I don’t think any apologies are necessary. I got nowhere in this room initially, then about the same when I came back to the “rooms where I got nowhere” basket. Admittedly at basket time, I was out of patience with the rooms in the basket.
-Wade
3 Likes
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)
7 Likes
Congrats on passing the bridge puzzle—I recall this being a major stumbling block for some folks when CM first came out. (I’m some folks.) Since it’s also the choke point limiting access to parts east, that flashlight caused a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth. (The gnashed teeth were mine.)
2 Likes
The one I’ve been waiting for, and I was not disappointed! I love the writeup and I’m glad you made it through the puzzle all right.
This is, in fact, a single “room” in I7 terms, though we definitely pushed the spirit of the rules there.
3 Likes
(Chapter the Sixth, continued)
>e
Outside Pub (Jason Lautzenheiser)
As the street runs east through this side of town, it narrows as the jagged rooftops on either side of the road reach out to each other. To the north is the pub. You can continue to the west where you see a bridge. As you pause on the narrow brick sidewalk which lays unevenly along the ugly, half-crumbling brick walls, you hear a train whistle in the distance. A sign hangs loosely above the pub entrance and to the side is a murky window.You can see a newspaper box and a rusty piece of metal here.
Jason Lautzenheiser has written a couple horror games, apparently, though I’m not familiar with them myself. EDIT: perhaps more significantly, he’s also the current lead developer on Trizbort, the tool I’ve been using to make all the maps!
And ho hum, we’re back in the overworld again. Nice that we’ve fetched up by the pub, after all that work at the bridge we could definitely go for a drink (pour one out for the poor souls from West Backwater who need to go to a lot of trouble to grab a pint with the lads).
…actually, speaking of the bridge, par for course I realize I never X ME’d there, or confirmed with the coffee that we’re done. As to the latter, yes, we are, and as to the former:
>x me
You’re having a hell of a day, but you’re determined to keep moving forward. Despite the burning in your limbs and the fact that you could really do with a drink right now, you’re still (miraculously) in one piece. Your hair falls in damp straggles around your ears, occasionally dripping water into your eyes. Your clothes are weighted down with water and every breeze steals a little bit more heat from your freezing skin.
…Okay, I swear, I wrote those comments about being sore and thirsty before I’d read this description. A spooky coincidence – or just good writing. I actually really enjoyed working through the bridge puzzles, they were tough but well done, with the flashlight thing counting as an aha moment. Nicely done, Daniel and Jemma!
Anyway, back east we go, and let’s do this first off:
>x me
The wind is blowing through your hair as you walk through this area of town making you look a bit unkempt.
Man, if we’re only a bit unkempt now, there must have been a whole lot of interstitial kemptening happening as we got down off the bridge.
So what’s the name of our local? The Cragne Arms? The Rose and Tentacle?
>x sign
The painted wood sign is faded near-unreadability. But you think the last two words are “Last Home”.
Other scenery:
>x road
The dirt road outside the pub runs east to west. It narrows here outside the pub.>x sidewalk
The uneven sidewalk looks like it hasn’t been repaired in quite some time. You see many loose bricks and you risk tripping over them if you’re not careful.>x walls
The brick walls have seen better days. You see many areas where the mortar has crumbled away and it looks like you could remove the bricks without much trouble.
Maybe we can break into the back room of the pub this way, and get free booze?
>remove bricks
You aren’t wearing loose bricks.
Er, I mean:
>take bricks
Taken.
Upon examination, though, the wall is intact, we just have some bricks (handy!)
>x window
You move closer to the window and attempt to peer through. It’s dark inside and the window is very dirty, but you see human-like shapes moving around inside.>clean window
You rub the murky window, but all the dirt seems to be on the inside and you can’t clean it enough to see thru.
The other main attraction here is the newspaper box:
>x box
The metal paperbox has a door, with a foggy glass window through which you can still see some of the newspapers inside. There is a large handle that would be used to open the box and beside the handle is a coin slot and a faded sign that reads “25 cents.” One of the legs of the rusted paperbox has broken away and has left the newspaper box leaning at an angle. A rusty bar of metal, which appears to be the remains of the leg, lies on the sidewalk.In the newspaper box are some yellowed newspapers.
>x newspapers
Through the foggy window you can just make out part of the headline, “Ful… Court …Dead.”
Oh, that might be another clue to the makeup of that court thing I was seeing pop up repeatedly – I’ll probably need this for later.
>open box
The normal way of opening it would be to put a quarter in the coin slot. Maybe you can look at the slot.>x coin slot
The coin slot is the size of a quarter, so you’d expect to be able to put one in to get a newspaper. But the slot’s too full of grime and rust to fit a quarter.>clean coin slot
You rub the coin slot.
That didn’t do much, but we don’t have a quarter so the point is somewhat moot.
The location description said the box is missing one leg:
>x leg
The remains of the broken leg is light and sturdy and long enough to stretch from your hand to your elbow.>take it
Taken.
Since it’s not looking like we’ll be able to do this the legit way, let’s choose crime:
>break box
You swing the leg at the glass window, but it’s too light to do any real damage.
There’s more where that came from:
>pull box
You push on the paperbox and it wobbles, but it isn’t quite enough to knock it over.>kick box
That verb doesn’t work here, or, at least, not right now, but it might work somewhere later.
I swear, I only noticed the pun after I’d typed that.
>hit box
You swing the leg at the glass window, but it’s too light to do any real damage.>beat box
That verb doesn’t work here, or, at least, not right now, but it might work somewhere later.
Those were intentional.
Anyway, let’s take this to its inevitable conclusion:
>throw bricks at box
You throw the brick as hard as you can at the paperbox. It hits the window just right, shattering the glass.The glass of the paperbox is now broken out.
In the newspaper box are some yellowed newspapers.
Look, maybe that wasn’t 100% within the spirit of the law, but they say print is dead, Nitocris is a queen of the dead, it’s all fine.
>x newspapers
The paper is dated, July 26, 1970. The headline reads “Fulvous Alderman of the Variegated Court Found Dead.”Below the headline is a photo of someone you assume is Fulvous dressed in all black with black tie and black top hat. He is standing in front of an old church and strangely enough, there’s a duck at his feet, almost posing.
The article reads, “Fulvous Alderman of the Variegated Court was found dead yesterday. His body was found by an unnamed man who was exploring a remote area when he came across an abandoned white house. When the young man entered through a back window to explore the home, he found the body of Fulvous in the attic. He was slumped over a table with what appears to be a ceremonial dagger in his back. Other than the knife and some dull orange duck feathers scattered around the room, no other clues were found regarding the culprit or the motive.”
Well, that’s certainly a story! The details are ambiguous, but still, if we come across a duck later on, we’re crossing the street and not making eye contact.
We take one of the papers, to refresh our memory later on. And the coffee tells us we’re done here – slightly less involved than the bridge!
Obviously, we’re doing the pub before going down the road.
>n
The Invisible Worm (Sam Kabo Ashwell)
A dimly-lit tavern, old enough that all its straight lines have worn or warped slightly out of shape, and everything feels cluttered and a little too small; you’ve had apartments with living-rooms bigger than this. Heavy, dark beams support a low ceiling, and the walls are crowded with ancient farm tools and yellowing photographs. A cramped doorway, south, leads back outside.The bartender impassively surveys the room. He might have raised his eyebrows slightly in acknowledgement as you entered, but you wouldn’t swear to it.
Old-timers monopolize the fireplace nook; a straggle of teenagers hunch in a corner.
The old-timers wax poetic about the time Amos Gorse was wanted for breaking and entering and fled to Canada.
So the sign didn’t actually say “last home”, it was just hard to read because that squiggle was actually an invisible worm.
Speaking of things that are invisible, Sam Kabo Ashwell is an IF luminary, a prolific author through the aughts of games including Invisible Parties (see what I did there?), and besides that organizes the XYZZY Awards and I believe wrote the blog post that popularized “time cave” as a term for a non-branching structure in choice-based narratives.
What do we look like now?
>x me
As good-looking as ever.You bear the trauma of a woman who has been eye to eye with an eburnean pond kraken.
The in-transit kemptening continues.
Scenery!
>x beams
Old, blackened wood, worn smooth by generations of head injuries sustained by those taller than five foot ten.The old-timers argue about how Cowper Windham’s eldest won’t be causing any more commotion.
Look, what do they need to be so tall for anyway.
>x walls
The difference between a museum and a midden is mostly organisation. This falls about halfway in between: at some point someone rummaged through a series of old sheds and barns, grabbed anything with no useful future, and pegged it to the wall. You can identify about half of it, horseshoes and scythes and the like: the remainder suggests either the management of very odd livestock, an art student newly possessed of a welding-iron, or highly specialised forms of sexual deviancy.Most of it is affixed to the wall with wire and nails; but just about at eye level, on the wall facing the bar, there’s a well-used whetstone that’s just balanced on a couple of wooden pegs.
Another difference between a museum and a midden is that that they usually wash exhibits before they put them on display, just saying.
We X PEGS, which gives the same response save for the last bit:
The whetstone’s still there, protected only by the implicit rules of social behaviour and the barman’s vigilance over same.
Hint hint.
>x whetstone
A dark grey, smooth whetstone, great for sharpening any cutting implements.
Yeah, we’ll be taking that.
>take it
Nothing about the bartender’s manner suggests tolerance of rude tourists. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to steal the decor while he’s watching.
…we’ll be taking that eventually. Let’s keep checking out the environs, including the not-very-communicative patrons:
>x photos
Floods of sepia; you don’t think there’s anything dating from after the 1940s. It’s mostly portraits and group shots; their subjects look world-weary and frayed around the edges, and nobody seems comfortable. The women are uncertain, prepared to be angry, as though the camera is being wielded by an unfavored nephew who can’t be trusted with the exercise; the men are ciphers, eyes tired and defensive in a mask of weathered flesh.The old-timers discuss the time Virgil Burris horsewhipped Abel Ditch.
>x fireplace
Cosy. Warm. Keeps off the chill of the night. Unfortunately, the old-timers have staked out the space nearest to it, as they probably have for the past thirty years.The old-timers discuss how Amity Waters’s son got no better than he deserved.
>x old-timers
The three old boys around the fireplace - one pipe-smoker, one roll-up, one Lucky Strike - are fumigating the premises and talking shit about their families and neighbors.>ask old-timers about abel
They’re too wrapped up in their conversation to pay you any notice - but one of them darts his eyes at the others, and another’s fingers twitch in a gesture that might be to ward off the evil eye.The old-timers speak of the time Hugh Poole got Humility Snow’s eldest in trouble. It’s unclear whether this happened last week or last century.
>x teenagers
Not conspicuously blessed with the radiant bloom of golden youth; nor a grasp of basic hair care. They’re nursing their beer with sullen frugality of a last round, so either they’re broke or the barman’s tolerance is approaching its limit.>ask teenagers about beer
They stare back at you with blank (and slightly fish-like) contempt.The old-timers converse upon the time Reproof Chilton’s nephew got a wild hair and horsewhipped a flashy fellow from Portland.
“Reproof Chilton”? Nice work, Random Puritan Generator.
>x barman
The bartender is working to perfect a back-of-house look: tattoos on forearm and neck, dirty-blonde dreadlocks kerchiefed back, a beard that makes it hard to read his age or mood. A broad face, stub-nosed. A broad body in a metal T-shirt. With deeper wrinkles or a few extra inches of height, he’d give off an air of menace; as it is he mostly gives off an air of watching the clock until he can sneak out back for a weed break.>x t-shirt
It’s a tour t-shirt with HAMMERHEART on it, much-worn. The nearest show was in Boston, looks like.>x clock
You can’t see any such thing.
Well that explains why he hasn’t snuck out yet. He doesn’t seem the most chatty, but bartenders always love to lend an ear, don’t they?
>ask barman about teenagers
He ignores you completely.>ask barman about old-timers
He grunts in response.>ask barman about whetstone
“Look, either order something or don’t talk to me,” the bartender responds. “I got stuff to do.” He proves his point by picking up a single loose olive and dropping it into the garnish caddy.
Sadly, the olives are not actually implemented, nor is the garnish caddy. As I confirm this, I overhear this bit of dialogue:
The old-timers squabble over what the deal was with the smallpox bees.
Pretty sure that’s a reference to the X-Files movie (and pretty sure that I do not, in fact, remember what the deal with them was, if it was ever explained).
Well, only one thing to do:
>order beer
“Cragne tab, yeah?” grunts the bartender, and appears to interpret the confused noise you make as assent. So presumably your orders are covered here? Or get billed to the house? You are not reassured.The beer may be a local brew, but it isn’t really distinguishable from any cheap beer you’ve ever had. It’s watery and kind of stale-tasting.
That’s unimpressive – and what’s more, I don’t even get to hang on to it to bribe and/or inebriate anyone standing in my way!
The beer’s not great, but maybe there are better options?
>order vodka
He gives you a shrug and an expression that might be regret or might be the beginnings of a sneer. Evidently their offerings are limited.>order martini
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order rum
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order grog
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order bloody mary
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order virgin pina colada
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order shirley temple
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order coke
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order water
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.
Come to think of it, what kind of beer are we even drinking?
>order ale
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order porter
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order stout
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order lager
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order pilsner
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order amber ale
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order IPA
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order doppelbock
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order shandy
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order marzen
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order wiessbier
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order tripel
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order lambic
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.>order saison
Shrug. Doesn’t look like they offer that, either.
What are we drinking???
Only one more thing I can think to try:
>give cash to barman
The bartender doesn’t seem interested.
I don’t think much of his business sense.
The coffee indicates we need something from elsewhere so we’re done here for now, though the ambient events randomizer serves up this gem on our way out:
The old-timers talk about whether the Spice Girls represent the right direction for feminism.
>ask old-timers what they want, what they really really want
You can’t see any such thing.
Let’s pop back outside, then take a quick look at what’s down the road – hopefully nothing too involved as this update’s getting long!
>e
Constabulary Road (Harkness Munt)
The road phases into little more than a wide dirt track winding from the west towards the edge of town to the northeast. A paved walk wanders through an iron gate which interrupts a high stone wall looming to the north. A memorial bench sits just outside its shadow. A tangled rampart of trees and dense undergrowth obstructs passage to the south.A barricade spans the road to the northeast, and beyond it a large shallow pit is being excavated. If you’re careful, you could skirt the edges of the pit and continue along the northeast road.
A man stands near the barricade. He appears to be contemplating the contents of the dig site.
A grad student works fastidiously on the fossilized bones in the pit.
Hmm, an interesting little place, some NPCs to talk to, a couple different exits branching off… wait, back up a tick:
Constabulary Road (Harkness Munt)
HARKNESS MUNT?
That is an amazing name, and while I sorta can’t believe it’s real, apparently s/he won IntroComp 2019. Nice work, Harkness!
First things first:
>x me
You brush an errant tentacle from your fifth eye and quickly check yourself over. All of your writhing slime-streaked appendages seem to be in order. Gill slits are gorgeous. Your ventral scales could use a bit of a polish though.
Ah, as we get closer to the manor, we assume our true and dreadful form.
>gibber
That verb doesn’t work here, or, at least, not right now, but it might work somewhere later.>squelch
That verb doesn’t work here, or, at least, not right now, but it might work somewhere later.
Still a bit of a ways to go before we hit Full Cthulhu, though.
>x gate
A set of spiked wrought iron bars towers across an opening in the north wall. On a section of the wall adjacent to the gate rests a large bronze plaque.>x plaque
A bronze plaque which reads “Municipal Jail”.
Hoping we don’t need to spend too much time here.
>x structure
An immense and very official-looking building is visible to the north at the end of a long paved walkway.>x wall
A high wall constructed of cyclopean granite slabs broken by a sweep of wrought iron and a paved walkway. It bears a large bronze plaque near the gate.
Cyclopean! (drink)
>x bench
A wooden bench bearing the inscription “This room is dedicated to the memory of Christine Cunningham (Ataraxy).”
I’m assuming that’s her maiden name? “Ataraxy” is from the Greek, meaning free of disturbance (it’s a concept developed by the Stoics). So basically she could have been Christine Hakuna Matata, pre-marriage.
(Though weren’t we all, pre-marriage?)
(I kid!)
What about that “rampart of trees” and undergrowth to the south?
>x rampart
Dim old growth forest cloaks the land south of the road, an impenetrable mass of gnarled limbs and thorny understory.You hear something skittering in the undergrowth.
>listen
You hear nothing unexpected.>search undergrowth
You find nothing of interest.
From this I’m not sure whether this is a blocked exit (I can’t go south), or just environmental detail?
>x pit
Much of the road has been transformed into what appears to be a paleontological dig site. A substantial mass of soil has been dredged up to form a terraced pit with a fossilized cluster of bones partially revealed within. You may have room to skirt around the outside if you wish to travel northeast.>x bones
The mineralized remains of a gargantuan predatory beast.You don’t know much about ancient bones. Perhaps the paleontologist could tell you more.
>take bones
That’s hardly portable.
Worked for us last time!
>x barricade
A long yellow barricade cordons off a pit dug into the roadway.>x grad student
The young man focuses intently on the task of unearthing the fossil.>x paleontologist
The paleontologist in charge of the excavation.
Let’s open up a conversation:
>ask paleontologist about grad student
He seems surprised.“Huh, what was that? Oh, hello. Sorry, bit distracted there. This is an amazing find! What was it you needed again? Dr. Daniel West from Miskaton University, by the way.” He moves to shake your hand. “Just call me Dan.”
>ask dan about dan
“Me? I’m just a humble scientist from good old Miskaton U up in Anchorhead. Creepy town, crazy people, but one of the best schools on the east coast.”>ask dan about anchorhead
“Anchorhead would be a lovely town if it weren’t for the cultists. What is the name of that god they worship? You don’t happen to know, do you?”
Erm. It’s been a minute and I don’t remember off the top of my head, but I don’t feel bad about Googling this – Nitocris is 100% in the same bowling league as this dude.
>ask dan about IALDABAOLOTH
“Aha! That’s the name of that god those cultists like to worship! The Great Old One, Ialdabaoloth! Bunch of ridiculous superstitious nonsense, if you ask me. You know, a few decades back a bunch of townsfolk up in Anchorhead and even a few professors at Miskaton claimed they saw the beastie appear in the sky over the old lighthouse.”Suddenly, Dan’s assistant breaks his silence. “Hey, Dr. West? You should really come look at this.”
“The student speaks! What have you found?”
“You’ll never believe this. There are impressions of what appear to be tentacles here.”
Dan scrambles down into the pit in a flurry of excitement. “Tentacles? Soft tissue preservation? This is even more extraordinary than we thought! I’m so happy I could fhtagn! Wait. What did I just say?”
The grad student begins to sway back and forth, giggling. “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Ialdabaoloth R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.” With that he drives his pickaxe into the paleontologist’s skull, utters one final “fhtagn!”, then does the same to himself.
See, this is why we don’t talk about IALDABAOLOTH!
(Maybe should have stuck with lower-case).
Let’s undo and see if there’s anything else we can get out of these fellows before re-triggering the murder-suicide.
>ask dan about miskaton
“Beautiful campus and a great geology and paleontology department. If you ever find yourself in a town called Anchorhead you should take a tour. Just keep your distance from the townsfolk. Most of them are cultists who worship some wacky tentacled god. Can’t remember the thing’s name.”
My man certainly has a death wish.
>ask dan about fossil
“So what are you doing here?” you ask.“Excellent question. At first, I thought we were wasting our time digging out a hoax, but after the preliminary lab results, it appears we’re unearthing the greatest scientific find of the century! You see the vertebral structure? It’s obviously piscine, and the armored plating on the anterior portion of the body along with the shearing toothplates clearly indicates that it’s an exceptionally large arthrodire, most likely from the Devonian.”
You just nod uncomprehendingly as he continues.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking. How could a fish possess clawed limbs? Surely it’s a tetrapod? Not so! The limb structure is inconsistent with any known vertebrate, fossil or extant, and the rock strata isn’t Devonian at all. It’s Cambrian! Both radiometric dating and analysis of surrounding fossil material confirms it! This will rewrite the entire history of life on this planet. Let Herbert suck on this one!”
That would be an unusually advanced level of skeletal development for the Cambrian, from my very limited knowledge, but the real revelation here is the confirmation that this is Herbert West’s brother – now we don’t need to worry about the whole pickaxe-to-the-head thing, Herb West, Re-Animator, will be by to sort things presently.
>ask dan about cragne
“I’m afraid I don’t really have much to say on that subject. Look, if it’s not about the fossil then I should probably be getting back to work. This beastie won’t crawl out of the ground on its own.”>ask student about himself
He just gives a quick irritated wave as if to say sod off then returns to his work.
I’m not able to get anything more from 'em.
Bored now:
>ask dan about IALDABAOLOTH
[snip]
>x student
The bodies of the paleontologist and his student sprawl lifeless in the bottom of the excavation site. Both have exsanguinated from a pickaxe wound to the head.>x pickaxe
Blood and brain matter enrobes the pointy end.
So was the point of all this to get a handy-dandy digging implement?
>take it
That’s hardly portable.
Was it to dig out the fossil?
>take fossil
That’s hardly portable.
Umm, there was a point to this, right? The coffee says we’re done here, but I have to confess I didn’t check it pre-killings so perhaps in another, better world Dan and his surly student could stick around indefinitely. Alas, they encountered Nitocris, not Naomi, Cragne.
Let’s leave things here!
Inventory:
You are carrying:
a rusty piece of metal
some yellowed newspapers
loose bricks
a fungal powder
a wad of cash
a golden eyepiece
a moldy, waterlogged journal
a plastic bubble (open but empty)
a brass winding key
a suitcase (open but empty)
an employee ID card
a soggy tome
a long hooked pole
a shard of shattered carapace
a grimy rock
a Jansport backpack (being worn and open)
a key pocket (open but empty)
a book pocket (open)
Twin Hearts Between the Planes
The Modern Girl’s Divination Handbook – Volume Three
a postcard of Big Ben
the diary of Phyllis Cragne
a side pocket (open)
a book list
a trash pocket (open)
a pamphlet of home listings
a glass jar containing an insect
a cast iron spire
a backpack features guide
a library card
Peter’s jacket
a half-full styrofoam coffee cup
a repaired page
a waterproof flashlight
a pull-string doll
an antique locket (being worn and closed)
a faint chill (haunting you)
a giant milkweed leaf (being worn as a mask)
a label (being worn)
a familiar gold wristwatch (being worn)
Map!
(This is getting kind of squished, after next update I might separate the stuff west of the bridge from the stuff to the east).
The transcript:
Cragne session 6.txt (139.3 KB)
The save:
cragne session 6 save.txt (50.5 KB)
Unfinished locations
- Train Station Lobby: locked green door
- Church Exterior: locked door to church
- Shack Exterior: locked door to shack
- Town Square: Navajo-language ring puzzle of doom
- Backwater Library: book collectathon, obtain grimoire
- Drinking Fountain: ???
- Under the Bridge: rusty hatch
- Pub: steal the whetstone
5 Likes
I don’t know anything about Harkness Munt, but Jason Lautzenheiser is also one of the major forces behind Trizbort. My impression is that he’s better-known for that than for his games.
3 Likes
Thanks! I actually went back and un-spoilered @mathbrush’s blurry-text about the part that made a lot of people rage-quit, and sure enough it was the bridge (at least it wasn’t a maze!) I can see why, since as you say it is a choke point and the flashlight bit of the puzzle is tricky.
Great, glad you liked the writeup! I definitely did a bit more flailing around “off-screen”, if you check the transcript, but I had a lot of fun here – there’s lots of cool environmental detail, the writing is suitably Lovecraftian, and the puzzle chain is satisfying to worry away at and makes perfect sense in retrospect.
Also gratified I was right about it being one room – I can only imagine the scope-management trickery that went into keeping everything tidy.
Anyway, congrats on a cool room!
Ah, thanks for flagging that – I knew the name sounded familiar but then the games weren’t ringing any bells. I’ll make an update.
2 Likes
Ditto.
-Wade
1 Like
You didn’t ask for bitter.
2 Likes
This has been fun! There are several paths you can take now, but I’m hopeful that you’ll soon encounter the (moderate spoiler) meatpacking plant bathroom. That’s probably the room I’m most looking forward to seeing your reaction about in the game. I’m looking forward to bewilderment and disbelief.
3 Likes
Thanks! This thread is great for my self-esteem.
That’s true – I have to confess that’s not a beer category that looms at all large for me, since I think here in the U.S. it’s not that big a deal and is basically subsumed into the ales-that-aren’t-IPAs category (I don’t like IPAs myself, but outside of the mainstream lagers they’re like 90% of what’s on offer here, especially in California where I live).
Anyway, you’ll be shocked to learn the pub doesn’t carry any bitter, either, nor real ale, which I think covers the major U.K. specialties!
I’ve actually already played the next chapter – the writeup usually takes me a day or two, so I’m typically a bit ahead of where the thread is – so I peeked under your spoiler text. I haven’t gotten there yet, but I did just open up the place where that room is located and was planning on exploring there next, so depending on how big the area winds up being I expect we’ll get there in chapter 8ish (also, after seeing how gross the entryway here was, I’ve now got my expectations appropriately set for something even worse!)
6 Likes
I love every room in this game, but the room you’re referring to is the one that got me to show Cragne Manor to people who otherwise have no interest in IF.
4 Likes
Chapter the Seventh – Captives and Covenants
We left off with a choice between checking out the town jail, or heading to the eastern outskirts of Backwater; perhaps foolhardily, I pick the former to prioritize finishing up my reconnoiter of the town.
>n
The closed gate bars your way.
Oh well, guess they’re not taking visitors, no jail for us. I’ll just confirm it’s locked before going on my way.
>open gate
At the slightest brush of your fingertips, the gates slowly begin to creak open.
Phooey.
Backwater Jail (Marshal Tenner Winter)
The air is stale in this wood-paneled sheriff’s office. You feel as if you’ve stepped back in time maybe twenty years as the office furnishings in here are simple and utilitarian. A desk, generic in style but wide enough for an outdated-looking computer, is near the window. A swivel chair is behind it and a wooden visitors chair is on the other side. Despite the meager light that creeps in the window, there’s still a bleak glow from fluorescent bulbs overhead. Other furnishings include a file cabinet and, what appears to be, a locker that was literally ripped out of a high school and placed against the wall in here.Otherwise, a cheap door with a unisex bathroom sign on it is to the west and a secure door, obviously the lock-up, is to the north. The exit is south.
On the desk is a clipboard holding some paperwork.
Oof, this guy. Somehow managing to bring ~drama~ to the generally low-key world of interactive fiction, he’s the only person I know to actually get banned from IF Comp; since then he’s also notorious for engaging in high-effort, low-effectiveness trolling of the Comp and organizer. Prior to that he wrote a bunch of games, but go figure the obsessive stalkerish stuff kind of overshadows things.
My rather negative initial impression is deepened by getting only a default “as good-looking as ever” in response to X ME, but I guess we’ll see how this goes.
>x desk
It’s a heavy, wide generic desk made of thick wood and metal. There is an outdated computer with a nicotine-stained monitor on it. There is a Post-it® note on the monitor.On the generic desk is a clipboard.
>x post-it
Rookies-
Keep the evidence key in the last arrestee’s file. It’s usually the active file.
-Sarge.
Nice security system you’ve got here, Sarge.
Also, are we sure Nitocris is right that this is a sheriff’s office? Sergeant is a police rank, this should be a Chief Deputy or something like that (police forces are for cities and towns, sheriffs for counties – the office of sheriff actually has a long history, going back to the shire-reeves of medieval England). She’s probably basing her guess on the sign out front saying this is a jail, as incarceration is typically a sheriff’s responsibility, but it did say municipal jail…
>x computer
It looks bulky, even by today’s standards, and on it is a faded decal stating, “…ateway”. The nicotine-stained monitor sitting before it might bear a closer look.>turn it on
You try to switch on the outdated computer, but you realize that someone’s taken all the power cords, rendering the thing useless.
I’m not sure there’s much law enforcement happening in Backwater these days.
>x monitor
This bulky monitor, roughly the size of a child’s coffin, looks heavy and grimey. Whoever worked with this computer and monitor must’ve smoked like a Turkish tobacco caliph. The whole thing is sticky with a jaundiced film and the screen is covered with smudged fingerprints.On the nicotine-stained monitor is a Post-it® note.
I’m sorry, a child’s coffin? I remember those big old CRTs, they’re way too cuboidal for that to make sense.
>x swivel
It’s your standard black pleather office swivel chair.>sit on it
You get onto the swivel chair.>swivel
You amuse yourself momentarily by swiveling on the office chair. Alas, however, the fun fades all too quickly and you return to the living nightmare that is your life.
Aww c’mon, in my head-canon at least Nitocris has more joie de vivre than that! Or, er, joie de mourir I suppose.
We can’t swivel on the plain-jane visitor’s chair, so that’s no fun.
>x window
Which do you mean, the secure door or the office window?>office
The view isn’t really great.>x secure
Unlike the cheap bathroom door, this secure door is newer and noticeably stronger. Beyond is the lock-up for any arrestees, you figure. There is a small window of thick glass and wire mesh to allow one to look into the cell but it’s too dark and smudged to actually see anything in there, unfortunately.
That about does it for the trappings, let’s look at the important-seeming bits:
>x cabinet
It’s a wide, cream-colored file cabinet. It’s about waist-high.>open it
You open the file cabinet, revealing some disorganized files.>x files
(Insert spooky whistling here)
It’s as if the staff here really did just jam papers, files, reports, and folders any way they damn well pleased. Many paper dogears stick up from the chaos.
>search files
The files are a mess. If you knew the name on the file you wanted, it would be easier to grab it.>x cragne
A small brown book with embossed letters on the front, mostly worn away, spelling “DIARY”. Inside it’s filled with spidery letters in faded ink. According to the name inscribed inside the cover, this belonged to Phyllis Cragne.You think you remember your husband speaking of a “Great Aunt Phyl,” a sprightly old lady who haunted his earliest memories and always wore tartan trousers.
>look up cragne in files
You discover nothing of interest in the disorganized files.
My in-laws must be super law-abiding people for none of their vast clan to have a rap sheet. Yup, that’s the only possible explanation!
>x locker
It’s a tall locker that seems to have been literally ripped out of a high school hallway and placed here.>open it
It’s locked.>x clipboard
This is a clipboard holding together some paperwork that seems to be some sort of daily ledger.>x ledger
This is a list of the day’s arrestees. The date is a week old with no further entries beyond it. The entries are:
Jeff Moore - public intoxication.
Alana Cook - possession of cannabis.
Matthew Grobe - discharging a firearm within city limits.
Tony Overton - disorderly conduct.
Robert Morales - reckless driving.
Eugene Kunkle - petty theft.
Here’s more evidence for our “this is actually a police station” theory – that firearm offense is happening within city limits. Of course it’s possible that as a small town, Backwater contracts out to the county sheriff’s office for law enforcement services, but I’m guessing the Cragnes prefer to avoid any out of town entanglements, and since I’m guessing they’re the town’s biggest taxpayers (and once, employers, though I think we heard the meatpacking plant shut down?) they probably have the influence to make that happen.
Er, key to the locker was in the most recent arrestee’s file, right?
>look up kunkle in files
You discover nothing of interest in the disorganized files.
Are we doing this right?
>take files
The files are a mess. If you knew the name on the file you wanted, it would be easier to grab it.>take kunkle
Taken.
Blarg, that’s an annoying implementation oversight. Also disappointing, none of the other folks on the list have files we can check out, so that’s a wasted opportunity for some additional color. Anyway, what have we got?
>x kunkle
A meager file; the arrest report gives few real details of anything. Apparently this Eugene Kunkle stole a library book. Otherwise, nothing useful can be gleaned from the paperwork within.In the Kunkle file is an aluminum key.
Ah, that’s one more for the scavenger hunt! Still many many to go, but still, progress is progress. Let’s grab that book, then check out the exits (there’s the bathroom and that secure door, which looks like it goes to the jail cells).
>unlock locker with aluminum
You unlock the evidence locker.>open it
You swing open the locker and are greeting by a desiccated corpse falling into you. Startled beyond rational thought, you collapse to the ground, beneath the corpse, unconscious.Padded cell (Marius Müller)
The overhead lightbulb in its wire-mesh cage barely lights the room. Everything here seems a colorless beige - the cracked floor tiles, the thick cloth padding on the walls. A padded door leads south.A metal chest stands in a corner of the room.
Steady on, Nitocriss! For us being locked in an embrace with a desiccated corpse isn’t a sanity-blasting horror, it’s a hot date on Saturday night. I dunno, maybe the body was a cousin or something.
Regardless, I think we’re now experiencing Video Game Trope #17, “captured by baddies and stripped of your inventory, but it’s all in a chest five feet away.”
>i
You are carrying:
a faint chill (haunting you)
a strait jacket (being worn)
Yup yup – at least the orderlies didn’t manage to take our chill. This straitjacket is the more immediate concern, and that plus the padding makes me wonder whether we’re not in the jail, but that other mainstay of social control in Lovecraftian towns, a mental hospital? Guess we’ll find out when we leave.
>x jacket
It’s a canvas strait jacket, the kind used to immobilize violent or spastic mental patients. It fastens up the back with a complex series of buckles and straps, while the sleeves cross the chest and fasten around back, making it quite impossible to escape.>x me
You look about as you’d expect after everything that happened to you in all the other rooms.
Ha, well played (checks) Marius Muller. Looks like he was a prolific author in the early teens, when I wasn’t paying as much attention to IF, though I do note from IFDB that he won the Saugus Ghost Story contest in 2015 – apparently someone at the town library in Saugus, MA is into IF, so they have a category for games in their annual Halloween writing contest.
>x bulb
Its an old-fashioned, big, glass one. You might have some use for it, if it weren’t protected by a cage of wire mesh.>x cage
A thin, fragile looking wire-mesh cage houses the lightbulb, presumably to keep patients from messing with it. One corner of it has been pulled outward, and the whole thing seems to hold to the ceiling only barely.
If it’s a glass bulb, we might be able to break it and use that to cut our way free. That cage doesn’t seem like it’ll be too much of a challenge. Still, let’s see what else is around before we start breaking stuff:
>x tiles
The uneven floor tiles are cracked and smeared with dirt. In your mind, you compare them to other floors you’ve seen in the Manor.
Our bout of unconsciousness appears to have made us come unstuck in time – or we’re mad, and have false memories of flooring.
>x padding
Thick cloth padding covers the floors and ceiling, fastened by deep-set buttons. One of them catches your eye. Where all the others are cloth-covered, this one is brass.>x door
It’s a thick, padded door.>x brass
It’s a brass button that, on closer inspections, looks more like a knob.
Well that’s intriguing.
>turn knob
You’d need your hands for that.>take hands
You can’t see any such thing.
Worth a shot.
>x chest
A metal, military looking chest with a lot of complicated snaps. The lid doesn’t close fully. Through the crack you can see a wad of cash.
No way you’ll open it while stuck in this damn strait jacket.
Yup, there’s our stuff.
OK, let’s get out of here – we can’t grab the bulb directly since it’s too high up, but there should be an easy fix for that:
>stand on chest
It’s surprisingly hard to do without your hands, but you manage to climb onto the chest. The metal is cold beneath your feet.>cut jacket
That seems to be your only hope of escaping that thing, but how?>touch cage
The height is right, but the bulb and its housing is out of reach in the middle of the room.
An easy fix:
>push chest
It’s hard, knee-aching work, as you half-squat and push the heavy chest with your thigh and shin. After a few painfully slow minutes full of an awful metal screeching, the chest is roughly in the middle of the room. Your leg begins to throb slightly, but you feel that pain will be forgotten as soon as you leave this room.
(I enjoy that second meta joke about the lack of consequences – actually I’d gotten used to the rooms being self-contained, so it’s a nice change of pace to hit an event like this forced-capture bit).
We clamber back up, and:
>break mesh
Since you don’t have the use of your hands, you do a little jump and bite down on the edge of the mesh as hard as you can. You hang in the air for the fraction of a second before gravity does its work and the mesh is pulled down and you land on your shoulder awkwardly. (Here’s hoping you didn’t fall on your shoulder in an earlier room as well.)
Even though you cut your lip a little, from where you lie on the ground you can see the solitary lightbulb, shining it’s dim light, free of its cage.
Last step re bulb:
>break bulb
You firmly plant your feet on the metal chest. It’s good you did all the yoga before you came to the manor (and maybe since?), for you balance perfectly, aim your forehard at the bulb and … headbutt it. There is a disappointingly low and short shattering sound. The light in the cell goes out, but there is enough room from the door to illuminate it in quite the same way as before. You think you’ve cut yourself on the face, but feel strangely sure that this wound won’t bother you much once you leave this room.>do yoga
That verb doesn’t work here, or, at least, not right now, but it might work somewhere later.
Yeah, hard to stretch out while we’re still in the straitjacket.
We’re getting pretty banged up, I wonder how we’re looking?
>x me
You look about as you’d expect after everything that happened to you in all the other rooms.
Our undead healing factor must have kicked in.
The room description now includes this line:
A big shard of glass lies here, in a pool of his useless smaller brothers.
>take it
You nimbly pick up the shard with your toes. Again, yoga.>cut jacket
Even with your nimbleness (yoga), you can’t quite hold the shard in a way that would allow you to cut the straitjacket (which is made of thick cotton). Maybe you could find something else to hold it for you?
There’s only one real candidate:
>put shard in chest
You’d need your hands to open the chest, but there is a small crack where the lid doesn’t fully close.>put shard in crack
You gently push the shard into the crack (with your foot) and it fits snugly, with the sharp end pointing outwards conveniently.>cut jacket
You kneel and begin to rub the back of the straitjacket, where the arms are tied behind your back, against the shard of glass. It’s slow, dull, throbbing work. After endless minutes you feel the jacket giving some room in your shoulders, and with some more cutting and wriggling the fabric finally gives. You rub your arms for a good minute, willing feeling back into them. Finally, you can feel your aching fingers again. Okay, time to get out of here. Somehow.
Success! We open the chest and grab all our stuff, then check out that enticing brass knob.
>turn button
(the brass button)
You turn the brass button and this whole section of the padded wall swings open, revealing a small secret compartment with a switch inside. A dusty trophy tumbles out of it and to the floor.>x trophy
It’s a trophy, depicting of a greyhound in mid-jump. The plague reads: To “Jonathan B. Cragne, Puce Alderman of the Variegated Court, for winning the Cragne Village Dog Race with Bloodfang.”
Ah, more clues to the Court! We yoink the trophy, then check out the room again:
A secret compartment in the wall has swung open, revealing a small switch and some graffiti that says “THEY THOUGHT THEY COULD TRAP ME IN MY OWN CELL”.
>x switch
It’s nothing but a small, unremarkable switch.The switch is currently switched on.
>turn off switch
You hear a promising click from the door.>open door
You open the padded door.
And the coffee confirms that we’re done here! I have to say, I feel like we handled that quite well – that’s the nice thing about playing IF, it develops all sorts of skills potentially applicable to one’s regular life.
We head south and sure enough, we’re right back in the “sheriff’s office” – though again, if this had been a county lock-up, there really should have been more than a single cell, and only someone intimately acquainted with the town would ensure that the one cell is set up for mental patients.
Let’s wrap up:
>x corpse
This withered and horrible corpse will be hard to identify as the poor soul seems to have been dead for a good while now. You’re pretty sure it was once female as the clothes, while dirty and torn, are a feminine style.
Presumably this isn’t Eugene Kunkle, then. The only female name on the recent-arrestees list was Alana Cook, busted for cannabis possession, though judging by the vintage of the body, the death was anything but recent. This is the evidence locker, so maybe she was a murder victim they were hanging on to for an upcoming trial? If so, these folks really need a morgue (and common sense).
>search clothes
Delicately, you pad around the clothes on the corpse just in case anything useful can be found. Unfortunately, you find nothing but a black business card which you grab.>x card
Which do you mean, the black business card, the library card or the employee ID card?
>black
Congratulations! You’ve just encountered Vaadignephod’s Anti-Personnel Squad!
Well that (sorta) clears up the mystery of who jumped us.
>x locker
It’s a tall locker that seems to have been literally ripped out of a high school hallway and placed here.In the evidence locker is Tolerating An Asinine God.
There’s our prize!
>x god
This book looks to be an old school text book but it is in surprisingly good shape. You’re not too sure why you’re surprised at this. But there is a faded sticker on the front bearing the insignia of the Backwater Public Library, two back-to-back crescent moons joined by an eye looking down at an open book, which you realize might be redundant.>read it
(first taking Tolerating An Asinine God)
You skim through the pages and glance at a passage or two. “Christianity is just globally organized Stockholm Syndrome.”A snap like ice cracking behind you makes you jump. You turn to see a chalky spark hovering near you.
As you finish reading the passage, the spark moves through the book with an eerie hum, leaving frost behind on the library insignia.
Huh, that frost always showing up on the library books was a little weird – I wouldn’t say this explains the phenomenon but at least we have a proximate cause. We can read more in the book; beyond the afore-encountered sophomoric dig at Christianity, there’s some generic Cthulhu-bargle, and this:
You skim through the pages and glance at a passage or two. “There are insects on the planet whose entire purpose is to spend its life cycle burrowed in the eyeballs of children, rendering the children blind, insane, and wracked with agony. There are people on this planet that spend their life cycles worshiping and thanking the god that decided to create such a wonderful existence for everyone. Vaadignephod considers this asinine.”
So that’s pretty ill-natured.
On to the bathroom!
>w
You peek inside the bathroom and find literally nothing beyond a toilet and sink. There’s no mirror and someone even swiped the shit tickets. You close the door again.
Guess not (again, this station doesn’t seem like it’s in active use – modulo the ghost train, broken whalebone-bridge, and lack of retail theft opportunities, Backwater would be a good place for a petty crook).
The coffee confirms that we’re done here (and in the cell), though I snatch the clipboard on the way out – those things are almost as good as personal invisibility spell, though coveralls and a nametag would really complete the effect. The game automatically has us leave the Kunkle file behind, though.
(It’ll be a bit before I get the last half of the chapter up – fair bit to do today, and Nitocris is about to encounter another ~chatty~ NPC!)
4 Likes
I’m not sure what emotion I feel learning that MTW’s reputation has only been strengthened during my hiatus, but it sure is something, all right. His writing style is distinctly recognizable.
Marius Müller is a name I immediately recognize, but I can’t quite place it, and none of his credits on IFDB ring a bell. Now I’m wondering what context I know him from.
The straitjacket escape is a nice shoutout to Anchorhead, and I like how self-contained the puzzle is, though the first meta-joke about other rooms seemed cleverer than the fourth or fifth. Also, I think this might be a good opportunity to throw everything into the backpack’s various compartments to get back out of Disambiguation Hell.
The chalky spark was certainly not expected. Have we seen anything like that before? I certainly don’t remember it.
And, as a final note, it’s very interesting seeing your comments on realism in the different rooms—I had no idea what the difference between a police station and a sheriff’s office was before this.
3 Likes
Maybe you know Marius as Taleslinger or Tale on IFMud or other places. He also organized several New Year’s Eve speed-IF events/mini-comps.
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I think he also is a technical lead on IFComp and has done other behind-the scenes work (I believe he’s the person you used to email to get your inform extension listed on one of the collections).
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Ah, if so, that would definitely be it!
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Isn’t that Mark Musante? (Although of course they might both have been involved at various times, I don’t know.)
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Okay, I’m very embarrassed now. It would be more understandable if this was a Matt W. or Mike S. situation.
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No need to be embarrassed! 
The IF community has such a profusion of Mikes, Matts and Marks (plus several Davids for good measure), and people filled so many different roles over time, that some momentary lapses or wrong associations are bound to happen.
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