These are the files. I hope you have everything you need.
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.