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ursulavtweetmemePart 1: https://twitter.com/UrsulaV/status/1569355775360831491
Part 2: https://twitter.com/UrsulaV/status/1569716585777995777
Okay, Twitter, I’m in the mood to run a Choose Your Own adventure. We’ll use the survey buttons, and I’ll try to set the interim short enough to keep things moving along. Let’s see where this goes!
You stand, intrepid explorer, before the great concrete labyrinth so briefly described by the naturalist Eland the Younger, a place both unnatural and cryptic, where natural law, as you know it, is occasionally skewed. Broken gears litter the forest floor around you. Ahead is a crack in one of the concrete walls. Tree roots have forced it wider, leaving you space to slip inside. Inside is dim and quiet. Do you…
Plunge into adventure! 26.5%
Check over your gear 57.2%
Go home and grow cabbages 16.3%
You pause and check over your equipment. You have your standard Explorer’s Kit (including knife, lantern, chalk, bandages, firestarters and basic climbing equipment), an unreliable guidebook, your journal and your trusty small bird to detect bad air.
What is your trusty small bird’s name?
Birdie 3.6%
Finch-Bob 26.6%
Wiggles 13.8%
James Finchington III Esq 56%
James Finchington III, Esq (Jimmy to his friends), your companion on many adventures, gives you a nod and a gruff chirp.
You check to make sure you have birdseed, sandwiches and some trail rations, then step through the crack into the labyrinth.
This concrete corridor is scarred with ancient graffiti, mostly worn away, and what remains is in languages you can’t recognize. The floor is covered with dead leaves blown in through the crack. Do you…
Go right 36.6%
Go left 63.4%
The passage isn’t as dark as you’d expect, as small cracks in the walls and ceiling let in spots of sunlight. Giant gears embedded in the walls break up the expanse of concrete, though none of them appear to be turning. Pebbles and bits of fallen concrete crunch underfoot.
Dead end. The passage ends in a tangle of gears too large to wriggle past, and tree roots choke the remaining space. Past the choke point, high overhead, you see a solitary gear moving in the dark, though as far as you can tell, it’s not connected to any others. Do you…
Go back 7.7%
Consider unrelated trivia 31.8%
Throw a rock at the gear 60.5%
The angle’s not great and you end up having to drape yourself across some tree roots, but after a couple of tries, you hit the turning gear.
It slows, then stops turning. Nothing else seems to happen.
Huh. Weird. 22%
Hit it again! 46.1%
This seems unwise? 31.9%
Jimmy eats a seed while he waits for you to finish your vandalism.
After hitting it with two more rocks in rapid succession, the gear begins turning again, in the opposite direction of the way it was before.
After waiting expectantly for a few minutes, you realize that nothing impressive is going to happen, and head back the way you came.
When you reach the crack in the hall, you pause. Has there been some subtle change?
Are the leaves different? 20.5%
The graffiti, maybe? 36%
Is the air more humid? 37.1%
Nah, quit worrying. 6.4%
You sniff the air, which smells somewhat damp. Is that a trace of algae? Moss? Something like that. You’re not completely sure whether it’s new or you just didn’t notice it before.
Jimmy seems unconcerned, so whatever it is, it’s not immediately fatal.
At least not to birds.
You head right down the corridor, the only remaining direction, and reach a sharp turn to the left, into darkness. You pause to light your lantern, because even though grues aren’t native to this area, you still don’t want to mash your face into a wall.
The corridor ends in a set of broad concrete steps, heading downward. The smell of algae is stronger here, so it probably wasn’t coming from the outside. Someone carefully chalked a rude poem in Middle English on the wall here, but the punchline is smudged.
Do you…
Descend the staircase 7.4%
Examine the steps closely 20.9%
Fix the graffiti 71.8%
And to think that your guidance counselor at the Explorer’s School told you that majoring in English Literature wouldn’t help you in your chosen career!
You mutter about the Normans, correct the last line with a flourish, and descend the stairs, feeling smug.
It’s a long staircase.
Very long.
About two thirds of the way down, the walls open up and you find yourself near the top of a vast room. The stairs go clear to the floor, and the rusted remains of iron handrails litter the steps.
An alluvial fan of debris on the lowest stairs suggests that this area was once partially flooded. You see a corridor entrance to the left, a broad ramp leading further down ahead, and a dark doorway to the right. The algae smell is coming from the ramp.
Check the ramp 47.6%
Go to the dark doorway 29.6%
Head for the corridor 22.9%
You head down the ramp. More grit underfoot indicates flooding, although it is all currently dry. You can hear water dripping somewhere.
Suddenly there is a strange, hollow cry from ahead.
Um…?10.8%
Nope. Goin’ back. 9.8%
What IS that sound? 60.8%
I’m going in! 18.6%
“What IS that sound?”
You wrack your brain, but all you remember is a poem about “the hollow cry of the corncrake” and you’re not even sure what exactly a corncrake is.
Ok, in retrospect, your guidance counselor maybe had a point about your major.
At last you remember the grizzled old instructor from Things That Go Bump In The Night class, who told you “Iff’n you don’t know what it is, it’s probably a fox or a frog or a bug.”
That seems… encouraging? Maybe?
You reach the bottom of the ramp and find a small, square room. There is a crusty puddle in the far corner, and a large red frog sitting in it. Two large pipes open into the room from the left, each about two feet in diameter. The bottom one drips into the frog pond.
Poke the frog 3.6%
Greet the frog 86.6%
Retreat from the frog 2.7%
Stick your head in a pipe 7%
You greet the frog. “I greet you, noble frog, as but a humble traveler from the outside world,” you say.
The frog considers this carefully, then says:
“HNNAAAAAAAAGGGGH”
which does explain what the hollow noise was. Probably not a corncrake after all.
A chorus of distant calls echo through the pipes in answer. The algae smell is definitely coming from them.
As you turn to go, you see that the wall around the entry was painted with a mural, though it’s been destroyed by either the elements or design. Do you…
Examine the mural 83.7%
Attack the frog 2%
Head. Pipe. Now. 11.9%
Go back up the ramp 2.4%
Examine the mural:
You learned from writing that one paper about the mountains of madness that art history plays a critical role in dungeon delving. Unfortunately, the mural is in pretty bad shape. You can make out a few figures, but not much else.
The figures seem to be holding up their hands toward a larger shape. In greeting? Defense? You can’t tell. The faces are too chipped and scarred to make out expressions, and the larger shape has been erased entirely.
Eh, it’s probably fine.
You leave the frog to its puddle and make your way back up the ramp. Room looks the same. Finch seems cheerful. Your options now are:
The dark doorway 27.7%
The corridor 11.7%
Check under the stairs 57.1%
Flee this accursed place 3.6%
You decide to check under the stairs.
The concrete staircase is deep enough that you find only a small gap there, about four feet high. There’s an old stained mattress on the floor.
Someone wrote THE RACCOON WOMAN WAS GIVEN BACK HER DEATH HERE on the wall in charcoal.
You’re not quite sure how to feel about that.
Your remaining options are…
The dark doorway 53.5%
The corridor 27.9%
NO REALLY GO HOME NOW 18.6%
You approach the dark doorway, and have a bad moment where you think something’s hovering in it, only to realize that it’s not a doorway at all. It’s an alcove about three feet deep, the walls painted black to give the illusion of depth, with a strange hanging on the back wall.
A horse skull forms the centerpiece, wrapped with rusted wire and bits of rag. Jute cords dangle from the empty eye-sockets, each ending in a single gear. Any color has been lost under a layer of dust.
Leave it alone 11.7%
Leave it the HELL alone 49.7%
Smash it 26.6%
NOPE NOPE NOPE I’M OUT 12%
You remember the words of wisdom imparted from your teachers at Explorer’s School. “You cannot unsmash something” and “Always let someone else touch the freaky shit first.” You opt to back slowly out of the alcove instead.
The corridor seems to be your only remaining way forward. You enter cautiously, but it looks much like one upstairs.
You arrive at a junction. From the left hand passage, you hear a faint mechanical buzz. The right smells of algae again.
There are dragmarks in the dust ahead.
(The GM needs a nap, so you get two whole hours on this one!)
Go straight 12.8%
Go toward the buzzing 54.1%
Go toward the algae smell 18.6%
Go home & raise turnips 14.5%
You opt to investigate the buzzing.
The hallway is about thirty feet long and you can hear the buzzing coming from the open doorway at the end. On your left, three niches have been cut into the wall, each about eight inches deep. The first two are empty, but the third contains:
A cryptic message 24.1%
A hen’s egg 37.6%
A broken statue 20.3%
Another bone hanging 18%
You have to check several times and then consult Jimmy to make sure that you aren’t hallucinating due to bad air, but yep, that’s an egg, alright.
Nailed to the wall.
Somebody put a nail through the egg without cracking the shell, and then into the concrete.
Other than a little rust from where the nail has corroded, the shell is pristine. Huh.
Right, the buzzing! No time for eggs! You head for the end of the hall.
You pause on the threshold. Someone has chalked a mark on the wall here, a narrow horizontal rectangle with a wavy line through it. A warning? Who knows?
You step into the room, lift your lantern…and find yourself looking at the biggest beehive you’ve ever seen in your life.
Bees the size of your thumb hum around it. The room is full of gears and the hive is built in and through and around them, honeycomb piled on honeycomb. The honey drips over the gears, leaving thin stripes. It’s black with age and the floor is sticky underfoot.
There’s something odd about these bees, though. The bees are…
Made of clockwork 61.1%
Eyeless 20.4%
Shit, are those wasps? 12%
The last straw, I’m out. 6.5%
You edge as close as you dare and yep, these bees appear to be mechanical. Which raises all kinds of questions about how they hatch and if the queen is laying eggs or assembling parts or what, but breaking into the hive to check seems like a supremely bad idea, even for you.
As you’re scratching your head over where they’re finding pollen, a bee lands on your sleeve. Does it think you’re a large flower? It clings for a moment, and you get the impression something is wrong with it. Its movements are jerky and slow.
Finally it releases its grip and tumbles to the floor, where it lies, legs ratcheting aimlessly, slowly winding down, until it stops.
The other bees ignore it.
Do you…
Attempt to help it 74.5%
Edge away from it 11.5%
Try to steal some honey 8.4%
Leave the room 5.7%
Not being a monster, you try to help the fallen bee. Crouching down, you scoop it up, check to see if the other bees notice—they don’t—and examine the clockwork insect. It is a remarkable piece of machinery.
Eventually you discover a small notched depression between the wings.
You study the hive again, and notice that some smaller wingless bees are moving between the large ones. Occasionally they will reach up, insert a leg into the notch between the wings, and begin turning it. You think they must be winding up the bigger ones?
Well, you have a knife, and the tip will fit into the notch. You begin winding the bee, being very careful not to over-tighten and damage the springs. Assuming it has springs.
After a moment, the bee’s antennae begin to move. You remove the knife and wait.
A full minute passes, but the clockwork bee tests its wings, then launches itself into the air. It lands on the hive, and you see a winder-bee hurry over to finish the job.
Whew. Job well done! You retreat before you are stung.
You return to the junction. The smell of algae comes from the right and there are dragmarks in the dust ahead.
Do you…
Investigate the dragmarks 40.9%
Go toward the algae smell 19.8%
Consult your guidebook 28.2%
Go home to raise turnips 11%
You investigate the drag marks more closely.
Well, you try.
Let’s be clear, you don’t regret taking that elective on Beowulf. It was amazing. But that was also the only time slot available for Tracking 101 and… well…
Somebody dragged something down the hall here, yup.
It looks like it was more rounded than square? Probably? Unless it was fabric? You follow the marks clear to the end of the hallway, where you find stairs going down. The steps seem to be largely free of dust, owing to a cross-breeze from a shaft overhead.
Just before the tracks end, you spot a single human footprint, close to the wall.
Do you…
Go down the steps? 39.9%
Return to the junction? 3.3%
Consult your guidebook? 35.7%
Heed the call of turnips? 21.1%
Jimmy swings on his perch in his little cage tied to your pack, whistling a happy tune.
You have opted to go down the steps! So, you do.
The staircase is shallow, leading to a landing. Four small pipes in the wall bleed rust down the concrete. (They are too small to put your head in.) The bottom one appears to have a mouse nest stuffed into it.
The air is moving better here, from a shaft overhead, and a scattering of dried leaves shows it leads somewhere outside. There’s more stairs leading down to another landing.
Do you…
Check out the mouse nest 57.1%
Go down the stairs 28.5%
Go back up 1.1%
Retire, turnips, etc 13.3%
You pull the mouse nest out of the pipe. It is empty of mice, but has that stale-rodent-urine smell. Delightful.
In the pipe, under the nest, someone has chalked a small white triangle with a dot in the middle. That is all.
Do you…
Go down the steps? 34.6%
Go back up the steps? 2.7%
Stick my arm in the pipe! 46.5%
Just want turnips? 16.1%
In an act of extremely questionable bravery, you shove your arm into the pipe.
It’s gritty and a bit damp. You scrape your fingers.
At the farthest extension, just before you’d get your bicep stuck in the pipe, something hairy touches your fingers, then withdraws.
You hurriedly yank your arm back and wipe your fingers off. Hopefully that was a mouse.
…it didn’t feel quite like a mouse. It was too cold.
You scrub your hands like Lady Macbeth.
Do you…
Go down the stairs 62.5%
Go back up the stairs 8.6%
HOME. TURNIPS. NOW. 28.9%
You head down the stairs, trying not to think about what touched you in the pipe.
At the base of the stairs, you find a medium-sized room. There is an alcove to the left, a hallway to the right, and a large metal door—the first you’ve seen!—straight ahead.
Do you…
Go to the alcove 42.3%
Go to the door 37.1%
Go to the hallway 4.6%
Go home to the vegetables 16%
You head to the alcove! It is shallow, and contains what appears to be a small metal faucet. Water stains on the wall indicate that it dripped at some point in the past. There are cords tied to the faucet, with hanging gears and a single shard of bright blue pottery.
Do you…
Turn the faucet 67.3%
Investigate the door 20.2%
Go to the hallway 1.6%
Touch nothing! Go home! 11%
You turn the handle on the faucet. After a few seconds, there’s a loud clang and thump somewhere in the wall, and a hiss of air in pipes. The faucet kicks in your hand, clangs again, and you hear a shrill wail of tormented plumbing.
Then the knob falls off in your hand.
Nothing else happens, but if you were trying to be stealthy, you’ve definitely blown it.
Do you…
Investigate the door 64.6%
Investigate the hallway 16.4%
Go back upstairs 5%
Go home where it’s safe 14.1%
You put the knob in your pack while you try to decide what to break next.
You decide to check out the door next.
It is large. It is metal. It has rivets. Somebody decided they were gonna make a Big Metal Door, and by god, they succeeded.
It has no handle and is recessed into the wall, so you can’t figure out how to open it.
The lower half of the door, reaching to about waist height, is covered in painted handprints. It looks a bit like old cave paintings—somebody dipped their hand in paint and pressed it against the surface. Kind of an odd contrast between modern metal and primitive paint technique.
Actually, it looks almost like the hands are beating against the door, trying to get out.
But that’s ridiculous. They’re only paint. And you’re on this side too, and it’s not like you’re locked in or anything, right?
Right?
Do you…
Investigate the hallway 22%
Consult the guidebook 59.4%
Go back upstairs 2.9%
Go home and lock the door 15.7%
You back away from the door, sit down on the steps, and pull out your not-terribly-reliable guidebook! You’re pretty sure Eland the Younger wrote something about this area, unless it was Pliny.
(Please god, let it not be Pliny.)
The guidebook is a translation of a translation, has at least ten pages stapled in upside down, and somebody crossed out several paragraphs and left a margin note saying “HA HA HA NO.”
You acquired it from…
…your guidance counselor 15.2%
…a creepy curio shop 33.5%
…the library (illicitly) 41.1%
…a former lover 10.2%
“Theft” is such an ugly word. You always meant to return it. But it was eleven months overdue and the fines would be huge and the returns desk is run by a former nun who would look disappointed at you, and… look, you’ll return it once you get home. Really.
Flipping through the guidebook, you find several points where Eland discovered similar landmarks, including a beehive and… yes, a door like this one! That’s good! (After all, he made it out alive.)
(Granted, he had a grizzly bear companion, not a small finch.)
The rooms he describes aren’t quite the same as yours, though.
Eh, probably just a translation error. North, south, up, down, they’re easy mistakes to make, right?
You do find a reference to something called “the Monks of Perdition,” but somebody spilled coffee on the page.
(Last one for the night, GM needs sleep.)
You’re tired and decide to make camp for the night. Do you camp…
Here, by the door 18.3%
In the frog room 28.4%
Outside in the forest 30%
In the beehive room 23.4%
Because the thread is so long that it’s starting to choke, we will pick up over at the new one!
Gonna start up today’s Choose Your Own Adventure shortly! If you missed yesterday’s shenanigans, the thread is here: https://twitter.com/UrsulaV/status/1569355775360831491
This uses the survey buttons, set to fairly short timers, so you can jump in and vote for anything you like! Even to go home and raise turnips! Which is frankly probably the smartest thing you could do!
To quickly address a couple of questions that have come up—no, I have not pre-written these, but they’re based on an old travelogue I wrote on Livejournal back in 2005.
Yes, you will die if you vote to do something bone-headed.
I invented the gearworld, but I did not invent this Twitter game format by any stretch, and I absolutely encourage you to make your own game for your followers if you think you’d enjoy it!
I will do this until I get tired of it. Or you die. Or go home and raise turnips AS ANY SENSIBLE PERSON WOULD.
Owing to only having four survey options, I am afraid I am limited in the choices I can offer, so there will sometimes be things you simply cannot do. (Sorry. It’s Twitter, not D&D. Give me ten options, we’ll get some really complicated stuff going!)
And now, on to the game!
When last we checked in with our intrepid adventurer, you had decided to camp for the night. But where? Where in this peculiar concrete labyrinth would be a good place to spend the night?
You chose to leave the labyrinth and spend the night outside. (Remarkably sensible for someone who stuck their arm in a mysterious dark pipe.)
Camping outside has the benefit that you can make a fire and spread your blanket over something slightly softer than concrete.
You eat a sandwich, give James Finchington III, Esq some birdseed, and drink some of your water.
Hmm, you’re probably gonna need to find a source of potable water soon, come to think of it.
You wrap yourself in your coat and bank the fire. Jimmy puts his head under his wing.
In the morning, you wake up and eat another sandwich. Nothing terrible happened during the night! Victory!
You step back through the crack in the wall into the labyrinth and…hang on, was there a doorway there before?
I don’t think so? 36%
Sure, yeah, definitely. 7.9%
It’s probably fine? 28.7%
NO IT IS NOT FINE 27.4%
Yeah, you’re pretty sure that’s new. The doorway is down the hall to the right about ten paces.
It doesn’t look as if there’s any kind of secret mechanism that slid something aside, and the worn graffiti on the wall wraps around the edges like it’s always been there.
A single horizontal white line has been chalked on the wall beside it. It looks almost new.
You peer inside, cautiously.
It’s a square room, about 10 x 10. The edge of an enormous stone gear protrudes from a slot in the ceiling. Dried leaves are scattered across the floor. Other than that, it’s bare.
Do you…
Inspect the leaves 19.2%
Inspect the gear 51.1%
Inspect the walls 14.8%
Refuse to enter the room 14.8%
You gaze up at the enormous gear.
That’s a big damn gear, all right. Based on the small bit you can see, it’s probably at least twelve feet in diameter. It fits neatly into the slot, leaving a gap that you could maybe fit your knifeblade in.
The gear is rotated so that you can just barely see up through a gap in the teeth, but even lifting your lantern and standing on tiptoe only gets you a glimpse of shadowy cogs and darkness.
Do you…
Inspect the room further 47.7%
Put your knife in the gap 33.5%
Head back downstairs 2.9%
Go home and raise turnips 16%
You inspect the room further, poking into the corners and examining the leaves. You turn up the bones of some small creature, probably a vole, but they don’t look special, just like a vole died here at some point.
The graffiti is mostly in languages and alphabets you don’t know, but you do find a “Henry Tolliver wuz here!” dated to nearly two hundred years ago.
You do find a dried ginkgo leaf, which is interesting, because you’re pretty sure there’s no ginkgos within fifty miles.
The room holds nothing else of interest. Time to move on.
Do you go to the…
…frog room? 28.4%
…Creepy door room? 37%
…Algae junction? 24.9%
…home you left behind? 9.7%
You go down the stairs, through the hall, down the other stairs, and return to the room with the creepy iron door. You don’t see any more new doors on the way, but you’re not stopping to look too closely.
At the door room, you pause and consider, then take out the metal knob from the faucet. Is there something you can use this for?
Try to fix the faucet 27.2%
Try to open the door 55.6%
Throw it down the hallway 5.9%
Souvenir, you’re leaving 11.3%
The faucet, as it turns out, is rusted through, so even if you put the knob back, it wouldn’t do much. You turn your attention to the door.
There IS a small square hole where the base of the handle could fit. You put it in, excited, pull, and…
…it promptly comes off in your hand again, because there’s nothing actually holding it on.
Hmm. You’d need like…glue? Maybe? No, some kind of washer would be better, it looks like there’s a slot for it to turn.
Perhaps a very small gear?
There are no gears small enough on the faucet hanging, unfortunately. You could keep exploring and hope to find one?
Let’s do that! 18.9%
Check the horse skull! 36.7%
Clockwork bees are small? 31%
THIS DOOR IS BAD THOUGH 13.4%
You decide that you’re not enough of a monster to rip the wings off a clockwork bee, and instead you should check the obviously horribly cursed horse-skull hanging. You tromp back upstairs to the alcove.
Which is gone.
It’s not that it’s vanished completely, but instead of an alcove, it is now a long dark hallway, painted black. No horse skull.
Three diagonal white slashes have been chalked on the wall beside the entry.
Do you…
Explore this new hallway 54.1%
Return to the other hall 5.9%
Algae! Algae! Algae! 21.1%
Weep into your turnips 18.9%
You step into the black hallway. The air feels slightly warmer and more stale. It smells of dust and, very faintly, burning.
You hadn’t realized how bright the other rooms were until you reach a turn and are enveloped by darkness.
Jimmy stirs uneasily and gives a gruff chirp. You keep walking.
You don’t see the niche in the wall until you’re almost upon it. It contains a statue with…
a horse’s head 28.2%
dozens of nails jammed in 27.6%
coarse burlap wrappings 25.9%
WE COULD HAVE TURNIPS 18.2%
(Damn, down to the wire on that one!)
The ceramic statue has the head of a horse, with a short, stiff mane, but no indication of arms or legs, only a tall cylinder wrapped in cloth, held together with beaded cord.
It’s not any god you immediately recognize, but it’s also sufficiently generic that it could be any practically any horse god. Or goddess. Or saint. You can’t be sure. There is nothing to indicate where or when it’s from.
There are offerings scattered at its base, dried flowers and a few coins you don’t recognize.
Offer a coin 78.1%
Steal the offerings 5.3%
Keep moving 7%
The turnips, they call… 9.6%
Back in Explorer’s School, they were very clear that you do not steal offerings from altars unless you like being hung by the heels over the festering pit of eternity. You opt to add a coin instead, and continue down the dark hallway.
God, it’s dark. Your lantern seems like it’s just pushing the dark ahead of you instead of actually dispelling it.
You hear a soft tapping sound coming from somewhere and freeze.
It isn’t repeated, so after a few minutes you keep going. Maybe it was just your nerves. Or something in your pack clicking together. Or Jimmy eating a seed.
(Jimmy denies this.)
When you reach the end of the hall, you almost don’t realize it, because it, too, is painted black. It’s a dead end, but there is a shaft at your feet, with a rusted iron ladder leading down.
Descend the ladder 55.4%
Go back the way you came 7%
Stare at the wall 21.7%
Turnipppppps 15.9%
Down the ladder you go. It’s creaky but bears your weight, even if the rungs leave smears of rust on your hands.
You descend about twenty feet, and then reach another concrete floor. This one, thankfully, is not painted black, and there is more graffiti scratched into the walls.
You appear to be in a short passage that opens out into a much larger room. It smells wet and oddly earthy, like an estuary.
You hear a louder tapping, almost as if someone is clapping their hands.
You creep forward into the room, and find yourself standing atop an enormous concrete pipe, at least fifteen feet in diameter, that extends a few feet into the room. A shaft of light from above feels blinding after the dark hall.
There is a matching pipe on the opposite wall, twenty yards away, with a metal grate across it. A peacock’s tail of corrosion has formed on the wall below, in shades of green and rust and poisonous yellow.
You might be able to get down from your perch into the pipe.
Use your climbing gear 32.3%
Run and jump to the grate 7.2%
Go back up the ladder 5.7%
Peer over the edge 54.8%
You get down on your hands and knees and peer over the edge of the pipe.
It’s not as far down as you thought it might be, but only because it’s full of water. The shaft of light from overhead illuminates brown water, but it’s too cloudy to tell how deep it might be.
You think that the light is probably sunlight from the outside world (although who can be sure?) Roots have descended from the opening and form a dark, crooked net along the walls.
The clapping sound comes again, very close now.
Retreat to the doorway 31.6%
Climb down to the pipe 40.7%
Dive into the water 14.5%
Go back up to the hallway 13.2%
The Explorer’s School takes climbing safety very seriously, and you’d sink anchors if you could, but the concrete seems awfully crumbly. You end up tying your rope to the rusted ladder, which makes you nervous, but hey, what’s the worst that happens?
And over… the edge… you… go!
The ladder holds. Thank god.
You dangle suspended in front of the mouth of the concrete pipe, which once had a metal grate of its own. It has rusted through, though, leaving only jagged bits of corroded metal extending into the pipe. (In school you called those “tetanus sticks.”)
The inside of the pipe is very wet, and as you watch, a small rivulet of water comes toward you and pours into the brown pool below, then fades to a trickle and stops.
There appears to be something dark clumped along the sides of the pipe, but you can’t tell what.
You hear more tapping coming from inside the pipe.
A lot more.
You could unclip from the rope and step inside. If you wanted.
Enter the pipe 39%
Climb back up 21.1%
Descend to the water 10.6%
Think longingly of home 29.3%
You unclip from the rope and step into the pipe. The surface is slick with slime, the components of which you’d rather not think too much about. You make your way carefully down the pipe toward the dark clumps, which gleam in the light of your lantern.
Huh. It’s a clump of… mussels? Yep, so it is. Big ones, too, growing halfway up the sides of the pipe. You didn’t know that freshwater mussels came this big. Some of them are nearly as long as your hand.
Wonder how high the water in the tunnel gets?
You could…
Harvest some for food 23.4%
Look for pearls 25.6%
Continue forward 34.8%
Go back up the rope 16.2%
You dodge around more clumps of mussels as you make your way further down the pipe.
It emerges into another room, with a water level just below the bottom of the pipe. Presumably the walls are concrete, but it’s hard to tell because they’re absolutely covered in mussels.
Might be some barnacles in there too. Or clams. (You didn’t take Shellfish Identification in Explorer’s School, it was an 8 am class.)
Another rusted ladder is bolted to the wall to your left, just past the mouth of the pipe. You climb up it and peer around the room.
While the room itself is square, a large concrete—terrace? Block? Walkway?—cuts it into a L-shape. You’re standing atop that terrace now, and the pipe is in the wall at the small bar of the L.
Stairs lead up the terrace, which looks a bit like a very short ziggurat. You can’t see what’s on the next level up.
The tapping sound has changed to a loud clicking, which seems to be coming nearer.
Up the steps! 69.8%
Back into the pipe! 8.8%
Dive! Dive! 7%
Shout a challenge! 14.4%
Fear lends wings to your feet as you sprint for the steps! The clicking grows louder, echoing from all directions. You race up the deep steps and pause, looking down to see what nameless horror pursues you.
The brown water ripples as you watch.
You are on the second terrace of the ziggurat. The stairs to the third one are at the far end. You hear gurgling and see a rill of water racing from the far wall, in the direction of the ladder.
Higher ground! Quickly! 62.6%
Stand your ground 2.7%
Consult Jimmy the finch 30.8%
Go to the ladder yourself 3.9%
You reach the top of the ziggurat and stop, not because you want to but because you have just charged up a LOT of stairs, after climbing ladders and hauling yourself around on ropes. You gasp like an asthmatic horse after the Preakness.
The top of the ziggurat—or terraces, or whatever they are—is nearly at the room’s ceiling. Concrete slabs, like small monoliths, line both sides of the walkway, which leads to a door on the far side.
Below you, the snapping sounds continue unabated. Out of the corner of your eye, you see more ripples in the water, running from the far wall toward the ladder below.
Run for the far door! 39%
Stand. Face your fate. 13.4%
“Jimmy, helllllp!?” 29.9%
You loved turnips, once. 17.6%
Staggering, nearly weeping, you fall through the door at the end of the ziggurat, onto the cold cement floor. You hear the tapping behind you, so much tapping and clicking, but it comes no closer. Are you safe? Maybe?
When your heart slows, you sit up. You are in a tall, narrow room, with another metal grate in the wall, high overhead. The floor of the room is filled with old debris, which has been washed by water and baked by sun—if there’s sun here—until it has formed a crumbled mass.
Kind of like the world’s worst gray-brown layer cake, threaded with wire and frayed string and god knows how many diseases.
On the far wall, a strange, fishlike shape is etched into the concrete.
Do you…
Barricade the door 23.8%
Pick through the trash 10.4%
Investigate the shape 60.6%
Go back to the ziggurat 5.3%
You pick your way through the trash to the peculiar shape on the wall. It really does look like an enormous fish. Or… dolphin? Maybe?
Has it been etched into the concrete?
You have to reach out and touch it before you realize what it actually is.
An icthyosaur fossilized inside a concrete wall.
You are certain that’s impossible.
Pretty certain.
For that to actually be possible, the labyrinth of gears would have to be millions of years old and that doesn’t even get into the problem of the pressure and how an icthyosaur GOT there and…
No, it’s got to be a very cunning forgery. Surely.
S’pretty good icthyosaur, though. Got the whole body and everything. Not the largest one, but the preservation is remarkable OR WOULD BE IF IT WASN’T IMPOSSIBLE.
Other than that, you don’t see anything else of interest in the room.
You can still hear the clicking, though.
There appear to be no other exits from this room. The grate overhead is much too high to reach.
Do you…
Go back to the door? 5.6%
Consult Jimmy? 49.7%
Pick through the trash? 13.2%
Poke the icthyosaur? 31.5%
Oh, NOW you consult Jimmy? Only now? After you ran all over creation, bouncing him off his perch and SPILLING HIS BIRDSEED?!
Jimmy isn’t sure you DESERVE his advice.
Plead with him 50.4%
Try to bribe him 45.3%
Threaten him 2.8%
Go it alone! 1.5%
“Jimmy,” you say, replacing his birdseed. “Buddy. We’re a team. You know that. We’ve been through so much together. I just lost my head because we were being pursued by horrible clicky things, that’s all.”
Your obvious regret—or possibly obvious helplessness—soften the tiny heart of James Finchington III, Esq. He shakes his head sadly.
“An interesting science fact,” says Jimmy (not in words, for he is not a parrot, but via the medium of interpretive dance, in which he is quite skilled) “mussels attach themselves to hard surfaces by means of what are called ‘byssal threads.’”
“When exposed to pressure or to temperatures greater than fifty degrees Fahrenheit, these byssal threads can snap, causing a clicking or popping sound. A room full of mussels, where the water level was rising, might in fact make many such sounds.”
Expressing this via interpretive dance takes nearly forty minutes. He does not finish with “Dumbass” but you feel that it was strongly implied.
Jimmy collapses, exhausted from dancing. “Byssal thread” took a lot out of him.
You gently tuck him back into his cage.
Well. Don’t you feel silly.
Do you…
Go back to the ziggurat 44.8%
Decide Jimmy is wrong 4.5%
Pick through the trash 37.4%
Sulk 13.2%
Apparently Jimmy attended that 8 AM shellfish class on his own.
You step out onto the ziggurat and look down. The water does seem to be higher, although it’s hard to tell how much.
Making your way down to the second level, you can see that yeah, it’s actually at least two feet higher. It’s pouring into the pipe you came in by now.
The rills of water you keep seeing may in fact be caused by some kind of water gate that keeps ratcheting open?
(Or, y’know, could be giant crab monsters. Jimmy doesn’t know everything.)
Do you…
Get out! Get out now! 35.6%
Stay put until it recedes 21.6%
Get ready to fight crabs 27.7%
Dream of turnips of yore 15.1%
You scramble down the steps that you so recently climbed, desperate to escape before you are cut off by the rising water. By the time you swing down from the ladder into the pipe, the water is already thigh-deep and rising fast.
You try desperately to keep your footing as you race the rising water, but it is too late. The tide wins.
The tide ALWAYS wins.
The weight of water lifts you off your feet and slams you into a clump of mussels. You had no idea the shells would so sharp. Pain explodes through your legs, but you clutch for them anyway, desperate for purchase, as the now hip-deep water rushes past you.
Clinging to the mussels with bloody fingers, the water tearing at you, you have time for one last act.
Save Jimmy the finch 85.4%
Throw your journal clear 5.4%
Curse the labyrinth 2.4%
Think of the turnips… 6.8%
(Sorry, gang, but NEVER RACE RISING WATER.)
Despite the cold, the pounding water, and the terrible pain in your hands, you wrench the cage open and set Jimmy the finch free.
Feathers brush your cheek as he flies for safety. You lose your grip on the mussels and are dragged forward, slamming against jagged metal as you go.
Darkness creeps in at the edges of your vision. You are thrown clear of the pipe and land in the water, gazing up into the light. The last thing you see is the shadow of a finch circling and beginning to climb upward, toward the waiting sky.
THE END
Well! Thank you all for coming along to your… horrible… deaths…well, anyway. I hope that was fun until you died!
(You actually did pretty good. There were at least five Certain Death choices prior to this one.)
(Not including sticking your head in the pipe. WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN OBVIOUS DEATH.)
If I get the urge to run this again—and I may, because this was fun!—you will likely start with a grizzled old finch and a mysterious journal.
Part 2: https://twitter.com/UrsulaV/status/1569716585777995777
Okay, Twitter, I’m in the mood to run a Choose Your Own adventure. We’ll use the survey buttons, and I’ll try to set the interim short enough to keep things moving along. Let’s see where this goes!
You stand, intrepid explorer, before the great concrete labyrinth so briefly described by the naturalist Eland the Younger, a place both unnatural and cryptic, where natural law, as you know it, is occasionally skewed. Broken gears litter the forest floor around you. Ahead is a crack in one of the concrete walls. Tree roots have forced it wider, leaving you space to slip inside. Inside is dim and quiet. Do you…
Plunge into adventure! 26.5%
Check over your gear 57.2%
Go home and grow cabbages 16.3%
You pause and check over your equipment. You have your standard Explorer’s Kit (including knife, lantern, chalk, bandages, firestarters and basic climbing equipment), an unreliable guidebook, your journal and your trusty small bird to detect bad air.
What is your trusty small bird’s name?
Birdie 3.6%
Finch-Bob 26.6%
Wiggles 13.8%
James Finchington III Esq 56%
James Finchington III, Esq (Jimmy to his friends), your companion on many adventures, gives you a nod and a gruff chirp.
You check to make sure you have birdseed, sandwiches and some trail rations, then step through the crack into the labyrinth.
This concrete corridor is scarred with ancient graffiti, mostly worn away, and what remains is in languages you can’t recognize. The floor is covered with dead leaves blown in through the crack. Do you…
Go right 36.6%
Go left 63.4%
The passage isn’t as dark as you’d expect, as small cracks in the walls and ceiling let in spots of sunlight. Giant gears embedded in the walls break up the expanse of concrete, though none of them appear to be turning. Pebbles and bits of fallen concrete crunch underfoot.
Dead end. The passage ends in a tangle of gears too large to wriggle past, and tree roots choke the remaining space. Past the choke point, high overhead, you see a solitary gear moving in the dark, though as far as you can tell, it’s not connected to any others. Do you…
Go back 7.7%
Consider unrelated trivia 31.8%
Throw a rock at the gear 60.5%
The angle’s not great and you end up having to drape yourself across some tree roots, but after a couple of tries, you hit the turning gear.
It slows, then stops turning. Nothing else seems to happen.
Huh. Weird. 22%
Hit it again! 46.1%
This seems unwise? 31.9%
Jimmy eats a seed while he waits for you to finish your vandalism.
After hitting it with two more rocks in rapid succession, the gear begins turning again, in the opposite direction of the way it was before.
After waiting expectantly for a few minutes, you realize that nothing impressive is going to happen, and head back the way you came.
When you reach the crack in the hall, you pause. Has there been some subtle change?
Are the leaves different? 20.5%
The graffiti, maybe? 36%
Is the air more humid? 37.1%
Nah, quit worrying. 6.4%
You sniff the air, which smells somewhat damp. Is that a trace of algae? Moss? Something like that. You’re not completely sure whether it’s new or you just didn’t notice it before.
Jimmy seems unconcerned, so whatever it is, it’s not immediately fatal.
At least not to birds.
You head right down the corridor, the only remaining direction, and reach a sharp turn to the left, into darkness. You pause to light your lantern, because even though grues aren’t native to this area, you still don’t want to mash your face into a wall.
The corridor ends in a set of broad concrete steps, heading downward. The smell of algae is stronger here, so it probably wasn’t coming from the outside. Someone carefully chalked a rude poem in Middle English on the wall here, but the punchline is smudged.
Do you…
Descend the staircase 7.4%
Examine the steps closely 20.9%
Fix the graffiti 71.8%
And to think that your guidance counselor at the Explorer’s School told you that majoring in English Literature wouldn’t help you in your chosen career!
You mutter about the Normans, correct the last line with a flourish, and descend the stairs, feeling smug.
It’s a long staircase.
Very long.
About two thirds of the way down, the walls open up and you find yourself near the top of a vast room. The stairs go clear to the floor, and the rusted remains of iron handrails litter the steps.
An alluvial fan of debris on the lowest stairs suggests that this area was once partially flooded. You see a corridor entrance to the left, a broad ramp leading further down ahead, and a dark doorway to the right. The algae smell is coming from the ramp.
Check the ramp 47.6%
Go to the dark doorway 29.6%
Head for the corridor 22.9%
You head down the ramp. More grit underfoot indicates flooding, although it is all currently dry. You can hear water dripping somewhere.
Suddenly there is a strange, hollow cry from ahead.
Um…?10.8%
Nope. Goin’ back. 9.8%
What IS that sound? 60.8%
I’m going in! 18.6%
“What IS that sound?”
You wrack your brain, but all you remember is a poem about “the hollow cry of the corncrake” and you’re not even sure what exactly a corncrake is.
Ok, in retrospect, your guidance counselor maybe had a point about your major.
At last you remember the grizzled old instructor from Things That Go Bump In The Night class, who told you “Iff’n you don’t know what it is, it’s probably a fox or a frog or a bug.”
That seems… encouraging? Maybe?
You reach the bottom of the ramp and find a small, square room. There is a crusty puddle in the far corner, and a large red frog sitting in it. Two large pipes open into the room from the left, each about two feet in diameter. The bottom one drips into the frog pond.
Poke the frog 3.6%
Greet the frog 86.6%
Retreat from the frog 2.7%
Stick your head in a pipe 7%
You greet the frog. “I greet you, noble frog, as but a humble traveler from the outside world,” you say.
The frog considers this carefully, then says:
“HNNAAAAAAAAGGGGH”
which does explain what the hollow noise was. Probably not a corncrake after all.
A chorus of distant calls echo through the pipes in answer. The algae smell is definitely coming from them.
As you turn to go, you see that the wall around the entry was painted with a mural, though it’s been destroyed by either the elements or design. Do you…
Examine the mural 83.7%
Attack the frog 2%
Head. Pipe. Now. 11.9%
Go back up the ramp 2.4%
Examine the mural:
You learned from writing that one paper about the mountains of madness that art history plays a critical role in dungeon delving. Unfortunately, the mural is in pretty bad shape. You can make out a few figures, but not much else.
The figures seem to be holding up their hands toward a larger shape. In greeting? Defense? You can’t tell. The faces are too chipped and scarred to make out expressions, and the larger shape has been erased entirely.
Eh, it’s probably fine.
You leave the frog to its puddle and make your way back up the ramp. Room looks the same. Finch seems cheerful. Your options now are:
The dark doorway 27.7%
The corridor 11.7%
Check under the stairs 57.1%
Flee this accursed place 3.6%
You decide to check under the stairs.
The concrete staircase is deep enough that you find only a small gap there, about four feet high. There’s an old stained mattress on the floor.
Someone wrote THE RACCOON WOMAN WAS GIVEN BACK HER DEATH HERE on the wall in charcoal.
You’re not quite sure how to feel about that.
Your remaining options are…
The dark doorway 53.5%
The corridor 27.9%
NO REALLY GO HOME NOW 18.6%
You approach the dark doorway, and have a bad moment where you think something’s hovering in it, only to realize that it’s not a doorway at all. It’s an alcove about three feet deep, the walls painted black to give the illusion of depth, with a strange hanging on the back wall.
A horse skull forms the centerpiece, wrapped with rusted wire and bits of rag. Jute cords dangle from the empty eye-sockets, each ending in a single gear. Any color has been lost under a layer of dust.
Leave it alone 11.7%
Leave it the HELL alone 49.7%
Smash it 26.6%
NOPE NOPE NOPE I’M OUT 12%
You remember the words of wisdom imparted from your teachers at Explorer’s School. “You cannot unsmash something” and “Always let someone else touch the freaky shit first.” You opt to back slowly out of the alcove instead.
The corridor seems to be your only remaining way forward. You enter cautiously, but it looks much like one upstairs.
You arrive at a junction. From the left hand passage, you hear a faint mechanical buzz. The right smells of algae again.
There are dragmarks in the dust ahead.
(The GM needs a nap, so you get two whole hours on this one!)
Go straight 12.8%
Go toward the buzzing 54.1%
Go toward the algae smell 18.6%
Go home & raise turnips 14.5%
You opt to investigate the buzzing.
The hallway is about thirty feet long and you can hear the buzzing coming from the open doorway at the end. On your left, three niches have been cut into the wall, each about eight inches deep. The first two are empty, but the third contains:
A cryptic message 24.1%
A hen’s egg 37.6%
A broken statue 20.3%
Another bone hanging 18%
You have to check several times and then consult Jimmy to make sure that you aren’t hallucinating due to bad air, but yep, that’s an egg, alright.
Nailed to the wall.
Somebody put a nail through the egg without cracking the shell, and then into the concrete.
Other than a little rust from where the nail has corroded, the shell is pristine. Huh.
Right, the buzzing! No time for eggs! You head for the end of the hall.
You pause on the threshold. Someone has chalked a mark on the wall here, a narrow horizontal rectangle with a wavy line through it. A warning? Who knows?
You step into the room, lift your lantern…and find yourself looking at the biggest beehive you’ve ever seen in your life.
Bees the size of your thumb hum around it. The room is full of gears and the hive is built in and through and around them, honeycomb piled on honeycomb. The honey drips over the gears, leaving thin stripes. It’s black with age and the floor is sticky underfoot.
There’s something odd about these bees, though. The bees are…
Made of clockwork 61.1%
Eyeless 20.4%
Shit, are those wasps? 12%
The last straw, I’m out. 6.5%
You edge as close as you dare and yep, these bees appear to be mechanical. Which raises all kinds of questions about how they hatch and if the queen is laying eggs or assembling parts or what, but breaking into the hive to check seems like a supremely bad idea, even for you.
As you’re scratching your head over where they’re finding pollen, a bee lands on your sleeve. Does it think you’re a large flower? It clings for a moment, and you get the impression something is wrong with it. Its movements are jerky and slow.
Finally it releases its grip and tumbles to the floor, where it lies, legs ratcheting aimlessly, slowly winding down, until it stops.
The other bees ignore it.
Do you…
Attempt to help it 74.5%
Edge away from it 11.5%
Try to steal some honey 8.4%
Leave the room 5.7%
Not being a monster, you try to help the fallen bee. Crouching down, you scoop it up, check to see if the other bees notice—they don’t—and examine the clockwork insect. It is a remarkable piece of machinery.
Eventually you discover a small notched depression between the wings.
You study the hive again, and notice that some smaller wingless bees are moving between the large ones. Occasionally they will reach up, insert a leg into the notch between the wings, and begin turning it. You think they must be winding up the bigger ones?
Well, you have a knife, and the tip will fit into the notch. You begin winding the bee, being very careful not to over-tighten and damage the springs. Assuming it has springs.
After a moment, the bee’s antennae begin to move. You remove the knife and wait.
A full minute passes, but the clockwork bee tests its wings, then launches itself into the air. It lands on the hive, and you see a winder-bee hurry over to finish the job.
Whew. Job well done! You retreat before you are stung.
You return to the junction. The smell of algae comes from the right and there are dragmarks in the dust ahead.
Do you…
Investigate the dragmarks 40.9%
Go toward the algae smell 19.8%
Consult your guidebook 28.2%
Go home to raise turnips 11%
You investigate the drag marks more closely.
Well, you try.
Let’s be clear, you don’t regret taking that elective on Beowulf. It was amazing. But that was also the only time slot available for Tracking 101 and… well…
Somebody dragged something down the hall here, yup.
It looks like it was more rounded than square? Probably? Unless it was fabric? You follow the marks clear to the end of the hallway, where you find stairs going down. The steps seem to be largely free of dust, owing to a cross-breeze from a shaft overhead.
Just before the tracks end, you spot a single human footprint, close to the wall.
Do you…
Go down the steps? 39.9%
Return to the junction? 3.3%
Consult your guidebook? 35.7%
Heed the call of turnips? 21.1%
Jimmy swings on his perch in his little cage tied to your pack, whistling a happy tune.
You have opted to go down the steps! So, you do.
The staircase is shallow, leading to a landing. Four small pipes in the wall bleed rust down the concrete. (They are too small to put your head in.) The bottom one appears to have a mouse nest stuffed into it.
The air is moving better here, from a shaft overhead, and a scattering of dried leaves shows it leads somewhere outside. There’s more stairs leading down to another landing.
Do you…
Check out the mouse nest 57.1%
Go down the stairs 28.5%
Go back up 1.1%
Retire, turnips, etc 13.3%
You pull the mouse nest out of the pipe. It is empty of mice, but has that stale-rodent-urine smell. Delightful.
In the pipe, under the nest, someone has chalked a small white triangle with a dot in the middle. That is all.
Do you…
Go down the steps? 34.6%
Go back up the steps? 2.7%
Stick my arm in the pipe! 46.5%
Just want turnips? 16.1%
In an act of extremely questionable bravery, you shove your arm into the pipe.
It’s gritty and a bit damp. You scrape your fingers.
At the farthest extension, just before you’d get your bicep stuck in the pipe, something hairy touches your fingers, then withdraws.
You hurriedly yank your arm back and wipe your fingers off. Hopefully that was a mouse.
…it didn’t feel quite like a mouse. It was too cold.
You scrub your hands like Lady Macbeth.
Do you…
Go down the stairs 62.5%
Go back up the stairs 8.6%
HOME. TURNIPS. NOW. 28.9%
You head down the stairs, trying not to think about what touched you in the pipe.
At the base of the stairs, you find a medium-sized room. There is an alcove to the left, a hallway to the right, and a large metal door—the first you’ve seen!—straight ahead.
Do you…
Go to the alcove 42.3%
Go to the door 37.1%
Go to the hallway 4.6%
Go home to the vegetables 16%
You head to the alcove! It is shallow, and contains what appears to be a small metal faucet. Water stains on the wall indicate that it dripped at some point in the past. There are cords tied to the faucet, with hanging gears and a single shard of bright blue pottery.
Do you…
Turn the faucet 67.3%
Investigate the door 20.2%
Go to the hallway 1.6%
Touch nothing! Go home! 11%
You turn the handle on the faucet. After a few seconds, there’s a loud clang and thump somewhere in the wall, and a hiss of air in pipes. The faucet kicks in your hand, clangs again, and you hear a shrill wail of tormented plumbing.
Then the knob falls off in your hand.
Nothing else happens, but if you were trying to be stealthy, you’ve definitely blown it.
Do you…
Investigate the door 64.6%
Investigate the hallway 16.4%
Go back upstairs 5%
Go home where it’s safe 14.1%
You put the knob in your pack while you try to decide what to break next.
You decide to check out the door next.
It is large. It is metal. It has rivets. Somebody decided they were gonna make a Big Metal Door, and by god, they succeeded.
It has no handle and is recessed into the wall, so you can’t figure out how to open it.
The lower half of the door, reaching to about waist height, is covered in painted handprints. It looks a bit like old cave paintings—somebody dipped their hand in paint and pressed it against the surface. Kind of an odd contrast between modern metal and primitive paint technique.
Actually, it looks almost like the hands are beating against the door, trying to get out.
But that’s ridiculous. They’re only paint. And you’re on this side too, and it’s not like you’re locked in or anything, right?
Right?
Do you…
Investigate the hallway 22%
Consult the guidebook 59.4%
Go back upstairs 2.9%
Go home and lock the door 15.7%
You back away from the door, sit down on the steps, and pull out your not-terribly-reliable guidebook! You’re pretty sure Eland the Younger wrote something about this area, unless it was Pliny.
(Please god, let it not be Pliny.)
The guidebook is a translation of a translation, has at least ten pages stapled in upside down, and somebody crossed out several paragraphs and left a margin note saying “HA HA HA NO.”
You acquired it from…
…your guidance counselor 15.2%
…a creepy curio shop 33.5%
…the library (illicitly) 41.1%
…a former lover 10.2%
“Theft” is such an ugly word. You always meant to return it. But it was eleven months overdue and the fines would be huge and the returns desk is run by a former nun who would look disappointed at you, and… look, you’ll return it once you get home. Really.
Flipping through the guidebook, you find several points where Eland discovered similar landmarks, including a beehive and… yes, a door like this one! That’s good! (After all, he made it out alive.)
(Granted, he had a grizzly bear companion, not a small finch.)
The rooms he describes aren’t quite the same as yours, though.
Eh, probably just a translation error. North, south, up, down, they’re easy mistakes to make, right?
You do find a reference to something called “the Monks of Perdition,” but somebody spilled coffee on the page.
(Last one for the night, GM needs sleep.)
You’re tired and decide to make camp for the night. Do you camp…
Here, by the door 18.3%
In the frog room 28.4%
Outside in the forest 30%
In the beehive room 23.4%
Because the thread is so long that it’s starting to choke, we will pick up over at the new one!
Gonna start up today’s Choose Your Own Adventure shortly! If you missed yesterday’s shenanigans, the thread is here: https://twitter.com/UrsulaV/status/1569355775360831491
This uses the survey buttons, set to fairly short timers, so you can jump in and vote for anything you like! Even to go home and raise turnips! Which is frankly probably the smartest thing you could do!
To quickly address a couple of questions that have come up—no, I have not pre-written these, but they’re based on an old travelogue I wrote on Livejournal back in 2005.
Yes, you will die if you vote to do something bone-headed.
I invented the gearworld, but I did not invent this Twitter game format by any stretch, and I absolutely encourage you to make your own game for your followers if you think you’d enjoy it!
I will do this until I get tired of it. Or you die. Or go home and raise turnips AS ANY SENSIBLE PERSON WOULD.
Owing to only having four survey options, I am afraid I am limited in the choices I can offer, so there will sometimes be things you simply cannot do. (Sorry. It’s Twitter, not D&D. Give me ten options, we’ll get some really complicated stuff going!)
And now, on to the game!
When last we checked in with our intrepid adventurer, you had decided to camp for the night. But where? Where in this peculiar concrete labyrinth would be a good place to spend the night?
You chose to leave the labyrinth and spend the night outside. (Remarkably sensible for someone who stuck their arm in a mysterious dark pipe.)
Camping outside has the benefit that you can make a fire and spread your blanket over something slightly softer than concrete.
You eat a sandwich, give James Finchington III, Esq some birdseed, and drink some of your water.
Hmm, you’re probably gonna need to find a source of potable water soon, come to think of it.
You wrap yourself in your coat and bank the fire. Jimmy puts his head under his wing.
In the morning, you wake up and eat another sandwich. Nothing terrible happened during the night! Victory!
You step back through the crack in the wall into the labyrinth and…hang on, was there a doorway there before?
I don’t think so? 36%
Sure, yeah, definitely. 7.9%
It’s probably fine? 28.7%
NO IT IS NOT FINE 27.4%
Yeah, you’re pretty sure that’s new. The doorway is down the hall to the right about ten paces.
It doesn’t look as if there’s any kind of secret mechanism that slid something aside, and the worn graffiti on the wall wraps around the edges like it’s always been there.
A single horizontal white line has been chalked on the wall beside it. It looks almost new.
You peer inside, cautiously.
It’s a square room, about 10 x 10. The edge of an enormous stone gear protrudes from a slot in the ceiling. Dried leaves are scattered across the floor. Other than that, it’s bare.
Do you…
Inspect the leaves 19.2%
Inspect the gear 51.1%
Inspect the walls 14.8%
Refuse to enter the room 14.8%
You gaze up at the enormous gear.
That’s a big damn gear, all right. Based on the small bit you can see, it’s probably at least twelve feet in diameter. It fits neatly into the slot, leaving a gap that you could maybe fit your knifeblade in.
The gear is rotated so that you can just barely see up through a gap in the teeth, but even lifting your lantern and standing on tiptoe only gets you a glimpse of shadowy cogs and darkness.
Do you…
Inspect the room further 47.7%
Put your knife in the gap 33.5%
Head back downstairs 2.9%
Go home and raise turnips 16%
You inspect the room further, poking into the corners and examining the leaves. You turn up the bones of some small creature, probably a vole, but they don’t look special, just like a vole died here at some point.
The graffiti is mostly in languages and alphabets you don’t know, but you do find a “Henry Tolliver wuz here!” dated to nearly two hundred years ago.
You do find a dried ginkgo leaf, which is interesting, because you’re pretty sure there’s no ginkgos within fifty miles.
The room holds nothing else of interest. Time to move on.
Do you go to the…
…frog room? 28.4%
…Creepy door room? 37%
…Algae junction? 24.9%
…home you left behind? 9.7%
You go down the stairs, through the hall, down the other stairs, and return to the room with the creepy iron door. You don’t see any more new doors on the way, but you’re not stopping to look too closely.
At the door room, you pause and consider, then take out the metal knob from the faucet. Is there something you can use this for?
Try to fix the faucet 27.2%
Try to open the door 55.6%
Throw it down the hallway 5.9%
Souvenir, you’re leaving 11.3%
The faucet, as it turns out, is rusted through, so even if you put the knob back, it wouldn’t do much. You turn your attention to the door.
There IS a small square hole where the base of the handle could fit. You put it in, excited, pull, and…
…it promptly comes off in your hand again, because there’s nothing actually holding it on.
Hmm. You’d need like…glue? Maybe? No, some kind of washer would be better, it looks like there’s a slot for it to turn.
Perhaps a very small gear?
There are no gears small enough on the faucet hanging, unfortunately. You could keep exploring and hope to find one?
Let’s do that! 18.9%
Check the horse skull! 36.7%
Clockwork bees are small? 31%
THIS DOOR IS BAD THOUGH 13.4%
You decide that you’re not enough of a monster to rip the wings off a clockwork bee, and instead you should check the obviously horribly cursed horse-skull hanging. You tromp back upstairs to the alcove.
Which is gone.
It’s not that it’s vanished completely, but instead of an alcove, it is now a long dark hallway, painted black. No horse skull.
Three diagonal white slashes have been chalked on the wall beside the entry.
Do you…
Explore this new hallway 54.1%
Return to the other hall 5.9%
Algae! Algae! Algae! 21.1%
Weep into your turnips 18.9%
You step into the black hallway. The air feels slightly warmer and more stale. It smells of dust and, very faintly, burning.
You hadn’t realized how bright the other rooms were until you reach a turn and are enveloped by darkness.
Jimmy stirs uneasily and gives a gruff chirp. You keep walking.
You don’t see the niche in the wall until you’re almost upon it. It contains a statue with…
a horse’s head 28.2%
dozens of nails jammed in 27.6%
coarse burlap wrappings 25.9%
WE COULD HAVE TURNIPS 18.2%
(Damn, down to the wire on that one!)
The ceramic statue has the head of a horse, with a short, stiff mane, but no indication of arms or legs, only a tall cylinder wrapped in cloth, held together with beaded cord.
It’s not any god you immediately recognize, but it’s also sufficiently generic that it could be any practically any horse god. Or goddess. Or saint. You can’t be sure. There is nothing to indicate where or when it’s from.
There are offerings scattered at its base, dried flowers and a few coins you don’t recognize.
Offer a coin 78.1%
Steal the offerings 5.3%
Keep moving 7%
The turnips, they call… 9.6%
Back in Explorer’s School, they were very clear that you do not steal offerings from altars unless you like being hung by the heels over the festering pit of eternity. You opt to add a coin instead, and continue down the dark hallway.
God, it’s dark. Your lantern seems like it’s just pushing the dark ahead of you instead of actually dispelling it.
You hear a soft tapping sound coming from somewhere and freeze.
It isn’t repeated, so after a few minutes you keep going. Maybe it was just your nerves. Or something in your pack clicking together. Or Jimmy eating a seed.
(Jimmy denies this.)
When you reach the end of the hall, you almost don’t realize it, because it, too, is painted black. It’s a dead end, but there is a shaft at your feet, with a rusted iron ladder leading down.
Descend the ladder 55.4%
Go back the way you came 7%
Stare at the wall 21.7%
Turnipppppps 15.9%
Down the ladder you go. It’s creaky but bears your weight, even if the rungs leave smears of rust on your hands.
You descend about twenty feet, and then reach another concrete floor. This one, thankfully, is not painted black, and there is more graffiti scratched into the walls.
You appear to be in a short passage that opens out into a much larger room. It smells wet and oddly earthy, like an estuary.
You hear a louder tapping, almost as if someone is clapping their hands.
You creep forward into the room, and find yourself standing atop an enormous concrete pipe, at least fifteen feet in diameter, that extends a few feet into the room. A shaft of light from above feels blinding after the dark hall.
There is a matching pipe on the opposite wall, twenty yards away, with a metal grate across it. A peacock’s tail of corrosion has formed on the wall below, in shades of green and rust and poisonous yellow.
You might be able to get down from your perch into the pipe.
Use your climbing gear 32.3%
Run and jump to the grate 7.2%
Go back up the ladder 5.7%
Peer over the edge 54.8%
You get down on your hands and knees and peer over the edge of the pipe.
It’s not as far down as you thought it might be, but only because it’s full of water. The shaft of light from overhead illuminates brown water, but it’s too cloudy to tell how deep it might be.
You think that the light is probably sunlight from the outside world (although who can be sure?) Roots have descended from the opening and form a dark, crooked net along the walls.
The clapping sound comes again, very close now.
Retreat to the doorway 31.6%
Climb down to the pipe 40.7%
Dive into the water 14.5%
Go back up to the hallway 13.2%
The Explorer’s School takes climbing safety very seriously, and you’d sink anchors if you could, but the concrete seems awfully crumbly. You end up tying your rope to the rusted ladder, which makes you nervous, but hey, what’s the worst that happens?
And over… the edge… you… go!
The ladder holds. Thank god.
You dangle suspended in front of the mouth of the concrete pipe, which once had a metal grate of its own. It has rusted through, though, leaving only jagged bits of corroded metal extending into the pipe. (In school you called those “tetanus sticks.”)
The inside of the pipe is very wet, and as you watch, a small rivulet of water comes toward you and pours into the brown pool below, then fades to a trickle and stops.
There appears to be something dark clumped along the sides of the pipe, but you can’t tell what.
You hear more tapping coming from inside the pipe.
A lot more.
You could unclip from the rope and step inside. If you wanted.
Enter the pipe 39%
Climb back up 21.1%
Descend to the water 10.6%
Think longingly of home 29.3%
You unclip from the rope and step into the pipe. The surface is slick with slime, the components of which you’d rather not think too much about. You make your way carefully down the pipe toward the dark clumps, which gleam in the light of your lantern.
Huh. It’s a clump of… mussels? Yep, so it is. Big ones, too, growing halfway up the sides of the pipe. You didn’t know that freshwater mussels came this big. Some of them are nearly as long as your hand.
Wonder how high the water in the tunnel gets?
You could…
Harvest some for food 23.4%
Look for pearls 25.6%
Continue forward 34.8%
Go back up the rope 16.2%
You dodge around more clumps of mussels as you make your way further down the pipe.
It emerges into another room, with a water level just below the bottom of the pipe. Presumably the walls are concrete, but it’s hard to tell because they’re absolutely covered in mussels.
Might be some barnacles in there too. Or clams. (You didn’t take Shellfish Identification in Explorer’s School, it was an 8 am class.)
Another rusted ladder is bolted to the wall to your left, just past the mouth of the pipe. You climb up it and peer around the room.
While the room itself is square, a large concrete—terrace? Block? Walkway?—cuts it into a L-shape. You’re standing atop that terrace now, and the pipe is in the wall at the small bar of the L.
Stairs lead up the terrace, which looks a bit like a very short ziggurat. You can’t see what’s on the next level up.
The tapping sound has changed to a loud clicking, which seems to be coming nearer.
Up the steps! 69.8%
Back into the pipe! 8.8%
Dive! Dive! 7%
Shout a challenge! 14.4%
Fear lends wings to your feet as you sprint for the steps! The clicking grows louder, echoing from all directions. You race up the deep steps and pause, looking down to see what nameless horror pursues you.
The brown water ripples as you watch.
You are on the second terrace of the ziggurat. The stairs to the third one are at the far end. You hear gurgling and see a rill of water racing from the far wall, in the direction of the ladder.
Higher ground! Quickly! 62.6%
Stand your ground 2.7%
Consult Jimmy the finch 30.8%
Go to the ladder yourself 3.9%
You reach the top of the ziggurat and stop, not because you want to but because you have just charged up a LOT of stairs, after climbing ladders and hauling yourself around on ropes. You gasp like an asthmatic horse after the Preakness.
The top of the ziggurat—or terraces, or whatever they are—is nearly at the room’s ceiling. Concrete slabs, like small monoliths, line both sides of the walkway, which leads to a door on the far side.
Below you, the snapping sounds continue unabated. Out of the corner of your eye, you see more ripples in the water, running from the far wall toward the ladder below.
Run for the far door! 39%
Stand. Face your fate. 13.4%
“Jimmy, helllllp!?” 29.9%
You loved turnips, once. 17.6%
Staggering, nearly weeping, you fall through the door at the end of the ziggurat, onto the cold cement floor. You hear the tapping behind you, so much tapping and clicking, but it comes no closer. Are you safe? Maybe?
When your heart slows, you sit up. You are in a tall, narrow room, with another metal grate in the wall, high overhead. The floor of the room is filled with old debris, which has been washed by water and baked by sun—if there’s sun here—until it has formed a crumbled mass.
Kind of like the world’s worst gray-brown layer cake, threaded with wire and frayed string and god knows how many diseases.
On the far wall, a strange, fishlike shape is etched into the concrete.
Do you…
Barricade the door 23.8%
Pick through the trash 10.4%
Investigate the shape 60.6%
Go back to the ziggurat 5.3%
You pick your way through the trash to the peculiar shape on the wall. It really does look like an enormous fish. Or… dolphin? Maybe?
Has it been etched into the concrete?
You have to reach out and touch it before you realize what it actually is.
An icthyosaur fossilized inside a concrete wall.
You are certain that’s impossible.
Pretty certain.
For that to actually be possible, the labyrinth of gears would have to be millions of years old and that doesn’t even get into the problem of the pressure and how an icthyosaur GOT there and…
No, it’s got to be a very cunning forgery. Surely.
S’pretty good icthyosaur, though. Got the whole body and everything. Not the largest one, but the preservation is remarkable OR WOULD BE IF IT WASN’T IMPOSSIBLE.
Other than that, you don’t see anything else of interest in the room.
You can still hear the clicking, though.
There appear to be no other exits from this room. The grate overhead is much too high to reach.
Do you…
Go back to the door? 5.6%
Consult Jimmy? 49.7%
Pick through the trash? 13.2%
Poke the icthyosaur? 31.5%
Oh, NOW you consult Jimmy? Only now? After you ran all over creation, bouncing him off his perch and SPILLING HIS BIRDSEED?!
Jimmy isn’t sure you DESERVE his advice.
Plead with him 50.4%
Try to bribe him 45.3%
Threaten him 2.8%
Go it alone! 1.5%
“Jimmy,” you say, replacing his birdseed. “Buddy. We’re a team. You know that. We’ve been through so much together. I just lost my head because we were being pursued by horrible clicky things, that’s all.”
Your obvious regret—or possibly obvious helplessness—soften the tiny heart of James Finchington III, Esq. He shakes his head sadly.
“An interesting science fact,” says Jimmy (not in words, for he is not a parrot, but via the medium of interpretive dance, in which he is quite skilled) “mussels attach themselves to hard surfaces by means of what are called ‘byssal threads.’”
“When exposed to pressure or to temperatures greater than fifty degrees Fahrenheit, these byssal threads can snap, causing a clicking or popping sound. A room full of mussels, where the water level was rising, might in fact make many such sounds.”
Expressing this via interpretive dance takes nearly forty minutes. He does not finish with “Dumbass” but you feel that it was strongly implied.
Jimmy collapses, exhausted from dancing. “Byssal thread” took a lot out of him.
You gently tuck him back into his cage.
Well. Don’t you feel silly.
Do you…
Go back to the ziggurat 44.8%
Decide Jimmy is wrong 4.5%
Pick through the trash 37.4%
Sulk 13.2%
Apparently Jimmy attended that 8 AM shellfish class on his own.
You step out onto the ziggurat and look down. The water does seem to be higher, although it’s hard to tell how much.
Making your way down to the second level, you can see that yeah, it’s actually at least two feet higher. It’s pouring into the pipe you came in by now.
The rills of water you keep seeing may in fact be caused by some kind of water gate that keeps ratcheting open?
(Or, y’know, could be giant crab monsters. Jimmy doesn’t know everything.)
Do you…
Get out! Get out now! 35.6%
Stay put until it recedes 21.6%
Get ready to fight crabs 27.7%
Dream of turnips of yore 15.1%
You scramble down the steps that you so recently climbed, desperate to escape before you are cut off by the rising water. By the time you swing down from the ladder into the pipe, the water is already thigh-deep and rising fast.
You try desperately to keep your footing as you race the rising water, but it is too late. The tide wins.
The tide ALWAYS wins.
The weight of water lifts you off your feet and slams you into a clump of mussels. You had no idea the shells would so sharp. Pain explodes through your legs, but you clutch for them anyway, desperate for purchase, as the now hip-deep water rushes past you.
Clinging to the mussels with bloody fingers, the water tearing at you, you have time for one last act.
Save Jimmy the finch 85.4%
Throw your journal clear 5.4%
Curse the labyrinth 2.4%
Think of the turnips… 6.8%
(Sorry, gang, but NEVER RACE RISING WATER.)
Despite the cold, the pounding water, and the terrible pain in your hands, you wrench the cage open and set Jimmy the finch free.
Feathers brush your cheek as he flies for safety. You lose your grip on the mussels and are dragged forward, slamming against jagged metal as you go.
Darkness creeps in at the edges of your vision. You are thrown clear of the pipe and land in the water, gazing up into the light. The last thing you see is the shadow of a finch circling and beginning to climb upward, toward the waiting sky.
THE END
Well! Thank you all for coming along to your… horrible… deaths…well, anyway. I hope that was fun until you died!
(You actually did pretty good. There were at least five Certain Death choices prior to this one.)
(Not including sticking your head in the pipe. WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN OBVIOUS DEATH.)
If I get the urge to run this again—and I may, because this was fun!—you will likely start with a grizzled old finch and a mysterious journal.
