..gnh..

..Hrm?

You awake in a strange room. Well, no stranger than most. But an unfamiliar one.

You have a killer headache, and can’t seem to feel your right arm. You appear to be hooked up to some kind of machine in the wall with tubes or some sort. Beside you is a table with a note and a pen. There’s some kind of marked-up drawing on the wall, and a familiar bag in the corner. Your backpack is gone, and…

…Sonuvabitch took your hat!

—

» Detach these insidious wires. No one’s getting a brain-scan on Adventure Guy!

You snap the wires off furiously. Adventurers don’t need… whatever this is! Wires are for schmucks!

As you pull them out, the wires seem to wind back into the machine. You climb off the apparently-makeshift bed.

—

» Check to make sure your right arm still exists.

Of course it is, it’s just numb agai—

…

Oh.

—

» Read note.

You read the note. The penmanship is… pretty awful. It seems whoever brought you here is coming back soon, though.

There’s a pen beside the note.

—

» Check the bag.

It’s the goddamn tiles again. Maybe whoever took your bag didn’t have any use for it. You certainly didn’t.

» Check the machine.

There’s a set of nine Roman numerals on the buttons, a blank display panel, and five small holes where the wires wound back into.

—

» Make sure we still have all our items

Nope, everything was in the backpack. You’ll need to get that back as well. Hat is first priority, of course.

—

» Plug the bottom two wires into us again and press the top three buttons (I II III) on the machine.

Plug them into yourself?! Whoa, whoa, whoa, you don’t even know what this thing does. You do punch some numbers though; they just show up on the screen.

—

» Press button IV.

1234 is now entered. There’s no “okay done” button or anything to see what happens, although it doesn’t look like there’s room for more than four digits.

—

» For a short period of time, mourn and reminisce about the good times you used to have with your right arm.

All those good times climbing ladders… never again. Aw.

Well at least you and Stumpy can have some more good times now, you guess.

—

» Exercise trust and wait for your mysterious benefactor with awful spelling to return.

Tum te tum. You waste a few hours.

Nope, the dude isn’t coming back.

—

» Grab the pen btw, we may need it.

You throw it in the bag with the tiles, but don’t grab the bag yet. Not really very convenient to drag around for no reason.

—

» Take a closer look at the chart on the wall.

There are eight circles in a row. One has a smiley face by it, one has a sad face, one has an exclamation mark, one is X’d out, and four have question marks. You’re not sure what to make of this.

—

» Look out through door.

There’s a second room over thisaway. here. It appears to be quite the gale outside.

—

» Flip the fuck out!

This is all pretty fucked up but you’re actually feeling reasonably chill about this.

—

» Look out window.

You peer out the window. Nothin’ but rain and thunder far as the eye can see.

—

» Examine panel thing on the wall next to the door.

It says “Perimeter Locked Down. Weather Conditions Hazardous.” There’s also a big X symbol below, apparently indicating that nobody’s getting past while it’s stormy out.

—

» Try to get book.

You’re not really tall enough.

—

» Examine thing in the carved part out of wall.

It’s some kind of cassette. It is unlabelled.

—

» Play a haunting tune on the piano with one hand.

It’s kind of tough just with the one hand.

—

» Unplug the piano after playing it a bit.

—

» Check to see if there is any music recorded on the keyboard.

There are no buttons on it except the keys.

—

» Also try to replay the music box music on above mentioned instrument.

Your memory is pretty good but it’s not that good. Besides, you don’t really know much about music.

—

» Use the keyboard to knock down the book. Tuck it between your left arm and your body.

You think you might have been able to manage this, but the keyboard can’t really be unplugged in any way so far as you can tell.

—

» Grab the bag and swing it at the book in a attempt to knock it down.

Just barely hit the shelf! But you knock it down.

Boy this piece of shit is real heavy! You decide to take a look-see.

This is the most incomprehensible book you have ever looked at. And every page looks almost the same!

—

» Take off the bandages

Well okay. Here goes then.

GASP

There is a socket and a bunch of wires sticking out.

—

» Pull the paper with the 8 circles on it down from the first room’s wall.

You pull down the paper. Something appears to have been written on the back.

As best you can tell, “Calms Guy” is on page 2248.

You flip to the appropriate page in the big book. It’s… almost completely bare, save for one repeating line.

—

» Play FACADE.

All right. Time to try this out.

You play F-A-C-A-D-E once, then repeated, as directed by the page. The music echoes through the wall speakers.

The storms outside seem to let up.

Light shines in the window.

The sign on the door panel changes, and the shutters slide up.

—

» Put in 2 2 4 8 on the machine thing we were plugged into.

You enter II-II-IV-VIII.

—

» Check the pages surrounding 2248. Specifically 2245, 2249, and 2251. While you’re at it let’s take a look at 1124.

Checking the surrounding and other pages you find more generic sheet music.

—

» Try to connect our wires with the wall wires, by either pulling the wall wires into us, or pulling our wires out and connecting them with the wall wire socketthingies.

You get a bit of a painful shock touching your own loose wires, but you can pull the other wires out of the hole. You are a bit reluctant to connect yourself to this machine again, not knowing whether you can trust whoever put you there, but you are curious enough to risk it and see.

The machine’s wiring crackles as you pull it out and press the end against your open socket. You feel rather charged up!

—

» Mourn the loss of our hat.
» Make a paper hat from the strip on the floor or by tearing a page out of the book to temporarily replace our old one.

You pledge a vow to recover your dashing hat no matter the price. However, before that time comes, there is still adventuring to be done, and no adventurer can be without a hat! Your new paper accomplice will do nicely for now.

—

» Unplug ourselves. Then run outside and scream “FREEDOM!” before examining our new surroundings.

FREEDOM

The shutter door leads to a thin ledge in the cliff face. The path ramps downwards, and then through another open shutter-door.

You find yourself in a room with some kind of square contraption in the middle. There is also a familiar door here. On the wall is some kind of sliding handle, and there is another switch by the vault-type door. There is also some kind of extended claw gun looking thing leaning against the wall.

Something smells like it’s burning.

—

» Insert clawgun into right stump.

It interfaces pretty well with however your wire system works. You become… Adventure Guy With Claw.

—

Lightly tap all switches and the door’s bolt. One or more of them is probably red hot.

Everything seems pretty room temperature. Whatever this room is was certainly built better than that oven/wire set up. What kind of person even hooks up a random purposeless burning wire chain thing anyways!

As you touch the handle, the hatch in the center of the room opens. It closes again as soon as you let go.

—

» Try to open the door to the right. If opening the door fails, push the handle to the right then try opening the door again.

Yup, opens reeeeal good. Whoever went through it last left it unlocked behind them.

The sliding switch appears to bolt and unbolt the door.

—

» Unfold paper hat and use the chart as a guide for turning the sliding handle.

You are… reluctant to lose another hat. Fortunately you can remember the patterns of circles on the paper just fine.

This room again? Looks like you’re back to the rest of the facility.

—

» Call out for Dr. Scruffopopulos!

Scruffles does not appear to be around anywhere. Actually you hadn’t seen him for a while, even before passing out.

—

» Go back to the room where we lost consciousness before turning into a cyborg.

Nothing unusual here.

—

» See if the fire in the room through the mirror has burned out yet.

Yup, looks like it’s gone out. You decide to take a look-see.

The flame-retarding gunk has been burnt away by the overpowering flame you started up. The cocoons appear to have been burnt away, leaving some toothy skeletons.

—

» Can the anvil be unfastened? Is there anything underneath it?

There’s a panel underneath it, but the anvil appears to be permanently attached to it.

—

» Have we looked underneath the floating stones?

No, but upon further review they appear to be fastened to the ground when not floating. Huh.

—

» We should get the leash from glass wall room.

It’s really more of a piece of tough cord, but you grab it anyhow.

—

» Check the underside of the broken table in the cabin.

Nothing’s there. Seems like it’s just an ordinary table… that got broken in half somehow.

—

» Open the cupboard…?

SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

This thing again!!

—

» TEAR IT APART WITH YOUR CYBORG HAND/GUN THINGY.

Oh no you don’t, eyemonster thing. Not this time. This time you have a claw arm that is juuust big enough to grab underneath your fancy little eye there.

And the claw arm has a ‘spin’ function.

So why don’t you just…

Stay…

PUT.

You’ll deal with this thing later.

Meanwhile you have some pressing puzzle shit to deal with.

—

» Make squares (and protrusions) by copying the tiles we have using the gel-like stuff in the box with the handle in the kitchen.

This is probably doable. Now that you’ve got warm, malleable black clay, you stuff it in the the weird lidbox thing and…

Ka-squish! Apparently this this is a press for making square-shaped things.

You make one plain black tile, with a lump sticking out from when you pressed the wooden spoon against the gel and left a mark.

—

» Take something white-ish and stuff it in the analyzer so it gets mushed. See if it gives white mush. Repeat until recieving the desired result. Make white tiles.

You come up with a solution for not having white clay on the fly—you could grab the white clay dishes from the cupboard, toss it in the analyzer until it is destabilized or whatever that thing does, then take the clay and—

» Start with P.A.L.’s skull.

Ummmmmm.

Okay. Uh.

You try and wipe that rather creepy thought from your mind and take comfort knowing that that particular course of action is not yet necessary.

—

» Try to converse with the eyemonster.

It just waggles around flipping out. Occasionally it SKREEs at you.

—

» Poke the thing from a distance.

ew ew ew it’s all greasy and gross and slimy and stuff

—

» Also you can make a queen piece by taking the pawn one and rotating it 4 times to get the print needed for the queen.

You mark the gel press with the pawn piece four times, creating all eight lines the queen piece requires. Then you add black clay and create a black queen tile. Progress at long last!

—

» Pull the wires on our stump. If we feel a tugging feeling in another part of our body, where do we feel it?

When you touch the socket your hand just gets an electric shock.

—

» Look for people!

There doesn’t appear to be anyone around.

—

» The bishop can be made by simply rotating the rook piece.

You mush the dishware in the upper shelves in the analyzer and get yourself some nice, malleable white clay.

Despite some misgivings, you are able to press the intrusion into the gel without messing up the square shape of the gel press.

Bam! A white bishop tile has been created! Now that you have all the right clay, it should be no problem to make the rest of the molds.

—

» Find something really icky and throw it on the creature.

You’re not sure you want to torment this thing needlessly.

—

» Use the two colors of clay to copy each piece in the other color.

You have a bunch of wacky shenanigans involving clay spluttin’ and gel pressin’.

Your set of six important tiles is complete! Plus the four you started with, the lumpy misfit one, and the pen you swiped!

You place the tiles in the spaces corresponding to the chess board.

WHOA YOU TOTALLY HEAR LIKE WHIRR-CLUNKING AND STUFF, PUZZLE COMPLETE

You investigate the kitchen, where the whirr-clunking came from, and see that the fridge has receded into the wall. A doorway is visible. You opt to take it, seeing no other options.

The stairs wind around and lead you to a door. You can’t see much, but you can feel some kind of wheel.

You turn it and a door slides open. The room is rather chilly, and frost seems to float in the air above you. You also see… there…

there is… uh…

SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

—

» PANIC!

This seems like a pretty good idea. You book it for the stairwell.

The monstrous creature slams the wall behind you.

You race out of the kitchen as tentacles slither up after you.

—

» Grab eyemonster with claw. Bring it to its mommy.

Maybe you can pacify it by bringing it the small one? Worth a shot, anyhow. You frantically plug the clawgun back into your socket, maintaining the grip. The oculoid is freaking out.

You bring the creature down, nervously standing in front of the great beast thing. The eyemonster is seriously flipping out and totally trying to latch onto you with its tentacles.

run flee run hide get out get away

SHIT SHIT NOT A GOOD IDEA

bad bad bad bad bad bad bad leave run run run run bad

The monstrous oculoid knocks you into the corner of the room, but cannot seem to actually get at you because its teeth are getting in the way. It can’t seem to grab you, and isn’t using its tentacles to grab you either. You’ve got a very brief respite in this nook but you won’t be safe for long. What do you do?

no no bad leave run flee flee bad run

—

» Poke it in the eye really hard.
» Punch it in the eye.»
» If possible, shoot the claw at the big one’s eye.
» Just release the little one, then make a run for it.

You’re not sure you can get close enough to hit it in the eye without getting near the teeth, but you drop the little oculoid to free up your arm, then launch the clawgun into its eye. It recoils in SKREEEEEEEing pain, covering its eye with some tentacles.

—

» Move quickly along the wall until you reach the sewage door. Enter the sewage door.

You book it across the room, outpacing the little oculoid. The big one is hot on both your heels.

Predictably enough, it doesn’t open, no matter how hard you pull. It seems to be frozen solid in the frame, though, rather than just locked. Can’t worry about it now, got to get away!

—

» ACTION ROLL under the giant monster’s teeth

You dive under the charging oculoid, its massive teeth narrowly missing you.

You are briefly run over by its trailing tentacles. You feel an overwhelming sensation of anger and blind rage.

The little oculoid has booked it out of the room already. You crawl out and follow it.

—

» Try to communicate with your cool new oculoid buddy!
» Investigate these newfound communication abilities.

You recall experiencing very strong raw emotional feelings whenever the oculoid was attached to you. It must be hiding again, though. It was just ahead of you, but is now gone.

—

» Cabinet?

You pop open the rather suspicious-looking cupboard door and find the critter somewhat squished in. It eyes you suspiciously for a moment.

—

» make a SKREE noise.

SKREEEEEEEE

It jumps out of the cupboard and out the door. Looks like you scared it off.

—

» Follow it! It obviously is like any other animal and is more afraid of us then we are of it, as such we can make friends with it!

You follow it to the living room, where it is quite clearly hiding under a cushion. Time to turn a fresh leaf with this weird little critter.

You flip the cushion and stand still as it SKREEs at you. It doesn’t immediately run, possibly hoping to scare you off.

You remain still. It closes its mouth and stares at you, warily. Time to try getting closer.

Taking a few steps closer, you hold up your one hand to reveal that it is empty. It skrees curiously, then catches itself and shouts at you loudly.

You reach to pat it on its grey mouth-tentacle things, but it recoils backwards into the couch seat. You withdraw your hand somewhat. It seems to be quite protective of its mandible-ys.

Lacking anything else to touch, you finally just decide to pat it on the eye/head/whatever. There is a tentative moment as you wait for its reaction.

It skrees quietly and nuzzles into you. Its tentacles brush against you somewhat and you get another flash of blurry emotion.

safesafe

—

» Name it Skree.

You name your new friend Skree.

—

» Go open the square protrusion in the incinerater room and look inside.

It only opens when you hold the !!! handle, perhaps as some sort of safety mechanism to make sure you can’t get too close. You can’t get a good look down from where you’re standing. Skree is very nervous about approaching this room.

—

» I say we train it to switch the freezer switch/button/level while we distract the biggun.

You attempt to tell Skree to make the room downstairs colder. It reacts happily to your emoting of ‘cold’, and nervously to your emoting of ‘heat’.

Whoa! Sounds like someone downstairs is getting crabby.

—

» Look down stairwell… (the one behind the fridge)

The wall is cracking rather heavily. You’re not sure what consequences this will have, but Mr. Angrypants down below is certainly getting impatient with you.

—

» Coax Skree into room by thinking happy thoughts (possibly of cold?). Once Skree is fine with being in there, see if when Skree touches the handle the thing opens.

Skree refuses to go anywhere near the room, despite your attempts at assurance.

—

» Go back to the piano and plug it in, begin playing music with Skree!

You cannot get Skree to the piano room. It refuses to pass through the hatch room.

—

» Go and examine the bottom floor of the house, check the computer to see if someone accessed it and forgot to log out!

Nope. You’re still going to have to figure out where Dr. Feringus would have left her password. Perhaps that notebook from your bag …

—

» See if the lever turns.

Yup. The hatch seems to only open if it is set to the bottom position and being held; when cranked towards the top the room feels warmer and the smell of burning metal increases significantly.

—

» Test Skree’s reaction to the following mental images…

You pick up Skree and concentrate as best you can on a number of images.

» …oculoids.

There is possibly a hint of sadness, but it’s hard to tell. There’s little response.

» …humans.

Fear.

» …the big oculoid.

Immense fear. A touch of sadness as well, perhaps?

» …the scientist.

You can’t seem to get across the idea, but thinking of a labcoat fills Skree with even more fear.

» …the stone ring.

You aren’t sure exactly what feeling you get about this – Awe? Reverence? It’s very strong but very passive.

» …the things that were probably oculoid eggs.

Thinking about the cocoons gives Skree a feeling of great sadness.

» …the various symbols found around this place.

Thinking of the ever-present eye symbol gets no reaction. Perhaps it is a mundane sign?

» …lightning, storms.

Excitement.

—

» Hug Skree, communicate that you agree about sadness, communicate that you feel ashamed over being human!

This is a bit too complicated for Skree. You don’t even know if you are human or not anyway!

—

» Take Skree to the stone circle.

Skree starts jumping around and flipping out. He seems excited! You figure you can leave him here for a bit while you look around.

—

» If the water is turned off, turn it back on again…

The water had been on – you turned it off to get into the magma cavern, then back on after you left.

—

» Check up on Skree again.

Skree is hanging out in the living room. He seems all right. Probably a good time to figure out how to close off the fridge stairway before anything…

Hm? The walls are shaking a bit again.

Oh holy shit what the hell was that??

—

» Investigate!

You take a quick glance at Skree as the dust settles. All right then. Time to man up and face your fears.

SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEholyshit.

The kitchen is destroyed. Most of the floor is gone, including the loose tools like the converter and gel press as well as half the oven. The room is seething with leaking gas and frost. No running any more – this thing is pissed; there’s no way you’re going to be able to hide from it now.

Skree launches his own battle cry. Time to deal with this bitch.

—

» Our hat is pointy. It has a giant eye. There is only one possible course of action.

You toss your papery hat at the monster’s eye, knowing it isn’t strong enough to seriously damage it. The attack gives you an opportunity to do some real damage, though.

—

» Kick it in that… thing that looks like a spine.

You dive into the creature’s open mouth. So long as you’re quick enough to get past before it bites down, you can…

POW! You smash the monster’s spine with a powerful kick, though you don’t snap it. The beast lets out a mighty SKREE, angrier than ever; it is wounded but alive. You feel yourself becoming more and more entangled, however…

Skree jumps down from the ceiling and tackles the creature in the eye, knocking it loose from the walls. You suddenly remember there is no longer a floor.

uh oh

Ker-splat.

The monster is vanquished. You are covered in eye-goo, but rather fortunately alive.

—

Previous Chapter | Archive | Next Chapter

» Enter the C.F. Room.

The door is locked. You try the skeleton’s key, but it doesn’t work.

—

» Look under and examine plaque

It’s a copy of the Hippocratic Oath. It’s affixed to the wall– it won’t budge.

—

» Play chess with the dog. No, really.

You invite the dog to play a round. It slobbers a bit in response.

—

» Look under the lamp.

There’s a broken bulb under the lampshade.

—

» Look under the carpet.

Under one corner of the carpet is another note.

This one is written in a different handwriting than P.A. Les’. It’s also quite succinct.

—

» Study the chessboard. And don’t move the chess pieces!

You check out the chessboard. There are only six pieces on the board; three white and three black. Shame – with a full set of pieces you’d be able to play a game or two.

—

» Search the couch thoroughly.

You find some kind of floor plan-looking thing.

It appears to be one page out of a series.

—

» Examine the liquid under C.F.’s door

It appears to be a very dark, dank water. You can hear running water coming from somewhere.

—

» Look through the keyholes of the doors.

In the P.A.L. room, you see a set of hooks with some kind of bra-looking thing hanging from one of them. You can also see part of another door, with water leaking from underneath it. The room appears to continue to the left a bit, out of sight.

In the C.F. room, the view is pretty similar, with the room extending to the right. The entire floor is soaked in a thin coat of water. On these set of hooks there is a labcoat.

—

» Check the incinerator room door

You try the door. Locked, as usual. What is with this place being so hard to get around??

—

» Check the cabinet. Inside as well as under it and behind.

There is nothing underneath it, nor can you budge it from the wall– it appears to be affixed somehow. However, there is a curious thing within it.

You find a grey grid-looking thing. The squares are indentations; not buttons.

—

» Also, check the fruit bowl. Then take two apples/oranges/whatever. Eat one and offer the other one to the dog. Then empty the bowl into our bag.

The fruit in the fruit bowl is… extremely rotten. You don’t have much room left in your bag, either. You do, however, toss some to your doggy companion.

SLURP SCARF MUNCH CHEW GOBBLE SLOBBER. He sure was hungry!

—

» Check the picture.

It’s some guy and the dog.

—

» Check underneath the couch

Nope, nada.

—

» Try to enter the PAL room.

The knob is locked. However, the skeleton’s key works here.

You find yourself in a small, kinda dingy room. The only things of note are a crappy mattress and blanket, a box, and a door with water leaking out from underneath it.

—

» Mosey through the saloon type door.

Just like that? Don’t be ridiculous. The doors don’t budge and you can neither jump over nor crawl under them until the puzzle is solved.

Just kidding! You tip your hat and mosey as best you can. Your nameless canine companion, now finished his slobbery meal, follows you.

You arrive in some kind of kitchen. A counter runs along the far wall, with a fridge, a cupboard, a drawer, a sink (thankfully without any mirror this time), an open, scorching oven, and two devices you don’t know what to make of. One of them has a glass tube connected to it.

—

» Turn off oven. That does not look safe in the slightest.

You reach over the counter for the oven controls. Whew! It’s sweltering! What kind of irresponsible person leaves the oven on and open?

Click! The heat lets up.

—

» Try to open the door on the tube machine.

Hey, it’s your friend the rock.

—

» Read the printout from the tube machine.

You take a look.

—————-
Test Number: 01255;
Analysis: Wood, red oak;
% Chemical X: 0.00;
—————-
Test Number: 01254;
Analysis: Plastic;
% Chemical X: 0.00;
—————-
Test Number: 01253;
Analysis: Refined steel;
% Chemical X: 0.00;
—————-
Test Number: 01252;
Analysis: Wood, caern; wood, red oak;
% Chemical X: 0.00;
—————-

It is torn off further down.

—

» Open the cabinets.

There are a few clay cups and plates.

—

» Press the lever on the other machine.

You try – but it’s not actually a lever, it’s a handle! The top pops right open, revealing some kind of gel in the bottom half. There is a bit of a square indentation within the top half as well.

—

» Open the fridge.

It’s pretty much empty except for a big plastic tub filled with some black clay.

—

» Look through everything in kitchen.

Ah, screw it, just let’s go through everything! You pop open the drawer under the counter and find a wooden ladle.

Checking out the last thing in the kitchen, you pop open the freezer and whoa.

Looks like somebody put him…

…On eyes.

—

» Search the box, pillows and sheets, and under the bed in the other new room.

You basically ransack the room. There’s not much to ransack, though. You find nothing under the bed, pillow, or sheets, but there are a few things in the box.

Looks like somebody liked to play dressup. You find a monocle, a fake moustache, and an eyepatch.

—

» A monocle! We will need that. The gentleman was questing for one.

You grab the monocle – and everything else, for that matter. Your inventory now consists of: a monocle, an eyepatch, a half-finished bottle of Glen Avon whisky, a can of oil, a skull, an eyedol, two coins, a moustache, a large wooden spoon, some string, a music box, and a tin of Dapper Dan Men’s Pomade.

—

» Apply mustache to face.

Well who’s this dapper fellow? Oh yes—it’s you, Adventure Gent. Heavens, you’re dashing.

—

» Try the machine on the rock first (NOT the wooden ladle) to make sure terrible things don’t happen when it is used.

You figure you might as well test the machine on something of no value first. You shut the door and push the lever down.

The lever pops up after some whirring, and checking the machine you see that your rock has been molded into a perfect sphere. The printout extends further down:

—————-
Test Number: 01256;
Analysis: Stone, granite;
% Chemical X: 0.00;
—————-

—

» Test the black clay for that Chemical X thing.

You figure you have enough of the black clay to safely try it next, but it’s too cold— the whole thing is hard as a rock. Even using the wooden spoon you can’t make a dent.

—

» Move the fridge to find that hidden door. You know it is there, it’s marked on the map. Search for it! It has to be here somewhere.

You fumble around with the fridge, completely unable to move it. You do notice that it appears to be on some kind of track, though.

—

» Check the inside of the oven for anything of interest.

There is nothing inside the oven. You wonder why it was open, or why it was left on.

—

» Put the black stuff in the oven and turn it back on!

The idea that the clay is actually some kind of explosive crosses your mind, but is quickly drowned out by the fact that to get any of it out you’re going to have to soften it up, so might as well try it out and hope for the best. You pop the clay in the oven and turn it back on. As you shut the door, you hear a bunch of whirring and clanking.

The oven only seems to operate at one (incredibly hot) temperature, and the clay is warmed up and malleable within minutes. Explosion averted! The mechanical sounds repeat as you open the door again.

—

» Fumble around with the faucets on the sink. Maybe they open the hidden door.

You turn on the sink and ACKKPTHHHHHHHHH

Something is seriously wrong with the water pressure around here!!

—

» Check the thing on the hooks in P.A.L’s room. If it is interesting, take it.

It appears to be a pair of goggles. You leave them here for now. If you need them later, you can grab ’em then.

—

» Take some of the gel-like substance (using wooden ladle) and chem-analyse it.

You attempt to scoop out some of the gel, but it does not break for your ladle.

An imprint of the ladle’s head is made in it, though.

» Check if metal wiring in cabin cellar has cooled down now that oven is off.

You make your way across the mountain and check the wiring. Yup! It’s all cooled off now. You can certainly crawl past now. You are still confused as to why an oven would be hooked up to metal wiring for no real reason, though…

You find yourself on the other side of the glass wall.

» Step on the pressure plate.

You step on and step off. Just like the other one. You’ll need something way heavier than that bucket to weigh both down at once.

—

» Medkit! Get it!

You open the medical cabinet. There’s some sort of vial inside, corked and with a liquid in it.

—

» Take the vial, and check out the box on the ground.

You bag the vial and check out the box. There is a bag inside, tied closed. You check it out.

It’s got four weird looking tiles in it, two black and two white. There is also some kind of photo.

The photo depicts twelve tiles, six of each colour. The six sets are matching.

—

» Look at the chart!

You check out the chart. It is labelled “Relevance Study” and is measuring Weather Intensity vs. something called Oculoid Activity. A through-line has been drawn with a different pen, and a note is written regarding an outlier.

—

» Lug the crate over onto the pad.

You do so. It does not weigh the switch down in the slightest.

—

» Chem-analyze a drop of liquid from strange vial.

You pocket the spherical stone and plop some of the liquid into the machine. It steams a little bit upon being poured.

It appears the same post-analysis. The printer whirrs.

—————-
Test Number: 01257;
Analysis: Fulgurite; Chemical X; Water; Caern dew;
% Chemical X: 0.01;
—————-

—

» Look through goggles in P.A.L.’s room

They don’t really suit you. They don’t seem to have any special function, save to protect your eyes.

—

» Chem-analyze clay

The clay returns from its testing, slightly re-shapen but still in a pile. The printer whirrs.

—————-
Test Number: 01258;
Analysis: Quartz; Root wood dye;
% Chemical X: 0.00;
—————-

—

» Go back, grab the Oculoid corpse and chem-test it.

It just barely fits, but you can stuff it all in.

It comes back… as a mushy lump. The printer whirrs.

—————-
Test Number: 01259;
Analysis: Oculoid marrow; Oculoid tendril matter;
% Chemical X: 0.00;
—————-

—

» Put the thing of clay in the box, then put the bucket of water in the box, this SHOULD weigh as much as you do, then go stand on the other plate!
» Find a container for the lumpen remains of the Oculoid.

You solve two problems at once and pour the mush into the bucket of water before putting the clay and bucket in the box. It does not weigh enough to depress the panel.

—

» Fill crate with rocks

It is a bit tricky, but you carry a few of the loosest rocks up from the room you woke up in and dump them in the box as well. The panel does not even budge, though you are certain that it should be at least somewhat depressed by now.

—

» Open door with water coming out underneath in P.A.L.’s room

Gah! The water force knocks you right off your feet! Good god what is wrong with this place??

—

» Go outside and search for the gentleman. We need to deliver his monocle!

After an extensive search of the caves thus far, you find Gentleman inspecting the skeleton in the formerly-dark room.

—

» Discuss with him the gentlemanly quotient of your new facial hair. In addition, inquire if he has seen any eye-beasts in the general vicinity.

He says that it is very nice– though he has not previously displayed any form of emotion, you suspect there is a hint of jealousy behind the sentiment.

—

» Tempt him with the monocle.

You hold out the monocle for him, then tell him you will give it to him in exchange for a favour. He eyes it suspiciously, clearly desiring it.

He says he will assist you in exchange for the monocle… and the moustache. You are shaken.

—

» All right, all right, give it to him.

You… would rather not. But the help of another would be extremely beneficial to your exploration. Grimacing, you agree.

He appears quite pleased with himself. He asks what you require his assistance with.

—

» Inquire of him the manner of Les’ demise.

He says Les appears to have been either murdered or fatally wounded either shortly before or shortly after locking down the facility.

—

» Ask him about “CHEMICAL X.”

He says Chemical X is a codename for the substance found in traces on the eye creatures.

—

» Engage him as your guide, and make your way to the scene of Les’ unfortunate death.

He asks exactly whose skeleton you think you’re standing over?

While you ponder this, Gentleman comments that if you don’t have a favour in mind he’s getting quite tired of answering your questions and will have to return your favour at a later time if not now.

—

» Ask the gentleman to aid in pressing the two panels simultaneously.

He agrees to help. You lead him up a few ladders to the glass wall room.

You move the box o’ stuff and tell him to stand there, and wait. He obliges.

Running across the mountain, you head down into the cellar and step on the other panel. The glass wall slides absolutely seamlessly into the walls, leaving no trace.

Gentleman leaves, his favour fulfilled.

—

» Name the dog Scruffles.

You name your new companion Scruffles and resolve to award him titles as he demonstrates his valour. Wow look how totally cool.

—

» Check if tiles in bag fits in the indentations of the board in the cupboard in living room.

You put two in at random. They fit in quite neatly despite what the art may show.

—

» Use newly made torch to see what’s in the room behind the mirror!

In a montage set to 80s rock music, you make a torch using the random resources lying around. It’s a bit of a struggle to get the lit torch up the ladder to the smithy, but you manage it eventually.

As you stick the torch through the mirror’s hole, you detect a bit of movement, though as your eyes adjust you don’t see anything moving.

The room, from what you can tell, is coated in some kind of thick gelatin-like substance. There are a few cocoons of stuff here and there. There is also some kind of mechanism in the center of the floor.

—

» Set fire to everything then run out of the room!

You make the call. Time to torch some alien scum.

This gunky stuff actually seems pretty non-flammable. You huck the torch at the mechanical thing in the middle.

OH HOLY SH—

You ain’t checking out there for a while. At least the alien crap in there is definitely burning pretty good now. Time to go exploring.

—

» Turn the water pressure switch to off.

You crank off the water pressure.

—

» We can explore the canyon now, right?

You climb down into the now-dried out canyon spring. There is a thick stream of hot air coming from the cave.

You head in the cave and up a slope to find an underground volcano mouth and a dock in the magma.

—

» Enter C.F.’s room through over-pressurized-toilet-room.

You check out C.F.’s room. It’s very similar to Les’. The only things of note are a notepad and a labcoat.

—

» Analyze Dapper Dan Men’s Pomade

The pomade comes back just about the same. The printer whirrs.

—————-
Test Number: 01260;
Analysis: Wax-based lubricant;
% Chemical X: 0.00;
—————-

» Read them notes!

You flip open the notepad. It appears to be a personal journal. It reads as follows:

Day 142

I have used up another notepad. Before we left, I had thought that three would be more than enough to compile my personal thoughts. I was sorely mistaken.

We have been here nearly half a… year, I will say. Still no progress of any sort. Our quarters are long-since completed and yet even with this pressing matter far behind us we have learned nothing. When we found the dolmen we had been excited to research it, but were unable to dent or scratch any of it to take a sample. Weather patterns have been… unique, but we did not come here to study the weather. I know it is here. We know it is here. In time we will find it. We must. I pray the extended isolation will not take us first. Les believes

(there are a few ripped out pages here)

unfortunate. But they are mere setbacks. We have invested too much time to be turned away now. It will be found.

Day 279

I had at first assumed I had made a mistake, but it has been a week since my last journal entry. I had thought it had been a day, perhaps two. Is it our isolation that causes time to feel as though time is flying past us, or our life underground? We spend time on the surface when we can, but that is so rare with the storms. The hut has fallen into disrepair as well. We no longer care to rebuild it.

As I sit here I try to think of what has happened in the last week and I realize that I have said little in that time. I cannot recall a single conversation with Les. There is little to say, I will suppose. Our work is all that we have left.

Les believes we will make progress within a month, if nothing unexpected happens concerning the mutagen. I am less confident, but unle—

The word trails off in a splotchy ink mark.

A creature was under the bed. I have shooed it out. I will make a note to begin designing new defense installations tomorrow. This cannot go on.

Until tomorrow, diary.

Day 407

At long last: progress.

(there are several blank pages here)

for safekeeping:

The bottom half of this page has been ripped out. The rest of the notepad is blank, until the last page.

We are undone.

—

» Search the bed/mattress

You throw the room apart. There is nothing but a dead oculoid tentacle in the damp water.

» Get the labcoat on.

Doesn’t really fit you—it’s rather small, actually.

—

» Try to look clever by doing a poor impersonation of a scientist, using the notepad.

WELL WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE??

You don’t know exactly what scientists act like but you are having a lot of fun!

—

» Check the labcoats pockets.

You check dem pockits.

There is an ID card. It reads Dr. C. Feringus, P.H.D. There is also a photo.

“user: phdcf” is written on the back.

» Check out the dock in the volcano, what the heck is it made out of?

You leave the labcoat behind before you go. It’s really restricting.

It appears to be made out of some kind of wood. Where it meets the magma, it is not melted or singed in the least.

—

» Throw something expendable into the magma.

You huck the spherical stone into the magma. It slowly bobs on the surface for a moment, hissing, then crackles and melts away.

» Test the integrity of the wooden bridge. If it seems sound, walk down it and examine the fluid in a scientific manner.

Seems pretty safe, so long as you don’t stand near the edges. You walk down to the end. Not a chance you’re touching the magma though.

—

» Find a stick and put it into the lava. We might not be able to see if whatever we threw in melted.

You don’t have a stick. Feel like using anything else? Here’s your inventory.

—

» Break off some of the wood, and test it in the analyzer.

You snap off a bit of the wood.

The wood is turned into a reformed ball of wood. The printer whirrs.

—————-
Test Number: 01261;
Analysis: Wood, caern;
% Chemical X: 0.00;
—————-

—

» Place the white circle tile at D4, the white lined tile at F1, the black circle tile at C3, and the black lined tile at G5. If nothing happens, ponder that pieces are being represented by tiles of the opposite color.

You place the tiles in the appropriate squares. Nothing happens. You ponder that the pieces are being represented by tiles of the opposite colour, but nothing seems to indicate that so far. You hardly have enough tiles to test, anyways. You wonder how to get some more.

—

» We need to use that login ID on the terminal.

You attempt to log in as phdcf, but are unable to bring up another ‘forgotten password’ screen. Your attempts to guess it also fail.

—

» Analyze egg and bird.

What? Are you crazy?! The analyzing machine has reshaped everything complex that’s been put in so far! You already killed the bird, you’re certainly not going to mutilate its corpse and kill its future child!

—

» Try guessing the password at random.

Nope, no luck trying to guess it. Fortunately there seems to be no limit to number of wrong entries you can input.

—

» Go find Scruffles and take him for a walk by the invulnerable stone circle.

You bring Scruffles up. He is extremely reluctant to go near the circle, to the point of aggression. You let him go back.

—

» If that doesn’t work, dig down with the wooden spoon.

You try to dig a bit. You’re able to scrape away the top crust of earth, but not much deeper. However, you do notice an odd line in the deeper ground.

You keep scraping and reveal it all.

—

» Check out the mirror room we burned.

Fire’s still raging. A bit less intensely than before, though. You are surprised at the ferocity of the flames.

—

» Check out incinerator.

The door’s still sealed.

—

» Also we should close the oven, please. It’s rude to leave it open.

You close the oven, hearing some whirr-clunking. “Whirr-clunk” seems to be the hallmark of mechanical noises around here.

» Go back to the room where the hot wires and hot switch were, and push switch on the right back down. (the one that wasn’t hot)

Heading back to the room with metal wiring, you notice that the top half of the wiring has retracted up into the ceiling.

The switch on the right is already down. You recall this switch opening the door to the living room a while back.

» Is there a way to un-jam it?

You just take it out.

Hey! It’s the sun medallion! Just one more to go, then, before you accomplish… well, whatever it is you’re gathering medallions for.

It has started raining.

—

» I say we take the thing in the freezer and try it on the door the lightning medalion went in.

You grab the… frozen eye and tap it against the eye symbol on the runic wall. It doesn’t do anything. There’s no real slot to put it in.

—

» If that fails, analyze it

You pop the eye into the analyzer, happy to get it off your hands. You put the bucket nearby for easy goo-scraping.

Yup. A ball o’ mush again. The printer whirrs.

—————-
» Test Number: 01262;
» Analysis: Oculoid eye-matter;
» % Chemical X: 0.00;
—————-

» ???

Your right arm begins to feel a bit numb.

—

» Turn water pressure on again, now that pipe in canyon is unblocked.

Arm is first priority. You make your way down to the smithy, having a bit of trouble managing the ladder down from the glass wall room. The water pressure finally goes up to full when cranked to high. Phew. Okay. Time to wash your arm.

—

» See if washing your affected arm in the sink helps.

You use the light room’s sink and try to wash off your arm. Nothing seems to happen. Crap. And you can feel it getting number, too.

Numbarm. Numarm. Nmarm. Narm.

No! Must stay focused…

—

» Put sun medalion in door
» Dip it into the fire of the mirror room

You decide not to take another ladder down to the runic wall and just hold it up to the fire. No, nothing doing here. You singe yourself a little bit, though.

Your right arm is now completely immobile. You can’t feel or move it at all. Starting to get a bit tired out, too.

Kinda groggy.

..yeah..

—

» Turn on oven again, then check the metal-wiring room.

You head back up the ladder to…

gnhhhhhh

tired

need to…

rest

—

Previous Chapter | Archive | Next Chapter

» Investigate. And retrieve whip, if possible.

You head back to the light room. No sign of the creature nor your whip. The mirror is completely smashed, though you still remember what it said, and the vault thing on the floor remains as perplexing as ever. The string is still inexplicably tied to the ladder.

—

» Become intrigued by the smashed mirror, peer inside.

You look inside the mirror, though you can’t fit in. There is a vast expanse of darkness – what you can see appears to be… organic.

—

» I’m curious as to what is in the can…

You shake the can. There is something loose inside, but no tab or anything to open it with.

—

» Smash the can open with the hammer on the anvil to retrieve the prize!

WONK! You clumsily bash the can open with the hammer, not really worried about a smooth hit. A key pops out; you take it.

—

» Turn the handles on the sink in the order that was on the mirror. One rotation hot, two cold, one hot, one cold, one hot.

The handles don’t rotate more than 90 degrees, but you try turning them inwards on and off to signify one entry in the string. Nothing happens. Perhaps the letters corresponded to something else?

—

» Use key on vending machine.

The key fits perfectly.

There is a button. You press it without any prompting.

FOOM! The lights finally go up, centered on the vault.

—

» Hmm… maybe the vault handle? Say H is counterclockwise and C is clockwise.

You twist the wheel in full rotations back and forth, equating the hot-cold code with CCW and CW, as the same directions the corresponding sink handles turned. There are a few clicks, and the vault slowly moves.

There is a hole in the floor! Light now shines down into the dark room below.

—

» Peer into the vault, if you cannot see the bottom then drop the can and listen for depth.

You can see the floor, though it’s too far to jump down.

—

» Go downstairs into the dark room we were in before.

You enter the formerly dark room.

—

» Climb down to the floor, examine skeleton for possible treasure!

The skeleton is holding a key in his left hand. It is firmly clenched, though you can wrestle it out.

You notice its right leg is twisted in an odd way and its right arm is dislocated. This is a bit disconcerting. Your adventuring nerves must still be shaken from the encounter with the eyemonsterthing.

—

» Press the button!

You press the button and the door opens up. That was easy!

—

» Examine the wires, too.

The wires look just like the ones in the above light room. They run from the ceiling into the wall.

—

» Chug sufficient whiskey to deaden pain and fear response, save remainder in bucket, then break bottle to use as weapon.

The bucket is no good for convenient carrying, nor would that be hygenic, but you have yourself a good swig of Glen Avon and feel a lot better. AH YEAH. BURNS SO GOOD.

—

» Grab the skull to reenact the “Alas, poor Yorick” scene from Hamlet. Then add the skull to your inventory, it’s a nice lucky charm.

You don’t know what a Yorick is but you spend a little bit of time monkeying around with the skull.

What’s that Mr. Skully? Little Billy fell down the waterhole?
Arf!
I’m sure we’ll get him out fine; let’s not lose our heads about this! Ohohoho!
Arf arf!

You don’t really know what sounds a skull is supposed to make but barking seemed to work pretty well.

—

» Find a damn weapon! Maybe a bone from the skell if nothing else.

You further desecrate the skeleton by repurposing its legbone. I guess he’ll have to rest in pieces.

—

» Remark that door looks like a fanged mouth.

A little bit, yeah. But your whisky-ed senses are thoroughly unconcerned.

—

» Go through the doorway.

You step over a weird device and into a room with a strange machine in it.

—

» A note! Read the note!

It appears to be the bottom half of the last paper found. Once again, it’s signed by Les.

—

» Open the hatch on the machine.

You pop open the hatch. A computer console is built into it. An author somewhere realizes he is going to have to draw a character from behind one of these days.

—

» Put the two notes together!

Mysteriously they do not visually match up perfectly. Internally, you cite glaring art inconsistencies. However, recalling the previous note, you can match up the full text of both:

How the hell do these things keep getting in?? I have sealed every room but they keep getting in shit shit. I am going to try to get to the generator and shut it all down. We are going to have to be more cautious in the future. They may not be intelligent, but their affinity for violence was under-appreciated. -Les

—

» Push the button.

You push the button; nothing happens.

—

» Stick the lightning coin in the slot on the machine to the right, then… pull the lever!

You stick the lightning coin in the slot; but it falls out the bottom immediately. You pull the lever, and the machine whirrs to life. The computer must have been running on backup power, having already been turned on.

You stick the coin into the machine again now that everything is powered up, and it stays there.

» Push the button again!

You push the button again; this time a powerful shock zaps the medallion.

It falls out, apparently charged up. You take it.

—

» Now put it in the left most of the three indentations we found earlier.

This time it begins to glow and crackle, and a loud CLICK is heard somewhere behind the wall. Nothing else appears to happen, but you suppose you’re done with this for now.

—

» Go check out the ladder in the room behind the cabinet. If it’s still blocked off, fiddle with the dials on the machine.

The ladder remains in place. Looks like you’re going to have to deal with the lock itself, not just the power.

You try fiddling with the dials. Most don’t do anything, but one turns the weird machine in the doorway to flame. Weird. You turn it off, spooked.

—

» Investigate the computer.

It has three functions and a really old-school interface. Looks like your commands are LOGIN, HELP, or OPERATIONS.

—

» Climb up the chimney!

You leave the generator room and travel back to the smithy, but there is no soot in the chimney. This leaves the weird question of how or why it burned in the first place. You are pretty sure you can shimmy up, though.

You seem to be… outside? You made it! But you’re still stuck in some sort of miniature canyon. Light shines down from above; you can’t see where you are from here though.

There is a big pit with some pipes and a drain in it. There seems to be an object jammed in one of them. There are also some circular stones lying on the pit floor. A tree has grown out from the cliff face, and a bird sits happily in its nest. Across the pit there is a mossy wall, a ladder, and a cave entrance.

—

» Turn the powered wall-gizmo in the fireplace room to low, examine any changes.

You flick the dial to LO. You hear the sound of water running through pipes, but no changes are evident, nor does the marker on the display slide.

—

» Can we turn the remainder of the whiskey into a molotov?

Probably! You are not looking forwards to wasting the last of that brew but if a need arises you would accept your duty.

—

» Jump into the expanse formerly known as mirror.

You can’t fit through the hole!

—

» Turn the dial to high.

You climb down the chimney and first turn the dial to “med.” The needle moves halfway up the display, and you hear water rushing behind the wall.

There is a noticeable change to the room.

You turn the dial all the way up to “hi.” Nothing happens – perhaps the clogged pipe is interfering.

—

» Go back to computer room, type ‘help.’

>help

It seems someone has programmed in a message for Les.

You are faced with a short riddle.

—

» Enter ‘MOUNTAIN.’

You enter “mountain.”

It works! You are given a password and username.

You enter “login.”

All right, access granted!

Let’s see what this computer does…

…Huh.

—

» Stare out the circular window, check the hatch atop the ladder and climb the chimney to see if anything interesting happened.

The hatch remains sealed. However, you take a look out the window…

It’s all dark, and the stones are gone. You decide to head up the chimney and take a look.

The water has filled up, and the circular stones seem to have… floated?… up to the surface.

—

» Mayhaps there are vines that could be scaled…

There are! They are across the spring, but only seem to go upwards.

—

» Check if the hatch atop the ladders is open.

It is!

—

» Fill the spring again and try to jump to the floating stones to reach the other side.

You hop across the stones easily while the bird chirps at you. They do not wobble nor marginally sink at all.

You climb the moss and find yourself… whoa.

You are standing at the edge of a massive cliff. The ‘canyon’ you were in was hardly a canyon at all – merely an indentation in the surface of this giant, flat-topped plateau you are on. The landscape stretches out almost as far as you can see, then sharply dropping down. Leaning over the edge, you see the rock face sharply jut down, into a bed of clouds.

You are not in a complex underground cave system at all. You are on a mountain.

Far ahead of you is a fork in the faint road, marked by a inuksuk standing atop a small boulder.

—

» Approach and examine the inuksuk.

It seems it was very carefully constructed, to serve as a marker between this mossy rock face and the left and right paths. You pick up and examine each stone, but there is nothing out of the ordinary about it. You make sure to keep it together so you don’t get lost yourself.

—

» Go left.

You go left, and arrive at a rather decrepit cabin.

—

» Examine the thing under window.

They are poorly drawn cellar doors with a lock chaining them shut. Your ‘skeleton key’ doesn’t work on it.

—

» Enter.

Oh my! A very well-to-do gentleman is here.

—

» Inquire of him his name, his business, and if he has any comestibles.

You ask him this. He says a true gentleman introduces himself before he asks them questions.

—

» Sheepishly inform him that currently your name has been misplaced, but that the name “Adventure Guy” should suffice for now.

He says fine then, “Gentleman” will suffice for himself. He says he is pleased to meet you.

—

» Shake him by the hand, as according a true gentleman’s behavior, and endeavor to discover more of the nature of this strange place.

He accepts your proffered hand and shakes it. He says he does not know much about this place. He found this cabin while looking around.

You proceed to engage in discourse with the gentleman.

—

» Remark about the fascinating inconsistencies of local construction and the poor quality of that one floorboard. “I say, it does look most hazardous!”

He agrees. He says this cabin used to be in much better shape.

—

» Offer the gentleman a drink.

He politely declines. He is not thirsty.

—

» Politely ask the “gentleman” if he would mind us searching this place for clues as to where we are.

He says go ahead.

—

» Ask the Gentleman for clues on what mountain this is.

He says he’s hardly a geology professor.

—

» Ask Gentleman how he did end up on this mountain.

He has always been on this mountain.

—

» Ask Gentleman if he knows anything about the complex we came from.

Some people used to live there. They are gone now.

—

» Ask Gentleman if he knows something about P.A.Les

He says he used to know Les, but doesn’t offer anything further.

—

» Ask Gentleman if he has any supplies to help you on your adventure, or is willing to trade for items.

He doesn’t have anything on him.

—

» Ask Gentleman what is he looking around for, maybe you can help.

He would be quite pleased to acquire a monocle.

—

» Ask Gentleman if you can look in his cellar.

He says go ahead, it’s not his cellar.

—

» Ask if he needs any help himself, and apologize for asking so many questions but explained that you are very unfamiliar with the area.

He says he does not require your help at this time.

—

» Attempt to get catch Gentleman within a lie, so you can discover more truths about this individual.

The gentleman is responding as shortly and tidily to your lines of inquiry as possible, but you don’t have any reason to doubt what he’s saying.

The gentleman leaves.

—

» Loot the barrel!

You examine the inside of the barrel. Where its bottom should be, it continues down, far further than the floor.

—

» Look under the barrel.

The barrel does not (and possibly cannot) move from its location on the floor.

—

» Loot the floorboard, then.

The floorboard does not budge! You’ll need something to pry it up with.

—

» Take the broken glass.

What, and cut up your hands? No thank you.

—

» Attempt to follow the gentleman.

You step outside, but Gentleman is nowhere to be seen.

—

» Drop an unimportant object into the barrel.

You chuck a rock down into the barrel.

After a moment you hear a “WHUDD” as it hits something. It’s not too-too far down, though you can’t see exactly what you’re dropping stuff into or onto.

—

» Pry the board with the bone.

The bone is rather rounded. There isn’t much of a gap to pry from, only a tiny crack. The bone won’t be going in there.

—

» Before heading back, try to break of one of those.. cross-thingies inside the window, and try to pry the board with it.

You easily snap one of the crossboards loose (one without glass fragments still stuck to it).

It proves quite inadequate at prying the large floorboard, however. You throw the silly thing away.

—

» Try to smash the lock off the cellar door with the bone!

The lock is made of metal, and the bone just whacks away harmlessly.

—

» Look behind the shack.

A clever idea! However, nothing is there. The shack is four walls, a doorway, and a broken window. And a mysterious barrel chute.

—

» Let’s head back into the other direction.

Giving up for now, you head back to the crossroads and head down the right path this time.

You find yourself at a rather sizeable stone circle.

—

» Explore the stone circle.

You wander around the stone circle. From what you can gather, you are at the top of the mountain. The stones are all somewhat shoddily carved of the same perfect white stone, and have no indentations or engravings of any sort. You cannot figure out why this circle has been put here, nor why its creators chose to leave all the stones completely absent of any kind of marking. Even the center of the circle is absent of mystic markings– it’s just plain old dry dirt.

It begins to rain.

» Play the music box.

You take out the odd music box and, on a whim, play it. Immediately the rain picks up severely, winds now buffeting you. You can hear tension in the air building. The swirling vortex crackles.

You are blown off your feet.

The storm abruptly ends.

—

» Examine where the lightning hit…

There is no sign of a lightning bolt having ever struck this arch, though you look quite thoroughly. The white stone doesn’t have a mark on it.

—

» Walk back, take one of your rocks and try to knock the nest down.

Leaving the mountaintop behind, you head back into the canyon to cause a ruckus.

You prep your lobbin’ arm. All right little birdie, time to leave the nest!

Hey– Wait, no– Bird, you were supposed to–

Oh no!!

—

» Jump in and try to save him!

You hastily dive into the water despite your crippling inability to swim.

OH GOD I’LL SAVE YOU BLUB BLUB GLUB BLUB

You splashily retrieve the bird and egg from the water and pull yourself onto shore. The bird is dead– few things can take a rock larger than themselves to the head. The egg, however, is unfractured. You take both with you. Perhaps you will find a fitting burial ground for your late companion.

—

» Try to swim to that underwater cave we saw earlier and get a look at what’s in there.

You won’t even consider it. You almost drowned in that water!

—

» Let’s go to the room where the monster was and climb up that ladder.
» …and take the string back on the way.

You head up to the room above the ladder, taking the string with you.

The room is divided in two with a thick glass wall. On the opposite side you can see some kind of wall-cabinet, a box, a chart, a doorway, and a floor panel. There is an identical panel on this side of the glass, as well as a toolbox… on the far side of the angry dog chained to the floor. Near the dog is some kind of skeleton teeth thing and some tentacle-y strands. There is also a weird bubble thing protruding from the center of the floor.

—

» Give the dog a bone.

You cautiously hold the bone out in one hand and another up in deference as you slowly approach. The dog barks at you, but you press forwards.

It sniffs the bone, and then nabs it, quite pleased with itself. It seems to like you now. Aren’t you so good with animals!

Well, when you’re not arbitrarily killing them, that is.

—

» Back away slowly onto the floor plate behind us.

You step on the floor plate. It depresses, but nothing else seems to happen.

You step off it and it releases again.

—

» Investigate the interior of the toolbox.

A crowbar! How incredibly convenient!

—

» Examine the tentacle-y thing.

You pick it up. It appears to be two sets of very sharp teeth held together with a thin chain of spine-like bones. The tentacles are loosely attached to the spine-thing.

—

» Get in the room downstairs, grab the bucket, fill it with water at the sink, get the bucket up here and place it on the floor plate.

You drag the bucket up the ladder with great difficulty and plop it on the plate. It does not depress.

—

» Pet the dog nicely.

You pat him on the head. Awwwwwhesocuuute.

—

» Bring the dog out.

Dogs can’t climb ladders! But you untie him anyhow. You wonder how he got here in the first place.

—

» Grab the crowbar and return to the shack where we met the gentleman.
» Use the crowbar on the floor panel that is sticking up.

You trek all the way back to re-attack your foe. Have at you!

The floorboard refuses to come all the way up, but there’s enough space to reach under and…

Huzzah! You got the smelly key!

—

» Smell at key

You smell at key. It smells terrible! Like burnt rubber.

—

» Try the key on the lock outside the shack.

Let’s try this sucker out.

Success! With your adventuring skills you can do anything.

ummmm

—

» No lever is ever in the correct position. Flip both.

The first one slides down quite neatly. There is a ker-clunk from somewhere deeper in the cave.

The second one is too hot to touch! Yeowch!!!

—

» Look at that wire construct.

Ow ow fuck it’s hot too ow what the hell!

You do get a pretty good look at the thing, though. A grid-like wall of straight metal wires, with weird curved metal strips in three places. There is a bit of space above and below each metal strip thing.

—

» Look at that pipe.

It appears to be where the barrel drops down to. It leads to the next room. You can’t see where exactly it goes to, nor can you see the rock, but you can see a bit of light on the other side.

—

» Attempt to use the eyedol to flip the switch without burning yourself. If that does not work, search your inventory for something that could work and try that.

You’re not willing to singe the eyedol, but you nudge the switch up with the tip of your whisky bottle. For some reason you start to feel a burn on your hand, but it fades when you remove the contact point.

The metal sheets loosen and unwind. You are pretty sure that doesn’t help you at all.

—

» Beat the wires aside with the crowbar.

You start to peel one of the wires away, then– Ow! What the hell? Everything you touch to these wires ends up burning you! This isn’t how heat works!

This room sucks. It may be time to go back.

—

» Push the other lever back up, THEN check the heat of the wires.

No luck – you hear a lot of clunking from somewhere else in the cave, but the wires remain hot. The heated switch remains searing as well.

—

» Let’s head back to the glass panel room and do the other stuff.

You trek back across the mountaintop.

—

» Shatter the glass with the crowbar!

WHONG!!!

It’s some kind of plexiglass crap. You’re reminded of the vending machine’s glass. What is it with building random access-blocking constructs out of unbreakable materials?? This is stupid!

—

» After failing to beat through the glass with the crowbar, look through the dome!

The dome is totally opaque! And made of… you’re not sure exactly. It’s not anything you’re immediately familiar with.

—

» Put the dog in the bucket. Put the tentacle thing on there too. Put the toolbox on it if it still doesn’t go down.

The dog isn’t here. There is a weird new door in the wall, though. You investigate.

…How quaint?

—

Previous Chapter | Archive | Next Chapter

» Awake.

Uhhhhh…

Your head is killing you, but at least the room’s stopped spinning.

—

» Stand up slowly so as not to fall over and put hat back on head, but slightly askew in a relatively sexy-yet-trying-too-hard manner. This is vital.

You push yourself up and make sure to re-adjust your hat accordingly. An adventurer who isn’t dapper isn’t an adventurer at all. It is the finest hat around, and you’ve had it as long as you can remember… though at the moment you can’t remember anything. Like your name. Or where you are.

—

» Stroke hat lovingly.

You wouldn’t dare! A true hat stroke can only be given in the comfort of one’s own home at the end of the day. An adventurer never removes his hat on the job.

—

» Commit idolatry with that idol over there in the most suggestive way possible. And, uh, examine surroundings.

You examine the cave you’re in. Some sort of ornate door is beside you, and a dark passage a little further. At the far end of the cave is a strange wall with runic markings, and on the floor is a circular indentation. Behind you is a pile of rocks and rubble – presumably from a cave-in, which would explain how you got knocked out, and why you don’t seem to remember anything.

A one-eyed idol sits in an alcove between the two passages. You feel an urge to suddenly worship it, but it’s a little bit too creepy. Besides, you always feel guilty about selling precious artifacts after you’ve grown attached to them.

—

» Enter the door.

You move to enter the door, but it refuses to open. In fact, you’re not really sure how to open it. Overly-elaborate markings line it, with images of strange eye-people kneeling and all that sort of archeological crap. In the center is a big giant sun drawn as a spiral. Upon closer inspection, the spiral seems to be a deep but narrow indentation, and the outside end of the spiral has a funny looking hole in it.

The eyedol examines the door too. It is kind of wigging you out.

—

» Punch idol in the nose to establish superiority.

The eyedol doesn’t appear to have a nose. Its entire head appears to be one big ol’ eye. Still, he’s asking for a serious poking.

Smile, motherfucker!

Huh?

The room suddenly begins shaking. What kind of lousy adventurer are you?! You never pick up an idol without being prepared for the ancient countermeasures!

You quickly put the idol back, twist its eye back into the horizontal position, and move to the other side of the room. The shaking stops. You apologize and promise to leave it alone.

…For now.

—

» Stick a small thin object in the hole part of the spiral and move through the spiral, following the curves. See if that does anything.

You don’t have anything to stick in the hole. You adventure pack appears to be empty. You must be a pretty terrible adventurer to go adventuring without anything in your pack.

—

» Step on that floor panel. Thing.

You hop up and down on the depression a few times, but nothing happens. Aside from the weird symbol in the middle and the generic markings around the sides, it’s just an odd part of the scenery, you figure. It’s easy to figure things like that when you’re a shitty adventurer.

—

» Acquire a stone around the size and weight of the idol from the nearby rockpile, then swap it with the idol

You ready your new plan for action.

Success! You are the best adventurer ever!

—

» We check our backpack out of some misplaced sense of hope.

You stuff the idol into your backpack and figure you might as well see what else is around here.

Your pouch is pretty empty but there are a few things around.

INVENTORY:
– Ancient Eyedol: some kind of weird idol with a eye for a head.
– Bottle o’ Whiskey: Score! You forgot all about this!
– Dapper Dan Men’s Pomade: Only the most dapper of fellows carry this. You’re proud to have it.

You notice your most trusted possession appears to be missing. Curious.

—

» Use IDOL on FLOOR SCENERY OBJECT (et al)

Well, that didn’t work.

You figure you should just wait until you see somewhere the idol fits.

—

» Examine runed wall.

The Runic Wall has four markings on it: An eye, a lightning bolt, a sun, and a raindrop. There are circular indentations until the bottom three. This is pretty par for the course in terms of mysterious ancient caves.

—

» Enter dark cave.

You enter the dark room, ignoring the fact that this room happens to be darker than the last despite both being part of a cave without a light source. Across the deep pit you can see a tiny spot of light, but aren’t close enough to investigate.

Hey look! It’s your whip, your most trusted possession! …And it’s hanging from a pole in the middle of an abyss. Hrm.

—

» Swing across the pit with your trusty bullwhip.
» Once we have swung across the cliff, maintain our grip on the whip and yank it from the pole.
» Use the pomade to stick the whip to your left hand.

This is a terrific plan! Well… maybe not the pomade part. That stuff is pretty slick, and you don’t want to be falling down into your doom – do you now, butterfingers?

You ready your jumpin’ stance. You practiced this obsessively in front of the mirror. The only thing worse than an undershot jump is an unstylish one.

Woohooooo!

JUMP SUCCESS! You keep a steady grip and snap the whip off the pole. You got your whip back!

—

» Check that source of light down there to your left.

You think you can see something… it’s almost close enough to reach…

You got the nifty rod!

—

» Zap the wall with the rod.

Tap tap. Nothing happens.

—

» Go back to the other side.

Woohooooooooooo!

—

» Walk back to the starting room and place rod in the floor panel thing.

Ting ting! Nope, no luck here. There doesn’t appear to be a place for the rod to plug into, actually. The whole surface seems very smooth and continuous without any real gaps or edges.

—

» Pssh, use rod on the door, like we tried to do with the stick.

Hrm…

A-ha! It fits in neatly.

You spin the rod around, hearing the clicking of machinery in the walls around you.

Whirr…

You discover a ladder in rather shitty condition. Nobody’s been down here for a while, you guess.

—

» Go up the ladder!

Well, what do we have here?

—

» Weight lift the anvil.

The anvil is waaay too heavy for you to lift, shove, or lean into! You’re an adventurer, not an archaeologist!

—

» Hammer time!

You pick up the hammer. It appears to be tied to the anvil with a steel cord, but there’s plenty of slack.

—

» Read notes on desk.

They have kind of stuck themselves together. It is pretty damp in here. Still, you can read most of them.

—

» Wind up the thing on the mantle.

Wind wind wind. It appears to be a music box of some sort. It’s playing some very simple yet pretty music!

—

» Look up chimney.

You check out the fireplace. The fire’s burning quite excessively despite no apparent source of fuel. You think you see something…

Agh, you can’t reach it! It’s just too hot to touch!

—

» Whack it out with the hammer.

WHANG! The hammer connects hard with the grate as you swing with all your might. The whole room shakes with the force of the blow.

The grate explodes off its hinges and falls onto the floor. The object is propelled out as well.

—

» Inspect object.

It appears to be a medallion with a little scribbling of a lightning bolt on it. You stick it in your inventory.

—

» SAFE BEHIND PICTURE!!! LOOK AT IT!!!

You take down the painting and check out the safe behind it. The existence of the safe does not surprise you; safes are practically the reason people buy paintings these days anyhow.

It has a now-familiar indentation on the handle.

—

» Glare the safe open. And, if that somehow fails, poke it with the statue.

You give that ol’ safe a good glaring. Nothing happens but you feel a lot better.

You poke the safe with the statue and the eye sticks into the handle.

—

» Whack the handle with the hammer.

It doesn’t stretch that far. Whoever tied this thing in must’ve been really paranoid.

—

» Turn the eyedol? Or take it out and use the rod.

You no longer have the rod; it was taken away with the door. But turning the eyedol turns the handle along with it!

The mechanism unlocked, you turn the handle and open the safe. Inside is a scroll of paper, two coins, and a strange device. You decide to read the paper and stuff the rest into your bag along with the eyedol.

You wonder exactly what creatures this ‘Les’ fellow keeps talking about.

This is your inventory. It currently contains a lightning medallion, a bottle of whiskey, a strange device, a creepy eyedol, two coins, a music box, and a tin of Dapper Dan Men’s Pomade.

—

» Examine electronic gadget on right wall

You check out the gadget. It appears to be a monitor of some kind, with a control knob. The display is dark. There is a place for something to be put at the bottom.

—

» Hammer the cable.

Clang! No luck. It’s quite a sturdy cable. It may breakable, but bludgeoning it won’t snap it.

—

» Look out the window.

It’s hard to see anything; it’s built pretty high up. You can see a rocky ground and wall, and some kind of circular shape on the floor. Hard to say what it is, though. The light source is higher up.

—

» Press buttons randomly on device.

There are only two buttons on it, and a 4-character display. It appears that pushing the right button adds 7 to the ones column, and the left button moves all the numbers one place to the left. Pressing both resets the display.

The display currently reads 0070 due to your button-mashing.

—

» Examine who’s on the painting.

You examine the painting closer. It is a fellow with a funny flat hat and a rather magnificent beard.

There is some writing at the bottom of the painting.

—

» Kiss painting.

You feel a strange urge to… no, nevermind. It was nothing. You hope we can move on and not discuss this further.

—

» Also, you should examine the coins!

They have a similar eye-symbol on them. They appear to be worth 3 and 5 units respectively. You guess you have 8 eye-dollars or whatever currency these are.

—

» Enter 5224 on the device.

You aren’t sure how to do that with the annoying button system. You are going to have to logically hash this one out!

It appears that pushing the right button adds 7 to the ones column, and the left button moves all the numbers one place to the left. Pressing both resets the display.

The display currently reads 0070 due to your button-mashing.

—

» Go for it one digit at a time – right five times, left twice, right three times, left once, then right twice.

You reset the puzzle, then press right five times [0007, 0014, 0021, 0028, 0035]. You press left twice [3500]. You press right three times [3521]. You press left [5210]. You press right twice [5217, 5224].

The machine lights up! The display reads “PWER” and the buttons cease to work. Electricity sparks along the side of the knobby thing at the top of the machine.

—

» Try to stick it into the wall or something…

You press it against the wall. It sparks with electricity. Perhaps this is supposed to power something else up? You wonder what it could be inserted into.

—

» Use oil on fire

You pour a bit of oil on the fire. FOOM! Wahahahahaha!

That didn’t help at all, of course. If you want to put the fire out, you’ll have to think of some other way. The oil is now in your inventory.

—

» Apply PWER to base of panel on wall under window

The top of the device fits neatly into the base of the panel. It lights up.

You hear a noise behind you.

Huh? There’s nobody there.

—

» Go down the ladder.

There’s nobody here either.

—

» Grab the key from the puddle on the left, then use it on the drawer upstairs.

You got the rusty key! It’s a bit… well, rusty. It won’t be fitting in anywhere. You’ll have to clean it up somehow.

—

» Take the rocks!

Only two more rocks fit in your bag. It’s getting a little full.

—

» Quick! Wind the weird eye music thing and point the idol at the darkness! (just in case)

You play the music at the darkness for no particular reason. Nothing happens.

—

» Put the lightning coin thing in the hole.

You put the lightning medallion into the slot on the runic wall. Nothing happens. Perhaps you need to do something else to the medallion first?

You put it back in your inventory.

—

» RUN UPSTAIRS AS FAST AS WE CAN!

You don’t see anything looking at you, but you head upstairs anyhow.

What a mess this room is now. I hope you’re proud of yourself.

—

» Use oil on key, use key on drawer.

You oil up the key. It shines just like new!

The key now fits perfectly into the drawer. Ka-click!

Instead of opening the drawer, the entire drawer and wall section slide to the left.

You figure you might as well check out this new room.

Huh. These caves make no sense. This room hardly looks like a cave at all.

There is a ladder, a set of what appear to be lightbulbs strung across the center wall, a hatch, a vending machine, a sink/mirror, and a bucket. Oh, and of course, the giant-ass vault door looking thing in the middle of the floor.

You feel somewhat smaller, as if someone suddenly realized you were out of proportion to the environment.

—

» THROW BUCKET AT VENDING MACHINE!

You huck the bucket at the vending machine. It bounces off harmlessly. The glass must be plexiglass or some shit like that. You have a lot of fun though!

—

» Get the note, read the note.

You grab the note from behind the vending machine and read it. It is decidedly less humourous than the last ones. Part of it is missing and has been ripped off.

—

» JUMP-KICK THE VENDING MACHINE!

You don’t really want to beat up the vending machine any more. You can see that there’s something in it, though. Some kind of can.

—

» Open the hatch in the middle of the wall.

You find a ball of rather thin string.

—

» Turn the valve on the dome thing.

You turn the valve clockwise. Nothing seems to happen. After a moment, the valve slides back into place on its own, with a ‘chk’. It appears to have reset itself. You try counterclockwise but the same thing happens.

—

» Take the string, go up the ladder. We will need a magnet, then we tie the string around it and lower it down the sink’s drain, there we will find a key to unlock the vending machine.

The ladder isn’t even close to the sink! Nor do you see any magnets around. But you do take the string and check out the ladder.

It appears that there is a metal hatch at the top of the ladder that the wires from the floor run into.

—

» Fill the bucket with water, toss water into the fire place.

You twist the knob and fill the bucket. Woooooosh! The water is a little gross and dark-looking but that’s okay.

Splash! The fire extinguishes with a steamy hiss.

Light shines down from above.

—

» Check the price for the can in the vending machine, buy it with the appropriate eyedollar coin
» Try to tie the string to the coin before putting it in the machine, so you can possibly recover the coin.

You check out the vending machine. The only thing in there is an unlabeled can, costing 11 eyedollars. You only have a 3 and 5 coin. Fortunately with some clever thinking you can use one coin twice!

The unlabeled can falls out. You take it.

—

» Tie string to ladder

Um, okay. You do this.

The string is just kind of hanging out there.

—

» Examine mirror!

You examine the sink and mirror. The sink has a hot and cold handle, both turning inwards. Written on the mirror is HCCHCH.

Huh?

—

» Examine self more closely, in hopes that we are not an elder god.

You wave hi.

—

» SMASH THE MIRROR

You are beaten to it.

—

» Put bucket on head for protection, run screaming to other room.

You quickly back away from the thing. It writhes around on the floor, watching you. You don’t want to get any closer if you can help it, bucket or no.

You book it to the smithy. The thing is hot on your heels!

—

» Hit the eye thing with the hammer in the smithy.

The eyemonster follows you into the smithy as you grab the hammer, then stops near the exit. You can’t get close enough to hit it with the cable.

JESUS CHRIST IT’S ON THE CEILING

—

» Attack the eye thing with your whip.

You suddenly remember about your trusty whip! As the creature scurries closer, you reach with one hand to take it out.

You grab it with the whip and yank it towards you! The hammer is ready and OH GOD ARE THOSE TEETH?!

WHAM

The thing goes careening back into the light room, your entangled whip going with it. You tentatively open your eyes to see if it’s gone.

WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?!?

—

Archive | Next Chapter

Chapter 1: Initial Exploration (p.0)

Chapter 2: Signs of Life (p.100)

Chapter 3: Applied Science (p.209)

Chapter 4: Somewhere Else (p.335)

Chapter 5: Conflict of Interest (p.472)

Chapter 6: New Perspectives (p.600)

Chapter 7: Mapping Things Out (p. 689)

Chapter 8: Understandings (p. 762)

Chapter 9: Mnemnem (p. 868)

Chapter 10: Monsters (p. 954)

Chapter 11: Eye of the Storm (p. 1039)

Finale (p. 1133)

Epilogue (p. 1159)

—

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