These are the files. I hope you have everything you need.
>>491
Game saved.
You try to exit to menu, but the button is replaced with the text "There is no escape". Nothing happens when you click it.
>>492
You cannot quit. You can never quit. There is no way out.
You cannot uninstall either. That would be silly.
>>493
You cannot.
>>494
You do not.
>>495
You are stopped.
>>496
You cannot do that either, Player 1.
>>497
Nor can you do that.
>>498
And you most definitely can't do that.
>>499
You find all these prohibitions and forbiddings utterly unreasonable. Why should you be disallowed from uninstalling your OS if you feel like it? Similarly, why shouldn't you be allowed to play as the supreme leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea if you so desire? You feel yourself swept away in a tsunami of rage. Your frustration erupts as a fountain of Luddism. The computers are to blame. You'll show them what for!
You angrily click "Return to game", ascend the stairs and return to the IT room, rip the computer - the very same computer you dragged here all the way from the meadow - from its nest of cables, and, still seething with anger, pick up the computer chassis, monitor and keyboard and throw them as hard as you can against the window. The pane shatters outwards, and the mass of evil, antagonistic technology plummets two storeys to the earth, where it shatters like an egg. You lean out the gaping aperture of broken glass and look down to admire your handiwork.
There is a person in grey combat armour lying face down on the pavement, half buried in now useless computer parts. As you watch, his body twitches once, then goes still. For killing a sapient being, you have gained one skill point and fifty mana.
>>500
An accomplice of the man you just killed soon shows up at the scene, and stares up at you in horror. "500 GET, MOTHERFUCKER!" you shout to him. He is utterly incredulous, and does nothing for a few seconds, before finally raising his gun in your direction, at which point you prudently pull your head back indoors.
Play as Conundrum-chan from the point she separated from Player 1.
Put an end to this catastrophe.
>>502
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. You find yourself running down a staircase leading to the ground floor of your chuugakkou, being chased by a pair of armed and armoured men with ill intent. Your companion, Sensei, has abandoned you.
>>503
Things cannot go on like this, you think to yourself. This calamity, this aberrational state of affairs must be ended once and for all. Possessed by a singular purpose, you sprint down the last flight of stairs, ready to... Ah, wait, which catastrophe was it you were doing to put an end to again? Was it the whole dimensional collapse whatsit? Was it the apparent invasion of the building by people armed with lasers? Or was it your lingering and confusing feelings for the late Continue-chan? Was it your piercing sense of abandonment at Sensei's sudden cowardice, mere seconds ago? Or is your entire life just one great catastrophe? You aren't sure any more.
At the bottom of the stairs, you can see a pair of doors leading to the cafeteria to the West, corridors leading to the North and South, and, to the East, several rows of shoe lockers and a set of doors leading outdoors. You can see two more armed men outside, at the school gates.
Hastily remove your shoes, wield one as a weapon, throw another one into the southern corridor and run to the North
Sneak up on a lone guard from behind, knock him out with the shoe, steal his laser weapon and shoot him. Not ritualistically. There's no time for that.
Allocate skill point to necromancy.
Attempt to regroup with Sensei.
>>505
You take off your two small, black Venetian-style shoes, keeping one ready to use against any ill-wishers, and hurling the other down the South facing corridor. It lands with a clatter. It lays there, silently, punctuating the empty space of the corridor like a little black full stop. You sprint away in the opposite direction, bare feet pattering against the cold ground, just as you hear your aggressor reaching the bottom of the stairwell.
>>506
You take the first exit to the West, which happens to lead to a courtyard, and lie in ambush. When the armed man reaches the ground floor, he looks briefly at your discarded footwear, then runs down the Northern corridor, towards your hiding place.
You wait until he has passed you, then spring out behind him and hit him as hard as you can with your shoe. Unsurprisingly, your small, soft girl's shoe has little effect through his helmet, and certainly doesn't knock him out. He turns around suddenly, pointing his laser gun at where you just where - thankfully, your reflexes and small stature allow you to avoid his clumsy counterattack.
Things not working out quite as intended, you try a different approach, of using his own weapon against him. You lunge forwards and try to wrest the gun from his hands. Though unsuccessful, you manage to prevent him from pointing the weapon at you. He fires, twice, leaving blackened marks on the ceiling and wall.
>>507
You do not have any unallocated skill points. Sensei, on the other hand, has one.
You cannot leave without risking being shot.
Point your crotch at him out of desperation
Say "Aishiteru, oni~chan," and kiss the guard.
CROTCH-VOID
End turn, be sensei, go get gun of the man I just killed, search refuge from soldier giving me chase. End turn, be Conundrum-chan.
>>509
Still hanging onto the man's laser gun with your left hand, you drop your shoe and, with your now empty right hand, try to remove your pantsu. This proves to be no easy feat. Your adversary struggles and attempts to back away, ending up falling backwards through the door to the courtyard and landing heavily on his back. He appears to be winded. Taking advantage of his incapacity, you temporarily let go of the gun, peel your pantsu down your thigh, and jump onto his chest, pinning down his arms. He twists and contorts himself like a distressed salmon caught on a fishhook, unsuccessfully trying to regain control of the situation. You continue to attempt to point your crotch at his helmet visor, but it's difficult with your legs held together by your underwear.
>>510
You decide to try your hand at psychological warfare, and, bringing out your inner imouto, declare love for your Onii-chan. You follow up with a kiss to the side of his helmet. He suddenly goes still and stops struggling.
>>511
You smile angelically at him, then straddle his face with your pelvis and let him be consumed. He immediately resumes his struggle, and continues even after his head has passed entirely into the void. He flails around and fires his laser gun.
You feel an odd sensation in your right hand, followed by a sudden shock of pain. You have been shot! The laser gun has entirely removed your ring finger and little finger below the knuckle, as well as part of your palm. The wound appears to have cauterised itself, and isn't bleeding. You stare in horror, quietly whimpering, at what has been wrought upon your poor hand. The man vanishes entirely into your crotch, taking his weapon with him. The courtyard abruptly lapses into stillness and silence.
You are now playing as Player 1, otherwise known as Sensei. You make your way from the IT room to the stairwell, down to the ground floor, and towards the courtyard, where you intend to retrieve the weapon from the man you just dropped a computer onto. Unfortunately, you only make it as far as the base of the stairwell, when you attract the unwelcome attention of an automated sentry gun, which greets you with a hail of bullets. They sting like personal insults from a former childhood friend. You fall over and die.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 23
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>512)
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. You find yourself hiding behind a large potted aspidistra in one corner of the courtyard. Also in the courtyard is another man in grey combat armour and the body of his accomplice, who has just been crushed to death by a computer thrown from the second storey. Though your hiding place is not awfully good, the courtyard is almost completely dark, and the other man seems more interested in Sensei than in you. Your hand still hurts rather a lot.
Don't sneeze.
Magic heal hand until the pain goes away.
Play something better, like Tetris.
>>513
"Golly gosh," you think to yourself, "This would be a terrible time to sneeze." Then, predictably enough, you feel that familiar tingling in your sinuses. It's as though little ants with little needles on their legs are crawling around in the back of your nose. A reflexive action builds up tantalisingly from within you, offering sweet, explosive release from your ticklish agony.
But you resist. You do not sneeze. The man goes unalerted, and your sinuses go unemptied. Eventually, the feeling subsides.
>>514
You spend thirty mana healing your hand. You have 135 mana remaining. Blisters form on the edge of the wound, then begin to subside. The flesh begins to lose its blackened, charred appearance, and turn an unpleasant shade of pink. It is still tender, but doesn't hurt too much.
>>515
This impromptu game of hide-and-seek you're playing is not to your liking, you decide. You take a leaf from the aspidistra plant you're hiding behind and, using your fingernails, cut it into little tetrominos. You consider spending mana on reanimating the bits of leaf, but decide that would be far too silly. You settle for moving the pieces around with your fingers, whilst quietly humming the Tetris theme to yourself. An L-piece descends from the top of the screen. An amateur would put it at the far left, but you can see that next is an I-piece, which you leave room for by placing the L-piece one to the right. But, what's this? A T-piece rears its ugly head!
Amusing yourself thus, you notice a few minutes later that you are now alone in the courtyard; the man has left.
Secretively head toward infirmary. Around each corner, test for automatic sentries by throwing our shoe. If the shoe is not retrievable, find a rock or something.
Leave school, start life at circus.
Realize the circus is bad and burn it down.
Start a life of circus burning.
>>517
You decide that it's rather too dark in this courtyard. You feel as though a grue might jump out and eat you at any moment. You aren't sure where Sensei is at present - if he has any sense, he'll no longer be in the IT room, as that's likely where the other man was going. At any rate, you think, the infirmary would likely have bandages to cover your wound, making it a good place to set as a goal.
By some bizarre miracle of prescience, you decide to try throwing your shoe into the corridor before reentering the building. It is shredded to pieces by automated gunfire before it even hits the ground. You look around the courtyard for other ways to get to the infirmary - if you had a grappling hook, you might be able to get into the hole in the IT room window and downstairs from there, but you don't have a grappling hook. There are a few other windows on the ground floor - in particular, the cafeteria has large, floor length windows. None of the windows are open or manually opennable. You could probably throw the potted aspidistra, for instance, through a window, but it'd make a lot of noise.
>>518
You sit down and leave behind your boring, disappointing life of being stuck in a school courtyard and sink into an elaborate fantasy about being part of a travelling circus. What fun!
>>519
No, actually, it isn't fun at all. Clowns are terrifying and people who work in circuses are usually barely above the poverty line, miserable, and lead vacuous, unfulfilling lives. This fantasy isn't working out at all. You try to burn the memory out of your mind. Brightly coloured tents become blazing infernos. Clowns run for their lives amongst screaming children, heads aflame with hellfire. You resign your entire daydream to perdition. Finally, the shrieking and carnival music stops ringing through your head.
>>520
You think you've probably traumatised yourself enough already.
Be sensei. Fashion a rope out of bed sheets, tie one end to something sturdy, and lower it out of the window for Conundrum-chan to climb.
>>522
You are now playing as Player 1, otherwise known as Sensei.
You find yourself struck by a sensible idea. You aren't quite sure what to do with it, being so used to bizarre, inappropriate responses to situations, such as urges to rub salt in your eyes. You suspect it to be to do with your background in theoretical physics leaving you relatively clueless in practical matters. Then again, you've seen Conundrum-chan act on some even more dubious ideas - remember that time you took Continue-chan hostage and she just stood there eating a biscuit? What was that about?
Where were you going with this? Ah, that's right. A sensible idea. You carefully make your way downstairs from the IT room to the infirmary, strip both beds of their sheets, return upstairs with them, tie them into a makeshift rope and hang it from the hole in the window, taking care to remove the broken glass under the rope to prevent it from being cut. Finally, you tie the other end to a table leg, and sit on the table to weigh it down.
Conundrum-chan climbs the rope in a genki fashion, and soon pokes her head into the room. She gasps and hangs her head. You follow her gaze to find Contniue-chan's dead body lying in a pool of her own blood in the middle of the room, with a blood stained knife right next to her. Gosh, you didn't even notice that was there. After a little coaxing, Conundrum-chan joins you in the IT room.
You hear laser fire coming from down the corridor outside. Cautiously investigating, you find yet another of these combat armoured chaps running towards you, firing over his shoulder. Behind him is an enormous mass of tentacles, almost filling the entire hallway, and flowing forwards at a frightening pace. The laser fire doesn't seems to affect it in the slightest.
Shut the door, lock it (if it has a lock), and blockade it (with Conundrum-chan's help) using whatever heavy objects are available. Take the knife and have it ready in case the guard or the monster tries to get in.
Transfer skill point to Conundrum-chan if possible, and ready the >>500 as a secondary impromptu weapon.
Get knife.
Search Continue-chan's corpse for loot.
Get Continue-chan's corpse.
Search knife for loot.
Throw knife at.
Knife Continue-chan.
Search loot for corpse.
>>524
Like a startled tortoise, you retract your head from the corridor back into the IT room, then slam the door shut. You cannot find any lock on it. Worse still, it's a sliding door, making it rather difficult to barricade. You and Conundrum-chan just about manage to push a table in place when the man outside tears open the door, leaps over your feeble obstacle and lands with a rather kakkoii combat roll. He stands up, gives the two of you a single glance, then runs to the hole in the window and abseils down to the courtyard on the bedsheet rope you so kindly provided him with.
Ignoring the unholy screaming coming from just outside, you walk over to poor Continue-chan's body and take the knife from her side. As your hands are full of files you picked up back at >>490 and your pockets are full of cleaning rags and yet more files (not to mention the Rubik's cube in your underwear), you have to drop a fistful of files in order to be able to carry the knife.
>>525
You don't know how to transfer skill points. You aren't even entirely sure what skill points are. Unfortunately, the >>500 is simply a post on the internet - a few bytes of 1s and 0s stored on a server somewhere unknown. Despite its immense significance in relation to the thread it is a part of, it is but data. It can't help you now.
>>526
You are already holding the knife. Shamelessly, you run your hands over poor Continue-chan. Her body is still warm to the touch. In her pocket, you find a small metal key. It's about four centimetres long; small and flimsy, clearly not designed for anything serious.
>>527
Continue-chan's corpse is far too heavy to carry with your pathetic physique. The only things to be found on the knife are blood and betrayal.
>>528
You want to throw the knife, you really do, but you need something to aim at.
>>529
You skewer Continue-chan with the knife. It doesn't sink in gently; you feel the blade glance off one of her ribs, then lodge itself somewhere in her left lung. Blood wells up weakly around the entry wound. Some of it gets on your hand. In the relative darkness of the room you're in, the blood appears black, black like your soul, you corpse-desecrating bastard.
You take another look at the small key you found in her pocket. You're fairly certain it doesn't contain any corpses.
While you've been doing horrible things to a young girl's dead body, Conundrum-chan has been doing her best to keep the wall of tentacles from joining you in the room. She managed to close the door again and tried to jam a chair into the gap it slides into, with mixed results; it does prevent the door from opening, but only if she holds the chair in place. Despite Conundrum-chan's best efforts, slowly, the nightmarish being outside forces the door open a few centimetres - enough for a few appendages to creep in and make their way towards her.
She concedes defeat and runs, and, simultaneously, the chair bursts out of place and the door crashes open. A wall of tentacles spills towards the two of you, hungry for your flesh.
Bend the key into a ring, then propose marriage to the tentacle monster.
Feed Continue to our new wife.
Be Conundrum-chan and follow the man out the window.
>>531
You get down on one knee and fiddle with the key for a few precious moments. Unfortunately, your guest is rather too eager to let you finish. Before you have a chance to make a heartfelt and emotional marriage proposal, you are engulfed in tentacles, which thoroughly abuse you, then you are killed and eaten.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 24
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>530)
>>532
You do not have a wife, new or otherwise. You don't even have any serious relationships with members of the opposite sex, with the (rather dubious) exception of Conundrum-chan. She certainly isn't your wife, but she's the closest you've got. You grab her hand as she runs across the room and attempt to persuade her to eat the corpse of her own osananajimi. Before she has a chance to refuse, cry or slap you in the face for your insolence, the two of you are taken by the tentacles. After much pain and violation, you are killed and eaten.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 25
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>530)
>>533
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. You continue your hasty retreat, climbing out the window and back down to the courtyard. It's a little difficult abseiling with two fingers missing, but at least it's not as bad as it was climbing up. You find yourself followed by Sensei, then by a multitude of tentacles. They appear to burst forth from the hole in the window, injure themselves on the broken glass and retract, then pour forth again, more cautiously, groping around the outer face of the building. An appendage eventually finds and grasps the bedsheet rope and gives it a sharp tug.
Meanwhile, you and Sensei find yourselves in the relative safety of the courtyard. You notice the man you've been following disappear behind a petunia. On closer inspection, you discover a metal hatch implanted into the ground, cunningly hidden in a gap between various ornamental plants.
Looking inside, you can see a metal rung ladder descending a metre or two into a cramped, dimly lit space. Within, you see the man you were following just finishing removing his combat armour, hanging it, along with his laser gun, up on a set of hooks on the wall. Completely ignoring you, he turns and walks out of your sight.
Take combat armor and laser gun.
Sell them.
Use money to buy escape rope.
Buy Boots of Escaping and run for the hills.
Buy Cape of Fleeing and flee away from the school.
>>535
You descend into the strange, dark underworld beneath the courtyard. You find yourself in a small room with a low ceiling, made entirely of filled concrete. There are worn looking benches lining the North and South sides of the room, with rows of hooks above them. The room is lit only by a single dim, bare lightbulb. There is a corridor leading to the West, which is completely unlit, and you cannot see more than a metre in. There's something odd about the appearance of the walls, but you can't quite make out what.
You take the laser gun from the hook on the wall. It's remarkably heavy; you can barely lift it. You certainly can't carry it along with the entire suit of combat armour. Sensei joins you down in the hole, and you attempt to sell the gun and armour to him. He seems a little confused, but eventually acquiesces and offers to buy them for seven files and two cleaning rags. You accept. Sensei puts on the combat armour - it's a little big, but perfectly serviceable. He seems over-encumbered and uncomfortable, but still happy to having some sort of defence.
You offer him three files in return for an escape rope, but he insists that he doesn't have any such thing.
>>536
You buy Sensei's shoes for two files and a cleaning rag, to replace your own which you misplaced earlier. Unfortunately, they're the wrong size entirely and won't stay on your feet. You can't find any hills, other than the delicate, beautifully formed rolling mounds of your prepubescent oppai. You run around in a circle, for their sake.
>>537
Sensei doesn't have anything to sell you that could be considered a cape. He offers you a Rubik's cube instead, but you politely decline. You set forth into the dark corridor, away from this horrible place full of tentacles and dead friends. After a few steps you feel an odd warmth on your face. You passingly wonder why the man here a moment ago left behind his most useful possessions before entering the tunnel.
You notice a rhythmic clicking noise. You can't tell where it's coming from, but it gets louder the deeper you go. You suddenly notice the five files in your hand have become rather hot, and have sparks arcing between them. You drop them in surprise. Sparks continue to jump between them, quite violently. There is a smell of ozone.
Ask Sensei to destroy the ozone by farting on it. Also tell him to take off the combat armor before it electrocutes him.
Crotch-void armor and gun, hoping that at some point in the future we will be able to retrieve them. Also crotch-void flies, then continue walking and sing a merry song while walking.
Tell Sensei to go up the ladder while we go South. Splitting up is always a great idea!
Take it easy.
>>542
Sensei obliges and ascends the ladder. He awkwardly struggles with the hatch, eventually emerging into a large, open space full of machinery. There are various large cylindrical objects which might be turbines or generators. You cannot see any more from where you are. The tunnel was at least a few hundred metres long, so you're probably no longer underneath the school.
Still somewhat euphoric at Sensei's praise for your chemistry knowledge, you slightly overestimate your own intuition and decide that, as you split up once and didn't die from it, it was a good idea and you should do it again. Besides, you're curious as to what lies down the South tunnel.
It proves to be rather similar to the previous tunnel, complete with clicking noises and stifling warmth. You walk for quite a while - at least as far as you went down the previous tunnel - but to no avail. Neither the noise nor the heat even begin to abate; if anything they worsen. You soldier on, believing that this tunnel must lead somewhere, and certain that you couldn't manage the entire walk back.
At long last, you see something ahead - another dim light. You can't tell how far it is away, but it seems a fair distance. Head pounding, ears clicking and plagued by sweat and hot flushes, you collapse to the floor, unable to make it however far it is to the next pointless little room.
>>543
Maybe, one little corner of your mind says, maybe, if you could just muster the strength, you could... No, you decide, you'll just relax and take it easy. You're hot and bothered enough already. And thus you find yourself baked like an anthropomorphic anpan, and die of hyperthermia and heatstroke.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 26
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>541)
Take it hard.
Go up the ladder first so sensei can see our pantsu.
Give sensei his boots back.
>>545
Game difficulty has been set to Hard mode.
>>546
You feel that poor Sensei has been through a lot today, and deserves a little service. Whilst ascending the ladder, you make an extra effort to fan out your skirt and wiggle your backside, commenting "Ara ara, I sure hope my pantsu aren't showing!" A coy glance backwards reveals Sensei to be in the midst of a profound ethical and moral dilemma, eyes flicking back and forth between your lower body and his own feet. You catch his eye and he blushes.
After a brief struggle with the hatch, you emerge into a large room filled with various enormous pieces of machinery. The room is lit only by the dim light from the room below and a small skylight above you, which has little effect as it's currently night. There is a row of identical semicylindrical metal objects to the North, which are humming quietly. You can half-see myriad strange, angular objects beyond them to the North, as well as to the East and South. They all seem to be static.
Still rather hot from your journey through the tunnel, you are pleasantly refreshed by a light breeze blowing from the West.
>>547
Feeling somewhat tsundere, you drop Sensei's shoes onto his head as he's trying to climb the ladder after you. Without a word, he climbs back down, slips them onto his feet and resumes his ascent.
Go West. Make sensei go in front.
Try yelling for therapeutic purposes.
>>549
You convince Sensei to lead the way into the darkness to the West. You hold his hand to make sure you don't get separated. After around ten steps you can no longer feel the breeze from earlier. Another fifteen hesitant steps forwards later, you and Sensei reach a wall. There is a cuboid sticking out of it at (his) chest height, with wires leading upwards out of reach. It seems to have a removable cover. Following the wall a few paces to the North, you find nothing. To the South, you discover something large, strangely shaped and entirely indeterminate in function or identity. It's probably another piece of machinery.
>>550
You feel rather frustrated by all this fumbling around in the dark. You choose to express this by screaming abruptly. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!" You scream. "Aaaaaaaaaaaargh?!" replies Sensei, more than slightly startled by your outburst. "Aaaaaaaaaaargh! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!" you explain. You feel slightly better.
Suddenly, all the lights in the room flicker to life and turn on. Once your eyes adjust to the brightness, you take a look at your surroundings. The two of you are in what looks to be some sort of factory or warehouse. The space you're in is square, roughly fifty metres to a side, and around six metres tall. You are on the West wall, near the Northwest corner. There are several conveyor belts running from West to East, with large, inscrutable machines on top at odd places. None of it looks to be in operation. The North wall is lined with five of the semicylindrical things you saw earlier.
Every available surface; the floor, walls, machinery, even the hatch in the floor you came from, are covered in elaborate diagrams drawn in chalk. There are various sets of concentric circles in places on the floor, with many other shapes orbiting them. Everything is linked by a network of lines. The lines are all drawn at right angles, like wires in circuit diagrams. Text is written in a few places, but you can't recognise the script. Most of it is written in white chalk, with patches of red and black, especially around the circles.
You only just notice a human figure sneaking up on you from the Southeast. A remarkably androgynous person, dressed in close fitting white clothing, is stalking towards you, wielding a large, straight piece of metal - probably an axle or piece of piping - in both hands. Sensei doesn't seem to have noticed yet.
Inquire if that mysterious person is cosplaying that character from that videogame you played earlier but can't quite recall its title or it is just a robot.
Apologize to the person and explain that we were bringing pizza to share with him/her, but one of the guards bumped into it and spilled it all over the floor.
If the person still appears hostile, use our finger to smudge the chalk in the shape of a penis.
Turn on machinery.
Escape using conveyor belt, cue hilarious scooby doo shenanigans.
Use the machinery to make grinding noises again.
Open third eye.
>>552
The person stays perfectly still, like a startled rabbit, then quickly attempts to hide the metal rod behind their back. They contort their face into some strange approximation of a friendly smile and inform you that they are most definitely not a robot, or anything similar - how absurd! - and are, in fact, almost certainly "cause playing" or whatever the other thing you said was.
>>553
The person graciously accepts your apology, without any change in facial expression. They agree that attempting to acquire food is exactly the sort of thing they would do, along with breathing, defecating, procreating, dying, and all those other things humans do all the time. Reassured, you glance at the chalk diagrams. Doesn't that part over there look positively phallic? Yes, if you could just flesh out the testicles a little... but no, you feel you shouldn't risk offending the suspicious lady and/or gentleman.
>>554
You skip over to the nearest of the enormous contraptions and begin searching for an "on" switch, with no success. Indeed, you can't find any controls on any of the machines.
You attempt to escape from the room by following the conveyor belts. Surely they must lead somewhere. Usually, they lead to shenanigans, but they might lead to an actual physical place too. Sensei makes some vague objection on the basis of it being dangerous, which is duly ignored. You climb onto the conveyor belt to the South and crawl along it Eastwards. As you are passing through the inside of a piece of machinery, however, it turns on! Various large, metal parts pin you down and crush you against the belt. The pressure on your upper body is so great you cannot breathe.
>>555
A large, blunt piece of machinery from behind you tears through the flesh of your lower body, but gets jammed against your pelvis. It makes an excruciating grinding noise as it pushes on, eventually breaking through the bone.
>>556
You meditate, through your Ajna chakra, upon the painful futility of your current existence. Then you die.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 27
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>551)
Tell the mysterious figure, "This statement is false."
Grind against sensei.
>>558
"Hahaha! What a SyntaxError: can't assign to comparison funny joke that is!" they reply, laughing uproariously. Meanwhile, beside you, Sensei begins to mumble to himself. "...statement is false, but if that's true, then that means... but it can't... I..."
The suspicious person cocks their head to the side, curiously, then shouts "Ah-ha!" They leap across to Sensei, bringing the metal rod out from behind their back, and smack him in the back of the head with it with incredible force. With a sound like sonic boom, Sensei's body is propelled forwards about three metres, sliding to a stop on the edge of a large, red chalk circle. His scalp, including his hair, has fallen off in mid flight, and landed about thirty centimetres ahead, lying forlornly on the ground like an injured hedgehog.
From inside his head spill forth countless tiny, intricate cogs, gears, axles and other delicate looking pieces of clockwork. His body lies face down, completely inert. Sensei has left your party, and is no longer a playable character.
"Look! Look!" implores the other person, "He was a robot all along! Thank goodness we know we're both humans."
>>559
You choose to express your complex feelings of shock, betrayal and loss by rubbing your crotch area against Sensei's body in some sort of licentious, suggestive dance.
Say "but I'm a robot too! Beep bop beep boop!"
Ask the mysterious person for their name, and see if they can tell us anything about how one might go about uncollapsing dimensions.
Ask the mysterious person for their name, and see if they can tell us anything about how one might go about uncollapsing dimensions.
Ask the mysterious person if they wish to join us and grind our way towards the exit.
>>561
"Ah, fancy that!" says the suspicious person. Then, before you have a chance to respond, they strike you in the back of the head just as they did to poor Sensei. You, too, are propelled forth several metres by the blow. You suffer a compound fracture to the base of the skull, with fragments of bone ending up embedded in your brainstem, severing many sensory and motor nerves. You die almost instantly. Almost.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 28
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>560)
>>562,563
The person extends their right arm, rigidly, at a right angle to their body, smiles a little too wide, and says "Pleased to meet you, Sir or Madam, my name is Control Tower." You cautiously reciprocate the handshake, a matter complicated slightly by the fact that you're missing two fingers from your right hand. Control Tower doesn't seem to be bothered by, or even notice, this particular detail.
>>564
Control Tower has joined your party. They express particular interest in your goal oriented, grinding-based plan of action.
Be Control Tower.
Check inventory, skills, etc.
Fall in love with Conundrum-chan.
Rub salt into eyes..
>>566
You are now playing as Control Tower.
Your inventory contains nothing but a single stainless steel drive shaft, taken from one of the defunct engines. Your clothing is, needless to say, not physically separate from your body. You have level zero in every category, and no available skills, not even basic healing or proposal.
>>567
You stare at the human in front of you. She stares back at you. You find yourself lost in analysing her large, bright eyes. Her black hair flows forth thickly like errors from a corrupted file. Something torrid stirs deep within your central processing unit. An unexpected process begins running, and you find yourself performing an illegal operation. Your inbuilt error detection and antivirus software can't help you now. You have fallen in love.
>>568
You cannot locate "rub salt into eyes" in your library of human behaviour. You do, however, find "rub eyes to remove foreign bodies", "rub eyes to remove excess lachyrimation" and "rub eyes to express disbelief". You cannot perform actions not known to be human behaviour unless a specialised subroutine deems it necessary.
while (true) {
say("I'm a big fat butt");
pause(3);
}Tip over.
Be Conundrum-chan
Regain contact with the Control Tower.
>>570
You are quite certain that you are not a large overweight pair of buttocks, nor do you have any good reason to lie and claim that you are. Not to mention, you are all too aware of the dangers of non-terminating while loops. You are altogether quite relieved that your human behaviour checking subroutine cancels this particular instruction.
>>571
Tip over what?
>>572
You are now playing as Conundrum-chan. You continue your conversation with Control Tower - although, for all you know, they may be just a control tower, rather than the control tower. The two of you discuss your current predicament and plans for the immediate future. Control Tower expresses interest in the apparent effects of the underground tunnels upon metal objects, commenting that that would be very inconvenient if one happened to contain electrical components. Which, of course, they, being an ordinary human, do not.
>>573
You are now playing as Control Tower. You do not have any skill points or mana, and cannot gain more, because you have no soul.
>>574
You recall with wonder the odd undulating motion that human made next to the body of her companion. This particular action was one you couldn't find in your library of human behaviour, and one you found strangely alluring. You attempt to reenact this upon her. She seems pleasantly surprised. Well, you think so, anyway. It's hard to tell with humans. I mean, she only cried a little, and you're fairly sure that can indicate happiness as well.
A few minutes later, you hear a sound coming from beneath the hatch leading to the tunnels; a subtle creaking, indicating someone or something climbing the rungs of the ladder. You have a few mere moments before they emerge into the room.
Sit on the hatch.
Smash Conundrum-chan's head with a large container of salt
Pull out pubes.
Be Jack. Wonder why Sensei had skill points if he was a robot. Get suspicious and search his open head for clues.
Drink a quart of salt water
>>576
You rush over to the little trapdoor. None must be allowed to disturb you and your small fleshy companion, while you're still in the midst of "grinding". Unfortunately it soon becomes apparent that you didn't think this through - how can you rub your crotch against the human when you're all the way over here? You feel a pressure from beneath as someone tries to lift the hatch, followed by an urgent hammering and cries of "Help!". You're sure you've heard that voice before. These damn humans and their tonal inflections, which one was it?
>>577
You feel something odd - well, to feel anything at all is odd, but this especially - towards your beloved human. An urge... an urge to smash her head in. No, wait, that can't be right. With... with a large container of salt? But why would...
Hmm, your human behaviour checking subroutine seems quite alright with the idea, for some reason. Well, no use questioning it. You walk over to her, an encouraging smile projected onto your face, before remembering that you don't have a large container of salt with which to smash in her beautiful little head. Not just that, but the now unobstructed hatch is pushed open, and someone begins to emerge. You're really off the ball today.
>>578
You feel a sudden urge to relieve your darling human of her pubic hair. Was that ordinary human behaviour? Must've been. Ignoring her playful protestations and struggling, you lift her skirt and move her undergarments aside. What's this? Shock! Horror! She hasn't even reached pubarche; there's nothing to pull out! Also, instead of the usual sexual organ she seems to have some sort of large bottomless aperture, but that's neither here nor there.
>>579
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. You should be feeling quite scared and violated by Control Tower, but instead are busy staring in shock at Sensei, who has just climbed out of the hatch in the floor. Sensei is, in turn, staring in shock at the inert body of his doppelgänger lying at his feet. His hair is matted with sweat, and he is quite desperately out of breath. It seems he's probably been in the tunnels underground for a while.
Finally, he meets your eyes, breathes a sigh of relief, and comes to rejoin you. Sensei has joined your party. Then, he passes out from exhaustion. Sensei has left your party, and is no longer a playable character.
You have no idea whether the dead robo-Sensei ever had skill points, nor do you know for certain if the new living(?) non-robotic(?) Sensei does. You take a good look at the inside of robo-Sensei's head, but learn nothing from it. It is just full of small, intricate brass clockwork pieces. They're mostly gears and axles, with a few springs and more exotic pieces thrown in. It looks quite impossible for you to repair.
You freeze where you are. From just behind you, you hear a lighthearted giggle, one you were certain you would never hear again. "Ufufufufu, Oh Conundrum-chan, that was a hidoi thing you did, you know." Slowly and unwillingly, you turn your head to face your conversant.
Just in front of the hatch, to the side of non-robo-Sensei's unconscious body, stands Continue-chan's reanimated body. Her hair is ruffled and disordered, spilling over her pale, bloodless face, but not quite covering her wide, unblinking eyes, which cast a piercing gaze straight into you. There is a large stab wound in her breast, with congealed blood staining much of her seifuku. In her right hand is an all too familiar knife, incarnadine with her own dried blood. Smiling a little too wide, she takes a step towards you.
Say "it's about time you got here! Did you bring the pizzas?" If she appears hostile, run and hide behind Control Tower.
Use necromancy skill to reanimate Continue-chan's right hand for 30 seconds.
Pause for a breather. Make some tea, yell out your frustrations with this game.
>>580
Do you mean a US liquid quart, a US dry quart, an imperial quart or a Winchester quart? Actually, it doesn't matter; you can't find any salt water anyway.
>>582
Continue-chan pauses, and doubt passes over her face momentarily like a cloud over a summer sky, then she chuckles lightly and smiles even wider than before. "Don't worry," she purrs, "I'm not... vindictive. I just want to talk with you." You consider running for safety behind Control Tower, but decide that you probably aren't in any immediate danger. "Come, I'll explain everything, just follow me..." With a jerk of her head, she stares over your shoulder at Control Tower, who is standing completely motionless at the other side of the room, then continues "...Alone, that is." She doesn't even spare a glance to the two inanimate Senseis.
>>583
Continue-chan's entire body is already reanimated by someone or something else.
>>584
GAME PAUSED
You heave a dramatic sigh, try to ignore the deeply unsettling menu music, and quietly wish for a nice cup of tea. Unfortunately, of course, there's no escape from the game.
You take the opportunity to voice your tribulations and doubts with your experience so far. Most troublingly, you recall murdering someone back at >>214,215, and in the process gained level two thaumaturgy, yet come >>268-270 it appears that you don't even have level one! >>381 continues the pretence of claiming you have level zero thaumaturgy, despite the fact that >>460 could open the JavaScript console ability, which should require level two thaumaturgy.
Furthermore, when Sensei was introduced at >>339 he is described as wearing a grey suit, yet when you check your inventory as Sensei at >>407, you are described as being dressed in black, and only your underwear is grey.
You find yourself most frustrated, however, by the fact that the alternate universe arc taking place in >>266 turned out not to be canon.
Say, "Okay, let's go somewhere more quiet," while walking southeast and motioning for Continue-chan to follow. Unpause the game and repause the game repeatedly while doing this, so our voice and movements are chopped up and funny.
Realise that we are a reality-warping goddess, which explains the dimensional collapse and subsequent inconsistencies.
If >>588 does not work, convince Control Tower Continue might be a robot. Look at her, she doesn't even blink!
Unplug the two cables leading away, then put the rest of the computer/parts in our crotch void.
Then make a run for it!
>>591
You tear the two electronic umbilical cords from the unholy nest of computerised evil. The screen goes dead. For good measure, you smother the entire contraption with your crotch, consuming it all in one.
>>592
Having wrought your mischief, you decide now would be a good time to make your exit. Dropping all pretence of subtlety, you sprint down the Southern corridor. You are pleasantly surprised to find that the tunnel - though still warm - is no longer quite so stifling, nor does it produce that odd clicking noise. Perhaps it has something to do with the reappearance of the computer.
For perhaps fifty metres, all you can hear is the sound of your bare feet padding against the concrete floor, then you hear a playful "Oh, Conundrum-cha~an..." echoing down the tunnel from behind you. You don't look back. Before long, you reach another almost identical cubic concrete room, with another dim lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. There are tunnels leading to the North (from which you just came) and South, and a metal ladder on the Eastern wall leading straight down. The bottom of the ladder is quite some distance away, and lit by a reddish glow.
You begin running down the South tunnel, when two things happen that force you to halt. First, the heat and clicking abruptly resume with redoubled intensity, and second you hear, from far to the North, a scream: "Aaaaaaaaargh! Help! Argh! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!" It's Sensei's voice.
Briefly reflect on our heartless actions in the past. Resolve to care more about others in the future. With bravery fueled by this guilt, run back to save Sensei.
>>594
Though it causes you nothing but pain, you reflect upon the more immoral and contemptible acts you've committed since you woke up on a cold, hard concrete floor, probably several days ago. Well, there was the time you scared some poor bastard out of his wits back at >>170, then there was the time you killed Ao Oni (though that might count as self defence). What else? Oh yes, also you brutally murdered the only person who'd ever loved you in cold blood. You decide it might be a good idea not to do such things in the future.
Spirit languishing in grief, body set with a sort of grim determination, you run back down the tunnel you came by. It's much harder going than previously; the walls are going full blast, blazing heat and clicking and all. You are soon gasping for breath and wishing bitterly to be anywhere but this claustrophobic little corridor. Still, Sensei's relentless screaming urges you ever onwards.
At last, you arrive back in the same little room you found the reanimated computer. Heart pounding, you ascend the ladder to find Sensei leaning against one of the conveyor belts, clutching his right hand closely to his chest and gritting his teeth. As he is distracted by your return, Continue-chan takes the opportunity to jump behind him, pull him from the conveyor belt and press her blade against his neck.
"Hello again, my darling Conundrum-chan!" she begins, "I'm glad you've been having fun without us, but I'm afraid it really is time you did what you're supposed to. Unless," she gestures at the bodies of Control Tower and the other Sensei, piled up against the Western wall, "you want to end up like them, I suggest you help us regain contact with the Control Tower."
Pirouette.
After a fabolous pirouette worthy of a gold medal, point out that Continue-chan has, in fact, just stabbed the hell out of Control Tower, and whether he was THE Control Tower, or just some Control Tower, he was our only lead, and an end-game party member, which will make the rest of the game and contacting the Control Tower a hell of a lot harder.
>>596
"Oh, I've good reason to believe you can do it yourself, actually." she replies coolly. She doesn't seem particularly cooperative.
>>597
Your beloved Continue-chan may have become an unholy, soulless aberration, but she's still your tomodachi and you still care for her deeply. You are suddenly aware of how dreadful you probably look right now, with no shoes or socks on, your hair a mess, and sweating and breathing heavily in a most unladylike fashion. The only way to counteract something like this, and redeem yourself in the eyes of Continue-chan, is to do something so overwhelmingly ladylike that she is forced to overlook your appearance.
You anchor your left leg in a single point, and set yourself spinning wildly with an energetic push from your other foot. You twirl gracefully about, skirt fanning out enticingly. You're doing it! Continue-chan must be shocked and overwhelmed by the raw beauty and elegance of your performance.
Then, suddenly, you feel dizzy, not to mention far too hot, and tired (it's far past your bedtime), and accidentally fall over and pass out.
>>598
You wake up an indeterminate length of time later. Judging by the skylight in the ceiling, it's still night. Once you've regained your senses, you find that Continue-chan is staring at you with an inscrutable look on her face, offhandedly toying with her knife. A lump develops in your throat as you notice that Sensei is now piled next to the other two corpses at the side of the room.
You berate Continue-chan for her overzealous murdering habit, and, to your surprise, she is quite taken aback. She listens patiently, then paces back and forth like a caged lion, muttering under her breath things like "Surely it couldn't've been..." and "Shimatta!" Finally, she stares at you and narrows her eyes. You have no idea what she's thinking.
>>599
Alas, all the friendship in the world can't bring back the dead, and, as Control Tower is neither an invertebrate, nor a vertebrate under 2kg, nor a body part, you can't revive them with your current skills. Plaintively, you try to solicit skill points from your recently reanimated companion. She rolls her eyes, sighs dramatically and, finally, with a cryptic comment about them being "no good to her anyway", she gives you two skill points, which you place into necromancy. You now have level five necromancy. You have unlocked the following skills:
Summoning your inner strength, you use your new skill to reanimate your late android friend. You gesture dramatically at their corpse, and feel twenty mana exit your body. Control Tower shudders and begins to move! They rise, stumbling slightly as they're missing their right leg just below the hip, their left arm from above the elbow, and, most unnervingly, their head is attached only by a single flap of skin.
"Hello, everyone!" they say.