We seem to have lost contact with the Control Tower [Grinding Noises][Part II] (855)

1 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-7715 22:52

Previously:
http://4-ch.net/dqn/kareha.pl/1341413503/

For a moment you stand, perfectly still, in the half-light of the laboratory, listening to the slow, steady tapping of the two sets of footsteps as they draw ever closer. Somewhere in the building a clock strikes twelve, the deafening sound reverberating through everything around you. The footsteps stop. Without meaning to, you hold your breath.

>>/994
As it may well be your last opportunity, you lunge forwards, grab the computer monitor and tear it from the wall. The cable pulls taught and snaps at the base in a shower of sparks. The lights go out, plunging you into complete darkness. There is a startled yelp from the North, most likely from Mecha Alexei.

>>/995
Fearing Cassandra-chan may be planning to ambush you from the darkness, you strike out wildly in every direction. You accidentally bump into a workbench, knocking several pieces of glassware to the ground, where they shatter. "Who's there? Show yourself!" demands the voice from the North. Despite the assertive tone, their voice is clearly shaking.

>>/996
You bite into the darkness, but your teeth encounter no resistance. You try to metamorphosise into the darkness itself, but find that you require level 12 telekinesis, level 5 healing, level 5 thaumaturgy and 75 mana to shapeshift. You currently have level 10 telekinesis, level 6 healing, level 2 thaumaturgy and 720 mana. You also have four unspent skillpoints.

>>/997
You try to contract all your skeletal muscles at once. You don't really know anything about sweaty homos or how they grunt, but go ahead and make a fairly low, masculine snorting sound.

>>/998
You make a point of not starting any new threads - not that you'd be able to anyway in your present situation. As it so happens, one starts itself anyway, completely outside of your control.

>>/999
You attempt to summon the power of the >>1000GET, but find yourself a single permille off. How embarrassing!

That very second, the clock stops chiming and the ringing fades away into the impenetrable blackness all around you. You hear an all-too-familiar voice behind you, luring you from your relative safety like a siren's call: "Oh Conundrum-chan, I'm waiting for you in the garden..."

701 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8052 06:09

Murder all the Jacks for those juicy experience points and mana, then go northeast to investigate.

702 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8052 06:21

Murder the Jacks by ritualistically stabbing them in the back, using atmospheric heat to subdue them if necessary.

703 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8053 08:49

Grumpy wizards make toxic brew for the evil queen and Jack.

704 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8053 15:29

Stand there mindboggled as you realize >>703 is a pangram.

705 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8053 20:21

Gaze at my five whipped Jacks in the liquor box.

706 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8055 21:28

>>701,702
Striking from amidst the gale like a forgotten coursework deadline at the end of term, you descend upon a lone Jack and brutally stab her in the upper spine, chanting wildly as loud as you can. She collapses forwards, dead, releasing to you two skill points and a hundred mana. All Jacks nearby scream and try to run away like a startled flock. You manage a few grazing slashes, but are able to catch and ritualistically murder only one more before the vortex weakens and disperses.

Despite their ditzy demeanour, they turn out to be surprisingly well coordinated when it comes to evading being murdered. They hide frustratingly just out of sight behind the cloning pods, slipping in and out of your peripheral vision, making feints and generally being anywhere but on the end of your knife. You can't even use your aerokinesis powers to stop them as you aren't sure where they are. Before you know it, they have all escaped in one direction or another, and you are alone in the vast room. It suddenly becomes a very quiet and lonely place.

For killing two sapient beings in a ritualistic manner, you have gained four skillpoints and 200 mana.

You head to the northeast, where the mouth of the Palriga is and where you heard that odd voice commanding the Jacks, but find nobody there. The tunnel opening looms wide and dark before you. Continuing your investigation, you head inside. There are many thin, winding tunnels, some running with water and others not, all in pitch darkness. As your eyes adjust you notice a faint glow to the south. You head towards it, eventually finding yourself in some sort of large underground forest, not unlike the one seen back at >>616.

You turn your head to one side and are startled to find a person standing right next to you, half a metre away at most. You cannot see them well in the faint light of the glowing fungus, but they are rather tall, dressed in something white and close fitting, and you can't quite work out whether they're male or female. "Would you like a hug?" they offer in an androgynous voice - the same one you were seeking.

>>703
Is... is this person a wizard? Are they trying to get close to you in order to poison you and other powerful, evil women like you? Distrustful of the wizard's placid smile and open arms, you take a step back, grip your stone knife and prepare to defend yourself.

>>704
At this most vital and threatening time, you find your mind boggled by something completely irrelevant. The wizard, noting your confusion, explains that haptic communication is important for humans such as yourself, and has been shown to increase levels of oxytocin (which promotes interpersonal bonding) and reduce levels of cortisol (involved in stress). They add that if hugging is not to your liking then they would be just as happy to offer some light tickling or a massage.

>>705
Looking around for liquor boxes, you happen to catch sight of several Jacks, hiding behind and amongst the various strange organic structures nearby. They are watching you with warm curiosity. There are more than five of them, and none appear to have been whipped. Yet.

707 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8056 00:19

Accept the hug, then stab the androgynous maybe-wizard in the back. Literally.

708 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8057 22:26

>>707
You nod your head solemnly and submit to the wizard's embrace. Their arms wrap tightly around your back and their torso presses against yours, but they are kept at a slight remove by your trilobite plate armour. You feel a strange warmth spreading through your body, dampened by that very distance. It's like the hedgehog's dilemma. If you allow them closer - beneath your armour - then you make yourself vulnerable to attack by others. If not, then you remain isolated and unable to hug or be hugged in earnest.

You find yourself suddenly revolted by these ridiculous girlish pinings. Yes, you decide, before this insidious "hugging" addles your brain any further, you'll make sure this wizard wishes they were wearing armour like you! Behind their back, you extend your hand holding the knife and then plunge it into their spine as hard as you can. It bounces off with a faint metallic plunk. Your breath catches in your throat.

The wizard lets go and commiserates that they'd love to stay and hug you more, but they must be off. They say that they are worried for the mental health of their mistress (who recently transformed into a tentacle monster, and may be suffering some form of bodily dysphoria), hence all the Jacks being sent in to hug her. You were just collateral. With a cheery goodbye, the wizard vanishes into the darkness, surrounded by rustling and giggling as the Jacks follow them.

You are left alone in a small clearing. You find yourself somewhat disorientated, unable to recall which direction you came from. There are a few glowing bulbous fungi dotted around, mostly ahead of you. Countless tall, tubular structures rise from the ground all around you. They are especially thick in the area behind you and to your left. There is also a faint breeze coming from your left. As you are stood there wondering what to do, you hear a scream come from ahead and slightly to your right.

709 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8058 03:41

Eat the fungi.

710 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8059 14:50

Practice rolling on the ground

711 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8059 23:11

>>709
Curious, you walk over to the glowing fungus and carefully inspect it. It consists of many long, thin glabrous stalks, each with a row of luminescent white bell-shaped organs hanging from it. It is cold and slightly slimy to the touch, and gives off no particular odour. With trepidation, you pluck one of the fruits, stick it in your mouth, chew and swallow. It is incredibly bitter and acrid in taste, and almost earns itself a return journey up your oesophagus, though you manage to keep it down.

But why stop there? That's only one of an entire kingdom of life out there waiting to be eaten! You gather specimens of every fungus you can find, from the stipitate to the hirsute, and wolf them down voraciously. After sampling one particularly elusive little mushroom, you find yourself suddenly unable to move. You fall onto one side, short of breath and nauseous. The world fades away into total darkness. You die within seconds.

GAME OVER
Deaths: 29

(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>708)

>>710
As preparation in case you ever catch fire, you practice the "stop drop and roll" procedure. Once you are satisfied you have mastered the technique - complicated as it is - you get up again. You note in passing that it's been a minute or two now since you heard that scream, and you haven't heard anything else since.

712 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8060 00:15

Collect fungi for later use, then go towards the scream.

713 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8060 02:46

Collect scream for later use.

714 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8060 23:22

make sure we still have the files

715 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8061 14:46

make sure we still have the flies

716 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8062 21:36

>>712
You spend a few minutes stuffing your pockets with fungi; mostly mushrooms, but also a few bracket fungi and even what might be some sort of slime mould. Once satisfied, taking your time, and in no particular hurry, you amble over towards where you think you heard that screaming coming from. The glowing fungi are not even remotely enough to illuminate your path, so you advance slowly, with both hands out in front of you, and treading very carefully.

The ground rises, passes over a ridge, then descends precipitously before levelling off again. You hear some hissing clicking noises from somewhere to your left, and momentarily hope you might've found the source of the screaming, but it seems to be just more trilobites. They scuttle away and are gone before you can react. You continue onwards for quite some way, and eventually reach the shore of an underground lake. The glowing fungi are more common here, as well as on the opposite shore, at least a hundred metres away.

Quite unexpectedly, you stumble across a manmade structure: a short, stubby concrete pier extending into the lake. It is ridged and slopes down at the end, suggesting it may be for launching watercraft. Following the structure inland, you find, embedded into the concrete, the bottom of a ladder leading straight up into the black expanse above. You can hear faintly from above an airy thumping sound, like the sound of a helicopter's rotor, but slower and more irregular.

You sweep the area, still searching for the source of that scream, and happen to spot a human figure lying face down on the shore on the other side of the pier. You can't identify it due to the low lighting, but you're fairly certain it's an adult male, so it's probably either Alexei, Aaron, or a grunt. Judging by their lack of motion, they are either unconscious, dead or playing dead. You try to approach, but as soon as you get within a few metres a vast, dark shape erupts from the water nearby and drives you off. A chance glint from the CRT monitor identifies the creature as Dr. Gay Hitler. He stamps and hisses threatening, before patrolling back and forth next to the human figure. He seems to be trying to prevent you from reaching the body.

>>713
You have a scream prepared in the back of your throat, suitable for any occasion.

>>714
You realise with a start that you don't have any files whatsoever! Worse still, you don't recall ever having had any. This is troubling news indeed. You chew your fingernails nervously, knowing you haven't a single suitable tool to file them down.

>>715
Neither your trilobite plate armour nor your tattered seifuku is - or has ever been - furnished with a fly or zip in the crotch part. The immensity of your lack of both files and flies settles on you, and you suddenly feel as though the rug has been pulled out from under your feet. This world is simply not as you thought it was.

717 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8063 05:24

Heat the air around Dr. Gay Hitler until he (she?) gets too hot and runs away.

718 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8066 18:41

Inspect body.
Place face in body's buttocks.
Deeply inhale.

719 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8070 16:17

Scream, in quick succession, the fifty most common words in the english language.

720 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8071 21:39

>>717
Now that you have air immunity (passive skill), you can afford to really meddle with the air without fear of hurting yourself in the process. You spend 60 mana heating the air within two metres of you by 75K, then take a few steps towards the angry arthropod. Dr. Gay Hitler begins to charge towards you, but as soon as he enters your sphere of influence, hisses loudly and slips back into the water. A flawless success, it seems.

>>718
You find that the man has a fairly strong pulse and is breathing, but shows no response to being pinched or prodded. You drag him over to the nearest glowing fungus, pressing it against his face, and identify him as your foster father, Aaron Aaronovitch Aaronov. He is dressed only in his underwear. He has a nail file tucked behind his left ear, but you cannot find any other items on or near him. His skin and hair are not wet, so he doesn't seem to have actually been in the water recently. There is a swollen lump on the back of his head, suggesting he was knocked unconscious by a blunt impact.

Though you hate to admit it, you do actually somewhat care about this man, and you want the best for him, as far as possible. You certainly wouldn't wish upon him the embarrassment of being found by anyone outside the family in the state of having soiled himself. Just to be on the safe side, you have to check if any deposits have been made in his underwear.

You roll him over onto his stomach and, thankful for the fact that there's nobody nearby, thrust your nose into his rear and give a hearty sniff. You don't smell anything in particular.

"What are you doing?" asks a voice from over your shoulder. You jump upright, turn around and ready your trusty ceremonial stone knife out of reflex. Before you is a certain familiar obsidian cube, hovering in midair, atop which are Conundrum-chan and Ariadne. Conundrum-chan has a small flame between her fingers; just enough to illuminate their faces and the local surroundings.

>>719
Panicking, you try to explain yourself. "The be to of, and a, in that have I it for not on with! He as you do at this, but his by from they we say! Her she, or an will - my one all - would there their what! So up out if about, who get which go me!" you reply. That didn't quite come out right.

"...I see." says Ariadne, a smug half-smile playing on her lips, before gracefully changing the subject; "Now, as it happens, Conundrum-chan and I are looking for all those clones of yours. You wouldn't happen to know where they've gone, would you?" Conundrum-chan continues "Quickly please, Ariadne and I are in a hurry." The flame between her fingers suddenly flares up. If you didn't know any better, you'd think they were trying to intimidate the information out of you.

Speaking of clones, you still have four unspent skillpoints left over from those Jacks you ritually murdered earlier.

721 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8071 21:44

convert skill points to mana
cast flammability on the other two while they aren't looking
use the rest of our mana to heat the air to 8~900K

722 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8073 21:38

>>721
You lack both the mana/skillpoint interconversion and flammability skills, which belong to Jack Conundrum-chan (you being Jack Aaronova).

You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan.

You currently have zero mana but three unspent skillpoints, so you do the obvious thing and convert them into 150 mana. You immediately spend 100 on casting flammability on the two Aaronova sisters, Jack and Ariadne. They don't suspect a thing. Unfortunately, you cannot see your perfidious plan through to completion, as you lack the heat air skill.

You are now playing as Jack Aaronova.

With your 170 mana, you can afford to heat the air within a one metre radius of you to a mere 700K, but that proves more than enough to set you spectacularly alight. Though you can resist the effects of your own arcane skills, this calamity was caused by Conundrum-chan's chicanery. Your skin, hair and clothing burst into a roiling mass of flame and smoke. Despite your preparations for this eventuality at >>710,711 rolling can't save you this time. You burn to death horribly and painfully.

GAME OVER
Deaths: 30

(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>720)

723 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8074 03:12

Stop being a gibbering madwoman for once and calmly explain that the clones all ran away to places unknown. In exchange for this information, ask for a briefing on Jack Conundrum and Ariadne's activities. Then ask for a ride on what is presumably Stove Stove (or some similar incarnation.) Why not put all our Jacks in one Stove?

724 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8074 14:48

Gibber

725 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8075 08:12

Summarize plot so far.

726 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8075 23:57

>>723
The unhinged lone wolf act was working pretty well for you so far, but perhaps, you decide, just this once, you'll play the adult. You take a deep breath, compose yourself and state in a neutral voice that you last saw the Jacks somewhere over there (pointing to where you came from) but that they have already moved on to greener pastures. You begin to continue with fanciful ideas about sharing plans and joining them on their ride, but as soon as they have the information they want they just ignore you and fly off into the darkness.

>>724
You gibber menacingly in their direction.

Aaron remains unconscious. There is no sign of Dr. Gay Hitler, but he might well still be nearby. From where you are you could try heading back the way you came, following the lakeshore left or rightwards, heading inland, swimming across the lake or climbing the nearby ladder into the cavern ceiling.

>>725
Our protagonist (Aaron Aaronovitch Aaronov) awoke on a cold, hard concrete floor at >>122, with no prior memories whatsoever. He wandered an abandoned facility, before being captured by a certain wheelchairbound undead schoolgirl (Continue Masturbation, AKA Continue-chan), head of a modest camp in the atrium of the facility, consisting of herself, a mysterious androgynous individual (as yet unnamed) and many childlike cloned men wearing combat armour (grunts).

At >>164 Aaron left the camp into the rainforest outside, and followed a red bird (Reginald) to an abandoned camp near a stream. Upstream he found a small building lined with various traps, and a semi-feral young girl leading a band of grunts (Jack Aaronova) whom he adopted as his daughter. They then separated. He was accosted by a bewitching, levitating girl in a lilac dress (Cassandra) who demanded he bring her Jack.

Jack Aaronova, high priestess of her own camp of grunts, performed a nightly ritual human sacrifice (Christmas) to an unknown power. Aaron found his way to her camp and was nearly sacrificed himself, but managed to convince her to return to the trapped building in order to present her to Cassandra. Jack Aaronova summoned a cat (Theodore) by arcane powers obtained from her human sacrifices.

At >>262, Cassandra arrived, but was attacked and knocked unconscious by Jack Aaronova. When she returned to consciousness she was revealed to have amnesia, and was adopted by Aaron, taking the new name Ariadne Aaronova. That night there was a storm, during which Aaron saw a titan figure in the darkness, and Jack Aaronova absconded into the night to return to her camp and perform Christmas.

727 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8075 23:57

In the morning Aaron and Ariadne set out to find Jack, were swept downstream by a flooded river and encountered a brontosaurus (Rupert). Aaron ran away and returned to the camp in the abandoned facility where he first awoke, also bringing food to Continue-chan as promised. Several resident grunts were found to have been brutally killed. A strangely androgynous individual (as yet nameless) was revealed to be another member of the camp, and it was mentioned that there were formerly another two members; a couple, presumably Alexei and Jacqueline (introduced later).

Continue-chan made plans to relocate the camp next morning. During the night, at >>315, the camp was attacked by Jack Aaronova, accompanied by Theodore and a few of her grunts. Aaron was nearly killed, but instead kidnapped by Jack. Theodore remained in the atrium and was later met by Ariadne, found to have tamed Rupert. Ariadne, searching for Jack Aaronova and Aaron, instead found a clone of Jack wearing a lab coat (Conundrum Jack, AKA Conundrum-chan) who had been in cahoots with Ariadne before she lost her memory. Theodore and Rupert wandered away into the jungle. Ariadne and Conundrum-chan parted ways, with Ariadne given instructions to bring as many people as she can to a white building on the other side of the river.

She briefly encountered Continue-chan, who ran away, and was then attacked by several undead grunts and rescued by Jack Aaronova. Jack confesses to a vague but terrible crime. The continually reanimating undead attacked the two, until at >>404 they were saved by Aaron and an undead theoretical physicist (Alexei Fujiwara), both with jetpacks. As promised, Ariadne delivered all four to the white building on the other side of the river.

There they met Conundrum-chan. Alexei attempted to kill her, apparently for killing his lover (Jacqueline Conundra) but instead ended up blown up by her. Jack Aaronova summoned another cat (Jimmy Sphincter), before stealing Aaron's jetpack and returning across the river. Conundrum-chan ran into the building to deal with some urgent business. Ariadne and Jimmy followed her, into the building and down a long staircase, leaving Aaron alone on the surface.

Underground, she found Conundrum-chan in control of an enormous cloning facility, directly connected to several subterranean tunnels. After some sapphic exploration, the two were confronted by a well organised group of grunts, claiming to be from the Church of the Schismatics, led by a high priest. Ariadne followed them down a tunnel, into a lava cave, where she was asked to perform Christmas. She killed a grunt, but not in the proper Christmas fashion. The grunts left, and she spoke to the high priest, without seeing him. When she returned she found the grunt she had killed had reanimated. Conundrum-chan appeared and they ran away together.

At >>482 Ariadne left Conundrum-chan behind and explored a side tunnel, where she got trapped in a narrow passage until being saved by the high priest. She passed through and emerged on the surface near the river. She flooded the tunnel, creating a new watercourse (the Palriga Canal). She was reunited with Jack Aaronova, still high priestess of her own group of grunts. They returned to Jack's camp, only to find it under attack by grunts loyal to the Church of the Schismatics.

728 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8075 23:57

The high priest, revealed to be none other than Theodore, led the attack, riding on Rupert, before having a change of heart and joining forces with Jack Aaronova. Ariadne saw a stone slab - in use an altar - with engravings of herself and Jack Conundrum-chan, and thereby regained her memories, though she continued to use the name Ariadne. The dead grunts from the attack spontaneously reanimated and attacked all present. Ariadne ran away riding Rupert, abandoning the others, to meet Conundrum-chan in the cloning facility.

She was tricked by Conundrum-chan - disguised as Aaron via her shapeshifting ability - and placed inside a paradisiac simulation containing Aaron, Alexei and Jacqueline. She escaped to find herself trapped in a small room with the other three (still inside the simulation) and a strange obsidian cube (Stove Stove). She inadvertantly killed the other three and Conundrum-chan in a botched escape attempt, before finding at >>590 that she was in fact in a simulation within a simulation, and she hadn't actually killed anyone.

She was rescued from the room by Reginald and ran away down another underground tunnel. She emerged in a large, unlit natural cavern, filled with various unusual fungi, and inhabited by giant trilobite-like creatures. She followed the trilobites back to the cloning facility and successfully tamed one (then named Dr. Gay Hitler). She found Conundrum-chan and Stove Stove - along with Aaron, Alexei and Jacqueline, now awake from the simulation - and joined forces with them. Conundrum-chan explained that three days had passed, during which time the sun never rose, and undead grunts continually besieged the cloning facility. They were joined by Jack Aaronova and Theodore, who had been taking refuge in the caverns.

At >>657 the party was attacked by an enormous mass of undead grunts, led by Continue-chan. They were largely defeated, until Continue-chan transformed into some sort of tentacle monster. Alexei and Jacqueline, and, separately, Aaron and Dr. Gay Hitler ran away, leaving Ariadne, Conundrum-chan, Jack Aaronova, Theodore and Stove Stove. They were saved from Continue-chan by a large number of cloned Jacks, who came in and hugged everyone so tightly that they couldn't fight.

Jack Aaronova, via her aerokinesis, summoned a storm in the underground room. In the ensuing chaos Conundrum-chan and Ariadne escaped together, Continue-chan kidnapped Theodore and withdrew towards the surface, and most of the cloned Jacks retreated into the caverns. Following them, Jack Aaronova encountered a strangely androgynous individual (still nameless) leading the Jacks in a misguided attempt to help Continue-chan. They left abruptly. Jack Aaronova wandered the caverns alone until >>716, when she found Aaron unconscious by the side of a subterranean lake, guarded by Dr. Gay Hitler.

She drove off the trilobite in question, only to be confronted by Conundrum-chan and Ariadne, now demanding to know where the cloned Jacks have gone. She conceded and said where she last saw them, at which point they absconded, leaving her on the lakeside with the unconscious Aaron.

729 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8076 02:53

Thank you!!!

730 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8076 03:05

Stay with Aaron and care for him until he wakes up. Look around the nearby vicinity for supplies to speed the healing process (such as fresh water, bandages, and so on.)

731 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8077 23:15

>>729
The you is thanked.

>>730
The more you look at his stupid slackjawed face, the more you can't help but feel sorry for your poor foster father. There's something strangely lovable about his bungling ineptitude which, combined with your current lack of direction, convinces you to stick around at least until he returns to consciousness. While you're waiting, you wash the swelling on his head with some water from the lake, and check him over for other injuries. You can't tell for certain in the low light, but he seems otherwise uninjured. Unsurprisingly, you can't find any medical supplies on the lakeside.

After about ten minutes, Aaron stirs and opens his eyes. He groans and cradles his head, before catching sight of you and yelping in fright. You manage to calm him down and eventually he tells you what happened. It seems that after Continue-chan attacked (in tentacle monster form), he was separated from the rest of the group, and so mounted Dr. Gay Hitler in an attempt to escape. His steed charged into one of the submerged tunnels, nearly drowning him, but eventually leading him to the relative safety of the caverns, where Continue-chan didn't follow.

He dismounted Dr. Gay Hitler, who then ran away, leaving him to wander the darkness alone. He claims he kept hearing your voice whispering and giggling from the shadows - sometimes simultaneously from several directions at once - and had come to the conclusion that he was being haunted by your ghost as retribution for leaving you to die at the hands (or tentacles) of Continue-chan, hence he is incredibly relieved to see you alive and well.

He says he ran from the voices - along the lakeshore, from the opposite direction - before coming across the ladder and climbing it in an attempt to reach safety. He doesn't remember anything after that, but by the evidence it seems that for one reason or another he fell from the ladder and landed on his head, knocking himself unconscious. Curiously, he insists that he saw a light coming from the top of the ladder, which there isn't now.

732 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8078 03:34

Theorize that the voices are clones of myself. This is especially likely since Jack Conundrum seems to have many clones, and I used to be in cahoots with her. Look into my memory (which I supposedly regained?) and see if we remember making any clones.

Climb the ladder.

733 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8079 23:42

>>732
You put forward the hypothesis that your clones may have been terrorising poor Aaron. Having not been there during the later half of the fight with Continue-chan, and hence not knowing about your recent profusion of clones, he is surprised but agrees that your conjecture fits the observations quite well. Mostly he is just relieved not to be being haunted by the dead.

You do not recall creating any clones; you don't even know how to operate the cloning apparatus. On the other hand, you do recall at >>638 Conundrum-chan mentioned that she found the cloning pods all emptied - presumably to create the Jacks. She claims she was asleep at the time; Ariadne, Alexei, Aaron and Jacqueline were apparently trapped in some sort of simulation; and you were wandering the caverns oblivious. That odd androgynous person seemed to be leading the Jacks, so they would be the most obvious candidate.

You begin to climb the ladder, with Aaron following close behind. It is quite worn, with peeling paint, but structurally sound. After about five metres or so, you reach the top. A light - apparently motion detecting - comes on, revealing a small cubic concrete room. There are four tunnels leading from the room, each with labels: "CLONING FACILITY GAMMA", "STORAGE FACILITY CHI", "SITE 1" and "CONTROL TOWER". Each of the tunnels is unlit.

734 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8080 00:35

Close eyes, spin around while singing an the first verse of "the people united will never be defeated", then open eyes and take the tunnel we are facing. If in between two tunnels, take the one on the left. Have Aaron take point.

735 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8080 04:58

shoot a deer

736 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8082 00:33

>>734
You abruptly succumb to your latent Chilean socialist tendencies and burst into song whilst pirouetting, eyes closed in rapture as you picture the utopian world to come after the workers' revolution. On "Anuncia ya la vida que vendrá" you open your eyes, finding yourself facing just to the right of the "SITE 1" tunnel. You persuade Aaron to take the lead, and follow behind. You become aware of an odd unplaceable whoomping noise, growing louder the further you go.

After walking down the unlit tunnel for about ten minutes, holding onto Aaron with one hand to avoid losing him and tracing the wall with the other to avoid missing anything in the darkness, Aaron suddenly stops and crouches, breath held. You follow suit. Over your shoulder, you see a light has come on somewhere ahead of you. A human figure passes silently in front of it, then moves behind the light source and vanishes from sight. The light in the room you came from has long since gone off, so you aren't lit from behind and there is no reason to suppose they would be aware of your presence.

You continue ahead, before long reaching the room the human figure just passed through, with its light still on. It is the same size and shape as the previous one, with the same - presumably also motion sensing - light. Unlike the previous room it has only two tunnels leading from it (the one you just came from and one opposite) and it has a ladder in one wall, leading upwards. The ladder is marked "SURFACE ACCESS" and the opposite tunnel is marked "SITE 1". There is also a rack on the wall with some equipment, including several torches, helmets and what appear to be geological picks. One torch and one pick are missing.

You haven't entered the room yet, so you are still safely concealed by the darkness. You aren't sure precisely where the figure you saw came from or went to, but they didn't come towards you and presumably didn't come from the same tunnel as you either. The noise from earlier - substantially louder now - seems to be coming from the ladder to the surface.

>>735
Oh dear! You can't find any cervids to shoot in this underground network of tunnels, nor would you have any means of shooting them even if you did.

737 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8082 07:45

Bravely enter the room and equip party with one torch, one helmet, and one pick each.

738 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8083 21:38

>>737
Brimming with blind confidence, you push in front of Aaron and march into the room. You feel a sense of relief and conquest over your surroundings, interwoven with threads of paranoia as you realise that if there is anyone down either tunnel they have a perfect view of you and Aaron, yet you cannot possibly see them.

An especially loud thump from the top of the ladder knocks you back into your customary pragmatism. You take a torch, flick the switch to check it works (it does), put on the smallest of the helmets (which is still slightly too big) and take one of the picks. It is quite hefty, and requires both hands to swing. You feel it lacks the elegance of your much loved stone dagger, but still it might well come in useful in the future.

You take a torch from the rack and turn to hand it to Aaron, but he isn't behind you. You shine the torch down each tunnel and up the ladder shaft, but there is no sign of him.

739 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8084 10:42

Panic!!!

740 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8084 15:25

Start running in a random direction while crying.

741 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8085 09:30

Bottle tears evenly between 6 bottles. Drink a bottle.

742 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8085 23:58

>>739
This is it: the last straw. You didn't realise just how finely balanced your mental state was until this one shock brought it all tumbling down. You scream Aaron's name repeatedly, quickly devolving into just a long "Aaaaaargh" interspersed with sobbing. You collapse to your knees, curl up in the foetal position and hyperventilate for a few minutes.

>>740
Unable to bear this room any longer, you throw yourself headlong down one tunnel, bawling as loud as you can, before settling into a stumbling half-run down the narrow, tenebrous corridor. You bump into something large and fall over it. The thing moves, and you feel a sharp impact on the trilobite scale armour on your right calf. You swing your pick wildly out of reflex and hit something solid - probably the wall - dropping the pick in the process. You scramble back to your feet and continue running and crying.

A short time later, out of breath and exhausted, your legs fail and you fall to the ground, face down on the unforgiving concrete, feeling your own heart pounding away as though trying to break out of your ribcage. Your lungs ache from all the running and your tear ducts sting from all the crying.

You slowly return to your senses, switch on the torch to illuminate your surroundings, and find yourself in yet another bare concrete corridor. This one is wider than the others, however, and has (unlit) strip lighting along the ceiling. The corridor continues ahead of and behind you beyond the range of your torch. There is a stairwell with stairs upwards to your right. On the floor in front of you is a crude green chalk drawing of a dragonfly. Metal doors are spaced equally along the wall to the left as far as you can see, each with an electronic keypad to the right. The doors have no handles, and all but one of them are tightly closed.

>>741
Suddenly aware of how many fluids you've lost to unnecessary lachrymation, you try to conserve what you have left by bottling your tears, but alas your plan is foiled by your lack of bottles.

743 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8086 08:35

Attempt to smudge the drawing.
Gi thriugh the door.

744 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8086 11:47

Take door

745 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8086 23:40

Disassemble door into building materials.

746 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8087 00:04

help

747 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8087 14:57

>>741 Sell the other 5 bottles to feminists. The kind of feminists that say "I drink male tears."

748 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8087 23:02

>>743
Your attempt to smudge the drawing is a resounding success. You scuff the dragonfly into oblivion. No one would even know that green dusty smear on the floor was ever an insect.

Slowly, quietly, breath held, you make your way down the hallway to the one open door. You step into the threshold and immediately sweep the area with your torch. The floor and walls are covered in small white tiles. There is an operating table in the centre of the room, with adjustable restraints for immobilising limbs. There are several cupboards full of medical supplies - a cursory glance reveals bandages, gauze, sutures, tourniquets, a stethoscope, an aneroid sphygmomanometer, several hypodermic needles of varying sizes, various vials and ampoules of liquid, scalpels, forceps, surgical scissors and retractors. All the equipment seems quite old fashioned, but in good condition.

>>744
It's far too heavy to carry and still attached to the wall.

>>745
You open the door as wide as it will go and unscrew the hinges by forcing the blade of your trusty ceremonial stone knife into the slot-headed screws and twisting until they are all undone. Three butterfly hinges and eighteen slot-headed screws have been added to your inventory. Now unsupported, the enormous metal door slowly leans away and, before you can react, slams to the ground with a cacophonous bang, all the louder for the deathly silence that follows.

On the reverse of the door - which you didn't see from where you were - is written, in large, pink, cursive letters, "Behind you". You don't dare look.

>>746
You are currently playing as Jack Aaronova. You have 170 mana and four unspent skillpoints. You gain fifty mana and one skillpoint for each sapient being killed, which is doubled for killing in a ritualistic manner. Unspent skillpoints can be assigned to any of aerokinesis, geokinesis, biokinesis, hypnosis, technomancy or ailuromancy in order to unlock skills. Passive skills have a constant effect, whereas active skills cost mana to be performed. You currently have level seven ailuromancy and level nine aerokinesis. The following skills are available to you:

  • Basic ailuromantic weather prediction (active skill): Can accurately predict the weather for the next six hours by observing at least one cat's behaviour for a period of at least one minute.
  • Feline communication (passive skill): Can understand and employ general methods of cat communication, e.g. hissing, purring, meowing.
  • Cat affinity evaluation (active skill): Can tell another sapient being's affinity towards cats. Requires line of sight. Costs 15 mana.
  • Summon cat (active skill): Can summon a cat from the nearest interdimensional aperture. Costs 100 mana.
  • Advanced ailuromantic weather prediction (active skill): Can accurately predict the weather for the next 24 hours by observing at least one cat's behaviour for a period of at least four minutes. Costs 20 mana.
  • Cat possession (passive skill): Cats in the near vicinity are now playable members of your party.
  • Inverse ailuromantic weather prediction (active skill): Can, by performing a given action on a cat, cause a corresponding change in future weather (e.g. bringing cat to a warm place makes weather warmer, spinning cat around produces cyclone). Costs 125 mana.

749 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8087 23:02

  • Summon gust (active skill): Can create a weak, momentary gust of wind nearby. Must originate within five metres of your position. Costs ten mana.
  • Summon fog (active skill): Can cause all water vapour in the air in a sphere around your position to condense out into fog. Costs ten mana per metre radius.
  • Summon convection (active skill): Can create a strong local convection cell around your current position. Costs six mana per metre radius.
  • Cool air (active skill): Can isobarically cool air in a sphere around your position. Costs 0.4 mana per kelvin cooled per metre radius, rounded up.
  • Heat air (active skill): Can isobarically heat air in a sphere around your position. Costs 0.4 mana per kelvin heated per metre radius, rounded up.
  • Summon vortex (active skill): Can summon a strong local vortex around your current position. Costs six mana per metre radius.
  • Variable area of effect (passive skill): All aerokinesis skills with an area of effect can be used at any scale, with mana cost proportional to radius.
  • Precision air movement (active skill): Can manipulate objects weighing no more than ten kilograms within five metres of your position using local air currents. Costs ten mana per second.
  • Air immunity (passive skill): Can freely resist the effects of your own aerokinesis skills.

You can play as other characters by giving a command such as "be Such-and-Such". Such-and-Such must be in your party - that is, loosely allied/sympathetic to you - but does not have to be physically present. If you die, you will continue from the most recent saved game.

>>747
You cannot locate any lachryphagic feminists.

Unable to bear the oppressive silence any longer, you turn around to see what lurks behind you. Standing in the empty doorway, smiling innocently, is Jacqueline. She has a stick of pink chalk in one hand, while her other hand is hidden behind her back. Despite them being - you thought, at least - quite inseparable, Alexei is conspicuously absent.

750 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8088 08:07

Put 2 points into ailuromancy.
Hug Jacqueline and cry into her mouth.

751 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8088 15:51

Put 2 points into hypnosis.
Summon a 1-metre vortex when Jacqueline is within 1 meter. If she stumbles, spinebuster and disarm her. Otherwise, just run away.

752 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8089 00:19

strap Jacqueline to the table and inject her with everything

753 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8090 00:48

>>750
You increase your ailuromancy level by two, unlocking the following skills:

  • Cat metamorphosis (active skill): Can temporarily transform self into a cat, or cats into humans. Costs 100 mana. Lasts 120 seconds.
  • Summon large cat (active skill): Can summon a lion, tiger, leopard, jaguar, cheetah or cougar from the nearest interdimensional aperture. Costs 150 mana.

Glad to see any sort of familiar face, you jump towards Jacqueline and throw your arms around her affectionately. She cowers from you and tries to struggle out of your grip, but eventually submits and waits patiently for you to stop. Her mouth is firmly closed, but you cry out inarticulately in the direction of her lower face. She appears extremely uncomfortable with this development.

>>751
Having had enough of this silly cat business, you try a change of tack and invest the remainder of your skill points in hypnosis. You unlock the following skills:

  • Temporary possession (active skill): Can control a sentient being's actions for no more than thirty seconds. Requires line of sight. Costs 75 mana.
  • Telepathic projection (active skill): Can project speech or other mental imagery directly into a sentient being's mind. Costs one mana per second per target.

You spend six mana - leaving an ample 164 remaining - on summoning a small vortex around you. Unfortunately, you get what you pay for, and the light zephyr you summon does little more than tug at the hem of Jacqueline's dress. She struggles free from you, and, from behind her back, presents a piece of paper filled with dense handwriting.

You break out in a cold sweat. You weren't prepared for this. All your well laid plans of spine busting were for naught. Unable to suppress your panic, you push past Jacqueline and run back into the corridor, into the stairwell and up the stairs. You emerge, on the next floor up, into a major hallway. A few metres away to your left you can see a hexagonal atrium faintly lit by moonlight through a skylight in its ceiling. You are fairly sure it is the same atrium you were in when you went on that murderous rampage around >>315.

Something is clearly wrong, however. The walls and floor of the hallway are marred by myriad deep scratches and gouges - you can't even guess what would leave marks like that. There is a foul smell coming from the atrium, and you can see intermittent, twitchy movement of small things near the ground. You cannot be certain, but something about the architecture of the place seems different as well.

>>752
On second thoughts, you decide Jacqueline isn't so scary after all. You return downstairs, finding her awaiting you at the entrance to the stairwell, and persuade her to join you by the operating table. You grab her, one limb at a time, strap her onto the surface and pull the constraints as tight as you can. She resists violently, but you easily overpower her.

You root around in the cupboards and emerge with a hypodermic needle and several unmarked ampoules. Taking pleasure in the experience of experimenting, you inject one after the other into her veins. After the third she falls into a seizure, convulsing and foaming at the mouth, before falling still and ceasing to breath. She dies soon after. The piece of paper she so insistently wanted to show you - which she had been gripping tightly until now - falls softly from her hand to the floor.

For killing a sapient being, you have gained one skill point and fifty mana.

754 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8090 03:31

Shout "Whoops-a-daisy!" and laugh.
Take the paper and read it.
Put another skill point into hypnosis.

755 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8090 10:14

Attempt to resuscitate Jacqueline.
Find someone to project the image of a penis onto for 15 seconds.

756 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8092 01:14

>>754
You find yourself unable to look away from Jacqueline's body. Her mouth is still slightly open, her lips still slightly damp. Her hair and clothing are barely ruffled, and you could almost convince yourself that she's only sleeping, were it not for that intolerable, unnatural stillness about her. You stare ever more intensely, as though willing her small chest to rise and fall again by sheer force of will, but the only movement is the shifting torchlight caused by your shaking hands.

Unable to confront your own actions and needing something to dispel the heavy, viscous silence that has settled over you, you shout something facetious and a burst of nervous, high pitched laughter explodes from you. Your mirth dies almost immediately. You take the paper from the floor, eager for any distraction. It reads:

To Whom it may Concern,

Please accept my most sincere apologies in dispensing with the customary formalities, but I find myself in a dire state of emergency. My companion and consort (Dr. Alexei Fujiwara)'s whereabouts are unknown, and he must be located as a matter of the utmost urgency. He was last seen in a nearby series of unlit service tunnels, immediately after arriving at a junction.

If you are in possession of information of his whereabouts, I beseech you to divulge it forthwith. Otherwise, please allow me to guide you to the gentleman's last known whereabouts, whence we can conduct a formal search. I will give due consideration to any conditions you place upon your compliance. Naturally, your aid will be generously recompensed to the best of my ability.

Yours Faithfully,
Jacqueline Conundra

You place one skill point into hypnosis, unlocking the following skill:

  • Manipulate aggression (active skill): can significantly aggravate or placate other living creatures. Requires line of sight. Effect lasts 300 seconds and costs 30 mana.

>>755
Suddenly overcome with remorse, you unstrap your victim from the table and pull her limp body to the floor. You are about to begin cardiopulmonary resuscitation when you notice you are still gripping the very syringe you used to kill her. You throw the hateful thing aside and press on (thirty chest compressions then two rescue breaths, repeated indefinitely) until you are out of breath, cursing every second you wasted earlier on laughing to yourself and reading. She shows no signs of life, and if anything looks even paler and less like her living self than ever.

You poke your head outside and scan the corridor with your torch, but there is no one with whom to share your conceptual phallus. You would make more of an effort to find someone, but you simply aren't sure where to begin. You could return along the corridor back towards the service tunnels - but what if you run into Alexei? - or the other way down the corridor into the unknown, or upstairs into the main building, or downstairs to whatever lies below. You could even try to make your way outside, but that might require a venture through the atrium, and something about the thought fills you with dread.

757 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8092 05:19

Go down. Down down down down.

758 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8092 06:04

Cast manipulate aggression on self.

759 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8097 00:13

Cut our hair short to avoid being grabbed (using our knife)

760 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8097 06:23

Search for the answers inside myself

761 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8099 23:25

>>757
You find you cannot bear being near Jacqueline's corpse a moment longer. You need to be somewhere else; anywhere else. You descend one flight of stairs after another, passing countless empty corridors. There is no sound or movement but your own breathing and footsteps. Finally you reach the bottom of the stairwell - or at least a point below which you cannot descend any further. The entire stairwell below here is filled with a fine grey powder; probably dust or ash. It also fills the corridor connecting to this floor of the stairwell, however there is about half a metre's gap between the highest point of the dust and the lowest point of the door lintel. Seeking ever deeper locations, you crawl through.

Clouds of dust billow around you, coating your mouth, throat and sinuses in a single breath. You struggle onwards, barely able to breathe, scrambling frantically forwards and kicking up more dust in the process, until you manage to get into the room opposite the entrance to the stairwell - which, thankfully, had an open door. Inside, the surface of the dust falls away towards the floor at its shallow angle of repose. Once the dust settles and you can breathe properly again, you look around. The room is of identical proportions to the operating room upstairs in which you murdered Jacqueline. It is empty apart from a few old pipes running along the ceiling. The door appears to have been forced open by the weight of the dust from the other side, as there is none on this side apart from what has spilled in from the corridor.

More interestingly, there is a tunnel in the opposite wall. Not a regular concrete service tunnel, nor a naturally formed cave tunnel, but an arch shaped tunnel built out of old, heavily worn brownish bricks. There are empty cast iron sconces in the walls at irregular intervals. It connects seamlessly to the ordinary concrete room you're in, like some sort of bizarre anachronism. Nonetheless, it does lead downwards, so you decide you may as well follow it.

The tunnel is in a poor state of repair, with loose bricks missing from the ceiling and flagstones buckling and sticking upwards in the floor - not only that, but it appears to have been poorly constructed in the first place. It meanders left and right, sometimes at sharp angles, and occasionally juts downwards in a series of steep steps for no obvious reason. In some places it is wider or narrower than others, and in some places the ceiling is so low you have to stoop.

Finally, you round a corner and arrive in a large, seemingly natural open space. Unlike the caverns you were in earlier, the ground is just an inert grey rock, with no signs of life. Around ten metres in front of you the floor drops away suddenly. Looking closer, you find yourself on the edge of a cliff overlooking an enormous abyss. Your torchlight cannot reach the bottom, nor the other side - if either exists. You try dropping a stone into it, but never hear it hit the ground. You could, in theory, go further down, but this seems like a good place to stop for now.

762 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8099 23:25

>>758
You spend thirty mana - leaving 184 remaining - on lowering your own aggression. Perhaps that'll go some way towards preventing you from randomly murdering any more innocent girls trying to solicit your help in future. You take a deep breath and feel suddenly at peace with the world. The ghost of a smile appears on the corners of your lips.

>>759
You notice that you had been instinctively gripping the handle of your ceremonial dagger, ready to use it to defend yourself at a moment's notice. Well, there's no need for that now, is there? Rather, why not put it to a better use, and give yourself a much needed haircut? You hack away at your long, black hair - matted with blood - until it mostly lies in small piles at your feet. You happily bob your head back and forth, feeling how much lighter it is without all that added weight.

>>760
This seems a nice, contemplative place, you decide; perfect for a real heartfelt discussion with yourself about what sort of person you have become and whether you're really happy with how things are going. You have no end of questions: was it right for you to abandon your post as high priestess? What of your tribe? And what of the dark power you were sacrificing to every Christmas? How do you reconcile the atrocities you've committed with your position in the Aaronov family? Before you can come to any answers, however, you are interrupted by a gust of air against the back of your neck.

Turning around and shining your torch in that direction, you find an enormous insectoid creature, bone white and covered in fine hairs. It appears to be anatomically similar to a moth, but with the wingspan of a small aircraft. It hovers just above the ground a few metres from you, wings flapping rapidly, proboscis extended and labial palps abristle. Its bulbous compound eyes betray no sign of emotion. You notice it has serious tears in both hindwings, suggesting it has seen conflict. It appears to be blocking the way you came, but you could potentially run away in either direction along the edge of the abyss.

763 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8100 01:08

Project image of a penis onto moth

764 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8100 03:00

Calculate optimal time for searching for answers inside myself.

765 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8100 04:54

Manipulate aggression of moth to calm it down, then mount it.
Name our new steed TiMothy.
Ride on TiMothy down, down, down, down.

766 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8101 23:12

>>763
At that moment, sandwiched between an enormous, potentially violent insectoid creature and the infinite black abyss, you reflect that if you die now you will die without ever having seen a penis. It's not even as though you particularly want to, but it seems the sort of experience every woman has sooner or (preferably) later. You want meet your death as a proud, experienced young lady, not a naive little girl. You attempt to let the moth-like monster know your last wish by telepathy. Having never seen one, you aren't quite sure what to project, so you base the image on one of the mushrooms you saw in the caverns. That must be about right.

The moth - until now cautiously keeping its distance - suddenly swoops towards you, perhaps in response to your mental projection.

>>764
Observing the velocity and acceleration of the moth and its distance from you, a Fermi estimate gives you on the order of one second before it gets to you. This would suggest that the optimal time to be searching for answers inside yourself is now.

Unfortunately, you used all your potential introspection time on calculating how much time was left for it, so you now have only enough time to feel rather stupid before the moth creature collides with you, pins you to the ground with its legs, thrusts its proboscis into the fleshy part under your chin, between your larynx and your jawbone, into your upper spine, and feeds on your cerebrospinal fluid. You die.

GAME OVER
Deaths: 31

(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>762)

>>765
As it worked so well on you, you decide to spend thirty mana reducing the aggression of the moth creature as well. There is no obvious effect, at first. After a moment's wait, you extend your hand and beckon it forwards. Hesitantly, nervously, it flutters towards you, only a metre or two from the edge of the chasm. You move around to mount it, but at that moment, just when you least expected it, Ao Oni charges out of the darkness, grotesquely swollen blue face flashing once through the beam of your torch, before colliding with the moth and sending both of them tumbling over the edge.

Not willing to have your steed stolen just like that, you hurl yourself from the cliff into the darkness, landing after a few terrifying moments on TiMothy's abdomen, still barely keeping grasp of your torch and ceremonial knife. Ao Oni is standing on TiMothy's thorax, facing away from you, holding TiMothy by one antenna. TiMothy is flapping its wings desperately, unable to accommodate the added weight of you and Ao Oni. The three of you are currently plummeting downwards into the abyss at quite a substantial speed.

767 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8102 00:47

>>766
Do not be moved by my fears or desires. Search for answers inside myself.

768 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8102 09:52

Use temporary possession to control Ao Oni, making him let go of TiMothy and instead punch himself in the face repeatedly for 30 seconds.

769 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8102 09:53

I definitely did not expect that. Well done.

770 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8103 21:21

>>767
You find that both your fear of impending death and your desire to tame TiMothy as your mount pale in comparison to your need for self understanding. Gripping TiMothy's lower body to avoid falling, you reevaluate your short life and attempt to frame it in some sort of unified theory that will answer your every question (or at least the important ones). Just as you are beginning to make some progress, however, TiMothy suddenly reels backwards, flipping momentarily entirely upside down, before settling with the axis of its body almost vertical. You drop your torch, and Ao Oni loses his grip on TiMothy's antennae, falling backwards towards you. His weight collides with your skull, crushing it, and sending your corpse tumbling forever into the infinite black void beneath.

GAME OVER
Deaths: 32

(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>766)

>>768
Troublingly, it seems that the Temporary Possession skill requires line of sight, while Ao Oni is facing the other way, tugging on TiMothy's antennae. You shout to try to attract his attention, but he doesn't hear over the noise of the rushing wind all around. Lacking an alternative, you crawl forwards along TiMothy's ample, fuzzy back towards the blue demon, and strike him in the right ankle with the pommel of your ceremonial stone knife. He turns over his shoulder and looks down at you. Each of his bloated, unblinking eyes is larger than your entire head. Unperturbed, you stare back with equal intensity, forcing his crude, animalistic mind to bend to your will.

He lets go of TiMothy's antennae and begins ineffectively pummelling his chin with his fists - his atrophied arms not long enough to reach his enormous, distended face - maintaining eye contact the entire time. TiMothy's flight begins to stabilise a little, though you are still losing altitude.

You have spent 75 mana, and have 79 remaining.

>>769
You compliment Ao Oni on his dramatic entrance. He seems indifferent.

Your possession will expire in a matter of seconds, at which point you will be left at the mercy of a large angry blue demon. Perhaps you should do something in advance.

771 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8104 04:22

Summon a vortex between TiMothy and Ao Oni to push him down and us up.

772 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8104 22:06

Leave reality. Search for answers inside myself.

773 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8106 01:06

>>771
Noting that the masses of both parties are well into the hundreds of kilograms, you realise that you will need quite a substantial vortex to separate Ao Oni and TiMothy. Feeling keenly the urgency of the situation, you summon a nine metre vortex, with a horizontal axis of rotation, about your current position. This leaves you only 25 mana remaining.

Ao Oni stumbles forwards and to one side, thrown aside by his own simultaneous face punching, while TiMothy struggles - and fails - to account for the sudden change in the local airflow field. You find your mount suddenly pitching upwards, before dropping vertically through the air like a stalling aircraft. You maintain a tight grip around TiMothy's metathorax, just behind its hind legs. Ao Oni, meanwhile, slides unhindered down the left wing, catching onto the edge at the last moment. He glares helplessly at you, then, with one last fist to the chin and an inhuman cry, loses grip and disappears into the bottomless abyss.

Now unburdened, TiMothy resumes its normal flight, with lower frequency, less strained flapping. You breathe a long pent up sigh of relief.

>>772
Now, at last, you can focus on your introspection without any distractions or things trying to kill you. You switch off your torch, sheathe your ceremonial knife in a slot in your armour, lie down on TiMothy's ample back and let yourself be lost in the regular sound of the beating of its wings. Much time passes in this fashion, completely oblivious of your surroundings or eventual destination.

You slowly begin to come to some conclusions about recent and future events. Firstly, you are quite certain now that the endless night and reanimating corpses are a direct result of your failure to perform the daily christmas ritual for the last few days. Whatever deity was receiving your sacrifices - and, for that matter, those from Theodore's alternate church - has gone without sacrifices for at least four or five days now. Theodore has been kidnapped and, more likely than not, killed by Continue-chan, making you currently the only person who knows the ritual and is able to practice it. Or you would be, if you had a sacrifice.

You spend some time trying to work out what Ariadne, Conundrum-chan and Stove Stove could possibly be plotting, and why they were looking for Jacks, but the answer to that particular problem exists outside of yourself, not inside. Similarly, you make no progress on the disappearances of Aaron and Alexei, other than the obvious conclusion that they were probably both spirited away by the same force.

Most importantly, however, you conclude that your current conduct is clearly unsustainable. You need to either abandon your ambling and return to your post of High Priestess with renewed vigour, or actively try to weaken and work against whatever deity you have been worshipping. The recent unnatural happenings, along with Jacqueline's death, are your legacy, and you need to take responsibility one way or the other.

Satisfied for now, you slowly return to reality. You find yourself in pitch darkness, still hugging TiMothy's back. You can hear the sound of ocean waves breaking, but somewhat muffled and echoing as in an enclosed space. There is a strong smell of salt on the breeze. By torchlight, you are revealed to be near the mouth of a large, natural littoral cave. Behind you, it extends beyond the range of your torch, and in front of you it opens up into the open. It is a starless night. Beneath you, sea foam is thrown wildly by waves crashing violently amongst the jagged rocks and boulders. You and TiMothy are on a narrow, scree covered ledge along the right hand side of the cave. TiMothy appears to be asleep.

774 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8106 15:36

Follow the scree to the mouth of the cave. Poke our head out and look left, right, and up.

775 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8107 09:25

Walk in the one direction we did not look towards.

776 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8108 01:23

>>774
Cautiously, you edge along the ledge towards the cave mouth, sending countless small stones cascading down into the maelström below in the process. You reach the exit of the cave, and sweep your torch beam around to investigate your surroundings. To the left, you can just make out the curve of the opposite side of the cave mouth, but everything beyond that is in complete darkness. To the right, you can see in the distance the yellowish orange illumination of what is presumably a forest fire. Above and slightly to the left of this, silhouetting a sweeping mountain ridge, there is a faint blue glow reflected off the stratiform clouds above. Looking up, you can see nothing but the inky black sky.

>>775
There are technically an infinite number of directions you haven't looked towards, but you know for a fact you have not looked towards One Direction. Their precipitous rise to fame, their string of number one debuts, Malik's surprise departure from the group, and their announced year's hiatus have all sailed past your notice unseen. You cannot simply walk into their midst, as they are nowhere to be seen, and are to your knowledge exclusively a boy band. Nonetheless, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and if you are to walk in any direction - including potentially that of One Direction - you need to step out from the cave.

You bravely take a single step forwards, thereby narrowly avoiding the barbed proboscis simultaneously thrust in the direction of your upper spine. It seems that TiMothy was in fact only pretending to be asleep, and in fact sneakily awaiting another stab at your cerebrospinal fluid.

777 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8108 18:04

Spinebuster our lepidopterous pal.

778 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8110 00:18

>>777
You turn to face TiMothy. He is standing partially on the cave wall, partially on the scree, wings folded, proboscis extended. You feel an overwhelming rage consume you. How dare he betray you like that‽ After all you've been through, after you saved him from the blue menace, after he kindly watched over you during your long search for answers, how could he now so literally try to stab you in the back? Your hands itch to administer some corporal punishment to this disobedient arthropod.

At that moment, however, your throat turns dry and your hands freeze in midair, as the realisation dawns on you that TiMothy is an invertebrate. He is spineless - not in the sense of being a coward, but of having no bustable spine of any description. What do you do now? Bust his tergum? Lacking your hesitation, TiMothy thrusts his proboscis towards your neck again. You narrowly dodge backwards, but in the process are thrown off balance and land on your back. The cold, wet stones dig into your lower body, but there is nothing but open space under your shoulders and head. Waves crash far below you, deafening despite the distance.

The moth's vast, inhuman face looms into your vision. The proboscis extends again, quicker this time - you only barely have time to bat it out of the way with your torch. You try to crawl inwards, under TiMothy, but he pins you down with a foreleg on your stomach. Just as you think it is all over, there is a flash of movement, a dull thump, and TiMothy pauses then slumps to one side, with a large hypodermic needle sticking out just behind his chaetosemata. A human face appears in your torchlight from the left, somehow even more horrifying than the monster she replaces.

It is Jacqueline. She is wearing the same pink dress as ever, hair on either side in immaculate ringlets, with a length of white bandaging covering both eyes. A warm smile spreads between her rosy cheeks, and she looks altogether in perfect health; better than when you last saw her, certainly. Though you know that the dead have been returning to plague the living recently, she is quite obviously not undead. You also note there are no marks on her wrists - which are exposed - either from being strapped to the operating table or from being injected.

Still smiling, she extends a hand, offering to help you back to your feet.

779 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8110 02:03

Take Jacqueline's hand and give her a thank you kiss.

780 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8111 22:22

>>779
Apprehensive but grateful, you take her hand and let her pull you up from the cliff edge. Her hand certainly feels like real, warm flesh and blood. Just for further confirmation, you lean in and peck her on the cheek. Her smile takes on a slightly awkward quality, but otherwise she make no response. Still oddly disturbed by this whole affair, a worrisome thought drifts into your mind: didn't the others mention being trapped in a simulation featuring people they thought to be dead? Given how little attention you were paying during your recent sojourn into your own mind, is it not possible that you too have been smuggled into just such a false reality? Rather, doesn't Jacqueline's otherwise inexplicable presence almost guarantee it?

As though knowing what you're thinking, Jacqueline gently but firmly grasps your hand and begins to pull you along the cliff edge, out of the cave and away towards the right. You spare one last glance back at TiMothy's supine form, before being pulled around the corner and out of sight.

781 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8112 06:09

Shout "Surprise!"

782 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8112 06:10

Be Jacqueline. Turn on the lights.

783 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8112 12:14

As Jacqueline, recall the most recent events leading up to this point.

784 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8113 22:34

>>781
Damn that cool, unperturbable façade she maintains! Why can't Jacqueline just act like a self-destructive bundle of fear and existential angst like you? You feel the need to put her in her place, to crack that mask she wears once and for all, and to prove that she is victim to fears and weaknesses just like you. You take a deep breath, carefully position your mouth just behind her right ear, and give one explosive shout of "Surprise!".

Without a sound, Jacqueline flinches away, trips, and falls, twisting in the air, over the cliff edge and towards the cold, dark, violent waters below. Now is your last chance. If you are to avoid killing Jacqueline twice, all you have to do is reach out and catch her arm before she is gone. But will you? Do you really trust her? And if not, does your distrust alone justify coldblooded murder?

>>782
You are now playing as Jacqueline Conundra.

You cannot find any light switches nearby. You suspect there are lights in the ceiling, but you cannot see because you have no eyes.

>>783
You and Alexei made a strategic retreat from the dreaded Continue-chan back at >>675, leaving all the other main characters to stand and fight (and probably die) or sensibly follow your lead. No one followed you, however, as far as you know. The two of you ended up in a lava cave with a mechanical freight lift in the centre, of all things. After briefly investigating a suspicious bloodstain on the cave floor, you both ascended the lift, finding yourselves in some sort of machinery storeroom. After some time spent scouting out the area and searching for anything useful, the two of you moved on.

There was a larger lift leading to the surface, but, wary of the frightful sounds coming from above and preferring to remain unseen, the two of you instead chose to keep to a set of unlit service tunnels. You spent some time wandering, but encountered no sign of anybody else. Eventually you reached a junction in the tunnel with a ladder leading to the surface. Alexei commented that the equipment on a rack on the wall looked useful, then vanished without a trace. You could find no sign of him down either tunnel nor in the direction of the ladder.

You spent some time searching the vicinity, but found not a single trace of your beloved Alexei. Hence, you wrote a polite letter and began to extended the search further afield, hoping to solicit others to join the search. You were elated to happen across Jack Aaronova, politely inviting her to join the search. Instead, she horribly tortured and killed you, for no reason you can discern, other than being a dangerous psychopath.

You now find yourself, recently reawakened, on the floor of the same room. You are no longer breathing, and do not feel yourself giving off body heat, strongly suggesting you have joined the ranks of the undead. Unlike the hordes of grunts, however, you retain your full mental faculties. Via your echolocation, you are aware of the presence nearby of the table you were strapped to, a discarded syringe, the stick of chalk you had earlier, and a piece of paper which is presumably the letter you wrote.

You must find Alexei at all costs. He's not safe with that Aaronova girl on the loose.

785 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8114 05:35

be grill
wear dress
do grill things

786 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8114 07:01

Regret

787 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8114 17:57

Be Jack. SAVE HER

788 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8115 17:38

grind our teeth

789 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8115 22:38

>>785,786
You cannot stop thinking about Alexei. Why did you let him disappear? Why weren't you paying more attention? A wave of remorse washes over you. You repent in the only way you know how to. Still wearing your dress, you crouch on all fours and become a grill. Suppressing everything else in your mind, you picture yourself vividly as a fixed set of metal bars suspended above a brazier, ready for cooking meat or vegetables. Though you lie unused and ignored now, some sunny day you will brought forth for a grand barbecue: it is inevitable. Until that day, you must wait patiently and obediently, like a good grill.

You fight back the tears. Grills don't cry, you remind yourself. Crying is not something grills do.

>>787
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan.

After hours of hours of trekking through the jungle, avoiding the wandering undead, shower of meteorite impacts, and the subsequent forest fires, your party - comprising yourself, Ariadne, Stove Stove, the mysterious unnamed androgynous person, and about fifty Jacks - have arrived at where you believe Continue-chan to have taken Theodore. It is a small, squat two story red brick building. The light from the small flame you have summoned between your fingers doesn't penetrate much past the doorway. Ariadne alone in your party appears to recognise the place, and happily strolls in, lost in a nostalgic reverie.

That fool! Doesn't she know the danger she's in‽ You rush in to rescue her, grabbing her firmly by one hand and pulling her back outside. From what you saw of the inside of the building, it's an empty room, with a stairwell leading up and down. The stairs upwards were blocked with piled up furniture. You passingly noted a strange scratchy, almost unrecognisable engraving on the wall, of a human figure with something bulbous sticking out of their face. You aren't sure what to make of it.

>>788
You grind your teeth in frustration. Rescuing Theodore is, needless to say, pivotal to your plan, however at present you don't even know if he's still alive or not. You think Continue-chan must be here, based on the tracks you followed through the jungle to get here, but there's no sign of her or Theodore now. The stairs down to the basement seem the obvious place to start, but something about them give you a bad feeling.

790 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8116 14:58

Wait. It's dangerous to go inside. Guard the exit.

791 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8116 17:46

Pretend to be a door and slowly work your way inside using this disguise.

792 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8118 00:33

be mysterious unnamed androgynous person.

set building on fire.

793 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8118 00:51

>>790
Yes, you admonish Ariadne in a stern whisper, it's far too dangerous to go inside just like that. Instead, you must closely guard the building - part reconnaissance, part siege warfare - so as to have the greatest advantage over the enemy before your attack. You order the Jacks to encircle the building, while you, Ariadne, Stove Stove and the androgynous person stay near the doorway. After fifteen minutes, absolutely nothing has happened, and you notice with disappointment that the Jacks are getting distracted, clustering into small groups and giggling to themselves adorably.

>>791
You had hoped it wouldn't come to this, but there is no other choice. You inhale sharply, straighten your spine, and stick all of your limbs out to form the vertices of a rectangle. You carefully position yourself in the doorway. Of course, with your complete shapeshifting (active skill) ability, you could actually literally become a door, but therein lies the true genius of your plan: you want Continue-chan to know that you aren't a door, and you want her to believe that you believe that she doesn't know you aren't a door - that way she'll misunderestimate you, enabling you to rescue Theodore all the more easily. It's foolproof!

Step by step, you edge further in, making wooden creaking noises with your mouth the whole time. As you take the first step down the staircase, however, your foot catches on a maliciously placed tripwire, and you are unable to prevent yourself from plummeting to the bottom. You come to a stop in a painful heap on the hard stone floor. You cannot see anything in the thick, heavy darkness. From further into the room comes a slow scraping noise and a foul smell. You begin to scramble to your feet, trying to reassume your disguise. At that moment, however, you hear from outside a low rumbling and a loud, high pitched scream. It sounds like Ariadne.

794 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8118 05:10

oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck

795 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8118 20:03

thin out the darkness with fire

796 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8120 00:48

>>794
You mutter obscenities to yourself in a decidedly undoorlike fashion. Ariadne's scream cuts off abruptly.

>>795
You hurl one or two centimetre diameter fireballs in every direction, banishing the darkness to small, flickering shadows in the corners of the room. Your location is revealed to be a high ceilinged octagonal room - approximately twenty metres in diameter - with a circular raised dais in its centre. Continue-chan lurks on the opposite side of the dais, tentacles quivering slightly. There is what appears to be a beartrap embedded in her lower body, with a viscous black fluid seeping from the wounds.

The raised dais is covered in intricate, overlapping circles drawn in red chalk. In the centre lies Theodore, on his back, eyes closed. Around the dais are six wrought iron chest height candlesticks, without any candles in them. There is a sword hanging by a string from the ceiling, swinging back and forth in long, lazy arcs, like a pendulum. There are unrecognisable piles of objects in the corners of the room, but before you can inspect them closely the fireballs disperse against the walls and you are plunged again into the interminable, omnipresent darkness.

Continue-chan shrieks in anger, and you hear a slithering, scraping noise as she begins to move towards you.

797 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8120 00:52

Wait, Continue-chan! I love you!

798 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8122 01:11

>>797
"Wait, Continue-chan!" You plead to the darkness, "I love you!" The darkness stops scraping and shrieking momentarily, leaving an eerie silence. You aren't sure what response you were expecting, but the absence of any response is rather troubling. Why did you say that? Did you mean it? I mean, you did, perhaps, have confusing feelings for her long ago, but so much time has passed and you've both changed so much. Surely, it must be impossible now...

At that moment, there is a sound of several large objects falling down the stairs from behind you. You are too slow to react, and are struck in the back by multiple warm, pointy, giggling bodies. It seems that some of the Jacks followed you in and fell down the stairs, just like you.

Things are not going to plan, but, you remind yourself sternly, you mustn't lose sight of your goal. All that matters now is that you can rescue Theodore and get out. You can't let your feelings for Continue-chan get in the way.

799 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8122 04:26

Run towards Theodore and pick him up. Light the way with FIRE.

800 Name: (*゚ー゚) : 1993-09-8128 10:53

Light your hair on fire.

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