agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

I saw this once on another forum, and it was absolutely hilarious, so I thought it might be interesting to try it out here, and see how people here react to it.

What it is:

Very simply, this is a thread where a story is constructed out of lots of sections all put together to make a sort of coherent passage.

What you do:

It's very simple - All you have to do is to continue the story by adding something to the end of what has already been written. The section you add to the story can be of whatever length you like, from a single line to several paragraphs if you really want, and as long as it is understandable and fits in with the story, you can write anything you like - it does not have to make sense or be scientifically plausible! . Finally, anyone can answer this thread - it's an "everyone's invited" storytelling session, so don't be afraid to post.

The rules:

However, there are one or two rules that I would like you to observe, just to make sure that if this does really become popular that no-one gets upset by it (although on a forum like this, I don't expect anyone will be rude or unpleasant at all):

1. Do not swear - I'll tolerate low-level rude words (avoid please), but I don't want unpleasant F-words or unpleasant slang floating around.
2. Please avoid references to explicit ideas/content - it may embarrass people or make for unpleasant reading.
3. Keep it DROD-related - absolutely anything can happen on the surface (or in) the Eighth, whether old, new, not yet in existence, logical, illogical, impossible or weird, but don't let the story leave the confines of Beethro's world.
4. Respect the creativity of other people - if you think there is something you don't like about what someone has written, or you want to make a comment, be polite about it.
5. Don't finish the story unless it's been specifically asked for - it's a story that can only be made by the contributions of as many people as possible. I'll tell you if the story needs finishing, but this is unlikely to happen, at least in the near future.
6. Finally, if two of you post at the same time, then unfortunately, it's the first that gets posted that takes precedence. However, if you explicitly want it to be used, if, for example, you spent ages typing it, and you don't want it to be lost, then if you ask, it could probably be arranged so we could have it as an alternative continuation, creating two stories, in parallel!

Sorry to go on like that for so long...

OK... It's not going to be the best of starts, and probably not even up to the standard you can produce, but hopefully you can do something with it....

The Adventures Of Beethro

Beethro left his house one sunny day to go for a walk, get some fresh air and do a little excercise. However, Beethro had no idea about where to walk to or why he was walking, but he just kept on going anyway. He passed through the town and walked onto a small track that led into a small nearby forest. Tempted by the cool, inviting shade that the trees were offering, Beethro decided to go into the forest as it was now getting very warm in the sun. Beethro reached the forest shortly and began to wander into it. At odd intervals here and there, he noticed unusual footprints, quite large in size and of a very odd shape, in the ground near and on the path. Beethro could not think what could have made them, but still felt a small feeling of familiarity - he was sure he had seen them before somewhere. As he moved deeper into the forest, the footprints got more numerous and the earth more trampled - it was as if he was approaching the den of one of the creatures that lived in the forest, except that the footprints were not of any animal Beethro recognised. Driven by curiosity, although made wary by fear of what it was that could have made such tracks, Beethro continued onwards. Suddenly, as Beethro turned a corner, he nearly fell into a large hole that had just appeared. The hole was rough in appearance, and there were bits of grass and plants that had been uprooted around the the floor, so Beethro deduced that this hole was fairly recent. Beethro wanted to explore the hole for some reason. Even though he had no sword and wished he had one right now, his curiosity got the better of his caution and so he decided to go down it. The tunnel was very dark and smelly, and so Beethro had to feel his way down. At the bottom......

____________________________
Resident Medic/Mycologist

Sokko
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 336
Registered: 02-25-2003
IP: Logged

Wow, that's much more long and involved than the "Three-word story" topic at the other board I visit; there people can only post three words that continue the sentence and thus the story. Since I don't feel like typing much of anything right now (then why am I typing this?), I'll pass for now. Maybe later.

____________________________
How many boards would the Mongols hoard if the Mongol hordes got bored?

agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Sokko wrote:
Wow, that's much more long and involved than the "Three-word story" topic at the other board I visit; there people can only post three words that continue the sentence and thus the story.

It was just to set the scene... that's all

Three words at a time are alright, but wouldn't really make a DROD style story well, as the subject matter is limited. Saying that, anything could happen in this story, so you can be as creative as you like.

____________________________
Resident Medic/Mycologist

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Alright, let's see if we can get this thing going...

agaricus5 wrote:
Beethro left his house one sunny day to go for a walk, get some fresh air and do a little excercise. However, Beethro had no idea about where to walk to or why he was walking, but he just kept on going anyway. He passed through the town and walked onto a small track that led into a small nearby forest. Tempted by the cool, inviting shade that the trees were offering, Beethro decided to go into the forest as it was now getting very warm in the sun. Beethro reached the forest shortly and began to wander into it. At odd intervals here and there, he noticed unusual footprints, quite large in size and of a very odd shape, in the ground near and on the path. Beethro could not think what could have made them, but still felt a small feeling of familiarity - he was sure he had seen them before somewhere. As he moved deeper into the forest, the footprints got more numerous and the earth more trampled - it was as if he was approaching the den of one of the creatures that lived in the forest, except that the footprints were not of any animal Beethro recognised. Driven by curiosity, although made wary by fear of what it was that could have made such tracks, Beethro continued onwards. Suddenly, as Beethro turned a corner, he nearly fell into a large hole that had just appeared. The hole was rough in appearance, and there were bits of grass and plants that had been uprooted around the the floor, so Beethro deduced that this hole was fairly recent. Beethro wanted to explore the hole for some reason. Even though he had no sword and wished he had one right now, his curiosity got the better of his caution and so he decided to go down it. The tunnel was very dark and smelly, and so Beethro had to feel his way down. At the bottom......

At the bottom, the tunnel tightened to the point that Beethro has to walk sideways in order to fit. It was nearly pitch dark. Beethro turned his head with some difficulty to learn if he could still see the entrance. Yes, there it was--a faint patch of sunny green and yellow up above him.

Considered Beethro, "This is no good. I'll look really stupid when I'm dead. People will think I'm some kind of idiot to come down here without a sword."

So Beethro was resolved to leave, but then something on the floor just in front of him caught his eye. It glinted despite the darkness. He reached down to pick it up, and felt his sides brush against the rock walls of the passage. The shiny object was just inches from his hand, but the walls seemed too tight. Beethro lunged as hard as he could towards the object. His yellow shirt ripped against a sharp jutting rock. Beethro cursed, noticed he still was out of reach, and cursed again with greater profanity.

Then he remembered a length of rope in his pack. He predicted that he could throw a loop of rope around the object and drag it towards him. With the new plan in mind, Beethro began to back out from the tight confinement, in order to access his pack. But it wasn't so easy. In fact, his body was firmly wedged, and Beethro made no progress whatsoever.

"Don't panic," thought Beethro. "If I'm the one that put me here, then I can get myself out!"

It was at that moment that Beethro felt two tiny hands from behind grab his ears and pull them incredibly hard by the lobes.


____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

DiMono
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1181
Registered: 09-13-2003
IP: Logged

Surprised, Beethro let out a slight cry of shock, as the hands continued pulling at his ears. Beethro tried turning his head, but the hold of the hands was too fanatic. Finally, Beethro's arm unwedged itself from the struggle, and Beethro fell back on the floor.

"You no pay! You no pay!" came the frantic yells from behind him. Beethro tried to think of a way out of this, but found he just couldn't. Conceding this was going to be a long struggle, he lay back to get comfortable.

Suddenly the hands let go, and the cries changed to "You crush! You crush!" Beethro leaned forward and turned around, to see the ugly green visage of a goblin.

"Do I know you?" asked Beethro.

"You no pay! I sell you rabbit, you no pay!"

As the goblin continued yelling coherently at him, Beethro thought back to his previous encounters with goblins; most of them were dead, killed by his own sword. His sword... Beethro tried reaching for it, only to discover he still didn't have it.

"What rabbit?"

"I sell you wood rabbit, you short change me!"

"Wood rabbit? But that was a long time ago. ...which means I didn't kill you."

"What you mean? Of course you no kill me! I mighty goblin with wood rabbits! You stupid oaf with debt! Give me money!"

Beethro looked around, trying to find a loose rock. Finally, his eyes settled back on the glinting object. "That could be money," he said to himself out loud.

"What?" came the annoying voice of the goblin. "Of course it's money." You give me money!"

Beethro pointed at the glinting object he couldn't reach. Quickly the goblin turned to it, then ran past Beethro and bent over to pick it up...

____________________________
Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

The_Red_Hawk
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 783
Registered: 09-02-2003
IP: Logged

Beethro started backing up as the goblin picked up a giant sword and headed his way..........

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

krammer
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 904
Registered: 02-12-2003
IP: Logged

"Money! Give now!"

Beethro thought quickly. He had always been a good exterminator, his tutors at the Guild had said so often enough, in particular they always admired his amazing ability to get out of difficult situations.

Unfortunately his amazing ability seemed to have given up on him.

"Hey, go carefully there," he said. "You could hurt someone!"

"Hurt you much! You no pay for rabbit!"

"Erm..." For a moment Beethro felt a little irritated that the Guild had never mentioned how to deal with goblins that were armed. Mind you, probably because no exterminator would be daft enough to let a goblin arm himself. Weapons were not usually in plentiful supply in dungeons. The situation probably never normally arose.

This was not a comforting thought.

Beethro decided that desperate measures were needed. "Watch out! Behind you!" he shrieked. To his amazement the goblin turned. Beethro leapt and knocked him to the ground, wrenched the sword off him, and was about to strike when...

____________________________
+++ Divide by Cucumber Error +++ Please Reinstall Universe and Reboot +++

"Oook!"

NoahT
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1133
Registered: 06-17-2003
IP: Logged

...The ground underneath the two of them began to crumble, then it broke off, and Beethro and the goblin were falling. They kept falling until...

-Noah

____________________________
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

My stuff:

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5381
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Beethro woke up, his heart beating like a drum. "Whew," said Beethro, "Good thing I woke up before I hit the ground."

Rubbing his eyes to wake up, Beethro heard a faint scratching coming from somewhere in his room. He got up, grabbed his sword, and stealthily walked towards the sound. "That's odd," thought Beethro, "It's coming from the guest room, and I don't have any guests staying with me." He quietly opened the door, and he burst into laughter when he saw....

____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

zex20913
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1721
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Almost all of the king's men, and the king's horses, buried under various stacks of letters. Beethro thought they had been trying to kidnap him and throw him in the dungeon again, but this time for seeding it. But, Beethro caught them in the act, so...

____________________________

Sokko
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 336
Registered: 02-25-2003
IP: Logged

The captain of the guards tried to say something, but being buried in letters it came out "Bmf rfdr ff tf kmff, yrmmf rmf hrmfbf armmftd fmm smmfdng drfmmrf rmf..."

"Oh, can it." said Beethro in an irritated manner. "I've had enough of you trying to get me to go back there. For the forty-fifth time, I did NOT seed the dungeon! Now get out of here before I throw you in the furnace along with the letters."

"Ymmmf romf rrmf!" said the captain, and spat the letters blocking his mouth at Beethro's feet. He was about to say something else, but lost his balance getting up and toppled over backward into a gigantic mound of letters. Beethro couldn't help smiling amusedly, despite his annoyance.

"They'll probably be there for a while." he thought to himself. "I'll go have breakfast in the meantime." And so he left the guest room full of letters, locked the door for good measure, and walked into his kitchen. He was about to cook something up when the bell rang, and walking to the door Beethro saw that he had a surprise visitor. It was...

____________________________
How many boards would the Mongols hoard if the Mongol hordes got bored?

NoahT
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1133
Registered: 06-17-2003
IP: Logged

...The goblin. He was all worn out from his fall. In a weak voice he said, "Money!" then collapsed in the doorway. Then...

-Noah

____________________________
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

My stuff:

The_Red_Hawk
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 783
Registered: 09-02-2003
IP: Logged

"What happened?" Beethro asked.
"Money."
"WHAT HAPPENED?"
"MONEY!"
Beethro was about to lose his cool. "Now tell, me, goblin....."
"Give money first, then talk."
Beethro swung him up by the neck. "THERE'S YOUR MONEY!"
The goblin started talking very fast.
"Westumbledintothewarpholdandnoexterminatercanleaveuntiltheyhavedefeatedallfiftylevelssothisisreallyjustanillusionnowwheresmymoneyhmm?
"You won't get it."
"You see reality where you are." He pressed a button and he was an a dark room surrounded with roaches.

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

krammer
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 904
Registered: 02-12-2003
IP: Logged

Roaches. The last thing Beethro wanted to see. He didn't like warps and time loops much anyway - they just caused complications - and to discover there were fifty more levels ahead of him was just too much. Vowing that this would be the last time he ever exterminated anywhere so big, he started work.

Not to bore you too much with details, Beethro cleared the first few floors fairly quickly. However, he soon came screeching to a halt on Floor Eight when he realised that...

____________________________
+++ Divide by Cucumber Error +++ Please Reinstall Universe and Reboot +++

"Oook!"

trick
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2580
Registered: 04-12-2003
IP: Logged

..he'd been there before. The walls, the roaches, the doors, even the smells and the low growling sounds, everything was exactly like he remembered it from level 1.

Beethro stood there silently in thought, unmoving, watching the roaches sleep.

This wasn't the first level. It was the eighth. Even if he'd taken a wrong turn somewhere at the previous level, it couldn't be the same room he'd been in before. It couldn't. He'd cleared it!

Distant thoughts bubbled up. A... goblin ? There was something... No, he couldn't remember.

It could be a coincidence, of course. A lazy dungeon architect that didn't have the inspiration to create a whole new level design.

Yeah, that was probably it.

Beethro cleared the room absentmindedly, thinking some very nasty thoughts about the dungeon architect. When he was finished, as he was getting ready to leave for the next room, a thought occured to him. He went back to the locked door covering the entrance, got a good grip on his sword, and used it to scratch a big X in the dusty dungeon floor. Then he left.

He cleared the next couple of levels quickly. They were all copies of earlier levels, in order. After some time he was standing at top of the stairs leading down to level sixteen.


[Edited by trick on 09-29-2003 at 06:29 PM]

The_Red_Hawk
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 783
Registered: 09-02-2003
IP: Logged

Beethro landed in a dark room with lots of roaches, exactly similar to level one, with an X in the middle of the floor.
"AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO CLEAR THESE FLOORS IF I CAN ONLY CLEAR THE FIRST EIGHT!!!!!!!!!!"
Then, Beethro heard muffled laughter. "You can clear the first floors as many times as you like and you won't get out."
Just as something occurred to Beethro, the voice went on. "There are no level jumps here. You are trapped. The Regeneration Spell is strong."

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5381
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

The small group of goblins quietly watched Beethro through the one-way mirror.

"Kire! Take Ekim with you to level 24, and scratch another X in the floor there as well. Beethro is starting to go insane, and we need to continue the illusion that he's stuck here forever! His will is fracturing - now we must shatter it!"

"And get that kid away from the microphone! Who brought him down here anyways?"

Beethro walked around the room, frantically hitting the walls with his sword, hoping for a secret passage he had missed earlier, but to no avail. He curled up in the middle of the room, feeling defeated, and slept.

He awoke to a tremendous rumbling. After looking around the room, he realized it was just his stomach. He hadn't eaten in hours, after all. He stumbled around the level for hours, hungry enough to eat a roach. But what he found wasn't a roach - it was something he had never seen before, only heard of in folk tales.

____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

The_Red_Hawk
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 783
Registered: 09-02-2003
IP: Logged

It was a super-goblin, ten times smarter and twice as large as an average human. Then...it disappeared.
Beethro was confused, until he stepped into the space the goblin had been before, and he stepped on a teleportation pad...
Beethro found himself behind a one-way glass and surrounded by supergoblins. Nearby, there was a stairway. A scroll said "To Level Two".
Beethro gradually came to the acceptance that all the madness he had gone through was only the first level.....

"So. You have found the exit to level one. Each level has fifty sublevels, and you have beaten 16 of the first one. However, you have found the level jump. And for that you must die."

Twenty supergoblins surrounded Beethro from all sides. "Surrender immediately and your death will be quick....."

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

krammer
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 904
Registered: 02-12-2003
IP: Logged

"What?"

The supergoblins looked at each other. This wasn't supposed to happen. Usually, people in this position said "Never!" or "I can beat you all!" or maybe just "Aaaaaargggghhhhh help me help me." But not "What?"

"Have you any idea just how cliched that sounds?"

"Cliched?" echoed the largest of the supergoblins. "What do you mean?"

"Because," said Beethro, feeling a little more confident, "only really stereotypical villains say things like that. You need to be individual."

"We do?" The supergoblins were beginning to look worried.

"Of course. Nobody remembers the millions of baddies that always say the same thing. Unique is memorable. Don't you want people to hear your name and think 'Yeah, he was one evil guy'?"

The supergoblin was lost. Granted, his kind were intelligent, but only in combat. The admin and the planning was left to the type of goblin that could devise hundreds of ways to destroy exterminators. Supergoblins were just the professional thugs.

"Errr... what do you suggest?" asked the leader.

"Oooh, I don't know," said Beethro. "Try and think of something witty." He paused at the crestfallen look on the lead supergoblin's face. "I tell you what," he said. "How about you let me go and then bring me back when you've thought of something, hmmm?"

____________________________
+++ Divide by Cucumber Error +++ Please Reinstall Universe and Reboot +++

"Oook!"

trick
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2580
Registered: 04-12-2003
IP: Logged

The supergoblins exchanged looks.

"Err..," said the leader.

"Right, then," said Beethro, and started moving towards the stairs. He had no idea how to get out of this cursed dungeon, but this room was no place to be staying for long. Those stairs seemed to be the only way out apart from that strange teleport pad, and he was not going back on that. It seemed to have made him even more hungry.

The supergoblins exchanged worried looks.

Beethro descended the stairs as quick as he could without running. This just didn't make any sense. Supergoblins. Why did they want him dead ? Well, apart from the fact that he slaughtered their kin for a living ? From what he'd seen in the room upstairs, they had kept an eye on him as he went through all the rooms on the level, and he wouldn't be surprised if there was similar surveillance rooms at every level he'd been on so far. This was no ordinary dungeon. In other words, if the supergoblins just wanted to kill him, they'd have jumped out at him long since. If he hadn't stumbled over that strange teleport pad, he still wouldn't have known they even existed.

There was some commotion upstairs.

So, they wanted something. Except, when he had found them, they suddenly wanted to kill him as fast as possible, after having a nice little super-villain chat with him. It just didn't make any sense. Unless...


[Edited by trick on 09-30-2003 at 09:17 PM GMT: fixed quotes]

The_Red_Hawk
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 783
Registered: 09-02-2003
IP: Logged

.....they were operating under orders to keep themselves secret, but from who?

Then, the speaker started up again. "Yes," said the lead supergoblin, "he's called the 'Leather. He's incredibly strong and smart and big and has countless powers that mere mortals cannot understand. You will have to fight him in level 50."

"Oh, great. Don't tell me these supergoblins are into mind'reading too?"

But then, Beethro stopped dead in his tracks half-way down the stairs. He realized that if the supergoblins could read his mind, surely they could have told that he was bluffing at the top? Four letters came into his mind, and they spelled: TRAP.

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

Mattcrampy
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2388
Registered: 05-29-2003
IP: Logged

Wait...

Beethro glanced around, and saw the word TRAP written on a box, but the letters were odd - all spread out, not joined together like normal. After some thought, he also noticed they were upside down.

Turning the box over, he saw the word PART written on the box, still in that weird, spread-out writing. Some of the box had been torn away, like greedy goblin hands eager for whatever used to be inside. The top of the box had crude pictures of some sort of mechanical device, as if an unseen agent had attempted to explain it and the artist hadn't had a clue how it all fitted together.

Knowing this could mean nothing good, Beethro checked around for secret passages.

Matt

____________________________
What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?

agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

As Beethro had his back turned to the box, it began to rattle. Beethro was, at first, too absorbed in finding that secret passage, that he did not notice it. Slowly the rattling increased in volume and as Beethro turned to face the box he discovered that it was beginning to sprout a pair of mechanical arms and legs. Beethro couldn't, for the life of him, think what the strange mini-robot had to do with this weird dungeon at all. Edging towards the stairs, he kept a wary eye on the twiching machine, when to his horror, out of the top flap of the box came a squidgy mass of pink tissue.

____________________________
Resident Medic/Mycologist

zex20913
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1721
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Which was very fortunate indeed, because Beethro had been developing a cold. He took the pink tissue, blew his nose, and went back to searching for secret passages.

But this room made Beethro very confused. He couldn't see any exits, and there were no secret passages. There was some more commotion upstairs, possibly because the supergoblins had come up with something witty, and they were planning an attack on poor Beethro...

____________________________

Sokko
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 336
Registered: 02-25-2003
IP: Logged

(I have a request: Please, no backwards plot-twisting. First we had an infinitely looping dungeon. Then it was not really looping, but they were just faking it. That was fine, but then we had someone else saying it really was infinite, and then someone else saying it wasn't. You can't go backwards with something like that, so don't even try. Anyway, I'll attempt to untwist the story and provide a little recap here.)



Beethro moved along to search more, and the box followed him on its robotic legs. It seemed to be designed to follow someone around, possibly to make moving it from place to place easier. He pushed on the box, and it stopped following him. Knowing he was running out of time, he left it sitting (or rather, standing) there and resumed searching.

Sped along by the shouts of the supergoblins above, Beethro whacked every wall in the very blank-looking room with his sword, and every single time it clanged off solid rock. Sneezing, he reached for another tissue and found that the strange walking box of "Part" wasn't there anymore.

"That's odd." he thought. "Nobody could've come in here because there's no way in or out. But wait... if there isn't any way in or out, how did I get down here?"

Beethro looked to the far corner of the room where the staircase had been and realized that it wasn't there either. He was trapped in a blank room with no way to get out. He listened for the clamoring supergoblins on the floor above, but their yelling had ceased.

Since he now had had a lot of time to mull things over, Beethro started thinking about what had happened to him recently and what it all meant.

"Okay, so I climbed into a hole where a goblin lived. He wants money for something, I don't know what it is or why. Then I woke up in my house, and thought it had been a dream, but the waking-up part was really an illusion and the truth was that I had fell into the Warp Hold. Then the illusion went away and I cleared out what seemed to be an infinitely looping dungeon, but really wasn't. Then I stepped on that weird teleport-thingy and found out a lot from the supergoblins. I found out that every level of this dungeon has surveillance equipment, and that it has 50 levels, but each of those levels is really a looping series of the same 8 sub-levels, or at least it appears to be, I don't know which. I found out while escaping from the supergoblins that they're acting under orders to keep themselves secret, and those orders came from someone called the 'Leather. Then I came down here and found that weird robotic box with the spread-out letters and some tissues in it, with drawings of some mechanical thing on it. While I was looking for an exit, both the box and the stairs disappeared behind my back, leaving me stuck here."

All that thinking had made Beethro tired, but strangely he wasn't hungry anymore. "Must be some weird property of the Warp Hold..." he thought to himself. He sat down and in doing so looked up at the ceiling, and there he saw a sword floating in the air. It was not moving, but Beethro moved as far away from it as possible all the same.

After a few tense seconds, the room was suddenly flooded with light, as if the sun were shining onto it; but where the light was coming from, Beethro couldn't tell. The floating sword near the ceiling began to move. It moved to one side of the room, while Beethro watched it warily.

The sword shimmered for a second, and created a strange blue warp field under its tip; the field was the same size and shape as one of the tiles on the dungeon floor. Then suddenly a wall fell out of it and crashed to the tiles below. Beethro watched, stunned, as the sword moved around, creating walls from nowhere in strange patterns until they obscured his vision and he could no longer see the whole room. Then, as he watched, the sword began creating more things; doors, orbs, tar, checkpoints, it even made the floors disappear, creating pits, and lastly it plopped down a number of monsters, all in some kind of deep hibernation state. Beethro stared in awe. An entire dungeon room, complete with monster infestation, had been created in less than five minutes, a task that would take even the best architects at least a whole day.

Beethro thought about the implications. If a room could be created in five minutes, a floor could be made in a matter of two hours and an entire dungeon could be constructed in just a few days. Plus, why did these dungeons come with pests included? Who would ever want a dungeon with pre-placed monsters? And why?

His thinking was interrupted as the room shuddered and began to move. Walking over to the nearest pit and looking down, he saw something that really knocked his socks off.

A giant factory floor was scrolling past his vision as the room moved along, with what must have been hundreds of tons of machinery working away on goodness knows what, and goblins scurrying about everywhere with supergoblins standing guard at various places or running around carrying heavy loads. More strange legged boxes scurried around behind the supergoblins, bearing more of that strange spaced-out writing; Beethro couldn't read what it said from the height he was at. Thrusting his sword into the floor as an anchor, he craned his neck downward and could barely see, around the edge of the room, what seemed like a giant crane carrying the entire room along.

"Why are these goblins building dungeons?" he thought. "Are they doing it on the 'Leather's orders? And if so, why does he want these dungeons?"

As he thought these thoughts, he realized that the crane had positioned the room above an empty room-sized space in a small network of rooms being put together on the factory floor. The room was lowered into place, and as it crunched to the ground, exits to the rooms around it appeared. One of the exits lead out to the factory floor, presumably to a room that hadn't been placed there yet.

Beethro knew he didn't have much time. As soon as this floor was completed, it would be dropped into the dungeon under construction, with mixed results for him. He could run out into the factory and risk discovery, or he could stay here in relative but questionable safety.


BEETHRO'S "CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE":

If you decide to MAKE A BREAK FOR IT, turn to page 96.
If you decide to STAY IN THE ROOM, turn to page 117.
If you decide to TAKE IT IN A BIT OF A DIFFERENT DIRECTION, turn to page 184.

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How many boards would the Mongols hoard if the Mongol hordes got bored?

The_Red_Hawk
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 783
Registered: 09-02-2003
IP: Logged

Beethro was thinking when something in the corner caught his eye. "SUPER INVISIBILITY POTION. DRINK THIS AND NOTHING CAN SEE YOU. "Hmm. Handy." Beethro drunk it and walked calmly past the sleeping monsters. "Yup. It works. I think I'll MAKE A BREAK FOR IT."

Little did he realize that a super invisibility potion could never fool the sensors of the little robots.....

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Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

trick
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2580
Registered: 04-12-2003
IP: Logged

Sokko wrote:
BEETHRO'S "CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE":

If you decide to MAKE A BREAK FOR IT, turn to page 96.
If you decide to STAY IN THE ROOM, turn to page 117.
If you decide to TAKE IT IN A BIT OF A DIFFERENT DIRECTION, turn to page 184.

Page 184: Beethro takes it in a bit of a different direction.
(I wrote this before I saw The_Red_Hawk's continuation. Since Sokko introduced this multiple choice thingie, i thought i'd post my version anyway, but in a different thread. Ooh, this is interactive.)

[Edited by trick on 10-04-2003 at 07:37 PM]

agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Sokko wrote:
BEETHRO'S "CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE":

If you decide to MAKE A BREAK FOR IT, turn to page 96.
If you decide to STAY IN THE ROOM, turn to page 117.
If you decide to TAKE IT IN A BIT OF A DIFFERENT DIRECTION, turn to page 184.

Hee hee... Continuation 3 can be found here:

Construct The Story: Page 117

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Resident Medic/Mycologist

agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

The_Red_Hawk wrote:
Beethro was thinking when something in the corner caught his eye. "SUPER INVISIBILITY POTION. DRINK THIS AND NOTHING CAN SEE YOU. "Hmm. Handy." Beethro drunk it and walked calmly past the sleeping monsters. "Yup. It works. I think I'll MAKE A BREAK FOR IT."

Little did he realize that a super invisibility potion could never fool the sensors of the little robots.....

Page 96: Continuation 1

Beethro Makes A Break For It

Beethro reached the corridor at the end of the room. The sword had moved to the other side, so Beethro felt a little safer. Peering out of the corridor, he couldn't see much as whatever it was that lay before him was in a very dim light. Treading softly out of the room into the factory, he noticed a strange tile on the floor and recognised it as a teleportation tile. Beethro nearly jumped for joy when he had realised what it was and ran towards it. Two arms suddenly gripped him from behind. Beethro struggled. More arms began to grab him, and Beethro was overwhelmed. A group of the robots had sprung on him and had stopped him from reaching the tile. Beethro's sword had also fallen from his hand and lay in front of him, about two squares away, but the strong arms of the robots were holding him too tightly for him to move.

Beethro sneezed. One of the robots came up to him and handed him some pink tissue, but since Beethro's hand were behind him, he couldn't hold it, so the robot held it to his nose for him to blow.

Beethro blew his nose with so much force that he blew the tissue out of the hand of the robot. In fact the force of the blow was so strong that the tissue actually flew into the robot's face, even carrying its messy load of mucus. The robot fell over, the tissue having hit its face, and made a loud squeaking noise. This had some unusual effect on the robots holding him because they suddenly let go and fled. Beethro jumped up off the floor, grabbed his sword, and raced to the teleportation tile.

[Edited by agaricus5 on 10-04-2003 at 11:16 PM GMT: Spelling Error]

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Resident Medic/Mycologist

agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

agaricus5 wrote:
...out of the top flap of the box came a squidgy mass of pink tissue.

zex20913 wrote:
Which was very fortunate indeed, because Beethro had been developing a cold. He took the pink tissue, blew his nose, and went back to searching for secret passages.

When I realised what you had said, Zex, I burst out laughing - isn't it funny how misunderstandings give such interesting results?

When I said "tissue", I meant "tissue" as in "a collection of cells all doing the same task or job in a living thing". Specifically, when I said "pink tissue", I meant "brain tissue" as in a brain stuck on a robot. However, it has been interpreted as "pink tissue paper", which is rather amusing.

In light of this, I propose continuation 4 to continue it as I intended...

Page 205 - The Pink Tissue Is Not For Blowing Your Nose Into.



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Resident Medic/Mycologist