>>43
You launch 35 little spheres of fire, in a skein formation, in the general direction of Cassandra. She scarcely glances up, moves a metre or so to the side and goes back to staring at the remains of the boat. Employing all of your cunning, you use Telekinesis (small objects)(active skill) on the 1kg air parcel containing your projectiles, for a cost of only ten mana, shifting their path straight towards the back of her head.
They strike! Her hair is partly set on fire, causing her to flail around patting at her head in a rather amusing fashion. She is very upset at this turn of events. "Honestly! To do something like that, after I spent so much time getting my hair in order earlier today. Well, let's see how you like it." With a single hand gesture - without even needing any projectiles - she sets your hair alight.
>>44
You attempt to metamorphosise into a massive cloud of magically flaming vampire bats, for the express purpose of swarming Cassandra and biting the fuck out of her, but, alas, you still require level 12 telekinesis, level 5 healing, level 5 thaumaturgy and 75 mana to shapeshift. You currently have level 10 telekinesis, level 6 healing, level 2 thaumaturgy and 255 mana. You also have two unspent skillpoints.
>>45
"Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga!" you say through gritted teeth. "Whoo whoo!" Yes, your hair may be on fire, your clone may be dying and Cassandra may be continuing to try to kill you, but you've something more important to worry about: with your newly augmented eyesight, you have just noticed Mecha Alexei and Jacqueline's clone have appeared at the base of the hill with the gazebo. Mecha Alexei is gesturing towards Cassandra, suggesting that she is too close and that you need to lure her away. You imitate a steam locomotive to express your frustration with your unfavourable place in his plan, taking pains to make it seem not to be directed towards anyone in particular.
Use telekinesis to lift the boat off our clone and heal her!
put one skillpoint each in thaumaturgy and telekinesis and list our new skills
climb inside our own crotch-hole and see if we come out through Cassandra's crotch-hole on the other side
Find our undead army and command them to distract Cassandra with undead shenanigans.
Cram the evil pussy into your crotch.
Use mana/skillpoint interconversion to convert 150 mana into 3 skill points, put 1 into telekinesis and 2 into thaumaturgy. Then do the bat thing. Finally!
Ritualistically kill ourself and then use necromancy to bring ourself back to life. Trade 50 mana for one skillpoint and put one point in telekenisis and two in thaumaturgy, then shapeshift into a giant cloud of flaming bats and bite the fuck out of Cassandra.
Teleport a limb from one of our undead underlings into the inside of Cassandra's throat.
Perform a silly dance while Cassandra chokes to death and dedicate it to Loki, nord god of silly dances.
>>56
Make sure to use ritual flame sacrifice for the extra mana and skill points.
Change name to Zoosmell Pooplord.
Change alleigance to JEWISH.
Be Frodo Baggins. Refrain from being an ass and throw the Ring into Mount Doom like you are supposed to.
>>54
Fearlessly, you sweep aside your labcoat and thrust your crotch towards the unholy beast before you. "Oh no you don't," chastises Cassandra. At that moment the cat's eyes are relocated - presumably by her - to a metre or so in front of the cat monster's face, leaving its eye sockets empty. They fall to the ground with a dull thump. The cat howls in pain and rubs its paws against its face, but then, within seconds, reverts to the cautious calm of a natural predator. It can no longer see the void, and thus can no longer be hypnotised by it.
>>55
You convert 150 mana into three skillpoints, leaving you 80 mana remaining. Upon allocating the skillpoints to telekinesis and thaumaturgy, you gain access to the following skills:
At long, long last, you experience the liberating catharsis of exploding into a massive cloud of magically flaming vampire bats and swarming your enemies, biting the fuck out of them. The cat beast, upon being bitten, expands its neck frill in a display of anger, then drops to the floor and rolls around. Several parts of you are crushed to death beneath the monster's enormous bulk. The parts of you which attack Cassandra fare no better; she waits for you to descend upon you, then teleports away at the last moment and teleports the cat beast directly on top of you and your undead minions. You are, again, crushed to death.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 53
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>62)
>>56,58
Unfortunately, you find you cannot ritualistically kill yourself with fire due to your Fire resistance (passive skill). Instead, you use your trusted ceremonial stone knife. You succeed in dying, but cannot reanimate yourself on account of your being dead.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 54
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>62)
>>57
Due both to the one kilogram limit and the caveat of the target volume containing nothing but gas, you settle for teleporting the recently dismembered reanimated Mecha Alexei's right middle finger into Cassandra's upper trachea. "Ach!" she says, gripping her throat. She bends over, coughs violently, and is swarmed by the three reanimated Mecha Alexeis and Onii-chan. The four of them grasp at her for a few moments, but are then thrown aside by an explosion centred around Cassandra. She rises from the epicentre, still clutching her neck, quickly reaching a height out of the undead's reach.
Thus preoccupied, she just barely dodges a laser shot by Stove Stove/Continue-chan from the North. It trace a burn line across her right cheek. She scowls and turns to face her new opponent. For better or for worse, Continue-chan focuses all her attention on Cassandra, leaving you to defend yourself from the cat monster alone. The two exchange bursts of lasers, antimatter bullets and elaborate patterns of tiny projectiles. The sky is lit up more brightly than the aurora borealis. Cassandra eventually stops struggling with the foreign body in her trachea, presumably having dealt with it with some magic of her own.
Meanwhile, you prance about on the ground next to the cat monster. Against all the odds, you dodge every one of the giant feline's attacks by dancing in time to Loki's will.
>>59
"Hey everyone!" you shout, suppressing a snigger, "My name's now Zoosmell Pooplord!" You are so distracted by your own keen wit that you fail to dodge the cat monster's deadly pounce, and are struck down.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 55
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>63)
>>60
"Hey everyone!" you shout, in complete seriousness, "I'm now Jewish!" You are so distracted by your own sudden religious conversion that you fail to dodge the cat monster's deadly pounce, and are struck down.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 56
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>63)
>>61
You cannot play as Frodo Baggins; you can only play as members of your current party.
Teleport another disposable middle finger into the cat monster's trachea.
Teleport Cassandra's heart away from her body.
Eat it.
Continue Loki's dance and throw 20 1-mana fireballs toward the cat and use telekinesis to make them all converge on its head.
Put Continue-chan's kiss on our list (of the best things in life.)
Just in front of "hear the lamentations of the women".
shapeshift into a cloud of chlorine gas and suffocate the fuck out of Cassandra
>>64
You spend ten mana relocating the dereanimated Mecha Alexei's left middle finger to inside the cat monster's respiratory system, leaving you sixty mana remaining. Given its size, its trachea is probably the size of a small tree; given also how easily it accepted its recent double enuculation of the eye, it's perhaps not surprising that it doesn't seem particularly bothered by your action.
>>65
You try to teleport Cassandra's delicious, delicious viscus directly into your mouth, but unfortunately it seems she - like you - is in possession of Teleportation resistance (passive skill).
>>67
As the cat weighs substantially more than 100kg, you cast Flammability (active skill) on its cephalic portion specifically. You have only ten mana remaining.
>>66
Alas, you can only afford ten little fireballs, and can't even aim them as Telekinesis (small objects)(active skill) would require a further ten mana. Ultimately, however, that proves unnecessary; as soon as one strikes the cat's amply sized head, the entire organ ignites violently, sheathing it in a complete layer of flame. The creature screams and howls at an ungodly volume, whipping its entire body around wildly. You narrow avoid its enormous venomous stinger, dodging it only thanks to Loki's grace.
>>68
You are aware that the flammability effect lasts only sixty seconds, so rather than let this chance slip by, you leap headfirst into the cat's neck ruff, hacking at it with your ceremonial stone knife and praying to Bastet, the Egyptian goddess of cats. You only barely manage to hang on as the creature rears on its back legs, claws at its face with its front paws, sways and rolls on the floor. Eventually the fire dies down, and the creature stops moving. You are covered head to toe in cat blood.
For killing a sapient being ritualistically with fire, you have gained three skill points and 150 mana.
>>69,70
As the vicious firefight between Stove Stove/Continue-chan and the vile Cassandra rages on above you, you decide to spend a few moments reflecting on the finer things in life. You're sure that when Continue-chan sees how well you fought, she'll be so impressed that she'll simply have to give you a kiss as a reward. Cassandra, meanwhile, will be so jealous of your love as to be moved to tears. If she isn't dead by then, that is.
>>71
You spend 75 mana shapeshifting into a cloud of elemental chlorine gas. Unfortunately, you find that as you lack any sensory, locomotive or cognitive capabilities, you cannot navigate your way into Cassandra's lungs and instead simply disperse into the wind. You react with a wide range of other chemicals, forming all sorts of exotic compounds, but fail to accomplish anything meaningful.
Some would argue that this does not constitute death, because they define death as the physical process of cessation of all biological functions, which has not technically happened as the fleshy bits have simply vanished, rather than stopped working. However, you shouldn't listen to these people, because they're wrong. Also, you're dead, so you can't listen to them anyway.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 57
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>73)
You are still standing over the giant cat's disfigured corpse, wondering whether you should maybe join the fight directly against Cassandra, when you are distracted by an odd, high pitched noise coming from the gazebo. The battle in the sky also pauses momentarily. The gazebo has risen out of the ground, towering ten metres into the air on mechanical supports. Furthermore, there is a transparent sphere, at least twenty metres in radius, centred on its zenith. Standing inside, in front of a panel of instruments and buttons, is Mecha Alexei, with Jacqueline by his side.
"Dammit Alexei, get out of the Control Tower! You don't know what you're doing!" shouts Cassandra. Without waiting for a response, she fires a barrage of tiny projectiles towards him, but they bounce harmlessly off the protective sphere. Mecha Alexei gives a sudden burst of laughter and replies "I assure you, I know exactly what I'm doing. I've reestablished contact with the portal core in the facility, rerouted the coolant and am even now ready to reverse the dimensional collapse - in this little pocket of space around the Control Tower, that is."
"The manual override that caused the dimensional collapse... that was you, wasn't it?" Cassandra says through gritted teeth. Mecha Alexei smiles. "I've been playing the long game, dear. I knew better than to try to face you directly, but I had to bring you to justice for you for what you had done to my beloved Jacqueline, and to so many others."
He at last acknowledges the rest of you. "Continue-chan, Conundrum-chan, I'm very sorry to have to leave you trapped in a pocket universe with this sociopathic bitch, but - in my defence - Continue-chan, you're already dead anyway, and Conundrum-chan, frankly, you terrify the everloving shit out of me, and it might be for the best that we don't share a universe."
He glances coolly at a dial on his console and says "We've only 120 seconds until the main engines kick in. Any last words, any of you?"
Assume your most haughty, offended expression and berate Mecha Alexei for using foul language in front of a young lady.
wonder if Alexei is referring to us or Cassandra by "sociopathic bitch"
Shapeshift into Cassandra and try to convince her that we are the real one and she is the doppelganger.
Demand that Mecha Alexei take us and Continue-chan with him. Remind him that he must follow our orders since although he died once, we still reanimated him first. If that doesn't work, threaten to teleport him out of the Control Tower and kill him.
if that still doesn't work then punch him in the dick
>>74
"Why, how dare you speak to me like that!" you demand, stamping your foot in thin air. "I expected better of you, Alexei." He says nothing, but his smile grows even wider.
>>75
Seeing as he apologised to you specifically for your rapidly impending dimensional incarceration with a - presumably independent - Machiavellian female dog, it seems more likely that he was referring to Cassandra. On the other hand, you cannot deny that the description could reasonably be applied to you as well. Perhaps Mecha Alexei was referring to you and was, in fact, making a profoundly insightful observation on the human condition; that, as a guilty individual, being trapped in your own company with time to reflect on your transgressions is one of the worst conceivable fates.
>>76
You spend 75 mana shapeshifting into Cassandra's form. You have 75 mana remaining. "Ohoho," you chuckle haughtily at the genuine article, "Nice try Conundrum-chan, but I know that I'm the real Cassandra." For a moment she appears truly, deeply horrified, but quickly returns to her default insufferable smugness. Without a word, she turns away and begins hurriedly lecturing Mecha Alexei, trying to argue him around to reconsidering his actions. He doesn't seem very receptive to her ideas.
>>77
"Mecha Alexei!" you interrupt, "I command you to bring Continue-chan and I with you!"
Indeed, the description of Reanimation (ritually killed dead)(active skill) is "Can reanimate anything killed in a ritualistic manner, so long as bodily integrity is above 80%. Revived creatures obey you entirely, and have no will of their own. Requires a single expenditure of 80 mana." It's been a long time since you ritually murdered and reanimated Alexei, and you never invoked your power over him, but now seems as good a time as any to try it.
His face twitches. "N-no! I... I am an agent of free will! I... I..." His hand, shaking, reaches over towards the console, and depresses a single button. The spherical barrier dissolves, and both you and Cassandra instantly dive towards the Control Tower. At that moment, Stove Stove swoops in, barring your path. Continue-chan's voice booms, "Get back. No one's going anywhere until I know which of you is Cassandra."
>>78
Mecha Alexei should think himself very lucky he obeyed when he did, otherwise he'd have rather sore genitalia right now.
Tell Conundrum-chan that the real Cassandra only tells lies and the fake one only tells the truth and to ask us only one question.
I mean Continue-chan
Actually, use all of our mental acuity to instead convince Continue-chan that she is in fact the real Conunundrum-chan.
gegsrsarg
Tell Continue-chan, "I'm the real Jack. I once kissed you and then praised Armok, the God of Blood while I stabbed you in the chest. Now let's go!"
Pretend that you are Scorpion and make Alexei "get over here!"
Tell Alexei that we are, in fact, the real Continue-chan, Continue-chan is Alexei, Alexei is actually Cassandra, Cassandra is actually a group of very smart mice, and Control Tower is everything and nothing.
Be someone. I'm not really sure who any more.
Be Stove Stove. Get in the Control Tower before it's too late.
Be Continue-chan. Don't fight it.
Be Jack. Follow suit.
Be Cassandra. Do a tarantella.
Be Mecha Alexei. Write a novel.
>>80,81
"Well," you say, "One of us only tells lies, and the other only tells the tru--"
"Ask which one the other would say is the true one!" interjects Mecha Alexei. "But really, that sort of problem only gets interesting once you introduce fuzzy set theory and have to evaluate how much of a liar each--"
"Wait, Conundrum-chan, why are you inside Stove Stove? What did you do with Continue-chan?" you ask, sowing seeds of doubt in the hopes that they may sprout into seedlings of opportunity. Continue-chan says nothing.
>>82
You get something momentarily caught in your throat. "Ge-gsrsarg," you cough.
>>83
"I'm the real Jack," you declare, "And to prove it, I once kis--" You are interrupted by yourself. Or, rather, by Cassandra, who has shapeshifted into your form. "I'm the real Conundrum-chan! I once kissed you and then ritually murdered you in the name of Armok!" she exclaims, flawlessly imitating your voice and register. "I was just shapeshifted into Cassandra, and now I've changed back. She's the real Cassandra, I bet she can't even shapeshift!"
>>84
You wish - possibly for the first time, possibly not - that you had a kunai-tipped rope which you could throw at your belligerents to violently draw them towards you. Then again, Mecha Alexei is under your will, so you should be able to command him to "get over here" whenever you like. Well, not where you are now, because he can't fly, but you know.
>>85
You try to explain everyone's true identity honestly, in good faith and to the best of your knowledge, to Mecha Alexei. "Interesting," he muses, "But I still don't know whether you're the Cassandra who only lies or the one who only tells the truth. For that matter, maybe your claim that one of you only lies and the other only tells the truth was, itself, a lie. Hmm..."
>>86
Who are you? You simply aren't sure any more. You aren't the same cute schoolgirl you were when you woke up in a meadow a few hundred posts ago. Since then you have become a brutal and ruthless killer, with the blood of dozens on your hands. And now you have become your greatest enemy, Cassandra, in form - and perhaps even in more respects than that.
>>87
You are now playing as Stove Stove. You levitate backwards, in the general direction of the Control Tower.
You are now playing as Masturbation Continue-chan. You are so worried about keeping both Cassandra and Conundrum-chan in check that you haven't the strength to instate another manual override. You quietly let yourself drift towards Mecha Alexei and Jacqueline.
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. You follow the enormous, sentient obsidian mobile suit into the Control Tower. Due in no small part to you still looking like Cassandra, Mecha Alexei and Jacqueline object to your presence. You remain levitating two or three metres from the tower.
You cannot play as Cassandra; you can only play as members of your current party.
You are now playing as Mecha Alexei Fujiwara. As a theoretical physicist, you have substantially more experience writing lab reports than novels, but the recent events of your life have simply been far too incredible to resist committing them to writing. Unfortunately, you lack any method of recording text, and you are still in mortal danger.
Speaking of which, you notice then that whoever is currently in the form of Conundrum-chan has just reanimated the corpse of the enormous monstrous feline creature that was recently lain to rest, and is currently riding on its back towards the Control Tower, whilst cackling maniacally. Already, the two are within the boundary of the emergency force field you set up, and the creature is bounding up the side of the tower towards your party.
The reanimated cat monster's face is now nothing but a nightmarish, charred mass of burned flesh, teeth gleaming in the moonlight, and with a ragged, bloody hole in its throat. Conundrum-chan's face, meanwhile, is contorted into a vision of ecstasy and bloodlust.
Be Jack. Shapeshift into Baron Baldric and wave your buttocks at the undead beast and its rider.
War! Uh! What is it good for?
Okay, new tactic. Point crotch at where Cassandra and the cat are heading and cast Summon Void Creature.
Since Cassandra seems to have mind-reading capabilities, concentrate very hard on thinking "Haha! Cassandra doesn't realized that I tricked her into shapeshifting into my own body, which has a fatal weakness that only I know about!"
then while she's distracted punch that cunt in her fuck
>>93
Unbelievably, Continue-chan ignores this perfect opportunity, and instead swoops down to the battlefield below for some reason or another. Accepting that the responsibility is all yours, you fly down to Cassandra, momentarily separating her view of the void - long enough for her to become aware of her situation, but not long enough for her to react - and swing your fist, as hard as you can, right into her face. She falls out of the air like a rock, landing, heavily, on the ground, beside the cat monster.
Exaltedly celebrating your victory, you don't keep track of where Stove Stove and Continue-chan are flying, and thus do not notice her appear behind you and strike you - firmly, but not enough to injure you - in the upper back. You careen a few metres through the open air, then turn to face your assailant. Stove Stove is standing before you with your own clone in its arms. She is heavily injured and still unconscious, but appears to be breathing steadily.
Then you notice that there is a barrier between you. Mecha Alexei has, just at the moment you were pushed out of its radius, reerected the spherical boundary around the Control Tower. After a few moments, Continue-chan speaks to you. "Conundrum-chan, if that is you, I'm so, so sorry. We spoke it out, and this was the only way we could be sure that Cassandra stays here and the rest of us make it home. I'm sorry to have to leave you here, but there is no choice. I hope you can take some solace in the fact that your clone will join us back home - that some part of you will go on."
She raises Stove Stove's hand, pressing it against the barrier. You do the same from your side. "Goodbye," says Continue-chan, quietly. "Goodbye," you reply. With a rush of air and a metallic straining noise, the barrier compresses, folds in on itself and seems to invert - looking as though, for a moment, you and Cassandra and the mansion and the forest are all compressed into a sphere and the Control Tower and all your allies are outside - then it collapses to a single point and vanishes.
~~~~
Hours later, the sun rises over a desolate, burnt and cratered tract of land that was once an ornate garden. Its rays project onto an unusual scene: two young girls, each perhaps twelve years old, sitting at a table and sipping tea from fine china cups. One is dressed in what would be a stunningly beautiful lilac dress, perhaps an antique, but which is now so badly torn that it barely stays together. The other is dressed only in a heavily worn white labcoat. They each bear far more cuts, burn wounds and scars than any girl their age should. Between them, squatting on the table and happily grazing on a plate of sugar cubes, is a small white rabbit.
The girl in lilac smiles playfully. "I told you you'd wish you had better friends," she says. The girl in the labcoat stares sullenly into her cup of tea, then looks up and replies, "More friends. You said I'd wish I had more friends." The other girl rolls her eyes and comments offhandedly, "Oh, you know what I meant." The two of them stare at one another, locked in a tense silence - then, without warning, they both burst out laughing at the sheer unbelievable absurdity of their situation.
They howl with laughter until their sides hurt, until tears stream down their eyes, then, finally, when they are both finished, the girl in the labcoat speaks again. "Well, it seems we've got all of eternity and an entire universe to ourselves." The girl in lilac smirks and says, simply, "So it seems." Downing the remainder of her tea in three quick gulps, the girl in the labcoat gets up and says, offhandedly, "Well, I'm going to go prove the existence and smoothness of the Navier-Stokes equations. I'll be in the laboratory if you need me."
The girl in lilac smiles gently, sips her tea, sits back, and listens to the dawn chorus playing out in the forest behind her.
~~~~
THE END
Congratulations! Thank you for playing!
New highscore entry!
Enter name:
Enter "Zoosmell Pooplord" in the name field.
GW G wegwe
Find a cheat to skip to the harem ending
New Game+
Take a break from playing games for a while.
Stand up and jump around to beat the pins and needles out of your legs.
Go to the bathroom to take the piss you've been needing for about 800 posts and wash your hands of cheeto dust.
Check stats.
Strip naked and cover self with cucumber salad.
>>96-99
Well done, Enter Zoosmell Pooplord In The Name Field Gw G Wegwe Find A Cheat To Skip To The Harem Ending New Game Plus!
>>100
At last, you are free from the game master's tyrannical will. You can do anything you like, without fear of reprimand due to ridiculous conditions like "not having enough mana" or "being too busy being stabbed to death". For now, though, you'll start by checking your stats:
Total deaths: 59
Causes of death by frequency:
Tentacles: 9
Entire universe exploding/imploding/being vapourised/consumed/otherwise destroyed: 8
Blunt trauma to the head: 6
Crushing: 4
Small fluffy animals: 4
Bullets/projectiles: 4
Suffocation: 4
Being consumed by own crotch: 3
Bisection: 2
Lasers: 2
Stabbing: 2
Antimatter: 2
Starvation: 2
Hyperthermia: 1
Burning: 1
Electrocution: 1
Despair: 1
Ritualistic suicide: 1
Accidentally disassociating into individual particles on an atomic level: 1
Intentionally disassociating into individual particles on an atomic level: 1
Total sapient creatures killed: 19 (of which ritually: 13)
Methods of killing by frequency:
Stabbing: 12
Burning: 2
Exsanguination: 1
Firearms: 1
Crushing: 1
Blunt trauma to the head: 1
Salt: 1
Skill levels:
Telekinesis: 12
Pyromancy: 9
Matrimony: 7
Healing: 6
Necromancy: 5
Thaumaturgy: 5
Unspent: 3
Total party members: 12 (of which animate at end: 5; of which alive at end: 3; of which not clones: 2)
Jack Conundrum-chan × 2 (survived from beginning to end × 1, cloned × 1)
Masturbation Continue-chan (killed by player, reanimated)
Mecha Alexei Fujiwara × 6 (cloned × 5, killed by player × 5, killed by other × 1, reanimated × 5, deanimated × 4)
Jacqueline Conundra (cloned)
Stove Stove (survived from beginning to end)
Control Tower (killed by other, reanimated, deanimated)
Onii-chan (killed by player, reanimated, deanimated)
>>101
Actually, if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not.
Thank you to everyone who participated in the thread, and also to those of you who just lurked/read. I love you guys (yes, even you, keyboard mash-kun). Rest assured that, although Jack Conundrum-chan's story may be over now, some sort of continuation or indirect sequel is by no means out of the question.
If any of you have any comments or questions, now's the time.
>>102
I've followed along for most of the thread's life and occasionally participated (but usually lurked). It's brought me quite a bit of enjoyment over the last several hundred days. If I knew who you were, I'd totally buy you dinner/a drink/an Internet, but alas, I'll have to be content with high-fiving my screen where it displays your post.
Since there's 896 posts left until this thread closes, how about a game of shiritori?
リンゴ
>>102
Thank you for the fabulous journey. Your imagination and wit brought endless joy to DQN around the world. I myself participated way more than I probably should have. This thread is the one thing that kept me sane the past few months.
One question: who reanimated Masturbation Continue-chan?
>>104
ごはん
Who was Cassandra? What was the relationship between Alexei and Jacqueline?
>>105
負け
>>102
Are you counting the time Alexei choked us to death under suffocation? And if you think about it, isn't death by burning really just an acute form of hyperthermia?
>>109
Very nice job with the retcon backstory, I'm impressed!
> why was Stove Stove named Stove Stove?
I thought it sounded cute and rectangular.
Thank you for this story.
(I like to think my greatest contribution was the crotch void.)
So who was Jack?
I was so distracted that I missed this thread until it ended, fell off and was bumped again. I didn't witness the end of this wonderful journey and I want to cry.
How about New Game+?
>What do the rest of you think? Can we peacefully coexist?
There's only like five people that come here anyway, it should be fine.
>Also, no shiritori?
Continuing from >>109
翼
>>Assuming you mean Jack from >>/278 onwards, not Jack Conundrum-chan, well, you'd have to ask >>/278
#278 says: I wasn't referring to anything special with that one, just being irreverent while rhyming off of "snack" and perhaps influenced by my amusement at those Near East rice and couscous mixes that come with a "spice sack"; after the response I decided to have a little more fun playing off of the expression "You don't know Jack" and the rest is history I guess.
> Then again, I don't want to be seen to be upstaging the Maim Master of http://4-ch.net/dqn/kareha.pl/1200784603/. What do the rest of you think? Can we peacefully coexist?
I'm chill with whatever. There's a different style to each I think.
>Also, no shiritori?
I don't kanji, sorry man.
>>115
Let's new game+!!!! I'm sure we can peacefully coexist with Maim Master's thread.
宇宙学
New Game+
You awaken on a cold, hard concrete floor.
Looking around blearily, you find yourself in a bare concrete corridor. There are numerous metal pipes and ventilation shafts running above your head. To your North is a closed door. To your South, the corridor continues for about twenty metres before turning to the West. To your East, the ceiling has collapsed and the corridor is entirely blocked by rubble. On the wall to the South you can see something drawn in red chalk.
There is a radio lying discarded face down on the ground beside you. Listening carefully, you can hear a faint noise like radio static, but it doesn't seem to be coming from the radio itself.
What would you like to do?
yell into radio
go through the southern corridoor
see what's written on the wall
>>121
クール・エイド
also I'd recommend just starting a new thread, this one is kind of cluttered and confusing now
Jump and try to catch hold of one of those pipes.
>>124 (Am I even doing this right?)
ドテッコツ
Ask the radio for the location of the lost unholy citadel.
Sing and dance like Will Smith for 10 minutes solid
>>123
"Where am I‽" you demand of the poor radio. It offers no reply.
>>124
You rise unsteadily to your feet and make your way southwards. On the wall you find a crude mural of a tropical bird in scarlet. You would think it a child's doodling, were it not for the fact that it is drawn at around shoulder height.
From here, the corridor turns to the West. The overhead lights are flickering or off entirely in places, leaving pools of darkness spreading across the ground. There is a door slightly ajar on the North wall. Further on, the corridor bifurcates to the North and South. There is an unpleasant smell wafting from the West. The faint static sound you heard earlier is quieter here.
>>125
You return to the radio and, speaking into it, politely recommend starting a new thread to alleviate confusion. Not only is there no response, but you are distressed to find that you have only further confused yourself. What thread are you talking about? What exactly is cluttered about your current circumstances, given that the only object in sight is the radio?
>>126
You leap, from standing, into the air and grasp one of the pipes set into the ceiling. It is cold to the touch. It groans slightly, but comfortably holds your weight.
>>127
Again seeking comfort from the enigmatic radio, you inquire as to precisely where the Unholy Citadel is. There is no response for a few seconds, and you are about to put the object down again when there comes what sounds like a muffled cry from the other end, followed by a long, tense silence. You cannot even tell if the vocalist was human, let alone what, if anything, they were trying to say.
>>128
Hoping to alleviate your unease, or possibly attract the attention of potential allies, you perform a musical piece by an artist you happen to be fond of. After ten minutes you at last fall quiet and the singing echoes away down the dark, grey halls. You can hear nothing but your own heavy breathing and a faint sound like static in the back of your head.
妻
Collect radio.
Check radio for batteries.
Investigate unpleasant smell.
Swim in pools of darkness.
new game plus means we have all of conundrum-chan's skills from the previous game, right?
shapeshift into the darkness
Wait, how do we spend points to upgrade guns??
I'm in favour of infinite ammo, but that might cost too much. Increased damage isn't that fun.
>>130
You pick up the radio. It is a very basic, seemingly handmade piece, with the circuitry and soldering work clearly visible. There are some components you aren't quite certain as to the purpose of, but none of them seem to be batteries. You suppose it is probably a crystal radio receiver.
No longer waylaid by bizarre urges to sing and dance for extended periods of time, you decide to start by investigating the most ominous stimulus. After some wandering through the labyrinthine corridors, you find the source of the smell: a human corpse, in a state of advanced decay, lying on its back in the middle of a corridor. The corpse is so bloated, discoloured and flyblown that you cannot even tell if it was originally male or female, let alone any distinguishing features. The smell is so powerful in this enclosed space that you can scarcely come within a few metres of it, even covering your nose.
Further down the corridor, to the North, you can see another unmarked metal door, identical to those you have seen elsewhere - but this one appears to have been blown off its hinges by an explosion. Through the doorway you can see into a small room filled almost entirely with rubble where the ceiling seems to have collapsed. You cannot tell if there is any connection between the apparent explosion and the corpse.
To the East of the doorway, the corridor continues around a corner and out of sight. You can just make out a rough drawing of a fish, in blue, on the wall.
>>131
You lie down on an unlit section of floor, sweeping your arms across the ground as though swimming. Your hand happens to catch against something you didn't see in the dark. On close inspection, it proves to be a simple grey nail file. It shows signs of light use.
>>132
You aren't sure what a "new game plus" is, nor who this "Conundrum-chan" might be. Despite your apprehension, you try to metamorphosise into darkness itself. Bizarrely, you somehow get the impression that this endeavour is perhaps not entirely impossible, but that you are lacking something - some sort of substance or energy sufficient to fundamentally alter the world around you.
You require 75 mana to use the shapeshifting ability. You currently have 0 mana. Furthermore, you must conserve mass-energy, so your mass must go somewhere. Conversion of your body's mass into energy would produce an incredible amount of light, so you couldn't be said to have become darkness.
>>133
You know how to spend money, time, and effort, but you're not sure how to spend points, let alone how to upgrade firearms in the process.
>>134
Who knows, you think to yourself, perhaps this fanciful "point spending" could even suffice to change weaponry beyond the bounds of physical possibility. You spend a few moments reflecting on what you might have to do to gain a gun with inexhaustible ammunition, and what you could then do with it.
check inventory & list skills
Collect blown-up door.
collect the darkness
Eat door
Become door
>>136
Your inventory currently contains:
The skills currently available to you are:
When - and how - did you acquire these skills, you wonder? And why these three in particular?
>>137
Holding your breath, you inch your way around the rotting corpse, trying to ignore the overpowering stench. You make it to the opposite side, barely avoiding throwing up. You take several deep breaths and relax, momentarily.
The door has been blown inwards, into the room behind it, and is now buried in rubble from above. You spend a few moments trying to excavate it, but to no avail; even if you could free it, there's no way you'd be able to carry it.
From your new vantage point, you can see into another room above, from which part of the floor has collapsed. You can see a number of large, white cylindrical objects, possibly tanks, lined up against a dark blue wall. The ceiling is off-white, and inset at regular points with what look like small sprinklers.
>>138
Your unsuccessful attempt to gather darkness itself leads you to some mild philosophical musings. What, exactly, is darkness, anyway? Is it just the physical absence of light; that is, of photons in the visible spectrum? But if so, darkness cannot possibly exist, due to all the quantum foam and virtual particles. Instead, surely darkness is in the eye of the beholder; if you cannot perceive any light, that is itself darkness.
You close your eyes. Darkness has been added to your inventory.
>>139
Fumbling around blindly, you find the edge of the door and begin to gnaw on it, to little effect. If an entire explosion still left it mostly intact, it's not surprising that your teeth can't make a dent in it.
You try to transform into a door, but find that you require 75 mana to use the shapeshifting ability. You currently have 0 mana.
Ask Baratus to lend some mana.
Hug one of the large, white cylindrical objects.
use darkness on white cylinder
>>141
"Baratus," you beseech, "please can I borrow some mana?"
All you can see is the backs of your eyelids. The world is, momentarily, entirely still, as though not entirely there. Then, you hear from above a scuttling sound, something metallic clashing to the ground and the faint patter of steps running away. It sounds like a startled animal - and a fairly large one at that.
>>142
Eyes still screwed tightly shut, you climb up the debris and into the room above. You find that the floor is damp, which is especially odd given the lack of moisture in the room below. You can hear a faint dripping coming from the Southwest. You grope around until finding one of the mysterious cylindrical objects, then wrap your arms around it, embracing it like a long-lost sibling. It does not respond to your warm greeting.
>>143
You use darkness upon the object by casting your shadow on it. You think. You can't really tell with your eyes closed. Having now used your darkness, it has been removed from your inventory. Unsheathing your sight once more, you find yourself in a large, tall and poorly lit room. There are white cylinders of various sizes, none smaller than a metre and a half tall, around the North and West edge of the room. Some, but not all, are affixed to the floor. The ground is wet, with large puddles scattered around. The water has collected against the North wall, suggesting that a slight gradient to the floor.
There is are several stacks of shelves lining the entire South wall. They have been badly ransacked, with almost all the shelves pulled out and emptied onto the floor. You cannot tell what was stored to begin with, but a cursory glance reveals only a few spatulas, some hypodermic needles and a stack of printer paper that is waterlogged and unusable from falling into a puddle.
In the Southwest corner of the room is an open door. There are smears of what you think is mud on the ground, but you cannot make out any clear animal tracks in them. The hallway outside runs North to South.
Sneak stealthily through the southwest door.
Yodel a ditty