Stand at the edge of the magma and taunt the undead grunt to lure him closer. At the last moment run around and push him in!
Remember to put the gained skill point into the God stat to become a GOD.
After which do a silly dance. And kick the priest in the dick.
ladies first
>>470
Well, this simply won't do at all, you decide. The dead are supposed to be dead, after all. You shall have to put this overactive cadaver in its place once and for all. You crouch, wait for it to come within range, then lunge in, delivering a crippling uppercut to the crotch. You follow up with more blows, but the corpse doesn't even flinch. It grabs you by the throat and lifts you clean off the ground. You kick and struggle for all you are worth, to no avail. The world fades away to black.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 17
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>469)
>>471
You retreat as close as you can get to the magma (not that close, actually; it's really rather hot, you know) and dramatically exclaim "Oh, woe is me! I'm just a poor defenceless maiden, trapped here with this vicious monster! There is no hope for me!" It continues to stumble towards you as before. You try to convince yourself that your sweating is just from the heat and your shaking legs are just part of the lure, but lack quite that level of sangfroid.
Once the grunt corpse is close enough, you duck to the left, trying to get behind it and push. It swipes at you in passing, however, grabbing you by the hair. You kick at its feet, successfully overbalancing it, and it falls face first into the magma. You barely manage to avoid being pulled with it, though you lose a little of your hair in the process. There is a loud hissing as the grunt's flesh sinks into the seething molten rock. Its limbs flail around, but you pin its back down with one foot and push it further in. Eventually, it stops moving.
>>472
Unfortunately, it would appear that God is not a valid skill. Your available skills are aerokinesis, geokinesis, biokinesis, hypnosis, technomancy and ailuromancy. Being a god sounds rather bothersome anyway, what with people trying to prove you don't exist and silly things like that. Speaking of silly, you decide to do a little jig on the spot to celebrate overcoming that fearsome opponent. Hooray!
More importantly, that smug little high priest didn't lift a finger to help you! Why, for all you know, it might even have been him who reanimated the corpse! Necessity is the mother of invention, and your need to kick him between the legs provides the seed of ingenuity for you to climb up the lift cables to go find him again.
The space above is as dark and mysterious as before. The high priest does not talk to you this time, but you can hear an odd noise you cannot quite place. It sounds like some sort of low growling or rumbling, but distorted by echoes. You try to explore the area around you, but fail to locate the priest - or anything else for that matter. The space is clearly quite large and seemingly empty.
Your searching is interrupted by a thumping noise. Looking down the lift shaft, you see that your undead friend is back - despite its head being encased in freshly formed basalt - and wants to come say hello. What now, you ask yourself: do you focus on tracking down that elusive priest, or prioritise your own personal safety by eliminating that wretched grunt first?
>>473
Well, naturally, you, as the lady in the situation, take priority. Without hesitation, you jump feet first down the shaft, straight onto the grunt's head. It breaks your fall nicely, collapsing to the cavern floor with a crunch. You hop off its prone body to find Jack Conundrum-chan at the mouth of the cave. She rushes over and embraces you, expounding how glad she is you're safe. She says that Jimmy came to fetch her and led her here - indeed, the feline in question is just behind her.
Even now, the corpse simply won't stay dead. It begins to rise back to its feet before your very eyes.
Put skill point into geokinesis, then use Conundrum-chan as a human shield.
Use the geokinesis to create a bunch of golems and shit and get the golems to rape the undead piece of shit with their fists until the shitty zombie thing is turned into soup.
Then sex up Conundrum-chan while the golems kill and rape everything else that could ruin the making of fuck.
Pee on the undead.
update java
>>475
You place one skillpoint into geokinesis. You have unlocked the following skill:
You hide behind Conundrum-chan. Jimmy hides behind you. Conundrum-chan hides behind Jimmy. The three of you end up in one tangled mass of limbs, all tripping over yourselves trying to retreat from the grunt corpse.
>>476
You begin piling up little stones you find lying around into four vaguely humanoid/faecal shapes. You spend twenty mana (leaving thirty remaining) metamorphosing them, causing the limbs to fuse in place. You are left with four lumpy humanoid figures, each with a little layered pile of ordure upon their heads. They are each only about ten centimetres tall, and - as rocks tend to be - not awfully lively. You certainly wouldn't trust them to turn the rapidly advancing corpse into broth.
Conundrum-chan grabs your hand and pulls you away towards the mouth of the tunnel. Some combination of the unexpected skinship and your recent emotional turmoil causes the thought to flit through your head that she is drawing you away in the interests of doing something lewd with you - oh my! I mean, perhaps you wouldn't say no, but...
Whatever her intentions, you let yourself be led away into relative safety of the mouth of the lava tube, hoping without much conviction that your little golems will be able to hold off the undead menace.
>>477
Gosh, that corpse is simply so irritating! Like a nettle or jellyfish sting! Perhaps, you muse, it might be treated in a similar way. Ignoring her protestations, you let go of Conundrum-chan's hand, turn on your heel, rush towards the irritative undead and, at the last moment, flip up your skirt and drop your pantsu. Strain as you might, however, your bladder won't comply. You just can't go with somebody watching.
"No, Ariadne! The crotch thing only works if they can see it!" exclaims Conundrum-chan, already rushing towards you, but too late. It swipes at the side of your head, knocking you brutally to the ground. Skull fractured and spine dislocated, you die the moment you hit the ground.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 18
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>479)
>>478
As a bastion of Indonesian culture, you feel it is vital that you provide the island of Java with an update on recent events. They won't believe it! I mean, the thing with the golems and all? At any rate, you aren't going to find any ways of contacting them in this cave. You run away with Conundrum-chan into the darkness.
Despite sweaty palms, you don't let go of her hand until the two of you (three, including Jimmy) are back in the room with all the cloning apparatus. You cannot see or hear the corpse, but it may still be following you. You and Conundrum-chan rest against one of the pods, catching your breaths. You begin to consider your next plan of action.
You have just emerged from the northwest tunnel. There is another leading northwards in the northeast corner, and two leading southwards in the southwest and southeast corners. There is also the spiral staircase leading to the surface. If you go that way, however, you'll have no way of crossing the river (if that's even what you want). You seem to recall the office with the cloning console had some useful looking equipment, if, on the other hand, you're planning on any more subterranean adventures.
You aren't sure which way Java is.
>>479
If cloning apparatus is functional, create /at least 100/ clones of yourself.
Send one to pee on the undead while the others block up the tunnel you just passed through.
If cloning apparatus is not functional, take the north tunnel.
Find a pickaxe or similar tool, first.
>>481
You enter the office in the south wall of the room. Conundrum-chan follows you, grabs a small white box from the shelf and says, with slightly artificial nonchalance, that she has something to take care of quickly and she'll be right back. You hear a jangling as the padlock is removed from the locked door next to the office, then a faint creak as it opens and shuts again.
You search the shelves for a pickaxe, finding in the process many cardboard boxes full of rocks, various stationery (paper, sample bags and such), a coil of rope, a canister of fuel, an electric torch, a pile of large white candles, a box of matches and two boxes full of Kendal mint cakes, amongst other things. After much rummaging, you find a geologist's hammer, which you keep.
>>480
As Jack is away, you find yourself feeling a little mischievous. You find the cloning console still inoperative after your little outburst back at >>445, with the various cables disconnected from the rear of the machine. You plug them back in one at a time wherever they will go, push the power switch and are relieved to see the display spark back into life. After a minute's booting, you are confronted with the same convoluted interface as earlier.
Unfortunately, there are only two templates to choose from, labelled "factory" and "C0". From observing Conundrum-chan earlier, you know that "factory" corresponds to the default grunts. You aren't sure what "C0" means, but you have no reason to suppose it corresponds to yourself, and you have no idea how to add yourself to the database - if that's even possible.
Disappointed, you decide to go exploring a little. Conundrum-chan is still busy doing Conundrum-chan-ish things in the room next door. Without a word, you embark along the northeast tunnel. It tilts generally upwards, banking gently eastwards. After walking for about a hundred metres, the darkness is complete, and you cannot see a thing. You can feel a slight breeze coming from ahead.
Make more golems and keep them with you. Be prepared to chuck them at any signs of danger and hope that they'll cling on to whatever they hit and slow it down by dry humping it!
stop hitting yourself
stop hitting yourself
stop hitting yourself
stop hitting yourself
stop hitting yourself
stop hitting yourself
stop hitting yourself
Follow the breeze~
>>483
Groping around on the cavern floor, you amass three more little humanoid piles of rock, each somewhat larger than your previous works. With an expenditure of twenty mana (leaving ten remaining) you fuse them into their given forms - sadly, your skills in the dark arts aren't yet sufficient to grant them life. You tuck them into the pockets of your frilly dress, close at hand should they need to be used as improvised missiles. Whilst you're at it, you name them Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone.
>>484
In order to stop hitting yourself, you would first have to start hitting yourself. You start by slapping yourself in the right cheek, as hard as you can. With a sound like a thunderclap, you are left with a stinging pain and a vague feeling of offence. Well, at least now you can stop hitting yourself.
But then, without warning, you strike yourself again, this time in the left cheek. The pain is still lancing through your head when you feel a sharp blow to the solar plexus. Why is this happening? You try as hard as you can to stop hitting yourself, but your body shows no mercy on you. It knows your every weakness, and is more than willing to exploit them.
Curled up in the foetal position, on the cold hard cavern floor, plunged in darkness and slowly being beaten to death by yourself, you are on the verge of despair when one last quantum of hope flickers into life in the back of your head. Your golems! Yes, you made them precisely for this sort of situation. You just have to throw them at yourself, and then hopefully you can force yourself to stop hitting yourself. What could possibly go wrong?
You launch your three Erinyes directly upwards in quick succession, hoping that they'll cling to your limbs and dry hump them into submission. Instead, they strike you in the head, one by one, the last knocking the final spark of life from your beaten body.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 19
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>486)
>>485
Furies pocketed, you decide to follow the gentle breeze that is now flowing playfully through your hair. But what does "following" mean in this case? Are you going to follow it in the direction it's going back to where you came from, or follow it in the direction you're going back to where it came from? You decide the latter sounds like the more interesting path to take.
You continue to follow the lava tube. It grows narrow and branches, often braiding apart and together again, like streams in a river delta. The faint, cool touch of the wind against your cheek guides you ever onwards. Eventually you find yourself in a tunnel so narrow you have to crawl on your hands and knees, growing narrower still up ahead. The breeze is strong here, and you can almost smell the delicate tropical scents of the rainforest outside. Despite your slender frame, the passage seems dangerously constrictive. You feel some trepidation about advancing any further.
Keep going, using the geologists' hammer to open a path if necessary.
Check em
Compose a haiku of love for Jack
>>487
Well, you shan't stop here! With a deep breath, you press on into the claustrophobic little fissure ahead. Feeling about by hand, you discover it is somewhat wider than it is tall, but still only barely wider than your shoulder width. You reach in with your handy little hammer and chip away at the edges. With some encouragement the rock peels away in large flakes, allowing you a little more breathing space, but not awfully much. You proceed, pulling yourself along by your elbows, hacking away as necessary at the passage walls.
About two or three metres in, the passage suddenly and sharply turns upwards. You manage to contort your upper body past the bend in the tunnel, but then, to your dismay, find yourself stuck. You can neither advance further nor go back, and cannot get a good angle with the geologist's hammer to widen the constricting region around your hips. An uncomfortable lump forms in your throat as you realise that, unless you can somehow extricate yourself from this predicament, it could be the end of you.
>>488
While you're here, you decide you may as well check on the local electromagnetism. Firstly and most obviously, the fact you cannot see anything suggests a lack of radiation in the visible spectrum. Similarly, the only likely source of UV - that is, the Sun - is nowhere to be seen. The air is quite cool, suggesting only a little IR, most of it probably coming from you. You find yourself somewhat troubled by the fact that there could hypothetically be any amount of radio, microwave, X-ray or gamma radiation passing through your little body this very second and you'd have no way of knowing.
>>489
Oh, if only Jack were here to help you!
Two budding lilies
The dew drips from my petals
Can we ever bloom?
Concentrate on regaining forgotten powers to save us from this predicament.
offer water to the deceased through tear ducts
>>491
You screw your eyes closed and retreat within, delving beneath the murky waters of introspection in the hopes that you can retrieve some sort of ambiguous ability possessed by your former, pre-amnesia self that could help free you. But what, and how? How could another consciousness in your current position possibly do anything you can't already? You fail to gain anything more than a headache, but have the vague feeling that your memories are not lost forever. If only you had some sort of concrete memento or prompt of your former life...
>>492
The frustration and helplessness which you had, so far, been able to suppress, wells up within you and erupts as a deluge of tears. You cry into the darkness, alternately sobbing piteously and wailing with anguish. The tears flow down your cheeks in five rivulets that swell into vast rivers and circle the Underworld seven times. The multitudinous souls of the dead bathe in your tears and suffer as you have.
Or perhaps you're getting a little carried away. All this melodrama is actually a little embarrassing and unbecoming of an upstanding, independent young lady like yourself, you decide. You are just settling down and beginning to wonder what to do with the rest of the time between now and dying of thirst, when you hear a familiar voice in the back of your head.
"Who are you? And what are you doing in there?" It sounds like the high priest.
"I am a Christmas Miracle! And I was in this pantry looking for Christmas Tea for the tea party!"
It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan.
A girl. A plan. A canal. Palriga.
It must be a trap! Pee on high priest.
Make a forceful penetration despite knowing that it's a trap.
>>494
Thinking fast, you realise it might be prudent to overstate your own religious zealotry in order to gain the favour of the high priest - but, at the same time, you are simply too embarrassed to admit that you managed to get yourself stuck here. You claim it's all in preparation for christmas, but are caught out. "Ariadne, that's you, isn't it? We already celebrated Christmas for today. You led the ceremony, remember?"
>>495
"Never mind that!" you counter, "More importantly, we must get on with the plan!" After a moment's contemplation, the high priest replies "You mean obtaining the stone dagger?"
>>496
"No, I mean constructing the Palriga Canal!"
Your ambition shocks the him into silence - momentarily, at least. Then, apparently discarding the issue, he says simply, "I'm afraid you're blocking the way I need to go. This passage wasn't meant for you anyway." You dodge the issue as far as you can, but eventually are forced to concede that you're stuck. The high priest casually offers to help you out.
>>497
No! He's going to do something weird to you while you're helpless! You try to expel some sort of deterrent chemical from your lower body, before remembering that you're not a skunk and that urinating is probably not going to help your situation much. You try anyway, but just the thought that he's watching you causes you to freeze up.
You feel something hairy brush against your legs, then hear a tearing sound. You find that pockets of your dress containing Alecto and Tisiphone have been torn open. Ah, those must've been what you were caught on! You hadn't even noticed. You wriggle loose, rearrange your possessions, and then renegotiate the narrow crook in the passage. You pass, this time, with only minor discomfort, and crawl onwards through the winding darkness until finally reaching an exit.
You stand up and inspect your surroundings, finding yourself back on the surface. You are on the eastern bank of the major river you flew over earlier. It is dusk. The sky to the west is still light, but rapidly darkening, and you can already make out a few stars above. To the east is nothing but open jungle. You can hear various unidentifiable sounds and faint vocalisations coming from the southeast.
A small, dark shape comes flying from the tunnel entrance and instantly vanishes into the undergrowth.
>>498
Fully aware of the implications of your actions, you forcefully swing your geologist's hammer at the bank of the river. It is made of clay - soft, but relatively impermeable. You swing, again and again, finally breaking through into the tunnel. The river water rushes into the gap, gurgling away into the underground. There! That counts as a canal by your standards. I mean, you should probably add some locks, but you can always sort that out later.
Yell at the rocks!
VC:rock
Chill out by the canal.
VC: chillor
>>500
Gosh, you think to yourself, you've been trapped underground for hours! What a gruelling experience. You take a deep breath of the cool, fragrant night air and shout - with much intensity but little articulation - at the ground beneath your feet. You express your triumph at leaving that foul underworld, your frustration at being inextricably trapped on or near the surface of this huge spinning ball of rock, and your vague fear of what unknown things might still lurk in those dark, serpentine tunnels that weave beneath your feet. You feel somewhat better for it.
>>501
You brush at your dress - once beautiful and ornate, now badly worn, tattered in places and soaked in blood and sweat - and take a seat on the bank of the Palriga Canal. It is only about thirty centimetres across, but nonetheless a fine piece of amateur civil engineering. The sound of the river water flowing smoothly down the tunnel you came from is quite soothing as well. As you are waiting, the moon begins to rise from the east, casting a faint, pallid illumination over everything.
You hear movement in the bushes to the south. Perhaps your shouting earlier attracted some attention? Before you can do more than get to your feet, two grunts emerge from the foliage. They are both wielding what appear to be wooden spears. You cannot see their facial expressions, but they seem quite nervous and are keeping their distance from you. One of them gestures towards you. You cannot tell if it's a threat or an invitation.
Invite the grunts to join us: Under the moon, loli to issho. If they attack, push them into the canal. If necessary, use aikido to disarm them.
>>503
You spread your arms and warmly invite your new friends to join you and fulfil their every sublunar fantasy. They baulk at the gesture, raising their spears but also backing away. A third figure appears from behind them, slightly hunched, with an odd bulge on their back. A stray moonbeam happens to glance from their face, revealing them to be none other than Jack Aaronova! You rush to embrace your long lost sister, but are interrupted by the grunts.
Given the low lighting you cannot make out exactly what happens, but from what you can see, the grunt on the right (nearer the river) suddenly stiffens, turns to the other grunt and, with one quick jab, stabs him in the neck with his spear. The other grunt gurgles in distress and grasps the spear to pull it out, but then collapses to the ground. The offending grunt frees his weapon and stands, back to the river, facing Jack.
Your best friend is under attack! Thinking fast, you hop across the canal, step into the shallows just off the river bank and sneak up behind him. The grunt begins to lunge for Jack - who safely dodges out of the way - at which point you charge him, grabbing him about the waist and pushing him headfirst into the mouth of the tunnel into which the Palriga flows. He slips straight in, losing hold of the spear in the process. He struggles for a minute or so, but is unable to escape from the hole, and eventually stops moving.
For killing a sapient being, you have gained one skill point and fifty mana.
Jack wraps her arms around you and breathes a heavy sigh of relief. "I... I've never seen one of them turn like that... I thought they always... Oh, what does it matter now? I'm so glad to see you, Ariadne, but we have to go. It's not safe here." She presses something into your hands, insisting that you need it more than she does. It appears to be the odd white electric weapon she took from Aaron back at >>430. On closer inspection, you realise that the bulge on her back is Aaron's jetpack. She is still wielding the ceremonial stone knife in her right hand.
Hold on to Jack.
Be Jack.
Fly straight up forever.
Put the skill point into learning Hokuto Shinken! If not possible for whatever reason, then put it into making the stupid ROCK powers less shite.
Ask Jack if she's a Gundam.
fly north
>>505
You clasp your arms around Jack's neck, clinging to her warmly and taking comfort in the sensation of her body against yours.
You are now playing as Jack Aaronova.
Argh! What's this girl doing touching you suddenly‽ You try to politely brush her off, but she simply nuzzles closer to you. Well, you decide, if she's not going to listen then you'll just have to force her to let go. Without a word, you grasp the throttle of the jetpack and push as hard as you can. The two of you are launched high into the still night air.
Ariadne squeals, but does not let go - and, unbelievably, clings closer to you still. You accelerate ever upwards, unheeding. Your unwitting passenger shouts something, but you cannot even hear it over the noise of the wind. Looking around, your view of the surrounding rainforest unfolds beneath you. A short distance to the north is the camp of which you are high priestess, where you were returning to before meeting Ariadne. Elsewhere, the river meanders silently down the valley, as strange, inscrutable shapes poke out from the forest canopy, swaying in the moonlight.
Still, you keep flying upwards towards the infinite starry expanse above. Your camp is nothing but a tiny speck, hundreds of metres below you now. You can now see across the mountain ridges to the east and west, separating this valley from its neighbours. Some distance to the west is something emitting a decidedly unnatural blue light, but it's too dark and too distant to even guess what it might be.
You are enjoying your tour of the troposphere so much, you forget what you were even trying to do to begin with. It is so very peaceful up here. You relax, feeling the cool breeze against your face. At that moment, with a splutter and a lurch, the jetpack abruptly cuts out. You stab at the controls, trying to will some life back into it, but to no avail. You cannot tell for certain, but you suspect it might've run out of fuel.
The two of you tumble back to the unforgiving ground below, screaming the whole way. Your Icarian fall concludes with your unwelcome reintroduction to the Earth. You die horribly on impact.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 20
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>504)
>>506
Unfortunately, none of the available skills presents a clear path towards learning that particular martial art. You can't help but feel all the exploding body parts and such seem rather unladylike, anyhow. Instead, you sensibly invest your one free skill point into geokinesis, unlocking the following skill:
Jack unilaterally denies being, or having ever been, a Gundam.
>>507
Lacking the power of flight yourself, you settle for hitching a ride on Jack's jetpack. You have no difficulty persuading her to head northwards, as she says that's where she was heading anyway. After a brief but exhilarating flight across the treetops, the two of you land in a broad clearing with a large bonfire at its centre. There are fearful looking, ill equipped grunts loitering around in small clumps around the place. Next to the fire is a large stone object which you cannot quite see from where you are.
Jack is just starting to say something, when there comes a loud cry from the forest to the east. Five grunts emerge, each dressed in identical off-white jumpsuits. Four are wielding wooden sticks with oddly bulbous ends, while the central one - who, coincidentally, is also wearing a rather familiar red headdress - wields instead a solid silver aspergillum. With a dramatic war cry, they charge into the clearing, catching several of the native grunts off guard and knocking them to the ground. From the north come another six invaders, catching more of the natives in a pincer manoeuvre.
Jack raises her bloodstained knife, screams defiantly and leaps into the fray. You feel compelled to join the battle yourself.
What do the Kha'ak want?
giggle at the word "aspergillum"
Throw the dry humping golems! Then make a stone baseball bat or club or some shit like one and beat them all to death!
Ask Jack what she'd do if she were a Gundam. Ask Jack if she likes G Gundam. Then, lean towards Jack and softly whisper to Jack: "Gandamu"
Does it cost 5 mana per minute, per rock? Or just 5 mana per minute regardless of how many rocks? Anyway, shove rocks into the central grunt's mouth, then animate one or all of them to rip apart their organs from the inside out.
>>509
But before you can defend yourself, your sister and her tribe against the incipient murder and pillaging, you must establish what the Kha'ak want. Wait, what? What is a Kha'ak? You try to recall how this curious thought found its way into your head - perhaps it might even be some remnant of your former self's memories! Frantically, you attempt to tease apart the threads of association with this word "Kha'ak", like a young child following the strings of a puppet back to the puppeteer.
As you are busy with this futile endeavour, Jack leads a small band of four grunts against the secondary contingent. She manages to kill two of the attackers with her knife, and one more is struck down by one of her underlings. For every invader that falls, however, two more take its place, leaving nine on the north front. To the east, another six emerge behind the headdress-wearing grunt, making eleven. Native grunts are being slaughtered or forced to retreat left right and centre.
One from the east approaches you, staff raised ready to bring down onto your skull. Now's the time! You have both the geologist's pick and the electric device at hand; all you have to do is evade this clumsy attack and fell the invader, which shouldn't be too difficult unless you get distracted by... wait, what's that thing in the leading grunt's hand? Is that an ...?
>>510
"Hehehe, it sounds like asparagus!" you giggle to yourself. Unimpeded, the grunt splits your fragile skull asunder, the fragments of which tear into your frontal lobe, killing you instantly.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 21
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>508)
>>511
You decide it is time for your stony Furies to fly the nest. Megaera strikes an invading grunt in the shin, leaving him to be stabbed in the face by an opportunistic native. Alecto almost strikes the leading grunt, but he ducks just in time, leaving her to land harmlessly in the undergrowth outside the clearing. Finally, Tisiphone strikes an invader at the back of the group squarely in the head, causing him to collapse like a sack of potatoes.
For killing a sapient being, you have gained one skill point and fifty mana.
The ground around here consists of well beaten dirt, without any available stones - large or small - that you could fuse together into a weapon. Nothing else in your inventory appears particularly conducive to beating others to death.
Perhaps this killing business isn't for you after all. You decide to try encouraging Jack instead, as she could probably do with it. But traditional cheerleading always seemed so insincere; you elect to lift her spirits with some engaging conversation instead. You attempt to inflame her imagination with a theoretical exercise in being a giant humanoid robot, but she makes no response. Falling back on something a little less mentally taxing, you inquire as to her disposition towards the more modern entries to the franchise, and whether they live up to their predecessors.
Jack, momentarily distracted by you, is struck a glancing blow to the side by one of the grunts attacking her. Risking a foray into the front line, you charge in, dodging many crushing blows, until you are crouched by Jack. "Gandamu" you whisper, carefully enunciating each syllable. Apparently indifferent, she gets back to her feet and gets back to the carnage.
>>512
Basic rock animation (active skill) costs five mana per minute per discrete stone object animated.
You happen to notice, conveniently enough, that you still have a single shard of obsidian tucked into your back pocket which you picked up back at >>466. You skip over to the grunt with the headdress, with a cunning plan dancing in the back of your head. "Oh no!" you wail, "Please, help me! I've been taken hostage by this horrible tribe!" He hesitates, aspergillum ready to be swung, and opens his mouth to say something.
This is the only opening you need. You jam the obsidian shard into his mouth and will it to move around inside. He makes some panicked vocalisations, drops his weapon and, with both hands, digs in his mouth, trying to pull it out - but too late. He falls to his knees, blood erupting from his mouth. It takes more than a minute of the stone digging around before, finally, he stops moving.
For killing a sapient being, you have gained one skill point and fifty mana. You currently have two unspent skill points and 150 mana.
With their leader killed, the invaders all suddenly turn to you and, in unison, scatter and run back into the forest. There is a tense silence, with you, Jack and the remaining natives all looking and listening as hard as possible, waiting for them to regroup and attack in a second wave. Instead, you hear a rhythmic thumping from the east, and a tall, dark shape appears above the trees, silhouetted against the rising moon.
It reveals itself to be Rupert. The booming voice of the high priest resonates through your mind: "YOU DARE DEFY THE WILL OF THE CHURCH OF THE SCHISMATICS‽" Rupert steps into the clearing, lit majestically from beneath by the firelight. You finally see a small shape on his head: a certain tortoiseshell cat, standing human-like on his hind legs, with an elaborate red headdress atop his little head.
"I WILL EXTERMINATE EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU PATHETIC WRETCHES!" declares Theodore, High Priest of the Schismatics.
Jack has the passive skill cat possession, right? So we should be able to play as Theodore. Be Theodore and don't exterminate anybody. Order the grunts to throw their weapons into the river, then come down from Rupert and do cute cat things.
eat self
Put the skill points into the shitty rock powers and learn to make sexy rock armor. And maybe make good rock weapons that don't suck.
Also, collect a bunch of rocks along the way and fuse them into the sexy rock armor that isn't too heavy but is strong enough to withstand a ton of shit. And the weapon, there needs to be a suitable weapon with the sexy rock armor.
Ask Jack her opinion on Megaman. Tell her you like the white Megaman.
Maybe pick up the golems to bring them with you.
>>515
You are now playing as Jack Aaronova.
Via your cat possession (passive skill), you are now playing as Theodore.
Looking down upon the miserable little humans you are about to crush, an odd feeling stirs within your breast. It reminds you of that sudden avariciousness that came over you some time around >>334 when you discovered that killing people can bestow arcane powers upon you. Despite previously being more than satisfied with your own natural abilities, you were then overcome by a thirst for power, especially power over others.
Hence why, once separated from Ariadne, you ended up founding a religious sect, sacrificing some of your worshippers and spending the resultant skill points in the hypnosis skill. This proved rather useful, especially the ability to project thoughts. As time has passed, however, you have discovered a worrying trend of taking on more and more human traits. You can't even remember when you started walking on your hind legs, but quadrupedal motion already feels unnatural.
Looking down from your lofty vantage point, you lock eyes with that simpering little girl with the lilac dress. And yet - damn it all! - you cannot think of anything but that warm sensation of being curled up in her lap and stroked and loved by her. Her once beautiful clothing is now torn and dirtied and - oh no, is that blood? What have you done‽
Without a thought, you call off the invasion, projecting the message to all of your subjects in range, and using up almost all of your remaining mana in the process. You dismount your proud steed and return to land. Thankfully it seems your mistress isn't seriously injured, if at all, but the shock is still enough to convince you to abandon your recent way of life.
On all fours, you scamper over to Ariadne and rub affectionately at her legs. Apparently completely forgetting your recent threat, she playfully rubs your belly. You revel in the existentialist authenticity of being a cat and doing catty things. You purr in delight.
>>516
Momentarily forgetting what it is cats do, you end up chasing your own tail and trying to eat it, like a furry little ouroboros. You fail to catch it.
>>517
You don't have any available skill points. As a perfectly ordinary, everyday, innocent feline, you don't know anything about sexy rock armour or its manufacture. There aren't any rocks nearby, and even if there were you'd have no way of fusing them into anything.
That other girl - Jack, was it? - has, meanwhile, arrived nearby and is talking to Ariadne. She momentarily stops stroking you to listen. Jack seems to be saying something about you not being trustworthy, and that they need to find shelter for the night, or some similarly trifling matter. You passingly notice that she's holding that stone dagger you used to care about so much.
"Meow, meeeow meow meow meeow?" you ask. "Meow meow meooow meow." you clarify. Through her feline communication (passive skill), she receives your query, but rather than answer instead demands that you divulge your true motives.
There are two vaguely humanoid stone objects lying in the dirt on the edge of the clearing. You consider retrieving them, but they appear rather heavy, and you aren't sure how you'd carry them anyway.
Avoiding Jack's question, you look around at your surroundings. The pyre in the centre of the clearing is slowly dying down. The clearing, especially its north and east faces, are littered with corpses and pools of blood. The remaining native grunts seem to have all retired for the night into various ramshackle shelters to the northwest. Rupert is currently browsing the trees to the east. All is peaceful.
Nonetheless, you find yourself afflicted by a vague sense of dread.
Theodore: Ride on Jack's shoulder to be useful later!
Ariadne: put skill points into geokinesis!
Jack: lead our party back to wherever we got the loyal grunts.
>>519
Jack clearly still has trouble trusting you, but eventually you persuade her to let you curl up around the back of her neck. This arrangement proves somewhat uncomfortable for all involved, and with her every step you are jittered to and fro in a manner most frightful. She is a poor substitute indeed for Rupert.
You are now playing as Ariadne Aaronova.
You assign your two newly acquired skill points to geokinesis, unlocking the following skills:
You are now playing as Jack Aaronova.
Your new animate scarf is rather weighing upon your nerves, especially given its sharp claws and incessant fidgeting. The loyal - more or less, barring that one who turned on you on the riverside - grunts were, naturally, both members of your own tribe, from this very camp. You had recruited the two of them as meatshields while you scouted the area, looking for that mysterious undead girl you decided to help kill back at >>423,424. You tried searching for her along the path where you first saw her back at >>380, but there was no sign of her.
As you have already safely led your party back to your tribe's camp, from which you got the grunts, you decide it might be a good time to rest and recuperate. Indeed, you could really do with some sleep and, by the looks of her, so could your dear sister Ariadne. Just as you turn and head for the shelters, however, you hear a sharp intake of breath from behind you.
Turning around, you see Ariadne hunched over the ceremonial altar, running her hands over the inscriptions. On closer inspection, one of the large, central engravings on the upper face actually looks a lot like her, right down to the frilly dress. The other human figure sort of resembles you - though, then again, it could just as easily be your clone.
Ariadne says, haltingly, quietly at first, but with growing conviction, "I... I remember... Yes, I remember everything! Th-the plan! My plan - oh, what have I been doing‽ I have to - ah!"
She looks up suddenly. Following her gaze, you find that the each of the grunts who were recently killed in action are back on their feet, apparently indifferent to their various shattered skulls and gruesome puncture wounds. There is at least eight of them; more might be concealed from view by the trees. Their advance is slow, but relentless. A small, dense kernel of guilt forms in your stomach as you remember that this is your fault.
You happen to note that you have three unspent skill points left over from the battle.
Allocate skill points to aerokinesis. Ask Ariadne for advice.
Theodore: try to hypnotise the undead. If that fails, just meow uselessly.
Ariadne: make a sexy ass rock scythe out of our golems. Not too heavy for us to wield. Nice and sharp for cutting off zombie heads.
lift penis
>>521
Suspecting that ailuromancy has helped you about as much as it's going to, you change tack and instead see if this aerokinesis business might help. You have unlocked the following skills:
You entreat Ariadne for some advice in military tact, suggesting, perhaps, constructing a choke point, or trying to flank the enemy. She turns to you, an odd glint in her eye, and says "I'm not called Ar-- actually, never mind that. If I were you I'd just create a distraction and make a tactical retreat. Speaking of which, I'm afraid I've pressing business elsewhere with a certain girl who looks a lot like you. Adieu!" With a shrewd smile and a flutter of the hand, she begins to levitate and silently glides away over the trees and into the night sky.
Via your cat possession (passive skill), you are now playing as Theodore.
Unfortunately, you find that your temporary hypnosis (active skill) only works on conscious, sentient creatures. You meow mournfully right into Jack's ear. She does not appear to appreciate your contribution.
>>522
You are now playing as Ariadne Aaronova.
Your head is still spinning from your sudden influx of memories. You still remember how to levitate - how could someone forget something so fun! - but some of your more distant memories are a little fuzzy. You do, however, vividly remember your plan, and are quite singleminded in your desire to see its fruition.
Well, not quite singleminded enough to forget one other minor point of business on the way. You float elegantly back to the clearing, whisk by over Jack's head (you're glad you thought to wear so many frilly petticoats, otherwise those on the surface might see something immodest) and aim the little mechanical trinket Jack kindly gave you at the centre of the advancing horde. You pull the trigger and a web of lightning flashes from the tip, lancing through the ground and the grunt corpses. They collapse to the ground, spasming and twitching harmlessly.
Now safe from unwanted gentlemanly advances, you descend and reconvene your little Furies. It takes a while to find Alecto, as she'd ended up outside the clearing, but you manage without incident. Finally, you press the three together and transmute them into a lovely new stone farming implement. As it is approximately three kilograms in weight, this sets you back by 60 mana, leaving you 90 remaining.
There wasn't quite enough material to make a full length handle, so it's more like a sickle than a scythe, but its compactness is probably a virtue. Unfortunately the metamorphic rock comprising it cannot hold a very sharp edge - on the other hand, the banding is rather aesthetically pleasing. You test it out on a nearby grunt. To your disappointment, it takes three hacks to achieve full decapitation.
Come to think of it, this weapon reminds you of a certain other scythe you saw or heard about somewhere. Hmm, what was it called... something about donkeys... bad donkeys... and - that's right! Jacqueline dying horribly! What pleasant memories. Perhaps you could name this one as well, as a homage of sorts.
Jack and Theodore are staring at you warily from across the clearing. In the forest to the east, Rupert has stopped ruminating and is instead stamping around nervously, perhaps disturbed by the electrical discharge. Unless there's anything else pressing, you really ought to go see Conundrum-chan.
>>523
A fine, upstanding young lady like yourself wouldn't be seen doing anything like that. The penises can lift themselves, thank you very much.
Ride Rupert to Conundrum-chan!
ride through the jungle on a brontosaurus with no name
be certain that said brontosaurus is Brobdingnagian.
>>525
May as well travel in style, you reflect. Indeed, arriving on brontosaurusback should provide a good topic of light conversation, and perhaps allow you to avoid the thorny issue of the fact that you declared love for one another and kissed passionately last time you met. Of course, you weren't in your right mind then. It goes without saying that you don't really feel that way about her - how absurd! I mean, a girl loving another girl? That's not normal!
Shaking your head briskly, you mount Rupert and embark westwards, making sure to trample a few grunt corpses on the way for good measure. Jack and Theodore appear to have prudently taken your advice and already made themselves scarce. You march inexorably through the moonlit trees until arriving at the riverbank. Unfortunately, the Palriga Canal, though majestic, has blocked off that particular route to Conundrum-chan's previous residence in the underground cloning facility - not to mention, there's no way Rupert would fit down there.
Well, it'll take more than that to stop you. You will your pantagruelian steed onwards into the thick, dark waters. After some initial hesitation, he wades slowly into the river, just barely resisting the forceful currents and swirling eddies.
>>526
You wish you could, but the only brontosaurus available has already been nomenclated. In fact, you rather suspect the task to be impossible, as even an ostensibly nameless brontosaurus would implicitly be called the brontosaurus with no name. Indeed, the word brontosaurus is itself, in a sense, a name.
>>527
Though fairly average sized amongst Sauropoda, Rupert towers uncontested above all other fauna in the area. He is like an anachronism born of some primordial time ruled by gods and titans. You rub his scaly neck affectionately.
After what seems an eternity, you arrive at the opposite bank, and then at the small clearing with the odd white building where you landed with the jetpacks back at >>410. Sitting in front of the building you find that man - what did he call himself again? Aaron, that was it - sitting before a modest campfire. Jimmy is lying curled up in his lap, fast asleep.
"Ariadne! Thank goodness you're here!" he exclaims as soon as he sees you, "Something terrible has happened underground. Conundrum-chan is... well, you'd better see for yourself..." He trails off uncertainly. You're not sure you trust this man, after he shamelessly took advantage of your amnesia to masquerade as your father. He's probably one of these detestable lolicon types.
Express all of our conflicting feelings in the form of a song.
Sing a song that uses the phrase "Brobdingnagian brontosaurus" liberally in the lyrics.
Take an apple juice break.
Get off Rupert and go inside.
Be Aaron. As soon as Ariadne has gone a few steps inside, throw Jimmy at her and shut the door behind them, then run as fast as possible in the other direction.
Apologize for all the racially insensitive references towards the noble people of Brobdingnag in this story.
>>532
Unable to admit your own apprehension at descending into the foreboding depths, you stall for time by exclaiming how very parched your throat is, and how you'd like a nice drink of apple juice before starting anything new. Aaron asks you to wait there and disappears indoors. He returns thirty seconds later holding an unmarked plastic bottle of water, which he offers to you proudly.
You smack it from his hands, onto the ground. "Does this look like apple juice to you?" you demand. He stares dejectedly down at his feet and mumbles some vague apology.
>>533
Well, that's enough of that, you decide. Leaving Rupert behind - you're quite sure he can fend for himself - you slowly make your way into the building, Aaron following nervously a few steps behind.
You cannot play as Aaron; you can only play as members of your current party.
As soon as you've gone a few steps inside, you wrench Jimmy from Aaron's grip, throw her in the air, slam the outer door shut behind yourselves and, narrowly avoiding the yowling mass of fur and claws now descending from the ceiling, run along the corridor and down the spiral staircase. You keep running, feet tapping away against the narrow stone steps, corkscrewing ever downwards. You don't look back.
Breathing hard, you finally emerge into the cloning facility. A cursory glance reveals no more of the cloning pods have been opened since you were last here. The waters of the Palriga Canal are flowing steadily from the mouth of the northeast tunnel down to the southeast. You notice that the door on the south wall that was previously padlocked shut is currently ajar. Curiosity piqued, you crane your neck around the edge and peek inside. It's very bright inside, but, straining your eyes, you manage to make out - my god, it's-- !
You hear footsteps approaching behind you. You turn to see Aaron, with a strange smile on his lips. Before your very eyes, his form blurs and transforms into that of Jack Conundrum-chan. Ah yes, you forgot she had that ability. Still smiling, she takes a step closer and says, simply, "Sorry Cassie-chan, but there's been a change of plans."
>>534
"I-I'm sorry" you manage to stammer out. Then, all at once, Conundrum-chan makes a violent movement too fast for you to decipher, you see a flash of light and feel a burst of pain, and then all is dark and silent. You cannot feel or sense a thing. This state continues for a while; you aren't sure how long. It seems like only a second or two, yet you awaken with that unmistakeable lethargic, contented feeling after sleeping for longer than normal.
You open your eyes. You find yourself sat at a large round table with a white tablecloth. The table is laden with frilly doilies, various tea making paraphernalia, small plates of biscuits, cakes, sandwiches, fresh and dried fruit, and other such innocent niceties. Sat opposite you, next to one another, are Alexei and Jacqueline. Two seats over to their right is Aaron - perhaps the real one, this time. They are each dressed in fine, smart clothing - suits and evening dresses, as appropriate - with clean, well styled hair, and beautiful, unblemished appearances. The only exception is Jacqueline, who has a white bandage wrapped tightly around her face covering both eyes. They are all smiling warmly.
Looking around, you appear to be in the base of a wooded glen. A small stream gurgles nearby. Birds sing from the branches. The sun shines from amidst wisps of cirrus and clumps of cumulus. A light, cool breeze blows intermittently. The serenity is almost surreal.
Returning your attention to the table, you find that all three present are looking at you. "So glad you could join us, Cassandra! Or was it Ariadne?" says Alexei jovially. "At any rate, would you like a cup of tea?" "B-but you're dead..." you object. Indeed, you vividly recall seeing him explode and die horribly. "Well yes, we're all dead here." he concedes. "Anyway, tea?"
Say that you would prefer apple juice.
take the res sickness and revive at the spirit healer
Become a guiding spirit for Jack Aaronova.
put face firmly between dead man's buttocks
deeply inhale
get shot nine times for your money
Rub the dead man's buttocks to summon the genie of the butt (this butt).
>>536
You decide to play along for now. First of all, you never managed to take that apple juice break you wanted. You politely request some nice cloudy apple juice, which Alexei kindly obliges, citing your earlier demand back at >>401,404. "Hope this makes up for my singing, eh?" He jokes, handing you a tall glass containing an opaque green liquid, which you cautiously sip at.
It is wonderful. Cool enough to refresh, but not so cold as to impair the taste; thick, but not fibrous; full and deep in flavour, with hints of citrus. If you were an apple, to become part of a juice like this is all you could ever wish for. Before you know it you've emptied the entire glass.
>>537
You close your eyes and hope that some kind soul will come by your lifeless corpse, heal your spirit and resuscitate you - I mean, who wouldn't want to perform mouth-to-mouth on such a beautiful, alluring young lady as yourself? You wouldn't even mind if this caused some sort of abstract illness, just so long as you could be alive again. You aren't ready for the afterlife just yet.
>>538
As your revival doesn't appear to be forthcoming, you open your eyes again. Aaron is just concluding a joke or story of some sort that you weren't listening to. "...So then he bursts in, shouting "Look everyone, I just proved the Jacobian conjecture!"" The three burst into peals of laughter, Alexei slapping his knee enthusiastically. Sensing an opening in the conversation, you enquire as to how you might go about influencing the world of the living, perhaps specifically that Aaronova girl.
They casually admit that they don't know about anything like that. "Now that we're in paradise," counters Aaron, "Why worry about past lives? Here, have a scone instead. The clotted cream is to die for!"
>>539
Politely declining, you decide more drastic measures are needed to verify that you really have joined the ranks of the dead. Vision is easily fooled; olfaction less so. Aaron looks quite living - for that matter, you didn't even know he was dead until you met him here - and you didn't see Jacqueline die either. You choose to focus on Alexei, as he is most certain to be dead.
You rise from your seat and demand that Alexei follow suit. Ignoring the impropriety of your actions, you crouch and take a deep breath of his derrière. It smells like fresh laundry drying outside on a windy day. Well, at any rate, he doesn't smell like the reanimated corpse of an eccentric theoretical physicist, so you can safely discard that idea.
>>540
Perhaps, you hypothesise, if you die here, you'll go back to the real world? Well, it's not like you've any better ideas. Unfortunately, nobody is willing - or able - to shoot you repeatedly, not even with the promise of monetary reimbursement.
>>541
You give Alexei's backside a gentle pat and fondle, just for good measure. He clears his throat uncomfortably and returns to his seat. No genies emerge.
It seems you're here for the long haul. Maybe you could try interrogating the locals, or reconnoitring the surroundings, or coming to peace with your past sins, or just gorging yourself on light confectionery.
Go find the ghosts of Vladimir Lenin and Kim il Sung and join with them to lead a Socialist revolution and install ourself as Chairman for Life of the People's Republic of Heaven.
Ask for a cigarette.
Follow the stream upstream, back to the world of the living.
>>543
Now that you think about it, if this really is the afterlife then it ought to be a little better populated. I mean, not just the famous historical figures, but you distinctly recall brutally murdering several grunts. Perhaps the other dead are elsewhere in this place, or perhaps they went to a different afterlife. You decide to go off searching to see for yourself. Who knows? Perhaps you might happen across some famous communist dictators.
Turning your back on the tea party, you head into the woods, climbing generally uphill and out of the little valley. The trees are sparsely set, and their branches allow plenty of sunlight through. The forest floor is littered with pine needles and patches of clover. You wander for about an hour, finding several grassy clearings, banks of wildflowers, songbirds, colourful insects, wild rabbits and other such lovely things, but nothing human. Disappointed, you return to where you started. The three of them are still sitting around just as they were when you left.
Ghosts or no ghosts, it's time to take a stand. "Comrades!" you entreat, banging a fist on the table, "It is time for a revolution! No longer shall we suffer at the hands of the bourgeoisie; under my benevolent rule we shall live in a fair and equal paradise, which I hereby name the People's Republic of Heaven!" Alexei laughs and toasts to your success, apparently happy with the arrangement. Aaron objects, in mock seriousness, to the name of your new state, saying that he thinks it seems more like Elysium or perhaps the Asphodel Meadows rather than Heaven. Jacqueline smiles warmly, but says nothing.
>>544
You decide to exercise your new power. Best to start simple, though. Your demand for a cigarette is met with troubled glances, as none present seem to possess anything of the sort, but after a moment's head scratching you notice one perched on the edge of the saucer in front of you. How odd, you don't remember seeing it there earlier.
>>545
Happy that your budding communist utopia can govern itself in your absence, you decide to go for a second expedition, this time to the source of the little brook nearby. You follow it upwards through patches of forest and small fields of bracken, then through rocky outcroppings and alpine meadows. You find its source: a small waterfall - little more than a trickle down the side of a cliff - above a round mountain lake, no more than ten metres across. The surface of the water is perfectly still, reflecting the open sky. It's very pretty, even if it isn't what you were looking for.
There's something odd about the reflection, though. Whilst the blue parts should be solid colour - with, at most, a slight gradient - the more you look, the more you begin to notice faint lines, or seams in the texture. You cannot tell for certain whether it is the outline of something under the water, or faint ripples on the surface, or even the reflection of something in the sky.
Put the cigarette between your lips. Don't light it, just hold it there and waggle it from time to time.
Pee on reflection of sky in lake.
Dive in and go as deep as possible. Breathe in.
go to space through the lake using gap wizardry
>>547
Now that you no longer need to worry about dying slowly and painfully of cancer, you decide you may as well try one of these little bundles of addiction and carcinogenesis. Well, when you say "try", you're not sure you really want to inhale all that foul smelling smoke; you'd rather just stick it in your mouth and look cool. So you do.
>>548
Whilst slipping off your pantsu, you ponder your own sudden desire to defile that which is tranquil, questioning whether it is simply a reflexive retaliation against the saccharine toothlessness of your new environment, or the directionless rebellion common to teenage girls, or some deeper animalistic cruelty of the human psyche, or perhaps just that you drank all that apple juice earlier and it has to come out somehow.
You squat in place and relieve yourself into the lake. Ripples play on the surface as your efflux joins the clear mountain waters. Bladder emptied, you breathe a sigh of satisfaction and put your pantsu back on.
>>549
Throwing all caution to the wind, still fully clothed, you take a run up and dive headfirst into the lake. Thankfully, it proves to be amply deep enough. It is bracingly cold, but the sensation is not unpleasant. You keep diving, pushing, kicking ever deeper, towards whatever lies at the bottom. You keep going for several metres; much deeper than the lake really has any right to be. You open your eyes, but the light doesn't reach this far down. Lungs burning, you press on, waiting for your arms to brush against that silty surface which must be just in front of you, but the moment doesn't come.
You realise you already haven't enough breath to get all the way back to the surface. Whether deliberately or by instinct you aren't sure, but you suddenly and sharply inhale through your mouth. The freezing lake water shoots into your mouth, down your trachea and into your lungs. You try to cough but cannot. You flail about, suddenly unaware even which way is up, suffocating in slow agony. Eventually all goes dark. In your final moments you think you hear a mechanical voice saying something about errors or exceptions or ejection or something like that.
>>550
You return to consciousness, unsure how much time has passed. You fill your lungs in one deep, panicked breath, but find yourself in air and in no danger of drowning anyway. You open your eyes and slowly sit up, sore all over and with a dull headache. You are in a small square room, much like the office with the cloning console where you confessed to Conundrum-chan (what were you thinking‽).
In the centre of the room is an obsidian cube, with various cables emerging from its upper face. Lying splayed out around it are the unconscious bodies of Jacqueline, Alexei and Aaron, each with cables leading into their mouth, ears and nostrils, and with what appears to be electroencephalography apparatus attached to their scalps. Another, thicker cable leads away to the southwest corner of the wall and disappears behind a shelf.
With a start, you realise that you are still plugged in yourself, and immediately extract all the nodes from your facial orifices. More bizarrely still, your clothes are still damp, and there is even the soggy remains of a cigarette lodged in the corner of your mouth. Free for now, you decide to take a look around.
There are shelves on three sides of the room, each covered in unmarked cardboard boxes. A bare halogen light bulb dangles from the ceiling. On the north wall is a thick set steel door. You try the handle, but it is locked; if this is where you think it is, it's probably padlocked from the other side.
Well, this isn't space, but your miraculous teleportation certainly does seem like some sort of wizardry.
Carefully attempt to disconnect Alexei from the machine, removing the apparatuses one by one.
>>552
You cautiously tug the cables from Alexei's mouth, nose and ears, as though pulling spaghetti from a live electrical socket. Besides some slight facial twitches, there is no response. Breath held nervously, you peel away the net of sensors on his head. He remains lying exactly as before, eyes closed, breathing shallowly.
Just as you are fearing you might've done some permanent damage, his eyelids flutter open and he sits up, cradling his head and muttering something incomprehensible. He looks blearily around at the small room. "B-but..." he begins, as though protesting that reality itself is being unfair. He stares at you, then at the palms of his hands, then down at Jacqueline.
"Dammit, no!" he barks suddenly. Before you can stop him, he roughly wraps the EEG sensors over his scalp and shoves the cables back into his face. As the last one strikes home, he loses consciousness and collapses back onto the floor. Well, you can't entirely blame him.
Draw penises on unconscious people's cheeks, then begin exploring the rest of the area.
Look for a ventilation grate
>>554
You begin investigate the boxes on the shelves, seeking some sort of drawing implement for mischievous purposes. Many of them are empty, or contain nothing but wrapping paper or bubble wrap. Those that aren't empty contain generic mining/spelunking paraphernalia, or vacuum packed rations. Finally, you happen across a single biro, with its end chewed, in amongst a pile of risk assessment forms. You duly decorate the cheeks of the three dreamers with little phalli. That'll teach them to live in a false reality!
Feeling fulfilled, you turn back to searching the shelves - after all, there isn't much else to explore around here. After a while, you realise, firstly, that all the boxes show signs of having been opened, and secondly, judging by the tool-shaped depressions in the linings of some of the boxes, everything potentially useful appears to have been removed. There's a lot of paperwork, stationery, rock samples and suchlike, but not much of any practical use. You do, however, still have in your inventory your trusty geologist's hammer, the stone sickle you crafted earlier, and that odd white gun thing Jack gave you back at >>504.
Just as you are considering abandoning your search, you find, in a small box at the back of one of the shelves, concealed by a layer of wax paper, four long, cylindrical red objects. Initially you mistake them for candles, before noticing the long fuses emerging from their tips. They appear to be sticks of dynamite.
>>555
You inspect the walls behind each of the shelves, searching for the ever convenient human sized ventilation duct. You find that the cable leading from the cube in the centre of the room towards the southwest corner continues into a hole at the base of the wall, heading westwards. The hole is only five centimetres in diameter, and you can barely fit your hand in it. There is a very slight airflow coming from it, and, pressing your eye to the opening, you can see light coming from the other end.
use one of the pickaxes to mine through to the other side of the wall
grow penis
Take dynamite. Put one of the sticks in the hole at the base of the wall. Stand far away and shoot it with the white gun thing.
Collect the most wieldly severed limb to use as a bludgeoning weapon.
NOOOOO NOT AARON! :'( Aaron was the true protagonist. The everyman. The one with whom we pitiful, wretched mortals could most sympathize. And now he is limbless.
Put skill points into geokinesis. Rock and roll.
summon our stand and strike a fabulous homoerotic pose
remove game cartridge, insert Cho Aniki.
If the previous game featured Batman, insert it into the anus of an AVGN actor.
>>561
You crawl over to the midst of the carnage and take Jacqueline's lower left leg. The femur has snapped just below the knee, with much of the flesh blasted from the bone, leaving a handle of sorts. There's still some burnt scraps of that gaudy pink dress she was wearing clinging to the skin. There isn't really enough space to hold with both hands, so you're not sure how effective it'd be as a bludgeoning weapon, but in terms of psychological warfare it should prove quite effective.
>>562
You choke back a sob as you pass by the mutilated corpse of your foster father. You try to remind yourself of the time he almost killed you back at >>295,300 but somehow you can't bring yourself to hate him. He was an idiot and a coward, but an honest, well meaning, loveable one. He didn't deserve this.
So as to make sure his death wasn't entirely in vain, you use the skill point you gained from him - as well as that from Jacqueline - to further your own skills in geological manipulation. You thereby unlock the following skills:
You rock from side to side and do a forward roll. You still feel a little dazed from the explosion - you hope it isn't concussion - and end up falling over into Aaron's remains. If you weren't covered in blood enough before, you certainly are now.
>>563
You summon your balance and get to your feet. From your standing position you can see, in the next room, a body lying half buried in debris. It's Conundrum-chan. Next to, around, and on top of her lie the shattered remains of the desk and computer terminal that were on the south wall of the room. Various of the shelves have also collapsed and spilled their contents.
At the sight of her, your heart skips, and you cannot help but clasp your hands together, tilt your head slightly to one side and sigh longingly. Memories of that long, passionate kiss you shared with her flit through your head. If your life were a yuri manga, you'd probably be surrounded by illustrations of roses in bloom and sparkles right now.
>>564
No! What are you doing‽ Besides the fact that you are definitely not sexually attracted to that girl, she's clearly injured and needs your help. You cast aside your playful, toying mentality as though it were some simple removable module, replacing it with feelings of brotherly love. You stumble through the rubble and fallen masonry to her side, and survey her predicament.
It seems the desk fell onto her. Though this shielded her from much of the blast, it and the remains of the computer have her pinned to the ground. You pull her to safety and inspect her wounds. She is bleeding fairly severely from both thighs, with more minor lacerations to her chest, face and right arm. Her left arm is badly crushed and probably broken. Two fingers are missing from her right hand, but judging by the scar tissue this is clearly an old wound. She is unconscious, breathing shallowly and fitfully. Her pulse is fast.
As a true aniki, you feel you should treat her injuries, but you aren't quite sure how. If there were any medical supplies here, they're probably destroyed by now. You might be able to obtain water to wash her wounds from the Palriga, but you don't know how clean it would be. Alternatively, the door out is open, and she did betray you, after all. You could just leave her behind.
>>565
Whatever your previous thoughts, you're fairly certain they didn't involve any masked vigilantes with chiropterophilia.
Go ahead and clean Jack's wounds, then bandage with the shredded clothing if possible. Encourage her with an admonition of "Don't die, poopy head."
Search broken computer for wires to use as a tourniquet for Jack's wounds. Cut them with Jack's ceremonial stone knife if she still has it, otherwise make a small knife by using stone sharpening on one of the bits of shrapnel.
Actually Batman would've been a chiropterophobic, according to the backstory.
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