Eat the cumuliform clouds, politely inviting the young lady in lilac to partake along with you.
Claim to know Jack's location. Offer the information in exchange for immunity and more sausage.
use Jedi mind tricks to convince the girl that these aren't the sausages she is looking for
Duck and cover.
>>201
You take the appearance of the eccentric levitating young mistress to be a sign that things are about to take a turn for the surreal. In all likelihood, she probably isn't even real. Maybe you're in the midst of a lucid dream, or maybe you accidentally imbibed some sort of hallucinogenic earlier, or maybe you're simply losing your mind and she is the embodiment of your guilt over robbing some innocent person's camp earlier.
"Never mind that, won't you join me in partaking of some of those delectable looking clouds instead?" you suggest conspiratorially. You try to will yourself to start flying away towards the horizon, but remain obstinately earthbound. "As you wish," the girl says, carefully enunciating each word, her smile growing unnaturally wide.
Next thing you know, your vision goes entirely white, and you feel a cold, damp sensation across your entire body. Air rushes into your face, flowing ever ever faster, until suddenly you find yourself several hundred metres above the ground, plummeting towards the ground at terminal velocity. As far as you can see is nothing but rainforest, broken in places by occasional rivers, lakes, mountains, and the roofs of a few concrete buildings that look rather out of place.
By your side, keeping pace with you but seemingly unaffected by the precipitous descent, is the girl in lilac. She has a little tuft of cloud wrapped around one finger, which she sticks into her mouth, sucks on, then comments "Doesn't taste like candyfloss at all, does it? How disappointing."
You continue falling until at last you collide with the unsympathetic ground. You strike the earth so hard that several of your limbs are detached entirely, and parts of your anatomy end up distributed across a not entirely unimpressive area.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 5
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>200)
>>202
Eager to escape retribution, you claim to know the location of her apparent quarry, whom you suspect to be the semi-feral girl you met and adopted earlier. Technically, you don't know her location precisely, but you know she must be somewhere nearby. You claim you will only divulge the information if offered a) her word that she will not harm you, directly or indirectly and b) at least one more sausage.
She raises her eyebrows in surprise, but complies. "So be it," she says offhandedly. She rummages around in the bag by her side and draws out a large piece of Hungarian téliszalámi, offering it to you. "Now, as agreed, kindly tell me where Jack is." she demands, her voice taking on a slightly steely tone.
>>203
"These aren't your sausages," you tell her slowly and confidently, gesturing to the meat products by your side. "Well, they're not yours either," she counters. "In fact, I have reason to believe they were a gift from the very lady I'm searching for. Speaking of which, where is she?"
>>204
You cave in to the stressful line of questioning and throw yourself to the ground just inside the doorway, covering your face and the back of your neck as best you can. You lie perfectly still, waiting for the threat to pass. Though you could now resist the worst of the radiation of a thermonuclear explosion, you have no defence from the young lady you have attempted to deceive.
She takes the hint, however, and offers cheerily "Well, seeing as you aren't feeling talkative just now, how's about this: meet me back here at midday tomorrow, with Jack. If you fail this task," she says, as her smile expands as though threatening to leave her face entirely, "I'll track you down and kill you, slowly and painfully, for my own amusement. See you tomorrow!"
And with that, she vanishes, just as suddenly as she appeared. It is currently mid-afternoon. Within the building is a dangerous looking basement and an almost inaccessible upstairs area. Outside, you could follow the brook downstream to the small abandoned camp or upstream into the unknown, or follow the path Northwest.
Find the nearest suitable drawing implement and sketch the girl in lilac eating a penis, literally masticating it.
Find a sharp rock. Cut the tripwire by the stairs.
Carefully disable bear trap. Trigger it with a medium-sized object if necessary.
Take bear trap and set off into the forest, looking for tracks.
Exclaim, "Jack, you moron, I'm going to be killed because of you!"
>>206
Despite a thorough search of the room you're in, the blockade on the stairs and the area immediately outside the building, you turn up nothing that could easily leave at least a semi-permanent mark on a surface. Lacking anything more suitable, you attempt to engrave an image into the wall using the nail file you picked up earlier. The result is a faint, scratchy, angular affair, almost entirely unrecognisable even as a human figure, let alone as an image of the girl in lilac, let alone her engaging in some sort of act of erotic cannibalism.
>>207
You cannot find any sharp rocks - the stones in the streambed of the brook are all worn perfectly smooth, and the masonry of the building, though unexceptional, is not poor enough to yield usable broken pieces. Lacking anything more suitable, you attempt to cut the tripwire using the nail file you picked up earlier. You succeed.
You begin to descend cautiously, but, focussed as you are on the beartrap, you fail to notice that one of the steps has been waxed. Overbalanced by the canned meat and other miscellanea you are carrying, you slip and hurtle forwards into the eagerly awaiting jaws of the trap. You die.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 6
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>209)
Having failed to acquire the beartrap, you pack up and wander off into the rainforest, walking more or less directly Westwards. The air is warm and muggy and clings to your skin in an unpleasant manner. The trunks of the trees are generally sparser than where you were earlier, but they are also taller and the canopy thicker, meaning you soon lose sight of the sun. The foliage underfoot is thick and luscious, interspersed with occasional flowers, small and large. Various exotic insects zip through the thick, warm air, some of them momentarily settling on you.
Despite the recent rain, the ground is not particularly muddy, and you fail to find any sets of tracks. After much walking, you find yourself at the top of a cliff, running North-South, around five metres in height, commanding a good view of the surrounding topography. You see smoke rising steadily from a small clearing to the West, not far from the base of the cliff. Further to the West, you see a broad river. Curiously, it seems to stop abruptly in one place, and is swallowed up by the surrounding vegetation.
On the opposite side of the river is a small white building, beside which is some sort of metal framework tower, similar to a radio tower or an electricity pylon, as well as a large radar dish. Beyond this is a fairly steep mountain ridge. Upriver you can see a large, sprawling grey concrete building, which you suspect to be the place where you began your quest. The sun is low in the sky, especially given the inconveniently placed ridge. You probably have an hour or two until nightfall.
>>208
Doing your very best to evade all personal responsibility, you verbally express your frustration with your daughter at her implicit act of patricide.
Be Jack.
Go to the white building and take shelter.
Jack off
Fall down and break your crown.
>>210
You are now playing as Jack, an animalistic, savage young girl, annealed in the hostile, unsympathetic forge of this unnatural jungle. You find yourself surveying the sacred pyre in the middle of the clearing where your tribe - of which you are the high priestess - holds its ceremonial functions. In front of the pyre is the immense carved stone slab you found in the jungle, currently in use as an altar. Its every surface is covered in intricate, arcane inscriptions and images, the meaning of which you cannot even guess at.
You look at the stone knife in your hand. For the life of you you can't remember where you found this, or why it seems to command such significance to you. It feels perfectly moulded to the palm of your hand, and is beautifully weighted such that you can slash or slab with it as though it were an extension of your own body. And like Chekhov's Gun, its very presence seems to beg its usage.
You used it in last night's ceremony, which, naturally, must be repeated tonight. You cast a sweeping gaze around the fire at the ring of ghostly, identical faces, all facing inwards, all looking at you. You wonder which will be tonight's sacrifice.
>>211
You have only seen two constructed buildings in living memory, not counting the crude huts your tribe lives in, and neither of them were white. Yesterday you actually entered one for the first time, and, moreover, encountered another - seemingly harmless - person. And what an odd person they were too. You'd rather not have anything to do with them.
>>212
You amuse yourself by imagining that you have some sort of inbuilt on/off switch, as though you could simply say "Jack off" or Jack on" and you would fall unconscious or wake up, just like that. It would be nice, given what trouble you have had sleeping recently. You "Jack off" and try to fall asleep where you are.
>>213
You collapse in a heap beside the altar, as though you had just lost consciousness. Your subjects appear troubled, but none dare to approach you. You are disappointed to find that you lack any sort of diadem to break - which reminds you, you must arrange some sort of headdress. With feathers, and flowers, and... and...
You awaken with a start. Night has fallen. It is a mostly clear night, and the waxing gibbous moon is already quite high. You must have been asleep a few hours. A long, slow groaning noise comes from somewhere you cannot place. You scramble to your feet, staring piercingly into the shadows between the trees, daring some unknown foe to show themselves, to take form, but they do not.
After a minute or so of silence, you relax enough to look back. A grunt has laid himself down onto the stone slab, ready for the ritual. He looks terrified. For that matter, they all do. Everyone in the tribe is staring at the knife in your hand, simultaneously knowing and not knowing exactly what must happen next.
The ceremony last night was the very first one, and it was a strange, almost trancelike affair. This time your wits are a little sharper. You are aware that whatever you do right now could well become subsumed forever into the procedure, which, for all you know, might be repeated night after night for years, might be passed on unchanged through countless generations, and might become the backbone of an entire civilisation. Every breath, every step you take feels immensely heavy. The ritual must begin.
Prance and pirouette around the sacrifice while singing: "I've got a brand new pair of rollerskates, you've got a brand new key, I think that we should get together and try them on to see!"
On "see" cheerily slam the knife into his heart with both hands and twist it. Take some blood and put it on our lips like lipstick, then lovingly kiss the sacrifice goodnight.
Be Jack's nipples. Contemplate our existence.
celebrate christmas
Decapitate corpse, shove head into the crotch void of doom.
>>215
You lose yourself to forces far beyond your control, or even comprehension. You find yourself singing at the top of your lungs a hymn to the ancient spirits you are invoking, promising that you have means of locomotion - that you are willing to move, to change, to do whatever it takes - if only they'll offer you the key to unlock your true potential. You humbly suggest a symbiosis.
You terminate your odd spinning, spiralling dance with a single thrust of your knife into the sacrifice's breast, into which it descends without a sound. You moisten your lips with the flat of the blade, then lightly kiss the lifeless body on the cheek, leaving a bloody mark.
For killing a sapient being in a ritualistic manner you have gained two skill points and 100 mana. You currently have four unspent skill points and 200 mana.
>>216
You cannot be Jack's nipples; you can only play as members of your current party.
Momentarily oblivious to the immense gravitas of your situation, you try to think about your existence itself. Despite being no expert in philosophical scepticism, you are quite aware of the insidious unreliability of your own perception, and how actual knowledge of anything at all is a dubious proposition at best. On the other hand, as your good friend Descartes reminds you, the very fact that you are thinking about your own existence proves your own existence, though it doesn't mean that you exist in the way or form you think you do.
After careful consideration, you conclude that at least two things exist, because, as you exist (somehow) at least one thing exists, and if only one thing existed then it wouldn't be able to perceive anything else, because that would be something else, even if it wasn't real. It almost looks like you're making progress on working out this whole existence business.
But wait! If everything else is unprovable and unverifiable, why should your own logic be exempt? Mathematics (and, by extension, logic) certainly seem to be infallible - in all honesty, they might well be - but then things like Russel's paradox or Gödel's incompleteness theorems rear their unwelcome heads and you have to question whether logic really owes it to you to be internally consistent. Conclusions such as those you have made seem to make perfect sense, but perhaps this very semblance should be questioned at least as much - if not more so - than what you perceive through the senses.
So, there you have it. Your state of existence is nothing but uncertainty, meaningless, empty promises, simulacra, phantoms, sea foam and shadows, all wrapped into one big package that looks sort of like a little girl.
>>217
But enough of that, you think to yourself. This ritual you've been performing needs a name. You decide to bestow upon it the name "christmas", as it's a word you just made up, and you're fairly sure it doesn't mean anything else, least of all some sort of other religious festival. You are pleased to be a part of the second ever celebration of christmas, and hope for many further recurrences.
>>218
In the midst of this bustling, everyday modern life of being trapped in a sinister, endless jungle, it is easy to lose track of the truly important things in life. You take a moment to reflect upon the true meaning of christmas. Which is, of course, gratuitous corpse mutilation. With several vicious hacks of the stone knife, you forcibly remove the corpse's head and sit on it. It disappears up your skirt without a trace.
And with that, christmas is over for tonight.
Spend points on Liberal Art. Spend some mana pondering the meaning of life but not too much.
Spend some mana learning how to poop.
Spend remaining skill points on matrimony.
gfsdvbn
enter our PIN number at the ATM machine to withdraw some USD dollars while loling out loud in irl life.
List abilities.
>>220,221
You try to use your newly acquired skill points as currency in order to purchase the trivium and quadrivium; grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. Unfortunately, it seems that these are all abstract concepts which you cannot lay claim to, not even through bartering using similarly non-real currency.
You begin to carefully probe the subject of the meaning of life. Why are you here at all? You are not a follower of any particularly well-defined religion, so you don't have any comforting doctrine to tell you why you should wake up tomorrow morning. Popular answers to the question include being nice to people, gaining knowledge, passing on one's genes and perpetuating the human race as a whole, all of which seem like reasonably sensible things to do, but none of which seem like an actual justification of your existence. If humanity didn't exist, after all, none of these would make its creation necessary.
In fact, you can't think of anything that fits the criteria, nor even a starting point to look for one. Perhaps the most obvious answer is correct after all; that there is no particular meaning to life. But then why keep going? You can always fabricate a meaning to your life, but it seems rather hollow and vacuous in the greater scheme of things. Maybe you should keep living just in case a meaning to life that you overlooked shows up somewhere - or maybe you should embrace the demoniac madness and take solace in the fact that your life isn't running on rails, that no matter what you do you cannot fail at life.
>>222
You are already as familiar as you need to be with the theoretical portion of scatology. The practical application, of course, is a different matter.
>>223
It seems that matrimony is not an available skill - how odd. Your available skills are, instead, aerokinesis, geokinesis, biokinesis, hypnosis, technomancy and ailuromancy.
>>224
That would be wholly, sickeningly inappropriate. You mightn't be the most ladylike of ladies, but even you must draw the line somewhere.
>>225
You have a general understanding of what automatic teller machines are - even if you've never seen one - and they seem to be artificially manufactured. Presumably, there is a machine which builds ATMs: an ATM machine. Similarly, if there are personal identification numbers, there must be a finite number of PINs in the world: the PIN number. Were you to enter this PIN number into an ATM machine, perhaps you could even use it to withdraw some fanciful currency of which each unit is the entire combined worth of the United States Dollar: USD dollars. While committing such a megalomaniacal act, it would only be appropriate to laugh out loud, aloud (if allowed).
Needless to say, this is an entirely academic exercise, as no such machine exists in your vicinity - at least, not in in real life life.
>>226
You begin listing abilities in your head. Not any abilities in particular, just abilities that might exist. Like flying, or kissing your own spine, or teaching a young child the general principles of vector calculus, or reading a silly story on the internet.
At that moment, with a violent rustle of leaves, a human figure emerges from the forest, screams and falls flat on their face in front of the fire. They were carrying, amongst other things, four cans of meat and four sausages, which are now spilled all over the floor. The other members of your tribe appear very agitated at the sudden arrival of this stranger.
be as-yet nameless protagonist-kun
draw up the adoption papers and take our new daughter home
Jack: level up ailuromancy
Everything on ailuromancy, it seems incredibly important!
Slap Jack.
Put negative skill points into aliuromancy, it seems incredibly dangerous!
But you like danger! Approach the fallen stranger and see if your newly acquired skills in felinology can help them.
>>228
You are now playing as Nameless Protagonist.
You find yourself absolutely terrified out of your wits, in mortal fear and unable to form any coherent thought. You have spent hours lost in the rainforest in absolute darkness, feet ensnared by creeping tendrils, face and hands marred by vicious barbed branches, falling on your face time and time again. Though you saw nothing, you heard and felt things that you still cannot come to terms with. The things that watched, the things that followed, and the things that whispered have robbed you of all composure and agency.
Having finally made it to the warmth and relative safety of the brightly lit clearing, you pass out in relief, without even having been able to formally adopt your beloved daughter. Your last thought, as your consciousness slips away like a startled rabbit, is that as your legal descendant your daughter will have to share your surname, making her Jack Protagonist.
>>229,230
You are now playing as Jack Protagonist.
By a quirk of logic that, oddly, evades you when you reflect upon it later, you come to the conclusion that this ailuromancy business is certain to be the perfect solution to your current predicament. You allocate all four available skill points to ailuromancy. You have unlocked the following skills:
>>231
You try to slap some sense into yourself. What were you thinking?
>>232
You haven't a clue what aliuromancy (not to be confused with the quite toothless ailuromancy) is, and that makes it all the more dangerous. Levelling it up may force upon you knowledge or power beyond that which you are equipped to deal with; beyond that which any mortal should possess. To ensure that this never comes to pass, you should do everything in your power to prevent yourself from becoming even a novice in this no doubt perilous, catastrophic craft.
Thankfully, aliuromancy isn't real, so you cannot assign or unassign skill points to it.
>>233
Then again, you'd make a rather poor high priestess if you were put off by any hint of danger. You walk over to greet your uninvited guest, but he seems to be quite unconscious. You have no particular reason to assume that the presence of a cat and/or a weather forecast is going to change anyone's life for the better.
>>234
You glare penetratingly at the back of the stranger's head, trying to force your way into their brain by sheer force of will. Your gaze is not quite piercing enough to actually physically penetrate anything, however.
Jack Protagonist: use cat affinity evaluation on Nameless Protagonist. If it is positive, summon a cat.
put protagonist otou-san's personal items in a safe place until he wakes up
[thanks for these threads, they are highly entertaining]
Summon a cat, perhaps a big and black one like a panther if you get to choose. Reclass to a witch.
Summon lots and lots of pussy.
Order the grunts to carry protagonist to our hidden shelter. Follow them there.
[Also, what >>238 said.]
>>236
On closer inspection, you note that your visitor is the same person who kindly gave you bread yesterday. Of course, that doesn't make him trustworthy in the slightest. Perhaps an analysis of his feline disposition will be enlightening. A quick expenditure of 15 mana reveals that Nameless has a cat affinity index of -87, whatever that means.
>>237
You gather his accoutrements - four sausages, four cans of meat, a pair of scissors, a lighter, a nail file and a radio - from the ground and pile them on top of the altar, beside the decapitated corpse.
>>239
You spend 100 mana, leaving you 85 remaining, and feel something furry crawl out from between your thighs, of all places. A medium sized tortoiseshell with thick white fur on its underside lands feet first beneath you. It takes a few uncertain steps forward, tail twitching in curiosity. It looks at the surrounding rainforest, at the fire, at the grunts, at you, then, the second it catches a glimpse of Nameless, it screeches violently at a volume you didn't even think it was capable of, jumps backwards so hard it almost backflips, twists in midair, lands on its side, scrambles to its feet and bolts away into the undergrowth.
>>240
You try to entice the poor frightened pussycat - or any other cats that happen to be nearby - with offers of sausage and cuddles, but fail to attract anything but odd looks from the grunts.
>>241
You think that has been enough excitement for tonight. Leaving the grunt work to the grunts, you retire to your own hut alongside Nameless. Despite being by far the best constructed in the tribe, your hut is still a rather ramshackle affair, and cramped even for one person. Nameless regains consciousness inside, and, after taking a few moment to calm down, insists upon sleeping outside, based on some strange cultural taboo against sleeping beside relatives, or something like that. All the more legroom for you.
After another long night of broken sleep, you return to your senses in the mid-morning. You make your way back to the clearing that was the site of last night's christmas. The fire has burnt down to the cinders, and the remains of last night's sacrifice have been cremated to leave only charred bones. The altar is still draped in congealed blood.
Nameless is pacing back and forth nearby. He appears rather agitated about something.
Ritually sacrifice Nameless; he has negative cat affinity and scared away your pretty pussy, so he must be evil.
Protagonist: inform Jack that you were threatened by some weird being to be killed, err, today (probably!) unless you find Jack.
Jack: Ask Nameless for a piggyback ride.
>>243
Well, you decide, christmas has come early for Nameless. As soon as he sees you he starts talking hurriedly at you about something, but you quickly silence him by brandishing the bloodstained knife and pointing sternly at the altar. He stutters pathetically and pleads for his miserable life. On closer inspection, you see that he is in rather poor shape; his every piece of exposed skin is covered in cuts and sores, and the dark bags under his eyes suggest he slept even worse than you last night.
He backs away from you, still begging for mercy, until he is right next to the altar. You shove him onto his back. Tears are forming in the corners of his eyes. You raise the stone knife as high as you can, and plunge it towards his breast, ready to offer his feeble existence to whatever dark gods thirst for his blood.
>>244
You are now playing as Nameless Protagonist.
You shout desperately that you need Jack's help, and that your life is in danger. More danger, that is. To your surprise and relief, she stays her hand, knife mere centimetres from your skin. She narrows her eyes in suspicion and demands that you explain yourself. Between sobs, you recount your encounter with the girl in lilac and the deal you struck with her.
Conveniently and bizarrely enough, the stone slab you are currently lying on actually has an illustration that looks a lot like the girl in lilac, right down to the parasol - as well as another girl who looks a bit like Jack herself. They are surrounded by various paraphernalia, abstract shapes and patterns, and text in a script you cannot read. You use the image to illustrate what the girl looked like.
>>245
You are now playing as Jack Protagonist.
The mention of this girl in lilac has piqued your interest. You have next to no knowledge of the denizens of this strange world, and this seems an excellent opportunity to learn. You know precisely where she will be at a given time, making this an excellent opportunity to lay an ambush. She doesn't exactly sound very threatening; you can probably disable her with your ceremonial knife alone and interrogate her at your leisure. Perhaps she'd even make a good sacrifice for tonight's christmas.
Careful not to give away your true intentions, you agree to Nameless's plan, on the condition that he act as your vehicle. You can't have him getting ahead of himself, after all. He is very grateful and thanks you profusely for sparing his life. He gathers as many of his meagre possessions as he can carry, lets you onto his back and heads into the jungle, following your directions.
He proves rather poor at his job, lurching and stumbling frequently and even inconsiderately letting low hanging foliage get in your face. You berate him in a manner befitting such human filth, and he begs forgiveness every time. The air is extremely humid and feels oddly heavy, and the stridulation of the insects is deafening. After a long walk, you come out onto the path, which you follow down to the brook with the broken door. On the opposite side of the valley you find the building where you first met Nameless. You are pleased to see that the girl in lilac is not here yet, leaving you time to lay your trap.
There is an enormous cumulonimbus forming on the horizon, with an incus spreading across much of the sky. You can see multiple nascent cells forming on the leading edge.
Tell Nameless that he is a bad man for scaring away your pretty pussy. Use your best Dominatrix voice.
Jack: summon the cutest, most pitiful looking kitten we can and put it in a box. All little girls love kittens so when Cassandra goes to investigate it, sneak up behind her and bash her face in.
Nameless: Lift Jack up and look up her skirt.
Nameless: on the score screen put AAA as your name.
Nameless: Change name to Aaron A. Aaronson.
>>251, alternatively: Aaron Aaronovitch Aaronov, immigrant from Eastern Republics.
>>247
You aren't sure what a Dominatrix is or what sort of vocalisations it makes, but it sounds like a fearsome beast indeed. Employing a deep, booming voice, you make it clear to Nameless that you are not amused with his prior conduct, especially with respect to the cat. It was new to this universe and he went and scared the poor thing away into the endless jungle in the middle of the night. Who knows what has become of it now? Nameless hangs his head in shame.
>>248
You require 100 mana to use the summon cat ability. You currently have 85 mana.
You don't have a box either. But, you remind yourself, necessity is the mother of invention. You take one of the cans of meat that Nameless kindly brought with him and demand that he scratch into the side "CUTE KITTEN TRAPPED INSIDE", using that odd little metal tool he has. He complies. You set the can on the floor, just inside the doorway, leaving you room at the side from which to spring your ambush.
>>249
You are now playing as Nameless Protagonist.
You are quite nervous about the upcoming exchange of goods (Jack in exchange for your continued living). Human trafficking is a rather distasteful affair and not one you are particularly happy to be a part of, even to save your life. Your angst is partially relieved by the fact that Jack has given her informed consent to be part of this, though her relative eagerness to be given over makes you wonder if she has fully understood what is to happen. For that matter, you doubt that you have fully understood what is to happen.
To ensure that there are no problems with what you are about to hand over, you perform a general inspection. Her hair is rather messy - if only you had a comb, you could make her a little more presentable, though that would still do nothing for her hopelessly tatterdemalion clothing. She is gripping a bloodstained stone knife in one hand, which is just ever so slightly offputting, but you certainly aren't going to try to take it from her.
Last but not least, you need to check that she isn't smuggling anything under her skirt. As she is your daughter, of course, there is nothing lewd about you seeing her pubic region; you'd've seen it anyway bathing her when she was younger. You gently but firmly grab her by the waist and lift her off the ground. She screams and hacks you in the clavicle with her stone knife, but it is too late.
The lines demarcating her nubile thighs converge upon a small aperture, about the size of one's palm. You can see within a beautiful starscape, rich and intricate in ways that defy imagination or description. The view expands to fill your entire vision and your entire mind. You are awash with a sense of inner calm and tranquillity. The stars sing to you, inviting you to join them, to become one of them. You are consumed entirely by Jack's crotch, never to be seen again.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 7
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>253)
>>250
You locate the patch of wall where you earlier engraved a crude likeness of the girl in lilac engaging in a shockingly unladylike activity. If you think about it, this is a screen of sorts, and you did score the image into it, so it could probably be described as a score screen. For the benefit of future archaeologists, you sign the picture "AAA", scratching the letters in at the bottom left using your nail file.
>>251
Your name is now Aaron A Aaronson.
As your daughter, Jack is now called Jack Aaronson.
>>252
Your name is now Aaron Aaronovitch Aaronov.
As your daughter, Jack is now called Jack Aaronov.
You hear a woman clearing her throat outside. The girl in lilac is standing outside the building. She is holding a parasol in one hand and has the red bird on her shoulder as before, but this time she is also carrying a rather familiar tortoiseshell cat in her arms. As soon as it catches sight of you it hisses and tries to jump out of her hands, but she calms it down by cooing "There there, Theodore. It's okay."
She turns to you and smirks. "Well, you seem to have neglected to bring Jack with you, haven't you? Most inadvisable." Jack is hiding just out of sight on the other side of the wall, hence her misunderstanding. "In fact, I-- Oh no! The poor kitten!" She wails in distress as she catches sight of the crudely modified meat can on the floor. She drops her parasol and Theodore, shoves you aside and rushes towards the building. Now is your last chance to stop her, if you're going to.
Take parasol. Close parasol and wield it as a weapon. Whack the woman over the head with it after Jack pounces on her. Continue whacking as necessary.
>>254
Actually, using proper East Slavic naming conventions, her name should be Jack Aaronova, not Jack Aaronov.
Be Jack. Punch that cunt in her fuck.
Whack with extreme prejudice.
Throw her into the bear trap.
Think of a new year's resolution and watch fireworks.
be passive-aggressive
>>255
In a blinding flash of deduction, you realise that Jack was actually not trying to willingly hand herself over, but in fact planning to attack the girl in lilac. On the one hand you have no particular reason to wish to offend this girl in lilac, who, for all you know, could prove a valuable ally; on the other hand, this seems the perfect opportunity, both literally and figuratively, to stab her in the back for your own benefit.
You drop everything and grasp the discarded parasol in both hands, wielding it as a lance. Despite its delicate, befrilled appearance it has a rather vicious point at its vertex. You begin to charge but an angry, screeching mass of fur and claws leaps towards you and attaches itself to your face. You cannot help but feel that this cat is really not fond of you. By the time you manage to free yourself from Theodore's assault, the battle between Jack and the girl in lilac is already in full swing.
>>256
"Jack!" you exclaim over the fray, "Your surname is actually Aaronova, not Aaronov!" For reasons you cannot fathom, she gives every impression of not caring in the slightest.
>>257
You are now playing as Jack Aaronova.
Your ambush is a partial success. You clearly catch her off guard, and thus manage to knock her over and pin her to the ground, face down. She produces a startled warbling sound, but makes no apparent counterattack. You are about to declare your victory, but are momentarily distracted by that halfwit outside shouting something to you. The girl escapes from your grasp, yet instead of attacking you or running away she instead dives towards the can and frantically begins trying to open it.
Still hesitant to use lethal force, for the sake of a living sacrifice for tonight, you throw a punch to the back of her head. The girl squawks inelegantly, puts her arms up in a plaintive gesture. "No, Jack!" she exclaims weakly.
>>258
You keep hitting her in the head until she stops moving. What a feeble opponent, you think to yourself; hardly befitting your martial talents. Indeed, you aren't at all sure why she didn't even try to fight back.
>>259
You pick her up - she isn't as heavy as she looks - and throw her off the top of the staircase into the trap-laden basement. Bizarrely enough, she doesn't fall, but simply floats, like a ragdoll, through the air before coming to a rest against the ceiling.
>>260
You have absolutely no idea what the date is today, but for all you know it might be the new year - or at least a new year, in some calendar. You feel the need to turn over a new leaf, and to find some way to better yourself for the coming year. You solemnly vow that this year you will ritually sacrifice more innocent people than last year.
Though not strictly speaking fireworks, a severe thunderstorm is just breaking outside. You spend a few moments watching the enormously powerful, yet evanescent bolts of lightning.
>>261
"Well," you say, turning to Aaron, who has just arrived sheepishly at the doorway, carrying a folded parasol, "I'm glad one of us knows how to defend themselves." He stares glumly at his feet, blood welling from his feline induced facial lacerations.
The first rain of the storm is just reaching you now, and immediately begins to fall in sheets, buffeted to an angle by the strong wind. Thunder is calling from outside, coming so frequently the sound seems continuous. Looking around, you find Theodore standing, back arched, a little way down the path leading to the brook, looking unhappy at being wet but not willing to join you inside with Aaron nearby. The red bird is nowhere to be found. The girl in lilac is floating in midair above the staircase, a purple handbag hanging from one shoulder, and a can of meat in her grip. She appears to be unconscious for now, but you have no idea when she might wake up.
be Aaron
peek at unconscious girl's panties
Aaron: err on the side of irony without putting on any airs.
Aaron: use parasol to get the can of food down from the air, using it like a javelin if necessary. Take can of food.
spinebuster
Stop prefixing instructions with who we currently are.
Get funky
>>263
You are now playing as Aaron Aaronovitch Aaronov.
Embodying every negative stereotype ever projected onto the male sex, you take advantage of the poor defenceless young lady to satisfy your own sick, lecherous desires. You lift aside the girl's ample petticoats with the tip of the parasol, lean in close, and just catch a glimpse of her innermost undergarments - pale fuchsia in colour, with a tasteful seigaiha pattern in white - before your foot catches against an inconveniently placed tripwire, causing you to overbalance and setting you on a trajectory towards the beartrap at the base of the stairs.
>>264
Even as you tumble towards your doom, you blurt out that you weren't seriously trying to peek at her pantsu, that it was just a joke; an imitation of what a real pervert would do in this situation. You hope that this isn't misconstrued as you pretending to be someone you are not, especially as these will likely be your last words. You then have less than a second in which to reflect upon the absurdity of your final moments, to deem them oddly appropriate to your equally absurd life, to repent your sins, to forgive those who wronged you and to come to peace with your fellow human beings. Then the beartrap snaps shut, like a red curtain drawing closed across the stage of your life.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 8
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>262)
>>265
You carefully jab the parasol into the supposedly kitten packed can of meat. Actually, for all you know, it really might contain kitten meat; the label on the outside (barring your defacement) gives no hint as to the precise nature of its contents. Even in her unconscious state, the girl grips the tin with all her might. Her apparent devotion to rescuing that fictional kitten is quite commendable. You succeed in plucking the can from the air, but the girl comes with it. You set them both down in the middle of the room.
>>266
Jack is currently standing at the doorway looking out at the storm, muttering something about getting home in time for christmas. Though your daughter is very dear to you, you are also aware that this is a dangerous world, and you must teach her to be ready for any threat - even from someone she thought to be her ally. She must never let her guard down.
Though it breaks your heart, you rush up to her, grab her about the waist, jump and bring her down, coccyx first, onto the ground. She screams in rage and strikes you in the temple with the pommel of her knife. It hurts.
>>267
You haven't given many instructions recently - on the contrary, you've mostly been following them - and even when you have, you don't recall prefixing them with your name. That would be silly, and would lead to misunderstandings as it would sound like you're addressing yourself. Having not showered in quite a while, and being thoroughly damp and sweaty, you suspect that you are probably emitting quite enough funk for one person already.
The girl in lilac stirs, slowly sits up and rubs her eyes sleepily. In place of her usual smug expression is a blank, innocent look that you wouldn't've expected her even to be capable of. The can of meat drops from her hands and rolls along the floor. "Wh... who are you?" she asks, cocking her head and staring at the two of you. She looks around the room in a wide arc. "Where am I? I... I can't remember anything..."
Introduce ourself as her father. Name our new unconcious daughter "Erin."
Jack: Ask Erin if she wants to play tea party.
check new party member Erin's inventory and skills
>>269
"I'm your father," you explain. You neglect to mention that you mean adoptive father. She appears quite taken aback, as one probably would in her position. "And your name is Erin." you continue. She puts one finger to her chin, thinking, then replies "No, I don't think that's quite right. My name is... my name is... I think it was Penelope, or was it Ariadne? Yes... yes, that's right! It was Ariadne. I'm pretty sure, anyway."
>>270
You are now playing as Jack Aaronova.
Though you may be a murderous savage, you don't want to be seen to appear entirely uncultured. Plus, naturally, you wish to lull the girl into a false sense of security to render her docile, after which you can decide what to do with her at your leisure. That's why you propose a tea party. Not because you want to make friends with her or anything - how preposterous!
Poor Ariadne looks quite lost, in more ways than one. Upon your suggestion she breaks into a smile, but expresses concern at the lack of necessary tea making paraphernalia. The two of you have to make pretend, using cans of meat instead of cups and slices of sausage instead of biscuits. Aaron joins in as well, and the three of you quite enjoy yourself, momentarily able to forget the wailing tempest outside and the vacuous nature of your very existence.
Without warning, Ariadne gives a loud squeal of distress. She rushes over to the doorway, where Theodore has reappeared, fur completely soaked and sticking to his skin in a most unflattering manner. Ariadne coos over the poor creature and dries him off as best she can with the front of her dress. Theodore maintains a cold stare towards Aaron throughout the entire exchange.
>>271
You are now playing as Ariadne Aaronova.
You look over your possessions, seeing them almost for the first time. You are currently wearing an elaborate frilly lilac dress. You cannot tell what material it is made of, but it is soft to the touch and extraordinarily comfortable. You are also wearing several layers of underwear; you aren't sure why. Theodore is currently lying curled up in your lap.
You have a purple cloth handbag hanging over your left shoulder. You lift the outer flap and investigate the contents, but within the opening is simply a black void. You cannot see anything at all. Feeling about inside, your hand doesn't encounter anything - not even the walls of the bag, even when you put your arm in up to the shoulder. How odd.
You're sure you have some sort of "skills" or something like that, but you just can't quite remember what they are.
Sleep until stamina is regained. Sleep close together for warmth. Except for Aaron, who has to sleep away from the cat.
Aaron: be a gentleman for once and stand watch while the two girls are sleeping.
Aaron: Stop caring about material things, like a social status. Look forward to procuring four walls and adobe slabs for your girls, with heart, on your father's grave.
yeah
>>273
All these tea parties and amnesia have gotten you quite exhausted. You happily curl up in a quiet corner of the room, Theodore wrapped in your warm embrace, and invite your dear sister (but not father; think of poor little Theodore) to join you. Jack lies stiffly beside you, not quite cold enough to overcome her awkward detachment. You roll over, cat and all, reach out and draw Jack closer to you. As she does not resist, you pull yourself closer and nuzzle your head into the crook of her neck, and, finally, she reciprocates and pulls closer to you.
The storm outside continues unabated into the looming eventide. You, Jack and Theodore, meanwhile, form one oblivious, snoozing mass of warmth and comfort.
>>274
You are now playing as Aaron Aaronovitch Aaronov.
You're quite certain you've been nothing but an exemplary gentleman and scholar, but to remain the noble, stoic figure that your dear daughters require, you must forgo your own rest to ensure their safety. You stand by the doorway, like a soldier standing to attention, unwilling to let even a shadow pass in without your notice.
Darkness falls. It is a thick, pervasive sort of darkness, banished at irregular intervals by flashes of lightning, but somehow all the darker for it. The wind moans and wails, as though screaming in defiance of the ageostrophy that birthed it. Raindrops whip by like bullets. This ungodly sight is more than unsettling enough already, even before you catch sight of it.
You first see it as a very faint reddish light in the distance, which seems to split into two, then three, meandering through the air like hitodama. A flash of light at that moment reveals, between them, a vaguely humanoid figure - but of absurd proportions; the forest canopy, itself many metres tall, barely reaches its knees. As it is lit from behind you see it only as a silhouette. Its outline seems fuzzy, as though it is not quite sure where it ends and the rest of the universe begins. Somehow you can tell it is staring straight at you.
You feel a tap on your shoulder and scream in surprise, turning suddenly to defend yourself and almost striking Jack in the process. She says that she has to return to her tribe, and that christmas must go on. She has an odd glint in her eye.
>>275
Jack's social status as a high priestess is clearly of immense value to her, though you have to confess that you care more about her being your daughter than any religious position she may occupy. You are proud to have found shelter for your two young charges, though the concrete is not particularly aesthetically pleasing. You prefer the warm earthy tones that only an adobe abode can provide. You vow on the name of your father, who may or may be not dead, but is, at the very least, absent, that you will someday procure this.
But still this does not solve your present dilemma. Do you allow your dear daughter to risk her life crossing the unquestionably dangerous forest, probably in order to commit an act of ritualistic murder - especially knowing that thing, whatever it was, is out there? It clearly means a lot to her, but is it really okay to allow her out, without at least escorting her yourself?
>>276
"Yeah, sure. Go ahead." you say. Jack nods firmly, passes the threshold and is immediately swallowed into the omnipresent darkness.
Forget about Jack and get some shut-eye.
>>278
Upon reflection, perhaps it is for the best that Jack has run off to a near certain death. She seemed to lack the necessary self-preservation to continue to exist in this harsh and terrifying world. Also, she may or may not have tried to kill you, and cruelly hit you in the face when you tried to give her a friendly spinebuster. Also, you have to admit, she was nowhere near as cute as your other adoptive daughter.
With one last sideways glance into the maelstrom, you turn your back and walk away, curl up in one corner of the room and try to ignore the cacophonous wind and thunder long enough to fall asleep.
You are woken the next morning by Ariadne tugging urgently at your sleeve. "Papa! Wake up, Papa!" she implores, "Jack is gone! We have to go find her." She looks on the verge of tears. You get up and look around, bleary eyed and underslept, dragged around by your remaining daughter.
By daylight, the full devastation of the storm becomes apparent. The vegetation has been destroyed almost beyond recognition, especially near the path. Not only have large branches been torn off, but entire trees have been deracinated and dragged across the ground. The path is still visible, but is covered in a non-negligible amount of plant matter. More troublingly, the gentle brook at the bottom of the hill has swelled well out of its banks to become an unstoppable torrent of floodwater. It is at least four metres across and muddy brown and opaque, concealing its true depth. The current is strong enough to carry whole trees like so much flotsam.
To attempt a crossing here would be recklessly, unimaginably stupid. There is no other clear path leading to or from the building, but you could conceivably travel up or downstream, or wander into the unexplored jungle to the East.
You can't get rid of me that easily
>>108
I went on it yesterday or the day before and it was the boat. So very very recently.
take the boat from the 4-ch homepage across
Fashion a long rope out of vines. Tie one end to something sturdy and have Ariadne float across the river with the other end. Tightrope-walk across the vine to the other side.
>>282
Beforehand, using our advantage point look if there's a place where for river braids or divisions, this is the most shallow point. Grab a stick from one of the fallen branches and use it to measure the depth of the water and find a shallow path through the river braids. If we can easily walk across i.e. the water's not waist deep, do so, facing the current at a 45 degree angle. To assist Ariadne, grab one of the fallen branches and make Ariadne hold the other end, though if Ariadne lacks the height, take off our pants, tie off the cuffs, open the waistband and fill the pants legs with air to use as a flotation device for Ariadne. Tie her to ourselves using a vine.
>>280
A faint voice resounds in the back of your head. A familiar, but unplaceable voice. It seems like something you have tried to forget, to leave behind, but never quite managed. Who, or what is this? Is it a god, or a demon? Is it the subhuman cry of your id, or some piece of knowledge so horrifying it had to be suppressed? And, whatever it is, why does it remind you of boats?
>>281
You aren't sure you'd brave rapids like that even with a boat - even less so with a virtual one, which would be no more durable than a pile of origami cranes.
>>282,283
You head a short way up and downstream, but find nowhere that looks obviously fordable. The walls of the valley are steep, and the river completely fills the space between its banks. The area where the path was seems like the shallowest part, but it's still less than ideal. Probing carefully with a suitable stick, you find that you can safely wade in about a quarter of the way, at which point it passes waist height.
You take off your full-body grey jumpsuit, tie off the arms and legs, and wave it around to inflate it. You hand it to Ariadne, along with a makeshift staff, but she looks, if anything, more dubious about the endeavour than before. "I... Actually, I, um, I can't swim..." she stammers shyly. You wave away her objections blithely.
It takes a while to find some vines that are sturdy enough to take any weight, and longer still to weave them into a rope. You tie it about your waist and Ariadne's, leaving about three metres of slack between the two of you. Upon telling Ariadne to cross the river, she laughs, then, realising you weren't joking, looks at you as though you've gone mad.
Despite her fervent protestations, you force her into the river to make you a tightrope. She is immediately dragged away by the current, screaming for help until her head falls under the water. As you are tied together, you are pulled into the stream as well. You are at the whim of the eddies and flow for thirty seconds or so - though it seems much longer - until you manage to pull yourself ashore on the inside of a shallow bend in the river. Using the vine, you pull Ariadne to safety. All loose items in your inventory, with the exception of the nail file and a single sausage, have been washed away.
You find yourself in a small clearing. On close inspection, there are signs of former inhabitation: a ring of stones in the centre, which probably once formed a campfire, various waterlogged pieces of paper scattered about, and a pile of sticks within which you find two cans of meat, one rather damp and unappetising loaf of bread, a sausage and various fine china.
Ariadne is lying on the bank, unconscious. She has lost hold of her stick, her handbag and your jumpsuit. Perched on a branch nearby, you see a large red bird, seemingly watching over her.
Give her mouth to mouth. You know, we wouldn't want our dear daughter to drown.
Use tongue.
Feed her whichever sausage looks best.
eat all the plants
>>285
Grasping at faint threads of memory in the back of your head, you vaguely recall something about CPR and reviving unconscious people. But how many chest compressions were you supposed to do per rescue breath again? And what position do the arms go in for the recovery position? You are almost paralysed by uncertainty, before remembering about that "kiss of life" business.
You fill your lungs with air, awkwardly clamp your lips onto hers and tip her head back to open her airway. Her skin is damp, cold and pale. You exhale as hard as you can, and are rewarded by seeing her little chest rise a little, like some sort of accelerated thelarche. You repeat this twice more, after which you pull back and find that she is breathing - albeit shallowly - unaided. You breathe a sigh of relief.
>>286
You feel that your poor tongue has gone unused and unloved for too long now. You use your tongue to lick the back of your hand, appreciating the slightly salty taste of the sweat. You also using your tongue to taste a sausage and to lap some water from the river. You hope your tongue appreciates this humble gesture.
>>287
The sausage you saved from the river is the téliszalámi you received back at >>205, in addition to which you have located a bratwurst in the pile of loose sticks. Unfortunately, both have been badly soaked; one by immersion in a river, the other from prolonged exposure to rain. You visually appreciate the unusual texture and colouration of the téliszalámi, deciding it to be the one that looks best. You carefully saw a slice or two off using your nail file and offer them to Ariadne, but she remains obstinately unconscious.
>>288
Being surrounded by so much greenery suddenly makes you see red. This accursed vegetation has foiled you at every turn, and it needs to be shown a lesson. As you well know, the one thing that strikes fear in to the heart of any plant fears is being eaten. Not just the fruit - the stem, leaves, roots, everything. You take a deep breath and condemn yourself to becoming a monster, a bringer of death to all Viridiplantae.
You begin by masticating a few nearby leaves. They are waxy and bitter; not a good start. You happen to notice, concealed behind it, a few bunches of bright red berries. Well, if you're going to eat all the plants, you may as well start with some which look reasonably edible, you decide. A vagrant thought stays your hand - aren't bright red things usually poisonous? You shrug it off and gleefully stuff your cheeks with berries, chewing and swallowing as fast as possible.
Unfortunately for you, it seems they were exhibiting Müllerian mimicry, not Batesian. You feel a piercing pain in your abdomen, followed by a constriction of the throat. You collapse to the ground in the grips of a seizure, foaming from the mouth. The world reels away from you in a darkening blur of pain and uneaten foliage.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 9
(Continuing from most recently saved game: >>289)
Having successfully resuscitated your beloved daughter, you sit down for a rest on the riverbank. It is roughly midday, and the sky is slowly clouding over, though not threatening any further rain just yet. The red bird has flown across to the opposite end of the clearing from the river, where there is a thick band of torn and uprooted trees leading to the Northwest.
All is peaceful for a moment, quiet but for the call of the stream behind you. Just as Ariadne is beginning to stir, you become aware of a rhythmic thumping noise, and the telltale cracking sound of tree trunks being split asunder. You look to the Northwest, seeking the source, only to find a large, greenish brown sauropod has appeared at the edge of the clearing. It is enormous; at least four metres tall at the shoulder, and more than twenty metres from head to tail. It stares at you indifferently, chewing on the foliage from a nearby tree. The red bird is perched right on top of its head.
You're no expert on the subject, but you believe it to be a brontosaurus.
Ask him about the sound of one hand clapping.
Remember that there is no such thing as a brontosaurus, therefore the creature is impossible and we must be living in a false reality.
achieve Satori
Get it on with Satorin.
>>290
You aren't sure of the gender of either the bird or the brontosaurus, so you go ahead and broach the question that happens to be on your mind to both of them. The bird cocks its head curiously but remains silent, whilst its companion studiously ignores you and continues chewing away. You'd be better off asking someone else, you reflect, considering that neither of them even has hands.
Ariadne groans, sits up and coughs a little, looking rather sorry for herself. You consider asking your newly awakened pentadactyl companion for her insight into the conundrum, but think better of it.
>>291
What were you thinking? Of course it isn't an apatosaurus; apatosauruses are just fairy tales made up to scare children. Ariadne catches sight of the non-brontosaurus, screams in terror and clings to your arm, illustrating your point perfectly. Anyway, you're sure it's just a trick of the light, or a strangely shaped tree, or something like that. Or maybe everything you thought was real is just fantasy, and you're actually living a dream. That would explain some things.
>>292
For too long have you striven against the way of things, accomplishing nothing and bringing nothing but suffering upon yourself and others. In a moment of clarity, you choose to take your first step on the path towards nirvana. First, you must learn to see reality as it truly is, without being waylaid by absurdities like phantom dinosaurs. It is not uncommon for this transcendental understanding to require decades to obtain - especially when attempting mushi-dokugo, as in your case - so the sooner you start the better.
You settle into a state of silent meditation. Just as you feel you making some progress towards kenshou, however, you are dragged back into samsara by a forceful tug at your arm. "Papa! Papa, wake up! T-there's a huge scary monster over there and we have t-- oh no! I-it's coming this way! Papa, help!"
Sure enough, the creature is lumbering towards the two of you, tail swaying from side to side. You find that the two of you are pinned against a crook in the river, with no easy escape route.
>>293
Try as you might, you cannot find any Satorin.
Throw Ariadne at the monster and run.
Escape from reality
Throw ourselves at the monster and run.
Declare a song thread and link quotes to a number of future posts.
Dubs.
>>295
So, it's come to this, you think to yourself. Like some contrived thought experiment, you are forced to decide between your own or your daughter's safety. Your garden variety psychologist - precisely the sort who would come up with this ridiculous situation - would expect you to commit the ultimate act of altruism, laying down your own life that your genes may live on in your daughter, and so on and so forth.
Just to spite them, you grab Ariadne by the waist and toss her as hard as you can into the maw of the approaching behemoth. The creature reels backwards slightly, but has difficulty dealing with its own immense inertia. Ariadne screams. Her scream is cut short. You don't stick around to see the results of your handiwork, but instead sprint away as hard as you can into the sheltering vegetation to the South.
>>296
After a few minutes you collapse from over-exertion. You sit against the trunk of a nearby tree for a few moments, chest heaving, unable even to think. Finally, the enormity of what you have done settles upon you. You stare at the palms of your hands. What have you done? You have left both your daughters to die. Even if they survive, are you fit to call yourself their father any more? Were you ever?
But wait! You already established, right about when the brontosaurus showed up, that none of this is real anyway, so it doesn't count. Or does it? Is committing an atrocity in a false reality that you believe to be real at the time - as you did when you abandoned Jack to the night - really, morally any different from doing so in reality? You bury your head in your hands, trying to force the rainforest around you and the mud under you and the sky above you and the damp, humid air all around and inside you to cease to exist by sheer force of will. You fail.
>>297
You try to throw yourself at the monster, but you are the monster now. You cannot run from what you have done.
You try to run anyway, for lack of anything else to do with yourself. The ground here is almost completely waterlogged from the torrential rain earlier, and the thick, black soil pulls your ankles in, like the souls of the dead begging for you to join them. You are almost sucked into the quagmire on several occasions, and have to use the wiry, twisted trees to pull yourself out and onwards. You continue to run, as best you can, through the thorny undergrowth. You almost - but not quite - succeed in forgetting what you are running from.
Hours later, you emerge, breathless and plastered in mud and minor injuries, onto a fairly well beaten track. The damage of last night's storm is evident, with fallen boughs and tree trunks scattered about, but nonetheless you recognise it as the same path you were on back at >>164.
>>298
Words begin to spill from your mouth, unbidden. "Title: >>301", you say. "First verse: >>298,312,333,369." What are you saying? "Chorus: >>354,372,321,93." What does this mean? "Second verse: >>303,399,296,378." You clamp your hands over your mouth, suddenly terrified by these bizarre verbal explosions. Is this aphasia? Or mind control? However hard you try to hold it in, however, one last phrase leaks from your mouth. "Last line: >>400." Then, all is silent.
>>299
You cannot find any synchronised translation versions of foreign media in your vicinity.