Chapter the Sixth: Curb Spore Enthusiasm
Right, where were we!
…no, seriously, where were we? Between ParserComp and a testing binge, it’s been a month since Nitocris’s last sojourn in Backwater, and I confess to only dimly remembering what we were up to when I sat down to play this next bit. Thankfully, this thread was a good reminder, especially the map and unfinished-business blurb at the end of the previous chapter – nice work, past-Russo! – so here’s the quick recap: after solving some puzzles down by the river, and repeatedly perishing at the horns/claws/fangs/mind-control powers of various pocket monsters, we deployed the standard glue/friendly monster/pterodactyl trifecta to get into a locked-up well, winning a wad of cash that’d been through the laundry for our efforts. More importantly, that wrapped up all our current business in West Backwater and environs, meaning at long last it’s time to cross the bridge to the other side of town, and our ultimate destination of Cragne Manor.
We resume by going east from the Town Square:
>e
Your feet finally touch down on some blackened shore and into some large subterrane. The slick black stone of the cavern arcs high above your head with strange formations that grow downwards and then out in oddly perpendicular angles. The damp rock moves in and out of focus as some pulsing green light illuminates the space.Taking a step, you feel the sand pulling at your shoes as though it were thick mud or quicksand. Your feet sink with every step, settling on some solid stone platform just beneath this layer of cloying sand that prevents you from being entirely swallowed.
You pass between two monolithic pillars: oily green-black stone of a height that makes you dizzy to comprehend. Between them, a skeletal bridge stretches out across the chasm.
The crossing spans a ravine of tumultuous water that roars like some uncaged beast and echoes around the cavern. Its Stygian call chills you and draws you in by equal measures as you take the first step onto the slats that form the bridge.
Bridge (Daniel Stelzer and Jemma Briggeman)
You are standing on a bridge spanning east to west in the middle of an echoing cavern. In the center of the bridge is a large perverse sculpture constructed of pipes that climb up to a cauldron filled with an eerily glowing green moss, the only light source in the room. Beneath your feet you can hear the crashing of the river below. Ahead of you, to your horror, there are slats missing on the bridge - you’ll never make it across without replacing them.What appears to be a rope is tied around one of the beams of the bridge. A ragged knot ties the other end to some misshapen piece of polished, almost pristine, metal while the rest of the rope is coiled neatly on the planks.
It has been a month, but I am 99% sure Backwater had not been previously enclosed in a subterranean cavern. Life comes at you pretty fast in Vermont, I suppose – fortunately, Nitocris is used to this sort of thing. One minute you’re amongst the living in Ancient Egypt, worshipping the Great Old Ones for kicks and giggles, then you’re mummified and spending eons in a tomb, then you’re back under the sky to visit your in-laws, so no big deal that the worm has turned again.
Anyway, this room is by friend-of-the-thread Daniel Stelzer, author of many Inform 7 extensions as well as Scroll Thief, which I think is widely held to be the best of the various Enchanter pastiches. Jemma Briggeman, the other listed author, is a woman of mystery so far as I can tell. Let’s see what they’ve given us!
>x water
The river crashes through the cavern, its vaporous call echoing upon itself in cacophony. You are horrified by its swirling inky purple.>x bridge
The body of the bridge is formed of some offensive metamorphic stone; as if marble had been tainted by the presence of a wet fungus that, aeons ago, had been subsumed into its surface. You are currently balancing on a walkway of calcareous slats.
“Calcareous” means chalky FYI. So these are like rock slats?
>x slats
The calcareous slats that form the walkway feel strangely light underfoot; as though hollowed out and filled with air. In the gaps between, you can see the churning water below, stare too long and you are sure to become nauseous. Each platform stretches your legs as you move from one to the next; the burn in your calves is quickly becoming excruciating.The taut cords that give the structure its shape appear to be woven in some complex repugnant plait that elongates and contracts with a slither as you step across.
Coincidentally, “complex repugnant plait” was the name of the jam band I was in in college.
…huh, and when I typed that joke in, the parser said something curious in response:
[The word “repugnant” is a randomly-generated Lovecraftian adjective that could apply to all sorts of things here. Try using another word instead.]
So there’s some random text generation here! Sure enough, if we X SLATS again, instead of “repugnant” we get “detestable” slotted in, and “congealed” on try three. I amuse myself by seeing how many of these I can guess, in service of fleshing out the eventual Cragne Manor drinking game. Not to brag, but my hit rate is pretty good:
>* We need to drink if we hit “cyclopean” or “non-euclidean”, of course
[The word “non-euclidean” is a randomly-generated Lovecraftian adjective that could apply to all sorts of things here. Try using another word instead.]>* or “squamous”
[The word “squamous” is a randomly-generated Lovecraftian adjective that could apply to all sorts of things here. Try using another word instead.]
…moving on!
>x sculpture
A labyrinthine network of pipes form the base of the structure, climbing up to a wide, shallow cauldron filled with luminescent green moss. Some crack in the ceiling allows a steady drip of dreadful liquid to fall on the moss and it pulses with light in time with the regular falling of the fluid. At the bottom of the sculpture, one of the pipes flows into a circular pool of liquid. Beside the pool, there is a brazier filled with some manner of desiccated organic material.>x moss
It is too high above you to see clearly from here, but something in the cauldron seems to flare up with each drop of liquid, filling the area with a flickering green light.>x liquid
A shallow pool of foul liquid that flows from the ghastly pipes of the structure. Next to the pool is a brazier filled with some manner of desiccated organic material.
Am I wrong, or is this pool just screaming “delicious”?
>drink it
You dip your fingers into the ominous liquid and bring it to your lips. It has a pulsating metallic tang that cloys at the back of your throat until it starts to burn.
Guess not.
>x brazier
Formed of twisted iron, it contains clumps of dry vegetation.>x vegetation
Although definitely organic, it’s dry and crumbly and long-dead. It’s hard to tell at this point whether it was a plant or a moss or something defying classification entirely.>taste it
When you attempt to pick up one of the leaves, it crumbles to ash under your fingers covering them in flakes.
I think before I had a kid, I wouldn’t have gone so quickly from "examine something " to “lick it”, but turns out it’s a pretty solid investigatory technique!
>x rope
A thick rope, stained dark with water and made inflexible by remnants of mud. One loop is fastened to the bridge with an impenetrable knot, while the other end is attached to a misshapen piece of polished metal.>take rope
You get your hand under the coils of rope and manage to lift them up. The added weight of the water drags down your tired limbs.>x piece
A piece of metal bent into a strange configuration. Sharp prongs curl in and around themselves like a gaping maw. You wouldn’t want to cut yourself on those teeth. Curiously, the teeth are hinged, and could potentially be pried open.>open it
You pry the teeth open.
Is this like for fishing? Or for anchoring it in place? Either way seems like it belongs in the drink:
>push rope
You loop the rope around your hands, placing the strange metal contraption on the wall of the bridge. Giving the aberrant apparatus a hard shove, you send it tumbling over the edge into the water. You could climb down the rope now, if you wanted to.
Don’t mind if I do!
>d
You gingerly tighten your hands around the fraying fibres and lower yourself until you are just above the water.Bridge (hanging underneath) (Daniel Stelzer and Jemma Briggeman)
You are hanging precariously under the monstrous structure. The frayed rope digs into your palms painfully, but the deafening crash of the water beneath you keeps you clinging on for now.Hanging from the stone is something similar in form, if not in texture, to a organic bat.
There is some strange semi-aquatic weed growing upside-down from the bottom of the bridge, a distorted hybrid of what seems to be a mushroom and a coral.
A rope runs from the bridge above you down into the water below.
OK, there’s one thing that immediately jumps out – no, it’s not the “organic bat” (…how many non-organic ones have you come across, Daniel?) – it’s that this is a second location by the same authoring team, violating the implicit understanding that one location = one author! I’m not sure whether this was by special dispensation, or if there’s under-the-hood I7 trickery to keep everything formally confined to one room, but either way we’re in official Lovecraftian “sanity-blasting geography” territory.
>x bat
While the creature has the same chiropteran features as a common bat, its “wings” are the color of rotting meat and have a fiendish glutinous texture. As you strain your eyes to examine the alien fauna, it begins to nibble on the strange weed. It opens its mouth in a yawn and you see the creature’s tongue coated with a thin film of pale brown powder. After a few moments it gives a gesture approximately equatable to a sneeze before letting go of its perch and dropping into the water like a stone.
“Chiropteran” just means “batty” FYI. I know that because I used to play the World of Darkness tabletop RPG back in the day, and Vampire: the Masquerade had a power called “Chiropteran Marauder,” where you could turn into a monster bat-person and wreak havoc on your enemies.
“A storytelling game of personal horror,” was the tagline for that game.
Let’s see, there was more gross vegetation to investigate:
>x mushroom
A type of flora or perhaps fungi unfamiliar to you. The orange myceloid root structure apparently anchoring it to the bridge is reminiscent of a mushroom, but the pale, calcified protrusions that extend downwards appear akin to bleached coral, branching out in an almost bronchial form.>take mushroom
Your fingers brush against the tenebrous coral hybrid and are now covered in some strange powder. If the organism is truly analogous to a fungal specimen, you suppose, perhaps, these are its spores.
Toddler protocol, activate!
>lick it
Cautiously, you extend your tongue and lick the powder off your fingertips. It tastes like a malignant combination of salt and earth. Almost immediately you begin to choke, the sensation of something germinating rapidly within the walls of your throat. Whatever it is seems to be sucking all the moisture from your windpipe as it grows exponentially, its branching structure blocking the air from entering your lungs.Your mouth and throat feel horribly dry. You cough painfully.
Er, I guess that note about it growing in “bronchial” fashion was a hint, or warning?
Well, in old-lady-who-swallowed-a-fly fashion, let’s see if we can go from bad to worse:
>d
You thrust your head down into the black water for just a moment and force yourself to swallow. The water seems to sate the lurking fungus, and when you rise up again you manage to cough it out. But for that moment you were underwater, you felt a rush of oxygen in your lungs…perhaps if you had a light, you could stay down there?
So, con, our lungs have been colonized by a parasitic fungus that lets us breathe underwater. But pro, our lungs have been colonized by a parasitic fungus that lets up breathe underwater! This was all completely the plan when I started putting random spores in my mouth.
Let’s see, that was a fairly direct hint about needing a light source. It’d have to be waterproof, but if you check our inventory from last session, you might notice we have:
a waterproof flashlight
Unfortunately I don’t think it worked…
>x flashlight
A small flashlight, with a rubber ring where it screws together to keep the water out.>turn it on
You flip the switch a few times, but no light is forthcoming. It must have burned out.>open it
You open the waterproof flashlight.>x it
A small flashlight, with a rubber ring where it screws together to keep the water out. It is currently open.It currently contains a small light bulb and a dead battery.
Promising, but guess we’ll need to come back once we find a replacement AAA?
The coffee confirms that we can still make progress here, so even though we seem to be stymied down here in the under-bridge, maybe there’s more we can accomplish topside – actually, that moss seemed phosphorescent, so maybe we can use that, and the flashlight is part of a different puzzle. Let’s head back up and see if we can check out that big cauldron near the top of the bridge.
We climb back up the rope, then:
>u
The imposing marble of the bridge is perfectly, unnaturally smooth - there are no places to place your hands or feet in order to climb. You might be able to climb the pipes on the side of the sculpture, though.
“Might” is as good as “will” to Nitocris:
>climb pipes
With a little difficulty, you manage to haul your way up the sculpture until you are about halfway up. From here, you can see a strange outline under the water.>x outline
The outline of some strange formation under the water catches your eye. Bleached white and unmoving - perhaps a skeleton?
Hmm, we might be able to repurpose some ribs for slats, it occurs to me.
Anyway, can we get some of the living moss from up here?
>x moss
From here you can see that the moss in the cauldron is the same kind as is down in the brazier, macerated by the dripping liquid falling from the crack in the ceiling and collecting in the pipes. It seems to flare up with each drop of liquid, filling the area with a flickering green light.>take it
The cauldron is too far away to reach, but the same liquid seems to flow down through the pipes into the shallow pool.
That would be too easy, of course, but it seems like we might be able to use this liquid to revivify the dead moss in the brazier? This place sure has a lot of stuff going on with fungi, spores, and other gross things.
I mentioned up-thread that plants kinda gross me out sometimes, right? I know fungi are biologically distinct, but they fall into the same “creepy vibes” heading. Like I remember hearing a radio story when I was a kid about how they’d discovered a fungus growing under the entire state of Michigan, which freaked me out a bunch until I got a little older and realized nothing could be that big. Then years after that I was curious what misunderstanding led to that news story, and discovered 1) it’s real, though 2) only about 100 acres, not under the whole state, but 3) is 500 years older than Jesus and still growing.
Lovecraft kind of undersold how sanity-blasting the world can sometimes be.
Anyway, Mike isn’t a fan but this is all par for course for Nitocris. We go back down and:
>put liquid in brazier
(first taking the pool of foul liquid)
You cup a bit in your bare hands, but it drips away, leaving only an oily residue which you rub away on your pants.
Maybe the other way around?
>put dead in pool
Which do you mean, the dry vegetation or the dead battery?>vegetation
You get a bit of changeable oil on the dry vegetation.
This doesn’t appear to do much, though (I wonder if there’s a small bug or something here? Feels like there should be more of a response).
On the theory that the grossest solution might the right one, I try eating more of the fungal powder, then seeing if I can drink the oil again, and turn my mouth into a lantern:
>drink liquid
You dip your fingers into the resplendent liquid and bring it to your lips. It has a abnormal metallic tang that cloys at the back of your throat until it starts to burn.This seems to sate the lurking powder in your throat, but only temporarily.
No such luck.
I also figure I’ll check out the death, just to be completionist:
>z
Time passes.You’re having difficulty breathing as the perfidious fungus clogs your windpipe, leeching every bit of moisture out of your tongue and throat.
>z
Time passes.You are gasping for air, but can get no relief. As your vision starts to blur and darken around the edges, you can feel the cancerous organism crawling up your throat, distending your windpipe until its branching fronds force your mouth open and you can feel it crawling over your lips.
*** You have drowned in the air ***
Yeah totally not gonna have nightmares about that.
At this point I realize that the message about putting oil on the vegetation and it not doing anything might have lead me astray. I take some of the stuff from the brazier, then:
>put flakes in pool
The flakes glow brightly for a few moments as they sink to the bottom of the pool before dissolving.
So that feels like we’re on the right track. Seems like we might need a portable receptacle to hold both the vegetation and the liquid? Looking through our inventory, we have that plastic bubble from the train station vending machine…
>put flakes in bubble
You put the flakes of plant matter into the plastic bubble.
Progress!
>put oil in bubble
(first taking the pool of foul liquid)
You cup a bit in your bare hands, but it drips away, leaving only an oily residue which you rub away on your pants.
At this point I type into the transcript “thought I could make a kinda cool little flashlight this way, but I’m guessing it’s not to be,” and realize I’m an idiot:
>open flashlight
You open the waterproof flashlight.>put flakes in flashlight
You pack the flakes of plant matter into the gap inside the flashlight.>put oil in flashlight
You coat the inside of the flashlight with the tenebrous oily liquid.
The flora blooms within the flashlight as it greedily sucks up the liquid, quickly doubling in size. As it macerates, it begins to softly glow around the edges until the entire specimen is incandescent with green light.
Waterproofing works both ways!
Incidentally, there’s a lot of macerating happening here, which I thought meant chewing, but apparently actually just means making a solid mass soggy by infusing it with liquid. So we’re still in super-gross Fletcherizing territory (we all know about Fletcherizing, the most unpleasant health fad of the 19th Century, where you had to chew every mouthful of food a hundred times until it devolved into a wet, flavorless slurry? “Nature will castigate those who don’t masticate!”)
Fortunately as an immortal ghoul-queen Nitocris doesn’t need to eat, so let’s just go underwater and be done with this place:
>d
You lower yourself down, through the ceiling of crashing water, until you’re beneath the surface. It is so cold you can feel your chest constricting and have to remind yourself to breathe. And surprisingly, down here, you can.Bridge (in the water underneath) (Daniel Stelzer and Jemma Briggeman)
Beneath the surface of the tumultuous river, it is strangely calm down here. The sickly green water glows around you in a spherical shape, pulsing in time with the luminescent moss. Through the haze of the turbid water, the bleached bones of some long dead creature almost shine with their pristine whiteness.A thick rope is your only lifeline anchoring you in the dark abyss.
Man, a third area! This is a big, big location no matter how you slice it.
>x bones
Lurking in the water before you, half-submerged in the silt, is the skeleton of some colossal beast. Its posture is contorted, as though it were twisting around to snap at something above it. The bones are completely bleached white; every scrap of flesh picked clean by a thousand passing creatures. Probably a predator, you determine from the sharp teeth, a few jagged and broken. Its cavernous jaw has been locked in place, open and inviting. The gap is just big enough to swim inside, if you are cautious.>x spock
You can’t see any such thing.
Sorry.
>x teeth
Which do you mean, the jagged teeth or the metal claw-trap?
Oh right, I’d forgotten there’s that claw thingy on our rope.
>jagged
Fangs might be a better word. Sharp, numerous, and utterly unforgiving; you feel very sorry for any creature prey to this poisonous creature.>take jagged
The jagged teeth are too large and unwieldy to lift.[If you wanted to hold onto them for support, try ENTER THE SKELETON.]
I was thinking we could use the teeth for slats, but guess we’re going in.
>enter the skeleton
Reluctantly letting go of the rope, you pull yourself through the water and into the mouth of the beast. Through the empty eye sockets, you can just make out your only anchor to the world above. You have to keep your limbs tight to your torso to prevent the sharp teeth raking across your skin; you’d hate to think what might come investigating down here if any blood spilled in the water.Bridge (Daniel Stelzer and Jemma Briggeman) (in the misshapen skeleton)
You’ve moved through the cavernous jaws of the long dead beast and into the cavity of its immense chest. The pulsing light from the moss causes the shadows cast by the ribcage to expand and contract; in the semi-gloom it almost looks as if the creature is still breathing.Several bones are loosely coupled to the skeleton now. They protrude from the spine at an oddly perpendicular angle, almost geometric in its sharpness.
A rope runs upward from a piece of metal sunken in the infernal silt nearby.
Fourth sub-location! Seems like the end is in sight, though, with those bones protruding at an angle that’s somehow “almost geometric” (the ancient Egyptians invented trigonometry, I believe, but I’m guessing Nitocris delegated all that).
>x bones
(the flat bones)
Unlike any skeleton or preserved fossil you have come across in any museum or textbook. These osseous structures are bizarrely flat and rectangular, protruding from the spine at an almost perfect right angle.
Let’s do what we came here to do.
>take bones
(the flat bones)
They’re firmly attached, some invasive species of coral cementing the skeleton in place. Although they do shift a bit in your grasp, you’ll have to apply a bit more force to dislodge them entirely.>g
(the flat bones)
They’re firmly attached, some invasive species of coral cementing the skeleton in place. Although they do shift a bit in your grasp, you’ll have to apply a bit more force to dislodge them entirely-perhaps you could pull them free?>pull bones
(the flat bones)
With a violent shove you manage to dislodge the bones from the skeleton. Fragments of coral spiral down into the silt, never to be seen again.>take bones
(the flat bones)
Taken.
Whew! We get out, but when we try to climb the rope with them:
>u
The bones are impossibly heavy; every inch toward the surface is a chore. You are never going to get much further with their added weight. You’ll have to think of another way to get them to the surface.
Fortunately, that disambiguation issue earlier put another way top of mind:
>put bones in claw
(the flat bones in the metal claw-trap)
You put the flat bones into the metal claw-trap.>close claw
You force the teeth shut around the flat bones.
We go up!
>u
You pull on the rope, doing your best not to get caught in the current as your head breaks the surface of the water. You feel the spongiform blockage in your throat dissolve, your lungs filling with untainted oxygen.
And again!
>u
You haul yourself upward, the rope digging into your hands leaving them red and sore. With tremendous effort you finally pull yourself back over the edge of the bridge.
If it was that hard just to heave ourselves back up, are we even going to be able to haul the bones up?
>pull rope
You tug hard, finding that something beneath the water pulls against you with equal or even greater force in the very opposite direction, till you are almost dragged off your feet and into the water. A second later, the strange force relents, and you stumble backward, pulling the anchor up onto the bridge.
Fortunately Nitocris is a badass.
>put bones on bridge
(first taking the flat bones)
The bones fit into position easily, settling into the gaps left by the missing slats. You look down at your feet and finally notice: the entire walkway is constructed of the parts of this long dead, unspeakable creature. You shiver involuntarily as your mind begins to imagine what diabolical race of beings would use bone as architecture. You shake the thought from your mind - it is time to leave this place.
I’ll say! I’m guessing this trip has made Nitocris skip some gym days, but this bridge has definitely given us a workout.
(rest of the chapter to come soon)