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.
Lysandre's Trump Card
Make sacrifices to the mighty elder god, Yoghurt-Sweettooth.
>>567
Finding no clean water or disinfectant in the vicinity, you search further afield. You step outside the open door into the large square room with all the cloning pods. The Palriga has clearly been busy in your absence, and the room is flooded to about ten centimetres deep. The water surface is perfectly still, and the reflections of the overhead lights are neatly reticulated on the other side. Something about the scene seems subtly wrong to you. You feel a faint tug at some thread of memory, before you suddenly realise that all several hundred of the cloning pods are empty.
Well, there's nothing you can do about that now. Through cupped hands you bring back some of the water and wash away the blood and dust from Conundrum-chan's wounds. With effort, you tear off two strips of your petticoats and wrap them around the wounds on her legs. They are instantly soaked through with blood. "Don't die, poopy-head!" you whisper urgently in her ear. Her head shifts to one side, she coughs up a globule of blood and phlegm, and replies, weakly, "No, you're a poopy-head."
>>568
Too busy trying to save her life to keep up your side of the conversation, you search the carcass of the computer for cables - of which there are quite a few. The ceremonial stone knife is, of course, in the possession of Jack Aaronova, not Jack Conundrum-chan. In its stead, you perform stone sharpening on a large flake of red stone, probably from one of the bricks in the wall. This costs you five mana, leaving 185 remaining. The makeshift knife cuts through the cables without any resistance, and you are soon wrapping them around her upper thighs.
You blush as you realise how close your hands are to Conundrum-chan's most private and most deadly body part, then sober up as you remind yourself this may well result in the eventual amputation of her legs. She coughs again, and continues: "Yes, you're the poopy-head here. I should've known you'd betray me. I could've just killed you, you know, and instead I gave you heaven" - she breaks off in a fit of coughing - "...And this is how you repay me?" She laughs bitterly.
>>569
Instead of remorse, or vindication, or sympathy, you instead feel only a vague uncertainty as to the true origins of Batman.
>>570
Though you have, until recently, played very well with the cards fate has dealt you, you have recently cast away and discarded a great many assets that may have proven more useful were they still in play. If only you had some way of shuffling them all back into your hand! You momentarily lament the inexorable passage of time and the permanence of our actions, but lack any practical course of action.
>>571
Unless... perhaps there's some arcane skill you can unlock that might offer you a trump card of sorts? Well, you tell yourself flippantly, it's not like you've got any better plans. Of course, unlocking skills requires skill points, and skill points require blood sacrifices. You stick your head outside, but it seems that the only sapient beings nearby are you and Conundrum-chan. So be it.
You stand over her, gripping the sharpened stone shard. "What, are you going to kill me?" she asks, half facetiously, half fearfully. "Praise Sweettooth!" you scream as loud as you can, slashing deep into her throat. Blood wells and erupts from the gash, and with a single gurgle, she falls to the ground, dead.
For killing a sapient being in a ritualistic manner, you have gained two skill points and 100 mana. You monster.
Collect five (if sufficient suitable pieces are available) suitably sized chunks of rubble and craft shurikens from them.
We've gone this far...might as well put skill points into geokinesis.
design penis
open character sheet
change allegiance to "Islamic State"
chant "allahu ackbar!"
Head toward the first sound we hear.
hack apart all the corpses of the people we just killed to make sure no one reanimates them later
What the fuck is going on here
>>573
There is certainly no shortage of bits of stone scattered about the room. You gather a few together and use your stone morphing (active skill) to convert them into five hira shuriken, setting you back by twenty mana. You have 265 mana remaining. You could probably sharpen them further with your stone sharpening (active skill), but, to be honest, they seem sharp enough to cause some damage as they are, so long as you throw them hard enough.
>>574
You increase your geokinesis level to eight, unlocking the following skills:
>>575
You spend a few moments thinking about penises. Perhaps, you reflect, they'd be less disagreeable if they were softer, and had frills, and nice abstract patterns on the surface. And maybe if, instead of being tools of penetration and fluid expulsion, they were instead just used for keeping things warm. After a few more changes in a similar vein, you find that you have accidentally designed a tea cosy instead.
>>576
Your character, being an abstract amalgamation of your attitudes, skills, beliefs and values, cannot be changed so suddenly by anything short of brain damage, and certainly doesn't come in sheets. You chant a few empty syllables into the equally empty space around you, but experience no response, either internal or external.
>>577
You hear a tapping outside, so faint you almost think it your imagination, and leave the stuffy little room to investigate. Outside, on the small metal walkway running along the southern edge of the room, you find Jimmy Sphincter. She looks up at you and cocks her head expectantly. Looking around, the room is otherwise just as you left it, with the many empty cloning pods and the flooding. There are small ripples playing on the otherwise still water surface. Presumably, Jimmy must have disturbed the water recently.
Then, to your dismay, you hear a scraping noise coming from the room you were just in.
>>578
Fearing the worst, you rush back to appraise the situation. To your surprise, there are no signs of movement in any of the dead, but rather the black stone cube in the room you were locked in earlier appears to be shifting back and forth slightly. It stops as soon as you come near. Still, you refuse to take any chances.
The corpses of Alexei, Aaron and Jacqueline are already about as hacked apart as they're going to get - indeed, you are still carrying Jacqueline's dismembered leg, for reasons you can't quite recall - but Conundrum-chan's body looks all too reanimateable. Using the stone shard, you hack off each of her limbs and throw them into the pile with all the other body parts. Not that being dismembered seems to have stopped things reanimating in the past, you realise.
>>579
Come to think of it, you aren't quite sure yourself.
destroy penis
throw limbs onto the stone cube
initiate an amorous allemande to the stone cube
Having finally peed and gotten rid of that nagging discomfort, and having cast off a previous reality paradigm in blood and gunpowder, and having furthermore found a few new religious beliefs, I find myself entirely lacking in any real direction.
I feel bound to merely repeat basic things ritualistically for a while until I can recover and try to understand myself better.
I am thirsty. I must drink. I must find apple juice. If there is no apple juice nearby I must drink water. I must drink as much as I can hold without vomiting, and I must wait for my stomach to empty and drink again.
The answers will come later.
I am Jack's herniated bladder.
Relax bum
SHOW ME
SHOYU
PUNCTUAL GOMEZ, PUNCTUAL GOMEZ
>>581
You wipe your mind of any knowledge of the male genitalia. Having already overcome amnesia, such a manipulation of your own memory proves almost trivial. You annihilate your every penile association, from Freudian psychoanalysis to anatomical nomenclature, until you have forgotten even what you are forgetting or why. You have destroyed, within yourself, the very essence of the penis. The penis no longer exists to you.
>>582
You shower the cube with giant pieces of bloody confetti. Nothing happens.
>>583
Well, you think to yourself, that is one handsome cube, especially when it's all covered in the blood and mutilated corpses of almost everyone you know. You invite it to join you in a formal dance, but it just vibrates momentarily then sits still. You try using some form of rock animation (active skill) to force it to dance one way or another, but it seems to have about two orders of magnitude too much mass. How bothersome.
>>584
You sigh quietly to yourself, thinking about how you've come to this point. Perhaps it would've been better just to stay in that virtual paradise. I mean, even if the companionship left something to be desired, the apple juice was simply divine... Alas, even if there was apple juice in this damned place at some point, it's long since been vaporised by your explosive escape.
Still, your mouth is dry, and your throat aches for lack of lubrication. You stagger away, into the main room, off the walkway and into the water. You begin by drinking it daintily from cupped hands, before leaning closer and lapping it like a dog, then just pressing your face below the surface and swallowing it down in thick gulps. The water is cool and refreshing, with an earthy, slightly metallic taste. You cannot stop drinking.
You close your eyes. You imagine the entire Palriga Canal flowing into your mouth. You consume, consume, your body nothing but a vessel. Through some combination of exhaustion, water intoxication and, perhaps, regret at killing everyone, you let your head sink into the wall and quietly pass out, face down in the closing water. Somewhere, from a great distance, a vaguely familiar voice says something about errors.
You awaken to a dull headache and a bitter taste in the back of your mouth. You open your eyes, and are immediately thrown by a wave of déjà vu. You are in the exact same room you woke up in last time, complete with the shelves, locked door, cube, cables, and Aaron, Alexei and Jacqueline, peacefully sleeping as though their limbs had been attached the whole time. Which they had, come to think of it.
That bitch! She put you in a simulation inside another simulation!
>>585
You cannot play as Jack's herniated bladder; you can only play as members of your current party.
>>586
You calm yourself down, reminding yourself that anger rarely helps solve problems like this. Having relaxed a little, you try to "bum" a "fag" from Aaron, as those wacky Americans would say (or rather, ask for a cigarette, as you did back at >>544,546). He remains obstinately unconscious.
>>587
You demand to be shown reality as it truly is, or you'll show everyone just what you're truly capable of. It's no empty threat. When no response is forthcoming in any punctual capacity, you decide to investigate for yourself, and soon find some discrepancies between this and your previous existence: when you awoke last time, you still had everything you had had in your inventory previously - in fact, your dress was still wet - whereas this time you have nothing but the (dry) clothes on your back. Unbidden, you think about how Conundrum-chan must've run her hands down your body while you were unconscious to find and confiscate all your concealed weaponry, wondering, perhaps, just how thorough her search might've been, before violently shaking the thought from your head.
Interestingly, your skills and mana seem to have carried over. You are unsure of the full philosophical implications of this fact.
Physically, the room seems to be the same as before; the door is still locked, the hole in the wall is still there, and the shelves and their contents are in the same positions you found them - including the dynamite.
Smoke dynamite like a cigar as if you are a Looney Toon.
Extinguish the fuse on the dynamite out at the last second by shoving it in Alexei's ass.
Praise Zardoz
Disregard software vegans, acquire hydration.
If it was merely a simulation, I have yet to quench my thirst.
Jesus is a friend of mine (I have a friend in Jesus)
I'd drink Gatorade, but I'm afraid that Brominated Vegetable Oil will slowly turn me into a bro.
Embrace your inner bro.
Embrace your innards, bro. They're with you for life.
>>591
Like a cartoon lunatic, you carefully pluck a single stick from the box and stick the end in your mouth. It tastes oily but sweet, with a burning undertone. It does not taste like the sort of thing one should put in one's mouth. Well, you've come this far... You blow a confident puff of air into the thick red stick, as though smoking a cigar, but find you have to clamp your lips onto it in order to keep it from falling out of your mouth. This pressure is enough to cause it to detonate, blowing you and everyone else in the room to smithereens.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 22
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>590)
>>592
You cannot be entirely certain whether you are now living in reality, or simply another nested simulation, so you decide that you had best be clear about precisely what sort of simulation you are or are not willing to participate in. You lecture the stone cube, as it seems as good an audience as any. You feel slightly uplifted, as though more in control, however slightly. Just as you are winding down, you remember to specify that you mean free as in freedom, not free as in free beer.
>>593
None of the fuses on any of the sticks of dynamite are lit, thankfully - that would be quite a predicament! - but nonetheless it doesn't hurt to be safe. You extinguish it in the most gratuitous and inappropriate manner imaginable: by pulling down Alexei's trousers and thrusting it between his buttocks. The dynamite, however, does not appear amenable to this course of events, and expresses this by violently detonating. Alexei explodes for the second time. Nothing is left of you but a smear of blood, hair and unidentifiable organic bits painting one side of the room.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 23
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>590)
>>594
"Wow, Zardoz!" you exclaim, just in case he happens to be listening, "You have such a lovely giant stone head! And your bellicist philosophy is so insightful! Keep up the good work, Zardoz!" There is no response.
>>595
All this Zardoz-praising is thirsty work, you find. You search high and low for some bottled water or something like that, without success. Your throat is a little dry, but you aren't quite at the point of resorting to bodily fluids for hydration.
>>596
You call upon your friend Jesus, to no avail. Well, if he were truly your friend, he wouldn't let you go thirsty and trapped in here as you are!
>>597
You think about what sort of fluids you'd like to drink. Those energy drinks are supposedly good for combating dehydration, you seem to recall, but there's something you find vaguely offputting about brominated vegetable oil. Those long, flexible strands dangling from the glycerol head, aliphatic but for their oversized, fuzzy bromine substituents - it's like a jellyfish waiting to sting. Who can guess what such a substance might do to you?
>>598
You embrace your inner onii-chan - that part of you that was always protective of your beloved imouto. Lacking any other suitable outlet, you fawn over the sleeping Jacqueline, before jealously separating her from Alexei and Aaron. They're not to sleep next to your little sister.
>>599
You hug yourself and, implicitly, the viscera lurking beneath your skin. You feel a warm appreciation for their various exotic and interrelated functions, from the biochemical to the genetic to the cellular to the organic level. You will, surely, be with them until death do you part.