#1
“You seem confused Agent. Take a blow to the brain in the
SquidBrawl maybe?
Hold still while I info-dump you, and concentrate because
this will go FAST.
YOU are me, and we, all of us, are expressions of the Eldritch
Founder, a meta-reality being who’s thoughts and opinions are literally split
into different bodies and factions, all so we can run the Seraphormer.
What’s the Seraphormer?
Its this giant moon-sized stitched-together ultramachine
we are in right now! And its FALLING APART!
WHY??? BECAUSE REALITY IS BROKEN and everyone is FIGHTING
LIKE HELL!!!
As soon as reality fractured, a titanic SquidBrawl broke
out between two factions of us! Look at this mess;
|
The
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are flailing
at the..
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1
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Hyperintelligent ATMAN encoders
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Iron-Chambered Quileth Stokers
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2
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Deep-Cover Incursion Specialists
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Punk Sorcerer Co-Operative
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3
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LichJammer Ambassador Faction
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Timeline Confabulators
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4
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Penumbral clerks of the Occlusion Engine
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Rocket-Suit Space Repair Crew
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5
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Gene Coder Cubical Drones
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Cyber-Tentacle Gang
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6
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Ectoplasm-Ejaculating Ghost Gang
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Post-Singularity fluorescent techno-squid
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It’s impossible to get anything done with this brawl
going on! And the reality breakdown means I can only communicate with you like
this, through a pattern of choices.
What do you want to do?”
Find the Perpetrator – Go to #2
Reassemble Reality!- Go to #3
Meditate – Go to #4
#2
Good idea, time to do some detective work! What’s
first?
Track the source of the Reality Breach – Go to #12
Hit the Streets – Go to # 7
#3
Its time to FIX REALITY ITSELF!
Nothing will stop you! (For long, probably).
Go to #12
#4
Yes of course, True Understanding was always within you,
if you can only settle the waters of your mind and become one with the infinite
Dao, the silent darkness beyond all things. Surely the answer lies there.
You undulate softly as your mind drifts down, down down
through the subtle enumerations of being, through the illusion of Time, to a
point where your answers are already clear within the great oneness…
Go to #19
#5
Somehow you get away, wounded, beaten and dizzy from the
violence and from reality shattering all around you, suddenly you hear a voice!
Go to #1
#6
You should never have tried to access meta-reality. Somehow
you have become trapped in a time loop!
Go to #16
#7
Ok you don’t actually have streets as this is an
interdimensional megastructure, but you can certainly try to shut down this
riot! But how?
Use that silver tongue. Go to #8
Fear is the only language they will understand! Go to #10
#8
Yes the fine art of Diplomacy, but which subtle tactic
is best for you to take?
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medium
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message
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1
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Table bashing demagoguery
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Vague dithering beneficent promises.
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2
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Soft voiced sympathy
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We’ll redistribute resources!
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3
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Schitzo-cryptic arcane word-labyrinth
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Fix their minds on an outside enemy.
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4
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High toned speechifying
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Threats (go to #9)
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5
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Break into song!
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I feel your pain!
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6
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Crying fit and shaking meltdown
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Deep philosophy. What is reality after all?
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Did it work?
Yes! - Go to #11
No?!?!?!
Ok, time to amp up the verbiage - Go to #10
Or…
Screw that! And screw these nerds! Time for a BEATING. Go
to #14
#9
Randomly scanning through eh? Very meta-textual.
Go to #6
#10
THREATS
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Manner
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Settle down
or…
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1
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Eye-bugging inner tension and spat words
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Eject you into Unspace!
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2
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False-friendly fatherly manner
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Turn you inside out and send you to Marginalia!
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3
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AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE
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Memory wipe and a trip to Uud
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4
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Crack a few jokes before the threats, why not?
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Cortex removal and turned into children’s balloons!
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5
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Ejaculate ink and scream ATMAN code
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Time-loop the lot of you!
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6
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Hurl things at them between words
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Set to dream-delving the darkest Sleeping Gods!
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Did it work?
Yes! – Go to #11
If it it didn’t:
To calm things down, go to #8
To ACCELERATE them, go to #13
#11
Yes the place is finally clear and silent, the SquidBrawl
is over. Peace reigns!
Oh dreaming gods, its horrible! Look at the bodies! The
Carnage! Torn fragments of meta-flesh everywhere and squid-ink staining the
walls! What did we do? What did I do?
Are we monsters?
Go to #18
#12
Damn, this place is Cephalopod CHAOS. Tentacles and
Meta-Ink graffiti everywhere! Seems like your ultra-personality is having a
total meltdown.
You need to find that reality breach, but you have no
chance of doing it until you settle this SquidBrawl, but how?
Go BERSERK. Go to #13
Join a Faction and turn them against each other, just
like Yojimbo. Go to #15
Get smooth as butter, use that charm. Go to #8
#13
RAAAAGGHHHH!! ITS RAGE O-CLOCK!!
NOW IS THE TIME FOR BLOOD.
Go to #14
#14
A HUGE FIGHT ENSUES!
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You try
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They counter
with..
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1
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Wall-bouncing Squid kung fu!
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Bear-attack savagery. The teeth! Re-roll!
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2
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Hyperfocused dimensional mind blasts!
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Memory-annihilation flail! (Go to #1)
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3
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Murder-Apsara Dance Style!
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Chronometric labyrinth! (Go to #6)
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4
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Electrical Tentacle Coil Attack!
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Dharma-Bomb! (Go to #15)
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5
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DUAL-WIELD URANIUM NUNCUCKS!
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Illusory mind-palace Inception blow! (Go to #19)
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6
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JUST CHOKE THE ASSHOLE
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Nothing! You defeat them! (Go to #11)
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#15
Very cunning. Using the Art of War you aid both
groups against each other, secretly leading them into a fruitless attritional
conflict.
Of course now both of those groups are united by hated of
you..
But whatever! It pretty much kind a worked! Go to #11
#16
Ah ha! Don’t worry, you are pretty sure you have found
your way out of this mind-wiping time-loop thing. Just need to try this….
Go to #6
#17
It worked, you stuff this meta-biological stuff into the
crack in reality like jamming newspaper into a broken pipe. Yes its probably a
horrific botch of a job, but it works!
You wonder for a moment about how exactly this breach was
created..
Oh well, this kind of thing is only to be expected in the
Seraphormer. You’ll probably never know!
(12# o tog – sdrawkcab siht daer nac
uoy sselnU)
On to #19!
#18
Wait, this stuff is itself a meta-material!
It’s a little bit radical, but maybe your could use this
stuff to fix the reality breach
Go to #17
#19
The Reality Breach is Fixed!
All is well. You have stabilised the situation and
brought balance to the Founders Mind. A deep sense of calm fills you.
Congratulations Founder.
(Wait, do you know how you even did this? – Go to #20)
#20
Of course, you repaired the reality breach with FLEX
TAPE.
Wait, that’s completely insane and makes no sense. And
this flex-tape actually looks like something disturbingly organic, like the
strange textured skin of some being from beyond reality…
What did you do? Who’s skin is this? How was
reality broken?
WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?
Go to #21
#21
It’s a PARA-REALITY INVADER!
Something from outside the Seraphormer has found its way
in! That’s what caused the breach! What even is it?
|
Looks like a
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and its..
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1
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Grey crystal angel
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Tearing at the reality gap!
|
2
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Caustic shadow trilobite
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Doing some kind of ritual!
|
3
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Skeleton ultra-golem
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Summoning more of its kind!
|
4
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Post-singularity kill-AI
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Meditating.
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5
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Pain-Armoured Demonform
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Feasting on Founder flesh!
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6
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A radical crazed Founder!
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Performing the Kali-Yuga dance!
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Go to #22
#22
The Invader notices you!
“So, fragment, somehow you have walked the weave of
consequence and choice and detected my presence here. It will not be enough. Do
you think your petty mind and weak tentacles can defeat me? COME FORTH AND
TRY!”
A Battle is on! Go to #14
Last night I watched The Long Good Friday. A touch of the confused energy of that film's confusion, violence and outside-context-problems has stayed with me on reading this post, so that I am now imagining a blinking, twitchy cephalopod Bob Hoskins.
ReplyDeleteOf course there is no way out. At first I tried forming some logical narrative for what was happening then I lost track. I get the sense that each fragment is also interacting with other fragments who also have the same branching choices. If there is a infinite amount of them then this will cycle forever if there is a finite amount then eventually all fragments will be in the 6-16 loop.
ReplyDeleteHuh, actually reading the previous post on the Seraphormer actually explained how the meaning of this one. Who would have thought?
ReplyDelete