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This began as a joke, and turned into a week long odyssey that would not have been possible without you, voters, keeping this story moving. Thank you to everyone who participated and made this fun and special, especially: Daniel Bishop, Michael S. Atkinson, Maggie, Florian G. R. Hartmann, J9999, and countless others who participated and I couldn’t name, or who voted invisibly. This was incredibly fun, and a little ridiculous. THANK YOU!
Please enjoy the complete story below, with the poll options, results, links, and my commentary in footnotes.
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
You cast a tentative glance at the house, and briefly consider leaving. But instead, curiosity overwhelms you, and you open the mailbox.
Opening the mailbox reveals a leaflet.
You are determined, and take the leaflet without any hesitation. It is a mass mailer, sealed shut with a sticker. You see that it is addressed ‘To Resident’.
The curious white house briefly crosses your mind, but you press forward with the matter at hand: reading the curious leaflet. You open it and find within the following message:2
SUBSCRIBE TO SCOOT! FOR FICTION, SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER GIBBERISH! YOU WILL GET STORIES MUCH LIKE THIS ONE AND PROBABLY BETTER CUZ THIS ONE IS ON NOTES! SUBSCRIBE TODAY!
A curious message—but what could it mean? You consider your options:
Something in your mind says to leave, but you choose to stay. More curious about the house than the mailbox, you turn your attention towards it and make some observations.
The house is white, but on closer inspection the paint is peeling in parts and it has the patina of age. The front door is boarded up, as you observed earlier—but now you can see the boards look like fresh wood, though the wood of the structure looks much older. Left and right of the door are square windows with thin glass. The grass around the house looks worn down in parts, as though stepped on.3
>Test the boards on the front door
While the windows seemed tempting, and you briefly considered walking around the house, you prefer the direct approach. You walk up the three short steps to the front door.
There are three boards crossing the width of the door, they look and smell like fresh timber. They’ve been nailed into the aging and discolored doorframe. You place a hand on the top board and give it a wiggle—it wiggles more than you expect! You could probably easily pull these boards out from the clearly rotting wood.
You hear the crunch of tires on gravel behind you, and you whirl around: A car has turned down the long driveway, headed right to the house, and right to you!
Whoever it is hasn’t seen you yet, so you must act quickly:
>Run around the back of the house
You panic as the car pulls up. You briefly consider fighting your way inside the house, or even trying to play it totally cool, but you decide it’s safer to hide before they see you.
You run left of the door, or north, and circle around the back of the house. You are out of sight, but not yet hidden. It is darker here, the sun is approaching the western horizon and the house casts a long shadow over the back yard. The car is approaching rapidly.
Your heart racing, you consider your options.
>Look for a better hiding spot
Your curiosity about the approaching car is overruled by your desire to hide! You quickly scan your surroundings, as you hear the sound of tires on gravel approach and stop, followed by the heavy thunk of car doors opening and closing.
Your quick scan reveals three options: A small crawl space under the house, hidden by some wooden lattice. You’d be getting down and dirty with some mud and bugs, but you’d be well hidden from view. The back yard stretches out, and there is a solitary thin tree in some unkempt grass. If you dash, you could get there and with the shadow of the house creeping over the yard, the drivers may not notice you there. Near the tree are some holes dug into the ground. A shovel extends from one of them, and you would definitely be able to crouch and hide behind the small pile of dirt.
You hear voices:
Alright, Sheila, you grab the cans out of the back…
But before you can hear any more, you must make your move:
Thinking quickly, and ignoring any discomfort, you quickly stuff yourself into the crawlspace, the nearest hiding spot at hand.
You catch your breath and settle and listen to the interlopers.
You hear some shuffling and walking as they silently work—presumably, getting cans of something out of the back of the car. You hear the hollow wooden clattering of the wooden boards dropping to the ground.
I’m going to have one last look inside, in case the old bast…
the sentence becomes inaudible as the man enters the house.
Stevie! Why’d you open the mailbox?
A muffled shout from inside the house in reply.
Well I didn’t either! Are you sure?
You can hear footsteps echoing through the boards above you, and the man’s voice sounds again as he steps outside.
Think there’s someone else here? We were only gone an hour.
I don’t know, but we better be sure.
You go have a look around. I’ll start pouring this gas and look around inside. Sooner we light this place up the better.
Your heart is pounding in your chest, and you hear the woman’s footsteps crunching through the unkempt grass towards the back of the house.
She stops right where you were standing a moment ago, facing the back yard.
The woman identified as Sheila stands there for a moment, and you suppress the intrusive thought to grab her feet, and choose instead to remain hidden. If their plan is to light the house on fire, you know you can’t stay long—but you need a way to make your escape.
You search the crawl space in case anything is on offer to help you.
In the fading evening light, it is hard to see in the dark of the crawlspace. Yet your eyes catch a glint of metal, which on closer inspection is revealed to be a metal tacklebox.
Stevie, I don’t see anything!
Alright, well, get back here and help me with this. I’ll be happier when we’re back on the road.
Sheila marches back around the house, giving you a moment to consider what to do.
There is no way the tacklebox was placed here on accident, so you decide to open it and see what is inside.
You hear two sets of footsteps creaking on the boards above you now—if they plan to light the house on fire, it will probably be soon. You know you don’t have much time.
The tacklebox opens easily, and inside is a folded piece of paper, a short dagger with snakes engraved on the handle, an ornately designed lensatic compass with a lotus symbol on the outside, and a thick metal ring with a skull on it.
Alright, stand back Sheila I’m going to light ‘er up.
Your moment might be passing—what do you do?4
>Take the paper and the dagger
You grab the paper and dagger out of the tacklebox, and just as you hear the fwoosh of igniting gasoline, you take the risk and clamber out of the crawl space.
Aren’t they gonna find his body?
They’ll assume he died in the fire—that’s why we poisoned him, remember?
He never did tell us where he…
The sound of the flames overpower the voices, as you make your way to the tall grass behind the tree, and you watch the fire from a hidden spot.
While the pair are distracted and the fire burns, you have a moment to think.
While you watch the house burn, you pull out the piece of paper you grabbed from the tacklebox. You open it, and you find a map, strange symbols and markings, a sequence of numbers.
A short message at the top says: “The Map to Mervin Prangle’s Treasure”
The drawn map you recognize as the place you are now. You can see a marking on an area that you intuit as the white house. You can see some lines pointing east, a sequence of numbers as if they are designed to help navigate.
It is clear that this map is what the two arsonists were looking for: some kind of treasure.
The thought swirls in your mind as the flames engulf the house.5
While it is tempting to want to confront the arsonists, you realize the greater reward is hidden in this map which you have and they don’t. The sun has set, the only light now is the burning house.
In order to chase the treasure, you need to leave!
EAST, you can tell from the map, is roughly the direction of the treasure, but there is a lot of open fields and occasional houses before you get there.
WEST, leads to the road, which would be easy to travel by even at night, but you have to cross the burning house, the arsonists, and their car to get there.
NORTH, there is a village where you might be able to find a place to sleep for the night before continuing in the morning.
SOUTH, there are open fields and then some woods, you heard of a campsite in that area.
With the map and dagger, and resolve in your heart, you are now free to choose the best way to chase the treasure!
The night is young, your resolve burns hot, and there is no time like the present. You go East!
You crawl away from the burning house, not feeling safe to move until you are sufficiently far away and know you won’t be seen. The yard is big, and slopes gently down hill—you begin to walk softly and soon to run, until you come to the border fence, which you hop over easily. The burning house, the arsonists, all behind you—now you have only one thought: TREASURE!
The fields stretch out in front of you as you go. Few obstacles present themselves besides tall grass. While you start at a run, you quickly realize this is not going to be a short journey, and slow your pace to a gentle walk.
You crest a hill, then descend again into a valley, and soon you begin to come up again. There’s another road! The tall grass begins to thin out, and you hear something moving in the grass.
A snake! A large snake, hard to identify in the dark, appears in front of you. It has noticed you, too, and is clearly upset that you have disturbed it’s otherwise restful night.
It’ll take a bit of ingenuity to get out of this one…
The snake lifts its head, threatening to strike. You briefly consider trying to reason with it, hoping it is a Hegelian Sidewinder6 instead of a Popperite Python. Luckily, at the last minute, you remember the dagger with snakes on the handle, and decide maybe it will be good for defending yourself. You grab the dagger and hold it up.
The snake retreats backwards, as though injured or terrified! It wriggles and squirms away, as you hold the dagger out in front of you.
You step forward, and the snake continues retreating, and you begin to walk past it, keeping the dagger facing the snake, until it slithers away, leaving you in peace.
Strange!
Now you have reached the road, which stretches NORTH and SOUTH.
What do you do now?7
>Continue EAST, treasure awaits!
You stand briefly on the road, after your strange encounter with the snake. But, from the raised vantage point, you can smell the sea! The full moon has begun rising ahead of you, and you know it won’t be long now before you arrive at the sea, from whence you can hopefully use the map to close in on Mervin Prangle’s Treasure.
You cross the road and the hill descends again, briefly obscuring the moon and sea. You hear a car drive past on the road behind you, which you ignore. It occurs to you that it is getting very late now. You’ve been up all day, and the excitement of today’s events is starting to take it’s toll.
As you trudge towards the sea, you consider your options.
You come to terms with the fact that you need to sleep. At least you have the map, you know the treasure isn’t going anywhere any time soon. You don’t have anything really for making a camp, and you have your doubts about the safety of just sleeping on the ground with snakes around, although it’s possible you’d get lucky.
The ground is starting to slope now, towards the sea, so you know you are getting closer. You’re on the right track. But—sleep!
As you walk, you scan your surroundings, and you spy a few options.
>Sleep in a tree, looks sturdy
You find a sturdy looking tree, with a good ‘y’ shaped branch that would be as comfortable a sleeping place as any one might find in a tree.
With one hand in your pocket to protect the map, and the dagger secure in your other pocket (there’s a sheath or something I decided so you don’t stab yourself don’t worry about it), you find sleep takes you quickly and easily.
Let’s find out how well you sleep: pick a number! Trust me, what could go wrong?8
It’s an uncomfortable in the tree branch, but eventually sleep takes you.
Suddenly, it’s daylight. You’re on the ground, in the grass. You try to move, and your legs feel heavy and numb. You look down: a large snake has begun swallowing your legs! they have been paralyzed as it slowly engulfs them. You panic and try to flee, but find your arms can’t move anymore either. You look around, and more snakes are emerging, slithering towards you, desperate. A snake slithers onto your chest, up to your face. It looks at you, eyes almost showing the light of recognition, and then makes as if to strike, when—
You jolt awake, you’re still in the tree. A pigeon, surprised by your sudden movement, flies away from it’s perch on a nearby branch. The moon is higher in the sky now, but it’s still dark. You don’t feel completely rested, especially after that dream! But you do feel more rested than when you arrived.
Oh well. Now what do you do?
>Up and attem, treasure time!
>Should find something to eat first
>Let’s not rush, check the map!
Overwhelmed by options, you tumble out of the tree trying to reach for the map and actively descend the tree at the same time. You land on your back—a rude awakening, especially after a terrible dream. Your stomach grumbles loudly.
You resume your walk east, towards the sea, and you successfully navigate the map and take a look. The map shows a coastline, much like the one you are now approaching. The sequence of numbers look like they would have been useful if you’d taken the compass. It’s hard to decipher exactly where to go, but the lines and symbols do seem to lead to a direction south from where you are.
You are, however, increasingly hungry. And that will cause a problem sooner or later, especially with the highly physical journey you have been on so far.
You make slow progress, and don’t fully understand where to go but you know at least you are directionally correct.
>No but seriously, breakfast time
Your stomach overrules your thinking, you can’t go on without something to eat.
However, you realize you are in the middle of a field, which by now is clearly a cliff overlooking a sandy beach. You see some carved out rocky steps that lead down to the beach. In fact, scanning the coastline, you see a lighthouse, complete with red and white spiraling stripes. The light isn’t on, but—it’s possible there’s something edible there.
You could also look around on these fields before going down. The lighthouse is due north, but the destination might be due south, and maybe there’s another house you’ll encounter up here.
It’s hard to think on an empty stomach—you must do your best.9
>Descend NORTH to the lighthouse!
You decide your best bet is the lighthouse, and you work your way down the rocky steps, which switch back once before you get to the bottom.
You are, finally, on the shore, by the sea. Treasure is close—but nutrition is important. Reluctantly you head NORTH along the shore towards the lighthouse, even though it seems to take you farther away.
This lighthouse looks very run down. Now that you are closer you can see the glass surrounding the lantern room has been shattered and some birds nests—old or new, you can’t say—crowd the area.
The cabin at the base has a rusty metal door, which, though latched, comes open easily, as if held closed only by the desire of whomever closed it.
You open the door, and see a fairly orderly, if long abandoned, living quarters. You begin your search for food.
While many mysteries introduce themselves here, your stomach reminds you of your mission: food! You begin your search in the most logical place, the kitchen.
You carefully open dusty cabinets and drawers, and find an odd can or two.
Under the sink, strangely, you find a sealed tub which may promise more foodstuffs as well.
You would eat (almost) anything at this point, you consider the possibilities.10
You sensibly opt for what appears to be the safest container. The unlabeled cans could be anything, and opening an ancient, lukewarm can of beans would be…well, it wouldn’t be fun even if you ate well.
You open the tub and find, to your immense surprise, a stack of sealed mason jars. Fruit slices! Peaches, pears, berries! And, what’s more—sealed jars of mixed nuts! Whoever stocked this lighthouse was well prepared.
You eat your fill of both—the cans open with a satisfying pop and you sate your hunger with delicious and nutritious foods. A small feast ensues!
When you are satisfied, you can turn your attention back to the matter at hand: the search for Mervin Prangle’s Treasure.
How exactly, is up to you:
>Climb the lighthouse and scout!
While you are at the light house, you may as well get a lay of the land! You cross through the living quarters, push open a door, and find the long, spiraling staircase that leads to the broken windows at the top of the lighthouse.
The trek is exhausting—it’s a lot of stairs! But when you get there, you admire the full panoramic view.
You see the cliffs behind you, to the west. In front of you, eastward and out to sea, you see the slowly brightening sky of morning. North, the beach stretches out. And south, the beach stretches toward a rocky cluster of outcroppings, which seem like where the map might have been leading you, if memory serves.
What do you decide to do?
>Are there any other hints or clues?
You inspect the lantern room for any hints or clues. Where the break in the glass is, you find the remains of a nest of some kind of seafowl. On the railing along the inside, you see some markings that have no obvious meaning to you. A lotus flower on the south part of the railing, a skull on the east part of the railing, and a snake on the west part of the railing.11
That’s about all you can see. The sky is brighter with every passing moment, dawn approaches! Will you find treasure before the sun has set again?
>Enough flim flammery, lets go SOUTH
>Those symbols sound familiar
After examining the lighthouse, the symbols on the railing sticks in your mind. But your hunger now sated, the sun’s first light cresting the horizon, your thought returns to treasure.
You descend the lighthouse steps, pass through the cabin, exit onto the beach.
You find yourself back on the sand, and you resume your march south.
As you are walking, the early sun warming your face and bathing the beach in a deep orange glow, with the dark blue of night retreating over the cliffs, you remember: the tacklebox in Mervin Prangle’s crawlspace! It had the map, and the snake dagger—but also a compass with a lotus on it, and a ring with a skull! Why were those symbols on the lighthouse? What could it mean?
It’s too late now to go back, you are approaching those rocky outcroppings that strike you as where the map was leading you.
>Inspect the map and vector in
it’s crunch time. The treasure is close. As you walk south along the beach, you retrieve the map from your pocket.
The map, full of lines and markings and strange sets of numbers, is recognizably the coastline. You can see the old white house, and the set of rocky outcroppings. But how can you use it to find the treasure?
As you walk, you glance up, and the rocky outcroppings align just so to form the shape of a snake with an open mouth and two terrible fangs protruding down.
That seems significant! You hold up the map, and there is a dot on it—this must be right where you are standing!
The treasure is close at hand. Where do you go from here?
>Move towards the mouth of the snake
Intuitively you understand that the snake points to the treasure, and you are willing to bet that the mouth of the snake will have some insight to lead you to the treasure.
As you walk carefully forward, trying to preserve the emergent image of the snakes head in the rocky outcropping, you spot two more people wandering on the beach. A man and a woman. The man is wearing a cowboy hat and smoking a cigarette, carrying a metal detector. The woman is wearing jeans rolled up at the feet, and a jean jacket. She’s carrying her flip flops and walking barefoot in the sand.
You pause—Sheila and Stevie, the arsonists back at the old house, never saw your face. But then, you never saw their faces either. These two people could be merely morning beach travelers. They could also be murderers.
The man spies you first, and gives you a friendly smile and wave. “Mornin!” he says.
You hesitate, before responding:
You raise a hand in friendly greeting to the pair. “Good morning!” you reply.
“Nice day today, eh?” the man says.
You nod and smile. They are standing where you wanted to be—the mouth of the snake.
You don’t want to lead them to the treasure, and don’t want to be murdered (if they even are the murderers). And if they are—is there a risk they are about to get to the treasure first?
You need to do something, and quick.
“It sure is!” you say politely, nodding at both as you pass by.
You glance over your shoulder at them as you walk, and don’t notice anything. dramatic. You pass by a shallow pool, and then dodge quickly behind a rock. If they keep walking—you can quickly resume your search. If they go in front of you…you might have trouble.
You circle around and spy on the pair from cover. You can’t hear them—but they are moving down the ‘mouth’ of the snake-shaped rock outcropping.
The man and woman—maybe murderers, maybe morning people—walk deeper into the mouth of the snake-like outcropping. You can’t hear them talk, if they are talking, so you follow behind them, trying to stay behind rocks and protrusions. They are moving the direction you need to go, so you need to be careful.
Your foot slips, and you step heavily into a tidepool, making a splash.
The man says:
“Oy, Shiela, what was that?”
Now you know—it’s them! The murderers, arsonists, treasure hunters. You slip behind the rock and hope they didn’t notice.
“Pay no mind, Stevie, we’ve got work to do.”
“Can’t work if we’re being followed…”
You hear cautious footsteps heading towards you…
>Stay put and hold your breath
>Get your dagger out
You slowly draw your snake dagger out of it’s sheath and hold it at the ready in front of you. You hold your breath, waiting for the footsteps to emerge, or hopefully turn away. The footsteps get too quiet to hear. You wait, agonizing moments, you watch for Stevie to emerge from behind the rock at any moment.
“AHA!”
He comes up behind you, nearly making you jump out of your skin. He grabs a hold of you and pulls you to your feet and pushes you against a rock.
“What do you think you’re—”
He begins, but then recognition comes over him in waves. First, that you’re the person he just greeted on the path. Second, that he recognizes the snake dagger in your hands.
“Why, you sneaky bugger! Sheila! Found the missing piece! Looks like we’ve got ourselves another treasure hunter! Were you going to stab me with this thing?”
Sheila comes over to where Stevie is accosting you. She’s got the lotus-compass in her hands. Stevie must have the skull ring.
“What was your plan, hm? You think you were going to sneak in on Old Man Prangles Treasure?”
They both seem to wait for an answer.
>”I found this on the beach”12
>”You mean MY treasure?”
Panicked, you struggle to choose a bluff. “I found this on the beach!” you stammer.
“What do you take me for, some fool? We found the crawlspace after the house burned down. You were there, weren’t you? You opened the mailbox. It was you the whole time. You think you can muscle in on Prangle’s treasure?”
You decide to abruptly change tactics. “You mean MY treasure?” you sneer confidently.
“You’re daft!” Stevie says. “Come along, we need the dagger and you need us. We’re getting this treasure.”
He throws you to the sand.
“Don’t try anything, let’s just get the treasure. Maybe we’ll even let you have a piece of it if you’re nice. But you come up swinging, there’ll be hell to pay, you hear?”
Sheila asks a sensible question:
“Why don’t you take the knife?”
“And what? Let him run off, call the police? No—now we have an accomplice. Let’s go!”
Pushing and prodding, they walk towards a hidden entrance to a cave. Your mind is racing…
>Fall down a lot and be difficult
Seeing as you are in a tricky situation, and close enough to your goal that it might be worth it to see how it plays out, you resort to the oldest trick in the book: falling down, being difficult, maximizing the energy they need to spend to contain you. Never have you been clumsier in your life, and while you pay the price in bruises, it seems to be effectively aggravating your kidnappers.
Around a hidden bend in the rocks, you are nudged forward to step over a lip in the rocks, and you quickly behold a cave.
Not just any cave, but the surface of the cave is writhing and squirming with living things—SNAKES!
You remember the strange effect your dagger had on the snake previously, but you wonder if it is wise to reveal your secret.
>Brandish the dagger, clear a path!
You are trapped, nothing for it. Maybe you can pull some switcharoo at the very end, but anyway you mays well do your best.
You pull the snake-handled dagger from it’s sheath, and hold it up, as you did before in the fields. As you get closer to the snakes, they hiss, and scatter—fleeing before the strange power of the snake dagger.
You aren’t entirely sure where you are going, but the snakes clear what appears to be a path, and so you follow it. Wary of the snakes, you glance up where the path is leading, and on a small rocky mound, under a beam of morning light, is a treasure chest.
Stevie and Sheila are following behind you. You are nearly at your quarry, though amid a sea of snakes.13
>Rush to the chest, stranding them!
You see a gap, and you go for it—a leap, a bound, and you’re on the hill, away from the snakes, and away from your captors. Now no longer warded away by the mysterious dagger, the snakes close in around Stevie and Sheila.
Sheila gasps in shock.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she says.
“You’re not getting out of here alive!” Stevie shouts.
The snakes are closing in, and they are mad.14
>Say nothing, focus on the treasure
You turn your back to Sheila and Stevie in their peril, and examine the chest.
It looks otherwise like a normal treasure chest. It has a latch on the front, with snakes inscribed on it, and a long narrow slit where the key-hole should be. There’s a lotus flower on the lid. No sign of the skull, which seems like a strange but welcome omission given their previous appearances together as a trio.
Sheila and Stevie are louder now, the end is near for them. But the treasure is near for you…
>Offer one last chance for mercy15
Your conscience gnaws at you, as if 67% of voters on an online poll were calling on you to do the right thing.
You turn around—the snakes were closing in on Sheila and Stevie.
You say to them: “It doesn’t have to be like this. I can save you from the snakes. But you have to answer for what you did to Mervin Prangle!”
You step towards them with the snake dagger outstretched, to halt the advance of the snakes.
Sheila, standing behind Stevie, begins to nod, but Stevie says,
“You’ll be the one answering for this!”
“I can just let you die by snake bite. Is that what you want?”
Sheila nudges him, and he turns to look at her—she is scared. He sighs.
“No. No I don’t want that.”
“Come on up, then, but you have to promise me you will turn yourselves in. You killed a man, all for this treasure. Is the blood money worth it?”
You step forward and clear the path of snakes, and Stevie and Sheila walk begrudgingly up to the treasure.
The time has come. Flanked on either side by Stevie and Sheila, you behold the treasure chest. You carefully insert the snake dagger, and twist counterclockwise. The circular apparatus turns, and with a sickening k-thunk it unlocks, and the handle of the dagger breaks off.
With determination, you have the heavy wooden lid of the treasure chest open. When it comes to rest, the interior of the cave seems bathed in gold! The solitary light falls right on the opening of the treasure chest, on hundreds of gold coins, each embossed with an image of a skull.
When this adventure began, you were merely curious about an old white house and a mailbox. Now, here you are—beholding wealth unimaginable.
>Consider what the skulls portend16
Far from celebrating this newfound treasure, the prevalence of the skulls on the gold coins gives you a moment of somber pause, rather than celebration. Yes, each coin individually is worth a life altering sum of money, but all of them together represents truly destiny-changing dollars. But the skulls…
Stevie and Sheila seem shocked as well, as they hesitate and gasp at the flinging open of the treasure chest. The objective they were willing to kill for, laid bare for them!
Your snake dagger, now broken, had a magical effect on the snakes. You never got to see what magic came from the lotus compass, nor the skull ring. You wonder, briefly, if that implies anything about these coins. The question remains: what do you want? And how many of these coins makes it worth it?
>One piece, for memory over money
>Ask Stevie and Sheila about the compass and ring (suggested by Daniel Bishop)17
You grab a coin, and hold it in the light to examine it, and slip it into your pocket. Curiosity gets the better of you, and you have to ask:
“So, you know now the dagger wards away snakes, what did the compass and ring do?”
“The compass helped us find the treasure, not sure what the ring did.” Sheila replied.
“Yeah the ring did bugger all as far as I know. We did get lost a few times on the way, maybe it’s bad luck.” Stevie adds.
“Well,” you say, “After all this, I’ve got all I want, a memento of the journey.”
>blursed super-tie, so we’re going with J9999’s idea
>We need to escape and they won’t like it!
“You think you’re just gonna waltz out of here?” Stevie says.
You nod, and compulsively take a second coin from the chest.
“Your dagger is busted. The chest is open. There’s still a bunch of snakes in here. There’s two of us. And there’s one of you.”
You suddenly realize you are in a deeper predicament than you realized, and you may have made a mistake in trusting the word of a murderer.
You notice the skull ring is on Stevie’s finger. Is it a trick of the light? Or a by some interior luminance you hadn’t seen before? The eyes seem to flash red18, and then fade again to black.
The cave begins to shake. The snakes, instinctively knowing danger is afoot, scatter. Rocks begin to fall from the roof of the cave—you run.
>Run to the exit!
>Follow the snakes!
You watch where the snakes are going, as the cave rumbles, and follow them—quickly you realize you cannot follow where they are going. Rocks begin to fall from the ceiling. You run to the ledge where you stepped down into the cave, and climb up—you look back in time to see a massive rock fall and strike Stevie in the head with a sickening crunch.
You turn away, and continue fleeing the collapsing cave. You hear a screech cut violently short, as Sheila suffers the same fate. All the rocks in the outcropping are shaking, and begin to tumble. You run out the mouth of the illusory snake, and as the last rocks fall you dive cinematically into the shallow tide, narrowly avoiding the last falling rocks.
…
You emerge from the waves to a cloud of dust, the late morning sun illuminating a sunken depression where the cave and outcroppings used to be. This adventure started with arriving at a field, with a house, and a mail box—and quickly spiraled out of control.
You make a note of the lesson—don’t be curious—and reach into your pocket to thumb the two gold coins you managed to snag from the chest.
The skulls look blankly up at you. You think you, as you turn them in the early sun.
You think you see a glint of red.
THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR MAKING THIS POLL ADVENTURE FUN AND AWESOME. I will finish collecting these installments, and post the full story later tonight. GOD BLESS YOU ALL!
THE END?
I have enjoyed using polls for jokes, and I forget why I searched for this but I found the ZORK intro and decided to use it. I did not anticipate what it would become.
If we got this far, this was the only gag I had planned. Everything that comes after was as much a surprise to me as to you.
If at any point you chose “Exit West” the story would have ended then and there. I enjoyed having the option to quit available to you before we got too deep in the story!
The story would have gone WILDLY different directions depending on what everyone chose. Makes sense to choose a dagger for self defense. The ring was cursed. Not 100% sure what the compass would have done but I retconned some uses for it as we went.
I really wanted you to steal the arsonists car. Alas…
It was briefly a tie between “brandish dagger” and “reason with the snake”, and so if you chose to reason with it I had this ‘hegelian sidewinder’ joke queued up. Unfortunately you didn’t go this route, but I liked the joke so shoehorned it in anyway.
The campsite in the woods is where I decided Sheila and Stevie were hiding, so you would have encountered them there if you chose it. Then, along the road, the car that drives behind you in the installment after this is also Sheila and Stevie, who would have stopped and offered you a ride. If you went North to the town, you might have encountered them there too in a shop. You chose to stay focused, which I don’t blame you! I had to defer the chance encounter.
I didn’t anticipate you all forming the Normal Distribution in the results to this poll. Here are the options you were choosing from. 1- Light, fitful sleep, 1hr. 2- Deep, restful sleep, 8hrs. 3- Snake Dream, 2.5 hours. 4- Good sleep, 6hrs. 5- Mervin Ghost, 4hrs
I didn’t anticipate the hunger subplot to take you by storm, and it posed an especial challenge because what food can you eat as a wanderer with no ability to prep?
Unlabeled Can #1 was beans, Unlabeled Can #2 was spam. Both edible, but you’d have regretted it.
The compass plus the lotus flower would have yielded some kind of hint. I didn’t anticipate this when you chose the dagger, but putting this detail in makes it feel like I did. The snake points back to the snake, and the skull points to the open sea, where you would die. I don’t know how the cursed ring would have manifested if you chose it, but it definitely would have killed you.
This was such a ludicrous result, I love it. Playing dumb AND false bravado at the same time. To quote the meme: “That’s a bold strategy cotton let’s see how it plays out”
It would have been so funny to me if the ‘embrace death’ option was chosen. After all this, just giving up at the last second—comedy gold. Maybe that is the real treasure.
Given that we DID NOT embrace death, I’m at least trying to lead the polls to mercy. So far it hasn’t taken, but you know. We try!
I was genuinely worried that the internet polls would turn you into murderers. Thank you for not doing that.
The skulls are supposed to be cursed, but at this point I don’t know how to show that without it being abrupt, and so kind of funny but not on purpose. I might lean into it, to end the thing. I’m writing this as the next poll is still open. Let’s see what you choose.
We are clearly at the end but I don’t know how to wrap it up, I didn’t have a good plan. Which isn’t a bad thing, the whole thing was a lark anyway. But need to close the project somehow! Also I was seriously glad we got a reader comment integrated into the story. When it needed it most!!!
LETS GOOOO!!! FROM BLURSED TO CURSED!
Awesome! I was very sorry to miss several of the polls (time difference is annoying sometimes) but very happy to see the Original SCORK® Text-Based Adventure Game collected in one place.
This was an amazing example of the internet being a cool, fun place. For a change.
THREE CHEERS FOR SCOOT!
This was so much fun! Thanks for collecting them all like this. I missed most of these as they were happening.