The video game era brought with it fame and fortune for those that sought it. Ordinary people with humble beginnings found themselves a household name. But for every star that continues to shine, such as the Mushroom Kingdom's Mario, there are countless others that fade just as quickly as they appeared. Peter Pepper is one such star.

Growing up Peter was fascinated by food. He'd spend hours creating realistic looking three course meals out of clay. It wasn't until a schoolyard friend said of his creations that they looked good enough to eat that an idea sparked in his head. With an overturned cardboard box on the street corner and some clay, paste and crayon shavings, Peter began selling his non-toxic foodstuffs to kids hungry for more than the usual mud pie and worm spaghetti. Soon the line stretched around the block and Peter was struggling to keep up with demand. Seeing the look of happiness on his customers face filled him with satisfaction. It was then that Peter made it his goal to feed the world.

Knowing what you want to do and actually doing it isn't always an easy task as Peter found out. He spent a few years at college taking a variety of courses. Anything that he thought would help him to reach for his dream. The few people he told about his goal laughed and made fun of him. So it was that Peter decided the best course of action would be to just start trying. With the last of his money, he bought an old run down warehouse to be the center of his food empire.

After months of experimentation and quite a few failed projects, Peter made a breakthrough. Giant hamburgers. They weren't your ordinary "you'll need two hands to eat it" burger though. Each was as tall as a man and almost twelve feet in diameter. A single burger could feed everyone in a normal sized town. Unable to pay for employees, Peter setup a complex system of scaffolding and platforms to allow him to efficiently complete the growing number of orders.

But then one night something very strange happened. An unpredicted electrical storm loomed over the town and struck the warehouse. Peter's failed experiments left to rot in the corner came to life like a bad science fiction movie. Oversized hot dogs, eggs and pickles were soon shuffling around inexplicably hungry for human flesh. Peter tried to defend himself from the mindless food horde while trying to complete the next day's orders. Even throwing spices in their faces and crushing them beneath the giant meat patties wasn't enough. Peter managed to escape, but the rampaging food zombies broke a gas line. The resulting explosion destroyed the warehouse and Peter's dreams.

The odd tragedy made national news and soon Peter found himself awash in offers, from head chef at national renown restaurants, to cookbook deals and even a made for TV movie. One deal was even so strange that Peter thought it was the perfect fit for this bizarre occurrence. So it was that Burgertime found its way into arcades across the nation.

With his new found fame and fortune, Peter was on top of the world. Money from the video game deal and the insurance on the warehouse was more than enough for him to start over. This time he'd start off a bit slower in order to build up more capital before unleashing the forces needed to feed the world. His first venture was to start up his own chain of restaurants, Peter Pepper's Burger Factory. The interiors were designed as imitations of the platform and scaffolding construction he had built in the warehouse. Each table had its own dumb waiter that would lower the food down to the customers and the servers were dressed as the food-come-to-life that had threatened his that one stormy night. The menu consisted of miniature versions of his giant hamburgers. Even at this reduced size they were still large enough to fill a whole plate.

Peter got so consumed in his burger vision that he forgot about the dream that started him on this path. The public growing bored with burgers hunted for the next cool place to eat. Within two years of opening its doors the Burger Factories closed down. Peter, along with his dwindling fortune, disappeared from the public's eye. He spent the next few years traveling from place to place, gathering up local recipes.

The last known sighting of Mr. Pepper was on the hit Japanese show Iron Chef. Peter was slated to become one of the iron chefs, Iron Chef Burger, but never appeared in more than his debut episode where he suffered a terrible loss. When asked to comment Peter had this to say: "I hate that Chairman Kaga. What kind of secret ingredient is asparagus anyway? How am I supposed to make burgers with that? He's just mad that I switched out one of his peppers with one made out of wax. How was I supposed to know he was going to take a big bite out of it? He's not even a real chairman." With that Peter Pepper, his burgers, and dreams of feeding the world disappeared.

cravipat escaped the blue labyrinth long enough to write this.

0 adventurers found their way to the golden castle.

Words uncovered in the catacombs : video games