoom" and that person was Dird.

Attempt 356: "DURR TALLY WHAT DOES PRACTICE MODE DO"

"It lets you practice," Tealy replied.

"DURR OKAY"

Forty minutes of silence.

Attempt 357: "DURR I DIDN'T USE PRACTICE MODE I JUST KEPT GOING"

Tealy looked at this message for a long moment.

DumbDird had opened practice mode, been informed of what practice mode did, closed practice mode, and continued dying in normal mode for forty minutes.

"Why," Tealy typed.

"DURR TALLY IT FELT MORE REAL WITHOUT IT"

Attempt 891: "DURR TALLY I CAN FEEL IT"

Attempt 902: "DURR SO CLOSE"

Attempt 911: "DURR TALLY"

Attempt 911 follow-up: "DURR"

Attempt 911 follow-up to follow-up: "DURR TALLY I'M NERVOUS"

Blara, who had been silent for the entire four-hour saga, posted a photo of chips at this exact moment. Whether this was emotional support or coincidence was unclear. It felt like emotional support.

Attempt 936:

The message that came in was different from the others.

It was just:

"DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR"

Followed immediately by a screenshot.

The screenshot showed the Stereo Madness completion screen. Stars. The word COMPLETE. Attempt count: 936. Time: four hours and eleven minutes.

Then:

"DURR TALLY I BEAT GEOGRAPHY DASH"

"Geometry," Tealy typed.

"DURR YEAH"

Dird reacted to the completion screenshot with 👍

Beric sent: "936 attempts is actually respectable for a first level with no practice mode."

This was high praise from Beric and everyone knew it.

DumbDird responded: "DURR THANKS BERIC!! DURR WHAT SHOULD I PLAY NEXT"

Tealy, with the benefit of hindsight, would later identify this as the moment he should have intervened.

He did not intervene.

He said: "Maybe do another easy one first"

DumbDird said: "DURR OKAY TALLY"

Fourteen seconds later:

"DURR STARTING NINE CIRCLES"

Tealy closed his eyes.

The Nine Circles updates were different from the Stereo Madness updates.

The Stereo Madness updates had been the updates of someone struggling with something difficult but approachable. The Nine Circles updates were the updates of someone who had walked into a different category of experience and was reporting back from a place that had different rules.

Hour 1: "DURR TALLY THIS LEVEL HAS REALLY GOOD MUSIC"

Hour 2: "DURR THE BACKGROUND CHANGES COLORS"

Hour 2, fifteen minutes later: "DURR I HAVEN'T GOTTEN PAST THE FIRST PART YET"

Hour 3: "DURR TALLY THERE IS A WAVE PART"

"Yeah," Tealy typed. "The wave part is most of the level. It's very hard."

"DURR OKAY"

"DumbDird Nine Circles is not an easy level—"

"DURR I KNOW TALLY I CAN FEEL IT"

Hour 4: "DURR TALLY I'M AT 12%"

Hour 6: "DURR 31%"

Hour 7: Nothing. A full hour of nothing, which in DumbDird's case meant either he had stopped or had entered a state of focus so complete that communication had been suspended. Both were unprecedented.

Hour 8: "DURR TALLY"

"Yeah," Tealy typed, putting down what he was doing with the patience of someone who had been peripherally living through this for eight hours.

"DURR THE DROP IS COMING UP"

"How close are you."

"DURR 47%"

"DumbDird the drop is at 50%."

"DURR I KNOW TALLY I'M NERVOUS"

Hour 9: Nothing.

Hour 10:

"DURR TALLY I GOT TO THE DROP"

A pause of four minutes.

"DURR I'M AT THE DROP"

Another pause. Longer.

The group chat was quiet. Even Blara had not posted cheese in the last forty minutes, which was the closest thing to a vigil she was capable of holding.

Then the screenshot arrived.

Tealy opened it.

It took a moment to understand what he was looking at.

The completion screen.

Nine Circles. Complete.

He read the stats.

He read them again.

He called DumbDird.

It rang once.

"DURR TALLY—"

"You completed it."

"DURR YEAH—"

"From the drop."

"DURR YEAH—"

"You fluked Nine Circles from the drop."

"DURR, I'M WAVE CARRIED, TALLY—"

Tealy sat with this sentence for a moment.

"DumbDird," he said carefully. "Have you ever played a wave level before."

"Durr, no—"

"Have you ever played the wave in practice mode—"

"Durr, no Tally, you know I don't use practice mode—"

"Have you ever done anything that would suggest you have any particular aptitude for wave gameplay—"

"Durr, no—"

"And the memory sections—"

"Durr, yeah—"

"The sections that require you to have memorized the specific sequence of movements—"

"Durr, yeah—"

"Which you could not have memorized because you had never reached them before—"

"Durr, yeah—"

"You fluked those."

"DURR, YEAH—"

"With no memory."

"DURR, I'M WAVE CARRIED, TALLY—"

"YOU'VE NEVER PLAYED WAVE—"

"DURR, I JUST FELT WHERE TO GO, TALLY—"

"THAT'S NOT HOW MEMORY SECTIONS WORK—"

"DURR, IT WORKED THOUGH—"

Tealy stood up from where he was sitting and walked to his kitchen and stood there for a moment looking at the counter.

Nine Circles.

Completed.

By DumbDird.

Who had called it Geography Dash four hours before attempting Stereo Madness, who had refused practice mode on principle, who had never played a wave level in his life, who had spent ten hours reaching the drop and then fluked the entire back half of one of the most recognizable hard demons in the game's history on what appeared to be pure instinct and the specific chaos energy of someone who did not know enough about the level to be afraid of it correctly.

"DumbDird," Tealy said from the kitchen.

"Durr, yeah Tally?"

"What are you going to play next."

"DURR, GOOD QUESTION TALLY—"

"Don't say Bloodbath—"

"DURR WHAT'S BLOODBATH—"

"Goodnight DumbDird."

"DURR GOODNIGHT TALLY!! DURR, GEOING DASHO IS REALLY FUN—"

Tealy hung up.

He walked back to the living room.

Opened the group chat.

The screenshot was still there. Nine Circles. Complete. The stats showing ten hours of attempts, the run starting at 50%, the wave sections cleared by a person who had never played wave, the memory sections navigated by someone who had no memory of them.

Dird had reacted to the screenshot with 👍

Tealy looked at the 👍 for a long moment.

For once, he thought, it was the correct response.

He didn't tell Dird that.

He went to bed.

Somewhere, DumbDird was already looking up what Bloodbath was.

Tealy felt this in his bones without knowing it and slept poorly for reasons he couldn't identify.

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