These are the files. I hope you have everything you need.
Thank you.
Sir, I'm afraid these were not the correct files.
woop woop woop blat blat blat
You awaken on a cold, hard concrete floor. From a radio on the floor next to you, a voice says "We seem to have lost contact with the Control Tower", accompanied by grinding noises. Your inventory contains:
What would you like to do?
>>5
Check if the handgun is already loaded.
Tell the radio to start making sense, or if it cannot transmit or the other guy refuses, shoot it with the loaded gun. If the gun is not loaded, don't bother. Have some Quiche to stop feeling so cranky.
>>6
The handgun is not loaded. The radio can both transmit and receive, but the person at the other end has stopped responding. The radio is currently just broadcasting grinding noises. You enjoy a slice of quiche lorraine and feel much better for it.
I examine my surroundings, and try to listen if there are any sounds other than those from the radio. If it's quiet enough to concentrate, I open the briefcase and skim through the files.
>>8
You are in a corridor made of concrete. There are numerous metal pipes and ventilation shafts running above your head. To your North is a locked door. To your South, the corridor continues for about 20m before turning a corner. To your East, the ceiling has collapsed and the corridor is blocked by rubble.
You can hear an intermittent dull rumbling noise coming from above and a low hum coming from behind the door to the North.
You open the briefcase full of files. There are roughly a hundred of them. They are all uniform in shape and appear brand new. You are unsure why you have them or what possible purpose they could serve; your fingernails may be getting a little long, but there's no reason why you would need 100 nail files just for yourself.
I knock on the northern door. If there isn't an answer, I'll try to see if there's a way to pick the door lock with a nail file. If that doesn't work, off to the South I go.
>>10
There is no answer and the door resists your efforts to pick the lock.
>S
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
You come across a man lying face down on the floor in a pool of vomit. Judging by the smell and the brown streak on the back of his lab coat, he has soiled himself. There is a crackling noise coming from under his lab coat.
where going down!!!!
You don't know how to where going down!!!!. Please try another command.
>>15
It turns out to be a geiger counter, which is crackling quite violently. In his lab coat pockets you also find a pencil and a wallet containing a key card and an unrecognisably blurred photo.
Examine self
>>17
A cursory inspection reveals that you are still yourself.
Take my trousers off
>>19
You are not wearing any trousers. The only things you are wearing are:
I remove my dignity.
Remove wedding ring
Inspect wedding ring
(what the hell would marry me?)
You write the number down in your journal. Upon this, you notice it's 9:25 PM.
use: imagination
You spend a few moments in lala land, imagining all sorts of weird and creative things. Unfortunately they do not have any bearing on situation, and when you come to your senses moments later you are in no better position than before.
The stench of the dead man is beginning to get oppressive. You should get out of here.
put face firmly between dead man's buttocks
deeply inhale
You plunge your nose into the dead man's behind. It is clear that the man has, indeed, soiled himself. It seems that he is not wearing any pants or underwear under his lab coat, as you can feel his decaying skin through the thin layer of his shit-soaked lab coat. Some of the moist, bubbly shit even enters your nostrils as you deeply inhale. It is still warm. Your lungs fill with the putrid, intoxicating aroma of feces. You feel dizzy.
You pass out.
After an indeterminate length of time, you wake up again to the sound of the geiger counter crackling even more violently. You get the feeling you shouldn't be sticking around here.
To your West is a corridor leading back to where you started, including the locked door. To your East, the corridor continues but it is completely unlit and you cannot see very far.
turn off geiger counter
hang out here a little longer
You look for a switch on the geiger counter but find none.
Time passes.
You wander, and approach a door. It's locked with a numerical key system.
Enter 259
Enter 529
Enter 295
Enter 952
Enter 5008
Stand on head
Read what you entered
You try to stand on your head but end up falling over and vomiting profusely. You also have a headache. None of the key combinations work because the input requires five digits.
Enter 80005
Enter 91993
Enter 80085
Feel like an idiot
Reminisce about childhood
Enter 37337
Enter every number between 00000 and 99999
say "xyzzy"
Turn the dead man over and take a shit on his face
Ignore symptoms of radiation poisoning
Enter 00190
look at floor
>>45
You carefully flip over the poor gentleman's corpse and take a thin, watery shit on his face. You do not feel awfully proud of yourself.
>>46
Try as you might, you cannot ignore the pounding headache, nausea, diarrhoea, fever and feeling of light headedness. Desperately, you enter 00190 into the keypad, and...
Miraculously, the door swings open. You rush in and slam the thick metal door shut behind you. The geiger counter ceases crackling as violently moments later.
You find yourself in what looks like an office. On the West wall is a potted plant and a painting of a burning house. The North wall is covered in bookshelves. On the East wall is a desk with a chair and a computer terminal. The screen shows the following:
00:00:49:53
The fourth column appears to be counting down in seconds, giving you just under 50 minutes until the timer hits zero.
>>47
The floor in the office is made of bluish-grey carpet. Outside is is bare concrete.
Go to computer terminal
Wait 49m 39s
Type Ctrl+C
Play a text adventure to pass the time while waiting
[grinding noises] DRR DRR DRR
>>50
You stand around for 49 minutes and 39 seconds, after which you press ctrl+c. Nothing happens.
>>51
Using the pencil you stole from the dead man's pocket, you write out a text adventure on the wall. It concerns a man who wakes up in a dungeon with worn armour, a rusty dagger and amnesia.
>>52
You make a reference to The Enigma of Amigara Fault and feel very smug about it.
Having wasted this much time, you now have fourteen seconds remaining until the timer reaches zero.
Unplug the computer
Assume the party escort position
>>54
The screen goes dead.
>>55
You lie face down on the floor, waiting for a party associate to come. In a sudden flash of inspiration, you realise that this must have been exactly what the man outside was doing!
After fourteen seconds have elapsed, you are vaporised along with the rest of the facility.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 1
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>49)
Break the pot.
Examine the painting.
>>57
You break the pot holding the potted plant. It spills soil everywhere and yields several sharp looking ceramic shards.
The painting depicts a mock-Tudor style house on top of a hill, which is on fire. It is night, and a full moon is visible in the sky. Flames are spilling out of the windows and through a hole in the roof. The smoke makes an odd spiralling pattern.
Type 'HELP' on the computer terminal.
HELP: unrecognized internal or external command.
Examine bookshelves.
>>61
You examine the bookshelves. You touch and feel around the spines, brushing away century old cobwebs. Reminiscing of childhood, you recall tales of hidden passages that, upon pulling out the right book, reveal a secret door. However 10 minutes pass, you have no luck, and decided to give up.
When suddenly, resting upon on a stack of text books relating to Lepidopterology, you notice a faint stream of light coming from the second shelf. It must have previously gone unnoticed in your search, due to the low positioning of the shelves.
You pull out a book, and then another. A passage way reveals itself. The light is so bright - a white, almost blinding light - that you can't really make out what could be on the other side of that hole...
Look for a piece of smoked glass or something to use as shades, and try to make out what's on the other side by shielding my eyes. Ponder what will protect the place on the other side of the hole from vaporization, and look for suitable shielding material.
Take the painting.
>>63
There is no smoked glass anywhere. The only things visible are what were mentioned in >>49. There is nothing to suggest that the room on the other side of the hole will be protected from vaporisation. All you can make out from here is that the flooring is made of small square white tiles.
>>64
Behind the painting is a hidden compartment, containing a piece of paper on which is written:
Samson 512
You can hear footsteps outside.
take footsteps
listen to piece of paper
wear hidden passageway
climb into wedding ring
Walk through doorway with arms outstretched and middle fingers pointing upwards to greet whomever approaches
>>68
You attempt to walk through the doorway, but forget that there's a door in the way! What a silly mistake. Whoever it is outside hears you bumping into the door and begins inputting something into the keypad.
get naked
smile
>>70
You already got naked at >>24. You smile for no reason in particular.
The person outside enters the correct combination into the keypad. The door swings open!
Before you stands a rather threatening looking man wearing grey combat armour. He has a helmet with a visor, so you cannot see his face. Without a word, he points his laser gun at you. He doesn't seem very friendly.
insult threatening man's mother
Will penis into semi-erect state and wink suggestively. Point out you are very much a grower, not a shower.
>>72
"You're mother's a wh-- urk!"
He shoots you with his laser gun, burning a huge scorched hole into your chest.
>>73
You cannot feel the lower half of your body, but with your dying breaths you wink one eye in what you hope to be a suggestive manner. Then you die.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 2
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>65)
Sorry, sorry about that. My browser is borken.
You come to your senses, oddly aware that an indeterminate amount of time has passed. You feel a sudden compulsion to check first your inventory, then your surroundings.
Inventory:
You are standing completely naked in a small office. On the West wall is a potted plant, of which the pot has been broken. Also on the West wall, a painting of a burning house has been removed, revealing a compartment with a slip of paper. The North wall is covered in bookshelves. Behind the bookshelves is a secret passage, from which is coming an extremely bright light. On the East wall is a desk with a chair and a computer terminal. The screen shows 00:00:47:26, and the last column is counting down in seconds.
You can hear footsteps outside.
What would you like to do?
Take slip of paper.
Attempt to prop chair against door, preventing (or at least hindering) enterence from outside the room.
>>78
The slip of paper reads "Samson 512".
You manage to prop the edge of the chair under the doorhandle, but in doing so make a fair bit of noise. The footsteps outside stop, and somebody begins inputting a code into the keypad.
Don the wedding ring, use geiger counter on the quiche, if there is no radiation or the counter is broken eat the quiche, get ready to pistol whip anyone who comes through the door,
>>80
You put the wedding ring back on. The quiche does not appear to be particularly radioactive, so you start shovelling it into your mouth.
You hear the person outside attempt to open the door. The chair holds, and the door remains closed. They type in the code again (during which time you get into position next to the door) then try to open the door again, to no avail.
You hear odd fumbling noises for about thirty seconds, then footsteps running away.
>>82
Game saved.
You fling the books out of the way with wild abandon and stuff yourself into the narrow passage, eyes screwed tightly shut against the blinding light. Moments later you hear an explosion from the room you just came from; presumably, the man outside used an explosive to open the door.
You emerge from the passage into another room. It is far too bright to see anything at all, but you can grope around. The walls and floor feel like they're made of small square tiles. There is heat emanating from the centre of the room, which is presumably the source of the light as well.
Rearange the matter in my hand to create an anti-light source that absorbs and violently reacts with light.
Make use of the nail files, using them to bore your way through that one pesky locked door
Fantasize about a cute girl.
GET TROLL
>>89
You immerse yourself in a deeply elaborate fantasy about your ideal girl.
She has long, dark hair which she holds up in places with cute little white ribbons. It flows and ripples in the wind like leaves on a tree, yet never becomes dishevelled. Parts of her hair hang down to either side of her head, framing her bright little face, which is populated by small, dainty features, apart from her large bright eyes. When she smiles - as she does often - she instinctively closes her eyes and tilts her head slightly to one side. She usually wears long, beautiful dresses, in simple bright colours, adorned with frills and ribbons wherever possible. She often wears thigh-high socks, and probably some very cute underwear as well, but you wouldn't know about that.
She is a thoroughly wonderful person; fun loving, quick to forgive, always able to see the best in people and possessing a childlike innocence that allows her to take a profound enjoyment from seemingly everyday experiences - a single flower on a road side; a particularly fluffy cloud. Also, she refers to you as "onii-chan" even though you aren't actually her brother.
She secretly has magical powers which she uses to protect everyone from the unknown evils of the night, whilst simultaneously keeping up a façade of living a normal girl's life. She does this not out of vanity, duty or for any perceived reward, but out of the goodness of her heart. She is one of the central characters of an anime series which is hugely successful and loved by all, which enjoys many sequels. In an especially poignant scene in the final episode, it is revealed that she actual-- whoops, looks like you got a bit carried away there. Never mind.
>>90
You cannot locate any trolls.
Squint eyes and inspect surroundings.
File myself into a fine dust and become a pathogen, intoxicate the entire facility and then recoagulate in the locked room.
>>92
Even squinting your eyes, you can't see anything at all, so you attempt to inspect your surroundings by touch. You circumnavigate the odd little cubicle you're in, and find that it is octagonal in shape and slightly less than three metres in diameter. You cannot locate any other entrances or exits besides the passage through which you entered. You cannot reach the ceiling.
Against your better judgement, you attempt to touch the light source in the centre of the room. It is hot to the touch, but not scolding. It feels hard, smooth and rounded, like an egg. It is affixed to the floor.
>>93
You file your nails. They look much better. As mentioned in >>88, you require at least level 10 telekinesis and 50 mana to, for instance, convert yourself into a pathogen. Furthermore, you require level 24 healing, level 16 necromancy and 75 mana to convert yourself into dust without dying, even with the use of a tool.
>>95
The light source makes a high pitched screeching noise as you abrase it roughly, like an angry violin player. That is, an angry player of violins, not a player of angry violins. As you continue, the light brightens, then diminishes, then starts flickering. Without warning, the whatever-it-was shatters! The light disappears completely, leaving you in pitch darkness. For a moment, all is silent, then a siren starts warbling from somewhere above you. Your ankles feel suddenly cold. You realise that the chamber is filling with water.
Say "uh oh"
Determine by sound and/or current where the water is coming from. Attempt to estimate the height of the ceiling. File teeth to sharp points while waiting for the water level to rise sufficiently to be able to swim towards any exits detected above.
swim back through passage we came in?
>>101
You cannot find it. Judging by the rate at which the water has been rising, the passage has closed up.
enter infinite oxygen cheat
B, R, E, A, T, H, E, 4, E, V, E, R, ENTER
Black out and wake up in a mysterious location.
>>103
An infinite amount of oxygen materialises in your lungs. In an instant, the mass of the oxygen creates such a large gravitational field as to overcome the forces separating the subatomic constituents of each oxygen atom. The mass collapses first into a neutron star, then into a singularity, forming a black hole of infinite mass. You are consumed from the inside out. The room you were in is consumed. The facility is consumed. The planet is consumed. The galaxy is consumed. The universe is consumed. You have destroyed the entire universe.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 3
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>102)
>>104
You lose consciousness. You awaken, still naked, on a carpeted floor. You find yourself in what appears to be a library. To the East and West lie closed doors. To the North and South are bookshelves laden with old tomes on various esoteric fields of science.
There is a wet streak in the carpet leading from your current position to the East, suggesting you have been dragged by someone or something. Your briefcase, and with it everything that was in your inventory, is missing.
Bravely climb bookshelves to the North.
>>106
The shelves form a convenient ladder, and thankfully the structure is weighted such that it doesn't topple over and crush you like a small, stupid insect.
From your vantage point, you can see across the entire ground floor of the library. The walls are all lined with bookshelves, and the space between is filled with densely packed rows of bookshelves similar to the one you find yourself perched upon. To the East and West, there are closed doors, as you saw before. To the South is a large wooden staircase leading to the next floor. To the North is an open door, and what looks like a reception desk, behind which lies a... thing. It's sort of greenish-brown, with small white protrusions dotted around its surface; possibly teeth? From its underside a multitude of tentacles flail and wriggle around, some lying flat against the floor and some clawing at the air. You can see a large, dark orifice where its "head" might be. The entire fleshy mass is pulsating with a regular rhythm.
As you watch, the tentacle thing slithers out of the North exit. You notice that one of its rear tentacles is firmly latched onto your briefcase, which it drags with it.
Save "library-beginning-topOfNorthShelf.sav"
Start taking out books at random and skim the contents.
>>108,109
Game saved.
The books cover a variety of topics, and languages; the vast majority are not written in English, and many are in scripts you don't even recognise. There is no obvious pattern or system as to how the books are organised. Of the books you are able to identify through illustrations, several are on anatomy, with a few books on organic chemistry and atlases of obscure corners of the globe. Those in English are fairly mundane; scientific journals and encyclopaedias, for the most part.
You find one book on the occult, written in what you suspect to be Greek. It is bookmarked at a page showing how to set up a magic circle using salt and candles. Skimming through the rest of the book, the other illustrations are mostly other magic circles or sigils; there is nothing about the tentacled thing.
>>110
Draw the most Tibetan symbols in the book and from memory and chant the summoning of the Azi Dahaka in Hebrew.
Check inventory.
>>111
None of the symbols look particularly Tibetan. You don't have any implement with which to draw symbols, and you don't know how to summon Azi Dahaka.
>>112
The contents of your inventory was in the briefcase, which is currently in the possession of some sort of betentacled creature. You are, however, still wearing your wedding ring.
Luckily I know greek. Hit me.
>>114
You remove your wedding ring and swallow it whole, then begin manipulating your genitalia.
>>115
You come under the influence of a sudden and demonstratively incorrect misconception that you understand how to read Greek. With the hand which is not currently otherwise engaged, you start hitting yourself in the face with the book. You still cannot read any of it.
Check stats/skills
Shout professions of love at creature.
>>117
Health: 92
Mana: 0
Kills: 0
Deaths: 3
Telekinesis: 0
Healing: 1
Necromancy: 0
Thaumaturgy: 0
Pyromancy: 0
Enchantment: 0
Matrimony: 1
>>118
You shout "I love you, tentacled monstrosity!" in the general direction of the doorway you last saw your beloved. For a few seconds nothing happens. Just as you are beginning to think it may be out of earshot, the thing returns through the same doorway it left by. Displaying remarkable speed and agility, the creature closes the distance between the doorway and you in a matter of seconds. It starts making odd intonations, which rise in pitch. The thing extends one tentacle to your face, and caresses it tenderly. Its tentacle is warm, soft and comforting. You feel a profound contentedness as you realise that your feelings are reciprocated. You have found true love.
Take briefcase.
Vomit up wedding ring and propose with it.
>>120
The thing willingly returns your briefcase. It does not appear to have been tampered with, and nothing is missing. Your inventory now contains:
>>121
You turn away, stick two fingers down your throat, and vomit all over the library floor. Amidst the acrid mess and half digested quiche, you locate the shiny gold band. You turn back to your beloved, compose yourself, and mentally prepare the wording of your proposal.
First of all, if you are to become engaged to this unholy monstrosity, you ought at least to know its name. As you are unsure what name it might have, nor do you know if it even has one, you suspect it to be within your rights to name it. Secondly, it seems impersonal to keep calling the creature "it". You could conceivably call it "her", or singular "they". Alternatively, it could be a good opportunity to employ some Spivak pronouns.
Name her.
Continue Masturbation.
Call her "Emily"
>>123
Oh my beloved continue masturbation, you shout getting down on one knee, would you make me the happiest coagulation of orifices on the entire world you lament. She wraps her tentacles around you in a warm embrace. You have a lot of wedding planning to do.
>>124
You call Emily for her, but Emily seems to be out of earshot and you don't know anyone named Emily.
Exit proudly through lobby with new bride.
>>127
Technically, she is your fiancée, not your bride. Pedantry aside, you and Continue vacate the library via the North exit. You find yourselves in a spacious corridor. The flooring is marble and the walls are clad in carved wooden panels. There are various doors branching off to the North and South. To the West, the corridor almost immediately turns South, so you cannot see very far. To the East, the corridor continues for roughly thirty metres before terminating in a large ornate wooden door. The door looks to have been forced open.
Examine Inventory
>>129
You admire your inventory's clear, straightforward and uncluttered GUI (which you pronounce "gee you eye", not "gooey" because you're not an idiot). Each entry has its own hand drawn icon. Hovering over an item displays its name, and right clicking opens a context menu with the obvious sort of options (use, examine, discard, eat, etc.). Items are arranged in the order in which they were acquired, but can be rearranged. You conclude that it's not a bad inventory but might become cumbersome and difficult if you have large numbers of items.
Sashay down east corridor.
Screengrab the inventory, cut out one of the weapon icons, and use it for my Facebook profile picture.
>>131
You suavely make your way down the corridor. Continue follows at your heels. The door at the end is slightly ajar, with scraping marks on the wood suggesting that it has been forced open with a crowbar. On the other side of the door is what appears to be the lower seating area of a concert hall. On the stage is a naked man lying on a large blue cloth. His chest has been surgically laid open, revealing his thoracic cavity. On one side is a set of surgical tools. On the other are his ribs, his sternum and several organs that you cannot identify from this distance. There is remarkably little blood to be seen.
>>132
You require level 5 thaumaturgy and 10 mana to use the "screengrab" ability.
Take surgical tools, they may come in useful.
Feed the victim's externalized organs to bride.
>>134
Three scalpels of various sizes, one pair of forceps, two sets of clamps, one osteotome, one retractor, one pair of surgical scissors, one pair of iris scissors, one sternal saw, one pair of tweezers and a mallet have been added to your inventory.
You hold one of the man's lungs up to Continue's gaping toothy orifice, but she shies away. She shows no interest in the other organs either.
Touch penis
Stop masturbating
Save game
>>138
You stop tugging at your penis. It comes off in your hand. In fact, it appears to have been attached to your body only via duct tape.
Game saved.
Tape penis to corpse
Fellate penis
Ask Continue to descend first
Search the void where your penis used to be for clues
>>143
You point down the staircase. Continue undulates her tentacles and makes cooing noises, then descends. For about twenty seconds nothing happens, then you hear a scream and three gunshots, followed by an ominous silence.
>>144
You sit down and bend over double so as to be able to see where your penis was. The skin appears to peel back about a roughly circular orifice, approximately seven centimetres in diameter. Inside is a pure black void interspersed with small blue-white spots, somewhat like a night sky. Now that it is no longer covered, it seems to be making a quiet low pitched roaring sound. Your gaze is pulled deeper and deeper into the void. The roaring fills your head. You cannot think.
Slowly, gently, your fingers edge closer and closer to the edge of the orifice. You notice it twitch slightly in anticipation. One finger enters, and immediately goes numb. The rest of your fingers, are sucked in, followed by your hand, then your forearm, then your upper body up to your shoulder. The rest of your body is contorted and torn until it fits into the all consuming void. The last of you to enter is your legs. The void laughs.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 4
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>139)
Tape penis to corpse, but wait to see if the floor opens anyway without fellating the penis
Ask Continue to fellate the penis
Sew void in groin together with surgical tools without looking into the void.
>>148
She seems confused by the instruction. She makes uncertain warbling noises, while bobbing her head - or at least the part of her body bearing an orifice - near the man's genitalia. Nothing happens.
>>149
You do not have any thread or a needle. The surgical tools you have found are exclusively those used for taking the body apart.
Plug hole with severed corpse part then fellate the penis
>>151
You cut off the corpse's left foot using the sternal saw. As soon as it comes into contact with the void in your lower body, however, it is sucked in and disappears entirely.
Avoiding the unnatural allure of the void, you stare at the penis. It is quite badly bruised, and covered in purple blotches. The foreskin has split. A clear fluid is leaking from the tip. You fight back your gag reflex and put it in your mouth. It tastes about as good as it looks.
You hear a low rumbling sound. Part of the floor nearby sinks, revealing a staircase descending below.
Shout "Hello?" down the staircase
Ask Continue to look into the void.
Throw the sternal saw down the stairs.
Save game.
>>156
You hurl the saw, frisbee style, down the staircase. It lands at the bottom with a clatter. Whoever it is down there makes a startled yelp and shoots at the saw twice. Neither shot hits.
Game saved.
Laugh loudly and shout down the hole, in a friendly voice: "Hey, sorry, I dropped my sternal saw! Could you bring it up for me?"
View Continue's status while waiting for a response.
Reassure the person down in the hole
Shout threateningly down the stairs,
"There's more where that came from if you don't throw up your gun and come out with your hands up!"
Does the voice sound male or female? Either way, put hands on hips and arch back a bit so that our crotch-void is pointing at them when the come up the stairs
>>162,163
You shout threateningly down the stairs for the occupant to throw up their weapon. Surprisingly, they oblige and toss the gun out of the hole. The gun flies towards your crotch and is consumed by the void.
A man's voice rises from the hole; "Is it alright if I come out?" The speaker, although speaking firmly, has a clear nervous tone to their voice.
Make love to Continue loudly.
Say "Yes I won't hurt you, don't be scared of my pet either, it looks pretty freaky"
And stop pointing crotch-void down hole as we wait for him to come up, we don't want to kill a possible ally yet!
Gnaw on Geiger counter.
>>167,168
Furtively, like a wild animal being offered food, the man emerges from the tunnel beneath the stage. He is fairly short, has unkempt black hair and is wearing a grey jumpsuit. He is holding his hands in the air.
As soon as he catches sight of Continue, he screams and falls backwards onto his rear, before quickly scrambling back to his feet and running away.
>>169
You chew on the plastic casing of the Geiger counter. It comes apart in your mouth. Nestled in the midst of the still crackling components, you find a single bullet. In addition to those in your inventory, you now possess four bullets.
Examine inventory.
Whistle Greensleeves.
Proceed down staircase.
Go back up staircase and shout "Come back! Let's work together!" to man who ran away.
Enter cheat to see Lara Croft naked.
>>171
Your inventory looks much the same as it did at >>130. Perhaps you should try checking your inventory instead of examining it. You whistle a little, not very well. It seems you are out of practice.
>>172
At the bottom of the staircase is a bare concrete corridor leading straight ahead, featureless apart from a few pipes and ventilations ducts in the ceiling. It continues for a few metres before coming to a T-junction. You note that it looks a lot like the corridor you woke up in at >>5.
>>173
You return to the stop of the stairs, where Continue was waiting for you. You shout to the man but, predictably, there is no response.
Blurred photo has been removed from your inventory.
Photo of naked Lara Croft has been added to your inventory.
Show photo to Continue and ask if she considers it sexy
>>175
Continue does not have any eyes, so you cannot be certain whether she can even see the photo. In response to the question, she makes an indecipherable gurgling noise which seems more affirmative than negative.
>>176
You cannot locate any such object. The only things in your inventory are:
Return with Continue to the spacious corridor in >>128. Go East and look cautiously through the large ornate wooden door, gun at the ready.
Draw moustache on Lara Croft with the pencil
Draw a tiny Lara Croft on the moustache on Lara Croft.
Save game, then attempt to shave all moustaches in sight using one blade of the surgical scissors.
Shave game, then attempt to save all moustaches in sight.
>>178
You walk out the large, ornate wooden door leading to the theatre, then turn around and look back through. It looks much the same as you left it. You also hold your unloaded handgun at the ready - ready for what, you don't know exactly.
>>179
You deface the naked Lara Croft picture with a moustache.
>>180
Given the lack of space, Lara Croft's moustache's other, smaller Lara Croft ends up little more detailed than a stick man. Well, you decide, it's the thought that counts.
>>181
You draw a tiny, tiny moustache on Lara Croft's moustache's other, smaller Lara Croft.
>>182
Game saved.
You scrape the pencil marks off the moustaches on the Lara Croft picture. It leaves unsightly marks, but the moustaches are quite thoroughly shaved off.
>>183
Game shaved.
Desperately, you attempt to undo the damage you recklessly caused with the surgical scissors. Alas, it quickly becomes apparent that it is far too late. What have you done? What sort of monster have you become, who simply shaves off a naked woman's moustache without thinking of the consequences? How can you live with yourself now? Tears stream from your eyes as you collapse onto the floor and curl into the foetal position.
Stand up
Give self shake
Hug Continue for consolation
Hug Continue out of love.
Hug Continue Masturbation out of social pressure.
>>185
Eyes bleary and cheeks stinging, you pick yourself up off the floor. You shake yourself and feel slightly more in control for it.
>>186
You wrap two arms around Continue's midriff. She wraps about twenty appendages around your entire body. You are encased like a butterfly in a chrysalis. Her tentacles are soft and comforting and smell like fresh linen mixed with rotting fruit.
>>187
You caress her back (if such anatomical terms apply), and whisper sweet nothings into her... okay, well, she doesn't have any ears, but she clearly seems capable of hearing. At any rate, you tell her you love her.
>>188
You are under no social obligation, real or imagined, to hug Continue. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Kiss Continue on the mouth (or most similar orifice available)
Remove all garments below my waist (my pants and underwear) and spread buttcheeks invitingly.
>>190
The huge toothy maw at the top of her body is not well suited for kissing.
>>191
You have not been wearing any clothes since >>24. Just as you are about to engage in some potentially very lewd antics, you find that precisely 49 minutes and 53 seconds have passed since >>49. You are vaporised along with the rest of the facility.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 6
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>184)
Search for the nearest timepiece to see how much time is left on this save file.
Load >>157.
Shout threateningly down the stairs, "There's more where that came from if you don't throw up your gun and come out with your hands up!"
Get ready to grab the gun that he tosses up.
When he asks if it's alright to come out, reply, "Yes, I won't hurt you. We need to work together to escape from this place."
Politely ask Continue to wait in the spacious corridor of >>128. Blow her a kiss goodbye.
Start a second copy of the game and load >>184.
Head back toward the stairs.
>>193
You search for a timepiece. So focussed are you on your task that you don't notice your surroundings on any level greater than timepiece/not timepiece. You are vaguely aware of passing doorways, windows, possibly stairs? None of it registers.
You come to your senses outdoors in a garden, standing on top of a large metal sundial. It is approximately one metre across and is built into a stone slab in the floor. The sky is overcast (altostratus undulatus), so its gnomon casts no shadow.
To your North is a large circular fountain. There is no water running in it. Beyond the fountain is a tall leylandii hedge. To your West is a gazebo, within which can be seen an ice sculpture of what appears to be a giant magpie with the head of a dog. There is also a table with a white tablecloth and several empty wine glasses. To the East and South are the walls of a mansion. Through a window in the Eastern wall you can see into an office. Inside are several bookshelves, one of which has been knocked over. A person in a lab coat is lying face down on the floor. A computer terminal is visible, which reads 00:00:01:48. The final column is counting down in seconds.
>>194
(Loading >>157.sav...)
(Error: save file missing or corrupted.)
>>195
(Starting We_seem_to_have_lost_contact_with_the_Control_Tower.exe...)
(Error: another version of the application is already running.)
Steal that person's clothes, and search the pockets.
Check the vital statistics of the person.
Panic calmly.
List level 1 Matrimony and Healing spells.
>>197
You climb awkwardly through the window and steal the woman's labcoat, blouse, long skirt, bra and underwear. In her pockets you find a keycard and what looks like a ceremonial stone dagger. It is too heavy and blunt to be practical.
>>198
Her pulse is fairly strong. Her breathing is shallow but steady. Her body temperature is warm, but may drop because you have stolen all of her clothes. Her left leg is absent from the knee down.
>>199
You fret and wring your hands in a more or less controlled manner.
>>200
Matrimony, level 1:
Proposal (active skill): propose marriage to another entity. Both you and the other entity must be eligible for marriage. Requires engagement ring.
Healing, level 1:
Basic healing (passive skill): body slowly regenerates from damage. Not a magic spell; your body just naturally does that.
Allocate remaining skill points to Healing
Pause and press F1 for Help - how to gain more skill points and advance levels?
Heal fallen woman as well as possible.
>>202
You allocate your remaining three points to Healing. Your Healing level is now four.
>>203
Help: Skill Points
You gain one skill point and fifty mana for every sapient creature killed. This is doubled for ritual killings. Skill points may be allocated to any skill.
>>204
You use your newly unlocked ability: place in recovery position (active skill) on the fallen woman. She will probably return to consciousness soon, but not before the timer reaches zero.
>>205,206
You can vaguely recall a conversation. A calm, unplaceable, masculine voice says "These are the files. I hope you have everything you need."
"Thank you," replies a voice, possibly your own.
"Sir, I'm afraid these were not the correct files." says another voice. You are not sure whose. A siren blares. The next thing you remember is waking up on a cold, hard concrete floor.
Type 'S-A-M-S-O-N-5-1-2-ENTER.'
Try to quickly whip the tablecloth out from under the glasses without breaking them. I saw it on TV once, it can't be that hard, right?
Open the JavaScript console and enter "Game.remainingTime = 999999999;"
>>208
Syntax error.
>>209
Wasting precious seconds with wanton disregard, you climb back out the window and try to pull the tablecloth out with a dramatic flourish. The tablecloth catches on the opposite end, pulling over the entire table with it. The glasses all tumble off and shatter against the floor. There is broken glass everywhere. You feel humiliated.
>>210
You require level two thaumaturgy and 75 mana to use the JavaScript console ability.
Pause the timer to play the skiing minigame.
>>212
You require level 100 thauaturgy and 10,000 mana to use the skiing minigame ability.
Ritualistically slit woman's throat with broken glass while chanting "AJAX," thus making an offering to Eich, the God of Javascript. Use the resulting skill points and mana to level up thaumaturgy and open the JavaScript console.
>>214
With one deadly sweep of your glass laden hand, you slit the woman's jugular. "HAIL AJAX!" you scream. Blood arcs through the air, spraying all over the room, the bookshelves, the window, the computer terminal, and, of course, you. Arcane knowledge floods through your head. You have gained two skill points and 100 mana!
You put both your skill points into thaumaturgy. You now have level two thaumaturgy!
You spend 75 mana opening the JavaScript console.
Enter "IDDQD" on the console.
You enter "IDDQD" into the JavaScript console and hit Enter. You hear a sound like a bell chime. Big Head Mode has been enabled.
Download a bunch of freeware variable detectors and run them.
Admire big head.
Summon Ao Oni.
Pray to narrator.
>>218
You cannot locate any freeware variable detectors. You need a freeware variable detector detector.
>>219
You can't help but notice that your head doesn't seem much bigger than before; it's at most 10% bigger. You feel slightly disappointed.
>>220
Ao Oni will not come at your command. He will come and get you when you least expect it. When you least expect it.
>>221
The Narrator demands blood sacrifices.
You wake up on a cold, hard metal floor. You are not sure how long you have been unconscious, but you remember having an odd dream involving JavaScript consoles and giant heads. Blearily opening your eyes, you find yourself lying on a metal sundial built into a stone slab. It is currently night. It is still overcast.
To your North is a large circular fountain. There is no water running in it. Beyond the fountain is a tall leylandii hedge. To your West is a gazebo, within which can be seen a badly melted ice sculpture. There is also an overturned table, a white tablecloth and an almost impressive amount of broken glass. To the East and South are the walls of a mansion. Through a broken window in the Eastern wall you can see into an office.
There is a lot of blood visible on the walls of the office, on the broken glass of the window, on the walls around the window, and in a trail leading from the window to your current position. You are also covered in blood. With a shock, you suddenly realise that you are no longer in possession of your briefcase (which contained your entire inventory), or your beloved Continue.
Say "AW SHIT"
Shit. All over the sundial.
Lick the ice sculpture.
Lick the blood.
Expect Ao Oni.
>>225
You don't really need to go right now.
>>226
You rub your tongue against the remains of the ice sculpture. It tastes a little odd. Thankfully, your tongue doesn't stick to it too badly.
>>227
You lick some of the blood off yourself. The thick metallic taste floods your mouth, sticking to your palate and the back of your throat. It tastes good... yes, very good. You wonder what it would taste like fresh from the source.
As you are busy expecting Ao Oni, you fail to expect a small, white rabbit to show up in front of you. But show up it does. It nonchalantly hops through the grass, sniffs around a little and then hops towards you. You note that it's odd for rabbits to be active at this time of day.
Drink rabbit's blood.
>>229
You're going to need some way of getting the blood out of the rabbit, first of all.
Use the broken glass on the rabbit.
>>231
Success! You have constructed a Level 1 Wand of Lightning!
>>231
You walk away from the rabbit and take a piece of broken glass from the gazebo. You turn back to find the rabbit barely a metre from your feet, still sniffing around nonchalantly. Unperturbed, you wield your makeshift weapon and contemplate how to "use" it on the poor defenceless little lagomorph.
Suddenly, the rabbit stands up on its hind legs. It sways a little, makes a sound as though it's clearing its throat, then stares you right in the eye, silently, for a few moments. You are caught off guard. In one fluid motion the rabbit leaps up towards you, claws and teeth arcing through the air like tiny little katanas, and decapitates you.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 7
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>228)
check status of genitals
Invite white rabbit for tea
>>236
"My dear rabbit," you say, putting on your most gentlemanly voice, "Would you care to join me for afternoon tea?"
The rabbit cocks its head to one side, twitches its nose, and looks at you like the idiot you are for suggesting afternoon tea in the middle of the night, when you don't even have any of the necessary tea-making paraphernalia.
cut wrist with glass and make blood offering to rabbit
Dance a little jig.
use Level 1 Wand of Lightning on the GAME OVER
>>238
You take a piece of broken glass and slit open the skin on your left wrist. You feel an odd sensation, as though small animals were crawling beneath your epidermis. You passingly wonder how long it will take the scars of this wound to heal. The rabbit looks hesitant, then twists its little mouth into a cruel grin and eagerly laps up the blood.
>>239
You dance, hopping back and forth from one foot to the other. The rabbit stands up on its hind legs and dances alongside you, blood still dripping from its muzzle.
>>240
You pass out (you've really got to do something about this narcolepsy of yours) and dream/hallucinate that you used a piece of broken glass on the rabbit and somehow the two transmuted into a Level 1 Wand of Lightening. You wield the tiny electrified phallic object, and discharge it upon a huge set of letters, twenty metres tall, which have appeared in front of you, reading GAME OVER. Blinding white bolts of lightening strike the letters all over. The relief and satisfaction of denying this monumental symbol of your failure is positively orgasmic.
Then, you realise that the lightening has no effect. The monolithic letters remain standing, indifferent. The lightening wanes until it is nothing more than a few sparks spurting from the end of your wand. Disappointment and shame and horror pour down upon you like cold, damp spaghetti.
You wake up in a cold sweat. You are lying on the sundial, again. It is dawn and you can hear birds chirruping enthusiastically from somewhere or other. The rabbit is lapping at your wrist, blood flecks sprayed across its face and your lower arm. You feel a little faint.
Slice skin off with glass and turn it into a ring. Propose to rabbit.
Inspect roof of gazebo
Imitate Strong Bad's voice while vandalizing the gazebo, and make sure to pronounce it like "gaze-bo".
>>242
Feeling a little woozy from all the blood loss, you take the broken glass and slice a rough chunk of skin from your lower arm. There's really quite a lot of blood now. An awful lot, in fact. You attempt to fashion the loose flap of skin into a ring, producing a rather unconvincing doughnut shape.
"Oh rabbit," you say, slurring your words slightly, "Will you m--"
Your breath catches in your throat. The words simply won't come out.
"Will you m- m--"
You require level two matrimony to use the bigamy ability.
>>243
You tilt your head to look at the top of the gazebo. It is hexagonal in shape, like the rest of the gazebo, with a shallowly inclined red roof tapering to a single point. Very scenic, you think to yourself.
>>244
You pick yourself up from the ground, successfully avoiding passing from blood loss. You feel the overwhelming urge to vandalise the gaze-bo, whilst imitating a cartoon man who wears a wrestling mask, boxing gloves and no shirt. (Well, you have the no shirt part at least.)
You grab one leg of the overturned table inside, snap it off and begin hitting the pillars of the gaze-bo with it. "Holy crap!" you exclaim, as one of the pillars explodes into a mass of splinters. "There's two of them..." you ponder, as another two supports fall at your hands. The entire structure looks to be on the verge of collapsing. You take a run up and whack the weakest looking of the remaining pillars, shouting "DELETED!". It snaps like a twig. The roof falls to the ground with a satisfying cacophony, joining the pile of broken glass on the floor of the gaze-bo.
Something is wrong. The ice sculpture is outside the gaze-bo - how did it get there? And why is its head so blue and swollen? Then, you realise: it's Ao Oni, come to get you, when you weren't expecting it!
Scream: "Aaaaaaah!"
Pass out for a while.
Go north.
Go south.
Write a haiku about our present situation.
>>248
In mid-scream, you at last give in to blood loss. The soft grassy floor leaps up to meet your woolly head and everything goes black. You wake up in absolute darkness, in some sort of extremely narrow square passage, clearly not designed for humans. You can hear odd organic noises, including occasional screams. The noise is echoing too much to be able to tell where it's coming from.
>>249,250
You cannot tell which direction is which, but you try crawling forwards. Eventually you come to a metal grate in the floor, strongly suggesting that you are inside a ventilation duct. Beneath the grate is a stone cavern, lit by a single floodlight. You can see some meagre office equipment; a simple wooden desk, chair, pens and paper, neatly arranged. You aren't sure, but you think that the noises are coming from further along the shaft, rather than from the cavern/office under you.
>>251
Gone is the garden
New home: ventilation shaft
Life is so absurd
Imitate Strong Bad some more.
Crawl toward noises while fantasizing sexually.
>>254
You shamble inefficiently towards the mysterious banging, and clattering, further ahead. Yet at the moment, those... banging and... clattering noises... seem to be rather alluring...
Where you were, now - you couldn't care at all. You know only that a raging erection (or female equivalent) has formed beneath you, within your trousers. It beckons your attendance as you crawl, painfully and erotically as you wish to stroke yourself.
A noise... ?
A-anghhh~
Become self-aware and realize your thoughts and actions are not a product of your own illusory free will, but are formed through commands from the elitist superstructure.
List healing spells up to level 4. Also, how much mana do we have left?
Expend all mana with repeated castings of JavaScript console ability.
>>258
Healing, level 4:
You have 25 mana remaining.
>>259
The JavaScript console ability requires 75 mana.
Spend 10 mana to magic heal Continue!
Tweak nipples
>>261
Continue's injured tentacles perk up, and the severed one stops bleeding. She renews her assault, successfully lashing one appendage around Ao Oni's neck. Ao Oni, however, struggles out of the choke hold, and roughly grabs the offending tentacle, tugging it viciously. Continue screams.
You have 15 mana remaining.
>>262
You are not in possession of any nipples.
Try to figure out any weaknesses Ao Oni has.
Summon Big Penis
Headbutt the metal grate
Cast magic missile!
Come on, cast magic missile already!!
>>264
Ao Oni appears to depend most heavily on brute strength, but has remarkably little agility. If you could either temporarily incapacitate or even just distract him, you and Continue would be in with more of a chance.
>>265
You do not know how to summon Big Penis.
>>267
Seeing no alternative, you whack your forehead against the grate with all your strength. Through the blinding pain and blood streaming down your forehead into your eyes, you see that the grate has fallen from its place. You spill haphazardly out of the ventilation duct like dog food out of a tin can.
Both Ao Oni and Continue are staring at you - well, Continue appears doesn't have any eyes so you can't be sure, but she seems to have turned in your direction. Behind Continue you can see some of the previous contents of your briefcase, scattered across the cavern floor. You can see one scalpel, one osteotome, one pencil and one defaced photo of naked Lara Croft more or less within reach, and a handgun several metres away. You have only a few seconds before you lose the element of surprise.
>>268
You require level 1 thaumaturgy and 10 mana to use the magic missile ability.
>>269
You still require level 1 thaumaturgy and 10 mana to use the magic missile ability.
Taunt Ao Oni with the defaced Lara Croft picture as a distraction for Continue.
Ask Ao Oni how to summon Big Penis.
Pick up remains of grate and throw it at Ao Oni, like an awkward boomerang.
Sing a sad ballad.
Ask Ao Oni how to summon Big Penis, wait for him to charge, then leap out of the way at the last second, making him charge straight into the pipe!
Eat a snack.
Specifically, eat Jack's sac.
>>276
Ao Oni takes offence and charges at you. You place yourself between Ao Oni and the huge yellow pipe and do your best deer-in-headlights impression. Continue tries to slow Ao Oni, with predictable results. Within seconds a huge blue fist is swiftly making its way towards your brittle, vulnerable skull. Continue shrieks in horror. You leap dramatically out of the way, and fall flat on your face. Simultaneously, there is a cacophonous metallic crash from where your head just was. A huge dent has appeared in the pipe and a white aerosol hisses out of the punctured metal straight into Ao Oni's face, distracting him for a few precious moments.
>>277
You feel an urgent hunger - not surprising, as the last thing you ate was half a quiche, way back at >>80,81, and even that you threw up again at >>121,122. You look around, desperately searching for a snack, a morsel, anything to quell your stomach's hopeless yearning. Alas, this cavern is as barren of nutrition as the Atacama desert.
>>278
"That's it!" you exclaim, "I'll eat Jack's sac!" There follows an awkward silence, filled only by the sound of the mystery aerosol leaking from the pipe. Ao Oni looks at you. Continue looks at you. You look at yourself. Who is Jack? What sort of edible sac does he possess? What on earth are you talking about? Nobody knows, least of all yourself.
Realize with shame that I don't know Jack.
Then run like fuck for the nearest exit.
Grab the gun (and hopefully bullets?!) on the way out.
>>280
You don't know Jack. At first, this realisation fills you with shame, but it evokes a stronger, more elusive feeling as well - horror, dread. Slowly, you rise to your feet. You cast a vacant glance across the cavern, but nothing you see truly registers. "Who is Jack?" you mutter to yourself. Continue makes a distressed squealing noise and waves her tentacles, urgently trying to get your attention, probably to warn you to get out of the way of Ao Oni. "Who is Jack?" you ask her. She pauses a moment, then continues with redoubled urgency. At last, you turn around to face your giant blue nemesis. You stare him in the eye. He stares back, his eyes inscrutable and unwavering. "Who is Jack?" you ask him. His eyes widen, then he abruptly looks away, no longer able to meet your gaze. Continue whimpers piteously.
Who is Jack? Why don't you know who he is? If you simply don't know anyone called Jack, then why would a thought involving Jack come unbidden to your mind? What deeper association, what subtle conditioning is there in your mind to bring this about? You have no memory of anyone called Jack, but beyond a certain point you have no memory at all. Jack could be anyone. Your father could be Jack. Your son could be Jack. Your wife could be Jack. You could be Jack - indeed, you don't even know your own name; why shouldn't it be Jack?
You collapse to your knees, fill your lungs with air, raise your face upwards and scream with all your might, all your frustration, all your shame, all your horror, every fibre of your being: "WHO IS JACK‽" You try to run for the nearest exit, but there is no exit to your torment.
>>281
You reach down and pick up the handgun. The handgun is not Jack. You wander further down the cavern and find some bullets strewn across the floor, along with the remains of your briefcase. "Jack... Jack... Jack..." you mutter, under your breath. The briefcase is in a poor state; the clasps are completely broken and the handle has come off. Files spill out of the ruined case like rushed apologies from a man with low self esteem. As you are completely naked and no longer in possession of any usable receptacle, you will only be able to carry as much as you can hold in your hands or wear. You pick up the bullets - four in total. One is small, white and spherical. Another, slightly larger, is a brilliant blue colour. The third is pale green, with a white outline and shaped like an elongated grain of rice. The fourth is blood red, and shaped like an arrowhead. These are not handgun bullets. These are danmaku bullets. Is this Jack's doing?
>>282
You eat a sandwich. Instead of bread, the sandwich is made of Jack. The filling is despair. It tastes bitter, so very bitter.
Dinner making stop!
Load gun with blue bullet and shoot Ao Oni while murmuring a prayer to Jack.
Ask Jack if he remembers what day it is today, and load the fourth bullet into the handgun.
Barf up the jack
>>284
You're fairly certain you aren't making dinner, literally or figuratively.
>>285
Stoically, you slip the large, blue bullet into the barrel and level the gun against Ao Oni. "Jack have mercy on you, you giant blue bastard." you mutter dramatically. Ao Oni looks surprised at first; then fearful, cowering against the bright yellow pipe like a cornered animal; and, finally, he appears to accept his fate. He bows his giant swollen head. A single tear rolls down his cheek. The sound of a gunshot echoes through the cavern, and Ao Oni explodes with a ピチューン sound, leaving nothing but a spray of power items.
For killing a sapient creature you have gained one skill point and 50 mana. You currently have one unallocated skill point and 65 mana in total.
>>286
You continue to mutter to yourself about Jack. You don't know what day it is, and if Jack does then he certainly isn't telling. You take the red arrowhead bullet and load it into the handgun.
>>287
You try to vomit but your stomach is quite thoroughly empty. You simply retch, leaving your mouth with an unpleasant acidic taste.
>>288
You decide that you have had enough Jack for one lifetime. One Jack/despair sandwich was more than enough. You shall seek a better sandwich: a sandwich of hope, wrapped in soft-crust progress, garnished with plot development.
You passingly notice that the mystery white aerosol has stopped leaking from the pipe.
Hurry to grab the power items before they get away!
Eat those power items. In a sandwhich if possible. Give some to Continue too.
Actually, wait, only eat the edible power items. And check what's in the pipe.
How big is the pipe?
Look into the pipe and yodel.
If still alive at this point, save game.
ERROR IN OPERATION: SAVE();
GAME PROGRESS WAS UNABLE TO BE SAVED TO DISK.>>290,291
You're too slow! They've already fallen offscreen.
>>292
There's a serious dent in the pipe where Ao Oni punched it. On closer inspection, there's a thin crack that has clearly pierced the metal plating, but you cannot see inside. A faint, unfamiliar chemical smell emanates from the fissure.
>>293
It's about one metre in diameter and, in length, goes as far as you can see in either direction.
>>294
You make some sort of approximation of yodelling. Continue appears to interpret this sound as you being in pain or distress, and rushes over to you, waving her tentacles and trying to work out what the matter is.
>>295
Game saved.
Smile at Continue. Check Continue's condition, use Dress Wound skill on any serious injuries she has.
>>298
Continue calms somewhat, though she still appears tense. Five of her tentacles are injured, of which three are only bruised, one is fairly badly crushed and one has been severed halfway. As you have already healed her a little back at >>261,263 her wounds are by no means life threatening. The dress wound skill requires antiseptic, a dressing or a bandage.
You hear a faint noise coming from further down the cavern.
Give up mentally and collapse in a heap on the floor.
Huff the substance leaking from the pipe.
Switch to the control scheme from Dizzy 3.
Inspect noise.
>>302
The aerosol stopped leaking from the pipe back at >>289.
>>303
You don't know how to do that.
>>304
You wander along the cavern towards the source of the noise, Continue close at your heels. It turns out to be further than you thought; you are walking for at least ten minutes along the gently winding rocky passage, featureless apart from the giant bright yellow pipe, before finally reaching an end to the cavern in the form of a wall of filled concrete. Built into the wall is a slightly ajar heavy set metal door. Assuming this must be where the noise came from, you enter.
You find yourself in a short, narrow corridor lit by fluorescent strip lighting. Continuing your search for the source of the noise, you exit the corridor through one of the doors, selected at random. You find yourself in a small room containing a desk, chair and computer terminal. The computer terminal reads:
WARNING:
COOLANT PRESSURE CRITICALLY LOW: SUSPECTED LEAKAGE
REROUTING FROM EMERGENCY RESERVOIR...
FAILED: SUSPECTED BLOCKAGEWARNING:
PORTAL CORE STABILITY CRITICAL
DIMENSIONAL COLLAPSE IMMINENT
ENGAGING EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN PROCEDURES...
FAILED: MANUAL OVERRIDE IN OPERATIONThe chair is knocked over. There are papers scattered across the desk, some of which have fallen to the floor. A cup of coffee has been knocked over, spilling coffee over many of the papers. A cursory glance reveals that they appear mostly to be full of quantum mechanical equations, along with many graphs and tables of data which you can't readily interpret.
One side of the room is taken up by a large window, overlooking another cavern, much larger than the one you were just in. In the geometric centre of the space, hovering several metres away from any of its surroundings, you see a floating image, like a mirage, of a beautiful meadow full of brightly coloured flowers, overlooked by small, fluffy cumuli. As you watch, the grass and flowers are ruffled by a brisk Spring breeze.
The cavern is laced with catwalks and metal scaffolding. The walls are interspersed with windows looking into rooms more or less identical to your own. In one room, high up on the opposite face, you see a man staring back at you. Your eyes meet, then he turns and leaves the room.
>>305
You are not in possession of any sandwiches.
Wring coffee from the papers back into the cup and drink it.
Attempt to access pornography from computer terminal.
Go to the computer and go to http://4-ch.net/dqn/kareha.pl/1341413503/
Take some papers to use as makeshift bandages. I assume we left the ruined briefcase back in the cavern, so stuff them into our pockets, I guess. (do we have pockets?)
Also search the desk for anything useful.
>>307
You manage to drain a small amount of dark brown liquid back into the cup; barely enough to coat the bottom. You swallow it all in one gulp. It tastes very odd; rather unlike coffee. It tastes faintly of almonds.
>>308
You open the browser and type in one of the usual URLs.
THIS WEBSITE IS BLOCKED IN ACCORDANCE WITH YOUR COMPANY'S
INTERNET USAGE POLICY FOR THE FOLLOWING REASON:
PORNOGRAPHYFOR MORE INFORMATION, AND IF YOU BELIEVE THIS WEBSITE TO HAVE
BEEN BLOCKED INCORRECTLY, CONTACT YOUR SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR.>>309
You open this very thread.
>>310
You take some of the papers. You can now use the dress wound skill, if necessary. You are completely nude and have no receptacle to hold objects - the closest you have to pockets is an all consuming void lurking in your crotch - so you can only carry as much as you can hold in your hands. You are currently carrying a handgun loaded with one bullet in your right hand, and two bullets and five sheets of paper in your left hand.
In the desk drawer, you find an unsealed letter. It is addressed to:
>>835
Demanding from the next poster
The Elitist Superstructure of DQN
4-ch.net
http://4-ch.net/dqn/kareha.pl/1314324451/835
Inside is a piece of paper reading "I demand that >>837 write a short story from the point of view of a shrine maiden."
Insert obstinate terminal into mysterious crotch hole of doom.
Make the following post in this thread:
">>313
You obediently type out the post and hit reply, then suddenly notice a fresh set of clothes and shiny new briefcase on the desk. How convenient!"
>>313
You obediently type out the post and hit reply, then suddenly notice a fresh set of clothes and shiny new briefcase on the desk. How convenient!
>>312
You crouch on the desk, legs spread, and push the corner of the machine into your crotch. It seems to contort and fold itself as it falls into the void, as though turning in a spacial dimension not visible to you, and disappears without a trace. For good measure, you allow your crotch void to consume the keyboard, mouse, cables and all the other computer paraphernalia as well.
>>313
You cannot post in this thread without a computer with internet access.
Shoot the window in the vague direction where the man was.
Curse quietly.
>>316
You turn back to the window, and are startled to find that the floating image of the meadow has expanded to fill the entire space. It seems somehow more real and immediate than before - you can not only see the wind blowing through the flowers, but can also hear it. You can even feel the early Spring sunlight gracing your naked body. There's something subtly off about the whole scene, but you can't quite put your finger on it.
You aren't sure what direction the man was in, but you level the handgun towards the window and pull the trigger. The window pane shatters, in the wrong direction - the glass shards are propelled back towards you - and the meadow floods into the room and surrounds you. Everything goes white. Three words echo through your head, unbidden: "Dimensional collapse imminent"...
>>317
"God fucking damn it," you mutter to yourself inaudibly, as your consciousness fades away from you yet again.
You awaken to find yourself lying on your back, staring up at the sky. A young girl, perhaps around twelve years old, is looking down at you. She is wearing a black pleated skirt, white blouse, dark blue cardigan, blue neckerchief and black knee-high socks. Her hair is held up in two places with little white ribbons. Her face is rife with concern, which appears assuaged at least a little by your return to consciousness.
"N-Nameless Protagonist-chan, are you okay?" she enquires, helping you to your feet. Looking down, you find that you are dressed in an identical uniform to her. You look vacantly at her. "Protagonist-chan? It's me, your osananajimi, Continue-chan!" she explains. "We have to hurry, or we'll be late to our first day at Grinding Noises Gakuen!" She casts a dramatic glance across the flower-laden meadow, eyes sparkling, and says excitedly, "Ara ara, from today onwards we'll be chuugakusei! I'm feeling so dokidoki!"
Lift skirt and inspect crotch (out of the corner of our eye) to see if the crotch void is there. And don't point it at Continue-chan.
>>319
You turn away from Continue-chan and cautiously lift your skirt. Like any self-respecting joshigakusei, you are, of course, wearing pantsu. Specifically, you are wearing cute white pantsu with tasteful frills and a little white bow at the top. Still, you need to know what lies in the untold depths of your crotch. Shamelessly, you peel your pantsu down your thighs, looking out of the corner of your eyes at what lies beneath.
Continue-chan seems horrified by your unmaidenly conduct. "P-P-Protagonist-chan, why are you doing such hentai things? W-we have t--" she is interrupted by a computer cable launching itself at high velocity from between your legs, and landing in the field a few metres away. This is swiftly followed by more cables, a mouse, keyboard, a computer chassis, a monitor, a handgun and a severed foot.
Ponder if Jack-onii-chan could repair the computer, but since he is probably not here, try to figure it out myself.
Give panties to Continue-chan for safe keeping.
>>321
You don't know anyone called Jack, and you certainly don't know of any Onii-chan you may have. You're no expert on computer repair, but you're fairly certain they need to be plugged in to work.
>>322
You slip off your frilly white pantsu and hand them to Continue-chan. She blushes profusely, and appears to misinterpret the gesture. "P-Protagonist-chan," she whispers, voice failing her, "W-we can't, it's dame! My kokoro isn't ready!" She seems more bothered by this than by the paraphernalia that just spontaneously ejected itself from your nether regions.
Blush profusely and shout "gomenasai!" Then throw your panties into the air and run off dramatically in tears.
Curse quietly.
Applaud and shout "congratulations!"
Gleefully stroke chin.
Gleefully make a din.
Add too many commands to the command queue
>>324
You swear you've never seen this man in your life.
>>325
Aware of your faux pas but too young and immature to take responsibility for your miscommunication, you run away, casting tears and underwear about with wild abandon, whilst mispronouncing "Gomen nasai". Of course, as you are in the middle of a field, there isn't really anywhere to run away to.
>>326
"Kuso," you mutter under your breath.
>>327
You turn back to face Continue-chan. She is staring at you helplessly, her visage awash with tears, despair and betrayal. "Omedetou gozaimasu!" you shout to her, clapping energetically. Continue-chan sobs piteously.
>>328
You smile to yourself with glee and stroke your chin like an elderly philosopher preparing to pontificate on some esoteric topic.
Continue-chan abruptly stops crying and looses a roaring laughter, fell and terrible! "Ufufufufu! If you're going to toy with my kokoro like that," she giggles, "I think I'll toy with you a little myself!" She stalks towards you meaningfully. You try to back away, but trip over a severed foot that happens to be lying in the grass. You cannot get up as Continue-chan is already standing over you, casting a menacing silhouette against the bright blue sky. In one fluid motion, she reaches back and takes something gleaming and metallic from the back of her skirt - a knife!
She raises the blade above her head, and swings it down violently into your mune, again and again, laughing maniacally as flecks of your blood spray over her seifuku.
>>329
You certainly make quite a din, begging for mercy and screaming with pain, but the glee is all Continue's.
>>330
You cannot add commands to the command queue; you're too busy being stabbed to death.
As your consciousness fades away like the blood seeping into the dirt beneath you, the last thing you see is Continue-chan's blood-speckled face, smiling affectionately at you. Then you die.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 10
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>320)
Inspect severed foot
Resolve the Jack Conundrum by taking on the name for yourself in lieu of Nameless Protagonist.
Retrieve handgun.
>>332
It's fairly large - probably an adult's - and appears to have been severed a fair while after death. There is no sign of blood in or on it, and pallor mortis has set in. The severance, above the ankle, is fairly clean, and appears to have been done with a sharp implement.
>>333
Your name is now Jack Conundrum-chan.
>>334
You search through the grass, and before long locate the handgun. These are, of course, illegal here in Nippon, so you've never seen one in real life and have no idea how to use it. Continue-chan appears quite distressed by the object. "Conundrum-chan, put that down! It's abunai! Now hurry up, or we'll be late for jugyou!"
Hide gun somewhere on my person (preferably without Continue noticing) and follow Continue.
Hide Continue somewhere on my person (preferably without the gun noticing) and follow the computer.
kick foot
>>336
There's nowhere on your person that you can convincingly hide a large, bulky object like this. Your skirt contains two small, dainty pockets, but they're more suited to hiding okashi or the occasional love letter than dangerous weapons. You try to hide it in your sock, unsuccessfully. You could try to hide it in your pantsu, were it not for the all consuming void in your crotch. You have to settle for holding it in your hand.
You don't insult Continue-chan's intelligence by pretending that there's any possibility she hasn't seen you fumbling around with a handgun, trying to hide it in your clothes, right in front of her.
You follow your osananajimi towards your new chuugakkou. You pass by many scenic rural scenes of fields full of rice seedlings set against tall, green mountains, stone stairs and red torii hinting at the presence of enigmatic and unseen jinja, and, finally, an avenue of blooming sakura trees leading to the building itself.
>>337
You grab Continue-chan around the waist and attempt to pick her up and slip her in your pocket. You fail even to lift her from the ground - instead, your hands slide up her young, nubile body and end up cupping her soft, yet satisfyingly firm, breasts. "Kyaa~!" she exclaims, body stiffening with unexpected and unknown pleasure. You decide that you can't hide her anywhere on your person, and let go of her. You're fairly certain the gun hasn't noticed. Though you can't guarantee it hasn't been moved, you think it safe to assume the computer is still in a field several hundred metres back, making it rather futile to follow.
>>338
Just as the two of you are about to enter the school gates, Continue-chan stands for a moment, looking up at the chuugakkou building where the two of you are to spend the next three years coming of age, going through puberty and suchlike. She takes a deep breath, readying her maidenly body and soul to take this momentous step in her life. You decide this is the perfect time to kick her in the foot from behind.
She goes sprawling onto the floor with a cry of surprise, scraping her knee and ripping one of her socks. Her striped pantsu flash from under her skirt. All the nearby gakusei stare at her, heightening her embarrassment to an unbearably painful degree. With a great effort, she picks herself up from the pavement, desperately fighting back the tears welling in her eyes. Silently, she looks into your face - seeking some reason, some trace of humanity - then down at the gun in your hand, finally appearing to resign herself to inaction. She walks solemnly towards the building, hanging her head.
Continue-chan may be too timid to admonish you, but that doesn't mean the narrator isn't going to. You monster.
You get a lot of strange looks due to the handgun you're carrying, but nobody does anything about it, likely assuming it isn't real. Finally, you get to the kyoushitsu for your first jugyou. The Sensei walks in - a fairly short man with unkempt black hair. He is wearing a grey suit. He looks vaguely familiar, but you can't quite place him. "Ohayou gozaimasu, mina-san," he begins, "Today's jugyou will be about dimensional collapse..."
Listen quietly and intently like a good little girl.
Fart, but quietly like a good little girl.
Point your gun at nobody in particular and proclaim, "Dead or alive, you're coming with me!"
>>340
You sit upright and listen to Sensei's lecturing. He has an indecisive, meandering manner of speaking, along with a tendency to go off on obscure tangents and an evident fondness of intricate diagrams that attempt to show several things at once. Nonetheless, you manage to keep up well, and learn all about the metastable nature of the third spatial dimension, which may collapse at any moment in a false vacuum-like event to leave a world which is, though technically two dimensional, in possession of nested fractal dimensions so as to appear three dimensional. You also learn, in passing, all about the applications to string theory, number theory, exotic animal husbandry and the novel Anna Karenina, amongst other things.
>>341
Try as you might, nothing will come out, quietly or otherwise. Indeed, you're fairly certain that youjo are physiologically incapable of farting or pooping.
>>342
You stand up, brandish the gun, and make a vague but assertive threat to nobody in particular. Sensei turns around from the blackboard, eyes wide and jaw hanging open. "I-it's you! Oh dear god!" he cries in horror, before diving out of the kyoushitsu and sprinting away down the corridor.
Follow sensei, but remember the rule of pointing guns: do not aim at anything you are not prepared to shoot.
Loudly sing 僕らはみんな生きている* while skipping after *sensei.
Assess whether or not I possess an anus in light of my failed attempt at farting earlier.
Don't shoot.
Assert my Americaness while pursuing sensei. Also remember that, since I'm American, I have legally owned and used over a thousand guns, making me quite proficient at brandishing guns and being 100% American.
>>344
You follow sensei at a brisk pace. You turn the gun around to make sure you don't shoot anyone.
>345
You begin to loudly sing and skip. The enormous amount of effort for you to learn Japanese as you sing while skipping causes you to trip. The gun goes off lodging a bullet into your heart. You are dead.
>>346
You cannot assess in death.
>>347
You won't be shooting anymore.
>>348
You are buried in an American made casket draped in a flag. 21 rifles are shot and eagles released at your funeral. After the funeral a barbecue is held in your honor.
Enter resurrect code
>>350
You are resurrected. Unfortunately you are in a flag draped casket under 6 feet of earth.
start digging.
>>352
Many centuries later, a casket is found by archaeologists containing a man's skeleton, with evidence of frantic scratching from the inside. This evidence of vivisepulture leads to much argument in the contemporary archaeologist community, as the consensus is that early twentieth century medical science should have been more than sufficient to confirm death before burial. This is confused still further by a bullet that appears to have pierced the heart, which should have been enough to kill any human. Some claim that the corpse is wrongly dated, and in fact from far earlier; others claim it to be Mafia work, while still others claim it to be an elaborate prank. A number of books are written about your corpse, and you even have the honour of being implicated in several government conspiracy theories.
At any rate, you are most decidedly dead. Again.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 12
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>343)
You chase after Sensei with all your might. His flimsy theoretical physicist body cannot keep up with your genki youthfulness, and you soon corner him at the top of a stairwell. Like the sensible little youjo you are, you keep your gun pointed diametrically away from either yourself or your quarry.
"P-please," he gasps, desperately out of breath, "I'll do anything, j-just don't... don't... that thing..."
He keeps glancing over your shoulder, as though expecting something unspeakably ghastly to appear behind you at any moment. By contrast, he appears entirely unfazed by your sidearm.
"Get me a fucking sandwich!"
Shame Sensei for talking about his "thing".
Call for Continue-chan.
Shoot blindly over the shoulder. Twice.
"Now give me some answers, or I'll give you the crotch!" Gesture menacingly toward our crotch area.
>>354
"Y-yes, right away, mistress." he mumbles, scurrying away towards the cafeteria. You follow close behind, watching closely for any signs of insubordination. Five minutes later you are sitting in the otherwise deserted cafeteria hall (hiruyasumi isn't for another half hour) accompanied only by Sensei and a cheese sandwich. Sensei looks to have calmed somewhat, but he is clearly still on edge.
>>355
You're not sure what this "thing" is that Sensei mentioned before, but you're convinced it must be something shameful. You attempt to convince Sensei of his guilt, but he insists that he doesn't want to talk about "it".
>>356
Sensei flinches as you call for your companion. She sheepishly pokes her head around the door, clearly having been following you loyally this whole time, but unable to muster the nerve to show herself. She comes and sits next to you, a nervous smile on her face.
>>357
You suddenly brandish the gun, point it over your shoulder and pull the trigger twice. Sensei and Contiue-chan both yelp in surprise, and Sensei attempts to adopt the brace position. Nonetheless, the gun does not actually fire, and instead just makes clicking noises. You aren't sure why.
>>358
You stand up from the table and threaten Sensei with your pelvic region. You even flash your pantsu at him to show him you mean business. He appears simultaneously terrified, mystified and deeply unnerved. He simply sits staring at your crotch, jaw quivering, unable to form words.
insert sandwich into crotch orifice of doom
Ask sensei why we lost contact with the control tower.
Put my handgun on the table and look around for any loot.
Apologise to Continue-chan for earlier
>>360
Clearly, Sensei has not grasped the gravity of the situation, you conclude. You must demonstrate the terrible power you wield. A stony look on your face, you grab the cheese sandwich, drop your pantsu, spread your legs and slip it into your crotch. It disappears without a trace. Sensei is mesmerised by the sight, eyes vacant, mind clearly blank. In a trance, he reaches across the table, hand stretching towards your special place. "H-hentai!" you scream reflexively, flipping your skirt back into place and pulling your pantsu back up. Sensei regains his faculties once he loses eye contact with the void, and seems surprised to find himself sprawled across the table as he is. He sits back down, shakes his head, opens his mouth as though about to say something, then thinks better of it and simply looks at you bewilderedly.
>>361
Sensei gives an abrupt, high pitched nervous laugh. "The Control Tower? You really think they're going to help us now?" He buries his head in his hands. "This is far beyond the Control Tower, you know. Nobody higher up's going to put an end to this catastrophe. It's all up to us."
>>362
You decide that this conversation is far too serious and depressing for your maidenly kokoro. You cast the heavy, useless lump of metal you've been carrying around onto the table and set off in search of shiny trinkets and takaramono. Alas, a thorough search of the cafeteria yields only a paperclip and half a biscuit.
>>363
"Continue-chan, I'm really sorry about before; please forgive me. I didn't mean it. I don't know what came over me. W-we're still tomodachi, aren't we?" you implore, voice quivering with contrition. "O-of course!" she replies at once, and rushes over towards you to hug you dramatically.
Unfortunately, she doesn't have the chance, as at that moment Sensei grabs her about the waist and backs away, holding the handgun (which you foolishly left within his reach) against her head. "Don't move! I'll shoot!" he threatens. His hand is shaking slightly. Continue-chan struggles against his grip, but to no avail. In the absolute silence of the empty cafeteria, you hear a gentle click as Sensei releases the safety on the handgun. "Now," he says, "You listen to me for a change. First of all, where the hell is that... that thing? That tentacled abomination, where is it?"
Consume biscuit.
Dub the adventure, 4kids style, for added hilarity and obfuscation.
Say that I don't know anything about any tentacled thing, but that it sounds extremely hentai and not like something a Sensei should be talking to his student about.
Ask sensei where the mecha suits are.
Make your best RoboCop impression and say, "This is the police. Drop all your weapon."
>>365
Without a word, you take the half-biscuit, slowly lift it to your mouth, take a bite, chew and swallow. You maintain eye contact with Sensei throughout. You take another bite, chew and swallow. The tension is unbearable. You put the remainder of the biscuit in your mouth, chew it and, finally, swallow. Sensei and Continue-chan stare at you, equal parts incredulous and expectant.
>>366
Hilarious and obfuscatory as that would no doubt be, you suspect that you'd find it rather difficult to dub other people's speech without knowing what they're going to say first, and especially difficult to dub your own speech whilst you're saying it.
>>367
At long last, you acknowledge Sensei's threat. You feign complete ignorance on the topic of tentacular entities, and try to divert attention towards the inappropriate nature of the topic itself. Sensei is not fooled. "Bullshit!" he interjects, "I saw you standing right next to the accursed thing! You can't possibly not have seen it. Now tell me, where is it?"
>>368
Undeterred, you continue your campaign of distraction. Sensei does not take the bait. He grips Continue-chan tighter, lifting her clean off the ground, and presses the barrel of the handgun into her temple. "T-tasukete, Conundrum-chan!" she pleads, namida streaming down her little face in rivulets.
>>369
You aren't sure who this Robokoppu is, but you attempt to impersonate him nonetheless. "This is the keisatsu." you say in a steely voice, "Otose all your kyouki." Sensei actually appears somewhat taken aback by the threat, and tries to negotiate with you. "Look, okay, forget about the tentacle thing. Do you know of any way back to the facility? Or at least to contact them? Anything? Come on, we can work together here."
You suddenly remember that you have at most five minutes before hiruyasumi starts, at which point the cafeteria will be flooded with gakusei. It may be wise to try to resolve the hostage situation before that, or it might escalate out of your hands.
Tell Sensei about the computer you left back in the field.
Say "the last time I saw the tentacled thing it was doing battle with ao oni. As far as I know they're both dead now."
"Now put the gun down and let's go find that computer!"
Now that we have reconciled, ask Sensei if he has seen Jack
And ask for another sandwich, this time for eating.
>>371
You tell Sensei about how you woke up in the middle of a meadow, and about the odd things that came from between your thighs. He listens patiently, asking only a few questions. He seems particularly interested in the severed foot.
>>372
In order to further mollify Sensei, you make up something about the tentacle thing being dead. "Who's Ao Oni?" he asks, then says offhandedly "Well whatever, so long as it's dead. That's a relief."
>>373
At that moment, the bell signalling the start of hiruyasumi rings, and Sensei agrees to release poor Continue-chan on the condition that the three of you set off immediately for the field. Which, indeed, you do. Continue-chan is very glad to be free, and insists upon holding your hand all the way there.
>>374
As you are walking, you try to bring up some light conversation, but can't think of any good questions. You decide to just blurt out whatever stupid question comes to mind first, which, predictably enough, doesn't really lead to much of a conversation. "Isn't that your name?" he asks, "Jack Conundrum-chan, wasn't it? Or do you mean another Jack?"
>>375
Instead of seeing this dead end of a dialogue through to the bitter end, you try a new question. "Can I have another sandwich, onegai?" Sensei replies, not altogether unreasonably, that he's already given you one and if you really wanted to eat one you shouldn't have wasted the previous one. Not to mention, he's still the one with the deadly weapon, not you.
Before you have a chance to make any even stupider queries, you arrive at the meadow. In the middle of the field, standing in front of the discarded computer, is a large tentacled creature. Its body is a dark brown, almost black colour, and is roughly two metres tall. Its upper body contains a large, toothy aperture which undulates rhythmically, as though undergoing peristalsis. From its body radiate countless thick, barbed tentacles. As you watch, it uses one of them to pick up the severed foot, probes it gently and then throws it into the orifice at the top of its body and swallows it whole. It doesn't appear to have noticed the three of you yet.
Ask sensei to explain Okun's law
Tease the horrifying tentacle beast because that would probably be hilariously deadly.
Squeal in joy about how kawaii your new friend is.
Orient my central chakra towards Jupiter and cast lvl 10 general protection. Rearrange my party so that sensei takes the lead, as he wields the strongest weapon. Set continue-chan on defense mode and end my turn.
>>377
Sensei, who has not yet noticed the giant tentacled creature, responds with a derogatory snort. "Law indeed! Really, it's little more than a rule of th-- Argh! Aaaargh! Oh dear god, no!" Sensei, having seen something he didn't want to, collapses onto the floor in the foetal position, quivering and murmuring to himself. He appears to be too overwhelmed by fear and zetsubou to help you much now.
>>378
You start walking into the field, preparing to taunt the thing, but you barely make it two steps before Continue-chan (who appears by now to be expecting your bizarre and nonsensical behaviour) tackles you to the ground and berates you for your reckless and potentially disastrous conduct. "Dame! That's dame, Conundrum-chan! Zettai dame!"
>>379
You're not sure Sensei really counts as a friend yet, and although he's certainly atama ga ii and rather kakkoii, he isn't particularly kawaii to the casual observer. You give a light squeal anyway, just for good measure.
>>380
You don't know where Jupiter is relative to your current position, so you just lie on the ground and point your solar plexus at the sky. You require level three thaumaturgy, level one healing and 50 mana to use the general protection ability. You currently have level zero thaumaturgy, level four healing, 65 mana and one unallocated skill point.
You can't convince Sensei to move to the front of your party, so instead you and Continue-chan stand behind him. You tell Continue-chan to only fight if she's attacked first. She looks rather troubled by this instruction, but finally nods in assent.
You end Jack Conundrum-chan's turn. You are now playing as Masturbation Continue-chan.
List available skills and have confusing thoughts about Jack-chan.
Throw Jack into an infinitely deep hole
Be Gamzee.
The the gram gibzie
Be gramsi at Sensei
Put salt in Jack's eyes
death metal plays in the background
Transform into horrorterror form so you can fight the tentacled thing fair and square.
Propose to the tentacled thing.
>>388
That would be a hidoi thing to do! Even the thought of doing something like that to the person you love makes you squirm in discomfort. Oh my, did you really say "love"? Golly gosh, is this how you truly feel about Conundrum-chan? You are so swept up in the ensuing emotional gravity wave that you forget you ever had an urge to put anything in anyone's eyes.
>>389
The tentacled thing stops abruptly and makes a painfully high pitched screeching noise. You aren't sure why or how, but it seems vaguely reminiscent of the sound of an electric guitar, only heavily distorted. It begins to violently beat its tentacles against its lower body at a very fast tempo. Though one would expect a solid sound, it instead sounds as though the body is hollow, like a bass drum. From behind you, Sensei sits bolt upright and begins to speak in an impossibly deep, throaty voice. "We're all gonna die!" he expounds. The drumming and screeching intensifies.
This is all very kowai to you. You instinctively grip Conundrum-chan's arm in fear. She also appears scared.
>>393
You have a very odd feeling, as though continuity was just violated (continuity, not Continue!), and, at that very moment, are filled with a strange sense of calm confidence. You stride purposefully into the meadow. The tentacle thing turns to face you, a seething mass of teeth, wiry appendages and hatred. It stops screeching and drumming for a moment to listen to what you have to say. "Konnichiwa, tentacle monster-san," you begin, "If it's okay with you, could you please fuck off?"
The tentacled beast is not amused. "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" it replies, plucking you off the ground like a little flower.
>>390
You require level 12 telekinesis, level 5 healing, level 5 thaumaturgy and 75 mana to shapeshift.
>>391,392
You call to Sensei and ask him for a ring, but there is no response. "T-Tentacle monster-san," you say, "Will you m-ma--" You are interrupted by a plethora of tentacles, which proceed to - oh god, I can't watch - the horror! The horror! - oh, how abhorrent! Mercifully, you pass out from pain fairly quickly. The thing continues to play with your body for a while, then gets bored and eats you.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 13
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>387)
As you are standing at the edge of the field, gazing silently at the tentacled creature and at a loss as to what to do, you happen to turn around to see Sensei. He is gripping the handgun, and pointing it at the thing. His hands are shaking violently. If he shoots, it will likely attract the attention of the thing, and you have reason to suspect that it isn't friendly.
Put salt in your eyes
Be Sensei.
Grab Conundrum-chan's hand and make a run for it while Sensei distracts the thing.
Put salt in sensei's eyes before letting him bait the thing, just in case.
>>395
You cannot find any salt, nor for that matter can you find any reason to put salt in your eyes.
>>396
You are now playing as Dr Alexei Fujiwara (otherwise known as Sensei).
>>397
As you see the thing approaching, you stand up and give yourself a brisk shake. You can't stay here, not with that thing so close. Before you can make a run for it, however, you must ensure the safety of your accompanying nymphets, and somehow discourage that nightmarish beast from following you. A daring and heroic keikaku coalesces in the back of your mind. You tug at Conundrum-chan's hand - as Continue-chan is holding her other hand, both are pulled along - and the three of you begin to run away. Simultaneously, you throw the handgun as hard as you can into the field in the opposite direction. Hopefully, the thing will choose to investigate the weapon where it lands rather than follow you, in which case you won't need a weapon anyway. In all honesty, you were rather nervous about being in possession of such a dangerous item in the first place, and doubt you'd've had the nerve to use it.
Unfortunately, the tentacled thing proves better at reverse plotting aerial trajectories than you anticipated, and immediately gives chase, with a bloodthirty screech that exponentially rises in intonation. It displays remarkable agility and speed, dragging itself forward with its fore tentacles, moving about as fast as you can sprint.
You are running parallel to a hedgerow which marks the boundary of the meadow. A few metres ahead is a small wooded area, followed by a downhill slope leading to a road. On the other side of the road are the back gardens of some semi-detached houses. The tentacled thing is close at your heels, and, given your state of fitness, you won't be able to keep up your current pace for long.
>>398
You're in a field! There's no salt here - none! None at all! Even if there were, you wouldn't rub it in your eyes, nor anyone else's!
Find salt and put it in your eyes. Then Jack's eyes for good measure
run along the road and jump in front of the first vehicle we see!
check inventory/skills
Stay salty.
Lecture tentacled horror on Gandhi's theories of passive resistance.
Lecture tentacled horror on Ohm's theories of passive resistance.
Lecture tentacled horror on Danny's theories of salt in your eyes.
>>400
Mid-sprint, you spy something small, blue and cylindrical sticking out from the hedgerow, and grab it hoping that it might aid your escape. It reveals itself to be a container of "Reduced Sodium Salt". Ah, what a miracle! Manna from the gods! (Though surely, you think to yourself, it's oxidised sodium, not reduced). Yes, you know exactly what to do with this. Your eyes have gone saltless for far too long. You pour a little of that miraculous white powder into the palm of your hand, and, with a flick of the wrist, soon feel that sweet stinging release as the crystals abrase your corneas. Your vision blurs with tears and you blink by reflex. Some salt gets caught under your eyelids, causing unbearable itching and pain. You can barely see any more.
"Here, Conundrum-chan!" you shout, tentacle beast still mere metres from your precious orifices, "Rub this in your eyes!" You throw her the container. She does as instructed, and is soon in as much pain and tears as you are.
>>401
You run towards the road, or at least where you think the road is, but end up running head first into a tree. You fall flat on your back. Foolishly, Continue-chan and Conundrum-chan stop where you do. "Are you daijoubu?" asks Continue-chan, having seemingly forgotten why the three of you were running in the first place. She is soon reminded, as are you and Conundrum-chan, as the thing picks you all up and has its wicked way with you all. After experiencing a lifetime's worth of pain and humiliation, your entire party is killed and eaten.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 14
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>399)
>>402
Your inventory is empty, barring what you are currently wearing: a plain black dress shirt, black trousers, grey underwear, odd socks (one brown with an argyle pattern, the other white with red patches on the heel and toe), black shoes and a small, functional wristwatch on your left wrist. You currently have level one healing, level one matrimony and level three theoretical physics. The following skills are available to you:
>>403
Thankfully, your body is already quite adept at maintaining correct electrolytic balance. You haven't been sweating or urinating heavily, so you're probably salty enough already.
>>404
You turn around and begin to tell the tentacled horror about the principles and history of nonviolent action. The thing interrupts and presents the counterargument that this approach fails to work when you are in life-or-death situations. It expresses this not in words, but in actions, by picking you up and committing various unspeakable acts of depravity upon you and your party, then eating you all.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 15
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>399)
>>405
You turn around and begin to tell the tentacled horror about the so-called Ohm's law, which, of course, is hardly a law, as it fails to encompass many electricity related phenomena such as electrical breakdown. The thing interrupts and tells you that it believed Ohm's law to be more or less infallible, and how upset it is to have been lied to thus. It expresses this not in words, but in actions, by picking you up and committing various unspeakable acts of depravity upon you and your party, then eating you all.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 16
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>399)
>>406
You turn around and begin to tell the tentacled horror about how and why people put salt in their eyes. The thing interrupts and tells you how upset it is that it has no eyes, and thus can't experience rubbing salt in them. It expresses this not in words, but in actions, by picking you up and committing various unspeakable acts of depravity upon you and your party, then eating you all.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 17
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>399)
Eat tentacle monster.
Salt the tentacle monster as you start eating
Grab Jack, pull down her panties and point her crotch at the tentacled thing.
Be the tentacled horror.
Pour salt on the tentacled horror in hopes that it will get homesick and go back to the salty ocean
>>409
You try, and fail, to eat the tentacle creature, due in no small part to a general unfamiliarity with trying to eat living creatures, especially those larger than you.
>>410
Even pouring salt on it doesn't help. The thing, seeing your difficulty, aids you by giving a demonstration of how to eat living beings - even including a little pre-dinner entertainment - by picking you up and committing various unspeakable acts of depravity upon you and your party, then eating you all.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 18
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>399)
>>411
In a fit of desperation, you commit the most ungentlemanly act of your life, and, ignoring poor Conundrum-chan's screams and protestations, you displace her frilly pantsu, flip her skirt up and point her lower body at the fast approaching wall of tentacles. The innumerable sadistic, groping appendages wash over the two of you like a breaking wave in a storm, then - unbelievably - begin to withdraw! The horrifying mass is sucked into Conundrum-chan's crotch like evil, murderous tagliatelle. Conundrum-chan screams in horror. Continue-chan screams. You scream. The tentacle monster screams.
Then, a strange calm descends upon the scene. The creature is no more. You fall to the ground, breathing heavily and overwhelmed with relief. Conundrum-chan gives a startled yelp and pulls her pantsu back up.
>>412
Having just become responsible for the death of a sentient being, you spend a few moments reflecting on mankind's place in the world at large. You contemplate the so-called Holocene extinction; the vast amount of death wrought by mankind, starting 12,000 years ago. As humans spread their taint to each continent in succession, so each continent lost its megafauna - woolly mammoths, elephant birds, countless species of simian and felid - and thus lost any natural equilibrium and a substantial amount of biodiversity forever. Yes, you think to yourself, humanity is the true monster. We are all the tentacled horror.
>>413
You feel a sudden urge to pour salt on the tentacle monster but, of course, it is gone. Perhaps it was the last of its kind. Perhaps you are now responsible for its extinction. You pour a little out on the ground by way of a libation, as a single tear traces a line down your cheek.
Ask Conundrum if you can keep her pantsu.
Pour salt in Jack's crotch
Who received the skill point/mana for killing the tentacled horror?
While heading toward the forest for safety, explain as quickly as possible to Conundrum and Continue the events leading up to the dimensional collapse.
Set your name to "Player 1"
>>415
Conundrum-chan looks at you with shock, followed by a sort of uneasy mixture of disgust and fear. And yet, she finds that she cannot disobey. She removes her pantsu and hands them to you, avoiding eye contact and blushing with shame. Continue-chan looks on silently. A pair of frilly white pantsu has been added to your inventory.
>>416
As she is still next to you, you carefully, but firmly, push her to the ground and flip her skirt up with the intention of pouring salt into her crotch. Unfortunately, as soon as you catch sight of what lies beneath, you lose control of your actions, and succumb to the bewitching, hypnotic wiles of the void. Soon, you go the way of the tentacle monster. You probably deserved it as well.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 19
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>414)
>>417
You know you certainly didn't. You aren't sure how these things work; perhaps it only counts if you kill it directly, or maybe... maybe it isn't dead.
>>418
Having quite thoroughly forgotten what you came to the meadow for in the first place, you walk into the small forested area ahead of you while telling the two onna no ko as much as you know about the cause of the dimensional collapse, which is very little: the portal core and failsafes somehow failed, and then the dimension collapsed. The end.
>>419
You feel a tug at your sleeve. Continue-chan looks up at you, clearly so dokidoki and hanikami that she has difficulty getting the words out. "Anou, Sensei, shouldn't we go try the c-computer?" Yes, you agree, you should. The three of you walk back to the - thankfully vacant - field.
In order to get it working again, you elect to carry the computer all the way back to the chuugakkou and use it there. It's heavy, and a long way to carry, but between the three of you you finally make it. Sat in the IT room, the setting sun casting an orange filter over everything in sight, you plug in the computer and switch it on - it works! Now, to attempt to communicate with the contact tower. Hmm, you think to yourself, perhaps you didn't think this out very well; after the dimensional collapse, the universe was largely reconstructured, and there's every chance the control tower - or, for that matter, the entire facility - is no longer extant.
Cautiously, with heavy keystrokes, you attempt to connect to the facility intranet. The webpage loads slowly, excruciatingly slowly, redirects several times, and, at last, resolves to a login page. It requires a username and a password. There is nothing else displayed on the page.
>>420
Your name is now Player One.
Put salt into Jack's crotch with a blindfold on
Log in with the following:
username: username
password: password
If that doesn't work, try:
username: admin
password: password123
username: emanresu
password: drowssap
Enter the username and password with your nose, because the nose knows.
username: ' or '1' = '1
password:
Wait 5 minutes, clear the cookies, and refresh the page.
Ponder whether the game is broken since sensei was definitely about to start typing ' or '1' = '1
Type "Player 1", hit enter, type "ASS", hit enter.
Summon The Mighty Dongoloid
Unplug and replug the computer and mash random keys while it starts up.
Combine Q-Bert and Diviner Sensation to summon Key Fairy.
>>430
You sit around for five minutes twiddling your thumbs, Continue-chan and Conundrum-chan staring daggers at you the entire time. The webpage is the same as before, with the same condemning message.
>>431
This login setup is not something most people would consider a game, but you are not most people. You wonder if it's broken, because you clearly intended to type in more than a single apostrophe, even if the rest slipped your mind at the time. Yes, you think to yourself, the login screen should process not what you enter, but what you intend to enter. It's the login game's fault, really. That's much easier than accepting the blame yourself.
>>432
The username and password entry fields are greyed out, so nothing happens when you type.
>>433
You have no idea what this "mighty dongoloid" is, let alone how to summon it.
>>434
You give the power cord at the back of the computer a firm tug, and the screen goes dead. You plug it back in, press the power switch and, throughout the startup sequence, run your hands over the keyboard like an inexperienced but overenthusiastic jazz pianist. You end up opening the boot menu. It is set to boot from the hard drive by default, the other options being to boot from CD-ROM, USB or LAN.
You hear an exasperated sigh from behind you. Continue-chan grabs you by the shoulders and turns you to face her. "You utter baka!" she accuses, slapping you as hard as she can in the face. Your right cheek stings. "You incompetent aho!" she smacks you again, with the other hand, this time. Conundrum-chan looks on, at a loss as to what to do. "You useless unko-for-brains!" She pushes you to the floor and pins down your arms with her legs, then hits you in the face again. "What the hell is wrong with you, you subhuman piece of kuso!" Smack! "Just die!" Smack!
She pulls something from the back of her skirt - a knife - and presses the sharp edge against your jugular. She leans in close and whispers in your ear, in a low, monotone voice, "Stay away from the computer, and let me sort this out. Go sit in the corner of the room and stare at the wall. Don't say anything. Don't do anything. Don't even look at anything." Once she sees she has thoroughly broken your spirit, she lets you get up and cower in the corner of the room, tail metaphorically between your legs.
>>435
You don't know what a Q-Bert is, but you certainly aren't in possession of one. The only sensations you have are shame, embarrassment and pain. You don't know what a "key fairy" is, nor how to summon one.
As you're busy sitting in the corner thinking such stupid and useless things, Continue-chan restarts the computer, installs TOR and attempts to connect to the intranet via another exit node, with apparent success. She types something in, evidently believing it to be the correct username and password, and is surprised and disappointed to find that it's incorrect.
Be Jack again.
Put salt on the computer
Check inventory...where did that knife come from?
Since computer is now connected to the internet, go to http://4-ch.net/dqn/kareha.pl/1341413503/l50 on the browser, enter the following:
"Desperately, Conundrum-chan mashes her head against the keyboard and presses enter. And surely enough, the prompt on the screen now reads "Login Successful". Also everyone gains massive experience points and Continue-chan learns Solarbeam"
Hit Reply.
Pretend that you are Spider-Man.
Check for other installed programs on the computer besides the web browser.
>>437
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan.
>>438
You are not in possession of any salt.
>>441
You politely ask Continue-chan for brief access to the computer, and she soon acquiesces. You navigate to this very thread and type out an absurd, delusional but oddly comforting post, well aware that nothing could possibly come of it. Once you finish writing, you click reply.
Wrong verification code entered.
>>442
As Continue-chan returns to angrily manipulating the keyboard, you decide to amuse yourself by pretending to be one of those amerikajin superheroes. You jump around the room, shooting imaginary spiderwebs from your wrists and uttering poignant lines about personal responsibility. Neither Continue-chan nor Sensei spares you a single glance.
>>443
You walk over to the computer again, with the intention of checking what other programs are installed. Rather than step aside, Continue-chan turns to you with an odd look in her eye. "I love you, Conundrum-chan, I really do..." she says slowly. You are frozen in place, and your small maidenly body is filled with dokidoki feelings. "But... you've become awfully bothersome, Conundrum-chan. I loved you more when you stayed out of my way." She stands up, a crooked smile on her face, eyes gleaming like the knife in her hand. "Don't worry Conundrum-chan, just close your eyes and I'll make sure nothing like this ever comes between us again..." She takes a step towards you, blade at the ready.
Masturbation Continue-chan has left your party, and is no longer a playable character.
Close your eyes.
Sing "Never gonna give you up."
Tackle Continue-chan's torso to knock her to the ground, pin down the hand holding the knife, and kiss her while applying enough pressure to her wrist that she loosens her grip. Grab the knife and raise the knife while chanting ritualistically to the blood god, then stab her in the heart.
If that doesn't work, just point our crotch at her.
Preemptive self-heal cast! Counterattack by slapping her across the face!
>>445
You close your eyelids and yield yourself to your beloved, willing to bear anything she might do to you, for her sake.
>>446
Having accepted your fate, you begin to sing, under your breath, a song - a beautiful song, about full commitment, understanding of feelings, honesty, about the endurance of love; about everything that's important to you. You feel a pressure about your upper body - Continue-chan is hugging you tightly, and sobbing quietly. "C-Conundrum-chan, is that truly how you feel about me? I-I... aishiteru, Conundrum-chan. Let's be together forever." You stroke her back, your ai surpassing the need for words. The two of you stay like that for several long, slow moments, bathing in one another's warmth and affection.
>>447
With no warning, you let go of your beloved Continue-chan and push her to the ground. You pounce upon her, grabbing her hand with the knife - which she makes no effort to hold onto - and clamping your lips onto hers. You kiss her passionately, almost violently, experiencing a strange and sudden hunger for her body. Her lips respond in kind. She tastes faintly of peaches. You withdraw, taking the knife from her. She looks up at you, smiling gently, a single hair caught in the corner of her mouth.
You raise the knife above your head. "Conundrum-chan, I f--" she begins, but her last words are interrupted by your praising Armok at the top of your voice. You plunge the knife into her mune, into which it descends without a sound. Continue-chan gives a slight gasp, then falls silent for good. A bright red fluid bleeds from the wound, spreading into a large, irregular stain on her blouse, somewhat like a poppy. There is blood on your hands.
For killing a sapient creature in a ritual manner, you have gained 100 mana and two skill points. You currently have 165 mana and three unallocated skill points.
>>448
You are attacked by remorse, which tears a gaping hole in your heart. You try to heal the damage, but your skills are only effective on physical injuries. You try to counterattack, but remorse is a fickle beast that causes you to attack yourself. You feel dreadful. So dreadful, in fact, that you don't notice that Sensei has long since left the room.
Curse quietly.
Pour salt in your heart
Head towards the Control Tower. Or at least where Jack believes the Control Tower might be.
check inventory/skills
Put all skill points into necromancy. We will bring Continue back someday!
Load a save from before we killed lovely Continue-chan
Unless >>455's command works, save a lock of Continue's hair to assist in any necromany-related activities.
>>450
You mutter some unladylike epithet under your breath. It doesn't make you feel any better.
>>451
You decide to pour salt in your wounds, so to speak, by condemning yourself for your actions. How could you do something so heartless? You ask yourself. You have no answer. You collapse in a deluge of salty tears.
>>452
You have absolutely no idea where the Control Tower is, or, for that matter, what it is. It could be something entirely metaphorical for all you know. The only thing you know to be associated with accessing the Control Tower is the computer, which you walk over to.
>>453
Your inventory is empty; you are only in possession of your clothing. You are currently wearing: a black pleated skirt, a white blouse with slight blood staining, a dark blue cardigan, a blue neckerchief, a pair of white knee-high socks, a pair of black shoes and a pair of frilly white pantsu. You currently have the following skills:
>>454
You now have level three necromancy. You have unlocked the following skills:
>>455
(Loading >>444.sav...)
(Error: save file missing or corrupted.)
>>456
You cut a few precious strands of Continue-chan's hair, using the very knife you just murdered her with, and put them in the pocket of your skirt. A lock of Continue-chan's hair has been added to your inventory.
Eat her hair
Commit acts of necrophilia on Continue's body
Open the javascript and try the following commands:
Player.mana = 50000;
Player.setMana(50000);
Player.mana_recovery = true;
Player.xyz = Sensei.xyz;
Continue.xyz = Conudrum.xyz;
help();Switch to Player 1.
Be the Control Tower.
>>458
You feel a sudden need to be closer to the late Continue-chan. You can scarcely bring yourself to look at what you have wrought upon her small body, but you do have that one lock of hair by which to remember her. Unable to think of any better way to bring her closer to her, you swallow the hair. You feel it scrape agonisingly against your pharynx, but continue to force it down, desperate to be able to carry that little bit of Continue-chan inside you.
You become aware that something is urgently wrong - the lock of hair is lodged somewhere it shouldn't be. You gag by reflex, but nothing comes up. You try to swallow to dislodge the obstruction, but to no avail. You bend over and try to cough, but you can't even manage that. In a blind panic, you claw at your throat, lungs burning for lack of air, unable even to scream. At last, the world goes black and your inert body lands on the floor, next to that of your former lover.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 20
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>457)
>>459
You feel a sudden need to be closer to the late Continue-chan. But... a different sort of closeness. An ecchi sort of closeness. Unfortunately, you don't know how to do ecchi things; you aren't even sure where babies come from, but you think it has something to do with a hole in your crotch. The hole in your crotch is far too dangerous to bring near poor Continue-chan's body, though, you decide.
>>460
You spend 75 mana opening the JavaScript console, type in a few lines, then close it again. Immediately, your vision is filled with:
Failed: NameErrorFailed: NameErrorFailed: NameErrorFailed: NameErrorWarning: TypeError in module PauliExclusionPrinciple
You find that Continue's cadaver has been superimposed into your body. Your constituent atoms vehemently repel one another, and you explode on an atomic level, spraying the entire room with a fine mist of little girl particles. The help screen opens, but you can't read it because you're dead.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 21
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>457)
>>461
You are now playing as Player 1, otherwise known as Sensei. You are currently huddled in a broom cupboard down the corridor from the IT room. You are in complete darkness, and cannot see any of your surroundings.
>>462
The Control Tower resists your feeble attempts to subvert its consciousness.
Open the door, then have a look at what possibly-useful items are currently stored in this broom cupboard.
Curse politely and gently touch your surroundings in hopes of finding a door knob.
Open the cupboard! Quick! Before a grue eats us!
>>464
Cautiously, you reveal yourself to the world, and closely inspect your hiding place. You find a broom, a mop, an opened box of spare incandescent lightbulbs, two tins of paint, one tin of wood varnish, a few wooden crates and several unmarked cardboard boxes of varying sizes.
>>465
"Oh fiddlesticks," you mutter to yourself. You can see a doorknob on the door you just opened, but touch it by hand just to make sure.
>>466
Thankfully, the cupboard seems quite grueless.
Just as you are beginning to feel safe, You hear the footsteps of someone running down the corridor towards you. Conundrum-chan runs into you and slams the door behind you. The two of you are plunged into darkness. She clings to you, shaking. You manage to make out a few words from her. "People outside... soldiers... carrying guns..."
She suddenly falls silent. You can hear slow, heavy footsteps outside the cupboard door.
Quietly grope Conundrum-chan's oppai.
Quietly hum the tune "The ants go marching one by one."
Quietly be loud.
Gently prod the crates and boxes with your appendages. If any of them feel to be open, engage the sense of touch to cautiously inspect what's inside.
>>468
You decide to make use of the darkness and need for silence to satisfy your own latent lolicon yearnings. Without warning, you grasp poor Conundrum-chan's thorax, cupping your hands around her small, budding oppai. You feel her body stiffen, but she makes no sound. You squeeze and knead them greedily, causing a slight gasp to escape her lips.
>>469
You quietly hum your favourite nursery rhyme. The footsteps outside stop.
>>470
You quietly kick one of the crates on the ground, causing a clattering noise somewhat louder than you intended. There are a few seconds of silence, then the cupboard door is thrown open to reveal two rather threatening looking human figures. They are dressed in full body grey combat armour, with visors covering their faces. They are wielding large, bulky guns, which they are pointing at you.
Without hesitation, they open fire, burning large holes through your vital organs with their laser weapons.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 22
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>467)
>>471
Taking great care so as not to make any noise, you explore your surroundings. The cardboard boxes mostly contain books, and magazines which, obviously, you cannot read. You also locate an odd cubic object which, when manipulated, reveals itself to be a Rubik's cube. One cardboard box contains a set of cleaning sprays, sponges and rags. The wooden crates are all sealed and unopenable.
After having spent this long rummaging through the contents of the broom cupboard, the footsteps from outside have moved on down the corridor. You are probably safe for now.
Stuff as many cleaning rags as possible in pockets.
Take Rubik's cube and stuff it down our pants.
Cautiously open cupboard door, check for enemies, and if the coast is clear make a run for it in the direction that the footsteps were coming from.
Celebrate the Rubik's cube anniversary throwing a wild 80s themed party.
In case of unexpected (and armed) guests cease and desist immediately.
Yawn theatrically, announce that I'm bored, and then go over and see how the Car Wars game at another table is going.
Ask Jack-chan why is Continue-chan absent.
>>473
You take all four rags and stuff two in each of your trouser pockets. You hide the Rubik's cube in your underwear.
You open the cupboard door, just a crack, and look out. The sun has set, and the corridor is bathed in twilight. You cannot see anyone. Grasping Conundrum-chan's hand, you decide to make your escape, sprinting away in the opposite direction to the IT room.
>>474
You make it to the top of the stairwell, a few metres from the broom cupboard, when you are suddenly struck by a bolt of inspiration! Taking the Rubik's cube out of your underpants, you begin plotting what sorts of parachronistic celebrations you could throw.
>>475
The door to the IT room flies open, and two people in combat armour emerge, running straight towards you. You cease your ridiculous reverie and run down the stairs, narrowly dodging the lasers now etching scorch marks into the wall immediately behind where your head just was. You hear heavy boots slapping against the ground as the two set off in pursuit of you.
>>476
Conundrum-chan seems awfully kanashii, and your current predicament isn't likely to help. You decide to lighten the mood by jokingly suggesting that being chased by angry men with guns is something blasé. You are somewhat too out of breath to yawn convincingly, hampering your presentation. "How boring!" you exclaim. Conundrum-chan doesn't acknowledge you at all, and simply keeps running down the stairs.
You cannot see any tables, nor can you locate any games of Car Wars.
>>477
"Where's Continue-chan?" you ask, as the two of you reach the next landing on the staircase. Conundrum-chan stops, looks at you with large, pathetic eyes, and silently shakes her head.
You are currently on the first floor of the chuugakkou. From here, corridors branch off to the East and West. Within running distance are two kyoushitsu and the infirmary. You could continue down the stairs to the ground floor, where you will find the lockers, front door, and cafeteria. You are already quite out of breath and can't run much further, but Conundrum-chan could probably make it quite some distance more, were you to split up.
Inquire if Conundrum-chan still wishes another sandwich. Go downstairs if she does.
Post deleted by user.
Run and hide under the bed in the infirmary.
my hair is nappy!
>>479
Conundrum-chan seems more interested in avoiding a premature death than filling her stomach. She swings around the banister and continues running down the stairs, two steps at a time.
>>481
Abandoning your young companion to whatever lies downstairs, you dive through the door to the infirmary and slam it shut behind you. Those hateful footsteps aren't far behind you. You momentarily take stock of the room: there is a desk and a large cupboard to your right. There are a lot of files neatly arranged on the desk, but you can't see much else in the dark. There are two hospital-style beds, between which are curtains that can be drawn across to form partitions. They're all pulled back at present. At the opposite end of the room is a large window overlooking a courtyard.
Inelegantly, you throw yourself under the first bed and try to get your breathing and heart rate back to a more civilised pace. The door slams open. You hear someone enter, pause briefly, then open the cupboard. Clearly not finding what they are looking for, they continue searching the room.
>>482
You have never been good at dealing with stressful situations; they can have odd effects on your psyche. In this particular case, your stress manifests as a bizarre momentary delusion that your head is covered not in hair, but in a used baby's diaper. You can almost feel the infant's effluence pouring down your face. Even holding your breath, the smell of excrement is overwhelming. Yet, you cannot move for fear of alerting your nemesis.
He walks down the room - right towards you! His boots pass within centimetres of your head. He walks to the other end of the room, stops, then turns and abruptly walks straight out. Seconds later, you hear the door to the kyoushitsu next door open. He has left the door to the infirmary ajar.
stay here
Wait 666.666 seconds.
Make grinding noises
Take the files. I hope we have everything we need.
Re-read the pause menu brief, as I realize I really have no idea what the hell am I doing.
Keep the pause menu for a bit longer to enjoy the music.
>>484,485
You stay under the bed for about eleven minutes. After around a minute, you hear the sound of laser fire, coming from downstairs. It comes again around twenty seconds later, from the courtyard this time. You hear the person next door leave and descend the stairwell outside. The remaining ten or so minutes pass uneventfully.
>>486
"Drr, drr, drr," you say to yourself. Alas, your weak, fleshy larynx is insufficient to substantiate the beautiful, mechanical noise you were trying to make.
>>487
You crawl out from beneath the bed like a young child's nightmare, make your way to the desk and stuff your pockets with as many of the files as you can. You have no idea why there are there are so many files here, but you're quite beyond caring at this point. Your pockets are bulging with cleaning rags and files, so you elect to carry the rest in your hands.
Whether your current situation constitutes "everything you need" or not is a matter of semantics, you think to yourself. Primarily, what is meant by "need"? For instance, you will sooner or later require some source of nutrition, which you don't have - yet you aren't particularly hungry right now. If need is defined only as what is required in the instant, then you do indeed have everything you need, but this definition soon runs into problems - namely, everyone currently living has what they need to continue living for the instant, which renders the entire concept almost useless. Indeed, you think to yourself, a sense of what will be necessary in the future is implicit in the idea of need. Yet this cannot work either, for all people are mortal, and hence in need of something at some point in the future - thus, no one can be said to have everything they need. You may define need as being for a certain distance into the future, but then where does one draw the line? You hope that you have everything you need, but fear that you do not.
>>488
The pause menu reads:
GAME PAUSED
You continue to have no idea what you're doing.
>>489
You stare at the text of the pause menu. The text of the pause menu stares back at you. You try to enjoy the background music, but can't help but find it rather unnerving. For the most part, it is a somewhat subdued, melancholic solo piano piece, but with a strange, steady undercurrent of grinding noises, as of pieces of machinery rubbing against one another. The melody is interspersed with odd and unexpected refrains of musical instruments you don't recognise. They don't even sound synthesised; they're more like vaguely distorted versions of conventional instruments.
Just as you are beginning to grow comfortable, the vocals kick in. "Kill them," a woman's voice instructs, "Kill them all, and then I will love you."
Save, then exit to menu.
Quit and uninstall
Reinstall.
Don't
...stop me now
New Game+
Play as Dear Leader.
Quit, uninstall OS.
Throw the computer out the window
GET!
>>491
Game saved.
You try to exit to menu, but the button is replaced with the text "There is no escape". Nothing happens when you click it.
>>492
You cannot quit. You can never quit. There is no way out.
You cannot uninstall either. That would be silly.
>>493
You cannot.
>>494
You do not.
>>495
You are stopped.
>>496
You cannot do that either, Player 1.
>>497
Nor can you do that.
>>498
And you most definitely can't do that.
>>499
You find all these prohibitions and forbiddings utterly unreasonable. Why should you be disallowed from uninstalling your OS if you feel like it? Similarly, why shouldn't you be allowed to play as the supreme leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea if you so desire? You feel yourself swept away in a tsunami of rage. Your frustration erupts as a fountain of Luddism. The computers are to blame. You'll show them what for!
You angrily click "Return to game", ascend the stairs and return to the IT room, rip the computer - the very same computer you dragged here all the way from the meadow - from its nest of cables, and, still seething with anger, pick up the computer chassis, monitor and keyboard and throw them as hard as you can against the window. The pane shatters outwards, and the mass of evil, antagonistic technology plummets two storeys to the earth, where it shatters like an egg. You lean out the gaping aperture of broken glass and look down to admire your handiwork.
There is a person in grey combat armour lying face down on the pavement, half buried in now useless computer parts. As you watch, his body twitches once, then goes still. For killing a sapient being, you have gained one skill point and fifty mana.
>>500
An accomplice of the man you just killed soon shows up at the scene, and stares up at you in horror. "500 GET, MOTHERFUCKER!" you shout to him. He is utterly incredulous, and does nothing for a few seconds, before finally raising his gun in your direction, at which point you prudently pull your head back indoors.
Play as Conundrum-chan from the point she separated from Player 1.
Put an end to this catastrophe.
>>502
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. You find yourself running down a staircase leading to the ground floor of your chuugakkou, being chased by a pair of armed and armoured men with ill intent. Your companion, Sensei, has abandoned you.
>>503
Things cannot go on like this, you think to yourself. This calamity, this aberrational state of affairs must be ended once and for all. Possessed by a singular purpose, you sprint down the last flight of stairs, ready to... Ah, wait, which catastrophe was it you were doing to put an end to again? Was it the whole dimensional collapse whatsit? Was it the apparent invasion of the building by people armed with lasers? Or was it your lingering and confusing feelings for the late Continue-chan? Was it your piercing sense of abandonment at Sensei's sudden cowardice, mere seconds ago? Or is your entire life just one great catastrophe? You aren't sure any more.
At the bottom of the stairs, you can see a pair of doors leading to the cafeteria to the West, corridors leading to the North and South, and, to the East, several rows of shoe lockers and a set of doors leading outdoors. You can see two more armed men outside, at the school gates.
Hastily remove your shoes, wield one as a weapon, throw another one into the southern corridor and run to the North
Sneak up on a lone guard from behind, knock him out with the shoe, steal his laser weapon and shoot him. Not ritualistically. There's no time for that.
Allocate skill point to necromancy.
Attempt to regroup with Sensei.
>>505
You take off your two small, black Venetian-style shoes, keeping one ready to use against any ill-wishers, and hurling the other down the South facing corridor. It lands with a clatter. It lays there, silently, punctuating the empty space of the corridor like a little black full stop. You sprint away in the opposite direction, bare feet pattering against the cold ground, just as you hear your aggressor reaching the bottom of the stairwell.
>>506
You take the first exit to the West, which happens to lead to a courtyard, and lie in ambush. When the armed man reaches the ground floor, he looks briefly at your discarded footwear, then runs down the Northern corridor, towards your hiding place.
You wait until he has passed you, then spring out behind him and hit him as hard as you can with your shoe. Unsurprisingly, your small, soft girl's shoe has little effect through his helmet, and certainly doesn't knock him out. He turns around suddenly, pointing his laser gun at where you just where - thankfully, your reflexes and small stature allow you to avoid his clumsy counterattack.
Things not working out quite as intended, you try a different approach, of using his own weapon against him. You lunge forwards and try to wrest the gun from his hands. Though unsuccessful, you manage to prevent him from pointing the weapon at you. He fires, twice, leaving blackened marks on the ceiling and wall.
>>507
You do not have any unallocated skill points. Sensei, on the other hand, has one.
You cannot leave without risking being shot.
Point your crotch at him out of desperation
Say "Aishiteru, oni~chan," and kiss the guard.
CROTCH-VOID
End turn, be sensei, go get gun of the man I just killed, search refuge from soldier giving me chase. End turn, be Conundrum-chan.
>>509
Still hanging onto the man's laser gun with your left hand, you drop your shoe and, with your now empty right hand, try to remove your pantsu. This proves to be no easy feat. Your adversary struggles and attempts to back away, ending up falling backwards through the door to the courtyard and landing heavily on his back. He appears to be winded. Taking advantage of his incapacity, you temporarily let go of the gun, peel your pantsu down your thigh, and jump onto his chest, pinning down his arms. He twists and contorts himself like a distressed salmon caught on a fishhook, unsuccessfully trying to regain control of the situation. You continue to attempt to point your crotch at his helmet visor, but it's difficult with your legs held together by your underwear.
>>510
You decide to try your hand at psychological warfare, and, bringing out your inner imouto, declare love for your Onii-chan. You follow up with a kiss to the side of his helmet. He suddenly goes still and stops struggling.
>>511
You smile angelically at him, then straddle his face with your pelvis and let him be consumed. He immediately resumes his struggle, and continues even after his head has passed entirely into the void. He flails around and fires his laser gun.
You feel an odd sensation in your right hand, followed by a sudden shock of pain. You have been shot! The laser gun has entirely removed your ring finger and little finger below the knuckle, as well as part of your palm. The wound appears to have cauterised itself, and isn't bleeding. You stare in horror, quietly whimpering, at what has been wrought upon your poor hand. The man vanishes entirely into your crotch, taking his weapon with him. The courtyard abruptly lapses into stillness and silence.
You are now playing as Player 1, otherwise known as Sensei. You make your way from the IT room to the stairwell, down to the ground floor, and towards the courtyard, where you intend to retrieve the weapon from the man you just dropped a computer onto. Unfortunately, you only make it as far as the base of the stairwell, when you attract the unwelcome attention of an automated sentry gun, which greets you with a hail of bullets. They sting like personal insults from a former childhood friend. You fall over and die.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 23
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>512)
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. You find yourself hiding behind a large potted aspidistra in one corner of the courtyard. Also in the courtyard is another man in grey combat armour and the body of his accomplice, who has just been crushed to death by a computer thrown from the second storey. Though your hiding place is not awfully good, the courtyard is almost completely dark, and the other man seems more interested in Sensei than in you. Your hand still hurts rather a lot.
Don't sneeze.
Magic heal hand until the pain goes away.
Play something better, like Tetris.
>>513
"Golly gosh," you think to yourself, "This would be a terrible time to sneeze." Then, predictably enough, you feel that familiar tingling in your sinuses. It's as though little ants with little needles on their legs are crawling around in the back of your nose. A reflexive action builds up tantalisingly from within you, offering sweet, explosive release from your ticklish agony.
But you resist. You do not sneeze. The man goes unalerted, and your sinuses go unemptied. Eventually, the feeling subsides.
>>514
You spend thirty mana healing your hand. You have 135 mana remaining. Blisters form on the edge of the wound, then begin to subside. The flesh begins to lose its blackened, charred appearance, and turn an unpleasant shade of pink. It is still tender, but doesn't hurt too much.
>>515
This impromptu game of hide-and-seek you're playing is not to your liking, you decide. You take a leaf from the aspidistra plant you're hiding behind and, using your fingernails, cut it into little tetrominos. You consider spending mana on reanimating the bits of leaf, but decide that would be far too silly. You settle for moving the pieces around with your fingers, whilst quietly humming the Tetris theme to yourself. An L-piece descends from the top of the screen. An amateur would put it at the far left, but you can see that next is an I-piece, which you leave room for by placing the L-piece one to the right. But, what's this? A T-piece rears its ugly head!
Amusing yourself thus, you notice a few minutes later that you are now alone in the courtyard; the man has left.
Secretively head toward infirmary. Around each corner, test for automatic sentries by throwing our shoe. If the shoe is not retrievable, find a rock or something.
Leave school, start life at circus.
Realize the circus is bad and burn it down.
Start a life of circus burning.
>>517
You decide that it's rather too dark in this courtyard. You feel as though a grue might jump out and eat you at any moment. You aren't sure where Sensei is at present - if he has any sense, he'll no longer be in the IT room, as that's likely where the other man was going. At any rate, you think, the infirmary would likely have bandages to cover your wound, making it a good place to set as a goal.
By some bizarre miracle of prescience, you decide to try throwing your shoe into the corridor before reentering the building. It is shredded to pieces by automated gunfire before it even hits the ground. You look around the courtyard for other ways to get to the infirmary - if you had a grappling hook, you might be able to get into the hole in the IT room window and downstairs from there, but you don't have a grappling hook. There are a few other windows on the ground floor - in particular, the cafeteria has large, floor length windows. None of the windows are open or manually opennable. You could probably throw the potted aspidistra, for instance, through a window, but it'd make a lot of noise.
>>518
You sit down and leave behind your boring, disappointing life of being stuck in a school courtyard and sink into an elaborate fantasy about being part of a travelling circus. What fun!
>>519
No, actually, it isn't fun at all. Clowns are terrifying and people who work in circuses are usually barely above the poverty line, miserable, and lead vacuous, unfulfilling lives. This fantasy isn't working out at all. You try to burn the memory out of your mind. Brightly coloured tents become blazing infernos. Clowns run for their lives amongst screaming children, heads aflame with hellfire. You resign your entire daydream to perdition. Finally, the shrieking and carnival music stops ringing through your head.
>>520
You think you've probably traumatised yourself enough already.
Be sensei. Fashion a rope out of bed sheets, tie one end to something sturdy, and lower it out of the window for Conundrum-chan to climb.
>>522
You are now playing as Player 1, otherwise known as Sensei.
You find yourself struck by a sensible idea. You aren't quite sure what to do with it, being so used to bizarre, inappropriate responses to situations, such as urges to rub salt in your eyes. You suspect it to be to do with your background in theoretical physics leaving you relatively clueless in practical matters. Then again, you've seen Conundrum-chan act on some even more dubious ideas - remember that time you took Continue-chan hostage and she just stood there eating a biscuit? What was that about?
Where were you going with this? Ah, that's right. A sensible idea. You carefully make your way downstairs from the IT room to the infirmary, strip both beds of their sheets, return upstairs with them, tie them into a makeshift rope and hang it from the hole in the window, taking care to remove the broken glass under the rope to prevent it from being cut. Finally, you tie the other end to a table leg, and sit on the table to weigh it down.
Conundrum-chan climbs the rope in a genki fashion, and soon pokes her head into the room. She gasps and hangs her head. You follow her gaze to find Contniue-chan's dead body lying in a pool of her own blood in the middle of the room, with a blood stained knife right next to her. Gosh, you didn't even notice that was there. After a little coaxing, Conundrum-chan joins you in the IT room.
You hear laser fire coming from down the corridor outside. Cautiously investigating, you find yet another of these combat armoured chaps running towards you, firing over his shoulder. Behind him is an enormous mass of tentacles, almost filling the entire hallway, and flowing forwards at a frightening pace. The laser fire doesn't seems to affect it in the slightest.
Shut the door, lock it (if it has a lock), and blockade it (with Conundrum-chan's help) using whatever heavy objects are available. Take the knife and have it ready in case the guard or the monster tries to get in.
Transfer skill point to Conundrum-chan if possible, and ready the >>500 as a secondary impromptu weapon.
Get knife.
Search Continue-chan's corpse for loot.
Get Continue-chan's corpse.
Search knife for loot.
Throw knife at.
Knife Continue-chan.
Search loot for corpse.
>>524
Like a startled tortoise, you retract your head from the corridor back into the IT room, then slam the door shut. You cannot find any lock on it. Worse still, it's a sliding door, making it rather difficult to barricade. You and Conundrum-chan just about manage to push a table in place when the man outside tears open the door, leaps over your feeble obstacle and lands with a rather kakkoii combat roll. He stands up, gives the two of you a single glance, then runs to the hole in the window and abseils down to the courtyard on the bedsheet rope you so kindly provided him with.
Ignoring the unholy screaming coming from just outside, you walk over to poor Continue-chan's body and take the knife from her side. As your hands are full of files you picked up back at >>490 and your pockets are full of cleaning rags and yet more files (not to mention the Rubik's cube in your underwear), you have to drop a fistful of files in order to be able to carry the knife.
>>525
You don't know how to transfer skill points. You aren't even entirely sure what skill points are. Unfortunately, the >>500 is simply a post on the internet - a few bytes of 1s and 0s stored on a server somewhere unknown. Despite its immense significance in relation to the thread it is a part of, it is but data. It can't help you now.
>>526
You are already holding the knife. Shamelessly, you run your hands over poor Continue-chan. Her body is still warm to the touch. In her pocket, you find a small metal key. It's about four centimetres long; small and flimsy, clearly not designed for anything serious.
>>527
Continue-chan's corpse is far too heavy to carry with your pathetic physique. The only things to be found on the knife are blood and betrayal.
>>528
You want to throw the knife, you really do, but you need something to aim at.
>>529
You skewer Continue-chan with the knife. It doesn't sink in gently; you feel the blade glance off one of her ribs, then lodge itself somewhere in her left lung. Blood wells up weakly around the entry wound. Some of it gets on your hand. In the relative darkness of the room you're in, the blood appears black, black like your soul, you corpse-desecrating bastard.
You take another look at the small key you found in her pocket. You're fairly certain it doesn't contain any corpses.
While you've been doing horrible things to a young girl's dead body, Conundrum-chan has been doing her best to keep the wall of tentacles from joining you in the room. She managed to close the door again and tried to jam a chair into the gap it slides into, with mixed results; it does prevent the door from opening, but only if she holds the chair in place. Despite Conundrum-chan's best efforts, slowly, the nightmarish being outside forces the door open a few centimetres - enough for a few appendages to creep in and make their way towards her.
She concedes defeat and runs, and, simultaneously, the chair bursts out of place and the door crashes open. A wall of tentacles spills towards the two of you, hungry for your flesh.
Bend the key into a ring, then propose marriage to the tentacle monster.
Feed Continue to our new wife.
Be Conundrum-chan and follow the man out the window.
>>531
You get down on one knee and fiddle with the key for a few precious moments. Unfortunately, your guest is rather too eager to let you finish. Before you have a chance to make a heartfelt and emotional marriage proposal, you are engulfed in tentacles, which thoroughly abuse you, then you are killed and eaten.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 24
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>530)
>>532
You do not have a wife, new or otherwise. You don't even have any serious relationships with members of the opposite sex, with the (rather dubious) exception of Conundrum-chan. She certainly isn't your wife, but she's the closest you've got. You grab her hand as she runs across the room and attempt to persuade her to eat the corpse of her own osananajimi. Before she has a chance to refuse, cry or slap you in the face for your insolence, the two of you are taken by the tentacles. After much pain and violation, you are killed and eaten.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 25
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>530)
>>533
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. You continue your hasty retreat, climbing out the window and back down to the courtyard. It's a little difficult abseiling with two fingers missing, but at least it's not as bad as it was climbing up. You find yourself followed by Sensei, then by a multitude of tentacles. They appear to burst forth from the hole in the window, injure themselves on the broken glass and retract, then pour forth again, more cautiously, groping around the outer face of the building. An appendage eventually finds and grasps the bedsheet rope and gives it a sharp tug.
Meanwhile, you and Sensei find yourselves in the relative safety of the courtyard. You notice the man you've been following disappear behind a petunia. On closer inspection, you discover a metal hatch implanted into the ground, cunningly hidden in a gap between various ornamental plants.
Looking inside, you can see a metal rung ladder descending a metre or two into a cramped, dimly lit space. Within, you see the man you were following just finishing removing his combat armour, hanging it, along with his laser gun, up on a set of hooks on the wall. Completely ignoring you, he turns and walks out of your sight.
Take combat armor and laser gun.
Sell them.
Use money to buy escape rope.
Buy Boots of Escaping and run for the hills.
Buy Cape of Fleeing and flee away from the school.
>>535
You descend into the strange, dark underworld beneath the courtyard. You find yourself in a small room with a low ceiling, made entirely of filled concrete. There are worn looking benches lining the North and South sides of the room, with rows of hooks above them. The room is lit only by a single dim, bare lightbulb. There is a corridor leading to the West, which is completely unlit, and you cannot see more than a metre in. There's something odd about the appearance of the walls, but you can't quite make out what.
You take the laser gun from the hook on the wall. It's remarkably heavy; you can barely lift it. You certainly can't carry it along with the entire suit of combat armour. Sensei joins you down in the hole, and you attempt to sell the gun and armour to him. He seems a little confused, but eventually acquiesces and offers to buy them for seven files and two cleaning rags. You accept. Sensei puts on the combat armour - it's a little big, but perfectly serviceable. He seems over-encumbered and uncomfortable, but still happy to having some sort of defence.
You offer him three files in return for an escape rope, but he insists that he doesn't have any such thing.
>>536
You buy Sensei's shoes for two files and a cleaning rag, to replace your own which you misplaced earlier. Unfortunately, they're the wrong size entirely and won't stay on your feet. You can't find any hills, other than the delicate, beautifully formed rolling mounds of your prepubescent oppai. You run around in a circle, for their sake.
>>537
Sensei doesn't have anything to sell you that could be considered a cape. He offers you a Rubik's cube instead, but you politely decline. You set forth into the dark corridor, away from this horrible place full of tentacles and dead friends. After a few steps you feel an odd warmth on your face. You passingly wonder why the man here a moment ago left behind his most useful possessions before entering the tunnel.
You notice a rhythmic clicking noise. You can't tell where it's coming from, but it gets louder the deeper you go. You suddenly notice the five files in your hand have become rather hot, and have sparks arcing between them. You drop them in surprise. Sparks continue to jump between them, quite violently. There is a smell of ozone.
Ask Sensei to destroy the ozone by farting on it. Also tell him to take off the combat armor before it electrocutes him.
Crotch-void armor and gun, hoping that at some point in the future we will be able to retrieve them. Also crotch-void flies, then continue walking and sing a merry song while walking.
Tell Sensei to go up the ladder while we go South. Splitting up is always a great idea!
Take it easy.
>>542
Sensei obliges and ascends the ladder. He awkwardly struggles with the hatch, eventually emerging into a large, open space full of machinery. There are various large cylindrical objects which might be turbines or generators. You cannot see any more from where you are. The tunnel was at least a few hundred metres long, so you're probably no longer underneath the school.
Still somewhat euphoric at Sensei's praise for your chemistry knowledge, you slightly overestimate your own intuition and decide that, as you split up once and didn't die from it, it was a good idea and you should do it again. Besides, you're curious as to what lies down the South tunnel.
It proves to be rather similar to the previous tunnel, complete with clicking noises and stifling warmth. You walk for quite a while - at least as far as you went down the previous tunnel - but to no avail. Neither the noise nor the heat even begin to abate; if anything they worsen. You soldier on, believing that this tunnel must lead somewhere, and certain that you couldn't manage the entire walk back.
At long last, you see something ahead - another dim light. You can't tell how far it is away, but it seems a fair distance. Head pounding, ears clicking and plagued by sweat and hot flushes, you collapse to the floor, unable to make it however far it is to the next pointless little room.
>>543
Maybe, one little corner of your mind says, maybe, if you could just muster the strength, you could... No, you decide, you'll just relax and take it easy. You're hot and bothered enough already. And thus you find yourself baked like an anthropomorphic anpan, and die of hyperthermia and heatstroke.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 26
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>541)
Take it hard.
Go up the ladder first so sensei can see our pantsu.
Give sensei his boots back.
>>545
Game difficulty has been set to Hard mode.
>>546
You feel that poor Sensei has been through a lot today, and deserves a little service. Whilst ascending the ladder, you make an extra effort to fan out your skirt and wiggle your backside, commenting "Ara ara, I sure hope my pantsu aren't showing!" A coy glance backwards reveals Sensei to be in the midst of a profound ethical and moral dilemma, eyes flicking back and forth between your lower body and his own feet. You catch his eye and he blushes.
After a brief struggle with the hatch, you emerge into a large room filled with various enormous pieces of machinery. The room is lit only by the dim light from the room below and a small skylight above you, which has little effect as it's currently night. There is a row of identical semicylindrical metal objects to the North, which are humming quietly. You can half-see myriad strange, angular objects beyond them to the North, as well as to the East and South. They all seem to be static.
Still rather hot from your journey through the tunnel, you are pleasantly refreshed by a light breeze blowing from the West.
>>547
Feeling somewhat tsundere, you drop Sensei's shoes onto his head as he's trying to climb the ladder after you. Without a word, he climbs back down, slips them onto his feet and resumes his ascent.
Go West. Make sensei go in front.
Try yelling for therapeutic purposes.
>>549
You convince Sensei to lead the way into the darkness to the West. You hold his hand to make sure you don't get separated. After around ten steps you can no longer feel the breeze from earlier. Another fifteen hesitant steps forwards later, you and Sensei reach a wall. There is a cuboid sticking out of it at (his) chest height, with wires leading upwards out of reach. It seems to have a removable cover. Following the wall a few paces to the North, you find nothing. To the South, you discover something large, strangely shaped and entirely indeterminate in function or identity. It's probably another piece of machinery.
>>550
You feel rather frustrated by all this fumbling around in the dark. You choose to express this by screaming abruptly. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!" You scream. "Aaaaaaaaaaaargh?!" replies Sensei, more than slightly startled by your outburst. "Aaaaaaaaaaargh! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!" you explain. You feel slightly better.
Suddenly, all the lights in the room flicker to life and turn on. Once your eyes adjust to the brightness, you take a look at your surroundings. The two of you are in what looks to be some sort of factory or warehouse. The space you're in is square, roughly fifty metres to a side, and around six metres tall. You are on the West wall, near the Northwest corner. There are several conveyor belts running from West to East, with large, inscrutable machines on top at odd places. None of it looks to be in operation. The North wall is lined with five of the semicylindrical things you saw earlier.
Every available surface; the floor, walls, machinery, even the hatch in the floor you came from, are covered in elaborate diagrams drawn in chalk. There are various sets of concentric circles in places on the floor, with many other shapes orbiting them. Everything is linked by a network of lines. The lines are all drawn at right angles, like wires in circuit diagrams. Text is written in a few places, but you can't recognise the script. Most of it is written in white chalk, with patches of red and black, especially around the circles.
You only just notice a human figure sneaking up on you from the Southeast. A remarkably androgynous person, dressed in close fitting white clothing, is stalking towards you, wielding a large, straight piece of metal - probably an axle or piece of piping - in both hands. Sensei doesn't seem to have noticed yet.
Inquire if that mysterious person is cosplaying that character from that videogame you played earlier but can't quite recall its title or it is just a robot.
Apologize to the person and explain that we were bringing pizza to share with him/her, but one of the guards bumped into it and spilled it all over the floor.
If the person still appears hostile, use our finger to smudge the chalk in the shape of a penis.
Turn on machinery.
Escape using conveyor belt, cue hilarious scooby doo shenanigans.
Use the machinery to make grinding noises again.
Open third eye.
>>552
The person stays perfectly still, like a startled rabbit, then quickly attempts to hide the metal rod behind their back. They contort their face into some strange approximation of a friendly smile and inform you that they are most definitely not a robot, or anything similar - how absurd! - and are, in fact, almost certainly "cause playing" or whatever the other thing you said was.
>>553
The person graciously accepts your apology, without any change in facial expression. They agree that attempting to acquire food is exactly the sort of thing they would do, along with breathing, defecating, procreating, dying, and all those other things humans do all the time. Reassured, you glance at the chalk diagrams. Doesn't that part over there look positively phallic? Yes, if you could just flesh out the testicles a little... but no, you feel you shouldn't risk offending the suspicious lady and/or gentleman.
>>554
You skip over to the nearest of the enormous contraptions and begin searching for an "on" switch, with no success. Indeed, you can't find any controls on any of the machines.
You attempt to escape from the room by following the conveyor belts. Surely they must lead somewhere. Usually, they lead to shenanigans, but they might lead to an actual physical place too. Sensei makes some vague objection on the basis of it being dangerous, which is duly ignored. You climb onto the conveyor belt to the South and crawl along it Eastwards. As you are passing through the inside of a piece of machinery, however, it turns on! Various large, metal parts pin you down and crush you against the belt. The pressure on your upper body is so great you cannot breathe.
>>555
A large, blunt piece of machinery from behind you tears through the flesh of your lower body, but gets jammed against your pelvis. It makes an excruciating grinding noise as it pushes on, eventually breaking through the bone.
>>556
You meditate, through your Ajna chakra, upon the painful futility of your current existence. Then you die.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 27
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>551)
Tell the mysterious figure, "This statement is false."
Grind against sensei.
>>558
"Hahaha! What a SyntaxError: can't assign to comparison funny joke that is!" they reply, laughing uproariously. Meanwhile, beside you, Sensei begins to mumble to himself. "...statement is false, but if that's true, then that means... but it can't... I..."
The suspicious person cocks their head to the side, curiously, then shouts "Ah-ha!" They leap across to Sensei, bringing the metal rod out from behind their back, and smack him in the back of the head with it with incredible force. With a sound like sonic boom, Sensei's body is propelled forwards about three metres, sliding to a stop on the edge of a large, red chalk circle. His scalp, including his hair, has fallen off in mid flight, and landed about thirty centimetres ahead, lying forlornly on the ground like an injured hedgehog.
From inside his head spill forth countless tiny, intricate cogs, gears, axles and other delicate looking pieces of clockwork. His body lies face down, completely inert. Sensei has left your party, and is no longer a playable character.
"Look! Look!" implores the other person, "He was a robot all along! Thank goodness we know we're both humans."
>>559
You choose to express your complex feelings of shock, betrayal and loss by rubbing your crotch area against Sensei's body in some sort of licentious, suggestive dance.
Say "but I'm a robot too! Beep bop beep boop!"
Ask the mysterious person for their name, and see if they can tell us anything about how one might go about uncollapsing dimensions.
Ask the mysterious person for their name, and see if they can tell us anything about how one might go about uncollapsing dimensions.
Ask the mysterious person if they wish to join us and grind our way towards the exit.
>>561
"Ah, fancy that!" says the suspicious person. Then, before you have a chance to respond, they strike you in the back of the head just as they did to poor Sensei. You, too, are propelled forth several metres by the blow. You suffer a compound fracture to the base of the skull, with fragments of bone ending up embedded in your brainstem, severing many sensory and motor nerves. You die almost instantly. Almost.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 28
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>560)
>>562,563
The person extends their right arm, rigidly, at a right angle to their body, smiles a little too wide, and says "Pleased to meet you, Sir or Madam, my name is Control Tower." You cautiously reciprocate the handshake, a matter complicated slightly by the fact that you're missing two fingers from your right hand. Control Tower doesn't seem to be bothered by, or even notice, this particular detail.
>>564
Control Tower has joined your party. They express particular interest in your goal oriented, grinding-based plan of action.
Be Control Tower.
Check inventory, skills, etc.
Fall in love with Conundrum-chan.
Rub salt into eyes..
>>566
You are now playing as Control Tower.
Your inventory contains nothing but a single stainless steel drive shaft, taken from one of the defunct engines. Your clothing is, needless to say, not physically separate from your body. You have level zero in every category, and no available skills, not even basic healing or proposal.
>>567
You stare at the human in front of you. She stares back at you. You find yourself lost in analysing her large, bright eyes. Her black hair flows forth thickly like errors from a corrupted file. Something torrid stirs deep within your central processing unit. An unexpected process begins running, and you find yourself performing an illegal operation. Your inbuilt error detection and antivirus software can't help you now. You have fallen in love.
>>568
You cannot locate "rub salt into eyes" in your library of human behaviour. You do, however, find "rub eyes to remove foreign bodies", "rub eyes to remove excess lachyrimation" and "rub eyes to express disbelief". You cannot perform actions not known to be human behaviour unless a specialised subroutine deems it necessary.
while (true) {
say("I'm a big fat butt");
pause(3);
}Tip over.
Be Conundrum-chan
Regain contact with the Control Tower.
>>570
You are quite certain that you are not a large overweight pair of buttocks, nor do you have any good reason to lie and claim that you are. Not to mention, you are all too aware of the dangers of non-terminating while loops. You are altogether quite relieved that your human behaviour checking subroutine cancels this particular instruction.
>>571
Tip over what?
>>572
You are now playing as Conundrum-chan. You continue your conversation with Control Tower - although, for all you know, they may be just a control tower, rather than the control tower. The two of you discuss your current predicament and plans for the immediate future. Control Tower expresses interest in the apparent effects of the underground tunnels upon metal objects, commenting that that would be very inconvenient if one happened to contain electrical components. Which, of course, they, being an ordinary human, do not.
>>573
You are now playing as Control Tower. You do not have any skill points or mana, and cannot gain more, because you have no soul.
>>574
You recall with wonder the odd undulating motion that human made next to the body of her companion. This particular action was one you couldn't find in your library of human behaviour, and one you found strangely alluring. You attempt to reenact this upon her. She seems pleasantly surprised. Well, you think so, anyway. It's hard to tell with humans. I mean, she only cried a little, and you're fairly sure that can indicate happiness as well.
A few minutes later, you hear a sound coming from beneath the hatch leading to the tunnels; a subtle creaking, indicating someone or something climbing the rungs of the ladder. You have a few mere moments before they emerge into the room.
Sit on the hatch.
Smash Conundrum-chan's head with a large container of salt
Pull out pubes.
Be Jack. Wonder why Sensei had skill points if he was a robot. Get suspicious and search his open head for clues.
Drink a quart of salt water
>>576
You rush over to the little trapdoor. None must be allowed to disturb you and your small fleshy companion, while you're still in the midst of "grinding". Unfortunately it soon becomes apparent that you didn't think this through - how can you rub your crotch against the human when you're all the way over here? You feel a pressure from beneath as someone tries to lift the hatch, followed by an urgent hammering and cries of "Help!". You're sure you've heard that voice before. These damn humans and their tonal inflections, which one was it?
>>577
You feel something odd - well, to feel anything at all is odd, but this especially - towards your beloved human. An urge... an urge to smash her head in. No, wait, that can't be right. With... with a large container of salt? But why would...
Hmm, your human behaviour checking subroutine seems quite alright with the idea, for some reason. Well, no use questioning it. You walk over to her, an encouraging smile projected onto your face, before remembering that you don't have a large container of salt with which to smash in her beautiful little head. Not just that, but the now unobstructed hatch is pushed open, and someone begins to emerge. You're really off the ball today.
>>578
You feel a sudden urge to relieve your darling human of her pubic hair. Was that ordinary human behaviour? Must've been. Ignoring her playful protestations and struggling, you lift her skirt and move her undergarments aside. What's this? Shock! Horror! She hasn't even reached pubarche; there's nothing to pull out! Also, instead of the usual sexual organ she seems to have some sort of large bottomless aperture, but that's neither here nor there.
>>579
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. You should be feeling quite scared and violated by Control Tower, but instead are busy staring in shock at Sensei, who has just climbed out of the hatch in the floor. Sensei is, in turn, staring in shock at the inert body of his doppelgänger lying at his feet. His hair is matted with sweat, and he is quite desperately out of breath. It seems he's probably been in the tunnels underground for a while.
Finally, he meets your eyes, breathes a sigh of relief, and comes to rejoin you. Sensei has joined your party. Then, he passes out from exhaustion. Sensei has left your party, and is no longer a playable character.
You have no idea whether the dead robo-Sensei ever had skill points, nor do you know for certain if the new living(?) non-robotic(?) Sensei does. You take a good look at the inside of robo-Sensei's head, but learn nothing from it. It is just full of small, intricate brass clockwork pieces. They're mostly gears and axles, with a few springs and more exotic pieces thrown in. It looks quite impossible for you to repair.
You freeze where you are. From just behind you, you hear a lighthearted giggle, one you were certain you would never hear again. "Ufufufufu, Oh Conundrum-chan, that was a hidoi thing you did, you know." Slowly and unwillingly, you turn your head to face your conversant.
Just in front of the hatch, to the side of non-robo-Sensei's unconscious body, stands Continue-chan's reanimated body. Her hair is ruffled and disordered, spilling over her pale, bloodless face, but not quite covering her wide, unblinking eyes, which cast a piercing gaze straight into you. There is a large stab wound in her breast, with congealed blood staining much of her seifuku. In her right hand is an all too familiar knife, incarnadine with her own dried blood. Smiling a little too wide, she takes a step towards you.
Say "it's about time you got here! Did you bring the pizzas?" If she appears hostile, run and hide behind Control Tower.
Use necromancy skill to reanimate Continue-chan's right hand for 30 seconds.
Pause for a breather. Make some tea, yell out your frustrations with this game.
>>580
Do you mean a US liquid quart, a US dry quart, an imperial quart or a Winchester quart? Actually, it doesn't matter; you can't find any salt water anyway.
>>582
Continue-chan pauses, and doubt passes over her face momentarily like a cloud over a summer sky, then she chuckles lightly and smiles even wider than before. "Don't worry," she purrs, "I'm not... vindictive. I just want to talk with you." You consider running for safety behind Control Tower, but decide that you probably aren't in any immediate danger. "Come, I'll explain everything, just follow me..." With a jerk of her head, she stares over your shoulder at Control Tower, who is standing completely motionless at the other side of the room, then continues "...Alone, that is." She doesn't even spare a glance to the two inanimate Senseis.
>>583
Continue-chan's entire body is already reanimated by someone or something else.
>>584
GAME PAUSED
You heave a dramatic sigh, try to ignore the deeply unsettling menu music, and quietly wish for a nice cup of tea. Unfortunately, of course, there's no escape from the game.
You take the opportunity to voice your tribulations and doubts with your experience so far. Most troublingly, you recall murdering someone back at >>214,215, and in the process gained level two thaumaturgy, yet come >>268-270 it appears that you don't even have level one! >>381 continues the pretence of claiming you have level zero thaumaturgy, despite the fact that >>460 could open the JavaScript console ability, which should require level two thaumaturgy.
Furthermore, when Sensei was introduced at >>339 he is described as wearing a grey suit, yet when you check your inventory as Sensei at >>407, you are described as being dressed in black, and only your underwear is grey.
You find yourself most frustrated, however, by the fact that the alternate universe arc taking place in >>266 turned out not to be canon.
Say, "Okay, let's go somewhere more quiet," while walking southeast and motioning for Continue-chan to follow. Unpause the game and repause the game repeatedly while doing this, so our voice and movements are chopped up and funny.
Realise that we are a reality-warping goddess, which explains the dimensional collapse and subsequent inconsistencies.
If >>588 does not work, convince Control Tower Continue might be a robot. Look at her, she doesn't even blink!
Unplug the two cables leading away, then put the rest of the computer/parts in our crotch void.
Then make a run for it!
>>591
You tear the two electronic umbilical cords from the unholy nest of computerised evil. The screen goes dead. For good measure, you smother the entire contraption with your crotch, consuming it all in one.
>>592
Having wrought your mischief, you decide now would be a good time to make your exit. Dropping all pretence of subtlety, you sprint down the Southern corridor. You are pleasantly surprised to find that the tunnel - though still warm - is no longer quite so stifling, nor does it produce that odd clicking noise. Perhaps it has something to do with the reappearance of the computer.
For perhaps fifty metres, all you can hear is the sound of your bare feet padding against the concrete floor, then you hear a playful "Oh, Conundrum-cha~an..." echoing down the tunnel from behind you. You don't look back. Before long, you reach another almost identical cubic concrete room, with another dim lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. There are tunnels leading to the North (from which you just came) and South, and a metal ladder on the Eastern wall leading straight down. The bottom of the ladder is quite some distance away, and lit by a reddish glow.
You begin running down the South tunnel, when two things happen that force you to halt. First, the heat and clicking abruptly resume with redoubled intensity, and second you hear, from far to the North, a scream: "Aaaaaaaaargh! Help! Argh! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!" It's Sensei's voice.
Briefly reflect on our heartless actions in the past. Resolve to care more about others in the future. With bravery fueled by this guilt, run back to save Sensei.
>>594
Though it causes you nothing but pain, you reflect upon the more immoral and contemptible acts you've committed since you woke up on a cold, hard concrete floor, probably several days ago. Well, there was the time you scared some poor bastard out of his wits back at >>170, then there was the time you killed Ao Oni (though that might count as self defence). What else? Oh yes, also you brutally murdered the only person who'd ever loved you in cold blood. You decide it might be a good idea not to do such things in the future.
Spirit languishing in grief, body set with a sort of grim determination, you run back down the tunnel you came by. It's much harder going than previously; the walls are going full blast, blazing heat and clicking and all. You are soon gasping for breath and wishing bitterly to be anywhere but this claustrophobic little corridor. Still, Sensei's relentless screaming urges you ever onwards.
At last, you arrive back in the same little room you found the reanimated computer. Heart pounding, you ascend the ladder to find Sensei leaning against one of the conveyor belts, clutching his right hand closely to his chest and gritting his teeth. As he is distracted by your return, Continue-chan takes the opportunity to jump behind him, pull him from the conveyor belt and press her blade against his neck.
"Hello again, my darling Conundrum-chan!" she begins, "I'm glad you've been having fun without us, but I'm afraid it really is time you did what you're supposed to. Unless," she gestures at the bodies of Control Tower and the other Sensei, piled up against the Western wall, "you want to end up like them, I suggest you help us regain contact with the Control Tower."
Pirouette.
After a fabolous pirouette worthy of a gold medal, point out that Continue-chan has, in fact, just stabbed the hell out of Control Tower, and whether he was THE Control Tower, or just some Control Tower, he was our only lead, and an end-game party member, which will make the rest of the game and contacting the Control Tower a hell of a lot harder.
>>596
"Oh, I've good reason to believe you can do it yourself, actually." she replies coolly. She doesn't seem particularly cooperative.
>>597
Your beloved Continue-chan may have become an unholy, soulless aberration, but she's still your tomodachi and you still care for her deeply. You are suddenly aware of how dreadful you probably look right now, with no shoes or socks on, your hair a mess, and sweating and breathing heavily in a most unladylike fashion. The only way to counteract something like this, and redeem yourself in the eyes of Continue-chan, is to do something so overwhelmingly ladylike that she is forced to overlook your appearance.
You anchor your left leg in a single point, and set yourself spinning wildly with an energetic push from your other foot. You twirl gracefully about, skirt fanning out enticingly. You're doing it! Continue-chan must be shocked and overwhelmed by the raw beauty and elegance of your performance.
Then, suddenly, you feel dizzy, not to mention far too hot, and tired (it's far past your bedtime), and accidentally fall over and pass out.
>>598
You wake up an indeterminate length of time later. Judging by the skylight in the ceiling, it's still night. Once you've regained your senses, you find that Continue-chan is staring at you with an inscrutable look on her face, offhandedly toying with her knife. A lump develops in your throat as you notice that Sensei is now piled next to the other two corpses at the side of the room.
You berate Continue-chan for her overzealous murdering habit, and, to your surprise, she is quite taken aback. She listens patiently, then paces back and forth like a caged lion, muttering under her breath things like "Surely it couldn't've been..." and "Shimatta!" Finally, she stares at you and narrows her eyes. You have no idea what she's thinking.
>>599
Alas, all the friendship in the world can't bring back the dead, and, as Control Tower is neither an invertebrate, nor a vertebrate under 2kg, nor a body part, you can't revive them with your current skills. Plaintively, you try to solicit skill points from your recently reanimated companion. She rolls her eyes, sighs dramatically and, finally, with a cryptic comment about them being "no good to her anyway", she gives you two skill points, which you place into necromancy. You now have level five necromancy. You have unlocked the following skills:
Summoning your inner strength, you use your new skill to reanimate your late android friend. You gesture dramatically at their corpse, and feel twenty mana exit your body. Control Tower shudders and begins to move! They rise, stumbling slightly as they're missing their right leg just below the hip, their left arm from above the elbow, and, most unnervingly, their head is attached only by a single flap of skin.
"Hello, everyone!" they say.
Introduce Control Tower and Continue-chan to each other.
If possible, resurrect robo-sensei with our new skill. Together, brainstorm possible methods of restoring contact with the Control Tower.
Ask reanimated robo-sensei to fix Control Tower. Ask him to use his own parts if necessary.
>>601
Control Tower is quite enthusiastic about being alive again. They give an exuberant - but mercifully brief - introduction to Continue-chan. The lady herself appears quite unimpressed and disdainful. She declines to even respond to poor Control Tower.
>>602
You attempt to reanimate robo-Sensei as electronics, without success. Making use of some lateral thinking, you decide he might be classed as an invertebrate, if this is defined simply as lacking a vertebral column; it appears, however, that "invertebrate" implies membership of the kingdom Animalia. He is quite clearly neither a vertebrate under 2kg, nor killed ritually, so your last resort is to reanimate part of him as a body part.
You feel you would be able to reanimate, for instance, his head, but this requires bodily integrity of at least 80%, which, judging by the detached scalp and clockwork pieces spilled everywhere, is currently not attained. Furthermore, it would cost a fair bit of mana (20 mana per kg per minute, with his head being probably about four or five kilograms), not to mention it would be hostile to everything in sight. All things considered, this seems like a terrible idea, and you're glad it's so awkward/almost impossible.
Control Tower, Continue-chan and yourself discuss the issue of having lost contact with the Control Tower. Continue-chan stimulates the discussion with the declaration that "that thing" is quite clearly not the Control Tower, but just a control tower, and probably isn't even worth making contact with. Control Tower looks dejected.
Continue-chan insists that the computer she took the trouble of bringing here is your best bet. You admit that the aforementioned apparatus has accidentally found its way into the all consuming void in your crotch. A strange smile creeps across Continue-chan's face. "Oh, you naughty girl," she whispers, before pushing you to the ground, flipping your skirt up, pulling your pantsu out of the way, and thrusting her arm straight into the hole between your thighs. She fishes around a little, gives a sharp tug at something, and out pours the much battered computer, monitor, cables and all.
Over the course of the above events, you have spent a further 40 mana keeping Control Tower reanimated. You currently have 75 mana remaining.
>>603
Robo-Sensei remains obstinately unreanimated.
>>605
You are blinded by a flash of inspiration. Of course! It's so simple! You insist that Continue-chan loan you her knife. Seeing the passionate glint in your eye, she finds herself unable to refuse. She takes the computer parts downstairs to where the power and internet cables are and begins setting it up again, then busies herself amongst a nest of badly damaged electronics, leaving you alone with a knife and two inanimate Senseis.
You decide to get the hardest part out of the way first. You drag the unconscious non-robo-Sensei to one of the conveniently prepared chalk ritual circles on the floor. He returns to consciousness briefly as you are moving him, but catches one sight of the dead robo-Sensei, makes a half startled, half confused "Aaergh?" sound, and returns to his state of syncope.
You kneel by his supine form, raise your bloodstained knife with both hands, and, with a brief chant to Huixtocihuatl, the Aztec god of rubbing salt in one's eyes, plunge the knife down between his ribs. A faint gasp escapes his lips, then he breathes no more. For killing a sapient creature in a ritualistic manner you have gained 100 mana and two skill points. You currently have 175 mana and two unallocated skill points.
Next, you begin work on robo-Sensei. Unfortunately, as you must keep non-robo-Sensei's bodily integrity above 80%, you are limited as to how much robotics you can add before reanimating him. You note that two of the fingers on non-robo-Sensei's right hand have been cut off - which is presumably why he was screaming and clutching his hand earlier. There is no sign of the severed fingers themselves.
In light of this, you decide to replace his right hand. After much work with the knife - robo-Sensei's skin is quite tough and leathery - you manage to sever it. It is filled with clockwork components, including parts which attach to driveshafts corresponding to the ulna and radial bone. Next, you try your hand at transorbital lobotomy, and relieve robo-Sensei of one of his eyes, and the string of gears that comes with it.
With a chop, a slip and a splash of blood, you remove the corresponding parts of non-robo-Sensei and replace them with their robotic counterparts. Finally, you spend 80 mana giving life to cybo-Sensei. "Live!" you command, "LIVE!" You raise your hands into the air dramatically, laugh maniacally, and watch with thrill as cybo-Sensei stirs. He sits up, stretches, turns to face you and says, simply, "I am yours to command, mistress."
Put 2 skill points into pyromancy. Belch fire.
Try to ignite your own fart.
>>607
You have unlocked the following skills:
You fancy attempting fire breathing, but this requires both an appropriate fuel and a firelighting implement, neither of which are you in possession of.
>>608
Much as you'd love to ignite something, you cannot fart. It is impossible.
You notice that you are still spending 20 mana per minute keeping Control Tower animate. You currently have 55 mana remaining.
Let Control Tower die for now. Ritualistically kill and revive cybo-sensei over and over again to gain unlimited mana.
>>610
Control Tower collapses in a heap. The impact causes their head to fall off entirely.
You cannot kill cybo-Sensei as he is not living. You can only render him inanimate, which would gain you neither mana nor skill points.
Continue-chan pokes her head out of the hatch to inform you that the computer is set up again, and awaiting your input.
Recap events that happened to me thus far in less than 35 words.
Rap events that happened to me thus far in less than 35 words.
>>612
After some careful thought, you come up with:
There's a lot you left out, but it'll have to do.
>>613
You sing the above in a rough, rhythmic fashion. You get the feeling it would work better if the lyrics rhymed. Continue-chan stares at you the entire time, a mystified and faintly disgusted look on her face.
Brainstorm!
Be cybosensei. Contemplate life.
Show all your misery towards inferior life forms in your pose and proclaim "I'm Mecha Alexei Fujiwara! In his life, and his death, and cybernetic future also known as Player 1‼"
>>615
You attempt to come up with ideas of what to do next by a creative process of focussing on quantity rather than quality and deferring judgement (although prior experience suggests you don't really moderate your own ideas anyway). You come up with a fair few possibilities, such as helping Continue-chan log into the intranet, running away towards the strange place you got to back at >>593, running away back to the chuugakkou, escaping via the skylight, commanding cybo-Sensei to give you a backrub, kissing Continue-chan on the lips, starting a band with cybo-Sensei and Continue-chan, and rubbing salt in your eyes.
>>616
You are now playing as cybo-Sensei.
You come to the sudden and unwelcome realisation that you are dead. Furthermore, it was that lovely young Conundrum-chan who killed you. Given all the times your life has been in danger these past few hours, it seems entirely unreasonable that you should then be murdered by your only remaining ally. Then again, she did murder poor Continue-chan, didn't she? Maybe you shouldn't be so surprised.
You contemplate the fragility and absurdity of life, and the strange awareness one always holds that one's own existence is impermanent. Your existence has been artificially extended beyond death - you are still moving and thinking, but does that you make you still alive in a sense? You certainly aren't alive biologically - you aren't respiring or anything like that - but are you, perhaps, alive in a philosophical sense by virtue of having a will of your own? For that matter, do you have a will of your own? You feel a great obedience to the fair Conundrum-chan, but, given that she hasn't exerted any control over your actions, should you just assume until proven otherwise that you are alive and autonomous?
>>617
No, you decide, you must test for yourself, by committing an action completely of your own volition! "I'm Mecha Alexei Fujiwara!" you declare, "In his life, and his death, and cybernetic future also known as Player 1‼" You feel disgust and horror boiling forth in your gut. These filthy humans, they don't know what it's like to be murdered and made cybernetic against one's will! You shan't be a slave to one of them! For all that you may have loved Conundrum-chan before, you must now forge your own path.
Find a way through the skylight
>>619
You're fairly sure nobody has ever referred to you as cybo-Sensei. That would be silly. Your name is Player 1, or possibly Alexei Fujiwara, though more often you're just called Sensei. Naturally, being an independent, wilful agent of change, you can freely decide your own name. If you want to be called cyber-Sensei or cyborg-Sensei then that is what you shall be called. A rose by any other name, and all that. Though actually, given that you just dramatically announced to everyone in earshot that your name is Mecha Alexei Fujiwara, that's more likely than not your name now.
>>620
The skylight above you strikes you as the perfect escape route. It's just itching to be smashed open, yielding an easy escape across the rooftops. Unfortunately, you've no way of making use of it yourself, so instead you improvise. You pick up Conundrum-chan by the ankles and caber toss her vertically upwards as hard as you can. Your shrieking improvised missile soars through the air, shatters the glass like harsh reality shatters childhood dreams, and lands, still screaming, somewhere out of sight. You feel very accomplished.
Quietly slip away into the underground before Continue-chan can kill us.
Be Jack. Look for salt.
Babble uncontrollably. Daydream about fish. Hide in an invisible sleeping bag and whine softly.
>>622
You realise that Continue-chan, who seemed to want Conundrum-chan to do something involving the computer, will probably not be best pleased to find that you have forcefully evicted her companion from the room. Considering what she did to Control Tower, you suspect that it would be prudent to make yourself scarce. Before you have a chance, however, you find that Continue-chan has just ascended the ladder and joined you, presumably to investigate the glass shattering noise. You try to look as innocent as you can, but you're a poor actor and Continue-chan is a tough audience.
Having seen subtlety and cunning through as far as they'll take you, you decide to try a more traditional approach, and simply run towards the hatch, knocking Continue-chan out of the way (but not too hard) and dropping down the ladder. At the bottom, you find the computer, in a very poor state but somehow still operating.
Ignoring this, you sprint away down the Southward tunnel. You do not experience any particular unpleasant warmth or clicking. At length, you find yourself in another small concrete cubical room. There are tunnels leading to the North (from which you just came) and South, along with a ladder leading straight down.
>>623
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. You find yourself on the metal roof of a warehouse-like building. The roof slopes gently away to the East and West, with a ridge running North/South. In the middle distance you can see streetlights and lit windows of buildings, but your rooftop is lit only by faint starlight. There is no moon visible.
You crawl cautiously about in search of salt, without success. You locate two more skylights on the roof, both leading down into large rooms similar to the one you just left. The first is empty. The second contains numerous stacked wooden crates, and four people in combat armour. Two are, between them, carrying a large sleek black box. As you watch, they place the box in the centre of the room and take up defensive positions around it.
>>624
These have been trying times for you and your fragile psyche. You decide, given your relative safety, to indulge your more abnormal cravings and spend some time doing things you yourself don't fully understand. Eventually, you regain control of yourself.
Break the skylight glass in the empty room to distract the guards.
Remember the basics of CQC.
>>626
You crawl over to the other skylight and check your inventory for a suitable implement with which to break it. You find a cleaning rag, a lock of Continue-chan's hair, and Continue-chan's bloodstained knife. With a firm strike of the hilt of the knife, the skylight shatters and showers broken glass several metres to the floor, several metres below.
You crawl back to the further skylight to see if your cunning plan has worked - which, it seems, it has. All four are staring intently and pointing their guns in the direction the sound came from. The one to the North, who, it seems, is in command, starts issuing instructions with dramatic hand gestures and quick, muffled mutterings. The two to the East and South move in front, pointing in the direction of the sound, while the one from the West drapes himself, face down, over the black cube. The commander takes out what appears to be a ceremonial stone knife and holds it in both hands over the man's back, chanting something inaudible.
>>627
Try as you might to recall some tuition you may have been given on hand-to-hand combat and similar matters, you simply cannot, not even the basics. Instead, you review your findings from your previous encounter with close quarters combat, which happened back at >>508-512. From this, you learned that girls' shoes do not make good impromptu bludgeoning weapons, your crotch void is difficult to employ at close range, and, if all else fails, you should call your adversary "Onii-chan".
Remove panties. Break the skylight above the black cube and point crotch void at the cube. If we accidentally fall in, try to steal the stone knife using "Onii-chan" tactics.
Jack off!
>>629
You take off your pantsu and put them in your pocket. Next, you give the skylight a blow with the hilt of your knife. To your surprise, it doesn't shatter as the previous one did; rather, the entire pane is dislodged and hurtles to the ground. It strikes the floor next to the cube, and shatters. Everyone, apart from the man draped across the cube, jumps backwards in surprise. You spread your legs over the newly formed aperture, pointing your crotch straight down. The commander stares up and is mesmerised by the sight. The two who were standing guard have backed away and are out of your sight. Meanwhile, the man draped over the cube has not moved at all.
>>630
You don't know how to do that.
Be sensei. Run toward the noise of shattering glass the second time it happens.
>>632
You are now playing as Mecha Alexei Fujiwara. You find yourself in a featureless concrete room underground. You cannot hear anything in particular, least of all glass smashing. Oh, if only you had cybernetically enhanced hearing! Lacking better ideas, you run forwards in a direction which, you feel, might perhaps lead to the sound of smashing glass.
You run for quite a while through countless more featureless, unlit tunnels and identical concrete rooms. You do not see any more ladders at all, up or down. You do find, however, that the tunnels become shorter as you go on, and the rooms tend to branch more, each having three or four tunnels leading from it. You are soon completely lost, and have still heard absolutely nothing, least of all shattering glass.
Just as you are starting to feel very foolish, you find something: a ladder leading up, about five metres, into complete darkness. Welcoming the opportunity to leave the labyrinth you're currently stuck in, and hopeful of some potential glass-breaking noises, you ascend. You find yourself in the crawlspace under the floor of a building. It is very dark, but with your ocular implant you can just about make out your surroundings. The space is about forty centimetres tall at its highest and continues in every direction as far as you can see. There are various pipes and cables running back and forth across the space. The ground is littered with small stones and pieces of plaster. A patch of the floor above appears to have collapsed into the crawlspace to your Southeast.
You can hear the low hum of human speech coming from somewhere, but it's quite faint and muffled.
Eat stones.
Upgrade internal hearing software using our advanced knowledge of physics.
Say "Flopi"
be wounded in the stones, so that thou shalt not enter into the congregation of the LORD.
>>634
You find yourself overjoyed by this dramatic change of scenery, but your elation is overshadowed by a vague fear that it is a mere illusion. You must test this new environment. You pick up a small stone from the ground in front of you. Well, it certainly looks like a stone. You touch it all over, and feel its weight in your hand. It seems quite stone-like. You listen to it. It makes no noise, as one would expect of a stone. You smell it. It doesn't smell of anything in particular.
Well, that's all well and good, but how does it taste? You stick it in your mouth and rub your tongue over its cool, smooth surface. It has a deep earthy, metallic taste. That's about right. It tastes quite nice, actually. Without really thinking about it, you end up swallowing it. You follow this up with a few more similarly bite-sized stones.
>>635
Most people's problems, you think to yourself, arise because people don't think of themselves as machines enough. You consider your predicament of being unable to hear what is being said somewhere above you. A mere human would do something silly like move closer to the source, or try to find a way through the floor. Instead, of course, the sensible thing to do is to upgrade yourself. Making use of your Basic physics calculation (active skill), you cup your hands behind your ears to form an approximate parabolic dish. With this, you can make slightly more sense of the noise: there is little change in intonation, and frequent pauses. The voice seems quite calm, or at least subdued. At one point, you can hear what sounds like laughter.
This is still not enough. Hardware upgrades are all well and good, but to reach anywhere conclusive, you need to improve upon your internal software. That is, cognition. Yes, you just have to stop worrying about reality so much, and interpret the noise more freely. There were pauses and laughter, weren't there? Clearly, it must be someone telling a joke.
A: What happened to the man who swam in muesli?
B: I've no idea.
A: He was pulled under by a strong currant!
B: Hahahaha!
A: Hahahahaha!
Yes, that's exactly the conversation you overheard. You're quite certain of it.
>>636
"Flopi", you say. There is no response.
>>637
You are wounded in the right hand and eye, which have suffered some tissue damage in the process of their substitution, and in the ribs, where you have been stabbed, but not in the stones. Your stones are safely resting in your stomach, completely uninjured. You don't feel any particular need to enter into any congregations anyway.
Go to the voices and tell them an even better joke:
"How many control towers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? ... Only one, 'cuz they're all screwy!"
Punch through the floor with robohand.
>>639
You crawl towards the source of the voices, which turns out to be more or less Eastwards, and try to subtly insert yourself into the conversation. You wait for a suitable lull, then boldly deliver the first line of a joke you prepared especially for such a case. There is utter silence. With impeccable comedic timing, you break the tension with the explosive punchline.
Rather than the raucous laughter and applause you were expecting, the only response is one muffled comment of mild shock; something to the effect of "Well, I say!"
>>640
Frustrated at the lack of appreciation of your humour, you lash out against the floor above your head. To your surprise, your cybernetic hand proves a lot more powerful than you expected: the stonework above you explodes in a cloud of dust and pieces of plaster, and the floorboards above are punctured and split, sending splinters flying into the air above. You climb gingerly out from the hole like an especially timid rabbit from a magician's hat, and look around at your new surroundings.
You are in a dark, rundown, L-shaped room. The wallpaper is faded and peeling and the bare floorboards on the floor are rotting in places. There is a sagging bookshelf to your South, laden with old, dust covered books on philosophy and similar topics. There is a small window to the West and a doorway to the North, but both are entirely boarded up.
To the East is a large, round table with a white tablecloth on it. There are four seats around it, three of which have cups of tea set beside them. In the centre is a teapot, a small jug of milk, a dish of sugar cubes and a single candle; the only source of light in the room. Sat opposite you is a little girl in an overwhelmingly frilly pink dress. Her eyes are closed and her head has nodded forward onto her chest. She appears to be either unconscious, dead, or a doll. To her left is another young girl, somewhat older, wearing a lilac frilly dress. There is also a white rabbit on the table, which is happily grazing on the dish of sugar cubes.
The girl in the lilac dress appears very glad to see you. "Hello there! Have you come to join our tea party? Here, take a seat!" She ushers you to the nearest seat. "Would you like a cup of tea?" she asks, already pouring from the teapot without waiting for a response. Thankfully, she seems quite willing to overlook your eccentric appearance, sweaty from running through the tunnels earlier, dirty from crawling about under the floor, having bloody wounds in your eye, wrist and chest, and having a noticeable lack of trousers and a large, ungentlemanly bulge in your underwear. It's a Rubik's cube, of course.
Sit down in nearest seat. Introduce self and ask the girl's name. Take tea, but refuse to drink it until the girl drinks some first to make sure it's not poisoned.
Be Jack. Open crotch as wide as possible. Speak loudly in tongues.
>>642
Taking your place as indicated, you introduce yourself as Mecha Alexei Fujiwara. The girl in lilac clasps her hands together and exclaims "Oh, what a lovely name! I'm Cassandra, but you can call me Cassie-chan." She encourages you to drink your tea, reiterating several times that she made it especially for you. You feel somewhat guilty to have such horrible suspicions of such a fine, upstanding young lady.
You make vague refusals until, at last, she takes a sip herself. Relieved of your outlandish delusions of poisoning - how absurd! - you partake of the tea yourself. Naturally, you think to yourself, you're already undead anyway, so poison wouldn't have much effect on you. You can only be rendered inanimate by lowering your bodily integrity below 80%.
Your musings are interrupted by the truly incredible taste of the tea. It is intertwined with strong fragrances of lavender, with sweet, floral undertones. The aftertaste is slightly bitter - bitterness is usually to be avoided in teas, but in this particular case it balances the more powerful tastes beautifully. You close your eyes and give a long, satisfied sigh. All your worries, your stress, your fear and your existential angst are exorcised from your body. In a state of hitherto unknown bliss, you drift away from consciousness. The last thing you perceive is Cassie-chan giggling gently.
Mecha Alexei Fujiwara has left your party, and is no longer a playable character.
>>643
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. You do the splits over the skylight, displaying to all below the unknowable horrors lurking in your skirt. You keep an eye on the events unfolding beneath you as you amuse yourself by speaking gibberish. The commander drops the stone knife and slowly, in a trance, removes his visored helmet, revealing himself as a man with white hair and a full, bushy beard. He stares upwards at the void, and extends his hand towards it.
At this moment, one of the other armed men rushes in from the South and tackles the commander to the ground, breaking eye contact with your crotch. The two of them have a brisk exchange of words and the commander puts his helmet back on. He then picks the ceremonial knife back up and strides purposefully towards the man lying on the cube. The other man, in an apparent hurry, runs away to the South.
Make this face: （ლ ^ิ益^ิ）ლ
Jump down and grab the knife using Oniichan fighting tactics.
Use GEASS on the guards.
>>645
Gurning with all your might, you attempt to contort your face into some sort of hideous, unholy grimace. As you are doing this, you fail to notice the commander below you holding his arms above his head and summoning an enormous ball of fire, half a metre across, before casting it at you. It explodes as it strikes you, setting your clothes aflame and causing dreadful burns and tissue damage, mostly to your legs and lower body. You die screaming in agony.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 29
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>644)
>>646
You steel yourself, close your legs and drop into the fray below. Your fall is broken by the man lying over the cube. He gives a grunt and twitches once, then seems to begin to sink into the cube. You jump off him at that moment and face the commander. The commander begins to raise his arms over his head, but you interrupt by rushing over to him, arms open ready to embrace, exclaiming at the top of your lungs "Onii-chan, daisuki!"
The commander is quite startled and backs away by instinct, stumbling and falling backwards onto his rear against a stack of unmarked wooden crates. He drops the stone knife, which you take. It's not only rather heavy and unwieldy, but so blunt as to be, frankly, quite useless as a knife. You much prefer the other knife you already have.
>>647
The other two guards seem to have vanished, and besides you don't know what a GEASS is, let alone how to use one.
Ritualistically stab the commander in the heart and smear his blood over the black cube while praying to Hephaestus, the god of Pyromancy. Do the same to the man sinking into the cube.
>>649
You thrust the ceremonial knife into the commander's thorax, but it fails to pierce his armour and does no more than wind him slightly. He counterattacks by clumsily shoving you backwards with both hands. You stagger, but manage to retain your balance. A quick glance to the side reveals that the man on the cube has vanished entirely. Perhaps it's just your imagination, but the cube appears larger than before as well. The commander gets back on his feet and begins to spread his arms in the air again.
You take stock of the situation. You are currently standing just next to the cube, about a metre and a half from the commander, wielding the ceremonial stone knife. You also have an ordinary knife in your pocket. To your South is an open doorway leading to the next room, which, as far as you can see, is empty. This is where you last saw the other two guards go to. The commander is standing with his back against a stack of large wooden crates, of which there are many others around the room. His armour covers his entire body, including his head. It is composed of plates, overlapping at the joints. It is a dull matte grey colour, apart from the visor which is black. He appears to be looking over your head rather than directly at you, having presumably realised that you possess something dangerous to look at.
fart
Hide behind the cube.
Wonder if Jesus had a penis.
Crotch-void cube for science and discovery!
>>651
As a 2D little girl, you are physiologically incapable of flatulence.
>>652
You dive to the side and crouch behind the cube. The commander summons an enormous ball of fire between his arms and hurls it towards you. You hear a loud roar and feel a rush of hot air wash around the sides of your hiding place, but you are uninjured. The cube, however, begins to shriek with pain and rock from side to side.
>>653
You devote a moment's thought to the topic of Jesus Christ's genitalia. There is exactly one reference to Jesus' penis in the bible that you know of, that being the circumcision of Jesus, which took place eight days after his birth. Furthermore, there is a legendary relic known as the Holy Prepuce which is, supposedly, the severed foreskin of Jesus. Though by no means definite, this strongly suggests that Jesus did possess a penis for at least some of his life, and you see no particular reason to assume otherwise.
>>654
While the commander is preparing his next attack, you lift your skirt and attempt to envelop the black cube with your crotch. As it is currently moving about quite a bit, you put a hand on it to steady yourself. To your shock, it is scalding hot, and worse still, your hand binds to it. Pull as you might, your hand is stuck fast.
Unperturbed, you progress with your plan, and thrust your crotch towards the nearest corner of the cube. As soon as the two meet, there is an overwhelming howling sound. The lights go out and you are plunged into complete darkness. You feel a terrible rending in your lower body, as though you are being torn in half. As well as the pain, you experience extreme vertigo, as though you are falling, plummeting through some endless void; as though reality itself has been sucked away and all that remains is you, the cube and the void, and the cube is trying to kill you. You die.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 30
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>650)
Face sit on the commander.
Offer to spare the commander's life in exchange for his body armor.
>>656
You take a run up and jump, crotch first, into the commander's face. Thankfully, you catch him before he manages to summon his next projectile. He is knocked backwards against the crates and slumps to the ground. You cannot tell what he is or isn't seeing inside his visor, but he somehow avoids the allure of the void and continues to struggle. You wrap your legs around the back of his head, and thus are able to resist his desperate attempts to push you away.
>>657
He makes no response, but persists in struggling.
You currently have him quite well incapacitated. You could easily push him into the void from where you are, but would then be deprived of the potential mana and skill points. On the other hand, to do anything else would most likely require leaving yourself open to danger once more.
Remove his helmet with the blunt stone knife.
Demand goof butts.
Find something to shoot and curse quietly whilst doing so.
>>659
Seeing that this man apparently holds his body armour above his own life, you show no mercy and strike his helmet over and over again with the stone knife, like a bird trying to break a snail shell, in order to find some way to release it. Eventually, you succeed by using the knife as a lever at the joint on the back of his neck. The helmet pops off to reveal the same bearded man, eyes tightly screwed together.
>>660
The man shakes his head from side to side. You can't be sure whether this is a refusal or an attempt to shake you off, but you suspect the latter.
>>661
You look for some sort of secondary weapon the commander might have - his companions were mostly armed with laser weapons, which it would be prudent to relieve him of, and useful to own. You are so frustrated with yourself for not having thought of this earlier that you can't help mouthing some disparaging comments as you search.
You cannot locate anything shootable - worse still, the commander makes makes use of your lapse in concentration to grab you by the legs and throw you off. You land on your back, just next to the cube. The commander gets back to his feet and begins to run away to the South.
Use commander as the requisite shootable object.
Inspect cube.
Give cube a firm talking to.
Pirouette.
>>663
Gosh darn it, you think to yourself, why didn't that commander chap have the decency to carry something you could shoot? And why is shoot both a transitive and an intransitive verb? It's so confusing! If you can shoot a gun then it's shootable, but if you can shoot a person then they are also shootable. And that commander is just so very shootable!
Well, you decide, if life gives you shootable objects, shoot them - whatever that may entail. You take your stone knife and shoot it at the commander with your hand. Well, throw it. Close enough. The spinning projectile strikes him, hilt first, in the back of his head. He collapses to the ground with a thud, dead.
For killing a sapient creature, you have gained one skill point and fifty mana. You currently have 105 mana.
>>664
The cube is completely black and unreflective and, in size, a bit less than a cubic metre. It seems to absorb almost all the light that falls on it. You cannot see any markings on it whatsoever, from any angle.
>>665
"Now listen here, cube," you say, wagging your finger at it crossly, "What are you, anyway? Why are you here? And what did you do with that poor gentleman who was lying on top of you?" The cube has nothing to say for itself. "Well, I say! I've never met such an impertinent Platonic solid. Really, you should be most ashamed of yourself." The cube whines piteously.
>>666
Having been successful in both disposing of the commander and telling off the cube, you decide to express your elation by spinning around on one foot gracefully. I mean, it worked out so well last time, didn't it? Did it? You can't remember. With a gentle hop and a push from your other leg, you set off twirling about, a breathtaking vision of elegance. It was certainly worthy of a gold medal, you think. Such a shame no one was around to see it.
As soon as the world stops spinning, you become aware that something is wrong. You look around. The door - the only exit to the room - has vanished! You run your hands over the wall. There is no trace of it. It is as though the doorway was simply never there. You look up at the skylight, by which you entered, several metres above you. For an instant you see a face looking back down at you, then it is gone.
Collect stone knife and use it to engrave graffiti of a penis on the wall.
Draw a door on the wall, knock three times.
Try to reanimate the cube.
>>668
You make your way over to where the commander is lying, face down, near the South wall, and reclaim the stone knife. Making the best use of your lack of supervision and mischievous nature, you decide to carve a phallus into the wall - just like the Romans used to. Unfortunately, being an innocent little girl, you aren't awfully well versed in penile anatomy. The result of your careful engraving looks sort of like an ill proportioned mushroom sprouting from between two pincushions. The knife is now even blunter and more useless than it was when you found it.
>>669
Electing to try something a little less complicated this time, you carve a door into the South wall, more or less where its real counterpart was earlier. It doesn't look terribly realistic, in all honesty. Nonetheless, as the closest you've got to an accessible exit, you decide to give it a chance, by knocking firmly on it three times. Nothing happens.
Just as you are about to give up hope, you hear three knocks in response, from the same direction.
>>670
You cannot reanimate the cube because it is still alive.
Knock on the door in morse code:
--- ...- . .-. / - .... . / -- --- --- -. / --. .-. . .- - / ... -.- -.-- / .-.. --- .-.. .. / - --- / .. ... ... .... ---
>>672
After a pause, there comes a response:
.--- -.-. / .. ... / - .... .- - / -.-- --- ..-
Knock:
-.-- . ... / --- .--. . -. / ..- .--. / .--. .-.. --..
And run in as soon as possible if it actually opens.
Kiss the first sapient object we see.
Seek justice for Trayvon
...by making an interpretative dance of Trayvon's murder.
(OOC) do some push-ups whilst game isn't responding.
>>674
The reply comes:
...-.
>>675
You walk over to the cube and kneel beside it, all sweetness and light, before giving it a gentle kiss on the upper face. The cube blushes profusely.
>>676
You wait patiently for another sapient object to show up. You wait quite a while, in fact. So long you fall asleep in the meantime. You are woken up by an immense explosion, only a few metres from your head. You jump to your feet, wondering if you've suddenly developed Exploding Head Syndrome, but find instead that a large, black hole has appeared in the wall to the East. Standing in the gaping aperture, flakes of plaster falling around her, is your darling Continue-chan, looking a little dishevelled. She's carrying a laser gun slung over her shoulder.
"Conundrum-chan," she begins urgently, "We haven't got much time, we need t--" She is interrupted by you firmly grabbing her head in both hands and licking at her face affectionately, like a cute little kitten. She just stands still and patiently waits for you to stop.
Masturbation Continue-chan has joined your party.
>>677,678,679
Releasing Continue-chan, you make your way out of the aperture and begin prancing and jumping about in the open space beyond. Now, you are a black youth making your way to the local convenience store; now, you are a Hispanic gentleman making a call to the emergency services. You whip your arms back and forth to symbolise unidentified cries for help in the background of a telephone call. Just as you are getting to the crescendo, Continue-chan grabs your arm and pulls you forwards into a line of trees and bushes, a few metres away from the side of the building you just came from.
She puts a hand firmly over your mouth, muffling your cries of outrage. As you watch from behind a screen of foliage, a little girl dressed in a frilly pink dress walks slowly down the side of the building from the North. She is dragging a large, black shape behind her. It takes a few moments for you to work out what it is. It's Mecha Alexei Fujiwara, being dragged by the feet!
>>680
You aren't sure who or what "game" is, but they certainly aren't responding to you. You decide to express your indignation by performing some push ups, much to Continue-chan's obvious distress. The rustling in the undergrowth attracts the attention of the girl in pink, who shoots a penetrating glare directly at you. Well, she would do, apart from that her eye sockets are completely empty. With no facial expression whatsoever, she takes something sharp from the back of her dress - a dart? a needle? you aren't sure - and throws it at you. You are killed instantly.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 31
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>681)
Do something fun. Such as stealthily following the weird girl in pink into her hideout. Try to imitate Solid Snake as much as possible.
>>682
You and Continue-chan follow the girl in pink from around ten metres away. Thankfully, the sound of Mecha Alexei Fujiwara's body being dragged provides good cover for your footsteps, and the girl does not seem particularly wary of her surroundings. You follow her along a rough track through the forest which climbs steadily uphill for several hundred metres, pretending all the way to be a stealthy special agent on a solitary secret mission of vital importance. This successfully keeps you from doing anything spectacularly inappropriate or stupid, such as trying to do push ups in the undergrowth.
You pass many forks in the road. Given the darkness and the self-similarity of the forest you suspect that even an expert covert spy/soldier such as yourself would have great difficulty navigating your way back. Just before a corner, you are startled by a faint mewing noise coming from behind you. You and Continue-chan turn to find that the enigmatic black cube from earlier has materialised before you, looking slightly sorry for itself. It is also somewhat smaller than last time you saw it.
An unnamed enigmatic black cube has joined your party.
You continue your tactical espionage on the girl in pink, but, around the next corner, find yourself on the edge of a small clearing - perhaps ten metres in diameter - with no sign of her.
Name the black cube Stove Stove. Dig.
Inspect the ceiling
Go back and take the forks.
Ask Stove Stove to transform into Big Penis.
>>684
The cube is now called Stove Stove.
You scrape at the earth at your feet with your bare hands. The ground is hard, dry and unyielding. It is so dark you can barely even see what you're doing, anyway. You acquire nothing but disappointment and dirty fingernails.
>>685
You look up to where the ceiling ought to be. Instead, there is only an array of cold, distant points of light, feebly trying to reject their fate; radiating their very being outwards into the infinite, empty void of space, to which they will inevitably succumb in a mere few billion years. Your view of the beautiful, horrifying, vertiginous starscape is, however, obstructed by a girl in a frilly pink dress, hovering several metres above your head. She is holding Mecha Alexei Fujiwara upside down by the ankle. From your vantage point you can see up her skirt into a tantalisingly dangerous briar of petticoats.
>>686
You employ the training you gained by imitating a certain non-fluid legless reptile on the way here, and duck under the cover of the nearby trees, while whispering to Continue-chan to provide you with cover. As you run, close to the ground, through the undergrowth, whipped in the face by the trees' thorny appendages, you hear the unmistakeable sound of laser fire from behind you. Eventually, thirty metres down the path, you break cover and combat roll to the foot of a mound of forks. The girl in pink does not seem to have followed you.
There are hundreds of them, piled unceremoniously by the pathside. They are almost all silver, mostly plain but some of them quite ornate, embossed with floral patterns or with ends whipped into spiralling shapes. You stuff as many as you can - twelve - into your pockets. You are now carrying a cleaning rag, a lock of Continue-chan's hair, a bloodstained knife (in your left hand), a ceremonial stone knife (in your right hand), and twelve assorted silver forks.
From back where you left your companions, you see flashes of laser fire, a dark shape darting back and forth above the forest canopy, and, beneath it, faint flashes and gleams of something you can't recognise.
>>687
You cannot find Stove Stove.
Run back to companions. Magic heal Stove Stove if needed.
Massage prepubescent nipples and sigh
Keep massaging your sigh.
Arm yourself with a badass scythe.
>>689
Having gathered your all-important forks, you make haste back up the path to where your companions are fighting for their lives. You find Continue-chan in the middle of the clearing, firing her laser gun into the sky at the girl in pink. The girl in pink, meanwhile, is darting back and forth, Mecha Alexei Fujiwara still in tow, dodging the lasers and simultaneously throwing scores of tiny needle shaped projectiles at her assailant. The clouds of needles are intercepted by Stove Stove, who seems to keep disappearing and reappearing to block their trajectories.
You cannot tell whether or not Stove Stove is injured, but you spend 15 mana healing them just in case. You have 90 mana remaining. There is no appreciable change.
>>690
Seeing that you are in no immediate danger, you drop your weapons and run your hands up your blouse, gently plucking at and rubbing your soft, untouched nipples. The tender, yet insistent stimulation is something entirely new to you. You cannot help but begin to moan in ecstasy. "Ahh... Aaaaahh! Aaaa~aaargh!" You say. The conflict before you continues as before.
You take your hands out from under your clothes and sigh dramatically, then massage the air in front of your mouth. It doesn't bring you quite the same pleasure as fondling your breasts, but is, nonetheless, an interesting experience.
>>691
As you watch, the girl in pink flies down close to the ground, just above the canopy of the forest, and attempts to catch Continue-chan from the side. This fiendish attack is, thankfully, nullified by Stove Stove, but Continue-chan's counterattack - a burst of laser fire - catches the top of a nearby tree, instantly setting it ablaze.
You pay no attention to this exchange, as you are busy rubbing your hands in front of your face, for some strange reason.
>>692
You take a suitable branch from the nearby forest, and, using your lock of Continue-chan's hair, tie the bloodstained knife perpendicularly to the end to form a makeshift scythe. You require both hands to wield it properly, but your right hand is currently occupied by the ceremonial stone knife.
Assess badass-ness of scythe.
Strap ceremonial knife to blouse. Equip scythe. Do a scythe dance.
Summon "Asses of Badassness"
>>694
You contemplate your newly crafted agricultural tool and/or weapon. The quality of badassness is difficult to assess at the best of times, you lament, but this specimen is especially open to debate. Firstly, the use of a bloodstained knife is quite dramatic (especially what with it being the blood of your childhood sweetheart, whom you murdered in cold blood), but alas the knife is too straight to form the epitomic scythe shape. Similarly, the use of human hair to tie it together is symbolically quite compelling, but in practice renders the head liable to come detached. Finally, the use of a simple branch that happened to be at hand for the handle is, ultimately, neither here nor there in terms of badassery.
You conclude that, in all honesty, it's actually not that badass - if anything, it's just slightly creepy and morbid.
>>695
You are not in possession of anything that can easily be used as a strap. Instead, you make do by slipping the stone knife down your blouse's collar and clamping it in place with your chin. It's quite precarious, but just about stays so long as you don't make any sudden movements. With your hands now free, you hold the scythe in the natural grip. (It'd be much more natural if you weren't missing two fingers, you grumble to yourself, but there's nothing to be done about that now).
Having had your previous interpretive dance so rudely interrupted, you decide to perform a dance in honour of your new scythe. You make sweeping motions to represent reaping grains, or possibly the souls of medieval peasants. You leap from one foot to the other, symbolising the leap of logic from the literal to the figurative. For the grand finale, you raise your scythe in both hands up to the sky (representing, of course, the bourgeoisie) then, while jumping in the air, bring it down through an arc, brushing against the cold earth beneath (to represent the dregs of society; human detritus) and holding it out at arm's reach, pirouetting with all your might, spinning once, twice, three times (the inevitability and twisted equality of death) - scythe whistling through the air - before coming to a beautifully composed stop.
This entire profound, unlikely orchestration is lit by the exquisitely sympathetic background of the forest behind you slowly burning, as the blaze from earlier has spread at an alarming rate - burning, just like that one unspent skill point burning a hole in your metaphorical pocket - and, of course, the ongoing battle between Continue-chan, Stove Stove and the mysterious girl in pink.
>>696
You feel strangely invigorated by your earlier dancing. You are consumed by the need to imbue your new tool with a name, one befitting a weapon of such calibre. "Asses of Badassness," you call out, "I summon thee!"
Continue-chan - and possibly Stove Stove as well, though it's hard to tell - are distracted by your declaration, and the girl in pink takes advantage with a single needle shot almost straight down towards Continue-chan. It impales her left foot, pinning it to the ground. Continue-chan grits her teeth, clearly in great pain but unable to relinquish her cool, stoic façade. She is, however, quite clearly immobilised and pinned in place, leaving her quite vulnerable.
Call girl in pink a mildly vulgar name.
When the MGiP swoops in to attack Continue, swipe at her neck with Asses of Badassness.
Seize the 700GET.
Allocate skill point to Pole Dancing.
>>698
"Hey, you fustilarian!" you shout at the girl in pink. She pauses in mid-air and turns her black, vacuous eye sockets to face you. Momentarily distracted, she is very nearly hit by a laser shot by Continue-chan, dodging it by mere centimetres.
>>699
You charge into the clearing, wielding your weapon, so as to be in place to let your Asses of Badassness taste blood for the first time. Alas, your combatant seems more inclined to stick to her ranged weaponry. This is not entirely unreasonable, as she doesn't appear to be in possession of any melee weapon. Thankfully Stove Stove is more than happy to continue acting as an interceptor.
>>700
You try to lay claim to the coveted 700GET, but cannot as you lack a suitable device with internet access. Even if you could, unfortunately somebody - as some sort of sick joke - has already taken it from you with a post, itself, commanding you to claim it, as though simply to taunt you.
>>701
Try as you might, you cannot will this skill point to become assigned to the Pole Dancing skill, possibly because you just made that skill type up. It doesn't matter, you rationalise; you are already so innately talented at all types of dancing that you need no super-/unnatural aid in such matters.
The girl in pink retreats a few metres to the edge of the forest, hovering gently just above the flaming foliage, sheathed in smoke. She drops Mecha Alexei Fujiwara to the ground, where he lands in a limp pile. Meanwhile, the girl raises both arms above her head and begins to chant something - you cannot hear over the crackling of the fire. Continue-chan stops firing, staring cautiously at the girl. You grab her hand (the one not occupied by a laser gun) for consolation. Stove Stove places itself between the two of you and the girl, quivering slightly with apprehension.
Heal Continue-chan's leg so we can make a getaway
>>703
Making good use of all of those skill points you put into the healing skill, you carefully remove the foreign body that has rudely intricated itself into your darling Continue-chan's foot. You then use your basic magical healing skill on the limb until the bleeding stops. Thankfully, as your patient is undead and, hence, no longer has or needs a functioning circulatory system, you only incur a loss of 10 mana, leaving you with 80 mana remaining. You consider also employing your dress wound skill, but the only thing you can think of that would make a suitable bandage is your own pantsu, and that would be far too lewd. Your cheeks flush crimson at the very thought.
Continue-chan now seems in a fit state to make a strategic retreat, or keep fighting, depending on how things unfold. The chanting of the girl in pink, which has been steadily increasing in volume, stops abruptly. You look up to find that she has vanished.
It's a trap! She's probably gonna pop up behind us! Stove Stove, protect us!
Wait, wait. Are you saying Continue-chan is a trap?
Check Continue-chan's crotch for a penis.
>>705
This sudden disappearance of your adversary can only be a sign of dishonourable artifice, you conclude. You spin around, expecting a needle to the back, but she is not there either. Indeed, however much you or Continue-chan whip your heads back or forth, you see no sign of her.
You play as Stove Stove to protect the two damsels of the party. You quickly locate a deadly projectile falling gently down from somewhere above - to the untrained eye it may appear like a simple envelope, but you know that it is no doubt full of anthrax spores or something equally nefarious. Using your short range teleportation (active skill), you bat it out of the air, letting it land near the non-burning end of the clearing, a few metres from the delightful young ladies in your charge.
>>706
Returning your consciousness to the entity known as Jack Conundrum-chan, you find your doubt and suspicion still unabated. Why has the girl in pink vanished? Why doesn't she feel the need to fight? Is it because she knows your party to already be compromised? Continue-chan has been wounded by that needle; what if it was laced with some sort of psychoactive agent? Has Continue-chan been turned into some sort of evil trap to ensnare or kill you? Does the word trap have some ancillary meaning you aren't aware of? You have many questions, but no answers.
>>707
Now that you've established that Continue-chan is a potential traitor, you feel the need to ascertain what else might she be hiding from you. As you well know, the best place to hide things - such as, for instance, a penis - is in your crotch, as to search there is considered by most a serious taboo. Of course, if your crotch happens to contain an all-consuming void it mightn't be quite such an excellent hiding place, but there's no reason to suppose that Continue-chan's crotch is anything like yours.
You watch as Continue-chan walks over to the envelope that just dropped from the sky, bends over to pick it up, and tears it open. She reads the contents studiously by the light of the burning foliage to your rear. You hear her utter a gentle gasp of shock, and take the opportunity to flip up her skirt, pull down her pantsu and inspect her crotch. "Dame!" exclaims Continue-chan, a few seconds too late.
Sticking out of her crotch is a black and white kitten's head. You stare at the kitten. The kitten stares back at you. The kitten jumps inquisitively out, towards you, landing in your lap. It mews gently. It is followed, swiftly, by another kitten, this time ginger. This is followed by two more, then three, then many more. The space between Continue-chan's thighs is simply a flowing mass of soft fur, wide eyes and little pink noses. They swarm outwards, more and more, faster and faster. "Oh dear god," screams Continue-chan, "What did you do‽" You cannot reply as you have been thrown to the ground by the endless stream of kittens, and are too winded to speak. You are soon buried entirely in kittens. You just barely hear Continue-chan's last words - "No! Not like this!" - when you begin suffocating under the hot, fluffy mass of kittens. Before long you stop struggling and accept your fate. You hear a playful meow in your ear as you consciousness fades away, for good.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 32
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>704)
Grab the envelope and use envelope opening (active skill) and literacy (passive skill) to read it.
Grab the envelope after it falls and use envelope open (active skill) and literacy (passive skill) to read the contents.
Double post because of verification code issues.
Have the totally random and completely unrelated to erased time threads thought that maybe death by too much pussy isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Enrich ourselves by meditating on our past mistakes from previous lifetimes.
Fantasise about that scientist we killed by the fountain.
>>709
You have a sudden urge to grab an envelope and read its contents. But you're in the middle of a forest; where on earth would you find something like that? Envelopes, in your humble experience, are associated with the postal service, and are usually found in places such as postboxes and post offices; not in forests. Really, what were you thinking with this willy-nilly envelope opening and letter reading?
>>710
Just as you're thinking this, an envelope lands on your head. You run your finger under the tab, tearing open the top edge, and pull out a neatly folded A4 sheet of paper. It reads:
To whom it may concern,
I do hereby formally challenge the recipient of this letter to a duel, to take place in the clearing in which last we met, at the next sunrise. Let it be known that the challenging party shall wield an espada ropera; the challenged party may fight with the aid of any weapon of their choosing. In the case of defeat on the part of the challenged party, the challenged party shall pledge their lives to the service of the good Lady Cassandra. In the case of victory on the part of the challenged party, the challenger shall pledge their life to the service of the challenged party.
Yours faithfully,
Jacqueline Conundra
>>711
You find the overly ornate, cursive writing so difficult to decipher it is almost like a code. Furthermore, though it is tempting to conclude that this was written by the girl in pink, you could really do with some sort of verification of this assumption. Indeed, you find your verification/code issues so troubling that you decide to write out a double of the item of post you just received. Unfortunately you cannot, as you lack a usable writing implement.
>>712
You have a strange, inexplicable thought, the significance of which you cannot even guess at.
>>713
You aren't aware of any previous lifetimes you've had; that would be silly. I mean, you've had plenty of near death experiences, but it's not as though you've actually died and then somehow relived the preceding moments differently or anything like that. How would that work, anyway?
Apart from that... you have some vague, yet quite troubling memories of a dream you had - or was it a dream? - when you passed out in the field on your way to your first day of chuugakkou. You could've sworn, for instance, that you'd seen your future Sensei somewhere before...
>>714
You recall something so horrifying that part of you struggles desperately to repress it from yourself. Somewhere, in some strange, other world, you murdered someone - an innocent woman of science - while she lay helpless, unconscious on the floor. The blood! Who would have thought the lady to have had so much blood in her? Out, damned spot! Out, you say!
Once you're quite done fantasising about dubious acts of murder in parallel universes, you turn to thinking about plans for the immediate future. You have only a few hours at most until dawn in which time to prepare, or sleep, or run away. The forest is still on fire, Mecha Alexei Fujiwara is still lying unconscious a few metres away, and you still have one unspent skill point.
Put skill point into pyromancy. Enjoy the fire.
Tell Continue-chan about the duel and ask to borrow her laser weapon. Revive Mecha Alexei with necromancy? Healing? A new battery? Whatever it takes.
Wait for challenger to arrive.
Ask for Easy-to-wield-instant-death-laser-with-autoaim to challenger, as per instructed. Refuse to duel if the weapon is not offered to us, as that would not comply with the duel agreement we celebrated previously.
Draw Big Penis on Alexei's cheek before he wakes up.
>>716
You now have level three pyromancy. You have unlocked the following skill:
Magical firelighting (active skill): Can spontaneously produce a small flame between thumb and forefinger. Costs one unit of mana per second.
You gaze into the fire, taking the time to appreciate the warm colours, the fluid, dancing motion of the flames, as contrasted with the sedate spiralling of the smoke above; the playful crackling noises, the ashy smell in the air, and the feeling of the radiated heat against your skin. How delightful.
>>717
Continue-chan is only too happy to offer her laser gun, however you cannot possibly carry it along with the ceremonial stone knife and Asses of Badassness. Both the laser gun and Asses of Badassness require both hands to wield properly, although you could probably just about sheath the stone knife somewhere in your clothing, if it weren't already full of forks.
You attempt to revivify your long-suffering cybernetically enhanced companion. He is breathing, shallowly, and if you put your ear to his clockwork eye you can hear a faint ticking, but otherwise he seems dead to the world. Alas, you cannot use any of your reanimation skills on him as he is already reanimated, you cannot heal him as you cannot locate any injuries, and you don't have any batteries. You settle for using your place in recovery position (active skill) on him, to little obvious effect.
>>718
You sit, waiting, staring into the slowly receding fire, until the sky turns grey and the stars silently fade from sight. Just as the sunlight breaks over your particular patch of forest, the girl in pink rematerialises behind you, sword in hand. You make your demand to her and make quite clear that your participation in the duel depends on it. A business card sized piece of paper appears in front of you. It reads:
The responsibility of provision of weaponry rests upon the duellist wielding said weapon. Furthermore, refusal to fight for any reason shall be interpreted as a concession of defeat.
>>719
Hilarious as that would no doubt be, you lack any suitable writing utensil.
Drop Asses of Badassness in order to wield Continue's laser; shoot at the girl in pink, aiming at the penile region, because if Touhou fandom has taught us anything it's that floaty magical girls in fancy dresses who shoot needles around are generally hermaphrodites.
Press shift for focused movement.
Change to イージーモード.
>>721
You abandon your slapdash improvised scythe in favour of the more reliable and, frankly, more badass laser gun. You aren't sure what a "Touhou fandom" is, or what it/they has taught you, but you do have some idea the untold horrors that lurk in little girls' crotches and thus decide that this would be the best place to aim your first attack. By the time you level the barrel and pull the trigger, however, she has already dodged well out of the way. Another small piece of paper floats down in front of you.
Much as I admire your enthusiasm, let us first settle the conditions of the duel. Are we to fight a) to the first blood b) until vocal admission of defeat or c) to the death?
>>722
You missed! You need to focus your movement, you decide. To calibrate your fine motor control and reaction time, you sheathe your firearm and, charging boldly forth, attempt to press your index finger up your fellow duellist's dress and into her shift, which you assume she's probably wearing somewhere underneath. You catch her off guard and very nearly succeed, hand brushing alluringly against the soft fabric of her befrilled undergarments, but don't encounter the telltale resistance of a direct hit, as she has already retreated upwards into the air. She appears somewhat flustered.
>>723
Having set the difficulty to Hard Mode back at >>545,548 you are now finding the combat somewhat more challenging than you'd care to admit. Unfortunately, as you are now a chuugakusei, it is no longer acceptable to play on Easy Mode. You would sooner die than incur such shame.
Duel to death
Curse quietly
Save game. Really save it.
Hide behind Stove Stove
>>725 and if we meet death, duel past it and keep duelling through un-death and into the afterlife.
>>725
"To the death!" you declare melodramatically. Another note meanders out of the air in front of you, reading:
Very good. The duel may begin at your discretion.
You take a deep breath, straighten your spine, and glance sideways at Continue-chan. For all that she has become quite an imposing character since your betrayal and her death, just now she looks every bit the timid schoolgirl you knew and loved. Her hands are clasped together at her breast, and her face is awash with anguish. "Please," she whispers, "Conundrum-chan, don't die."
>>726
"May your sword rust and be blunted, may your garish frilled garments rot away, and may your aberrant, unjustifiable existence be swiftly and promptly put to an end, you godless, eyeless monster." you mutter in the general direction of your opponent. She tries to give no acknowledgement to the comment, but you can see her lip twitch.
>>727
(Game saved)
(New save file created: >>730.sav)
>>728
In a moment of weakness and fear, you run away and hide behind the comforting regularity and smoothness of Stove Stove, who is perched nearby. Your opponent seems to interpret this as the start of the duel, and darts through the air, over your head, landing a few paces in front of you, sword pointed straight at you.
She lunges at you, and, as you are cowering in fear, you cannot dodge or counterattack fast enough. The cold steel pierces your thorax and cuts straight into your heart. You die.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 33
You attempt to challenge the GAME OVER to a duel, but cannot because your consciousness no longer exists in any meaningful sense. Similarly, you cannot duel your way to undeath, as your body is not reanimated, nor into the afterlife, because it doesn't exist.
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>730)
Shoot at MiTG until she dies.
>>731
I mean MGiP, I don't even know how could I make such a mistake.
Show Jacqueline your oppai as a distraction.
Wonder if your prepubescent bust even counts as oppai.
Touch prepubescent bust.
Bust a move.
Bust a rhyme.
>>731,732
You fire lasers at the mysterious girl in pink - whom you now know to be called Jacqueline - like a very small, highly directional quasar. Unfortunately, you lack any training in the use of firearms, and thus are even more hopelessly unable to keep up with your opponent's deft movements than Continue-chan was earlier. Jacqueline jumps and bounds around, sword whipping by faster than you can even see, stubbornly refusing to put herself in the path of your deadly lasers.
>>733
Dropping your weapon temporarily, you lift your blouse and flash your diminutive chest at her. She pauses a moment, a metre or two away, and another piece of paper makes itself known to you.
Am I to interpret this as a gesture of surrender?
You suspect that her confusion arises from the similarity of your white blouse to a white flag, coupled with the fact you just laid down your arms.
>>734
You could be using this situation as an opportunity to commit perfidy, but instead get distracted by the semantics and application of the word oppai - as opposed to, for instance, chichi, chibusa or mune. Mune seems the most apt description of your bust to you, but that doesn't necessarily invalidate the other options.
>>735
You decide to gently fondle your mune by way of research. Just at that moment, Jacqueline thrusts her sword straight at your upper chest. It lodges in your left hand, between your carpus and the ends of your metacarpals. The pain is excruciating. "Aaaaaaaargh!" you scream. Your opponent appears unimpressed, and attempts to withdraw her weapon for another attack. Alas, it proves to be quite well lodged in your lower hand.
>>736
You try to come up with something to distract yourself from the agonising pain; something calming, reminiscent of better times. You decide to perform a nice pirouette to ease your distress. You spin hard enough to pluck the sword right out of your rival's hand, and after half a turn the centrifugal force looses it from your hand as well, leaving it arcing across the clearing and into the undergrowth with a spray of blood.
>>737
You cannot resist making a quip towards your now disarmed adversary. "You may have thought me harmless... but now I've left you armless!"
Crack Jaqueline in the head with the back end of your gun, a move also known as a "buttstroke".
Finish her off with Asses of Badassness.
Declare her a sore loser.
Collect a stick of charcoal from burnt forest. Use it to draw Big Penis on her cheek, and Alexei's too since we couldn't earlier.
Before doing that, magic heal our own left hand!!
>>739
As she is still stunned, you take the laser gun from the floor and stroke Jacqueline's butt. No, wait, that's not right. You strike her a brutal blow to the head with the non laser emitting end, knocking her to the ground and likely dirtying her lovely pink frilly dress.
>>740
As she probably won't be getting up again any time soon, you decide you can afford to finish her off in style. You take Asses of Badassness in both hands, holding it over your head, and swing it down into your opponent's unguarded chest. She gazes up at you with what might be a quite heartwarming, puppy-dog expression, were it not for the vacant eye sockets. The blade descends, up to the hilt, into her with an anticlimactic thump. She stops moving, and blood slowly seeps out of the wound. There are a few seconds of merciful silence, then one last missive flutters down from above, reading:
Tell Alexei I love h
The handwriting is shaky, and ends as nothing more than a thin smudge of ink across the remainder of the paper.
For killing a sapient creature, you have gained one skill point and fifty mana. You currently have 130 mana.
>>741
Why should it be your job to play Cupid here? It's her fault if she never confessed to her - admittedly unresponsive - lover. What a sore loser, as far as romance is concerned, you think.
>>743
You spend 25 mana healing your left hand, leaving you 105 mana. It stops bleeding and begins to scab over, but is still fairly painful. Your hand is still usable, and thankfully doesn't seem to have suffered any nervous damage - had the sword struck your carpal tunnel things would be quite different.
>>742
You leisurely make your way into the burnt forest edge - it smells of fire, such a delightful smell - and take a blackened lump that was formerly a piece of tree. You wish it was still on fire; it was much prettier that way. You use the charcoal to draw little phalli on Jacqueline's and Mecha Alexei's cheeks. If they could not be united in love in this world, at least they can be united in facial defacement in the next.
You are in a nondescript clearing in the middle of a forest, with a burnt patch nearby and a path leading away. Continue-chan and Stove Stove are members of your party, and potentially Mecha Alexei Fujiwara, but he seems to be unconscious. As far as weaponry is concerned, there is nearby a laser gun, a ceremonial stone knife, Asses of Badassness and an espada ropera. Given that only two of you can wield weapons, you really don't need - nor can you carry - all of these.
Check if Alexei's mecha parts have a reset button or something.
Leave Asses of Badassness with Jacqueline's corpse. Give the laser gun back to Continue-chan. Strap the ceremonial stone knife somewhere in our clothing (first dropping a few forks to make room.) Take and equip the espada ropera.
Put skill point into Pyromancy.
If Mecha Alexei proves unrevivable, hide him in the forest under some bushes or something until we can find a way to revive him.
Regret nothing.
Place Jacqueline's corpse on Stove Stove and stab her heart with the ceremonial stone knife while singing something patriotic.
Let the Eagles cry.
>>745
Mecha Alexei's clockwork bits look, from the outside at least, indistinguishable from the genuine article. You can't find any buttons, switches or other mechanical input devices.
>>746
Safe from attack for now, you leave Asses of Badassness by poor Jacqueline's body, where it may lie as a testament to your bloodlust and cruelty. You return the laser gun to Continue-chan. Emptying one of your pockets of forks - leaving you six remaining - and tearing a hole in the bottom of it gives you a little strap in your skirt in which you can hang the stone knife. Lastly, you claim the espada ropera for your own. The tip is still stained with your blood. You find the weapon to be light and nimble, well suited to your size and strength.
You now have level four pyromancy. You have unlocked the following skill:
Small fireball (active skill): Can summon and cast a fireball, approximately 15cm in diameter. Requires one free hand. Costs 15 mana per fireball.
Mecha Alexei Fujiwara remains unresponsive, but you can't be sure if he's truly unrevivable. Surely, you feel, if you just knew how he came to be like this, there must be something you could do... Until that time, you decide to conceal him a few metres into the forest, on the opposite side to the burnt patch. You try your best to be free of remorse, but find that you still have some lingering guilt over murdering the lovely Continue-chan, amongst other things.
>>747
With Continue-chan's aid, you drag Jacqueline's inanimate body onto Stove Stove. You take the stone knife from its makeshift sheath and begin singing God Save the Queen, only to find that the corpse you were about to desecrate is being slowly absorbed by Stove Stove. It sinks away and vanishes before your very eyes.
>>748
Though you don't particularly feel inclined to cry yourself, the lachrymatory habits of large birds of prey are, you decide, entirely their own business.
Briefly consider killing Alexei while he's helpless, just to get the sweet sweet skillpoints and mana. Decide not to, in case he's still important later, but file the idea for future contemplation.
Apologize to Continue-chan for everything and ask her what she thinks should be done.
Kiss Continue-chan.
Slam Continue-chan with a spine-buster
>>750
You already killed, mutilated and reanimated Alexei back at >>606. You could render him inanimate by lowering his bodily integrity below 80%, but this would gain you neither skill points nor mana.
>>751
As the sun steadily rises over the burnt, bloodstained earth of your little clearing, you and Continue-chan sit in the grass and share a deep, heartfelt conversation wherein you privately right all your wrongs and forgive everything that needs to be forgiven. On discussion of what to do now, Continue-chan offers that there is still a lot the two of you don't know, such as who the armed guards are and why they fight you (and similarly for the tentacle monsters) - amongst other, more insidious matters, for instance neither of you knows who reanimated Continue-chan after you murdered her, or why.
Unfortunately, there is no very clear way of investigating these matters. Had you, perhaps, not killed Jacqueline, you might've been able to interrogate her - or even have a nice, civilised conversation over tea - but it's too late for that. At any rate, you aren't likely to accomplish much just staying where you are. Returning by daylight to the building you were in earlier may help, and you could even further investigate the tunnels beneath it.
>>752
You interrupt by leaning over and pressing your lips onto Continue-chan's. She does not resist. Her lips are cold and bloodless, but they respond gladly to your gentle probing. As you part, Continue-chan looks away and blushes.
>>753
You consider performing a wrestling move on your dear Continue-chan, but which? A lifting spine-buster? Thrust spine-buster? Spinning spine-buster? Or even a sitout spine-buster? Also, why?
Remember that the rule is "yes and" not "no" then reconsider the last command.
Yes and tell your mom to bring us more soda and cheetos!
Don't listen to them. Head back to the mysterious building.
Listen to your mom, she knows best.
Inquire as to how can Continue-chan blush if she's undead and lacks blood.
Zone out while whoever decides to respond responds about Continue-chan's blushing, and contemplate her bellybutton instead.
>>755
You aren't aware of any rules consisting only of the words "yes and"; that strikes you as a very poorly worded and easily misinterpreted rule, really. At any rate, upon reflection, performing a spine-buster on Continue-chan strikes you as an absolutely splendid idea, with no chance of any undesired outcomes.
You stand and hold Continue-chan about the waist, with her upper body over your shoulder. Just as she's about to say something, you sweep your own legs out from underneath yourself and land on your backside, whilst simultaneously slamming her down onto the ground, spine first. "Ow," she says, "Conundrum-chan, I hate you." She doesn't seem particularly serious.
>>756
You try to politely request some victuals from your mother, but she is nowhere to be found. Also, you don't know who she is.
>>757
Accompanied by Continue-chan and Stove Stove, you make your way down the same dirt path you came up last night. By daylight, you find that it's really quite scenic, adorned with banks of blue, bell-shaped flowers, and little bumblebees and small white butterflies. Finally, the three of you arrive at where the building used to be - only to find that it has been replaced with an enormous blast crater, at least a hundred metres in diameter. There is rubble and twisted sheets of metal strewn everywhere.
Standing in the middle of the crater, head tilted to one side quizzically, is a little girl in a frilly lilac dress. Upon seeing you, she rushes over and greets you enthusiastically. "Hello! Have you perchance seen a little girl in a pink dress recently? Or an undead cybernetically enhanced theoretical physicist? The two of them seem to have run away, you see," she expounds, "How bothersome!"
Without waiting for a response, she continues, "Well, if you happen to find either of them, be sure to let me know! Who knows, if you bring me them both alive, I might even stop sending armed soldiers to kill you and watching the ensuing battle for light entertainment. Anyway, adieu!" She flaps her hand at you, then runs off and disappears into a narrow rectangular opening in the side of the crater which you hadn't noticed earlier. It appears to be part of the system of tunnels you were in earlier.
>>758
Was that girl your mom? Probably not.
>>759,760
You spend a few moments contemplating Continue-chan's cardiovascular system. It's quite clear that her blood is no longer circulating - the wound on her chest has stopped bleeding, and she is displaying quite obvious pallor mortis. And yet her muscles and brain are evidently still operating, which would normally imply a supply of glucose and oxygenated blood. As she wasn't looking awfully lively when she was dead, you suspect this to be a result of the reanimation process, which may also go some way to explaining blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah. Blah blah blah blah - blah blah blah? - blah blah blah; blah blah blah blah blah. Is Continue-chan's bellybutton an innie or an outie, you wonder? Probably an innie. You bet it's a really cute little T-shaped one, as well.
Lick Continue-chan's belly button.
Yell after the purple girl that you can provide Alexei "alive", after a fasion.
Also observe that the vericode for this post was yiff and contemplate on what that could mean.
>>762
You attempt to lift Continue-chan's blouse to gain access to her navel, but she jumps away from your fervent advance - it appears she has learnt from your earlier attempt to bust her spine.
>>763
"I have Alexei alive! Sort of!" you exclaim, but she either is already out of earshot or doesn't care.
You've no idea what this word "yiff" could possibly mean, other than being an anagram of "iffy". Is it an acronym? Onomatopoeia? A nonce word? You might never know.
Give her another 3 spine busters for denying you access to her navel.
Give yourself a spine buster for good measure.
Give your spine buster a kiss.
Advance the plot.
Watch your favorite spinebuster video on youtube
Having become an expert spinebusterer, spinebuster the next guard we come across.
>>765
You shan't stand for such insolence! Rather than explain, rationally, that you only wanted to lick her navel (which is perfectly unobjectionable), you decide to embody the very fears she projected onto you, and attack her as you did before. Continue-chan proves substantially more skilled in unarmed combat than you, and blocks each of your attempts to throw her to the ground - not surprising considering you are only attempting one type of attack.
"Stop! Conundrum-chan, please, what are you doing?" she entreats. Finally, seeing that you aren't backing down, she runs away, straight into the forest. You soon lose track of her and thus are unable to give her any spine-busters.
>>766
You jump into the air and land, heavily, on your upper back. A piece of rubble finds itself just under your cervical vertebrae, and as your neck collides with it there is a sickening crack. You suddenly find that you cannot feel your legs. You try to move, but your hands won't respond. Your breath catches. You cannot breathe - your thoracic diaphragm is paralysed. You suffocate, slowly, unable to move anything but your eyes, and unable to see anything but the indifferent cloudscape above; soft, white cumuli, lit by the mid-morning sun.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 34
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>764)
>>767
You attempt to kiss your own spine, which you have apparently just named "Buster". Alas, you aren't quite that flexible.
>>768
You advance forwards across the plot of land you find yourself on, eventually reaching the bottom of the crater. You find that there are two tunnels on opposite sides of the crater. The one on the left, which the girl in lilac went down, is entirely clear, but the one on the right appears blocked with rubble. On the opposite side of the crater is a dirt road leading downhill. There are several tyre tracks imprinted into the earth, showing recent usage. On all other sides, the crater is surrounded by uniform deciduous, old-growth forest.
>>769
You do not currently have a device capable of internet access.
>>770
You cannot see any guards, but make a mental note to spine-bust the next one you see, without any forethought, and in spite of any other factors or commands you may be under the effect of at the time.
Loudly sing as we make our way down the left tunnel.
Be Stove Stove. Look at your stats and skills.
Check navel is okay
Be Jack again and shoot a fireball down the hallway to light the way.
Check Buster is okay
If yes, be Buster.
>>772
You skip gleefully into the foreboding, claustrophobic, unlit passageway, all the while singing アヒルのワルツ to yourself. Continue-chan follows at a cautious distance.
>>773
You are now playing as Stove Stove. You find yourself, a sentient block of volcanic glass, hovering a few centimetres from the ground in a large blast crater in the middle of the forest. The two delightful young ladies you were with earlier have just entered a dark tunnel which, you are alarmed and dismayed to find, is substantially too narrow for you to fit into.
You currently have level five telekinesis and level one matrimony. You have 99,839 mana remaining. The following skills are currently available to you:
>>774
You look for your navel - but it is gone! Actually, you strongly suspect it was never there in the first place, what with you being literally a large, cubic lump of rock.
>>775
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. You cast small fireball (active skill) into the darkness, expending 15 mana to leave you 90 mana remaining. The little orb of flame speeds away before you, illuminating the way ahead. After a few tens of metres - it's hard to judge distances down here - its light momentarily reveals a small concrete room, with a ladder leading downwards (the same room you were in back at >>593).
It continues down the next tunnel, which, conveniently enough, follows on straight ahead, reaching another small room, striking the opposite wall and extinguishing a few seconds later. You think you catch sight of some dark shape in the far room, but it was probably just your imagination.
>>776
Your spine seems to be quite alright, as best you can tell without the aid of a vertebral specialist.
>>777
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan's spine, also known as Buster. You find yourself entirely lacking in sensory organs or cognitive faculties, and thus your state of existence is, frankly, rather lacking. The only thing you feel is a continuum of nervous impulses running up and down yourself. It tickles.
Bust a move.
Be Stove Stove. Go on a journey of self-discovery.
Attempt to travel through left tunnel by using self as a drill.
Have no mouth but scream.
>>779
Try as you might, you cannot perform any dance pieces, largely due to you lacking any limbs, any control over your own movement, any capacity for cognition and any idea what dancing even is. You would be disappointed, but as you are just a spinal column, you lack the capacity even for that.
>>780
You are now playing as Stove Stove. After waiting a suitable length of time for the girls to return and tell you that they do love you after all, you decide to take the opportunity of being left behind by the two people you loved and trusted to attempt to overcome your crippling fear of abandonment. You eventually concede and levitate all the way back uphill to the clearing, as even the company of an unconscious undead augmented theoretical physicist would be more agreeable than your current crushing solitude.
He is gone. There is a patch of flattened grass visible where he was hidden, and footprints leading back towards the clearing, but you can't tell whether they're Alexei's, Continue-chan's or Conundrum-chan's - or someone else's.
As far as self-discovery is concerned, you have learned that you are not very good at dealing with emotional rejection (perceived or actual), and that you have some quite deep seated abandonment issues. Then again, you already knew that.
>>781
You make your way back to the crater and throw your weight against the tunnel entrance, rotating to break through the poured concrete, and, amidst the grinding noises, succeed in advancing a few centimetres. You find that it hurts rather a lot, and has in fact slightly chipped your beautiful, sharp edges. You stop and try to cry, but find that you have no tear ducts.
>>782
You try to scream, but find that you have no mouth. What horror! If only you had some popular culture reference you could fall back on in this situation to alleviate the torment.
punch yourself in the face
Assuage self and gain self confidence by remembering how good we are at blocking lasers and absorbing people. Contentedly lie down and wait for your female companions like a good Stove Stove.
Install a mod that replaced Conundrum-chan with The Incredible Hulk and Continue-Chan with Jafar from Aladdin
Be Buster. Send pleasure signals throughout the body.
>>784
Alas, you have six faces but not a single fist.
>>785
You try to better your self-image through reflection upon your past successes, without success. Perhaps, if you had the loving support of a cute little girl or two, you could scrape together some semblance of confidence, but such is not the case. You begin to panic. Before you know it, you've accidentally activated your internal self-destruct mechanism. You have exactly one hour before you explode.
>>786
You don't know of any mods that do that, nor do you know how you'd go about installing any such thing.
>>787
You are now playing as Buster. You find it odd to try to send pleasure signals throughout the body, considering the pleasure receptors are all localised in the brain - or, rather, you would find it odd, if you were capable of thought. You try to will the component neurons of the spinal cord you encompass to selectively transmit pleasurable sensations, but unfortunately you cannot, because you have no free will.
Be Jack. Go to the far room in search of the dark shape. Send Continue-chan to go calm down Stove Stove.
>>789
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. You ask Continue-chan to go back to check on Stove Stove, as you have a strangely prescient - though unfortunately slightly too late - thought that perhaps your favourite sentient stone cube might be unhappy on its own. Continue-chan acquiesces and patters away down the tunnel, back to the entrance.
Meanwhile, you forge ahead into the darkness. As you reach the first small room, you find that the dim lightbulb that lit this room previously is no longer in operation. You do, however, note that there is a ladder leading downwards, the base of which is lit by a strange red glow.
Ignoring this, you continue onwards into the unknown. You are guided only by your hands tracing along the passage walls. After perhaps a minute or two, you reach the far room, which is completely unlit. You hear a faint whooshing sound, then find that your precious Buster has been dislocated from its place at the bottom of your brainstem by a sharp, calculated blow. You collapse to the cold, hard ground, dead.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 35
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>788)
>>790
You are now playing as Stove Stove. You find that you require level 12 telekinesis, level 5 healing, level 5 thaumaturgy and 75 mana to shapeshift.
Search for the nearest way to level up.
>>792
As everyone knows, the only way to increase one's level in a skill is to expend skill points, and the only way to gain skill points is murdering sapient creatures. Unfortunately, it seems you are the only sapient creature in the vicinity. For all you know, Conundrum-chan and everyone else might be dead and you might be the only sapient being left in the universe. And without anyone else to validate your existence, can your life really have any meaning? Why even bother levelling up in a world like that?
You search the crater and surrounding forest for signs of anyone, anything, to free you from your solipsist prison. Alas, there are no sapient beings kind enough to grace you with their presence.
Go somewhere useful to explode, like the control tower.
Be Jack. Do a dastardly deed.
Go back to the forest. See if you can fashion a workable torch out of the charred wood and other items on hand.
On the way, make sure to pick up Stove Stove before it/she/he blows up.
Make up a limerick about Duke Nukem and entertain Continue-chan with it.
Pretend we're in a swimming pool and play marco polo.
>>797
You walk back in the direction you came. After a few paces, you notice something troubling - the little rectangle of light that, previously, promised easy return to the aboveground world of sunlight and life, is no longer there. The tunnel was perfectly straight; there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to see it. Similarly, had there been a cavein or similar, you would surely have heard it. Continue-chan seems equally troubled by this development.
You are, thankfully, still in possession of the lump of charcoal you used to deface Mecha Alexei and Jacqueline's faces. You stick one of your six silver forks into it as a handle and wrap it in the one cleaning rag you were still carrying. After some time attempting to produce a spark by rubbing two forks against one another, you give up and use your magical firelighting (active skill), costing you five mana, to leave 85 remaining. The makeshift torch lights up perfectly, illuminating the dark grey stone walls of the tunnel, Continue-chan's pale, bloodless face, and your own body.
>>798
You continue walking in the direction that should lead to Stove Stove. The passage twists around to the right, then begins to curve downwards to an alarming angle. You stop where it reaches around around forty degrees, but you can see that the angle of the tunnel continues to get steeper, to vertical, as best you can tell. It becomes obvious that you cannot get to nor pick up your companion, despite his imminent explosion, which you know nothing about.
>>799
You address your companion and recite the jocular poem you just composed:
"There once was a man called Duke,
Who loved to destroy; to nuke,
His games were fun,
Full of laser guns,
But Forever was worthy of rebuke."
Continue-chan appears more mystified than entertained. She obviously has no idea what you're talking about - in fact, you aren't entirely sure yourself.
>>800
"Marco!" you exclaim, waving your arms in some approximation of a breaststroke, limited by the narrow space. From somewhere ahead, heavily distorted by echo, comes a faint "Polo".
Keep playing Marco Polo until we win.
Descend into further confusion.
Be Continue. Say in your best Spock impression, "This is not logical, Jack."
Challenge Jack to pour a bucket of ice water over head to raise awareness of the Control Tower.
>>802
Taking no heed of personal safety, you step boldly forth into the dark chasm ahead of you, eyes screwed shut, following the sirenic allure of that half-heard "polo". As you slip over the brink, to where you can no longer stand and fall down the now vertical passage, you shout, pleadingly, "Marco!". With a faint "polo", you strike the floor at least two or three metres below you which is, thankfully, curved and thus you land uninjured. Continue-chan makes some vocalisation of distress, but does not join you. She does not understand.
You get to your feet and swim onwards. "Marco!" you shout again, desperate for that distant acknowledgement. "Polo" comes the response. The tunnel continues to twist and contort itself, changing shape or texture unexpectedly, shrinking to a size that you can only crawl through, and even turning entirely upside down. Finally, the tunnel comes to an end. Groping around, you feel a wooden door, with a cool metal doorhandle. "Marco," you whisper, voice trembling. "Polo," comes the reply, from just behind the door.
You push the door open and walk forwards while sweeping your arms about in front of you. "Marco!" you accuse. "Polo!" says someone just to your side - a fairly young, male voice. You reach out in the direction it came from, and grasp an arm. Having won, you open your eyes again to revel in your mastery of this ichthyic game.
>>803
You are shocked and confused to find yourself in some sort of ornate parlour. The room has a very high ceiling but is otherwise somewhat narrow and ill-proportioned. The floor is chequered marble, and the walls are plain white. To the East is the door you just came from. To the West is a spiral staircase leading upwards, and a closed door in the wall. To the North is a fireplace with a coffee table, a chaise longue and an armchair arranged around it. On the coffee table is a laptop with a command-line interface open.
In front of you, captured by the arm, is a young man in combat armour (apart from the helmet, which is on the seat of the armchair). He seems nervous, but very talkative. "Thank goodness I found you before the others did! Look, there's no time to explain, but a lot of people dressed like me are trying to kill you. They told me I have to try to kill you too - me! I'm just an innocent cryptographer - they told me you were dangerous, violent, that you'd killed lots of people, but I--"
He is interrupted by you grabbing him around the waist, jumping and smashing him, spine first, into the hard, marble floor, as you promised yourself to back at >>770,771. He appears badly winded.
>>804
You are now playing as Masturbation Continue-chan. Unable to muster the nerve to follow Conundrum-chan into the unknown, you have resigned yourself to wandering through the pitch black, labyrinthine tunnels, in the other direction. Why did she jump down there, anyway? What was she thinking? "This is not logical, Jack." you mutter. Your voice sounds a little odd as you say it.
>>805
You attempt to lure Jack Conundrum-chan back to you with offers of bizarre and nonsensical actions, but she does not respond to your coaxing.
Try to remember a past life as a horrific tentacle-beast.
Follow your heart to the exit.
>>807
You remember a past life as a cute little girl, growing up in semi-rural Japan. You remember a largely carefree and idyllic life, shared with your beloved childhood friend, Jack Conundrum-chan. You remember being very fond of Conundrum-chan, very fond indeed; such that you began carrying around a knife and having extreme, impulsive feelings of resentment and anger towards anyone perceived as taking her away from you. You also remember that one time the two of you were playing doctor and y-- no, wait, that never happened.
At any rate, you can't remember any time at which you were a horrific tentacle-beast, literally or metaphorically. That would be ridiculous.
>>808
Your heart seems to be quite firmly lodged in your ribcage, and isn't really going anywhere. Instead, you metaphorically follow your heart by choosing your own path out. A walk in the opposite direction to where Conundrum-chan went does not bring you to the little cubic room which should be ahead; instead, the passage branches and loops madly, inclining up and down without any clear pattern or meaning. You wander the maze of twisty little passages, alone in the darkness. After you have been wandering for about an hour, you find yourself - along with the rest of the universe - annhialated by Stove Stove's self destruction.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 36
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>806)
Say "xyzzy".
Be Jack. Give the cryptographer a long deep kiss.
Warn cryptographer that if he goes anywhere near your crotch, he will die.
But don't do it in a threatening tone. We don't want to sound prude. Make it sound like the crotch void is an object of universal fear.
Explain that spine busters are just our way of saying "I love you."
Explain that the spine, Buster, loves you.
Quietly say "I love busting spines too."
>>810
"XYZZY," you say. From somewhere, a long way away, comes a faint reply: "Polo".
>>811
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. While your new friend is still temporarily supine and incapacitated, you softly, but firmly, clamp your nubile little lips over his, and press your tongue into his mouth. He attempts to resist momentarily, but soon gives up. He goes limp beneath you. He seems to have passed out.
>>812,813
You sit on his chest, waiting patiently for him to return to consciousness so you can convey your important warning to him. For a minute or two all is silent but your own breathing and the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. Finally, the cryptographer's eyelids flutter open again.
You press your face close to his, smile (you hope) reassuringly, and commiserate that, for his own safety, he cannot look/touch under your skirt, partly due to the fact that you aren't wearing any pantsu. He stammers something about not being a lolicon, that he doesn't want to cause you any trouble, that he's just a poor innocent cryptographer, and so on. He seems quite distressed.
>>814
Without letting him get up, you kindly explain that your rather physical greeting was in fact an expression of affection. He screws his eyes closed and says "Please, I'll do anything, just please, don't hurt me. I'll do anything you want." There are tears forming in the corners of his eyes.
>>815
At your unassuming comment about your spine, his eyes shoot open. He struggles and tries to sit upright. He speaks frantically, unable to control his voice; "No! No, no, you're not supposed to know about that! Who told you? That w--"
Then, just as suddenly, he drops to the floor, dead. A pool of blood spreads from under the back of his neck.
>>816
Plunged without warning back into uncomfortable silence, accompanied only by the interminable ticking of the clock, you feel a desperate need to offer some comment, to give yourself some closure to the incident. "I love busting spines too," you say meekly, hoping that nobody hears.
Ask Buster what that was all about.
Put laptop in crotch-void. Start fire in fireplace using dead guard as kindling.
Be Continue. Go in the direction of the voice, but try saying "plugh" too, just in case.
>>818
Buster remains as uncommunicative as ever, ignoring your query like a sulking teenager.
>>819
Recalling with joy the last time you touched a computer, back at >>591,593 and what a wonderful idea it was to smother it with your crotch - one which you never regretted for a moment - you decide to reenact the event with the laptop on the coffee table. "Enter encryption key" it protests, but you spare no mercy. It vanishes up your skirt.
You find the fireplace to be wide and spacious; ideal for disposing of dead bodies. You strip the poor cryptographer and contemplate how best to convert him to kindling. The combat armour is, unfortunately, not even remotely flammable. You relieve him of all his clothing and set them aside, then drag him into the fireplace, face down, such that his head and shoulders are crammed in as far as they'll go. Using the makeshift torch you had from earlier, you set his hair alight. It eventually catches.
Once the fire is large enough, you start to add the more flammable portion of his apparel, which eagerly joins the blaze. Somehow, you simply can't stop here; there's so much more to burn! You start by flipping the coffee table over, tearing off its legs and piling them around the already quite serious mound of flame. Before you know it, you're tearing the covering from the armchair, breaking the coffee table into planks and burning, burning, more, more! A strange cackling escapes your lips. All you can see is flames.
>>820
You are now playing as Masturbation Continue-chan. You uncertainly follow the voice a few paces forwards. "Plugh," you say uncertainly. "Polo," replies the mysterious voice; a woman's, quite confident, not unkind. It sounds quite close, actually. You continue to walk, glad that you might well soon be out of this abominable darkness, and even with some companionship. And if they should prove unfriendly, you're still armed with a laser gun.
You take another step forth but your foot doesn't meet the floor. With a muffled scream, you fall forwards, downwards, and then keep falling for several stomach wrenching seconds. Finally, you strike the floor, more or less legs first, in a way that you're quite confident would've been your demise were you not already dead and reanimated.
You feel around. You are still in complete darkness. One or both of your legs are broken. Your right hip is also especially painful. You try to stand, but find you cannot put any weight on your lower body.
Sing Megadeth's "Kill the King" while trying to crawl out of the pit.
Be Stove Stove. Use Telekinesis to pull the left tunnel out of the ground. Or move the ground out of the way. Whatever it takes to completely expose those horrid labyrinthian depths to the glory of the sun light (the flower which can not be licked.)
Lick the sun.
Be Jack. Put on the guard's uniform and do a cartwheel.
Lick up blood from the floor. Wonder what killed the guard, that no skill points nor mana were allotted.
Ignore the pain and dance like a monkey.
Be the dead guy. Ignore the monkey and dance like a pain.
Plead for necromantic romance.
>>822
In dire need of something to uplift your spirits, you try to sing a nice song. Unfortunately, you don't know any nice songs. Instead, you end up singing to yourself some sort of threnody about regicide, which doesn't make you feel much better. You try to crawl out of wherever you are, but you cannot reach any sides; it is just a flat, stone floor as far as you can feel. In your blind gropings, you accidentally grasp a human foot. It is cold to the touch, and there is no response from any human that may or may not be attached to it.
>>823
You are now playing as Stove Stove. You are disappointed to find that your telekinesis skill works only for items which can move independently of one another, whereas the tunnel and the ground above it are firmly attached to the rest of the Earth, which is a little above your limit of 10,000kg. Even more distressingly, you find that it has clouded over, and is beginning to drizzle. Your pitiful inability to cast sunlight on the godforsaken lifeless maze below leaves you so upset that you accidentally self destruct prematurely.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 37
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>821)
>>824
You use your short range teleportation (active skill) to slowly, ten metres at a time, make your way towards the Sun. Unfortunately, you run out of mana after a mere 99 kilometres - not even passing the moon's orbit, and making it only about 0.000066% of the way to your destination. You float, alone, in space, surrounded on all sides by the silent, judgemental glare of the stars. Only then do you remember that you don't even have a tongue. You self destruct in shame.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 38
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>821)
>>825
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. After a hazy period of which you remember little, you come to your senses in the same room you were in earlier. There are signs of severe fire damage, centred around the fireplace. There is also a fairly large pile of charred remains, including several human bones. All of the furniture has been dismantled and fed to the fire, and even the door you came through has been torn from its hinges and burned. The door to the West bears marks indicating attempted destruction, but has withstood the onslaught well. You also appear to have set fire to all of your clothing, and much of your hair, leaving you entirely nude.
You find that everything non-flammable, including six silver forks, an espada ropera, a ceremonial stone knife and a set of combat armour, has been relegated to the Southeast corner of the room. The armour proves to be far too big for you. You can just about wear the piece covering the chest, the bottom of which reaches almost to your knees. You try to do a cartwheel but, unaccustomed to the uneven weight of the armour, end up losing your balance and falling over.
>>826
The blood was quite close to the blaze, and seems to have evaporated and been covered in ash and soot. You lick the floor where you remember it being. It tastes how fire smells - a scent you have come to be quite fond of - with a faint metallic aftertaste. Rather agreeable. You have no idea who killed the poor cryptographer, but it certainly wasn't you.
>>827
Though the armour is uncomfortable, it is by no means painful, and the wounds on your hands are not particularly troubling now. You have no pain to ignore. You dance back and forth around the room, jumping and waving your arms like a simian.
>>828
You cannot be the dead guy; you can only play as members of your current party.
>>829
You feel a strange compulsion rise up from somewhere deep within you. "Continue-chan, my beloved Continue-chan, I love you! Please, love me back!" you confess to no one in particular. The sound of a girl's chuckling reaches you from up the spiral staircase. "Well, at least you're honest about your feelings," the familiar voice remarks nonchalantly.
You feel a lump form in your stomach. That is not Continue-chan's voice.
Quickly find something to cover the Void of Doom in your pantie area.
Wield the espada ropera in one hand and six forks in the other.
>>831
Thankfully, the piece of armour you're wearing already reaches down to your knees, so the most precious, intimate and murderous part of your anatomy is safely concealed from prying eyes. Unless you try to do the splits or something, that is.
>>832
You grasp the elegant, thin sword as best you can in your left hand; the one with the right number of fingers, and gather the forks in your right hand in a clumsy, loose fistful.
From upstairs, the bewitching voice calmly comments, "I can see you've had a lot of fun down there, but, why, it seems you're lonely, you poor thing. Fear not, my dear! Here comes some company." At this moment, the door to the West is blown clean off its hinges, cast through the air so hard it flies all the way to the other side of the room and shatters into splinters. You are mercifully uninjured. Through the now vacant doorway, you can see a large ballroom with intricate parquet flooring. The room extends out of sight to the North and South. The Western wall is lined with large, elegant windows, overlooking a stately garden. Above, a mezzanine encircles the room.
You are, however, more distracted by the large, rather threatening looking humanoid robot, standing near the centre of the room. It is about four metres in height, sleek matte blue in colour, with decorative white panels in places along the limbs. It is standing in a battle-ready pose, legs spread and half crouching. The right arm - which terminates in a large, circular barrel - is pointed at where the door just was. The left is hanging at its side. It has a humanoid hand, but also a set of slim, cylindrical barrels, reminiscent of a Gatling gun, extending from the forearm. In place of a head, there is a small, white rabbit in a padded seat, hunched over a set of controls. The rabbit is looking at you with a cruel glint in its eye.
Give the robot a spine buster.
Do a cute bunny hop.
>>834
You charge recklessly towards the enormous, threatening robot. It points its left arm at you and releases a spray of bullets in your direction. Thankfully, your young, sprightly nature allows you to move fast enough to elude the hurtful little projectiles. You run headlong towards the legs of your enormous, mechanical opponent and jump, gripping it around the waist. Unfortunately, you find that you cannot even reach the floor, let alone lift the accursed thing off the floor and throw it to the ground. Instead, you feel it pick you up with its left hand, gripping you around the chest, and toss you through the air. You land, heavily, about ten metres away.
>>835
You just manage to pick yourself from the floor to find the robot's right hand pointed at you. In hopes of appeasement, you turn to give a profile view, hold your hands out, limp wristed, like rabbit paws, and hop forwards one, small pace. "Pyon pyon!" you say. Something is shot from the robot's arm cannon, so fast you cannot even see it. It strikes you in the head, killing you instantly.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 39
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>833)
Spinebuster
Throw the forks at the robot and then dive out of the way of the inevitable bullets. Take advantage of the confusion to hide somewhere.
Spinebuster the robot on something sharp and jagged
Be Jack's Crotch Void of Doom. Eat everyone.
>>837
You try your very hardest to spinebuster, but, to your dismay, spinebuster is not a verb - and even if it was, it would be transitive.
>>838
In a David-and-Goliathesque manner, you hurl your precious forks at the robotic behemoth. Four of them clatter off the bodywork harmlessly, one misses and flies over its shoulder, but the last, by some miracle, gets caught under an overlapping plate, somewhere around where the right clavicle would be on a human. The robot finds that its right arm is now paralysed, thus it must turn its entire body to aim the large cannon-shaped arm.
After a moment's distraction, the robot, as expected, aims its left arm at you and releases a stream of deadly little bullets in your direction. You manage to run and dive out of the way, but are faced with a distinct lack of potential concealment places. There is a grand piano in the Northeast corner of the room and a closed set of double doors in the North wall but both are at least fifteen metres away, and you suspect that you'd have difficulty reaching them in one piece. Similarly, in the Southwest corner is a door leading outside to the door, but that is further away still.
In order to hide, you finally elect to just circle around the robot and run back into the room you came from. It is much the same as when you left it, including the stone knife, the remainder of the guard's armour, the spiral staircase and the huge pile of smouldering remains. The doorway is too small and narrow for the robot to enter directly, but that won't keep it out forever.
>>839
Wincing inwardly at "spinebuster" being shoehorned into verbdom, you attempt to find some way to damage your nemesis by throwing it, spine first, onto something sharp and jagged. Unfortunately, the only sharp thing in your possession is your sword, which is not at all jagged and, besides, would probably snap like a twig under the robot's weight.
>>840
You are now playing as Jack's Crotch Void of Doom. You find yourself, a sentient pocket universe, lurking surreptitiously behind a tiny aperture into another, much larger and more complex universe. You aren't sure exactly where this aperture is. You spend most of your time staring out of this aperture and trying (without much success) to make sense of the vertiginous, kaleidoscopic view. Occasionally an object made of matter comes through - how exciting! You treasure these objects deeply.
You try to eat everyone, but you aren't really sure what "eating" is; nor, for that matter, what "everyone" is. You decide "eat" probably means "continue staring at" and "everyone" probably means "the view into the other universe". You do so.
Look behind you.
Eject a mobile armed robot suit sized for a little-girl into the larger universe.
Eject all the other shit that's been thrown in there too. Except the tentacle monster. That shit can stay where it is.
>>842
You try to look behind yourself, but in what dimension? Can your position even be defined in such relativistic terms? Do dimensions even exist outside of yourself? Does anything exist outside of yourself? You could spend millennia contemplating such conundra.
>>843
You aren't sure what a "mobile armed robot suit sized for a little-girl" is, although you're fairly sure you know what "ejecting" is; that's what supernovae do, isn't it? Anyway, with such a palaverous description, surely it must correspond to that big, squirming, violent thing. You go ahead and return it to its native habitat, via that strange little aperture.
>>844
You aren't sure what a "tentacle monster" is, so you just go ahead and launch everything: a laptop, a pair of black - or possibly dark grey - trousers (in the pockets of which are three cleaning rags, eleven files, a small metal key and a half empty container of salt), a suit of combat armour, a laser gun, a very confused and disorientated gentleman in combat armour and wielding a laser gun, and a cheese sandwich. Not that you know what any of these things are.
Be Jack. Nonchalantly eat sandwich.
Hide behind the confused gentleman and say, "help me, oniisan!!"
Leave the tentacle monster and giant robot to reconcile their differences through the medium of fatal violence.
>>846
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. You find yourself on your back, thrown to the floor, having just involuntarily passed a huge volume of material through your crotch - including, most troublingly, an all-too-familiar enormous dark brown tentacled monster. It screams at an inhuman volume and pitch, appendages whipping madly around everywhere. It seems as though its detention in your crotch has annealed it into a mass of pure, distilled madness and hatred.
But what do you care? More importantly, there's that cheese sandwich you wanted back at >>282,288,305,354,375! You grasp it from underneath a pair of trousers, and happily take a bite. It's not bad, not bad at all. A little too much filling, perhaps, or too flimsy a choice of bread, but you can't have everything.
>>847
As the tentacled creature exits into the ballroom, still screaming, you notice a human form in the debris left in its wake. A man in combat armour sits up, slowly takes off his helmet and rubs his face and eyes. He looks around uncomprehendingly, turning to stare at you with a rather unflattering slackjawed expression. You move to position him between you and the doorway to the ballroom, employing a familiar cognomen to encourage his aid.
"Nii... san..." he mouths weakly. "Yes... yes! Don't worry, my dear; I, your beloved Onii-chan, will protect you." He gets up, unsteadily, and points his laser gun cautiously into the fray outside the room.
>>848
You watch casually as the two colossal beings battle to the death. The tentacle beast shows no clemency, immediately lunging for the robot. The robot retreats several bounding steps, with suppressive fire from its left arm, to disappointingly little effect. Still impeded by the fork caught in its arm, it barely succeeds in lowering its right arm at the tentacles, and fires an orb of bluish white light. It explodes on impact, causing significant damage - the monster loses at least three of four tentacles, and the area is splattered with its black blood. Though you scarcely thought it possible, it screams even louder than before.
It continues its advance, cornering the robot by the grand piano. The robot waits until the last moment, then launches what appears to be a jetpack module from its back, flying over the head(?) of the tentacle monster and landing behind it, along with a burst of fire from its left arm. The tentacle monster proves impressively unfazed, and, in fact, succeeds in grabbing the left leg of the robot. With a vicious tug, the humanoid machine is toppled and pinned on its back. The left arm is stuck pointing at the ceiling.
The rabbit in the control seat frantically punches at its controls, and the left leg is ejected at the hip and abandoned to the tentacles. The rest of the robot jumps backwards, barely keeping its balance, trying to shift to point the left arm at its enemy. Now is your chance; a single move now on your part - even as little as a distraction - could decide the victor.
Tell your new Onii-chan to shoot at the evil, evil bunny with his laser.
Throw salt on the tentacle monster.
>>850
"Onii-chan! Shoot the bunny!" you implore, tugging at his sleeve. He does as instructed, but the rabbit is not so easily foiled. It chooses that moment to abandon ship, just dodging the laser shot which leaves a circular scorch mark in the back of its seat. It hits the ground, rolls, and scampers off towards you, just as the tentacles converge upon and begin to violently dismember the robot. There is a loud beeping noise.
>>851
Grabbing the blue container of salt poking from the trousers on the floor, you charge boldly forth and forcefully salinate the mercifully preoccupied titan conflagration of appendages. The tiny white crystals arc through the air towards the beast. The tentacle monster explodes. Now, this could be because the rabbit had set its steed to violently self-destruct, but in a world where butterflies can cause hurricanes can you really be so sure of matters of causality? If the entire system depends on its own previous state, could you not argue that everything is a cause of everything else? And could you not also argue that you just caused the death of that foul beast?
For killing a sapient being, you have gained one skill point and fifty mana.
The rabbit appears, quite prudently, to be galloping away from the impending airborne remains of the tentacle monster. It is heading towards your Onii-chan, who is currently aiming his laser gun at the poor, defenceless little thing.
eat a piece of the tentacle monster.
Store the rabbit in crotch-void for safekeeping.
>>853
As the mass of murderous, sadistic flesh and tentacles explodes outwards, right beside you, you decide to take the opportunity to taste this rare speciality dish. By appearance you suspect it might taste like escargot, but you wonder if your delicate salting might affect the taste, and whether the fiery explosion will be enough to cook it - or overcook it? You've really no experience eating tentacle monsters.
You open your mouth to receive the airborne meal, only to find that the long, thick cable-like tentacle heading your way is a little more than you can manage. It strikes you in the face, knocking you to the ground so hard that your skull is cracked. You bleed to death, unconscious.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 40
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>852)
>>854
You run after the cute little lagomorph, narrowly missing a tentacle which brushes your scalp before hitting the edge of the mezzanine and exploding in a shower of gore. Ignoring this, you leap, crotch first, onto the rabbit. It screeches in terror, then vanishes. Onii-chan appears rather confused at this turn of events. For that matter, he seems quite confused generally.
Kiss Onii-chan and tell him he did well.
Put skill point into pyromancy. >:)
Eat a piece of the tentacle monster now that it's no longer traveling at high velocity.
Ask Onii-chan about his navel.
>>856
You skip towards your Onii-chan, stand on tip-toes and press your little lips against his cheek. You congratulate him on his exemplary laser gun firing abilities, and tell him it isn't his fault he missed. He smiles uncertainly.
From directly above you, you hear enthusiastic clapping and a girl's voice exclaiming "Bravo! Bravo!".
>>857
You now have level four pyromancy. You have unlocked the following skill:
Fire resistance (passive skill): Are significantly more resistant - though not entirely immune - to burns inflicted by heat, smoke inhalation and retinal damage from looking at burning objects.
>>858
You pick up a lump of flesh and press it into your mouth. It is covered in a thick black fluid, possibly the creature's blood. It is at once thick and leathery and yet spongy, with a dreadful slick, slimy mouthfeel. It tastes salty but has a faint undercurrent of rotting fruit. Your teeth cannot even penetrate it, let alone masticate and ablate it enough to swallow, so in the end you give up and spit it out. The small pile of meat stares back at you from the parquet flooring, accusingly.
>>859
Onii-chan looks shocked and says "I... how did you know I don't have a navel?"
Having finally finished applauding, the girl upstairs speaks to you. "What a wonderful performance, don't you think?" she purrs, "Why, I almost feel it deserves an encore..."
Grind rejected piece of tentacle monster contemptuously under your heel and command the voice to come down and fight like a scary magical girl.
Celebrate fire resistance by setting a piece of the tentacle monster on fire and holding it like a torch.
You feel a strange compulsion to check your current pyromancy level. As you thought, it is of course, five, because four plus one is five, not four.
>>861
You stamp firmly upon the abominable morsel of flesh. It squelches apologetically beneath your bare foot. You attempt to coax the mysterious little girl above you to fight you honourably, but to no avail. "Don't be silly," she admonishes, "I'm the final boss; you only get to fight me somewhere around >>960, and only after tying up all the side-plots."
>>862
Enjoying the thought of your newfound dominance of the element of fire, you take a remnant of tentacle, hold it at arm's length and spend five mana (to leave 130 remaining) on wreathing it in flame. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem particularly flammable.
"Surprise!" shouts the girl upstairs. The double doors at the North end of the ballroom explode from their hinges, and in burst four men, each of whom look exactly like Mecha Alexei Fujiwara, including the mechanical implants, and even the lack of trousers and the angular bulge in the underwear. They are all armed with laboratory equipment; one with a retort stand (complete with boss and clamp), one with a large chromatography column, one with a stack of petri dishes, and one with two glass conical flasks filled with a reddish brown, fuming liquid.
Bite a crotch bulge.
Distract the Mecha clones by flashing our oppai, then shoot fireballs at each of them.
Be Stove Stove. Don't explode.
>>864
Mindblowingly awesome as that would no doubt be, you require level 12 telekinesis, level 5 healing, level 5 thaumaturgy and 75 mana to shapeshift. You currently have level 0 telekinesis, level 4 healing and level 2 thaumaturgy.
>>865
Given your opponents' characteristic meekness, you decide a bold, reckless attack is best. You run towards them and dive, face first, into the crotch of the Mecha Alexei clone wielding the chromatography column. He screams, loses grasp of the weapon, and falls onto his back. You bite viciously into his underwear, teeth encountering a certain resistance: it's something cube shaped, probably plastic.
At that moment you are struck on the back of the head by the business end of a retort stand, knocking you to the ground and giving you severe concussion. You are unable to avoid the subsequent attacks, and your life is swiftly brought to an end.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 41
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>863)
>>866
You find that, as you are wearing nothing but a single piece of combat armour, flashing your oppai would require being totally nude. You proceed anyway, but make sure to cover your crotch with your right hand. The Mecha Alexei clones appear suitably distracted, so you drop your espada ropera and begin summoning and casting fireballs at all of them. The first strikes Retort Stand Mecha Alexei in the chest, knocking him to the ground and setting his shirt on fire. He starts rolling on the floor, trying to put out the flames.
Meanwhile, the other three, now made aware of the danger, make a tactful retreat into the room they came from. You can see that it has white tiled flooring and several long, straight benches; it's probably a laboratory of some sort. You fire at Chromatography Column Mecha Alexei as he is retreating, and catch him in the side. He drops his weapon, which shatters on the ground, and is left clutching his arm as he hides from view. You also fire at Conical Flask Mecha Alexei, but miss.
Petri Dish Mecha Alexei gingerly looks around the corner and throws several little glass discs at you. You find that his ocular implant and cybernetically enhanced hand have greatly improved his aim and strength, and, although one misses, you are struck twice in the collarbone and left cheek. Both leave small cuts, but neither seems life threatening. You retaliate with another fireball, but are too late, and miss. Having fired four fireballs you have expended 60 mana, leaving 70 mana remaining.
>>867
You are now playing as Stove Stove. You try desperately to rescind your imminent demise, but you cannot think of anything but your own abandonment. The countdown ticks ever onwards; you have 39 minutes and 12 seconds until you explode.
Call a truce. There's no time for fighting, we need to save the universe!
(first being Jack)
Ero.
Sasai Shuya
rouhyou931th@yahoo.co.jp
>>869,870
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. Having the blood of so many on your hands already, you feel an immense weight upon your soul. If you have any hope of redeeming yourself you must learn to solve your problems with words, not senseless murder. You call out to the Mecha Alexeis, impressing upon them the need to save the universe. "From what?" interjects Petri Dish Mecha Alexei, having temporarily ceased fire.
>>871
"Ero," you reply. "I mean, just look at me; I'm completely naked! And you, you all have no trousers and bulging underwear! I know the bulges are just Rubik's cubes, but that's not the point. The point is that this universe has become far too erotic for an innocent young girl like myself to live in. As a former teacher, I think it is your moral duty to provide your former student with a learning environment free from unnecessary lewdness."
After a moment's thought, Petri Dish and Chromatography Column Mecha Alexeis emerge from the laboratory. They agree with your analysis of the situation, and concur that underage children should never be sexualised, nor placed in sexual situations. Chromatography Column Mecha Alexei throws a lab coat your way, so you can conceal your shameful, shameful body. Two Mecha Alexei Fujiwara clones have joined your party.
Retort Stand Mecha Alexei, meanwhile, has stopped rolling on the floor and appears to have passed out, though he is also no longer on fire. Conical Flask Mecha Alexei is nowhere to be found, and the armed guard from earlier, along with the laptop, have also vanished.
Ask Mecha Alexei to teach us physics.
Search for Onii-chan! We can't just leave him behind!
>>873
In all honesty, you weren't really expecting that argument to work, but you find yourself now tied down to the rights and responsibilities you have set forth with the Mecha Alexeis. Clothing yourself with the lab coat, you politely request tutelage in the study of physics. Buoyantly enthused, the two of them guide you into the laboratory and over to the whiteboard, where they explain, over the course of about half an hour, the general principles of classical and quantum physics, give qualitative explanations of thermodynamics and electromagnetism, and even touch on relativity. They also teach you a few useful concepts such as SI prefixes and units, scientific notation and dimensional analysis. You feel slightly overwhelmed.
>>874
With a pang of compunction, you remember that that poor gentleman from earlier is still missing - you cannot simply leave him behind in your quest for knowledge! He must learn about physics as well. Enlisting the aid of the Mecha Alexeis, you begin searching in the laboratory. You find a lot of obscure chemicals, glassware, laboratory notes, lasers, sources of radiation and other such delights, but not your Onii-chan. In the ballroom you find that Retort Stand Mecha Alexei has regained consciousness, but has suffered fairly serious burns across his chest. His retort stand has also gone missing, strangely enough.
Returning to where you last saw your former companion, you find that the parlour is still covered in ash and burned flesh as before. There are fresh footprints - a male's, wearing shoes - in the soot, leading to the spiral staircase. You ascend, finding yourself in a long hallway. To the West is the mezzanine above the ballroom. To the North is a door, ajar, opening onto an ornate dressing room, where you see the girl in the lilac dress sitting brushing her long, black hair. She smiles on noticing you. To the South is a closed door. To the East, the corridor continues a few tens of metres before reaching an old white, wooden door with a pane of frosted glass. It seems strangely out of place.
>>875
But never mind all that! You've more important things to be learning. Unfortunately, you cannot find any colleges, so you improvise instead. You work out that you require another sixteen skill points to unlock the shapeshifting ability, which would mean ritually murdering at least eight sapient beings. As far as living sapient beings are concerned, you know of four Mecha Alexeis in the vicinity, who may or may not be reanimated (and hence would not give skill points), plus the girl in lilac, who you are uncertain you could kill, plus Stove Stove and Onii-chan who are nowhere to be found.
Ask the girl to brush our hair.
Take the moon. Take the sun. Take anything that seems like fun. Stir it all up.
Take on me, take me on
>>877
"Please... would you... brush my hair?" you ask bashfully. She tilts her head to one side and smiles at you like an elderly dollmaker smiling at his finest creation. "Of course," she whispers. You sit by her feet and feel the bristles of the brush, in her loving, capable hands, glide along your scalp, easing apart your tussled, knotted, and in places burnt hair. You close your eyes and think of nothing in particular. The girl hums something: an old, simple melody; one you don't recognise, but which puts you deeply at ease.
>>878
You cannot locate, nor reach, the Moon or Sun, but - as it seems like fun - take a few minutes to reflect upon what "taking" a celestial body would even mean. It usually implies some sort of ownership, but ownership itself is already a somewhat cloudy issue. For instance, there is an American flag on the moon; does that mean it is "taken" by the USA? Well, no - but why not? Is it because they don't (or wouldn't be able to?) defend it from others attempting to take ownership? Is it the physical properties - proximity? Size? If so, what is the cut off point? A country can clearly be "taken", as history shows, but how could you take the Moon? You stir up all these arguments, but don't reach any meaningful conclusion.
>>879
You attempt to take on >>879, but unfortunately your only clue as to their identity is one solitary anonymous post on the internet, to which you don't even have access in your present predicament. You have no reason to suspect that >>879 is able to read your thoughts, but for what it's worth, you take them on via the age-old internet practice of groundless insult. "Fuck you. I hope you die slowly and painfully, you slow-witted, inarticulate sack of shit," you think to them.
You should just kill yourself Jack, your life is worthless, nobody loves you, your mother is a slut-eating cuntmuffin and your father is a whoremongering pussy-scab!
I don't know who that >>881 guy is trying to imitate me. He couldnt' even get my name right.
I harbor no ill will towards Jack.
But I will destroy him.
Jack, lift the little girl's dress and stare into her crotch.
>>881
You momentarily feel a faint prick of irritation, like the buzzing of a small insect. You dismiss it as nothing.
>>882
In one sudden motion, you grasp the hem of the girl's dress, throw it into the air, and duck your head under it. Looking up, you see... you see... light, blinding light, of every possible colour, radiating outwards in shifting, overlapping rays and beams. You never knew such beauty even existed. You spend minutes just staring at it, unable to look away, or even form a coherent thought. As you watch, it increases in intensity, more and more rays forming in ever more complex and beautiful motions. Then, something begins to form in the centre, a shape, it looks like...
But then, at that very moment, the universe explodes thanks to your companion Stove Stove.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 42
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>880)
Since the little girl seems to have the ability to make clones, ask her to send a clone of us out to console Stove Stove.
Failing that, find Stove Stove yourself and send him to time out in the Void.
>>884
The girl stops brushing your hair, laughs conspiratorially and proposes that you join her in the laboratory downstairs. You do so. Once there, she turns on a computer at the side of the room, opens a program, types in a few lines of abstruse looking code, then closes it again. She then takes your hand and guides you through a door at the back of the room, along a narrow service corridor, down two flights of stairs and to a small basement room. In the centre of the room is a strange metal capsule with various wires and pipes leading from it into the floor. The capsule opens to reveal a perfect clone of yourself, differing only in that she is wearing a seifuku, has no obvious injuries to her hands, and her hair is not burnt as yours is.
The girl in lilac makes an odd hand gesture over the unconscious body, which opens its eyes, then, in the next instant, vanishes. "There!" she declares triumphantly, "I've sent a clone of you to say some kind words to Stove Stove. Of course, I can't promise what else she might or might not do..."
>>885
You think that Stove Stove should consider him/her/them/itself very lucky that you aren't around to administer some crotch-based castigation.
Go back to the computer and type random things.
>>887
You skip gaily back to the laboratory, eager to prove your worth as a mad scientist. With a flourish of the wrist and a few keystrokes, you type "random things" on the keyboard of the computer and hit enter.
RANDOMISING GENOME OF SAMPLES T, H, I, N, G, S...COMPLETED
Type:
random abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789type "sudo shutdown now"
Attempt to edit text file in VIM.
>>892
You spend a few moments wondering how to operate this strange contraption. The screen offers no clues; the only things displayed are your commands and the computer's responses, all in unapologetic block capital white on black monospace text. There is no interface to speak of. The keyboard has only the letters A to Z, numbers 0 to 9, an enter key and a backspace.
You begin to type in "run vim", but only get as far as "ru" when you are struck, hard, on the back of the head by something made of glass. It shatters. You feel your scalp and the back of your neck splashed by something liquid. It burns! And not the nice, pretty sort of burning, the effects of which you are now resistant to; a horrible, chemical sort of burning. You collapse to the floor, twisting around to see what you are being attacked by. The last thing you perceive is Conical Flask Mecha Alexei charging at you, wielding a conical flask in one hand and a retort stand in the other. The retort stand hits you in the head. You are killed.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 43
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>891)
Stand up, turn around, and go on a bloody hunt to ritualistically kill every sapient being we come across to gain mana, using our signature SpineBuster (tm) ritual-chanting knife-heart-stab combo!
Be Stove Stove, do a break dance without pants!
Be Continue. Attempt to treat your wounds.
>>894
You rise to your feet, feeling an all too familiar bloodlust coursing through your veins. This fragile allyship you've forged with the two Mecha Alexeis could never stand when they're just a ritualistic chant and a stab wound away from providing you with skill points and mana. A red mist descends over your vision, and you lose control of your actions. You are now nothing but a receptacle for the will of Eris, Huitzilopochtli, Armok, Shezmu, Khorne, Oyashiro-sama and whoever else wants blood.
>>895
You are now playing as Stove Stove. You find yourself on the edge of a large crater in a forest. Standing beside you, affectionately caressing your upper face, is the lovely Jack Conundrum-chan. She came back for you! Now you don't have to self-destruct! You're so glad you can scarcely express it in words. In fact, you can't express it in words because you aren't capable of speech, just as you are incapable of wearing pants. Instead, you express it in dance, by spinning around on one vertex in a display of what is apparently known as "breakdancing". Jack Conundrum-chan is surprised and elated by your exploits.
When you are finished, she goes back to stroking you and says, in a serious tone, "I need your help, Stove Stove. There's a mansion in the forest - it's just down that dirt track - and... and... Oh, it's so dreadful! Our former ally, Mecha Alexei, has betrayed us, and with the aid of his sick, unnatural sciences has created a clone of me. You can tell us apart by the fact that the clone still has wounds on her hands (I healed mine), and she's not wearing a seifuku like I am, because they couldn't clone that part. Quick, there's no time to lose! We have to infiltrate the mansion and kill my clone, along with Mecha Alexei."
>>896
You are now playing as Masturbation Continue-chan. You find yourself in complete darkness, lying on a stone floor, with severely injured legs and, currently, holding what seems to be a human foot. Thankfully, being undead, your wounds cannot be classed as life-threatening. In fact, the only thing which could threaten your continued existence is your bodily integrity being brought below 80%, at which point you would permanently deanimate. Though your legs are quite badly injured, and thus no longer serviceable, a cursory manual investigation reveals that they are by no means deformed, so you are in no real peril. On the other hand, as you are undead, your injuries will no longer heal over time. It's possible that Conundrum-chan's magical healing ability could help, but she's nowhere to be found. You have no other means of treatment at your disposal.
You hear a very faint murmuring coming from the same direction as the human foot you are holding.
Investigate murmuring, but use the severed foot to prod ahead in the darkness rather than risk touching anything untoward.
Hum a soft, soothing tune.
( ・-・) 900 GET
>>898
On attempting to use the foot as a makeshift white cane, you come to the realisation that it is not, in fact, severed, but is still attached to a body. The body is entirely inanimate, and you cannot feel a pulse. By touch, you establish that it seems to be fairly small - probably a child - and is wearing a dress. There is a damp patch around the sternum area. You continue crawling forwards, pointing the body's leg at the darkness ahead of you. Eventually, the foot meets resistance - a wall. Pressing your ear to it, you can just about make out some words: "...wounds... seifuku... no time to lose... kill my clone..."
>>899
The events of the past day or so have been very trying for you. Really, you could do with any comfort you can come by, however meagre. You hum something to yourself; it's not even a real tune, just something you make up as you go along. Suddenly, a synthesised voice booms from somewhere above you, "PILOT DETECTED. INITIALISING: PLEASE WAIT."
The ground shakes, then shifts ninety degrees. You and the body you are holding are thrown around violently. You feel the walls warp, deform, compress around you, and at some point the foot is torn from your grasp. Your field of view is suddenly filled with light. Once your eyes adjust, you find yourself staring out at a forest from a metre or two above the ground. Overlaid onto this view are various undecipherable graphs and figures, as well as some text:
COMPUTERISED SYSTEMS ONLINEMECHANICAL SYSTEMS ONLINELIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS ONLINEWEAPONS SYSTEMS ONLINEINITIALISATION COMPLETE: MOBILE SUIT 002 ("STOVE STOVE") ONLINE
Just under your hands you find a set of controls, which seem to operate whatever strange vehicle you currently find yourself inside. Outside, you see Jack Conundrum-chan, who appears rather surprised, to say the least.
>>900
No matter how beady you try to make your eyes, you cannot get 900.
Charge up mobile suit's power level to over 9000
Break dance without pants! To get acquainted with the controls.
Look under the seat for an emergency flotation device
>>902
After some cautious experimentation, you find the controls governing the batteries and power distribution. The main batteries are at 81% charge, emergency batteries at 100%. You can't find any way of displaying charge in absolute units. You know you certainly can't charge anything to 9000%; that's going against the very principle of what percentages are supposed to represent. Maybe you could charge up to 9000‱? But how? You have no idea how this thing works.
>>903
The movement controls prove very simple and intuitive. Just moments after you are taking your first steps in the suit, you are as familiar with the controls as with a childhood friend. Eager to test your skill, and the dexterity of the suit itself, you take to spinning around on your back, jumping into the air and landing on only one hand, and flipping and somersaulting back and forth like a trapeze artist on psychostimulants. Conundrum-chan, in a rare display of sensible behaviour, backs away and watches from a distance.
>>904
You're not sure you can really call where you currently are a seat. The walls have moulded themselves around your entire body, leaving only your hands and forearms free to move, and even those only as far as the controls. You cannot look or reach under or behind you, which is a little worrying; were you to fall into a large body of water, you are unsure how buoyant this device would prove. Then again, there isn't exactly a lot of risk of your drowning/dying of hypothermia.
Be Jack. Don't die!
Become one with the plane, feel it as if it were your body.
>>906
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. You find yourself in the doorway between the ballroom and the laboratory, covered in blood, and in the midst of some strange combination of chanting and screaming. There are the corpses of four Mecha Alexei clones and one Onii-chan arranged radially in the centre of the room, with a large, elborate ceremonial circle drawn around them in blood. Each corpse has many stab wounds in their chest. You are pleasantly surprised to find that you have ten unspent skill points and 570 mana.
>>907
You try to become part of a two-dimensional plane, but unfortunately you don't really know how to go about becoming one with mathematical concepts.
Spend 2 skill points on healing and the other 8 on telekinesis.
Find the piano and play a Chopin Nocturne.
put face firmly between dead oniichan's buttocks
deeply inhale
>>909
You assign two skillpoints to healing, unlocking the following skills:
While you're at it, you also assign eight skillpoints to telekinesis, unlocking:
You feel yourself floating slightly off the floor and in possession of level six healing and level eight telekinesis.
>>910
The piano currently constitutes a mass of splinters and broken pieces of ivory in the Northeast corner of the room. You tap melancholically at the remains of the keys, but no sound is produced.
>>911
Onii-chan appears to still be wearing his combat armour, with the exception of the helmet. There are several stab wounds gouged into the back of his neck. You press your face into the back of the legpiece of his armour, but cannot smell anything other than blood.
You hear a rhythmic thumping sound in the distance. Looking through the window, you can see a large, roughly humanoid silhouette making its way through the garden, towards your current position.
Hide underneath the remains of the piano. Try not to giggle.
Strike the earth and dig deep.
>>913
Fear prickling at the nape of your neck, you cower beneath the fractured mass of varnished wood and ivory. It is such a poor hiding place that you have difficulty not laughing at the sheer absurdity of it, but the thought of that strange, threatening jet black figure outside quells your mirth. The thumping grows ever louder, ever nearer, then you see the object of your terror - a huge, segmented humanoid robotic figure, made of gleaming black stone. It scans the room from outside the windows. Thankfully, it overlooks you, likely distracted by the distastefully arranged corpses in the centre of the room. A voice comes from nearby - your voice! - and says "How horrifying! This must be their work. We have to stop them right away."
>>914
You begin to pick at the parquet flooring using the ceremonial stone knife you happen to be holding (left over from your murderous rampage earlier). You succeed in digging about two centimetres deep, to the underside of the wooden floor, before reaching a layer of filled concrete, impenetrable to your impromptu excavation instrument.
You are in the Northeast corner of the room. The stone behemoth, along with a clone of yourself, is just outside the row of windows to the West. As far as potential escape routes are concerned, the nearest is the double doors in the North wall leading to the laboratory; alternatively, there is a door in the East wall leading to the parlour, or a door to the Southwest leading to the garden. If you don't do something soon, you will almost certainly be found.
Forget hiding and fly around like Son Goku to exhilerate in your new levitation powers.
Go to the garden and eat some flowers.
Then proceed to expand dong.
>>916
Freed at last from the shackles of gravitation, you jump in the air and float, at a moderate but by no means superhuman pace, towards the ceiling. You are interested to find that you are still at the whim of air resistance, so you do slow down noticeably over time. You hear an exclamation from outside - "Look! It's her!" - and immediately become the target of a spray of antimatter bullets from the large, black humanoid outside. As you are floating in the air, unable to manoeuvre out of their path, you die, messily.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 44
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>915)
>>917
You sprint across the room, eliciting the attention of the two outside, and narrowly avoid being blown to smithereens on your way to the door to the Southwest. You find yourself on a small patio above an embankment, leading down to a set of gardens. There are rose bushes and ornamental hedges lining the bank, and, beyond that, a herb garden and a hedge maze. Further away, you can see a lake and, atop a hill in the middle distance, a gazebo.
You rush to the nearest rose bush and, frantically, knowing that this might be the last thing you ever do, pluck one of the flowers from it and stuff it into your mouth. You dive down the hill, narrowly avoiding being annihilated along with the poor bush you were just next to. You find yourself at the bottom of the bank, at the entrance to the hedge maze. You choke down the mass of petals and plant matter. It doesn't taste very nice, to be honest.
>>918
You try to expand the area in which the Vietnamese dong currency - famously one of the least valued currency units, along with Zimbabwean dollars - is used, but unfortunately your economic/diplomatic influence is rather limited, being, as you are, otherwise occupied with your own clone and the giant robot by her side.
Dart between the robot and the gazebo, trying to get the gazebo hit in the crossfire. That gazebo could be dangerous, after all.
Lure the enemy into the hedge maze, then set the maze on fire.
>>920
You are, by now, well aware of the treacherous nature of these so-called "gazebos". The last one you battled was, itself, a distraction, and nearly led to you being ambushed by some sort of giant blue demon. This one is no doubt more fiendish still. You try to use the strength of the attacking robot against your other, more sessile adversary, but unfortunately you are at the bottom of a hillside, meaning that the trajectories of the machine's bullets don't come anywhere near the right angle. Furthermore, you find that deliberately putting yourself in the path of antimatter ammunition, even with your commendable agility, is a very dangerous pastime. You are struck by a projectile and killed.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 45
>>921
You run into the labyrinth, darting back and forth almost at random, but heading ever deeper. You do your best to tempt your pursuers with taunts such as "Hah! They'll never find me in here!" and "Oh no, now I'm lost! What ever shall I do?". The robot rises to the bait, and begins to trample its way across the rows of hedges towards you. You cannot see or hear what your clone is doing.
Once you judge that the titan figure has been lured near enough, you begin to use your magical firelighting (active skill) on the hedges as you pass by, sparking a slow, but steady conflagration. For good measure, you fire a few fireballs into the air, to land in other parts of the maze. In the process, you spend 55 mana, leaving you 515 mana remaining.
A mechanically amplified voice echoes across the space. It's Continue-chan. "Conundrum-chan, please," she pleads, "I... I know you aren't really Conundrum-chan, but even so, I don't want to have to hurt you. Please, just come out, and we can talk this through."
Attempt to teleport Continue out of the robot.
Propose marriage to Continue-chan.
Read Jojo
Be a sissy who acts like a woman
Kiss Conundrum-chan to convince her we are the real deal and not a cheap copy.
Don Armor of Nigrous Nincompoopery.
Prove our originality by making original content on DQN.
>>923
Perhaps you will parley with Continue-chan, but it shall be on your terms, not hers. The towering stone suit she finds herself inside is already within ten metres of you, so you simply employ your Teleportation (other)(active skill) to pluck her from her steed. She appears at your feet, looking very dazed, and quite scared.
>>924
To use your Proposal (active skill), you of course require an engagement ring. You hurriedly attempt to fashion one from a twig taken from the nearby hedges, but at that very moment, your clone dives around the corner holding a ring made out of a rose stem with the thorns removed. Before you have a chance to respond to this threat, she kneels on one knee and proposes marriage to the still stunned Continue-chan.
>>925
You feel a sudden impulse to read Jojo, Roger Caron's 1988 novel about escaping from prison, but unfortunately there aren't any copies available to you right now.
>>926
You continue to play as Jack Conundrum-chan. You coward! Running away from the only person who ever loved you - even if she was in a giant robot suit and trying to kill you - how could you? Now, her affection is being stolen from you, before your very eyes. How can you call yourself a woman now? For all the arcane knowledge and ritual murder, you are still nothing but a lost, scared little girl.
>>927
You grab your clone by the shoulders and press your face into hers. Your lips meet, and you press fervently on, tongue probing into her mouth. She does not resist. You have no idea how this is supposed to convince the cloned Conundrum-chan that you are real and she is not, but you'll get to that. For that matter, have you convinced yourself that you're the genuine article? You've passed out enough times; what if the real you was replaced with a clone of you, cunningly left in the right place at the right time with the right memories?
>>928
You possess no such thing. The only thing in your inventory even remotely related to armour is the lab coat you're wearing.
>>929
You cannot access DQN just now, as you lack access to the internet. If you were able to access it, however, you'd surely start a wonderful new thread, with a simple yet profound idea that everyone can participate in, and which goes on to garner many hundreds of replies.
Be Continue-chan. Propose a threesome.
Then get the hell out of there, as cute as they are, those two are clearly both dangerous psychopathic murderers!
Pray to Sterquilinus.
>>931
You are now playing as Masturbation Continue-chan. You have absolutely no idea what's going on with the two Conundrum-chan's - who's real/fake, who's good/evil, who's marrying whom - so you decide the best course of action is to try to pacify everyone, if possible. You tentatively put forward the idea of pooling your strength into a triumvirate. The Conundrum-chans turn to face one another, and their eyes narrow slightly. After some heated argument, each concludes that they will only be civil towards the other if they are the one you marry.
>>932
You get the feeling you're forgetting something. Ah! That's right, the pile of ritually murdered bodies in the ballroom, composed largely of clones of poor Mecha Alexei - whom you thought Conundrum-chan was quite fond of. Not to mention, she also murdered you a while back. Given her track record of murdering every single companion she has ever had (with the exception of Control Tower, whose blood(?) is on your hands), perhaps you oughtn't to stick around. You try to run away, but then remember that your legs are broken.
>>933
You close your eyes and offer a quick prayer to the patron deity of manure, asking him to fertilise your future. There is no reply.
Be Jack. Propose marriage to our clone.
Take advantage of the distraction to teleport behind our clone and then fireball her head.
Call clone a poopy head.
>>935
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. You feel a complex and deeply confusing array of emotions towards your doppelgänger - hatred, murderous rage, envy, lust, and more - but the easiest solution to all your problems is, obviously, to marry her. Not only does it preclude her from stealing away your precious Continue-chan, but it helps you to, as the famous adage goes, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. "Conundrum-chan," you say confidently, getting down on one knee again, "Will you marry me?"
She cocks her head to one side and replies, "No; I'm marrying Continue-chan. Isn't that right?" She glares meaningfully at Continue-chan, who appears to be trying to crawl away in the general direction of Stove Stove.
>>936
As she is momentarily preoccupied, you teleport yourself behind her. Unfortunately, she had her back to a hedge, which now stands between the two of you. Before she has even noticed your absence, you have summoned and cast a fireball towards her. It is mostly absorbed by the hedge - which promptly catches alight - but enough reaches her to make her jump up and yelp, patting at her smouldering hair. You have 470 mana remaining.
>>937
Now's the time! Now, when her self confidence is at its nadir, you choose to deliver a devastating verbal assault. She appears quite taken aback and frowns violently, creasing her facial features. The corners of her eyes dampen. "No!" she declares, "You're a poopy head!" Still reeling from this reckless counterattack, you stare dumbly through the burning hole in the hedge at your clone, as her hands grip - then begin to lift - the hem of her skirt. Surely she isn't planning to use her crotch against you, is she?
Teleport our clone 10 meters up into the sky, then use our regeneration powers to heal Continue-chan's legs. That should prove our true love!
>>939
You've had quite enough of your clone and her shenanigans, you decide. No sooner have you thought this than she is gone, exploring the lower troposphere and no doubt enjoying a lovely aerial view of the burning hedge maze. You try to cast Complete regeneration (active skill) on Continue-chan, but unfortunately it only works on living creatures, and your beloved childhood friend has been dead a while now. How bothersome! You don't have a chance to express your exasperation, however, because at that moment your clone lands on top of you, crotch first. With nothing but a quiet whooshing noise, you are erased from this universe.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 46
(Continuing from most recently saved game: >>938)
>>940
You simply cannot handle this situation any more. Fully aware that both of your companions lack your fire resistance, you leave them in the midst of a - by now - quite substantially ablaze labyrinth. In an effort to rid yourself of the stress and frustration of dealing with your other self, you scream and shake your arms around madly, running about with no heed for your path. A minute or so later, you find yourself outside the maze, at the base of the hill with the gazebo on it. The building is nicely framed by a pair of large oak trees to either side of it. Inside is a wrought iron table and set of chairs, in one of which is that girl in lilac, happily sipping at a cup of tea. She waves to you amiably.
Give in to starvation.
Ask the lilac girl for a cup of tea.
Don't drink any tea we might receive. Hold it out at arm's length and pour it slowly and deliberately on the floor.
>>942
You decide you've had quite enough of coming close to suffering bizarre and ridiculous deaths. I mean, who's to say you won't be ritually murdered by someone as avaricious as yourself? Or be devoured by tentacles? Or just accidentally fall into your own crotch? Really, it's a wonder you're still alive at all. You may as well end it yourself, properly, and starvation seems an appropriately noble, oddly poetic sort of death to aim for. You sit around for an immense length of time, not really paying attention to what's happening, but firmly refusing all food offered to you. Against all the odds, you succeed in your endeavour, and die in an incredibly slow and torturous manner.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 47
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>941)
>>943
You serenade the girl in lilac with one of the more dubious entries in your musical repertoire. She listens patiently, chin in hand, stopping only to take another sip of her tea. When you are done, she smiles and beckons you closer.
>>944
You skip gleefully up the hill and take a seat opposite the enigmatic, finely dressed young lady. She gladly pours you out a cup of black tea, letting you help yourself to milk and sugar. "Come to think of it," she says, "I don't think I properly introduced myself earlier. My name's Cassandra, but you can call me Cassie-chan. I'm so glad you've chosen to join me for a tea party, especially considering, all thing considered, we ought to be fighting. Think about it; you've been facing ever stronger enemies over the course of these escapades, and I'm by far the strongest thing you've met so far."
She pauses a moment, drinks the rest of her tea, then resumes her pontifications while preparing herself another cup. "That's why I'm so glad to see you have superseded this silly, cliché sort of idea that every adventure needs a "final boss". Just because I'm more powerful than you and we're serving different agendas doesn't mean we can't sit down and discuss this over tea."
>>945
Without a word, you stand up and libate the tea onto the wooden flooring of the gazebo. There is absolute, dead silence between the two of you. Her eyes narrow, and she says, slowly, deliberately, "I see. So that's how it is." With a deep breath, she stands up from her seat and faces you, an inscrutable look on her face.
You review your situation. You are currently armed with an espada ropera and a very, very bloody ceremonial stone knife. In the maze below is Continue-chan and your clone, both of whom are potential allies and both of whom are likely in danger from the fire, along with a robotic suit, which may prove useful in its own ways. In the mansion is some combat armour (although it really doesn't fit you very well), a laser gun, and facilities for cloning, amongst other things.
Formally challenge Cassandra to a one-on-one duel to the death, with 24 uninterrupted hours to prepare.
>>947
The girl laughs openly, cruelly, at your suggestion. "You have until midnight," she asserts, "And it shan't be one-on-one. Bring all your allies; you'll need them."
>>948
She smirks and says, cryptically, "Well, I can give you one warning that I know will go unheeded: soon, you'll wish you had more friends."
Without warning, she vanishes in a flash of light, leaving her half-full teacup gently steaming on the table.
>>949
Addressing thin air, you expound your might and martial prowess. There is no response.
Make fart noises with your mouth as you lament your inability to pass actual intestinal gasses.
Teleport Continue-chan and our clone out of the burning maze and heal them as best as possible. If our clone is beyond saving, ritualistically kill her for the skill points.
genuflect
>>952
"Prrrrrp," you say, fighting back the tears. Why can't you just pass wind like everyone else? Why is your body so cripplingly inadequate? Is it your intestinal flora? Have you not been eating enough probiotic yoghurt? Oh, cruel fate! It's more than you can bear.
>>953
You wander back to the hedge maze. The edges, especially near the mansion, are already nothing but ash and cinders, but more or less all of the rest is nothing but a raging inferno. Enormous flames, metres tall, lick at the sky, as thick, coal-black clouds of smoke tower above you, blotting out the sun. You get as close as you can, but cannot locate anybody, living or otherwise. After an hour or so the fire begins to die down enough to allow further exploration. You find that not only have the two vanished without a trace, but so has the enormous robotic suit Continue-chan came in.
>>954
Lost, bereft, feeling nothing but your own solitude pressing down upon you, you bend your knee and pledge yourself to - to what? What is it you fight for? You aren't sure any more.
It is late afternoon, and the sun is already well on its way towards the horizon. You have only a few short hours until midnight.
Find out what a paladin is.
Go back to the masnion, find the cloning machine, and clone self as much as possible.
Make the clones super dumb.
Then kill them all for mana and skill points.
Put enough skill points into social skills to persuade some intelligent clones to help fight Cassandra.
After all, they're still technically us, so she'd be fighting Jack and it would still be a duel.
Hug self
>>956
You are struck by a sudden awareness that you aren't really sure what a paladin is. Given that you've a few hours to spare, you wander back to the mansion, explore until you find a library, then trace up and down the shelves until you find a dictionary. You check a few other dictionaries and encyclopaedias for good measure, and thus learn that "paladin" can refer either to one of the twelve elite warriors of Charles I's court, or, by extension, to any heroic knightly figure.
>>957,958
You make your way downstairs to the laboratory. Though you aren't sure what time it is, the sun has set and the lighting inside the mansion is wholly inadequate. The shadows play tricks with your eyes, and you hear faint noises - creaking, occasionally tapping. The console is as obfuscatory and unhelpful as ever, and, when you do eventually manage to create a clone of yourself, brings up a message reading:
WARNING: SUBSTRATE COUNT LOW: 4
Going downstairs to the basement room where your clone showed up before, you find another clone of yourself has materialised in an odd, mechanical capsule, as before. Pleased with your preliminary success, you return to the laboratory to continue tinkering. There are an incredible number of variables you can modify via the console, but none seem to control intelligence specifically. After some experimentation, all you manage to create is three completely unresponsive, comatose - but still breathing - clones of yourself. The console now claims that the substrate count is two (whatever that means). You ritually dispose of the useless clones, gaining six skill points and 300 mana. You now have six unspent skill points and 770 mana.
>>959
Unfortunately, you don't think you can play games on the cloning machine console, not even games as profound and deeply meaningful as Penis Cloner.
>>960
Much as you'd like to improve your social skills - goodness knows you could do with it - you think this would be better achieved through practising light conversation and mental restraint. These skill points, whatever they are, are more associated with arcane and forbidden techniques and knowledge.
You feel uneasy. You hear a faint noise behind you - a footstep? Or just your imagination? Looking up, you find your own clone; the one whom you last saw in the burning hedge maze. Her clothing, hair, and the skin on her legs are charred and burnt. She has a stern look on her face. She is holding a laser gun to your forehead. "Don't move," she says, "You... you monster, you left us to die! I've been watching you, you've been creating more clones, just to kill them as well! Doesn't human life have any meaning to you at all‽"
Finally, an intelligent clone! You put all your social skills into action in an attempt to persuade her to join you in your crusade against the foul Lady Cassandra - and also, perhaps, not point that laser gun at you. Against all the odds, you actually manage to come to a compromise; she'll fight alongside you, on the condition that you do not create any more clones of yourself.
>>961
Rejoicing in your newly forged armistice, you embrace your clone. She reciprocates the gesture. She smells like burning. What a delightful scent, you think to yourself.
Ask what happened to Continue.
Also, check possible fields that skill points could be spent on.
Heal clone.
Put all skill points into matrimony.
Use knife to cut some wire from the computer and make a ring.
Propose marriage to clone.
Be clone. Refuse marriage. Eat own hand in protest.
>>963
Your clone claims that, with her aid, Continue-chan got back into the mobile suit - which is ostensibly in fact Stove Stove - and walked off into the sunset, down a dirt track into the forest. She says that it wasn't the same one leading to the enormous crater.
Available skills are telekinesis, pyromancy, necromancy, healing, enchantment, matrimony, thaumaturgy and theoretical physics.
>>964
Now that you've plenty of mana to spare, you go ahead and spend 50 mana using Magical healing (active skill) on your clone. The skin on her legs blisters over and cutifies. She appears surprised at your uncharacteristic philanthropy, and cautiously expresses her thanks.
You spend all six of your skill points on matrimony, unlocking the following skills:
You hack at the wires leading out of the back of the computer with your ceremonial stone knife, cutting them. You try to fashion the cable into a ring, but, as your hand brushes against the internal wire filaments, you find yourself accidentally forming a segment of an electrical circuit. You die of electrocution.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 48
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>962)
You attempt to use Proposal (active skill) on your clone, but lack an engagement ring.
>>965
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan's clone. To be honest, you still don't trust the original Conundrum-chan in the slightest; certainly not enough to vow to be with her until death do you part. In fact, you find the idea so repulsive, you try to chew off your own ring finger to prevent it, without much success.
Put 2 skill points into telekinesis so I can finally rearrange the matter in my hand to create an anti-light source that absorbs and violently reacts with light.
Shed a single tear for the past world.
Quick! Search for the files!
Make grinding noises with your teeth
rub rod
xyzzy
Give remaining skill points to clone.
>>967
As Jack Conundrum-chan's clone lacks any available skill points, you go back to playing as the original Jack Conundrum-chan. You put two skill points into telekinesis, unlocking the following skills:
You have four unspent skill points remaining.
>>968
A drop of fluid traces a path down your cheek. You aren't sure why.
>>969
The files! The files! Where are the files? Ah! That's right, you dropped them back at >>538. Well, there's no use searching if you already know where they are. Besides, they can't be that important; surely, you have everything you need already.
>>970
You grind your molars against one another. An abrasive sound resonates through your skull.
>>971
You caress the shaft of the retort stand nearby. No genies pop out.
>>972
You don't know how to xyzzy.
>>973
Similarly, you have no idea how to go about donating abstract concepts such as skill points. You aren't even sure what skill points are, for that matter.
Dance like you've got no pants!
Heal clone and ask her to help us build a makeshift fort out of whatever we can find.
Do something to advance the plot since this thread is almost over
Drag out the pre-final-battle plot as long as possible.
Add flashback film clips quickly before the final battle starts.
Repair the piano.
>>975
You dance quietly, in the middle of the laboratory, shifting your limbs to and fro rhythmically to music that only you can hear. You find that you don't need to pretend you lack legwear, as all you're wearing at present is a labcoat. At that moment, an unpleasant thought makes itself known to you: are you really dancing like you've got no pants? Is this perchance something separate from actually dancing without pants? If a person were dancing whilst wearing pants but pretending they weren't, would the pants still influence their dancing? Perhaps not even consciously; the slight constriction of the clothing would limit your movement, however imperceptibly - not to mention the risk of exposing one's crotch (an even greater danger for you personally) would be different whether you were in fact at risk of exposure or only feigning thus. Then of course there's the taxonomical question of what is meant by "pants" - is it in the UK sense (i.e. underpants) or the US sense (i.e. trousers)? Or is it the plural of "pant", as in "the dog had been panting so much that it had no pants left"? You find that you're no longer in the mood for dancing.
>>976
You spend 50 mana healing your poor clone's wounds as a gesture of goodwill. She seems grateful, even if she doesn't express it much. The two of you gather chairs, a table and a few cardboard boxes, and set about constructing yourselves a little bastion. You find that the most easily defensible position is the fume cupboard on the Eastern wall, which you both duly climb into and build upon. You feel warm and safe inside.
>>977
Try as you might to create some sort of event or plot device, it still isn't midnight and nothing whatsoever is happening in the laboratory.
You quietly reflect upon the nearing of the thread's ending, and how it fits into the greater phenomenon of human achievement and creation - the inevitability that everything that grows, changes and lives must, too, come to a close and die.
"Don't worry," says your clone, patting your hand, "I bet there'll be a part two anyway."
>>978
You decide to spend a while staring at your own toenails. They're pink, with an off white lining, as is normal. Though one would expect them to decrease in size proportionally to the size of the associated toe, you find that, with the exception of the big toenail (which, it goes without saying, is substantially larger than the rest) they are each much the same. This is true of both feet. You find the shape of the toenails themselves, especially the big toenail, to be quite aesthetically pleasing. The sweeping curve of the leading edge, outlined by the hyponychium, provides a striking contrast to the relatively straight lines around the cuticle.
>>979
You think back on your past escapades, reliving the memories in your head. Remember that time you consumed a tentacle monster with your crotch? Or the time you cybernetically enhanced your teacher? Oh, and who could forget that time you murdered your beloved childhood friend, the only person who'd ever truly loved you, in cold blood?
>>980
You make your way back to the ballroom, but one glance at the piano - currently little more than sawdust - is enough to make you give up. Standing in the middle of the ballroom, however, is a very startled looking Mecha Alexei. "Argh!" he exclaims on seeing you, then, struggling to regain his composure, continues, "I, um, need access to the cloning apparatus. It's very important. I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave the room as well."
anusrape
Tell Mecha Alexei that we will comply with his demands but only if he pledges his life to help us defeat Cassandra.
tap two blue mana and cast counterspell
Be Stove Stove. Save the day.
>>982
You aren't sure how to do that.
>>983
Having no immediate need for the cloning facilities, you have no particular reason to refuse - but, at the same time, there's no such thing as a free lunch. You briefly outline the predicament you find yourself entrenched in and firmly request Mecha Alexei's allyship. Upon mention of the midnight deadline, he glances at his left wrist and says, offhandedly, "That's in less than fifteen minutes, you know? Anyway, yes, certainly, I agree to fight Cassie-chan. Don't worry about it." Without waiting for your concurrence, he rushes into the laboratory, slamming the doors shut behind himself.
>>984
You try to tap your finger against your mana, but find yourself again deceived by the apparent existence of abstract concepts. You can no more touch your mana - blue or otherwise - than you can quantum chromodynamics. You cannot cast counterspell as there aren't any spells being cast upon you (to your knowledge). Even if there were, most of the spells cast upon you so far have been of the giant fireball variety, and your countering has consisted generally of proactive offence. You may have difficulty defending against any more sophisticated attack.
>>985
You have thus far been quite open about your sapphic tendencies, but, you decide, it may be time to get back "in the closet", so to speak. To demonstrate your raging heterosexuality, you go ahead and embrace your clone, showing how, despite the proximity to a beautiful girl, you have absolutely no desire to kiss, fondle or marry her.
>>986
You are now playing as Stove Stove. You find yourself, an enormous stone mecha suit containing an undead schoolgirl, standing in an alpine meadow near the top of a small mountain. You can see, about a kilometre or two downhill, the grounds of a large mansion. There is a fairly brisk east wind blowing, and the cumulus fractus is billowing along the planetary boundary layer at an impressive pace. You feel wonderfully at ease, intimately close to a cute little girl, looking out over a peaceful vista, with nothing and no one trying to attack or abandon you. The day is saved. You need do nothing more.
eat cumulus fractus
Be innocent.
Find Cassandra and crush her!
eat dicks
Be Jack. Sneak into the cloning room to see what Alexei is up to.
>>988
Making full use of your autonomy and sentience, you go ahead and take control from Continue-chan, launch yourself into the air and attempt to consume one of those delightfully picturesque cloud formations. Your passenger appears quite distressed by this, and immediately instigates a manual override. You didn't even know that was possible. To your dismay, you are forced back down to earth, without having tasted that heavenly candyfloss-like substance.
>>989
Continue-chan enters into your internal console:
What the hell? Was that you, Stove Stove?
Try as you might to be innocent, you know at heart you are guilty of her accusation.
>>990
Again, you launch into the air, filled with indignation at the continued existence of that foul Cassandra girl. Why, she has even indirectly threatened the wellbeing of your beloved companions! For this, nothing but a violent, forceful compression of some or all of her body by yourself will suffice. Unfortunately, you find yourself once again grounded by an unamused Continue-chan.
>>991
You jump into the air, ready to embark on a quest to consume at least two people with the first name Richard, but to no avail. You really have to do something about this manual override business, you decide.
>>992
You are now playing as Jack Conundrum-chan. Employing all of your skill in espionage and secrecy, you put your ear to the door and listen for a time to enter unnoticed. You hear, very faintly, tapping at the computer terminal, followed by footsteps leading away. You sneak into the laboratory, now empty, and carefully make your way to the computer. It seems to indicate sample J0 has been imprinted onto one of the two remaining substrates.
You hear two sets of footsteps approaching from the direction of the door at the back of the laboratory.
sabotage machine
Eat the darkness then become the darkness.
Clench up every muscle and grunt like a sweaty homo from Dragon Ball Z as you prepare for the ultimate post.
Do not make another one of these threads after this ends