Wizard Glum

It's funny the significance that even the most flawed games can have in our early childhoods.

Wizard Glum was an obscure game for the PS1 and was nearly the only content by Starkrimson Entertainment, the others being forgettably generic titles like "Turbo Shot Pinball" and "Deep Water Bass Fishing".

The visuals, while unpolished and blocky even for the time, had a certain charm. Something about the simplicity of the frowning wizard kid and the ghostly enemies he'd vanquish felt minimalistic to the point of being only symbols, stand-ins for a much deeper story.

The gameplay was actually very innovative and to this day I've found nothing like it. You'd play as the eponymous wizard, casting spells and leveling up different schools of magic like "Subterfuge" and "Omniscience". The most unique mechanic, however, was that you would only ever be exploring inside of an empty black void. You had to be the architect of all that you traversed.

The player was not only in control of Wizard Glum but of two floating white gloves which would assemble the dungeon around him as he'd progress. The more contrived and twisting you could make these dungeons, the more experience the "Hands of Greater Scope" could accrue, which would then be used to buy more parts of dungeons.

In order to level up you needed to upgrade your "Wisdom" stat, which could only be done by meeting with a strange figure in a little gray house. This sagely being was named Sopgrisen. His character design was unique and even a little unsettling at first. He was a tall figure with white skin, black featureless clothing, dark rounded glasses, and an oddly shaped head.

His words of wisdom would come in the form of unique dialogue, ranging from meaningless philosophical koans to lines which hinted at deeper secrets. These secrets were well kept indeed — even looking into the game's files, I found them encrypted. This being the only nook or cranny that I did not fully explore, I refused to be deterred.

Fortunately, I had a dubious ace up my sleeve. On the back of the box was a number you could call for hints. I could not help but let my curiosity get the better of me.

Once I dialed the number, an automated voice asked me to hold, followed by a solid five minutes of elevator music and the occasional repetition of "Please hold." Just when I thought I had wasted my data on a dead number, the music stopped and I heard, of all things, a human.

"Silver Sun Wellness, lot seven, suite four."

Not what I expected to hear. The deep female voice on the other line repeated itself, a little annoyed.

"Silver Sun Wellness, lot seven, suite four."

"I'm looking for Starkrimson Entertainment."

"……"

"Hello?"

"We don't… That's not here anymore. I don't deal with that."

"Could you tell me where you're located?"

"This is… You called the parking lot. This is Silver Sun Medicals at 2300 Industry Drive off of Highway 12. Lot seven, suite four." I read the back of the box and nodded along with her answer. Same place, same phone number.

"Alright, thank you. Was there a business here that used to make video games?"

"Ok, buh-bye."

With that she hung up. Every attempt to call back only yielded more hold music.

So I did the rest of my digging online. With the help of the Wayback Machine, things became a little stranger.

At the time I assumed the domain for Starkrimson must have expired and been bought out by some bizarre third party because their website only redirected to a blog. It was filled with incredibly dense, though impressively articulate, philosophical writings. All of these were accompanied by scanned drawings of bodies in various states of bondage.

Some were human figures, buried up to the shoulder, with only the hands free to move. Others were animals, including an especially detailed rendering of a bird bound up in black tape, one wing spread against the ground. The creator of the blog credited himself as Wade Gray, but on his "About" page, where a photo of the author would normally be, there was instead an illustration… That of a pale figure with dark, rounded glasses.

The only thing I could glean from these otherwise impenetrable writings was the assertion that all of mankind were merely agents of their higher selves, that what we call our lives are merely our need to be agents of a larger entropy. The fervor of his writings would at times bring them to poetic heights as he spoke of the "screaming circus of it all" and the "greater nonsense" which he believed to be our ultimate guide and home.

Silver Sun Wellness had a website until just weeks before I searched it. There was nothing on it but their logo, a generic FAQ page which was copy-pasted from another website, and a list of locations throughout the USA and South Korea in which you could buy their products. I could not help but notice that one of these was a gas station within 20 miles of me.

The county tax assessor map did indeed indicate that the land parcel at 2300 Industry Drive belonged to a Silver Sun Wellness LLC. But this name had been changed many times. At one point it was Mystic Naturals LLC, Jihyeloun Son LLC, Big Popper Streetwear and yes, Starkrimson Entertainment.

The address was mentioned in a local news story about an employee who was seen on a security camera smiling and waving before producing a handgun from his backpack and ending his life with a shot to the head. That is at least what I could glean from the search result; the link only brought me to a dead page. The thumbnail looked legitimate, not sensationalistic or polished, just a smiling man with a backpack waving up at the sky. It took only a matter of days before the link had been scrubbed.

Having an abundance of free time, I thought I may as well venture out to investigate the tenuous lingering thread of the wellness products sold at my local gas station. This would be my first time leaving the house in months. I had spent this period in an atemporal haze of unemployment with the curtains drawn, so I reasoned that to step out blinking into the light — if only to catch a bus to a remote industrial route — would do me some good.

The gas station would have appeared abandoned if it wasn't for the pumps whose screens were still lit up. They displayed looping ads as voices spoke brightly to themselves about the "New automated credit service!" In spite of their enthusiasm, every pump was adorned with a hastily written note which read "OUT OF ORDER". Where one would normally swipe a card, layers of peeling electrical tape were crammed inside, blistering and gummy in the summer heat.

It wasn't long before the door opened from an offshoot of the closed gas station and a voice called out "Do you need the pump?! You can't use it. I can do it for ya."

When I answered that I was looking to buy "medicine," the tone of the exchange shifted noticeably. The speaker approached me smiling ear-to-ear. I will never forget the sight of this man. He was permanently bent at the knee, giving him a shuffling walk as his bandaged arm strained against his struggling body, which had been dyed orange and pink by years of labor under the punishing sun.

He itched at his bald head and swung his working hand into mine for an impressively firm shake. "I'm Gappo, man. Man, I'm sorry, if I knew you were another Silver Sunner I woulda invited you in at the first glance!"

He ushered me into the closed-down store and filled my arms with box after box of pills. The packaging had a cheap rainbow sheen and holographic letters printed off-center in multiple languages.

His generosity also extended to other Silver Sun products which were less identifiable, maybe even to those producing them. There were chunks of foam rubber in bags, cross sections of something that looked organic, and metal pieces floating in jars of mineral oil. None of the packaging offered descriptions, only the brand name and words like "Holistic" and "Empowerment".

As we shopped together in the unlit store, he extolled the virtues of the Silver Sun "…Man, me and my girl? Everything changed for us when we started getting these shipments. At first I thought they were just some sketchy pills from China or some shit, but then we started reading the 'manifests' that came with em. It just makes a little more sense every day, you hear me? And we only recently started to mutual-feed. I used to have questions about my life, but I know now that the answer doesn't fall on my hands, it's all for the plan of the Silver Sun."

He invited me into the backroom. The floor was entirely covered with a litter of used blister packs, beer bottles, and food containers. Before I even noticed the bed, I could tell that this was a dwelling by the smell of unwashed skin which coated the walls. Something in the bed started to move. Buried under a blonde wig was the man's girlfriend watching videos on her phone.

She found her lips which weakly tested the air. The breath that could escape them would not be enough to shift a mote of dust. Even so, she spoke, "Baby? Could… could… could I have suh-some water?"

Her lover responded dovishly, bringing a plastic bucket to her lips and tipping it patiently while she drank. Once she had enough, he waved me over to approach her: "Alright, man. You ready?"

When he removed the blanket, sending open food containers clattering to the floor, I could not understand what I was seeing. The sheets had been stained rusty brown by oxidized blood. The shape of this woman made no sense as so much of her was missing, the rest ending in dangling ribbons of skin and gauze. The man began a chant in which she joined him. He took hold of a steak knife and a plate as he approached an area of raw, exposed flesh.

I fled the scene.

A growing part of me sought resolution. I told myself it was only for the particulars that I needed answers: the disappearing company, the man in the gas station, the familiar manifestos which were tucked inside the pill boxes where health and safety warnings should have been. This was a lie.

The very next day, I received a printed letter from Silver Sun Wellness:

"Hello!

We thank you for your interest in our wellness mission and are writing back to help you with this matter.

If you look into this further, we will take action against you.

We would like to assure you that our team of dedicated professionals is looking into this and prioritizes your health and safety above all else.

May wise hands guide your path!

• Silver Sun Medicals"

I could not help myself. I traveled by two connecting Greyhound buses and a train to finally see what was really there at 2300 Industry Drive.

When I arrived, I saw no one, not even any parked cars. Not only was Suite 4 empty of any sign of life, but the booth at the entrance to the parking lot had been left unguarded. At the front of the building, four bolts were still stuck inside the concrete where a sign must have been.

I had no difficulty getting inside. The steel door was only bungeed shut, so I wedged it open and squeezed my way through. The beam of my flashlight fell on boxes of merchandise from the various guises of the company, strewn haphazardly around the space. All was silent, so when the subtlest noise broke through the air, I jumped and took a moment to settle my racing heart.

The noise had come from a small room in the back corner. It may well have been a rat, but nonetheless, in an abandoned building, one must assess whether or not they are alone. Scanning the room, I found it empty. Save for something left in a chair.

At first I thought it was a life-sized puppet of Sopgrisen, then decided it had to be an effigy. It had his features: chalk white skin, pale glasses, that oddly shaped head which looked especially strange in physical space. It looked as if it was damaged on the side, but was mended hastily and without sufficient material. The features were all pulled towards a cinched-up gap at the side of the head.

It moved.

Sitting in the dark, long forgotten, was Wade Gray. His head jutted back and forth violently as he pointed it towards the sound of my entrance, flinging his glasses off of his face. One of his eyes was still there, but moved uselessly, registering nothing. The other socket was empty, distorted and pulled with the rest to the side of his head where he shot himself that day.

The man who had written it all had now been discarded. A thread of drool arched from his mouth as he gibbered "…Where? Wh-whe-where? WHERE?! Where… where… where… where…"

For a time I felt it unfair that such a man, who gave so much of his wisdom, was left blind and gibbering in the dark. Yet I have no regrets for the way all of this has unfolded. I am a changed man now. In my lost days it was the belief that I was in control, the notion that someday answers might come, that held me back. The man that stood before me did not wish to survive such a realization so I have taken it upon myself to carry on his teachings.

I understand now that all that occurs is simply as it was willed by the hands of greater scope.