Chapter 61 - #61: The Celeste Mountain

Chapter 61: Chapter #61: The Celeste Mountain

After clicking the notification and double-checking the publisher page several times, Silver finally confirmed that the alert was genuinely from Sprout Studio.

There was indeed a brand-new game listed under their catalog.

[Celeste.]

"Why were there zero announcements for this? Not a single teaser trailer, no marketing, nothing!" Silver practically yelled into his microphone.

He immediately bought the game and started the download.

His muscle memory carried him through the checkout process flawlessly, but as he stared at the downloading progress bar, genuine confusion still lingered in his eyes.

He leaned in to read the store page description aloud.

"Celeste is a story about climbing a mountain. Players will help Madeline survive her inner demons on her journey to the summit, meeting a memorable cast of characters as she scales the punishing peaks to uncover the mountain’s deepest mysteries."

"Bro, the second I saw the word ’climbing,’ my PTSD triggered so hard," Silver confessed, scanning the rest of the game’s details with intense scrutiny.

After thoroughly verifying that there were absolutely no cauldrons or sledgehammers involved in the gameplay loop, he finally let out a heavy sigh of relief.

"I have to ask Carter and Ivan what’s going on over there! How did those two drop the ball on the marketing rollout this badly?" Silver immediately tabbed over to the Nexus executives’ social media accounts to leave a comment.

Back when Hollow Knight launched, the promotional campaign they ran had been absolutely everywhere.

What happened this time? Did they get into a massive fight with the sadist?

He glanced over at his rapidly moving stream chat.

[

Shanks72838: Wait stop, where are the physical editions?

Manaki: Didn’t they have an exclusivity deal? Why no physical release simultaneously?

ffoelpoepssipi: Sony’s definitely trying to poach him. IVAN WAKE UP, YOU’RE LOSING THE BAG!

EroSpatula: Still no physical disc for XBox either. Wtf is the sadist doing?

]

Back at the studio, Ethan Vale stared blankly at the flood of comments overwhelming his personal social media feed. In the sheer chaos of the sudden launch, he had completely forgotten about coordinating the physical console releases.

Just as he was drafting a post to explain the situation, his phone buzzed. It was Ivan.

"Ethan, did I do something wrong?" Ivan’s voice sounded genuinely distraught over the line.

Ethan rubbed his temples, letting out a heavy sigh. "No, this launch was just a bit unorthodox. I completely forgot to loop you guys in—"

"You forgot?!" Ivan practically roared through the speaker. "The players are flooding my mentions right now! They’re accusing me of slacking off, saying I’m useless, asking if we had some massive falling out behind the scenes!"

"It’s fine, we still have plenty of time to get the production and distribution pipelines running," Ethan quickly reassured him. "I’ll go live on the platform right now and clear the air. It’s entirely my fault, man. My bad."

After talking Ivan off the ledge, Ethan finally breathed a sigh of relief. He pulled up the Sprout Studio official streaming account, ready to start the broadcast, when Yor Forger quietly sat down in the chair opposite his desk.

"Can I join you on stream?" she asked softly. "It was originally my mistake, after all."

"Are you sure?" Ethan hesitated.

"I don’t care anymore," Yor replied, giving him a determined look. "Didn’t you tell me that if I make a mistake, I have to find a way to fix it?"

Ethan smiled faintly. "Alright. Let’s do it together."

The moment the broadcast went live, hundreds of thousands of viewers flooded into the channel, the viewer count ticking up at a terrifying pace.

Ethan sat front and center on the webcam feed, with Yor seated closely beside him, the lower half of her face obscured by a medical mask.

Before Ethan could even get a word out, the chat was already a blur of rapid-fire text.

[

Dini_Jimenez: APOLOGIZE TO IVAN RN

Whozian: Did Sprout break up with XBox??

Orichalxis: SADIST GOING SOLO BOYS

]

"The complete lack of marketing for today’s launch is entirely an internal oversight on our end," Ethan quickly explained, leaning into the mic. "We didn’t have a falling out with anyone at all."

The chat immediately shifted focus.

[

Maelstrom443: Wait who is that next to you?

salkingjust: WHO IS THE GIRL???

ROB001: Why stealth drop the game though?! I wasn’t mentally prepared for this!

]

"I’m sorry. I was the one who pushed the release button today," Yor said. She took a deep, steadying breath and reached up, pulling the mask off her face.

Even though she was just sitting in an empty office staring down the barrel of a webcam, Yor could almost physically feel the weight of hundreds of thousands of eyes staring back at her.

"She actually led the development team for this project, and she’s also my childhood friend," Ethan said with a warm smile, casually draping an arm around Yor’s shoulder.

"Ethan wrote the design document and the core vision," Yor added, offering a small, pursed-lip smile. "I was merely the executor who brought his plans to life."

It was the very first time she had ever exposed her scarred face to the public eye, and to her own surprise, she didn’t feel uncomfortable at all.

The chat slowed down for a brief second as viewers processed the burn scars visible on her neck and jawline.

[

Orichalxis: omg what happened to her?

PotaAvis: sis are you okay? does it hurt? T_T

Blue_Dragoon: wait she made Celeste?? W dev!

]

Yor smiled warmly at the monitor. "Thank you for the concern. The injuries are from a long time ago, they don’t hurt anymore. I’m still undergoing treatment to recover, though."

"As for the stealth drop, I really am sorry," Yor continued, looking earnestly at the scrolling chat. "I only recently joined Sprout Studio and I’m not completely familiar with the standard marketing pipeline yet. I was just too excited. I wanted to share this game with all of you as quickly as possible."

At some point during the Q&A, Ethan quietly slipped out of the office to call Arthur.

He had no idea if Yor’s father was watching the stream right now, but he desperately needed to tell him that he was taking good care of her.

Back on the monitor feed, Yor was passionately discussing the mechanics of the new game with the community, her eyes shining with pure, undeniable brilliance.

It wasn’t until the live broadcast finally concluded that Ethan’s phone buzzed with a text message from Arthur.

[Thank you.]

Sitting in his streaming room, Silver tilted his head back and wiped at his eyes, genuinely moved by Yor’s broadcast.

She had spent the last half-hour talking about how deeply Ethan’s design document had resonated with her.

She had confessed that the only reason she could face the camera so bravely today was because of Ethan’s unwavering support, and because of the core message embedded within Celeste.

She wanted the players to experience that exact same triumph—to fight through the darkness and cheer wildly when they finally reached the summit.

Without saying another word, Silver clicked ’Play’.

The second the game booted up, the screen was filled with gently falling snow, accompanied by the lonely, whistling sound of the wind. The background art was an inky, stylized black canvas streaked with brilliant hues of blue and crimson, resembling a breathtaking sea of clouds bathed in dawn light.

Three lines of text faded onto the dark screen.

[This is it, Madeline.]

[Just breathe.]

[Why are you so nervous?]

In the isolating darkness of the main menu, those three simple lines somehow managed to perfectly manipulate the player’s emotional state.

As the text lingered, Silver found himself subconsciously holding his breath, a phantom tension gripping his chest.

He pressed a button to start, and a brisk, beautiful synth melody instantly filled his headphones. The track was incredibly soothing, almost as if it were gently washing away his underlying anxiety.

"Man, this music is insanely comfortable," Silver murmured, finally taking a deep breath.

On screen, the red-haired protagonist, Madeline, bounded across a series of snowy platforms, making her way toward a lonely cabin in the distance.

The backdrop was a muted, dark green alpine forest layered with pixel-perfect snowfall.

Driven forward by the infectious synth beat, Madeline stepped onto a snow-covered bridge—only for it to suddenly collapse beneath her weight, immediately throwing Silver into the game’s flow.

An old woman stood by the cabin, triggering the game’s first dialogue exchange.

[Madeline: Excuse me, ma’am? The sight out front is busted... is this the mountain trail?]

[Old Woman: You’re almost there. It’s just across the bridge.]

[Madeline: By the way, you should call someone about your driveway. The ridge collapsed, and I nearly died.]

[Old Woman: HAHAHAHAHA. If my "driveway" almost did you in, the Mountain might be a bit much for you. HAHAHAHAHA.]

[Madeline: Well, if an old bat like you can survive out here, I think I’ll be fine.

[Old Woman: Suit yourself... But, you should know. The Celeste Mountain is a strange place. You might see things. Things you ain’t ready to see.]

[Madeline: "..." You should seek help, lady.]

[Old Woman: HAHAHAHA.]

As Silver moved past the introductory plot and headed toward the first official level, he glanced at his chat monitor.

[

NicoGab: It’s just a pixel platformer, gotta be very easy right?

HollowBro: wait where’s her shadow dash?? no mothwing cloak?? oh wait wrong game

thevidler: I can already smell the death loop starting.

ExquisitePieceOfBacon: I pre-ordered two spare keyboards just in case. Is that enough?

kindred: Bro there are so many spikes everywhere already, my eyes are bleeding

]

Just reading that last message made Silver physically jolt in his gaming chair.

"Spikes! My god, the spikes are back!" he groaned, rubbing his face in exasperation. "I’m already going numb."

( ?° ?? ?°) ( ?° ?? ?°) ( ?° ?? ?°) ( ?° ?? ?°) ( ?° ?? ?°)

The chat’s having PTSD from Hollow Knight, they’ll move on eventually... maybe?

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