You're already regretting getting on this ferry, and not just because you're starting to feel seasick. The program coordinator already explained to you all back on land that Mazelandia's “unique geography and history” meant that it had no airport. Still, there must be an easier way to get there than this leaky, creaky bath tub of a ship! Or is there? Is Mazelandia an island? You have no idea. Before seeing the ad in the paper last week, you'd never even heard of a place called Mazelandia. It sounded fake. You're still not entirely sure it's not fake, despite having met the Mazelandian president, a short, twitchy man with an enormous purple bow tie with a twelve-pointed gold star in the middle. Was this all a trick?
Well, it doesn't matter, you try to remind yourself. As long as the money's real you don't care where this boat is taking you. Because that's what the ad promised:
Do you like adventure, puzzles, and the promise of fabulous prizes? Do you want to travel to exotic locales? Compete in Historic Mazelandia's Democratic Race of Fortune! See Historic Mazelandia! Make exciting new friends! Compete for glory and the chance to win a fortune!
Then there was the contact info, the phone number you had called, and a small footnote that read: “Note: Historic Mazelandia's Democratic Race of Fortune was known as The Royal Mazelandia Peasant Derby until the uprising of 1973.”
So it sounded crazy, and you suspect that it might be a set up for some ridiculous reality TV show, but you really need the money to fuel your mother's increasingly worrying bedazzling addiction. You've tried talking to her about it, but she always says the same thing, “Once I bedazzled the picture frames, the coffee table looked bare, and then after that it was the kitchen floor and the ceiling...” There's only so many rhinestones and super glue available in your small town, and now that she's sending you farther and farther afield to find more, it's eating into your time and finances. Hopefully this Mazelandia race thing will be the answer.
The ferry's horn sounds and Janice, the program coordinator, walks up and down the aisle with her clipboard and a box of assorted hats. “Fifteen minutes till we dock in Mazelandia, people!” she says briskly. “Pick up your team hats!”
“Teams?” you ask. No one said anything about teams!
“For the first part of the race,” Janice replies, rolling her eyes like you're slow. “If you're on a team that makes it through, you'll be able to compete individually in the final rounds. Didn't you read the introductory packet?”
You look down at your hands sheepishly. If only you'd gotten to the mail last week before your mom covered it all in green and yellow rhinestones! Janice shakes her head at you. “Try to convince one of the teams to let you join them, I guess,” she says as she walks away. Her tone of voice tells you that she doesn't think this is likely.
You glance around the benches surrounding you and see three possible options. One is a group of five, three boys and two girls, all dressed like Planeteers. Another group, four people this time, appear to be grad students. They're carrying a lot of equipment and one is even wearing what looks like a calculator watch of all things. Then there's the grizzled old guy in the corner. He's wearing a yellow rain slicker and eying the other teams with thinly veiled contempt. He's also smoking a corncob pipe in direct violation of the No Smoking sign directly behind him. Which group do you approach?
They seem like a pretty close knit group, but you can't give up the chance to be part of the Planeteers! That's like your childhood dream! A team of kids that have ecology-related super powers? Who can combine their powers to produce a superhero designed to save the environment? Who fights pollution despite that his one weakness is pollution? What's not to love? You approach them cautiously yet respectfully. “Hey, guys,” you say. They turn and stare at you. “So... I was wondering if I could join your team. I don't really have one of my own and...”
The Planeteers all look at each other for a moment and then go into a group huddle. You can't hear what they're saying. When they turn back to you, the guy dressed as Kwame says, “We are a welcoming group to anyone who cares about our planet—but all our Planeteers are already accounted for. What role could you play?”
“You could be my monkey!” Ma-Ti says hopefully. “I brought the costume and everything!” He takes a monkey costume out of his bag.
“You're so weird,” Gi tells him.
“I don't know...” you say, looking at the full body monkey suit doubtfully.
“Well, don't think you can muscle in on any of our turf!” Wheeler says hotly. “I called Wheeler! I called him like a month ago! This ring is totally mine and no one is taking it from me!”
This opens up an idea you haven't thought of before. Do you try to challenge one of the Planeteers for Planeteer dominance, hoping to take their place in the group? Do you agree to be Ma-Ti's monkey? Or do you try to convince them that you can be all their powers combined? Do you, dear reader, dare try to be Captain Planet?
Or do you give up on this group altogether and try for the grad students or that grizzled old guy?
You make your way over to the group of grad students, figuring that they seem the most likely to take you on and not be sketchy about it. “Hey,” you say, and they all look up at you at the same time. “Do you guys need any help? See, I don't have a team, and--”
“Here,” a girl beside you says before you even finish, pushing a large duffel bag into your arms. “Carry these instruments.”
“So I guess that means....?”
“You're in,” the guy with the calculator watch agrees. “Although I should warn you, we're not on this journey to win fabulous prizes.”
“Though that would be nice,” a red-haired guy next to him adds disgruntledly, under his breath. You can tell they've been arguing about this a little bit.
“We all have student loans to pay off, Chet!” the girl who handed you her bag says, rolling her eyes and leafing through the papers in a folder. “But some things are more important!”
Chet mutters something but you can't hear it over Calculator Watch Guy enthusiastically shaking your hand. “My name's Grover, and I'm a grad student in meteorology at USAM. This is Angela from Geology--” The girl whose bag you're now holding makes a face you interpret as either “pleased to meet you” or “I have gas”-- “Akane with Biology”--the other girl nods at you solemnly--”And Chet, from Anthropology.” Grover rolled his eyes at this, as if the entire field of Anthropology were just there to annoy him.
“Hey,” you say to all of them. “I'm Nat, and umm... I have half a degree in papier mache from community college. Is that... is that a problem?”
The grad students shrug. “As long as you can carry our equipment,” Angela says. “This is a big opportunity to study Mazelandia. They almost never give out visas for visitors—just for this one event every year.”
“What are they hiding?” Akane adds quietly as if to herself.
“So you guys don't even want to win?” you ask with a sinking feeling. Dammit! Team Planeteer is going to muscle their way past you for sure! They're already doing stretches!
“Nonsense!” Grover exclaims. “Of course we want to win! The longer we stay in the game the longer we have to study Mazelandia, with its completely undocumented climate, wildlife, and geological makeup! The outside world knows next to nothing about this insular society—and you know what that means!”
All four grad students, even Chet, suddenly punch the air and shout “SUPER THESIS!”
“Uhhh... okay,” you say, resting the duffel bag of geology equipment on a nearby bench. “You guys seem... fun.” But in your head you're thinking that they seem crazy. Still, crazy and smart. Do you think that will give you an advantage? It's not too late to back out. Do you want to stick with the grad students? Or try to get in with the Planeteers? Or even that Grizzled Old Man?
You walk over to the grizzled old guy in the corner. He watches you approach without a change of expression, but you sense that he's sizing you up. “Do you have a team yet?” you ask him.
He watches you for another moment, and then says, “You want to be on my team?” You can't quite place his accent.
“Yes, sir,” you say, “if you'll have me.”
He scrutinizes you a minute longer, and then holds out his gnarled, wrinkled hand. You shake it.
“Alright, come on then,” he says and motions you to follow him out onto the deck. The wind whips through your hair and tugs at your clothes like so many grabby frat boys at an off campus kegger. The ferry pitches in the tumultuous waves and you're forced to grab the rail or risk falling overboard into the cold deeps. Grasping the rail, you follow the old man at a crawl up some stairs and into what turns out to be the control room of the ship. He nods to the teenage boy at the helm and takes the wheel from him. The boy picks up a mop and returns to his duties cleaning up vomit in the passenger areas.
“Wait, you're the captain of this ferry?”
He nods, a nod as old as the sea itself. “Aye,” he says. “Once a year I ply this route, bringing the sacrificial lambs to slaughter.”
“What?” you demand. His accent is a little weird, did you hear him right?”
“That's old seaman's cant for delivering the race competitors safely to old Mazelandia,” he says. “Don't you pay that no mind. It's none of your concern now.”
“What do you mean?” you say. “I'm a race competitor.”
The old man slowly, ponderously shakes his head. “Not no more you're not. That handshake was legally binding. Welcome to the crew of the M. S. Vomitoria. Now get to swabbing.”
You quickly learn that you are not fond of swabbing, especially since Carl, the teenage boy you saw earlier, has the best mop and you are left with a sad leftover that is oddly small, like maybe the last person in this post was a child. You glare at the happy teams of race competitors streaming off the ship when the ferry docks. If only you had joined a real team you would be one of them! You glance around, but the coast seems to be clear. Should you make a break for it now? Or best not to risk it?
The ferry finally docks and you're stuck carrying a bunch of heavy science equipment down the ramp. At least your team hats look cool. At least on you. Janice insisted the only kind left were cowboy hats, and the rest of your team looks kind of silly in them in their lab coats, so you're secretly really smug about rocking the look. Maybe someone cute on one of the other teams will notice.
And there are a lot of other teams. You knew the ferry you were on was full, but you weren't counting on there being so many ferries! As you follow the crush of people down the docks towards the streets of Mazelandia's main seaport. The name over the arch you pass through proclaims the town to be known as “Start”.
“That's a weird name,” you say.
“Not really,” Chet answers. The other three grad students are too busy taking notes on their clipboards, but Chet is walking along with his hands in his pockets, observing the world with the lazy, uncaring eye of the social scientist. “In most of Mazelandia's native languages, the sound we'd write in English as 'Start' or 'Stay-ratay' as they would pronounce it, means 'Water place'.”
“Do you speak Mazelandian?” you ask eagerly. These grad students will obviously be more helpful than you thought!
“A little,” Chet says with a shrug. “Some dialects, anyway. But most of our information about them comes from the writings of shipwrecked Mazelandian sailors from one hundred and twenty years ago at best. There's no telling how the native languages have morphed since then.” He nods towards the sign. “For instance, they've apparently adopted a Romanized alphabet.”
The town of Start looks a lot like an olde timey New England fishing village, so you don't really see what all the fuss is about. There are stately brick houses with wide shutters to keep out the sea wind's wrath and market stalls lining the narrow streets. You crane your neck to look around, but you can't see any natives, just other Race teams, identifiable by their matching hats. There are Viking hats and baseball caps and bonnets and wimples, but everyone has the excited air of competitors. No one's wandering down to the grocery store or looking out the windows at these newcomers. You suppose some of the competitors themselves must be from Mazelandia, right? But it's impossible in the press of the crowd to tell.
Finally the long train of humanity funnels into a large, open square at the center of Start. There a small platform has been erected in front of a modest stone sculpture. You can tell its meant to be all modern, but you think it mostly just looks like an arrow. A man is clambering atop the platform, and it sways under his weight. You recognize the Mazelandian president. Your team is fairly far away from the platform, but you'd know that large purple bow tie with the gold star anywhere.
“Welcomes to you, my new friends!” he cries over the megaphone in his accented English. “I am pleased to announce the beginning of this year's Historic Mazelandia Democratic Race of Fortune!” Everyone cheers. “We welcomes you from all over the world, for the chance to compete for the prize of a lifetime! You all know the rules: no cheating! The first twenty teams to find their way to the top of Beautiful Death Mountain, Mazelandia's highest peak, will be eligible to continue onto the next round! Good luck!!”
“Death Mountain?” you say in surprise as everyone around you cheers.
“Don't worry about it,” Chet counsels with a shrug. “In native Mazelandian tongues, the sound we know as 'death' denotes the word for 'high' with a peaceful connotation.”
“Oh, that makes me feel so much better,” you say sarcastically, but Chet isn't paying attention because the president has just shot a gun into the air and you're off!
The grad students don't run ahead like the other groups at the sound of the gunshot. Instead, they spread out, moving around the square to take notes on different things and taking out instruments to measure conditions.
“You guys, we have to go!” you plead to no avail. “Out of all the teams, only twenty are going to make it to the next round!”
“So it will pay to be the most informed,” Grover says, taking out his camera. “Besides, look at those unusual cloud formations!”
“I'm going to the bar,” Chet says in his usual gloomy, world-weary voice.
“Chet, this isn't spring break!” Angela yells at him hotly.
“I'll ask for directions while I'm there,” Chet rolls his eyes at her. Should you go with Chet to the bar? Stay out here and try to help the sciencey grad students with their sample collection? Or strike out on your own?
No one in the bar seems to speak English, but it's not difficult to understand each other. Chet can speak Mazelandian a little bit, which the locals seem to find very funny for some reason. Soon, a man who looks like a farmer has challenged you to a drinking contest. He and his friends seem to be in such a good mood, and their laughter is infectious. You're not sure exactly what it is you're drinking. It comes in something halfway between a mug and shot glass and has a buttery, warm aftertaste after it burns its way down your throat. Your opponent seems to like it a lot, and you have to admit it's not bad.
That's the last thing you remember.
When you wake up, it's night time. You're lying on something hard and uncomfortable. You groggily turn to see that it's Chet. You jerk up when you see that he's staring at you unblinkingly in a totally creepy way. You don't like at all that he would watch you sleep like this, but relax a moment later when you see that his throat has been slashed and he's not actually staring at anything anymore.
You scream as the reality of that sinks in and scramble away from his body, feeling your own for any wounds, but you seem to be untouched. Where are you? It's dark, light filtering in from far above you where you see some stars. You feel around and decide you're in a hole in the ground, about ten feet deep, the floor and walls made of soft earth. You're about to scream for help, when you see red eyes above you amongst the stars.
Do you scream and make a lot of noise in the hopes of scaring it away?
Or do you remain perfectly still?
Unfortunately for the grad students, but fortunately for you (you were getting bored), Chet comes running out of the bar screaming after only half an hour. His nose is bleeding and there's an angry mob behind him. You don't understand what they're shouting at him, but it's obvious that they are supremely not happy, in a torches and pitchforks kind of way.
“Run!” Chet yells, clutching his team cowboy hat to his head.
You don't need telling twice. You eagerly drop the soil samples you've been gathering for Angela and grab Akane's hand to help her up from where she is crouched beside you in the grass.
“But our equipment--!” Angela starts to protest.
“No time!” Chet screams at her, grabbing her arm and dragging her out of the square. You and Akane run beside them. Grover is already halfway down the street. Meteorologists are known to be fine sprinters.
“What the what did you do?” Angela demands of Chet as the advancing horde starts throwing rocks at you.
“Cultural differences,” Chet yells back.
Angela looks like she wants to punch him, but there's no time what with all the running you have to do.
Your pursuers begin to lose interest one by one and you're finally free of them outside of town. You're all breathing hard, and Chet collapses in a heap on the ground next to a sign post. It's starting to get dark.
“What do we do now?” you ask. You can see a tall mountain in the distance—could that be your objective? Unfortunately there's no road that leads straight to it, although both roads leading away from the town, one on the right and one on the left, could come to it eventually. Both seem to be trying to avoid the dark forest that's right in front of you.
Akane is reading the signpost. “Deadfoot Village,” she says, pointing left. “Or the Swamp of Eternal Night.”
“Both sound super great,” Angela says sarcastically, lifting her hair off the back of her neck.
“Actually,” Chet starts, “Our word for “dead” is easily confused but distinct from the Mazelandian word for--”
Angela kicks him.
“Or there's always the forest,” Akane continues. “According to the sign, it's known as the Forest of One Thousand Regrets.”
“And I suppose that has some misunderstanding not actually terrifying name too?” Grover asks Chet.
“Not that I know of,” Chet says. “Sounds dangerous.”
“Unlike the Swamp of Eternal Night,” Angela says sarcastically. “I think we should go to the village.”
“Well, I vote for the swamp!” Chet retorts.
“The mountain is right there,” Grover points out. “It only makes sense to take the most direct route. Off road and into the forest!”
Akane shrugs. “I don't believe in voting,” she says.
“Fine, then it's up to you,” Grover says to you. “Which do you vote for? Deadfoot Village Road? The Swamp of Eternal Night? Or the Forest of One Thousand Regrets?”
“Well, guess I better go scout around,” you say, and before any of the grad students can argue you speed walk out of the square. As you walk down the street beyond it, you notice that doors slam shut as you come level with them and all of the windows are shuttered. “Hello?” you call. Is everyone in Mazelandia taking part in the race? Or are they afraid of you?
Finally you come to a crossroads on the edge of town, and at its center is a large, elaborate fountain. You can't quite tell what the decorations are supposed to be; again, Mazelandia seems to go in for a weird modernist style, but to you it most looks like children dancing in a circle while holding gruesome severed heads in their hands like Easter baskets. The water is gushing from the mouths and wounds of the heads. But that can't be it, right? You're disturbed to see the heads are wearing hats. Kind of like your hat? Really impossible to tell. You notice a variety of strange coinage at the bottom of the fountain. Taking a penny out of your pocket, you decide to make a wish. What should you wish for?
You know in your heart there's only one role in which you belong. “Alright, I'll be the monkey,” you say with a sigh.
“Yay!” Ma-Ti cheers and hugs you. “Welcome to the Planeteers, Suchi!”
You tug on the costume, which is hot and itchy, and follow the other Planeteers outside when the ferry docks. People are looking at you, and your face goes red behind the oddly creepy monkey mask you're wearing. It's hard to see out of it, and also hard to walk. You have to hang on to Ma-Ti's shoulder for balance and guidance. “I think it's going to be kind of hard for me to race in this outfit,” you say to them.
“Shhh!” Ma-Ti orders. “Monkeys don't talk.”
“What?” you snap.
“Monkeys don't talk,” Ma-Ti repeats. “And they don't argue so much.” He glares at you.
“Are you seriously telling me I'm not going to be able to talk for this whole trip?” you demand. “Are you going to make me eat only bananas too?”
Ma-Ti smacks you across the head. “MONKEYS DON'T TALK!” he yells. The ridiculous monkey headpiece cushions the blow, but it still pisses you off. This guy actually thinks he's the lamest character from an early 90s cartoon show about eco-terrorists—and he has the nerve to push you around?
“I'll show you something else monkeys do!” you scream at him, slashing at his face. It goes without saying that by the time Kwame and Linka pull you off him, you've already thrown so much poop at his head.
Oddly enough, Mazelandia's Democratic Guard were already making their way down the docks to arrest you before you started attacking Ma-Ti. Apparently if there's one thing Mazelandians can't stand, it's furry costumes, and they have strict obscenity laws against their use in public. “I hope you rot in hell!” you scream at the Planeteers as you're hauled away to the nearest Mazelandian jail. Once inside the other criminals move away from you as if you are diseased. You try to take the costume off, but the zipper's stuck. When night falls, they move in. All that's left in the morning is the fake monkey head on a pike. The guards do nothing. It's nature's way of dealing with furry costumes and they have to let it take its course.
The End
“With your powers combined, I AM CAPTAIN PLANET!” you scream at them, holding your arms wide for maximum dramatics.
The Planeteers are not impressed. They stare at you like you're crazy. “Okay, where's your green hair?” Linka asks.
“And your icy blue skin?” Gi adds.
“And your red speedo with gloves and strange midriff-baring collar-shirt?” Wheeler, ever the fashion critic, challenges.
“Not to mention your climate-controlling powers,” Kwame adds as if this is the most damning evidence of all.
“CAPTAIN PLANET IMPOSTER!” Ma-Ti suddenly screams as if he's just realized.
You lower your arms dejectedly. “Yeah, but it's not like you guys are really Planeteers with real magic rings from the modern-day embodiment of a primordial Greek earth goddess,” you say. “Why can't I pretend too?”
Gi points her ring at you and a freak spout of water rises from the ocean to slap you in the face, drenching you in freezing sea water and embarrassment.
“Holy malarkey, you have real Captain Planet powers!!” you cry.
“And Planeteer law is clear on what must be done to Planetary imposters,” Linka says ominously.
You back away as they close in on you, but you're stopped when your foot hits the rail. “Nooooooo!” you scream as they throw you overboard into the icy depths of the churning surf. Maybe Aquaman is also real and will save you. But I doubt it.
The End
“I'm not a monkey!” you say. “I'm at least as good as that guy!” It probably goes without saying that you're pointing to Ma-Ti, most wussy of all Planeteers. “If I challenge one of you to a Planeteer off and win, doesn't Planeteer law state that I get to take your place?”
Kwame nods solemnly. “Only the best can be members of the Planeteers—Gaia has no room for weaklings. By Planeteer law, it is so. Who do you wish to challenge?”
You hesitate, looking around at them all. Obviously some are going to be easier to beat than others, but you also have to factor in the relative awesomeness of claiming their power as your own. Do you challenge Kwame for Earth Power? Wheeler for fire power? Gi for water power? Linka for Wind power? Or Ma-Ti for Heart?
Dramatically throwing down the mop, you decide to make a break for it. You glance around one more time to make sure no one's looking, and then walk casually over to the edge. At the last moment, you run across the ferry ramp after the retreating crowds, not stopping until you're halfway down the dock! Freedom!!
You're almost to dry land when you slow down, wheezing from running so hard. As you slow, you see something in the water. Is that a person?
Should you stop and try to help them, or just keep going?
You decide that you'd better not risk it. The grizzled old sea captain seems like a hard ass, just the kind of guy who would track you down and beat you with a giant tuna for trying to disobey him or renege on a hand shake contract. You miserably continue to mop up the deck, watching the excited racers exit to their chances of fame and glory.
“Well, that's done,” the grizzled old sea captain says to you after everyone's off the ship. “Now back to our usual job.”
“What's that?” you ask suspiciously.
“Smuggling rare birds into the country,” he says, pulling out a cage containing like fifty parrots. “Now go make some room in your rectum—these things tend to squirm.”
I could tell you more of what happens to you, but I feel like ending here would be kinder to all of our gag reflexes.
The End
“It's on, Kwame!” you shout. If you have to challenge someone for dominance, it may as well be the leader, right? You jump into a fighting stance, holding your fists up olde timey boxing style, but Kwame is too fast for you and delivers a painful kick to the knee. You stagger, crying out in pain, and he uses the opening to punch you in the kidney. You scream again and fall to the floor of the ferry, moaning. In retrospect, maybe it was a mistake to challenge the one competent Planeteer.
“You were unwise to challenge me,” Kwame confirms, kicking you in the stomach for good measure. “The others are soft, but I have seen things.” You stare up into his eyes and they are like cavernous pits of untold pain and sadness. What is this guy's back story??
You can only lie on the floor moaning at your abject defeat. Wheeler is blatantly pointing and laughing at you, until Kwame tugs him up by giving his ear a painful twist. “It is dishonorable to laugh at a fallen warrior's defeat,” he admonishes him. “However pathetic,” he adds.
“Now what?” Linka asks.
“Now we win this race,” Kwame says simply. “It is the only way.”
They turn and leave you. The ferry has already docked. Part of you wants to just pass out right here, but somehow you summon the strength to crawl to your feet, staggering down the ramp of the ferry and onto the dock. You're almost to shore when you notice someone down in the water!
Do you stop to try to help them or just keep on going?
“Gi, you're on!” you shout at her. She starts to point her ring at you, but you're already moving. You shove her and she cries out as she loses her balance and plummets over the rail, into the sea.
“Ha ha!” you cry exultantly. “Now who's--” But your mocking triumph is cut short when someone kick slams you in the face. “What the--?” It's Gi! Riding on a wave funneling up from the ocean! “WHAT!” you scream. “You're actually Planeteers?”
No one answers you. Gi steps back on deck and wordlessly commands her wave to sweep you back off. You try to struggle or swim but it feels like the water is gripping your feet in a vice. Water fills your lungs and everything goes dark.
Do you move on peacefully, or haunt the Planeteers?
“Ma-Ti, you're going down!” you shout at him, figuring that, as the wussiest Planeteer, he'll be the easiest to take down.
“But you don't want to fight me,” he says to you calmly, pointing his ring at you.
“I... don't?” You know a moment ago you did, but now you can't imagine why. Weird! Well, maybe they'll still let you be Ma-Ti's monkey. That suddenly seems like the thing you most want to do in all the world. Why didn't you say yes to it the first time? It was obviously the best choice.
“Bring it, Wheeler!” you shout at him.
“Your ass is toast!” Wheeler yells back, winking at Linka who rolls her eyes.
He levels his ring at you like he expects that to do anything, but you're already lunging forward, shoving him hard. He screams and flails as he loses his balance and plunges overboard into the briny deep. The other Planeteers rush to the rail to look after him but he doesn't come back up. Only a few stray bubbles mark his descent.
“Can you do something Gi?” Ma-Ti asks.
“No,” Kwame stops her. “By Planeteer law, it is done.” He turns to you and nods. “Welcome to the Planeteers,... Wheeler.”
“Cool,” you say, surprised at how easy murder feels. “Got any spare rings? I want to look the part.”
Gi wordlessly extends her hand out over the ocean and a funnel of water appears under her palm, spiraling up into the air and spraying you all with icy drops. You stare open-mouthed as Wheeler's ring with the orange stone comes spitting out of the funnel's center and into Gi's hand. She hands it to you solemnly as the water spout collapses.
“Wait, you're actually Planeteers?” you demand, shocked.
“Indeed,” Kwame agrees. “Hopefully it won't take you too long to master your fire powers. I have a feeling this race will test all our wills to the breaking point.”
The ferry finally docks and you follow the other Planeteers down the ramp. Janice is making you wear team hats, but yours are stylish fedoras so you don't mind. Linka complains that it's messing up her hair, but Kwame just says “YOU DON'T KNOW HELL, LINKA” in an ominous voice and then she shuts up. Kwame seems super broody about something. Maybe it's the strain of being the only competent Planeteer.
There are a lot of other teams. You knew the ferry you were on was full, but you weren't counting on there being so many ferries! As you follow the crush of people down the docks towards the streets of Mazelandia's one seaport. The name over the arch you pass through proclaims the town to be known as “Start”.
“That's a weird name,” you say.
“Not really,” Gi answers. She's looking up something on her hand held computer. It's the kind of chunky technology that probably seemed really futuristic in 1993 but looked ridiculous next to your android.
“Do you want to borrow my smart phone?” you ask her, but she glares at your offer and starts to recite the Wikipedia entry she's just pulled up:
“In most of Mazelandia's native dialects, the sound we'd write in English as 'Start' or 'Stay-ratay' as they would pronounce it, means 'Water place'.”
“Huh,” you say kind of noncommittally, which is how you always respond when someone reads an only mildly interesting Wikipedia entry at you. Like, am I supposed to be impressed that you can type? “Is it going to be a problem that I don't speak Mazelandian or whatever?”
“Hardly anyone does,” Gi replies still reading the entry. “But both Linka and Ma-Ti are skilled at communicating without words.”
“Yes,” Ma-Ti agrees. “I can speak not with words, but with my heart! And Linka...” A disgruntled, slightly bitter look passes across his face. “She speaks with some other parts.”
Linka just shrugs. “In my country, we are not ashamed of having what you Americans may call 'a great butt'.”
Ma-Ti sighs heavily and looks at it—but he can't argue. It is fine.
The town of Start looks a lot like an olde timey New England fishing village, so you don't really see what all the fuss is about. There are stately brick houses with wide shutters to keep out the sea wind's wrath and market stalls lining the narrow streets. You crane your neck to look around, but you can't see any natives, just other Race teams, identifiable by their matching hats. There are Viking hats and baseball caps and bonnets and wimples, but everyone has the excited air of competitors. No one's wandering down to the grocery store or looking out the windows at these newcomers. You suppose some of the competitors themselves must be from Mazelandia, right? But it's impossible in the press of the crowd to tell.
Finally the long train of humanity funnels into a large, open square at the center of Start. There a small platform has been erected in front of a modest stone sculpture. You can tell its meant to be all modern, but you think it mostly just looks like an arrow. A man is clambering atop the platform, and it sways under his weight. You recognize the Mazelandian president. Your team is fairly far away from the platform, but you'd know that large purple bow tie with the gold star anywhere.
“Welcomes to you, my new friends!” he cries over the megaphone in his accented English. “I am pleased to announce the beginning of this year's Historic Mazelandia Democratic Race of Fortune!” Everyone cheers. “We welcomes you from all over the world, for the chance to compete for the prize of a lifetime! You all know the rules: no cheating! The first twenty teams to find their way to the top of Beautiful Death Mountain, Mazelandia's highest peak, will be eligible to continue onto the next round! Good luck!!”
“Death Mountain?” you say in surprise as everyone around you cheers.
“Again, it sounds worse transliterated into English,” Gi counsels, still consulting Wikipedia. “In native Mazelandian tongues, the sound we know as 'death' denotes the word for 'high' with a peaceful connotation.”
“Oh, that makes me feel so much better,” you say sarcastically, but Gi isn't paying attention because the president has just shot a gun into the air and you're off!
The Planeteers are super competitive and start running really fast! It's all you can do to keep up. After awhile, you notice that the wind seems to be at your back, while other people around you are acting like they're straining to push against it. “Linka, are you cheating?” you gasp.
“Wheeler, are you a face-licker?” Linka retorts with a look.
“My name's not Wheeler,” you protest.
“It is now,” Kwame says. “And we must do what we have to, to win. Even if that includes using the gifts Gaia gave us. This is, after all, for her.”
Outside of town, you come to a crossroads. You can see what you assume to be Death Mountain rising before you in the distance, but in between you and it is the ominous-looking Forest of One Thousand Regrets. At least that's what it's called according to the sign. There's no road that goes into it. The two roads branching off at this point lead either to “Deadfoot Village” or “The Swamp of Eternal Night”. Either of these roads might turn and lead to the mountain, or you could chance it off-road and go straight through the forest. You feel the other Planeteers tense as they prepare to argue about it.
Do you want to throw your (admittedly questionable) opinion on the side of the Deadfoot Village Road? The Swamp of Eternal Night Road? Or plowing right through the Forest of 1000 Regrets?
“Linka, I challenge you!” you shout.
Linka snorts. “You've got to be kidding.”
“BRING IT!” you scream, crouching into a fighting stance.
“Whatever,” she says with a hair flip, and before you can do anything else a great wind sweeps you up off your feet and sends you plummeting into the ocean. You try to scream, but water fills your lungs and then everything goes dark.
Do you peacefully move on into the afterlife or come back to vengefully haunt the Planeteers?
You maybe should be mad at the Planeteers, but, honestly, you're over it. You move peacefully into the beyond just as you're supposed to. It's kind of boring, but definitely better than being beaten up for your embarrassing My Little Pony addiction, which is probably what would be happening to you right now if you were still alive. And the after life's not so bad. Maybe you can challenge George Washington to a beer pong match! Someone's probably taught the founding fathers about beer pong by now, right? Yeah. Totally.
The End
blast those guys! You decide to come back as a ghost to haunt those freaks.
Unfortunately, you weren't aware (although maybe you should have been) that ghosts are bound to haunt the place where they died. That must be why your mother's basement is haunted by so many rats and failed dreams.
The bottom of the ocean, you soon discover, is not a very good place to haunt. Sure, a few times you manage to creep out a fish, but it's so dark that most of the time you can't even see them. Plus, fish get creeped out by anything, so it's not really a challenge.
“This sucks,” you say, but of course it only comes out as bubbles.
After the first century, you finally cave and admit to a passing flounder that this was a bad idea.
The End
You crouch down on the dock. “Are you okay?” you ask. It looks like a girl—she has long flowing hair, anyway, and you can't tell if she's drowning or what. Her head's out of the water, but she's still flailing a lot. “What's wrong?”
She looks up at you and makes a strangled coughing noise. You see with surprise that there is a set of plastic rings from a six-pack caught around her neck like she's some kind of sea turtle. “Uhhhh...” you say, but nevertheless reach down with your sharpest key and hack the plastic free. The girl continues to cough, and then looks up at you. Her face is probably beautiful, but also kind of weird. Something about the shape of her nose and eyes. It seems... unnatural. Also, what's with those weird folds in her neck.
“Wait, are those gills?” you ask in sudden surprise.
“Thank you for rescuing me, land dweller,” she replies with a formal nod. You're starting to notice other things, like how her hair is decorated with shells and seaweed. “I am Kala, Princess of Mazeoceana, and as repayment for your service I will aid you in winning this land competition.”
“The race?” you ask, still a little freaked out about meeting an actual mermaid.
She nods as if she expects air breathers to be incredibly slow.
“How can you help me?” you ask. “The first checkpoint is at the top of a mountain or something, not under the sea.”
The mermaid nods. “Death Mountain. But all rivers flow to the sea, foolish land snail, and so I will take you back to their source.” She points inland, where you can see the shadowy slopes of Death Mountain rising in the distance. “It's a short cut,” she adds. You hesitate, on the brink of just walking away.
Should you accept the mermaid's offer? Or keep going?
You walk away from the dock onto dry land. You hear a strange, muffled cry noise from behind you, but you can't tell if it's anger or distress. Whatever.
The streets of this Mazelandian coastal town, which seems to be called “Start”. The streets are oddly deserted. Did the race already start? Is everyone even now running for the first checkpoint, leaving you far behind? You wish there was someone around you could ask, but everything is eerily quiet.
That is, until you hear the shout from behind you. “Run, you idiot!” You turn and see a red-haired guy around your age sprinting away from an angry crowd who are chasing him with torches and pitchforks. They're also throwing rocks, and it doesn't take them long to throw some at you too. You start to run alongside him. “What's happening?” you ask.
“They seem to flip out on anyone not wearing a team hat,” he explains as you flee down a narrow alley. “I lost mine in a bar bet and then they just went crazy! My name's Chet.” He looks kind of like one of the grad students you saw back on the ferry. Before you can introduce yourself and ask what happened to his group you both come to a staggering halt at the end of the alley. You're surrounded.
It's the last thing you remember.
When you wake up, it's night time. You're lying on something hard and uncomfortable. You groggily turn to see that it's Chet. You jerk up when you see that he's staring at you unblinkingly in a totally creepy way. You don't like at all that he would watch you sleep like this, but relax a moment later when you see that his throat has been slashed and he's not actually staring at anything anymore.
You scream as the reality of that sinks in and scramble away from his body, feeling your own for any wounds, but you seem to be untouched. Where are you? It's dark, light filtering in from far above you where you see some stars. You feel around and decide you're in a hole in the ground, about ten feet deep, the floor and walls made of soft earth. You're about to scream for help, when you see red eyes above you amongst the stars.
Do you scream and make a lot of noise in the hopes of scaring it away?
Or do you remain perfectly still?
“I wish to win the race!” you shout at top volume at the fountain. Obviously wishing louder will make your wish come true faster. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to you, the fountain only speaks Mazelandian. The sounds are so similar to English, that it can be very confusing, but as Chet has already demonstrated to you, word meanings can be very different, irrespective of their English sounds and definitions. In much the same way as the word “Death” in Mazelandian has a new meaning with a pleasant connotation, so do many words in our language that might seem positive like “win” in fact have much more negative meanings in native Mazelandian. It's a confusing a linguistically improbable truth, how two languages could evolve separately with such opposite meanings for the same sounds.
Unless of course you believe the fringe group in the small section of academia that knows or cares that Mazelandia exists who argue that this natural and coincidental evolution is so improbable that is must be no accident. However, theories suggesting that Mazelandian is a constructed language designed specifically to mess with native English speakers and lead them unwittingly to their doom has, as yet anyway, no basis in fact. Maybe Chet can write his thesis on it. If Chet survives.
Anyway, the point is, though you thought you were wishing to “win” the race, the fountain interprets this as a request to “lose painfully”. Before you know it, you are standing on the moon.
The view is beautiful. Of course, you can barely enjoy it. You can't breathe, it's so cold your body completely shuts down, and maybe you even explode because of a lack of air pressure or something. I don't know, I'm not a scientist, and neither is that freaky Mazelandian Wishing Fountain. The point is, you definitely lost the race. Painfully.
The End
“I wish to escape Mazelandia alive!” you shout at top volume at the fountain. Obviously wishing louder will make your wish come true faster. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to you, the fountain only speaks Mazelandian. The sounds are so similar to English, that it can be very confusing, but as Chet has already demonstrated to you, word meanings can be very different, irrespective of their English sounds and definitions. In much the same way as the word “Death” in Mazelandian has a new meaning with a pleasant connotation, so do many words in our language that might seem positive like “escape” or “alive” in fact have much more negative meanings in native Mazelandian. It's a confusing a linguistically improbable truth, how two languages could evolve separately with such opposite meanings for the same sounds.
Unless of course you believe the fringe group in the small section of academia that knows or cares that Mazelandia exists who argue that this natural and coincidental evolution is so improbable that is must be no accident. However, theories suggesting that Mazelandian is a constructed language designed specifically to mess with native English speakers and lead them unwittingly to their doom has, as yet anyway, no basis in fact. Maybe Chet can write his thesis on it. If Chet survives.
Anyway, the point is, though you thought you were wishing to “escape” Mazelandia “alive”, the fountain interprets this as a request a wish to be buried alive in Mazelandia so that you are never able to leave.
You instantly find yourself in a dark, enclosed space. Your breath comes in short gasps, and soon the earth will pour in and suffocate you. You will become a permanent part of Mazelandia as your body rots and decays and helps to fertilize a small part of the Forest of One Thousand Regrets.
The End
“I wish for an adventure!” you shout at top volume at the fountain. Obviously wishing louder will make your wish come true faster. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to you, the fountain only speaks Mazelandian. The sounds are so similar to English, that it can be very confusing, but as Chet has already demonstrated to you, word meanings can be very different, irrespective of their English sounds and definitions. In much the same way as the word “Death” in Mazelandian has a new meaning with a pleasant connotation, so do many words in our language that might seem positive like “adventure” in fact have much more negative meanings in native Mazelandian. It's a confusing a linguistically improbable truth, how two languages could evolve separately with such opposite meanings for the same sounds.
Unless of course you believe the fringe group in the small section of academia that knows or cares that Mazelandia exists who argue that this natural and coincidental evolution is so improbable that is must be no accident. However, theories suggesting that Mazelandian is a constructed language designed specifically to mess with native English speakers and lead them unwittingly to their doom has, as yet anyway, no basis in fact. Maybe Chet can write his thesis on it. If Chet survives.
Anyway, the point is, though you thought you were wishing for an “adventure”, the fountain interprets this as a request for “boredom”. Absolute and crushing boredom.
In the next instant you are crushed to death by a falling gigantic rock. If Grover were here he would freak out about this meteorological improbability, but he's not, so you never know where the rock came from. You just know that you're dead, the most boring thing to be, and what's more, you were crushed to death, which just goes to show that, like all beings of questionable morals and sanity, the Suspicious Mazelandian Wishing Fountain is a fan of puns.
The End
“I wish for a cupcake!” you shout at top volume at the fountain. Obviously wishing louder will make your wish come true faster. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to you, the fountain only speaks Mazelandian. The sounds are so similar to English, that it can be very confusing, but as Chet has already demonstrated to you, word meanings can be very different, irrespective of their English sounds and definitions. In much the same way as the word “Death” in Mazelandian has a new meaning with a pleasant connotation, so do many words in our language that might seem positive like “love” or “safety” in fact have much more negative meanings in native Mazelandian. It's a confusing a linguistically improbable truth, how two languages could evolve separately with such opposite meanings for the same sounds.
Unless of course you believe the fringe group in the small section of academia that knows or cares that Mazelandia exists who argue that this natural and coincidental evolution is so improbable that is must be no accident. However, theories suggesting that Mazelandian is a constructed language designed specifically to mess with native English speakers and lead them unwittingly to their doom has, as yet anyway, no basis in fact. Maybe Chet can write his thesis on it. If Chet survives.
Anyway, the point is, most English words for nice things like “pie” mean something terrible and unfortunate in Mazelandian, like “snake massage”. So you really need to understand your amazing luck in this wish: cupcake is one of the only words that has the exact same meaning in both English and Mazelandian.
A few minutes later you walk back into the square, munching on the most delicious cupcake you've ever had. The frosting is perfect, the cake is moist, it has rainbow sprinkles. It's put you in the best mood ever!
Unfortunately, your team mates are not so happy. Grover, Angela, and Akane are meandering around the square doing science just like when you left them. You've half-raised your hand to say Hey to them, when Chet comes running out of the bar screaming. His nose is bleeding and there's an angry mob behind him. You don't understand what they're shouting at him, but it's obvious that they are supremely not happy, in a torches and pitchforks kind of way.
“Run!” Chet yells, clutching his team cowboy hat to his head.
You don't need telling twice. You swallow the remainder of your cupcake and grab Akane's hand to help her up from where she is crouched beside you in the grass.
“But our equipment--!” Angela starts to protest.
“No time!” Chet screams at her, grabbing her arm and dragging her out of the square. You and Akane run beside them. Grover is already halfway down the street. Meteorologists are known to be fine sprinters.
“What the heck did you do?” Angela demands of Chet as the advancing horde starts throwing rocks at you.
“Cultural differences,” Chet yells back.
Angela looks like she wants to punch him, but there's no time what with all the running you have to do.
Your pursuers begin to lose interest one by one and you're finally free of them outside of town. You're all breathing hard, and Chet collapses in a heap on the ground next to a sign post. It's starting to get dark.
“What do we do now?” you ask. You can see a tall mountain in the distance—could that be your objective? Unfortunately there's no road that leads straight to it, although both roads leading away from the town, one on the right and one on the left, could come to it eventually. Both seem to be trying to avoid the dark forest that's right in front of you.
Akane is reading the signpost. “Deadfoot Village,” she says, pointing left. “Or the Swamp of Eternal Night.”
“Both sound super great,” Angela says sarcastically, lifting her hair off the back of her neck.
“Actually,” Chet starts, “Our word for “dead” is easily confused but distinct from the Mazelandian word for--”
Angela kicks him.
“Or there's always the forest,” Akane continues. “According to the sign, it's known as the Forest of One Thousand Regrets.”
“And I suppose that has some misunderstanding not actually terrifying name too?” Grover asks Chet.
“Not that I know of,” Chet says. “Sounds dangerous.”
“Unlike the Swamp of Eternal Night,” Angela says sarcastically. “I think we should go to the village.”
“Well, I vote for the swamp!” Chet retorts.
“The mountain is right there,” Grover points out. “It only makes sense to take the most direct route. Off road and into the forest!”
Akane shrugs. “I don't believe in voting,” she says.
“Fine, then it's up to you,” Grover says to you. “Which do you vote for? Deadfoot Village Road? The Swamp of Eternal Night? Or the Forest of One Thousand Regrets?”
You stare up at the malevolent red eyes and scream. You try to make it an intimidating bellow, but as the eyes narrow, you are the one who is intimidated and there's no denying that the noise your making is a total girly scream.
The thing is big, and heavy. You learn this for certain when it launches itself at you and begins to eat your face. Maybe the face is the tastiest part. Maybe it's just trying to stop you from screaming. Maybe that's just what its species has been bred to do. It is, after all, the endangered Mazelandian Face-Eating Tiger. They're truly beautiful to behold in the wild, although right now it's too dark for you to really see, and, besides, its just sunk a sharp tooth into one of your eyes. Oh well.
The End
You attempt to stand perfectly still, and to not show fear. You don't know what's up there, but maybe it can sense fear or its vision is based on movement, like some kind of dinosaur. Are there dinosaurs on Mazelandia? Probably not.
You can tell that it's big and heavy when it jumps down into the pit with you. It seems to have landed on Chet's dead body, and after a moment you can hear the definite sounds of mastication. Ew. Do you:
Attempt to escape the pit by using the thing to give you a boost?
An hour later, you've arrived at Deadfoot Village. Most of the buildings are dark except for what looks like a tavern. Everyone in your group is tired, and even Chet and Angela have stopped bickering and fallen into a sullen silence.
“We need to find somewhere to stay for tonight,” Grover says. “Let's try at that inn over there. Come on, Chet, we need you to translate.”
“Okay...” Chet says uncertainly. “But don't blame me if we get chased by angry villagers with pitchforks again.”
“I will absolutely blame you,” Angela mutters.
The tavern has a huge, roaring fireplace, a welcome relief from the chill night air, and is full of simple wooden tables and chairs, and also villagers dressed like they've just come from a costume party. The two nearest you are wearing long powdered wigs and coats like they're doing a King Charles II impression, and the waitress serving them is wearing some kind of Jem thing. The bar is full of people in weird-looking costumes, all of them featuring wigs.
The barman is a terrifying David Bowie from Labyrinth. The five of you stick close together as you make your way back towards him.
“What the f?” Angela whispers out of the corner of her mouth, like she's afraid moving her lips more will alert them to the presence of un-costumed outsiders.
“I tried to tell you guys,” Chet says. “In Native Mazelandian the word “Dead” means “wig”.”
“And the costumes?” Grover asks.
“Well,” says the barman in accented English. “The wigs would look just stupid otherwise, wouldn't they?”
“Uh... yeah,” you all agree.
“Always nice to meet tourists,” the barman continues. “Although I hope you're not going to ask me for directions.” He waggles an admonishing finger at you. “Completely against the rules.”
“We were wondering if you had any rooms for the night,” Grover asks.
“I have one,” the barman says. “But it'll cost you.”
Grover turns to you all. “How much money do you guys have?” he asks, beginning to empty out his own pockets. As always, yours are full of Laffy Taffy and not much else.
“I don't want any of your strange picture money anyway,” the barman says gruffly, waving away the bills and coins Grover is already holding. “I'll take some of that taffy though, and...” He pauses. “And some work help.” He waves around the room. “As you can see, we're busy tonight, what with it being the Annual Day of Remembrance for Diners Past.”
“Deal!” Grover agrees, fist-punching the air dramatically, because Grover is just that kind of guy.
“Right,” the barman says, throwing a handful of Laffy Taffy into his mouth without even bothering to unwrap it first. You watch him chew it with a kind of sick fascination. “You with the Taffy,” he says to you. “I'll let you pick first. Do you want to work as a bar maid, a dishwasher, a taxi, a sweeper, or my personal assistant?
The one good thing about the road through the Swamp of Eternal Night is that at least it's downhill. However, since you're trying to get to the top of a mountain, you're not sure this is ideal. The air is filled with frog noises and the faint smell of cookies as the sun sets and the sky darkens into night.
As you start to see your first marsh buzzards, Angela observes that “for something that's supposed to be eternally night, it's really just kind of dim.”
“Actually,” Chet says, in his “I'm correcting you” voice that makes Angela roll her eyes. “In Native Mazelandian dialects, “night” often means “sweet-smelling”.”
“It does smell a lot like cookies,” you say. The others nod.
“We should probably try to find something to eat,” Grover says.
“Preferably cookies,” Chet adds.
Unfortunately, despite the strange smell of cookies, the Swamp of Eternal Night is basically still just a swamp. There are mosquitoes everywhere and you often have to wade through brackish water where the road is flooded. “Watch for snakes,” Akane says quietly, and suddenly every branch and floating stick looks like a venomous water monster. A few of them actually are, but none of them bother you. There's a distinct lack of things to eat. At one point Chet claims to have found some “swamp berries” but Akane points out that they are actually the droppings of a Mazelandian Land-Dwelling Fire Squid.
“What the heck is that?” you demand, recoiling at just the name.
“Just what it sounds like,” Akane replies calmly. Biology grad students balk at nothing.
After awhile, you all notice lights up ahead in the night fog. “It could be a settlement or a house or something,” Grover says. “Maybe they'll have something to eat.”
“Or maybe they'll try to kill us,” Chet mutters darkly.
“Well, I'm going to find out,” Grover says. “Who's coming with me?”
“I will!” Angela says bravely. Akane just shrugs. Do you want to go with Grover or stay behind with Chet?
The biggest problem with making your own path through the Forest of One Thousand Regrets is that it's so completely, ass-losingly dark in there. Chet and Angela argue for the first fifteen minutes about whether “ass-losingly dark” is even an acceptable expression. Chet insists that it is. “It just means it's so dark that you could literally lose your ass,” he claims. But after awhile stumbling around and falling on their faces, they sink into silence like the rest of you.
“Do you guys not have flashlights?” you ask after you trip over a root or something for like the millionth time.
“We did,” Angela mutters. “They're back in that square with all the rest of our equipment.”
“Maybe we can light a fire or something,” you say, trying to use your phone as a flashlight. Unfortunately, like all grad students, your compatriots have no practical skills and you failed out of summer camp your first year.
“This is ridiculous,” Grover finally says. “We should just find a place to bed down and wait for daylight.”
Reluctantly, you all agree.
You awake groggily some time later, you're not sure how much. You're cold, and when you feel around you, the others seem to be gone. You're alone. “What--?” You think about calling out to then but then you realize—the thing that woke you up. It's a child's voice, singing a nursery rhyme. It must be a Mazelandian nursery rhyme because you've never heard it before, and it seems to be about bodies. It's coming closer, and there's a faint glow, moving and bobbing among the trees, like a ghostly lantern. Do you:
Stand up and face whatever this is?
Run away screaming?
“We should go to the village,” you say matter-of-factually. “There might be something to eat there, or a place to spend the night.”
“We shouldn't care about either of those things!” Ma-Ti insists. “Eyes on the prize!”
“Once I slept inside a bear but you don't see me complaining,” Kwame agrees.
Fortunately, the girls are on your side, Linka because she thinks a swamp will mess up her hair and Gi because she's afraid of trees. Kwame and Ma-Ti are really sullen to be out-voted, and you can tell that Kwame looks like he's about to make some kind of leader executive decision demand, but then Linka hits him.
He hits back, of course, but it seems to make him feel better.
Another hour later, you arrive at Deadfoot Village and are met by a strange scene. Some kind of festival is obviously going on. There are people dressed very strangely all around you, like maybe it's some kind of costume contest. You see someone in a Jem wig performing onstage, and lots of people in the crowd seem to be dressed as George Washington or Louis XIV. “They're all wearing wigs,” you finally say.
Gi nods from where she's looking at her clunky phone thing again. “According to the Mazelandian to English Dictionary I just downloaded (Beta Version), our word for “dead” is their word for “wig”.”
“I wonder what kind of festival this is,” Ma-Ti says, already jamming to the sweet tunes.
“It's our Annual Day of Remembrance for Diners Past,” a passing Madonna explains. “We recount our greatest meals ever to each other and then symbolically throw a giant feast onto the ground, for the ghosts of our ancestors.” She moves off to get some Traditional Mazelandian Yak Beer served by a guy dressed (badly) like Jareth, but Kwame is still frowning at her words.
“Surely such food waste is abhorrent in the eyes of Gaia,” he finally says.
“And those cups sure don't look biodegradable to me,” Linka agrees with narrowed eyes.
The other four nod at each other. “You know what we have to do,” Kwame says.
“COMBINE OUR POWERS AND SUMMON CAPTAIN PLANET!?!?!” you shout excitedly.
Kwame looks at you like he's met soft shell crabs that are smarter. “Obviously not,” he says. The others look uncomfortable, but nod.
“Okay, then what?” you ask. “I'm ready to fire ring all up in this bitch!”
“Good,” Kwame says, and points his ring at the stage. The sound from the speakers distorts as the ground begins to rumble. Everyone looks at each other, confused, and then suddenly begins to scream as the ground opens up with a great, rumbly, ripping noise and swallows the stage and its singer and backup dancers whole. Everyone flees the sudden sinkhole, screaming, but are blocked by a tornado on one side, and a sudden freak tidal wave on another. “Linka, Gi, what are you doing?” you demand as everyone attempts to flee towards you, towards the road. “You guys!” you cry, already preparing to run away before being trampled to death by a horde of shrieking, bewigged townsfolk. Then a tiger jumps over your head, roaring. It's soon followed by an elephant, a cadre of long, deadly snakes and a flock of Mazelandian Kamikaze Seagulls.
You have to look away rather than see the townsfolk be mercilessly slaughtered by the forces of nature.
All too soon, it's over. When the screams have stopped, you look up at the wreckage and the remains. “What did you guys do?” you demand.
Kwame shrugs. “We have to protect Gaia.”
Behind his back you see Linka and Gi exchanging worried looks.
“By killing everyone?” you demand. “I don't think Gaia or Captain Planet would like that very--”
Gi is shaking her head at you, but Kwame has already grabbed the front of your shirt, jerking you towards his face. “Don't talk to me about that green-haired jerk,” he grits out before shoving you backwards. “Now clean this mess up.”
“Ummm...” You have no idea what you should do, what the hell is going on.
“With your ring,” Ma-Ti adds helpfully.
“Oh...” You're kind of uncomfortable with it, but I guess they're already dead right? Soon you have a town-wide conflagration going that will cleanse the spot until maybe no one will know the horror that has happened here.
“Let's keep moving,” says Kwame, skirting around the fire and continuing on the road. “Night will come soon.”
Okay, you have got to figure out what this guy's deal is before he flips out on you next. As you all start to walk off, you see both Ma-Ti and Gi lagging a little. Who do you try to corner and ask to explain?
“Swamp Road!” you insist. “No one else will want to go that way. It'll totally give us an advantage.”
“What about food and shelter?” Gi starts to ask. “At the village--”
But Kwame interrupts her. “There's no time for those things. We have to keep our goal in mind.”
After a little bit more arguing, you all agree to turn right and head towards the Swamp of Eternal Night. At least the road is downhill! After awhile, the air starts to fill with frog noises and the faint smell of cookies as the sun sets and the sky darkens into night.
As you start to see your first marsh buzzards, your stomach also starts rumbling. “It's not eternally night here if the sun just set,” you call foul on this whole thing. “Plus, what is with the cookie smell, I'm starving.”
“Actually,” Gi says, consulting her throwback smart phone device, “In Native Mazelandian dialects, “night” often means “sweet-smelling”.”
“Are there any real cookies?” you ask hopefully.
“No,” she says after a moment, when she realizes you're not joking.
She explains that, despite the strange smell of cookies, the Swamp of Eternal Night is basically still just a swamp. There are mosquitoes everywhere and you often have to wade through brackish water where the road is flooded. “Watch for snakes,” Ma-Ti says almost gleefully, and suddenly every branch and floating stick looks like a venomous water monster. A few of them actually are, but none of them bother you. There's a distinct lack of things to eat. At one point Linka thinks she's found some “swamp berries” but Ma-Ti points out that they are actually the droppings of a Mazelandian Land-Dwelling Fire Squid.
“What the heck is that?” you demand, recoiling at just the name.
“Just what it sounds like,” Ma-Ti replies.
“It's too dark for this malarkey!” you say. “Who knows when one of these Mazelandian Death Monsters are going to sneak up and eat us?”
“I might know,” Ma-Ti says, but you don't listen to him, because no one ever does.
“What we need is some light!” you say. “And I'm just the embodiment of the natural element fire to do it!”
You hold your ring aloft dramatically, preparing to raise some kind of homemade torch to light your way, hopefully to food. Unfortunately, you've never used Wheeler's fire powers before, and something like a hand-held spurt of flame takes some finesse. You manage to ignite your entire arm in a matter of seconds, and soon you're running around screaming and flailing, your dramatic arm motions just spurring the ring on and making you burn all the faster.
You dimly here someone yelling “Gi...?” But then Kwame's voice telling them all that it's “just nature's way”. You die. Sorry. :-(
“Screw those roads!” you say before anyone else can get a word in. “I say we take the straightest possible path to our goal.” You stab a finger in the direction of Death Mountain. “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line!” you add, like it definitively proves your point.
Unfortunately, in the act of stabbing your finger, you unwittingly activate the power of the ring you've forgotten you've shoved onto your pointing finger. A jet of fire shoots outward, widening as it travels. Soon a wide swath of the forest is engulfed in flames.
The other Planeteers are glaring at you. “Uhhhh... sorry,” you say, glancing at the ring on your finger and shaking it a little until it stops spewing fire and death.
“We're supposed to use our powers to help the Earth!” Gi screams at you, but Kwame stops her from attacking you with the fabled Gi Body Slam.
“No,” Kwame says. “Wheeler is right. In this case...” And he turns so the fire flickers dangerously in his dark eyes, looking tragic and soulful and full of deep metaphysical angst. “The end justifies the means.”
Ma-Ti gasps. “Kwame, no! What would Gaia say?”
“GAIA ISN'T HERE!” Kwame shouts at him, and then clenches a fist, barely keeping his anger under control. “Gaia isn't here,” he says again, this time in a whisper. He seems to get a hold of himself and then looks at the others. “There just isn't time,” he says. “Besides, Wheeler's already basically burned down the forest like Smoky the Bear's nemesis, Burny the Dragon.”
“Thanks,” you say. “But, I agree.” You gesture behind you at the smoldering remains of the old growth woods. “Now it's basically like a road, right?”
The other planeteers grumble and complain and generally give you nasty looks, but eventually follow you into the ashy, sooty remains of the forest. The fire seems to have cut a path right through the trees, very conveniently for your purposes. The smoke smell is pretty strong, and Linka keeps coughing. Occasionally you encounter the charred remains of various, largely unidentifiable animals, which gets really awkward what with Ma-Ti sobbing and all.
Soon it starts to get dark. Luckily, since there's no longer any tree cover above you, the moon is relatively bright so you can still see, at least a little. You start to realize that you're pretty tired. Linka and Gi look tired too, but Kwame seems dead set on powering through. Do you:
Try to convince everyone to stop and rest?
Use your fire powers to provide more light?
“Alright, I accept,” you say to the mermaid. “But I can't breathe under water like you so hopefully--”
“Don't worry about it,” the mermaid interrupts. “I'll just use magic, duh.”
“Oh, of course,” you say sarcastically, rolling your eyes.
“Shut up,” she says, and drags you by your ankles into the water.
It's cold at first, but after awhile you don't notice it. At first you panic, but after awhile realize that, despite not breathing, you haven't lost consciousness. “As long as you have hold of my hand,” the mermaid explains. You can only nod, not having the vocal chords necessary to talk underwater.
You don't know how long you're underwater. Time seems to pass differently here, like in a dream. Everything's hazy and indistinct. Though you don't feel like you're moving particularly fast, the water seems to be rushing by you. You note the distance only by subtle light and temperature changes as the mermaid swims with you up an estuary and then a river, up, up into the mountains. Suddenly, it becomes pitch black and you can't see anything around you.
“Underground river,” the mermaid's voice next to you explains. “We're almost there.”
And she's right. Soon you feel her pulling you up, towards the surface. You take a big gasp of air as your head breaks into it. Suddenly you realize how cold you are and hurry out of the water. You're in a massive underground cavern, its ceiling and edges stretching away into the distance. “Follow the path out,” the mermaid advises, pointing towards a set of stone stairs carved behind you. “At the end of it, you shall find the prize in the outermost chamber of the cave system.”
“Cool, thanks!” you say, as you start up the stairs, being careful not to slip since you're soaking wet. You hear a splash as the mermaid swims off.
You follow her directions and finally climb up into a higher cave, whose wide mouth opens out onto the side of the mountain. You can see clouds, and the sea where you came from far below.
In the center of the cavern is a stone pedestal, laboriously hewn from the very rock itself. On the pedestal are twenty skeleton keys, each a slightly different size and design, and some made of different metals.
“CONGRATULATIONS SUCCESSFUL TEAM!” a deep voice suddenly booms around the chamber. “SELECT A KEY AS YOUR PRIZE! Hey wait,” the voice suddenly says in a more normal voice. “Where's your team?” The Mazelandian president, still in his ridiculous purple bow tie with the star in the middle, steps out from behind a stalagmite and frowns at you.
“They're... dead,” you say.
He shrugs like he was expecting you to say that. “Oh well, it happens to most of them. At least you made it!”
“What are these keys for?” you ask.
“The next part of the race!” he exclaims enthusiastically. “The final prize is hidden at the top of the lighthouse on the Northernmost tip of Mazelandia, but to get there you first have to find your way out of the Death Mountain Caverns. The keys unlock different paths out—well, some of them lead out,” he adds in a careless way that nonetheless makes you sure that some of the paths lead to a swift and inescapable doom. “Choose wisely,” he counsels. “You're the first to arrive so there's plenty to choose from!”
Do you choose:
You continue to cower in fear, hoping the beast will sate itself on Chet's body before coming to you. Unfortunately, it is one of the endangered Mazelandian Face-Eating Tigers, and therefore quickly finishes with Chet, being too refined to choose anything but the face parts of its prey. Soon it turns to you and your pathetic whimpering with hunger in its beautiful endangered eyes. You scream once as it leaps out you, but don't have time for anything else. If it makes you feel better, your death helped a beautiful native creature on the brink of extinction from poaching and farmers with guns to continue to survive in its native habitat. Good job.
Narrowing your eyes in concentration, you take a deep breath—or as deep a breath as you dare so as not to alert the monster to your presence. This is going to take some action movie levels of badassery to pull off. You start to run in the small space of the pit, kick off the wall for momentum, and then jump on the creature's back, using it as a springboard to launch yourself up and out of the pit. You stumble as the edge, but manage to pull yourself the rest of the way up, tensing, so sure you're going to feel claws sinking into your legs, but they never come. You start running the second your feet hit the ground, tripping almost instantly over a root because you're so cool like that. Unfortunately, the beast is huge and has much better jumping abilities than you. Also unfortunate: it's a Mazelandian Face-Eating Tiger that wastes no time in tearing into yours. Fresh faces are always best, after all, just like peaches or restraining orders. But, hey, you're helping out an endangered species! Hopefully that will comfort you in the afterlife, when you're forced to walk around without a face. Gruesome.
With a mighty leap, you jump on the monster's back. It roars, the frustrated cry of an Endangered Mazelandian Face-Eating Tiger! It runs around the pit, trying to shake you off, but you hold on tight to its copious back fur. Finally, it stills, tail twitching. It seems to sniff the air for a moment, and then takes a flying leap up out of the pit. Its back paws scrabble for purchase, but then its off again, running so fast it's all you can do to hang on. The landscape blurs past as the beast runs, and you lean down over it so you don't fall off. Has it forgotten about you?
It runs for so long you almost fall asleep, but as day breaks you see it is taking you up the side of a mountain, scaling impossible drop offs with ease despite your weight on its back. You think you pass some other racers, but you're not sure. Finally the tiger stops high up in the mountain, at the entrance to a cavern set into the rock. It's panting a little and sits down abruptly so that you slide off. You scramble backwards, afraid it's going to jump on you, but it merely nods its head in farewell and disappears back down the mountain so quickly it's a blur.
“Ah, the fabled Mazelandian Face-Eating Tiger,” a voice from behind you says. You turn to see the Mazelandian president with his stupid purple bow tie with the gold star standing at the entrance to the cave. “Legend has it that it will aid any hero brave enough to leap upon its back.”
“It wasn't that hard,” you say.
“Thus exposing themselves to the irreversible case of Mazelandian Tiger Dropsy that all of the species is infected with,” the president continues. At your look of horror he laughs and says, “Don't worry, just be careful in the rain. Come on, you're one of the last teams to arrive! He scrutinizes you as you get to your feet. “Not that you're much of a team.”
“They're... dead,” you say, thinking of Chet.
He shrugs like it happens all the time, which indeed it does. “No matter. Select a key as your prize.”
In the center of the cavern is a stone pedestal, laboriously hewn from the very rock itself. On the pedestal are a few skeleton keys, each a slightly different size and design, and some made of different metals.
“What are they for?” you ask.
“The next part of the race!” he exclaims enthusiastically. “The final prize is hidden at the top of the lighthouse on the Northernmost tip of Mazelandia, but to get there you first have to find your way out of the Death Mountain Caverns. The keys unlock different paths out—well, some of them lead out,” he adds in a careless way that nonetheless makes you sure that some of the paths lead to a swift and inescapable doom. “Choose wisely,” he counsels. “You're one of the last to arrive so there aren't many left!”
Do you choose:
The one that's gold?
The key that's glowing?
The one with a key chain?
“Dude, you are the noisiest eater ever!” you scold the monster currently consuming the dead body beside you. “Chew that food with your mouth closed, I shouldn't be able to hear it! Stop spraying me with bits of half-chewed dead body too, it's gross.”
Are you satisfied? You've stood up for table manners. Was it really worth your life? Because you have to know what's coming, right? If there's one thing that pisses Mazelandian Face-Eating Tigers off, it's being lectured about etiquette. Probably because, in the tiger world the Mazelandian Face-Eating tiger is known for being very particular about most things. It has a reputation for refined tastes, what with its face eating and all. So, yes, it probably would have attacked you had you made any noise or dramatic movement, but a lecture on manners is the noise that it will like least of all.
And you had to know that right? That noting good ever came from lecture a monster in the dark about its eating habits? So why even try? I guess I have to hand it to you for your dedication. Giving your life up in the service of etiquette is something not even Emily Post would do.
Hopefully it's some comfort while the tiger is sinking its claws into your body and chewing loudly on your skull.
The End
“I'll serve drinks,” you say. “I used to bus tables at Chili's before the manager realized I didn't actually work there—I'm sure it's like the same thing.”
“Fine,” the barman agrees. “What about the rest of you?”
After some argument, Grover wins the job of personal assistant, Akane agrees to sweep up, Chet claims that his brightly colored hair qualifies him for being a taxi, and Angela is stuck washing dishes.
“This sucks,” she says, heading into the back room.
Soon you are walking the floor serving mugs of Mazelandian Fire Squid Ale and taking up empty glasses. Everyone is in a really cheerful mood and keeps giving you tips. They're Mazelandian coins that just have pictures of 1980s celebrities on them instead of numbers. You don't really know what they're worth, but stick them in your pocket anyway. It's a long night and your feet are killing you, but eventually the barman sounds the last call and you help Akane start cleaning up.
“Good job, team,” the barman announces proudly to all of you. “Good night!” He waves goodbye to his regular staff and then says, “A deal's a deal, kids. Here's the key to your room and some leftover snacks.
Grover immediately dives for the snacks and you take the key. “Where's Angela?” Akane asks.
“And Chet,” you say, turning towards the door. “He should have been back from taking that last drunk home like half an hour ago.”
“Oh don't worry about them,” the barman says, waving his hand like it's no big deal. “I'm sure they'll be along soon. A night like tonight—party atmosphere—young kids like you—probably just got held up somewhere.”
“Chet's probably somewhere quizzing some village girl in a Hannah Montana wig about Mazelandian courtship rituals, “Grover agrees, rolling his eyes.
“And Angela?” you demand.
Grover shrugs. “Won't be getting the bed, I can tell you that.” And he dashes up the stairs, despite the fact that you have the key to the room. Should you:
Go upstairs and claim the bed for yourself?
Get to the bottom of this Angela/Chet situation right now?
Or pretend to go to bed and sneak back down later to investigate?
You take the job as personal assistant because, frankly, it sounds like the least actual work. Grover is clearly annoyed because he had the same thought and ends up washing dishes when Angela claims barmaid, Akane sweeping up, and Chet taxi—whatever that really means. You make a face at Grover hunching over a huge sink as the barman leads you to a back room set up like an office. All the instruction he leaves you with is “Look through these files and fill out these here Mazelandian Justice Tax forms—see if you can get a larger deduction than last year.”
“But I--” you start to protest, staring at the mountain of disorganized papers.
“Sorry I don't have one of them calculating machines what does the math and all,” the barman says as he turns to leave. “But you college kids can all do that figuring in your head, can't you?”
He shuts the door behind him. You should probably have told him that you've only managed half a degree in paper mache at community college, and if you could remember any high school math, you don't speak any Mazelandian and can't understand taxes in your own country, let alone this one. There is no possible way you can complete this assignment. You can't even tell which papers are the forms and which are the receipts. Do you:
Stay and just pretend to work?
Sneak out and run away into the night?
“I'll be the dishwasher,” you say because you don't want to have to interact with people at all—these Deadfoot Villagers seem weird. Grover immediately volunteers as Personal Assistant, Angela the barmaid, Akane sweeping up, and Chet the taxi, whatever that means, you're not really sure. You head to the back kitchen area and the enormous sink where you immediately get to washing. The barman and Angela bring you more dirty glasses as the night goes on and your hands soon get all wrinkled and pruney.
You're not sure what time it is when you finally take a break and wipe your forehead on your sleeve. It's then, finally, when the splashing noises are gone and the dull rumble from out in the bar is muffled by the closed door, that you hear the faint shouting. It seems to be coming from beneath your feet, a single voice, crying for help.
You open a door and find a closet.
But you open another door and find stairs leading down into a darkened cellar. “Please, help!” the voice is clearer now and you can hear what it's shouting. You hurry down the stairs to see what's up.
“Hello?” you call, peering into the gloom.
You see a row of human-sized cages, some of them occupied!
“How are you guys?” you demand. They seem to be wearing matching t-shirts like maybe they're a race team too. In fact, they look kind of familiar...
“Hey, wait!” you cry in sudden recognition. “You're the Planeteer team, right? I saw you guys on the ferry!” You squint, counting them. “But where's Kwame?”
The Planeteers look at each other. The one dressed as Linka finally speaks. “He was killed in the village square earlier this morning. We told him it was not the time to contest the villagers' use of non-recyclable plates and cups in their festival celebration, but he said there was always time for the earth.”
“Well, yeah, he does have a point,” you have to concede.
“Then he tried to kill the mayor in earth vengeance,” the one dressed as Gi adds.
“Oh,” you say. “So why are you guys in cages.”
“They took our rings!” Ma-Ti sobs at you.
“And your monkey?” you guess.
Ma-Ti slowly sinks to the floor like he knows when he's beaten. “I don't have a monkey,” you can barely hear him say.
“Let us out!” Gi pleads. “You don't know what they're going to do to us!”
“What?” you ask.
Linka screams before Gi can tell you. The barman has come up behind you unnoticed and is already pushing you into an open cage, slamming the door behind you. “What!” you shout, clutching the bars. “Hey! Let me out!”
The barman seems to be peering at your head in the poor light with some scrutiny. “I wasn't planning on you, but fine, whatever.”
“What?” you demand, feeling your hair. But he's already gone.
“Great,” Linka moans. “Now our rescue needs rescuing, this sucks.”
You assume your team will realize your gone, but hours later all is still quiet. Finally the door opens and the barman comes down with two others men.
“What are you going to do to us??” you demand as he yanks open the door to your cage.
“Wigs,” one of the men says gruffly. “Illegal wigs.”
Before you can resist, they're holding you down and shaving you. You scream at first, but then realize they're not really hurting you and it's just hair. “This is actually kind of anti-climactic,” you say as they finally push you out into the street with the newly shaven Planeteers.
Gi is shaking her head and looking around wildly. “You don't understand,” she says. “It's Deadfoot Village—they take wigs very seriously here. And we're all newly bald!”
“What?” you say again. But soon you realize what you meant when a group of villagers all wearing Beatles wigs rounds a corner and sees you all. They cry out the traditional Deadfoot Village Unwigged cry and give chase. You try to get away but they're too fast. Soon they're smothering you to death with synthetic hair. Or possible hair stolen from a tourist by the unscrupulous barman. You have no idea.
The End
You instantly choose “Taxi” because, though you're not entirely sure what it means, it sounds like the least work. You can just drive people around! That wouldn't be so hard! Unfortunately it turns out that no one in Deadfoot Village has cars, but the barman has provided you with a handsome second-hand bicycle for the purpose. It has an overly large basket on the handlebars where the drunk people you're supposed to take home tend to collapse, making it really hard to steer and pedal. Granted, Deadfoot Village isn't all that big, but after two pedals around town you're already sweating, your muscles screaming. I guess you did walk a lot today too. Still, you tough it out for awhile, until you decide to “take the long way back” for a little break, and just ride around the circumference of the village. It's a cool night and the sky is full of unfamiliar stars.
You round a bend and by the light of the full moon you see a fox menacing a short, naked man. Like uncommonly short. Like maybe not even a man. His head only comes up a little higher than the fox's and he has a long bushy beard that covers most of him, but no hair on his head. He's wearing a bird's nest on it, maybe to try to hide this fact. Both he and the fox stare up at you, then the fox runs away into the bushes.
“What the hell?” you say, staring at the man thing now cowering in front of you.
“Thank you, kindly wheeled one!” it says to you in a squeaky voice. It seems to think the bicycle is part of your body. “You have saved me from becoming a foxy dinner!” He peeks up at you. “Wheeled ones have no taste for gnome flesh?” he adds hopefully.
“Yeah, I'm not going to eat you,” you agree, because ew. “You're a gnome? That's cool. I always though gnomes wore hats, though.”
“Fairy lies!” the gnome squeaks indignantly. “They are always trying to get the best of us.”
“Right,” you agree. “Well, nice meeting you...”
“Wait!” the gnome says. And then bows. “The Code of Forest Brethren states that I must reward you for your kindness.”
“Cool,” you say. “Can you use gnome magic to bring me to the top of Death Mountain or something?”
“Yes, could!” the gnome agrees. “Or an even bigger prize, if you are wanting it!”
“What's the bigger prize?” you ask.
But he wags a sly gnome finger at you. “Cannot tell!” he proclaims grandly. “You must choose!”
Do you choose to go to the top of Death Mountain?
Or to claim the “bigger prize”?
You choose to be the sweeper. You're not trying for anything fancy and it shouldn't be that hard. You grab a broom and get to work. Unfortunately, your half a degree in paper mache from community college hasn't prepared you for the complexity of traditional Mazelandian broom handles and you soon impale yourself through the throat by accident much to the ridicule of the bar patrons.
The End
“I'll go!” you say bravely, and head off with Grover and Angela towards the lights. “Do you guys have any money to pay for food?” you ask.
“Not really,” Angela says.
“Maybe we can bargain with them,” Grover says hopefully. “Trade food for our learned grad student skills.”
Angela snorts at this, and you keep walking. Finally you crest a small hummock and see that the light you've been following is not, in fact, a house or a settlement, but the glowing ball on the end of the tail of some kind of swamp dinosaur. That's what your mind tells you it is in those first moments of terror, anyway. It's as big as a semi truck, but instead of eighteen wheels it has twelve feet, each ending in vicious claws. It's almost like a giant, carnivorous centipede body with a dinosaur head and a long, prehensile tail with a light on the end. The light is undoubtedly meant to attract its prey through the darkened swamp, and it's worked yet again.
“What should we--?” you start to ask, trying not to move.
Angela shrieks and starts to run away.
Instantly the tail lashes out, sweeping all three of you off your feet. It's moves in creepy precision, its many legs reminding you of some kind of ant swarm, all working together towards one goal. Its giant head swings around, teeth glinting in the light from its tail, and you are the unlucky first morsel it grabs. As it chews on your legs, you're not sure if the others manage to escape or not. The last thing you hear are their screams.
The End
“I'm cool, I'll stay here,” you say, thinking that Chet might be right. Plus, you don't have any money. You watch Grover, Angela, and Akane walk away towards the light. Chet leans against a tree and after a while starts nervously beating out a rhythm on its back with his hands.
He stops and stumbles away when the tree suddenly giggles. “Ooh, that feels good!” it says, lumbering around to look at you. You and Chet stare up in horror at what appears to be some kind of sentient tree creature. It has large, bulbous eyes partially covered by bark-like eyelids, and its branches move lazily like limbs. “Don't stop!” it pleads.
“Ew,” Chet says because of its yearning tone. The tree thing is already reaching out towards him with its branches. Chet tries to scramble away, but it uses its roots to trip him.
“Stop!” you say, and it's surprised enough that it does momentarily. It looks up at you. “Do you know the way to the top of the mountain?” you ask it, pointing up at Death Mountain. Might as well get some info now that you have someone's attention.
“Of course,” says the tree. “I'll tell you if you give me your masseuse here.”
“What the heck is this creepy child bullmalarkey?” you demand of the approaching light. “Guess what? One time I met the girl from the Ring and I dropped kicked her into an electric fence! I mean, okay, maybe it turned out to just be my niece on a bad hair day and maybe my sister hasn't spoken to me in two years because of it, but the point is CHILDREN ARE TOO TINY TO BE SCARY! So bring it, you little Mazelandian freak! I don't care what you did to my friends—well, sort of friends—because I will blasting end you!”
The light stops a few feet from you. You squint and make out the hunched form of a man with a beard. “I'm seventy-three,” he tells you in his strangely pitched, child-like voice. “It's a glandular problem.”
“Oh,” you say, feeling somewhat sheepish after your trash talk speech that was meant to pump you up for the inevitable fight that now doesn't seem to be coming. “Well, what's up?” you say. “Have you seen my friends? They would've been wearing hats like this.” You gesture to your head.
The old man shrugs. “I ate them.”
“Oh,” you say. And then, “Wait, what?”
He shrugs again. “I was hungry, what?”
You take a hasty step back. “Are you the vengeful dead?”
“Naw,” he says, laughing a wheezing laugh, and then reaching forward lightning fast to grab your wrist in a grip of steel. “I'm as real as you are.”
“Are you—are you going to eat me too?” You try to struggle away, but he's somehow too strong. It's like struggling against a wall.
He abruptly lets you go and you fall dramatically back on the ground. He's laughing at you again. “Naw, I'm only fooling you, kid. I like you, you're kind of a jerk, like me.” From this vantage point, on the ground, you suddenly notice that the old man has fingers twice as long as they should be, and another set of eyes underneath his chin. “That's why I'm going to make you an offer,” he continues.
“What are you?” you demand.
“I'm a fairy,” he says, completely seriously. When you just stare at him, he looks a little exasperated and says, “It's true, look” and hands you a business card. It says “Mazelandian Forest Sprite: Class 2” and “Franklin” which you guess is his name. “I don't know what fairies are like where you come from,” he says. “But here we have weird voices and eat any who trespass on our domains.”
“I guess I have been doing some trespassing,” you say guiltily.
He waves it away as if this is no big deal. “So I ate your friends, whatever, we're even. The point is, do you want to win this thing or what?”
You stare at him blankly until you realize he can only mean the race. “Well... yeah,” you say cautiously, still wondering if this is a trick.
“Right,” he says. “Then I can show you a short cut to the top of that Mountain.” He points to where Death Mountain towers above you somewhere in the darkness. “It'll take two seconds.”
“Like literally two seconds?” you say skeptically. “Because sometimes people say that, but they mean--”
He smiles slowly and all of his teeth are pointed. “Trust me,” he says.
“What do you want in return?” you ask suspiciously because this isn't your first deal with a fairy tale creature, OH NO.
“How about we just say that you'll owe me a favor?” Franklin the Mazelandian Forest Sprite responds, still with that creepy smile. He holds out his hand.
Do you take his offer?
Or refuse?
You scramble to your feet. You'd probably be screaming if you had any breath in your lungs, but you seem to be operating through the use of sheer, unadulterated terror. You trip with every other step on unseen branches and at least once run smack into a tree, but you don't care, all that matters is getting away from the creepy light and the creepy singing. You know what happens to people who follow strange lights into the darkness and you don't want any part of that. Plus creepy children are the worst.
What happened to everyone else? Did it get them first? Did they leave you? Should you call out to them? Even if you had the breath to do so, you decide its too dangerous in case something else hears you first.
You're running as fast as you can, so why can you still hear that singing as loudly as before, is it still getting closer? When you risk a glance behind you, you can see the light bobbing in your wake. And of course you choose this moment to be totally uncoordinated and trip into a ditch, hitting your head hard on the way down. Maybe it's just because your vision is fuzzy, but you could swear that the light coming ever closer towards your face is a giant lightning bug, coming to eat your intestines.
It's probably just getting hit on the head—giant Mazelandian lightning bugs don't really frequent the south side of the island this time of year. You were right about the intestine eating, though, that's totally happening and just as unpleasant as it sounds. Sorry.
The End
You are not going to take this bullmalarkey from what is undoubtedly some kind of Mazelandian forest ghost of revengeance, its viciousness only underscored by its child-like appearance. Instead, you stand up and retaliate the only way you know how: by singing ridiculously in defiance to diffuse the innate terror of the situation. There's really only one option as far as song choice goes:
“I LIKE BIG BUTTS AND I CANNOT LIE” you start to scream at the top of your lungs as the light gets closer. “YOU OTHER BROTHERS CAN'T DENY.”
You're surprised when the creepy child singing abruptly stops and then the voice continues, “That when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist, and a round thing in your face...”
“YOU GET SPRUNG” you both rap together. The voice starts laughing.
Now that the light is closer you can see the hunched form of a man with a beard. “You're alright, kid,” he says when he's through laughing, still in that creepy child voice.
“What the hell is your deal?” you demand.
“I'm seventy-three,” he tells you in his strangely pitched, child-like voice. “It's a glandular problem.”
“Oh,” you say. “Well, what's up? Have you seen my friends? They would've been wearing hats like this.” You gesture to your head.
The old man shrugs. “I ate them.”
“Oh,” you say. And then, “Wait, what?”
He shrugs again. “I was hungry, what?”
You narrow your eyes at him. Sir Mix-A-Lot solidarity notwithstanding, he is still mad suspicious. “Are you the vengeful dead?”
“Naw,” he says, laughing a wheezing laugh, and then reaching forward lightning fast to grab your wrist in a grip of steel. “I'm as real as you are.”
“Are you—are you going to eat me too?” You try to struggle away, but he's somehow too strong. It's like struggling against a wall.
He abruptly lets you go and you fall dramatically back on the ground. He's laughing at you again. “Naw, I'm only fooling you, kid. I like you. You've got good taste in music.” From this vantage point, on the ground, you suddenly notice that the old man has fingers twice as long as they should be, and another set of eyes underneath his chin. “That's why I'm going to make you an offer,” he continues.
“What are you?” you demand.
“I'm a fairy,” he says, completely seriously. When you just stare at him, he looks a little exasperated and says, “It's true, look” and hands you a business card. It says “Mazelandian Forest Sprite: Class 2” and “Franklin” which you guess is his name. “I don't know what fairies are like where you come from,” he says. “But here we have weird voices and eat any who trespass on our domains.”
“I guess I have been doing some trespassing,” you say guiltily.
He waves it away as if this is no big deal. “So I ate your friends, whatever, we're even. Plus you got a mean singing voice on you—we could even be friends. The point is, do you want to win this thing or what?”
You stare at him blankly until you realize he can only mean the race. “Well... yeah,” you say cautiously, still wondering if this is a trick.
“Right,” he says. “Then I can show you a short cut to the finish line. Not just to the top of that stupid mountain, but the end of this whole race on the other side of the island.” He shrugs again. “I was going to trick you and eat you, but what the hell. Sir Mix-A-Lot solidarity, right?”
“I don't know,” you say, narrowing your eyes at him suspiciously. “Can I really trust you?”
He scoffs as if affronted. “Of course you can! It'll take two seconds, honest.”
“Like literally two seconds?” you say skeptically. “Because sometimes people say that, but they mean--”
He smiles slowly and all of his teeth are pointed. “Trust me,” he says. He holds out his hand.
Do you accept his offer?
Or refuse?
“Hey, Gi,” you say, slowing your pace a little. She matches you unconsciously. “So what... uh... what's the deal with Kwame?”
Gi carefully looks ahead of you to see if Kwame is out of hearing range. “You mean back there?” she asked, and you nod. She sighs as if she's just been waiting to tell someone about it. “He's been like this ever since... we found out about Gaia. Linka always told me that she thought Kwame was in love with Gaia—I don't know, I didn't see it. I mean, he was loyal. We were all loyal. But after we found her in a compromising position with Captain Planet... Kwame just lost it.”
You are currently picturing the most dramatic series finale of Captain Planet ever. “Go on,” you say.
“He killed them both,” Gi said with a shudder. “The earth just opened up and swallowed them, it was terrible. He threatened us too, asked us if we were in league with Captain Planet's evil, saying we must be if we didn't join him.”
“Couldn't you stop him?” you ask.
Gi shook her head. “Kwame's our leader—he's always been the only competent Planeteer. Ma-Ti will follow him blindly. Linka and I don't really like it, but...” She shrugs. “If we rebel against him, he'll probably kill us too. At least this way we can keep a handle on him... sometimes.”
“So why are you doing this race?” you ask.
“I don't know if Kwame has accepted the fact that Gaia is gone,” Gi says. “And certainly not that he's the one who killed her. In his mind, Captain Planet betrayed us all, and he's been searching for a way to bring Gaia back ever since.”
“He thinks the prize for the race is some kind of way to bring back the dead?”
“It wouldn't be so strange,” Gi counters. “The legends of Mazelandia tell of an ancient ring or sword or something—the translation is unclear—with the power to bring back the dead. I think Kwame is hoping for a way to make this right, to assuage his soul guilt.”
“This sounds super messed up,” you say, and it is.
Gi looks around and says, “I understand if you want to make a break for it,” she says. “No one would blame you. Except Kwame, of course.” She seems kind of sad but resigned.
Do you do as Gi suggests and make a break for it?
Or stick with the Planeteers despite Kwame's obvious instability?
“Hey, Ma-Ti,” you say, slowing your pace a little. He matches you unconsciously. “So what... uh... what's the deal with Kwame?”
“What do you mean?” Ma-Ti asks. Is he feigning innocence or actually completely oblivious to the carnage that just happened.
“Well, are you okay with using your powers of Heart to massacre people?” you ask, reasonably, you think.
“We had to—they were hurting the environment,” Ma-Ti says matter-of-factually.
“Yeah, but....” Up ahead you see Kwame's head turning towards you. You don't have much time. “But do you really think that was the right answer, killing them?”
“Kwame's our leader,” Ma-Ti responds uncertainly.
“But do you really think--”
“KWAME!” Ma-Ti suddenly shrieks, racing ahead to catch up with him, leaving you behind him. “Wheeler was asking me questions! He was asking me to think! He said--”
“I know what he said,” Kwame responds, silencing him and turning around. “You seem to have a problem with the Planeteers, Wheeler. Are you with us or against us, Wheeler?”
Well, are you?
“I'm with you,” you assure him quickly.
“Then we must find a way to test your commitment!” Kwame insists.
“Oh malarkey,” you mutter.
“You have to prove that you trust us,” Kwame continued, a strange light in his eyes. “Hand over your ring.” He holds out his hand for it and you hesitantly slip it off your finger and drop it there. “Good,” he says. “Now stand perfectly still.” He points his own ring at you.
“Kwame!” you cry.
“Shhh!” Kwame says. “If you trust me, nothing will happen to you.
“But--”
“Don't break my concentration!” He urges as you feel the ground around you start to rumble.
“But Kwame...” Gi argues quietly. “Do you really think...?”
“SHUT UP!” Kwame suddenly yells at her, whirling around to face her. You hear a crack as he turns and feel the earth crumbling beneath your feet. “Oh, whoops,” Kwame says apologetically as he turns back around to peer into the yawning chasm of a sinkhole that has just opened up beneath your feet. His “Sorry!” echoes down at you as you fall. Do you:
Try to grab hold of a ledge or something
Or wait for the mole people at the center of the earth to devour you?
“I can't be a part of your madness!” you yell at Kwame, throwing the Planeteer ring in his face. It ignites and while he's busy trying to extinguish his eyebrows, you run as fast as you can into the undergrowth and don't stop until you can no longer hear the sound of his screams. You walk alone as the forest grows thicker around you and night falls. You realize after awhile that you must be in the Forest of one thousand regrets.
“Crap,” you say, because you did not actually want to come here—it seemed super creepy before. And sure enough, as the darkness thickens around you, you hear a child's voice, singing a nursery rhyme. It must be a Mazelandian nursery rhyme because you've never heard it before, and it seems to be about bodies. It's coming closer, and there's a faint glow, moving and bobbing among the trees, like a ghostly lantern. Do you:
Stand up and face whatever this is?
Run away screaming?
“You guys, we should rest,” you insist. Gi and Linka instantly agree. Though Kwame looks grumpy, he's eventually worn down by your collective bitching.
Some time later, you awake groggily some time later, you're not sure how much. You're cold, and when you feel around you, the others seem to be gone. You're alone. “What--?” You think about calling out to then but then you realize—the thing that woke you up. It's a child's voice, singing a nursery rhyme. It must be a Mazelandian nursery rhyme because you've never heard it before, and it seems to be about bodies. It's coming closer, and there's a faint glow, moving and bobbing among the trees, like a ghostly lantern. Do you:
Stand up and face whatever this is?
Run away screaming?
You don't stop for anything, except once when Ma-Ti has a crying fit for no apparent reason, and another time when Linka collapses from hunger. Luckily, you're able to scavenge some wild berries that don't give you too bad of a rash so everything's okay again. Kwame pushes the group hard, and eventually the forested hills give way to rock crags as you wend your way up the side of Death Mountain. It's a slow, arduous climb, and you don't encounter any other groups.
“I guess we're ahead of everyone,” you say to Gi as you wait for the others to leap across a chasm. You're not even sure what you're following is a path or just the least obstructed way up this ridiculous thing.
“Or everyone else is dead,” Gi says ominously. You can see why she might though, the Mazelandian landscape is harsh. At one point, you're almost killed by moss. Luckily Ma-Ti just loses a hand. He whines about it for awhile, but Kwame tells him that's what he gets for “touching things that glow in the dark”. Occasionally strange noises rend the cold, still air around you. Screams. Shrieks. One time what sounded like someone singing 80s power ballads.
Eventually, finally, you make it to the top. The gravel path gives way to a cavern in the side of the mountain, where a group of people are coming out carrying various Styrofoam stalactites and stalagmites, extra keys, and sound equipment. Among them is the Mazelandian president, still in his giant purple bow tie with the star in the middle.
“We made it!” Ma-Ti says, raising his bloody stump feebly before collapsing against a boulder shaped like a warthog.
“Congratulations!” the Mazelandian president says. You all cheer wearily. “Unfortunately,” he continues, already lighting a cigarette, “You're the twenty-first team to arrive and only the first twenty continue on to the next round so...” His lips close around the cigarette and he shrugs at you as if to say sorry.
“What?” Kwame asks quietly. Gi and Linka both take a step away from him.
“Go home, kids,” the Mazelandian president says to you. “Good show. Make your way back to the harbor—that creepy ferry captain will take you back to the mainland tomorrow.”
“We can't go back to the mainland,” Kwame says.
“Well, your official race visa expires and you can't stay here,” he says, walking off with the rest of the crew.
Kwame screams a roar of rage, punching the sky with his fist. The entire top of Death Mountain splits off, rolling towards you in a landslide of bouncing rock and plunging earth. It hits the crew first, and they barely have time to scream before its swept them away, but its too big and soon you're caught up in it too. You feel yourself falling, but you don't have time for anything else. “How could you, Kwame!” you scream with your last breath.
The End
“What we need is some light!” you say. “And I'm just the embodiment of the natural element of fire to do it!”
You hold your ring aloft dramatically, preparing to raise some kind of homemade torch to light your way, hopefully to food. Unfortunately, despite burning a wide swath through a forest, you're still not an expert at Wheeler's fire powers, and something like a hand-held spurt of flame takes some finesse. You manage to ignite your entire arm in a matter of seconds, and soon you're running around screaming and flailing, your dramatic arm motions just spurring the ring on and making you burn all the faster.
You dimly here someone yelling “Gi...?” But then Kwame's voice telling them all that it's “just nature's way”. You die. Sorry. :-(
You reach out and take Franklin's hand. There's a loud crack noise, and suddenly you're standing on a windswept mountain path clinging to the side of the rock face over a steep drop. “What--?” you start to ask him, but Franklin is gone. Also, while you were shaking hands he's stolen your ring.
“BITCH!” you shout over the windy canyon below. Maybe that's what he meant by “a favor”. Whatever, where the heck has he stranded you? You follow the path around, realizing you must be scaling Death Mountain, and sure enough, soon you enter a cavern set into the rock, its entrance strewn with stalagmites and stalactites.
In the center of the cavern is a stone pedestal, laboriously hewn from the very rock itself. On the pedestal are twenty skeleton keys, each a slightly different size and design, and some made of different metals.
“CONGRATULATIONS SUCCESSFUL TEAM!” a deep voice suddenly booms around the chamber. “SELECT A KEY AS YOUR PRIZE! Hey wait,” the voice suddenly says in a more normal voice. “Where's your team?” The Mazelandian president, still in his ridiculous purple bow tie with the star in the middle, steps out from behind a stalagmite and frowns at you.
“They're... dead,” you say.
He shrugs like he was expecting you to say that. “Oh well, it happens to most of them. At least you made it!”
“What are these keys for?” you ask.
“The next part of the race!” he exclaims enthusiastically. “The final prize is hidden at the top of the lighthouse on the Northernmost tip of Mazelandia, but to get there you first have to find your way out of the Death Mountain Caverns. The keys unlock different paths out—well, some of them lead out,” he adds in a careless way that nonetheless makes you sure that some of the paths lead to a swift and inescapable doom. “Choose wisely,” he counsels. “You're the first to arrive so there's plenty to choose from!”
Do you choose:
“I'm.... good,” you say, staring warily at his outstretched hand. Franklin seems sketchy, and you are so sure there's just some horrible “catch” waiting to manifest itself, like he'll take you to the finish line but eat your legs so you can't cross it or some bullmalarkey. It's probably safer just to not enter into any agreements with any mythical creatures. “Thanks, but no thanks,” you clarify when Franklin continues to stare at you.
Franklin jerks his hand back in an instant. “I see how it is,” he says after a moment. “You don't want to make a deal with a fairy, huh? Got something against fairies?”
“No, it's not that,” you protest, although it kind of is that really.
“I thought you were different!” Franklin shouts at you and some of his spit lands on your cheek. It burns. “But you're just like all the others!”
“Attractive yet cautious?” you guess hopefully.
“DELICIOUS AND NUTRITIOUS!” Franklin yells, diving at you. You scream and bring your hands up to protect your face, but Franklin isn't that tall and is busily biting into your stomach with his sharp, tearing teeth.
“AHHHHHHHHH!” you scream, and it ends in a sad kind of gurgle.
The End
You shake Franklin's hand heartily, and in an instant you are transported to a sea cliff overlooking a turbulent ocean. A lighthouse towers above you, painted in the Mazelandian colors of purple and red. “Up there,” Franklin says, pointing to the top of the tower. “That's where the prize lives. Good luck!” He disappears as if by magic, probably because it is. You can still hear him humming “I Like Big Butts” on the wind.
You find the door to the lighthouse locked, but it's easy enough to break in by a window with a rock. You run up the spiral staircase inside, passing different rooms without stopping. Finally the stairs end in the light room, the walls made from giant windows to let out the light of the one giant bulb in the middle, reflected by mirrors to magnify its brightness.
You spend a long time looking around the light room for the fortune you are sure is the final prize in the race, but there isn't anywhere for it to be hiding. The drawers and shelves are just full of lighthouse equipment, the closet is full of giant extra bulbs. Finally, in desperation, you lean against the rail and look at the giant light. That's when you realize! It's not a giant filament wire lightning up that bulb! There's something else inside it! You climb up next to the light and peer through the milky glass. There's definitely some piece of paper inside, and something else that glints like gold! Did the race write you a giant check? There's only one way to find out!
Seizing a hammer from a nearby tool shelf, you smash the light bulb into a million tiny glass pieces that rain down around you, but you don't care. Crunching them under your shoes, you reach out for the prize.
The gold is a heavy gold star, which you've seen somewhere before. It has twelve points, like an overachiever, and the crest of Mazelandia embossed on it—a big question mark, with teeth that want to eat you and also some bears with cannons for arms on either side. It's the star the Mazelandian president wears in the center of his bow tie! Could it be like a token for something? How much is it worth?
You look at the accompanying piece of paper. It's fancy and embossed. It reads:
“Congratulations! You are the winner of the Historic Mazelandia Democratic Race of Fortune! Please accept the admiration of all of Mazelandia and, as your prize, please accept the Presidency of The People's Historic Democratic Republic of Military-Controlled Mazelandia. Reading this paper signifies a legally binding contract to fulfill the role of Mazelandian President, and any shirking or escape attempts will be dealt with by the President's Guard. Tenure in perpetuity or until another candidate survives the Historic Mazelandian Race of Fortune.”
“Huh?” you say aloud, because this is a really confusing prize. You're now the Mazelandian president? You guess that's pretty cool, although your experience of Mazelandia so far has made you really just want to escape it while you're still alive. Why does everything here seem poisonous? More importantly, why does Mazelandia elect presidents-for-life this way?
Before you can ponder this any further, the loud noise of helicopter interrupts your thoughts. You turn to see one hovering outside the large windows of the lighthouse. Three burly men in the uniform you've come to recognize as the President's guard leap out, enter the lighthouse, and seize you rather forcefully. “Hey!” you try to protest, but they manhandle you outside and into the helicopter. There, they bind your hands, as if you would jump out of a moving helicopter. You try to crane your neck to see out the window, but one of the guards hits you until you stop. “Hey!” you protest again. “Aren't you here to guard me?”
“That's right,” they respond in accented English.
The helicopter finally lands back at End, which is the capital of Mazelandia, on the opposite seacoast from Start, fairly near the lighthouse where you claimed your prize. Preparations for a celebration are clearly underway—people are on ladders, decorating the streets, and a band is hastily practicing in a corner of the square, but you can tell by the way everyone's rushing that they were taken by surprise. No one was expected to win so early in the game, and you certainly wouldn't have if not for Franklin.
The guards lead you to a stage where the current Mazelandian President is already waiting. He looks ecstatic. “Finally! FINALLY!” he bellows when he sees you, dramatically ripping the twelve-pointed gold star off of his bow tie and flinging it to the ground. A few people standing nearby back away from it as if it were infectious. “Finally I can get off this hellish rock!”
“You don't want to be president anymore?” you ask.
He stares at you and then laughs, for a really long time. Like, it starts to get awkward because he's just standing there, laughing at you so hard that he's shaking. “Good luck, kid,” he says. “This is the first time in twenty years that someone's actually won the race, and that only because I bribed half of the island's mythological creatures.”
“Well, when I get sick of this job,” you say, “I'll just do that.”
“Good luck finding the money!” he says, still shaking with mirth.
“I'm the President!” you protest.
He just laughs at you some more. “The only thing a president of Mazelandia is good for, kid, is taking the blame. Have fun at the Annual Mazelandian Teeth Collecting Contest in particular!” You notice for the first time that he is missing many of his front teeth. “So long!” He leaps off the stage and runs for the harbor, where a small boat is waiting for him. You try to follow, but one of the President's Guards hold you back.
“Now then,” he cautions you with a smile. “You'll get the way of things soon enough. After all, Mazelandia must have a president.”
He says it half-apologetically, like the way people sometimes say “It's a shame, but we have to have maximum security prisons.” You feel the twelve points of your new president badge pricking at your throat.
The End
The largest key is also the heaviest. “I could kill a squirrel with this thing,” you marvel at it.
“Good luck!” the mayor wishes you, and he seems to mean it. You head off towards the back of the cave where there's a tunnel with a long series of different looking doors. It doesn't take you long to find the way your key fits in—its the largest and heaviest. It's all you can do to push the door open, even straining with all your might. After you've finally pushed the door open enough to slip through, you realize part of this effort was because a great wind is blowing at it from the other side, almost squishing you against the wall. The other part is that you're really out of shape.
There are a set of spiral stairs in front of you leading up, so you climb them laboriously, with the wind threatening to toss you back down them all the way. Finally you see daylight at the top of the stairs and come out in the roaring windswept peak of Death Mountain. Everything below you is tiny and indistinct, and you have to hang on to the wall behind you to avoid tumbling off from wicked vertigo. You can see the sea and the forest and suddenly you realize that Mazelandia is beautiful even if it is trying to kill you, like a girl who works for the bad guy in a James Bond movie. In the distance you can see the lighthouse that is your goal. But how to get there from way up here?
You look behind you and see a tall, thin tower, stabbing up into the sky. Beside it is a small, pretty shabby shed. Do you go in the tower or the shed? Or try to get down the mountain somehow?
The prettiest key is made of delicate silver with like a million loops and whorls and also some gemstones and glitter. It has tiny wings that you at first think are made of plastic or something, but, when you pick up the key, you discover that they are actually the softest feathers ever, like maybe from a baby dove.
“Good luck,” the Mazelandian President wishes for you, and he actually sounds like he means it. He gestures towards the back of the cave where there's a tunnel lit by over-sized Mazelandian lightning bugs. You follow it, passing many sets of differently sized doors. You think about trying your key in a few, but none of them seem pretty enough for your key, especially since its soft wings are now flapping gently in your hand, like a heartbeat.
Finally, at the end of the tunnel you come to the right door. You know it's the right door before you even try because it is bedazzled and technicolored. Maybe you picked this because it reminds you of home, but for whatever reason you start to feel happier. Lighter. Freer.
There isn't a keyhole like a normal door. Instead, there's an indent shaped like the key you're holding in the middle of a big heart above the doorway. The key suddenly takes flight from your hand, flapping its little wings, and fits itself perfectly into the indentation. The door clicks and swings open on its own, filling the tunnel with white light. You shield your eyes and step inside.
When your eyes get used to the lighting, you lower your hand and at first think that you've stepped into some kind of cartoon. In fact, upon closer inspection, that exactly what seems to have happened. First off, your skin and clothes are suddenly brighter, and little sparkles fill the air whenever you move. Is it something weird with the lighting in this place? You look up are met with the brightest blue sky you've ever seen, where a happy, smiling sun is looking down on you benevolently. It winks when it sees you looking.
“Uhhhh....” You appear to be standing on a cloud. Not a real wispy cloud, but one of those cartoon clouds that look like marshmallows. The consistency is kind of like a marshmallow too, fluffy and soft and a little bouncy. The sky is dotted with them in such a way as to make a road and you start walking from one to the next, hardly believing what you're seeing. Is this an acid trip? What should you do? Where the hell are you? You see a sign made out of licorice that proclaims this the “Sky Fairy Road” with signs pointing either to “Princess Rainbow's Fairy Castle” or “the Grumps”. Which do you want to head towards?
Or, does the insane color values of this overly saturated world drive you mad? Do you leap off the cloud?
You choose the smallest key. You pause, but there's no fanfare or dramatic music to indicate if this was the right choice or not.
“Good luck,” the Mazelandian President wishes for you, and he actually sounds like he means it. He gestures towards the back of the cave where there's a tunnel lit by over-sized Mazelandian lightning bugs. You follow it, passing many sets of differently sized doors. You try your key in a few, but it's too small.
Finally, near the end of the tunnel, you come to a door sized small enough to fit your key. It's so low to the ground that you almost miss it in the dark, but the space in the wall alerts you. You crouch down on your knees, feeling a little bit like Alice in Wonderland as you fit the key in the lock and hear the click as it opens. You push the door open and crawl through into the darkness.
The claustrophobically small tunnel luckily doesn't last long. Soon it opens out a huge room, easily two huge stories tall. Bookshelves line all of the walls filled with dusty tomes of different sizes, latticed by spindly ladders reaching up farther than you can see into the darkness. Is it some kind of library? Some kind of Mazelandian knowledge archive, high in Death Mountain to protect it from prying eyes? You look around, but there doesn't seem to be another door besides the one you came in.
“Hello?” you call, and your voice echoes up above you into the darkness. “Is anyone here? How do I get out of here?” you grumble to yourself in a quieter voice.
Strangely, it's this question that gets an answer. “Knowledge is power!” a quavering voice almost right beside you explains.
You scream and jump back, whirling around to see an ancient cat. It's mostly gray and its hair is long, at least in patches. It's watching you with strange, orange eyes. “Did you... talk?” you ask it.
“Yes?” it replies, as if you might be a bit slow. You don't know why you're surprised. Mazelandia is blasting weird.
“Who are you?” you ask it. “What are you?”
“I'm a cat,” it replies, widening its eyes a little as if now it knows you're a bit slow.
“A talking cat?” you demand. “Is that normal in Mazelandia or something?”
“I don't know,” it says. “I don't get out much. I'm the archivist.”
“So this is an archive.” You're glad you were right about something. “What's it doing up here in the middle of nowhere? Kind of hard to get to, right?”
“That's the point,” the cat explains. “It's a secret archive. Knowledge is power, after all.”
“So you don't want just anyone walking in here and finding out Mazelandia's secrets,” you say.
“That's right,” the cat says lazily, stretching.
“So why am I here?” you ask it.
“That is something I cannot answer for you,” the cat says, padding away towards the stacks.
“And how do I get out of here?” you call after it.
“Knowledge is power,” it repeats.
Do you:
You pick up the glowing key because, like a moth, you are attracted to its strangely pulsating light.
The Mazelandian president sighs when he sees your choice and wordlessly walks to the mouth of the cave like you've disappointed him and he just can't bear to look at you right now.
You try to ask him what his deal is, but find you're having trouble opening your mouth. In fact, none of your muscles will move. In a moment you collapse painfully on the ground, unable even to bring your hands up in front of your face to stop your nose from smashing into the rock. You want to cry out, but, again, you can't move.
The Mazelandian president looks over his shoulder at you and snorts. “You look so surprised,” he says. “I don't know how I could have made it more obvious that that was the Instant Death Curse Key. I mean, it's glowing like a hunk of uranium for one thing, I don't know where you come from, kid, but I'm surprised you even made it this far.”
“Yeah, go on, die,” he adds sullenly to your corpse a little while later.
The End
You choose the key with the key chain. It's a circle and features some kind of logo. The second it leaves the pedestal, loud party horns sound and many-colored balloons fall from nowhere along with confetti. Already nervous from your ordeals, you jump about a foot and then try to avoid the balloons and confetti hitting you, for fear that they are poisonous.
“Congratulations!” the Mazelandian president says, although he sounds kind of bored, like this is just typical. “You've won a new car!”
“What?” you ask. You don't trust it.
A panel at the back of the cavern opens to reveal A NEW CAR! It's on one of those rotating floor wheels that they use in game shows, complete with an attractive woman standing next to it with raised arms as if to say “Ta-DAH!” The car looks pretty nice, you guess. It's the top of the line—but from Mazelandia's own car company, Death Click. You find this out when the Mazelandian President continues in his best Bob Barker voice, “Yes, it's the spacious and luxurious Death Click Torture! With four wheels, two doors, and a cattle catcher, what more could the modern gentleman need!” It's illegal for Mazelandian women to drive cars, or indeed anything with wheels, supposedly for fear that their hair will get caught in them.
“Uh... great,” you say. “But how do I get it out of this cave? It's going to be hard to use it to win the race stuck in here.”
“All Mazelandian cars are built with eight-wheel drive capability!” the Mazelandian President replies. He and the attractive car model are obviously done and ready to go.
“What does that even mean?” you ask. “Wait!”
But they're already gone.
After some maneuvering, you're able to drive the car out of the cave, although that was mostly luck. The controls are not in intuitive places, and the pedals seem to be opposite of what you're used to—plus there are two extra ones. The track leading out of the cave seems small and terrifying in a car since it was made for hikers, and at one point you wildly roll through a herd of mountain goats, sending them careening off a cliff. Still, at least its not you. Finally, after a harrowing journey that, frankly, hardly seems possible, you make it to a wider track below the treeline. Time to head for the grand prize! And this car will surely give you an advantage, right?
Unfortunately, there are very few car owners in Mazelandia so the roads aren't really made for them. Plus, this car seems to have been designed for three different people to operate at once, because you never feel like you have enough hands. Night is just starting to fall when you see a guy standing beside the road with his thumb out. Do you pick him up?
You pick up the gold key, and the president nods at you and says, “Good luck.” He sounds like he doesn't really mean it, or maybe like he can't be bothered. You walk deeper into the cave and find a tunnel lined with doors of different sizes and shapes. It's obvious which one your key will fit because it's the only door that is also made of cold. You turn the key and open the door, and find a track complete with mine cart on the other side. The track looks rickety and scary, pretty much like the Riding In a Mine Cart scene of every movie/cartoon/video game ever. Do you dare get in? Or not?
“Well, whatever,” you say and race Grover up the stairs. It's not like you really care that much about Chet or Angela anyway. They'll probably be back in the morning.
Weirdly, they're not. The barman gives you a little breakfast, which tastes like stale death, but beggars can't be choosers. “Should we look for them?” you ask Grover.
“They know the rules of grad school!” Grover says decisively. Grover seems to say almost everything decisively. “The weak are left behind! Saddle up, team!”
Waving goodbye to the barman, you, Grover, and Akane leave Deadfoot Village together.
You walk for most of the morning, but around noon, when Grover makes you stop once again to take a barometer reading, you feel the need to point out, “We don't seem to be getting any closer to the mountain.” You point up at Death Mountain, still on your right. “Do you think it's time we went off road?”
“Could be dangerous,” Grover says without looking up from the clipboard where he's been recording things.
“What do you think, Akane?” you ask.
She looks out towards the forested foothills of Death Mountain and says, “We should probably get off the road.”
Grover doesn't seem to be moving anytime soon. He's setting up some kind wind-measuring device. Do you:
“No!” you say to him. “I'm going to get to the bottom of this right now! What have you done with Chet and Angela?”
“I haven't done anything with the taxi kid,” the barman says truthfully.
“Which means you did something to Angela!” you say triumphantly. You push past him and into the back room where Angela was supposed to be washing dishes. They sink is still piled with dirty glasses. “Where is she?” you demand, looking around for signs of struggle. Besides the door you came in, there are three others in the room. One leads outside, and you open another to find a closet with some cleaning supplies and leftover costumes, but no Angela. You start to open the last door when the barman does it for you, pushing you down the stairs beyond it.
You stumble down them into the basement, where there are lots of human-sized cages, many of them occupied with racers—you can tell by their team hats. “Help us!” they cry at you, and one of them is Angela. “You don't know what they're going to do to us!” she sobs.
Before you can do anything, you're grabbed from behind by the barman's usual staff. He's plugging in an electric razor. “What are you going to do?” you demand, struggling.
“Illegal wigs,” he says, before shaving you.
“Well,” you say later, as you stumble out onto the street, your head feeling newly cold and free. “That could have been worse.”
“How?!?” the newly bald Angela shrieks from beside you, clutching her bare head frantically like her hair might still be there, if she could just find it.
“Uh, we could be dead?” you remind her. “I thought they were going to kill us for our organs or something—where the hell is Chet?”
“Hair is more valuable than organs in Deadfoot Village!” Angela argues. “Those wigs are required at all times, you know, and now--”
But she doesn't have to explain the danger of being hairless in a village that takes its wigs deadly seriously, because at that moment a group of people with Beatles wigs round a corner and start walking towards you down the street. When they see you, they shriek and start to run. You try to run away, but they begin to throw stones. One hits you squarely in the back and you cry out, collapsing on the ground. You try to scramble to your feet, but they're already upon you, stabbing your body repeatedly and eventually cracking your unnaturally hairless head open on the sidewalk.
WIGS ARE SERIOUS BUSINESS.
The End
You give the barman one last suspicious look, before following the others upstairs to go to sleep. Grover immediately claims the best bed, and you're forced to sleep in a chair, but you don't care because you're just waiting for everyone else to go to sleep so you can get to the bottom of this! Finally, when all has been quiet for awhile, you sneak back downstairs, trying to move silently and swiftly. The fire in the big room has almost died down to nothing, and no one's around. You ease into the back kitchen and look around for any sign of Angela, who should have been back here washing dishes, but all is quiet. You open a door, but it turns out to be a closer. You open another door and see stairs leading down into the darkness. You listen hard, and seem to hear a rustling, like someone moving, so you slowly continue down, being careful not to make too much noise.
When you reach the bottom you see a row of human-sized cages, some of them occupied! “About time someone came looking for me,” the person in one grumbles. It's Angela!
“I'm glad I found you!” you say to her. “Where's Chet?”
She shrugs. “Not here. Just me and the Planeteers.”
“Huh?” you say and look at the other cages. The people in them seem to be wearing matching Planeteer t-shirts like maybe they're a race team too. In fact, they look kind of familiar...
“Hey, wait!” you cry in sudden recognition. “I saw you guys on the ferry!” You squint, counting them. “But where's Kwame?”
The Planeteers look at each other. The one dressed as Linka finally speaks. “He was killed in the village square earlier this morning. We told him it was not the time to contest the villagers' use of non-recyclable plates and cups in their festival celebration, but he said there was always time for the earth.”
“Well, yeah, he does have a point,” you have to concede.
“Then he tried to kill the mayor in earth vengeance,” the one dressed as Gi adds.
“Oh,” you say. “So why are you guys in cages.”
“That barman jumped me when I wasn't looking and forced me down here!” Angela fumes. “Find a way to get us out, quick!” You start to look around the room for the keys or something.
“They took our rings!” Ma-Ti sobs at you.
“And your monkey?” you guess.
Ma-Ti slowly sinks to the floor like he knows when he's beaten. “I don't have a monkey,” you can barely hear him say.
“Let us out!” Gi pleads. “You don't know what they're going to do to us!”
“What?” you ask.
Linka screams before Gi can tell you. The barman has come up behind you unnoticed and is already pushing you into an open cage, slamming the door behind you. “What!” you shout, clutching the bars. “Hey! Let me out!”
The barman seems to be peering at your head in the poor light with some scrutiny. “I wasn't planning on you, but fine, whatever.”
“What?” you demand, feeling your hair. But he's already gone.
“Great,” Angela moans. “Now our rescue needs rescuing, this sucks. You're the worst.”
Grover and Akane will eventually realize you're gone, right? But they didn't seem to care much about Angela and Chet. Finally the door opens and the barman comes down again with two other men.
“What are you going to do to us??” you demand as he yanks open the door to your cage.
“Wigs,” one of the men says gruffly. “Illegal wigs.”
Before you can resist, they're holding you down and shaving you. You scream at first, but then realize they're not really hurting you and it's just hair. “This is actually kind of anti-climactic,” you say as they finally push you out into the street with the newly shaven Planeteers and Angela.
“Speak for yourself!” Angela screams at you, mourning the loss of her beautiful hair.
Gi is shaking her head and looking around wildly. “You don't understand,” she says. “It's Deadfoot Village—they take wigs very seriously here. And we're all newly bald!”
“What?” you say again. But soon you realize what you meant when a group of villagers all wearing Beatles wigs rounds a corner and sees you all. They cry out the traditional Deadfoot Village Unwigged cry and give chase. You try to get away but they're too fast. Soon they're smothering you to death with synthetic hair. Or possibly hair stolen from a tourist by the unscrupulous barman. You have no idea.
The End
You shuffle the papers around for awhile, and then content yourself with drawing pictures of mice in the margins. Some of the mice have hats. Near the end of the evening, the barman comes back to check on you. “Good!” you say with fake confidence. “I'm almost done!” He narrows his eyes when he sees the mice drawings.
“You don't know anything about Mazelandian tax codes, do you?” he demands. “Those should be picture of snails, you fool!”
“I can fix it--” you start to assure him, but he's already grabbing you by the neck and forcing you into the backroom kitchen. “Wait!” you try to protest, but he opens a door and shoves you down the stairs beyond it.
You stumble down them into the basement, where there are lots of human-sized cages, many of them occupied with racers—you can tell by their team hats. “Help us!” they cry at you, and one of them is Angela. “You don't know what they're going to do to us!” she sobs.
Before you can do anything, you're grabbed from behind by the barman's usual staff. He's plugging in an electric razor. “What are you going to do?” you demand, struggling.
“Illegal wigs,” he says, before shaving you.
“Well,” you say later, as you stumble out onto the street, your head feeling newly cold and free. “That could have been worse.”
“How?!?” the newly bald Angela shrieks from beside you, clutching her bare head frantically like her hair might still be there, if she could just find it.
“Uh, we could be dead?” you remind her. “I thought they were going to kill us for our organs or something—where the hell is Chet?”
“Hair is more valuable than organs in Deadfoot Village!” Angela argues. “Those wigs are required at all times, you know, and now--”
But she doesn't have to explain the danger of being hairless in a village that takes its wigs deadly seriously, because at that moment a group of people with Beatles wigs round a corner and start walking towards you down the street. When they see you, they shriek and start to run. You try to run away, but they begin to throw stones. One hits you squarely in the back and you cry out, collapsing on the ground. You try to scramble to your feet, but they're already upon you, stabbing your body repeatedly and eventually cracking your unnaturally hairless head open on the sidewalk.
WIGS ARE SERIOUS BUSINESS.
The End
“blast this,” you say, throwing the papers on the floor and climbing out the window. You run off into the night, until you're at the edge of town. You slow down, thinking about what you're going to do next, when you almost run into Chet on a large bicycle. You're about to cry out in surprise when Chet puts a finger to his lips and points ahead of you on the path. You see by the light of the full moon a fox menacing a short, naked man. Like uncommonly short. Like maybe not even a man. His head only comes up a little higher than the fox's and he has a long bushy beard that covers most of him, but no hair on his head. He's wearing a bird's nest on it, maybe to try to hide this fact.
“What the hell?” you say aloud.
Both the man thing and the fox stare up at you, then the fox runs away into the bushes.
“What the hell?” you say again, staring at the man thing now cowering in front of you.
“Idiot!” Chet says to you. “Now it's probably going to eat you or something!” He doesn't wait for this to happen and quickly pedals away on the bike.
“Hey!” you call after him, but he doesn't even turn around. Meanwhile, the thing is attacking you. Or, at first you think it is. Then you realize it's trying to hug you, but only comes up your calf a little bit.”
“Thank you, kindly human!” it says to you in a squeaky voice. “You have saved me from becoming a foxy dinner!” He peeks up at you. “Humans have no taste for gnome flesh?” he adds hopefully.
“Yeah, I'm not going to eat you,” you agree, because ew. “You're a gnome? That's cool. I always thought gnomes wore hats, though.”
“Fairy lies!” the gnome squeaks indignantly. “They are always trying to get the best of us.”
“Right,” you agree. “Well, nice meeting you...”
“Wait!” the gnome says. And then bows. “The Code of Forest Brethren states that I must reward you for your kindness.”
“Cool,” you say. “Can you use gnome magic to bring me to the top of Death Mountain or something?”
“Yes, could!” the gnome agrees. “I know a shortcut!”
He leads you off the road and into a field. The moon light is bright, but you still trip often over things hidden in the grass. Finally you come to a cave in the side of a hill. “This way!” he says, leading you inside. It's dark, but the gnomes eyes seem to glow like headlights, leading the way in front of you in a truly creepy fashion, and blinding you whenever he turns back to make sure you're following.
“This leads to the top of the mountain?” you ask.
He nods, making the light beams illuminating your path bob. “Surely,” he assures you. “Long walk, though.”
It is a long walk. Gradually the path slopes upward. You pass many connecting passageways, but the gnome seems sure of which road to take. Finally, after you've been climbing for hours and hours, you emerge into another cave. You're stumbling around and barely notice that the gnome has disappeared, now that the light filtering in from outside allows you to see without his creepy eyes to help you. The wide mouth of this cave opens out onto the side of the mountain. You can see clouds, and the sea where you came from yesterday far below.
In the center of the cavern is a stone pedestal, laboriously hewn from the very rock itself. On the pedestal are twenty skeleton keys, each a slightly different size and design, and some made of different metals.
“CONGRATULATIONS SUCCESSFUL TEAM!” a deep voice suddenly booms around the chamber. “SELECT A KEY AS YOUR PRIZE! Hey wait,” the voice suddenly says in a more normal voice. “Where's your team?” The Mazelandian president, still in his ridiculous purple bow tie with the star in the middle, steps out from behind a stalagmite and frowns at you.
“They're...uh, dead,” you say.
He shrugs like he was expecting you to say that. “Oh well, it happens to most of them. At least you made it!”
“What are these keys for?” you ask.
“The next part of the race!” he exclaims enthusiastically. “The final prize is hidden at the top of the lighthouse on the Northernmost tip of Mazelandia, but to get there you first have to find your way out of the Death Mountain Caverns. The keys unlock different paths out—well, some of them lead out,” he adds in a careless way that nonetheless makes you sure that some of the paths lead to a swift and inescapable doom. “Choose wisely,” he counsels. “You're the first to arrive so there's plenty to choose from!”
Do you choose:
“No, thanks,” you say. “I'd rather just go to the top of Death Mountain if it's not too much trouble.”
“No, easy!” the gnome says eagerly. “I know a shortcut!”
He leads you off the road and into a field. The moon light is bright, but you still trip often over things hidden in the grass. Finally you come to a cave in the side of a hill. “This way!” he says, leading you inside. It's dark, but the gnomes eyes seem to glow like headlights, leading the way in front of you in a truly creepy fashion, and blinding you whenever he turns back to make sure you're following.
“This leads to the top of the mountain?” you ask.
He nods, making the light beams illuminating your path bob. “Surely,” he assures you. “Long walk, though.”
It is a long walk. Gradually the path slopes upward. You pass many connecting passageways, but the gnome seems sure of which road to take. Finally, after you've been climbing for hours and hours, you emerge into another cave. You're stumbling around and barely notice that the gnome has disappeared, now that the light filtering in from outside allows you to see without his creepy eyes to help you. The wide mouth of this cave opens out onto the side of the mountain. You can see clouds, and the sea where you came from yesterday far below.
In the center of the cavern is a stone pedestal, laboriously hewn from the very rock itself. On the pedestal are twenty skeleton keys, each a slightly different size and design, and some made of different metals.
“CONGRATULATIONS SUCCESSFUL TEAM!” a deep voice suddenly booms around the chamber. “SELECT A KEY AS YOUR PRIZE! Hey wait,” the voice suddenly says in a more normal voice. “Where's your team?” The Mazelandian president, still in his ridiculous purple bow tie with the star in the middle, steps out from behind a stalagmite and frowns at you.
“They're...uh, dead,” you say.
He shrugs like he was expecting you to say that. “Oh well, it happens to most of them. At least you made it!”
“What are these keys for?” you ask.
“The next part of the race!” he exclaims enthusiastically. “The final prize is hidden at the top of the lighthouse on the Northernmost tip of Mazelandia, but to get there you first have to find your way out of the Death Mountain Caverns. The keys unlock different paths out—well, some of them lead out,” he adds in a careless way that nonetheless makes you sure that some of the paths lead to a swift and inescapable doom. “Choose wisely,” he counsels. “You're the first to arrive so there's plenty to choose from!”
Do you choose:
You can't resist a good surprise. “I'll take the bigger prize!” you say. Maybe he'll take you all the way to the end of the race!
“Follow!” the gnome tells you gleefully, and you wheel the bike after him into the field beside the road. He leads you to his gnome burrow, which looks basically like a rabbit hole except it has a tiny doormat.
“I can't fit down there,” you tell the gnome.
But he's already disappeared underground. “Wait!” you hear him cal back to you. You wait in the field, listening to the samba music of the Mazelandian Crickets when the gnome finally returns, bearing a sack which he hands up to you eagerly. “It is everything!” he proclaims grandly and a little wistfully. “But it is worth it, to thank you for your bravery!”
You open the sack. It feels too light to be gold, but maybe--
It's acorns. You move them around a little to see if there's something underneath, but there's nothing but more acorns. You look up at the gnome in incomprehension.
“My life savings!” he explains. “Only the best!”
Your heart sinks. “Thanks,” you say miserably. You suppose it's your own fault for assuming common beliefs of value across cultures and species. It's disappointing, but you'll be nice about it. The gnome seems so excited. “They're great,” you say, putting them in your basket. “Thank you so much.”
He keeps looking up at you eagerly.
“Well, it's been real,” you say, turning to go back to the road.
“Aren't you going to try one?” he asks, and his little eyes are so pleading under their weird bird's nest hat, that you can't say no. You take an acorn out of the bag and put it in your mouth, crunching it weirdly. “Mmmmm,” you pretend, planning on spitting the sharp acorn pieces out the second you get back to the road. “Great.”
The gnome nods excitedly. “Good! Good!” he agrees, laughing. “Goodbye, Wheels!” You nod and wheel back to the road. The acorn actually tastes kind of good. You're surprised how quickly the taste grows on you.
You've eaten the entire bag by the time you get back to the inn. You lean the bike against the pub, licking the acorn dust off your fingers. When you go to push open the door, you find that it looks different—much larger than before. What's going on here?
The door opens and you're suddenly staring at a shoe. “What the hell?” you say, but it comes out as just squeaks. You look down and find that you've turned into a squirrel! You scream and try to run away, but you don't really know how to work your squirrel feet and you end up falling a lot and going in circles.
“Wheels? Wheels?” you hear the gnome's disembodied voice coming at you from a long way away, but you don't have time for that right now. You have to get away before these villagers kill you and eat you! They love squirrel meat!
“Wheels?” the gnome asks. He's staring at you as you flip out in front of him. He probably doesn't know that acorns from the Mazelandian Mind blasting Oak have hallucinogenic effects on humans. Anyway, he thinks you're some kind of wheeled creature, not a human. From his perspective—and indeed to anyone outside of your squirrel-themed crazy dream—you appear to be running and stumbling wildly around the field. Eventually you run into a ditch and break your neck. The gnome mourns you and then guts your bike for parts. It's the gnome way.
The End
“Yeah, take him,” you say, as Chet screams. You've never liked Chet much anyway.
“Excellent,” the tree says, pulling Chet closer to it. “To reach the top of the mountain, you should walk backwards some ways until you come to an old dead swamp tree that was struck by lightning. Climb between its cloven trunk and you will step out of its seed brother, high atop Death Mountain. Then follow the path up above the tree line and into the Cave of Success.”
“Cool!” you say as Chet begins to whimper. You briefly consider going to tell the others about your new intell but you hear their screams echoing across the marshy grasses towards you and figure that they've met with some new horror—Mazelandia seems to be just full of them, so you head back the way you've come until you find the split tree, just like the tree said. You step through and suddenly find yourself high up and cold on the slope of a mountain. Sure enough, there's a path you can follow, up and up its side. It's dangerous in the dark, and you stick close to the mountain's face for fear of falling, finally you come to a cave in its side with lights inside.
In the center of the cavern is a stone pedestal, laboriously hewn from the very rock itself. On the pedestal are twenty skeleton keys, each a slightly different size and design, and some made of different metals.
“CONGRATULATIONS SUCCESSFUL TEAM!” a deep voice suddenly booms around the chamber. “SELECT A KEY AS YOUR PRIZE! Hey wait,” the voice suddenly says in a more normal voice. “Where's your team?” The Mazelandian president, still in his ridiculous purple bow tie with the star in the middle, steps out from behind a stalagmite and frowns at you.
“They're...uh, dead,” you say.
He shrugs like he was expecting you to say that. “Oh well, it happens to most of them. At least you made it!”
“What are these keys for?” you ask.
“The next part of the race!” he exclaims enthusiastically. “The final prize is hidden at the top of the lighthouse on the Northernmost tip of Mazelandia, but to get there you first have to find your way out of the Death Mountain Caverns. The keys unlock different paths out—well, some of them lead out,” he adds in a careless way that nonetheless makes you sure that some of the paths lead to a swift and inescapable doom. “Choose wisely,” he counsels. “You're the first to arrive so there's plenty to choose from!”
Do you choose:
“What the hell?” Chet demands indignantly of you, still struggling against the roots pulling him as you hesitate.
“No, thanks,” you finally decide. “I can't betray my friend like that.”
Unfortunately for you, Chet has no such compunctions. “How dare you, Nat!” he shouts at you unexpectedly. “You just don't want to tell him—it that you're the real personal masseuse here!”
“What?” the tree says in delight, instantly letting go of Chet and reaching out for you. You struggle back, but its roots snap up to trip you and the supple ends of its branches twine around your limbs. It starts to pull you towards it through the swampy grass.
“And I'll take you up on your offer,” Chet says, standing and wiping swamp dirt off his clothes. “You can have my personal masseuse in exchange for information about a shortcut up the mountain.”
“Very well,” the tree agrees, even as its clutching you to its wooden bosom. You can barely breathe its pressing so hard. The trees tells Chet about the shortcut and he gleefully hurries on his way. You wonder briefly if Grover, Angela, and Akane will rescue you when they come back, but then you hear their screams in the distance and know that's probably unlikely, they've met with some other horror of this ridiculous land. The tree sways you a little bit and tries to sing you a tree song to comfort you, but you don't understand any of the words. “Shhhh,” it says to you. “You'll stay with me now... forever.”
The End
After a few unsuccessful attempts that hurt a lot, you're able to grab hold of a ledge to stop your fall. You strain to pull yourself up onto it, wishing you'd listened in high school when the gym teacher insisted that you really needed to learn how to do a pull up. Next you're probably going to have to climb some kind of rope. Eventually you make it by swinging a foot up onto the ledge and levering yourself up that way. You sit on the rocky outcrop panting, staring down into the infinite abyss below you. You look up, but it's almost too far to see much but a patch of sky. Well, at least you're not dead. Yet.
The ledge you've managed to grab is fairly large and spacious. You follow it for awhile, hugging the rock wall, until you come to what is unmistakably a tunnel curving up into the rock. Peering across the chasm at the opposite wall, you think you see what looks like a half-collapsed adjoining tunnel entrance, like maybe Kwame's sinkhole temper tantrum interrupted a system of caves and tunnels. Well, it's better than waiting around here. You turn into the tunnel and start your climb, feeling along the walls in the darkness. You take out your phone to use as a flashlight, but after an hour or so the battery finally dies. Luckily, there seems to be a faint light filtering down from somewhere, and you continue to climb, up and up, until you reach a larger tunnel with glowing beetles lining the edges to light your way. Eagerly you continue further upward, even encountering stairs cut into the rock at several points. Finally, you come out into a wide cavern. Through its mouth at the opposite end you can see clouds and the sea, far below. You've reached the top of Death Mountain!
In the center of the cavern is a stone pedestal, laboriously hewn from the very rock itself. On the pedestal are twenty skeleton keys, each a slightly different size and design, and some made of different metals.
“CONGRATULATIONS SUCCESSFUL TEAM!” a deep voice suddenly booms around the chamber. “SELECT A KEY AS YOUR PRIZE! Hey wait,” the voice suddenly says in a more normal voice. “Where's your team?” The Mazelandian president, still in his ridiculous purple bow tie with the star in the middle, steps out from behind a stalagmite and frowns at you.
“They're...uh, dead,” you say.
He shrugs like he was expecting you to say that. “Oh well, it happens to most of them. At least you made it!”
“What are these keys for?” you ask.
“The next part of the race!” he exclaims enthusiastically. “The final prize is hidden at the top of the lighthouse on the Northernmost tip of Mazelandia, but to get there you first have to find your way out of the Death Mountain Caverns. The keys unlock different paths out—well, some of them lead out,” he adds in a careless way that nonetheless makes you sure that some of the paths lead to a swift and inescapable doom. “Choose wisely,” he counsels. “You're the first to arrive so there's plenty to choose from!”
Do you choose:
You know perfectly well that the center of the Earth is hollow, so all you have to do is wait to fall into the big hole at the center and hopefully be taken in by the peaceful mole people, who will value your knowledge of the outside world. You're already picturing the toasts they will make to your wit and intelligence—you'll recite the entire Star Wars saga to them from memory, and they'll think you're some kind of genius—when your body hits the rocky bottom of the abyss you've fallen into, liquefying instantly. Have fun being soup!
The End
You shrug at Akane and sit down on a rock to wait for Grover to be done sciencing. “Is this going to take long?” you ask.
“You can't rush greatness,” Grover replies.
Suddenly, the earth around you begins to vibrate and rumble. At first, you think it's just the rock you're sitting on, but when you stand up you can still feel it, traveling up the your legs from the ground and growing stronger. “Earthquake!” you yell. Grover is grabbing his equipment to keep it safe. Akane is jumping off the road. “No, not into the trees!” you try to stop her. It isn't safe under them during an earthquake but she doesn't listen to you. Because Akane knows it's no earthquake.
Suddenly the dirt road under Grover erupts in a geyser of dirt and small rocks. Grover screams as his equipment goes flying, and also because a giant Mazelandian Pink Worm is munching on his legs. It's head rears up out of the hole its created, rows of teeth flashing in the afternoon sunlight, stained with Grover's blood. It's pale pink, like its name implies, and probably as big around as a car. You try to run after Akane into the trees—there's no saving Grover now—but the worm is hardly sated with him and immediately dives after you, the ground disgorging its fat, pink body like playdoh being squeezed from a tube. You hope it chokes on your stylish sneakers as it bites off your legs.
The End
“No, come on, Grover, Akane's right,” you argue. “Let's go.”
“You can't rush greatness!” Grover yells at you. You try to pick up his equipment and move it for him, but he's having none of that, and jerks it out of your hands. “You guys go if it means so much to you!” he shouts at you. “I'll stay here and do my duty—for SCIENCE!”
Akane is already walking briskly away into the forest. Do you follow her, or is making Grover come with you worth a fight?
“Whatever,” you say to Grover as you follow Akane into the forest. After you've been walking through the trees for about ten minutes you think you hear Grover's scream and a kind of roaring noise echoing back at you. “Should we...?” you start to ask Akane, but she just shrugs and keeps looking ahead, her eyes wide and sort of ominously devoid of emotion.
“There's nothing we can do for him now,” she tells you. You don't really want to ask her what that means. You walk through the forest for the rest of the afternoon. You pass an ice cream tree around three o'clock with chocolate waffle cone bark. At first, you think this must be some kind of deadly trap, but you soon discover that it's deliciously real and therefore eat ice cream to sustain yourself. As night begins to fall, it's harder to see where you're going, and you trip over roots and things.
“Is this part of the Forest of One Thousand Regrets?” you ask Akane, squinting into the distance. “Because so far I haven't regretted anything except maybe that last scoop of double chocolate.”
“You had to say that, of course,” Akane says, resignedly. Before you can ask her what she means, you hear a child's voice, singing a nursery rhyme. It must be a Mazelandian nursery rhyme because you've never heard it before, and it seems to be about bodies. It's coming closer, and there's a faint glow, moving and bobbing among the trees, like a ghostly lantern.
“What the hell is that?” you demand, instinctively moving closer to Akane for protection.
“Probably the unquiet dead,” she says, like that's a thing. “What should we do?”
Do you:
“Okay, Grover, let's do this!” you shout, his bossiness finally getting the better of you. “A team sticks together, and right now your team is trying to walk off without you.”
“Then my team is stupid!” Grover shouts back, brandishing his mechanical pencil at you threateningly. “SCIENCE is my team, and I won't leave it behind!”
“You're coming with us!” you shout, pulling out a pen of your own and clicking it menacingly.
“No way!” Grover shouts, swinging his pencil to slash at your cheek. You block expertly with your pen, and soon you are having an all out fancy sword fight with writing implements. You're so intent on your fight that neither of you notice how the ground around you seems to be rumbling until the vibrations are traveling up your legs with such intensity that you both fall down.
“Earthquake!” Grover cries, but he's wrong.
Suddenly the dirt road under Grover erupts in a geyser of dirt and small rocks. He screams as the fabled giant Mazelandian Pink Worm emerges from the hole, catching his legs in its circular-toothed maw. It's head rears up as pieces of Grover rain down on you in a disgusting spew. It's pale pink, as its name implies, and probably as big around as a car. You try to get away, but it's already lunging for you, attracted by the movement and your usual smell of hamburgers. You manage to stab it in the face with your pen as its teeth saw through your femurs, but, like all worms, it doesn't have any eyes for you to target. The blow just seems to anger it, making it consume you faster.
The End .
Without even saying anything to Akane, you start running. You'd probably be screaming if you had any breath in your lungs, but you seem to be operating through the use of sheer, unadulterated terror. You're not sure if Akane is following you or not, the only sound you can hear is your frantic heartbeat. You trip with every other step on unseen branches and at least once run smack into a tree, but you don't care, all that matters is getting away from the creepy light and the creepy singing. You know what happens to people who follow strange lights into the darkness and you don't want any part of that. Plus creepy children are the worst.
You're running as fast as you can, so why can you still hear that singing as loudly as before, is it still getting closer? When you risk a glance behind you, you can see the light bobbing in your wake. And of course you choose this moment to be totally uncoordinated and trip into a ditch, hitting your head hard on the way down. Maybe it's just because your vision is fuzzy, but you could swear that the light coming ever closer towards your face is a giant lightning bug, coming to eat your intestines.
It's probably just getting hit on the head—giant Mazelandian lightning bugs don't really frequent the south side of the island this time of year. You were right about the intestine eating, though, that's totally happening and just as unpleasant as it sounds. Sorry.
The End
“What the heck is this creepy child bullmalarkey?” you demand of the approaching light. “Guess what?” you tell Akane, “One time I met the girl from the Ring and I dropped kicked her into an electric fence! I mean, okay, maybe it turned out to just be my niece on a bad hair day and maybe my sister hasn't spoken to me in two years because of it, but the point is CHILDREN ARE TOO TINY TO BE SCARY! So bring it, you little Mazelandian freak! Are you with me, Akane?” you ask her in an undertone.
She shrugs, but doesn't run away.
The light stops a few feet from you both. You squint and make out the hunched form of a man with a beard. “I'm seventy-three,” he tells you in his strangely pitched, child-like voice. “It's a glandular problem.”
“Oh,” you say, feeling somewhat sheepish after your trash talk speech that was meant to pump you up for the inevitable fight that now doesn't seem to be coming. “Well, what's up?” you say.
“Not much,” the old man says. “Just searching the forest for racers I can eat.”
“Oh,” you say. And then “What!”
“This one is bigger than me!” Akane tells him, pushing you forward. “Eat it first!”
“I'm not an it you protest to Akane. Plus,” you add, to the old guy. “I would taste so awful—I only eat junk food, you know.” You're actually not that worried about it. If he were going to eat you, wouldn't he have already? Why stop to chat to your food? “What are you anyway? The vengeful dead?”
“Naw, I'm a fairy,” he says, completely seriously. When you just stare at him, he looks a little exasperated and says, “It's true, look” and hands you a business card. It says “Mazelandian Forest Sprite: Class 2” and “Franklin” which you guess is his name. “I don't know what fairies are like where you come from,” he says. “But here we have weird voices and eat any who trespass on our domains.”
“I guess we have been doing some trespassing,” you say guiltily.
He waves it away as if this is no big deal. “I'm full up right now on a group dressed like Planeteers. And I like you, anyway. Not afraid to speak your mind, or shout it in the dark, and dropkick innocent girls into electric fences. I like it. Style So I'm willing to make you an offer. What do you think?”
“What's the offer?” you ask.
“I can show you a short cut to the top of that Mountain.” He points to where Death Mountain towers above you somewhere in the darkness. “It'll take two seconds.”
“Like literally two seconds?” you say skeptically. “Because sometimes people say that, but they mean--”
He smiles slowly and all of his teeth are pointed. “Trust me,” he says.
“What do you want in return?” you ask suspiciously because this isn't your first deal with a fairy tale creature, OH NO.
“How about we just say that you'll owe me a favor?” Franklin the Mazelandian Forest Sprite responds, still with that creepy smile. He holds out his hand.
Do you take his offer?
Or refuse?
“There's only one thing to do when faced with creepy child singing,” you explain to Akane. Instead of telling her what that is, you show her, by opening up your vocal chords and singing back:
“I LIKE BIG BUTTS AND I CANNOT LIE” you start to scream at the top of your lungs as the light gets closer. Akane quickly joins you, softer: “YOU OTHER BROTHERS CAN'T DENY.”
You're surprised when the creepy child singing abruptly stops and then the voice continues, “That when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist, and a round thing in your face...”
“YOU GET SPRUNG” you all three rap together. The voice starts laughing.
Now that the light is closer you can see the hunched form of a man with a beard. “You're alright, kid,” he says when he's through laughing, still in that creepy child voice.
“What the hell is your deal?” you demand.
“I'm seventy-three,” he tells you in his strangely pitched, child-like voice. “It's a glandular problem.”
“Oh,” you say. “Well, what's up?”
“Not much,” he says. “Just searching the forest for racers to eat.”
You narrow your eyes at him. Sir Mix-A-Lot solidarity notwithstanding, he is still mad suspicious. “Are you the vengeful dead?”
“Naw,” he says, laughing a wheezing laugh, and then reaching forward lightning fast to grab your wrist in a grip of steel. “I'm as real as you are.”
“Are you—are you going to eat me too?” You try to struggle away, but he's somehow too strong. It's like struggling against a wall.
He abruptly lets you go and you fall dramatically back on the ground. He's laughing at you again. “Naw, I'm only fooling you, kid. I like you. You've got good taste in music.” From this vantage point, on the ground, you suddenly notice that the old man has fingers twice as long as they should be, and another set of eyes underneath his chin. “That's why I'm going to make you an offer,” he continues.
“What are you?” Akane demands.
“I'm a fairy,” he says, completely seriously. When you just stare at him, he looks a little exasperated and says, “It's true, look” and hands you a business card. It says “Mazelandian Forest Sprite: Class 2” and “Franklin” which you guess is his name. “I don't know what fairies are like where you come from,” he says. “But here we have weird voices and eat any who trespass on our domains.”
“I guess we have been doing some trespassing,” you say guiltily.
He waves it away as if this is no big deal. “I'm feeling pretty full, anyway,” he says. “Plus you got a mean singing voice on you—both of you. We could be friends. The point is, do you want to win this thing or what?”
You stare at him blankly until you realize he can only mean the race. You look at Akane, who nods. “Well... yeah,” you say cautiously, still wondering if this is a trick.
“Right,” he says. “Then I can take you to the top of Death Mountain. Right now.” He shrugs again. “I was going to trick you and eat you, but what the hell. Sir Mix-A-Lot solidarity, right?”
“I don't know,” you say, narrowing your eyes at him suspiciously. “Can we really trust you?” Akane looks as uncertain as you.
He scoffs as if affronted. “Of course you can! It'll take two seconds, honest.”
“Like literally two seconds?” you say skeptically. “Because sometimes people say that, but they mean--”
He smiles slowly and all of his teeth are pointed. “Trust me,” he says. He holds out his hand.
Do you take his offer?
Or refuse it?
“I'll take it,” you say, shaking his hand warily.
“Great,” he says. And you and Akane find yourselves standing with him on the top of a windswept mountain. It's cold, and you can make out the lights of towns far below. “And as for my favor,” he says. “I'm going to eat her.” He points at Akane.
“What?” you start to protest, but he's already moving—surprisingly fast for someone that looks like a tiny old guy. Before Akane can even really scream, he's bitten through her stomach. She just makes a gurgling noise as she falls over.
“Ew,” you say, turning your face away from the carnage and the smell. There's nothing you can do for Akane now, and you really want to get away from this creepiness, so you continue up the path, towards the mountain's peak. It's dangerous in the dark, and you stick close to the mountain's face for fear of falling. Finally you come to a cave in its side with lights inside.
In the center of the cavern is a stone pedestal, laboriously hewn from the very rock itself. On the pedestal are twenty skeleton keys, each a slightly different size and design, and some made of different metals.
“CONGRATULATIONS SUCCESSFUL TEAM!” a deep voice suddenly booms around the chamber. “SELECT A KEY AS YOUR PRIZE! Hey wait,” the voice suddenly says in a more normal voice. “Where's your team?” The Mazelandian president, still in his ridiculous purple bow tie with the star in the middle, steps out from behind a stalagmite and frowns at you.
“They're...uh, dead,” you say.
He shrugs like he was expecting you to say that. “Oh well, it happens to most of them. At least you made it!”
“What are these keys for?” you ask.
“The next part of the race!” he exclaims enthusiastically. “The final prize is hidden at the top of the lighthouse on the Northernmost tip of Mazelandia, but to get there you first have to find your way out of the Death Mountain Caverns. The keys unlock different paths out—well, some of them lead out,” he adds in a careless way that nonetheless makes you sure that some of the paths lead to a swift and inescapable doom. “Choose wisely,” he counsels. “You're the first to arrive so there's plenty to choose from!”
Do you choose:
“We're.... good,” you say, staring warily at his outstretched hand. Franklin seems sketchy, and you are so sure there's just some horrible “catch” waiting to manifest itself, like he'll take you to the finish line but eat your legs so you can't cross it or some bullmalarkey. It's probably safer just to not enter into any agreements with any mythical creatures. “Thanks, but no thanks,” you clarify when Franklin continues to stare at you.
Franklin jerks his hand back in an instant. “I see how it is,” he says after a moment. “You don't want to make a deal with a fairy, huh? Got something against fairies?”
“No, it's not that,” Akane protests, although it kind of is that really.
“I thought you were different!” Franklin shouts at you and some of his spit lands on your cheek. It burns. “But you're just like all the others!”
“Attractive yet cautious?” you guess hopefully.
“DELICIOUS AND NUTRITIOUS!” Franklin yells, diving at you. You scream and bring your hands up to protect your face, but Franklin isn't that tall and is busily biting into your stomach with his sharp, tearing teeth.
“AHHHHHHHHH!” you scream, and it ends in a sad kind of gurgle.
The End
You look at Akane, and she nods. “We'll take it,” you say, shaking his hand warily.
“Great,” he says. And you and Akane find yourselves standing with him on the top of a windswept mountain. It's cold, and you can make out the lights of towns far below. You continue up the path, towards the mountain's peak. It's dangerous in the dark, and you stick close to the mountain's face for fear of falling. Finally you come to a cave in its side with lights inside.
In the center of the cavern is a stone pedestal, laboriously hewn from the very rock itself. On the pedestal are twenty skeleton keys, each a slightly different size and design, and some made of different metals.
“CONGRATULATIONS SUCCESSFUL TEAM!” a deep voice suddenly booms around the chamber. “SELECT A KEY AS YOUR PRIZE! Hey wait,” the voice suddenly says in a more normal voice. “Where's the rest of your team?” The Mazelandian president, still in his ridiculous purple bow tie with the star in the middle, steps out from behind a stalagmite and frowns at you.
“They're dead,” Akane says without hesitation.
He shrugs like he was expecting her to say that. “Oh well, it happens to most of them. At least you two made it!”
“What are these keys for?” you ask.
“The next part of the race!” he exclaims enthusiastically. “The final prize is hidden at the top of the lighthouse on the Northernmost tip of Mazelandia, but to get there you first have to find your way out of the Death Mountain Caverns. The keys unlock different paths out—well, some of them lead out,” he adds in a careless way that nonetheless makes you sure that some of the paths lead to a swift and inescapable doom. “Choose wisely,” he counsels. “You're the first to arrive so there's plenty to choose from! Once you take the keys you're no longer a team, so feel free to punch each other in the gut or whatever.”
Akane just smiles at you and selects a thin silver key, heading off towards the tunnel at the back of the cavern. You wonder if you'll ever see her again. Which key to you choose?
You slow and motion for him to get in. To be frank, you could use some help driving and maybe he'll know the best way to get to the lighthouse that holds the grand prize! It's supposed to be at the northernmost point in Mazelandia, but it would be a lot easier getting there with someone who knows the area.
“Where're you headed?” you ask as he shuts the door behind him.
He shrugs. You expected him to smell—he looks like he does—but he doesn't. At all. In fact, it's weird but the very absence of smell clings around him. “Don't matter,” he says. “Just like the drive.”
“Well, I'm going to the lighthouse,” you brag. “I'm trying to win the race!”
He laughs, a wheezing humorless laugh. “Only fools try to win that race,” he says matter-of-factually
“What?” you demand.
“I tried to win that race once,” he says. “And look what happened to me.”
You turn to look and for the first time see a gaping chest wound partially covered by his coat. You can actually see the car's upholstery through it. “AHHHHHHH!” you scream, because you are in a car with a ghost.
He seems unimpressed by your terror. “Why're you afraid of me?” he asks like you're being stupid. “I'm dead.”
“Well, okay,” you agree, still edgy but he doesn't seem into hurting you. He just seems kind of sad.
“The race is a lie,” he tells you seriously, staring straight ahead at the road. “They bring us here to kill us.”
“Why?” you ask.
“Lots of reasons,” he says. “Organ harvesting, blood sacrifice, feeding the Mazelandian Death Worm... Sport. There's no prize—no prize in the race that is.” He turns to you with a gleam in his eye. “Would you rather find the real prize?”
“Uh... sure?” you say. This has taken a turn for the sketchy. Well, that turn was actually probably when the guy you're driving with has a hole through his body, but still.
“I'll tell you where to find it,” the hitchhiker promises. “If, when you do, you promise to come back for me.”
“Why don't you just go with me?”
He shakes his head and you realize that he's already fading, looking less solid than he did, totally more pearly and ghostlike now. “Ghosts are bound to the spot where they died,” he explains. And then, his eyes flashing, “DO YOU PROMISE?”
Do you promise? Or let him fade?
“HA HA SUCKER GET YOUR OWN CAR!” you shout out the window because sudden riches has turned you into a jerk as you always knew it would. The hitchhiker makes a rude hand gesture at you as you speed away and then vanishes.
You frown, wondering if it was a trick of the mirror or you blinked or something until you turn back to the road and see him standing in front of you again with his thumb out. His face looks angry this time.
Do you stop and pick him up?
There are lots of books to choose from in the archive, and after wandering around amongst them for awhile, learning their ways, you figure out the system for how they're sorted by trial and error. Should you read a Mazelandian history book? A romance novel? Or a choose your own adventure book?
You start wandering around the archive cavern, looking for secret passageway out of here. You press on a bunch of likely looking books, but they turn out to just be books. You pull on a bunch of wall torches, but almost accidentally light yourself on fire. The books on the shelves you try to pull out get dust all over your hands and there's cat hair everywhere. Ew.
Finally, in one corner, you come upon a giant statue of a stone lion. Well, kind of like a lion, if it were also part dragon and part fire. It's taller than the bookcases around it and has an expression on its face that seems to be either “RAWR don't try to mess with me” or maybe just “WOOO Good times!! I am a party lion-dragon-spirit statue!” It's hard to look anything but fierce when you have teeth that large, you guess. Anyway, the point is, this statue is kind of out of place, and therefore the perfect secret entrance to a secret passage out of you.
You press a likely looking tooth. There's a suspicious grinding noise, then you scream and jump back as the mouth slams shut over where your hand just was. You stumble backwards in shock. “What the heck!” you scream.
“Off to an ill-mannered start,” the statue replies.
“Can everything talk here?” you demand angrily.
“I guard the passage through the mountain,” the statue announces. “But to get past me, you must answer my questions and prove your worth as a true Mazelandian.”
“Crap,” you say. “What if I don't know anything about Mazelandia?”
“Then I'll eat you,” it says calmly. “Do you wish to proceed?”
On the one hand, you don't really know that much about Mazelandia, so maybe you should go read a book or something before starting this. On the other, you could probably fake your way through it from what you've learned on your journey so far, right? And it's not like statues actually eat people, and even if they do, how would he catch you? He's stuck to the wall. Do you leave to research or continue with the questioning?
This cat is really starting to piss you off. If it can talk and everything, why won't it help you? It needs to see how serious you are.
That's how you justify it to yourself, anyway. In reality, you just can't resist a little violence against animals. You follow the cat and punch it, right in the head. You're not a professional fighter or anything, but, come on, you're a human and it's just a cat. So you're not really expecting much retaliation besides some yowling. It'll take the cat at least a few minutes to get its breath back.
So you're really not expecting it when the cat latches onto your face with its claws, hissing and spitting the entire time. “WHAT IS YOUR blastING PROBLEM!?” it yells at you.
“AHHHHHHHH!” you scream, shaking your head from side to side in an attempt to dislodge the cat, but it just clings to you tighter. “GET OFF ME!” you shout, trying to tear the cat away with your hands.
“blast YOU!” the cat yells, and then bites your ear. “Apologize for punching me,” it counsels as you try to pull it off you by getting a hand under its neck, but it feels like you're trying to rip off your own face.
Do you apologize? Or keep fighting?
“Okay, okay,” you say, or rather shriek, since you're still in a lot of pain. “I'm sorry I punched you. Can you please get off me?”
“Very well,” says the cat, although it doesn't retract its claws. “But in repayment for your unprovoked attack you must become my archive assistant for as long as I deem necessary.”
“What!” you moan. “But I'm in a race--” You feel its claws dig into your face further. “Okay, fine!” you agree. “Will you get off me?”
The cat acquiesces and you glare at each other. “Your first task,” the cat explains, “is to organize the archive... by color.”
You grumble, but get to work.
You're not sure how long you work for the cat in the archive. It could have been a day, or it could have been days plural. All you know is, it felt like ten million years it was so boring. Plus, the cat is a total dick. After you finally finish organizing all the books by color, your hands covered in book dust and old spider webs, the cat sniffs and says, “Okay, now do them by publication date.” You start to protest angrily, but he hisses so you decide to do what he says, your face still smarting from his claws. You've reorganized the library like three more times before you decide to stop and take a break. You take a book off the shelf at random, and it turns out to be An Exhaustive Compendium of Everything That Has Ever Happened in Mazelandia Ever. You skip the chapter on Pangaea or whatever and head straight to the exciting Mazelandian Wars of Conquest of... well, you're not sure when, because Mazelandia uses a weird ass dating system that seems to be half numbers and half animal names. But the Mazelandian Wars of Conquest sound seriously baller, probably because they involved colonizing humans fighting against the island's native mythical creatures. You've seen some pretty weird stuff since coming to Mazelandia, but even you have a hard time in believing some of this cryptozoology they mention. Then apparently some of the mermaids, gnomes, land fire squids, sentient trees, giant leeches, and other things switched sides, and it became an all out Mazelandian civil war, with humans fighting alongside magical creatures against other, slightly more evil humans and magical creatures. This should totally be a movie! And not just because you have already been reading for, like, EVER.
You start skimming, and then you come across this passage:
“The Grim Scythe was brought to Mazelandia for safe keeping in the time after the fifth flying pig revolt had been quelled. It was thought that the wilds of Mazelandia was the perfect place to lose such a precious and potentially dangerous artifact where it might never be found, and indeed its existence is largely unknown outside of the island in modern times, perhaps because its necessity does little for the Reaper's reputation. Many have tried to find the artifact, but they have joined the countless bodies upon which Mazelandian society is built.”
“Ew,” you say, but you just bet it's true. After all, you've almost died countless times in Mazelandia up till now, maybe actually died and come back and started over a few times, depending on how many read throughs this is for you. Mazelandia is definitely the deadliest. But what's this Grim Scythe? You flip to the index, but find it pretty meager and disappointing. However, you do see an entry for “Democratic Race of Fortune” which reads SEE “Peasant Derby” and a page number so you turn there.
“The Annual Mazelandian Peasant Derby began sometime in the reign of King Ablegard the Short-Tempered as a way to strike fear into the hearts of the local populace, as well as motivate them to work harder for less. Each town or manor would send a peasant to participate in the race, usually the one least liked or who had paid the fewest taxes in that year. The peasants were made to race from one end of the island to the other, most dying from natural causes by angering the mythological denizens of the land or running afoul of any of the many natural hazards such as volcanoes, ice volcanoes, spider volcanoes, and even some non-volcano related death traps. If any peasants survived the race, the first across the finish line would be declared the winner. His reward was tenure as the king's Royal Peasant Ambassador until such time as another peasant won the annual derby, or he died. Although Royal Peasant Ambassador was thought to be better than death by most peasants, it was still not preferable to typical peasant life, being that the position offered no salary or lodging allotment, and often required the bearer to do ridiculous and dangerous things at the king's whim. King Ablegard the Short-Tempered and most of his descendants treated Peasant Ambassadors as pets, but worse, often making them act as a more interesting weather vane for weeks on end atop the castle walls or using them to practice the much feared Royal Art of Poisonry. Royal Peasant Ambassadors were also hated by the peasants themselves because they were never able to do anything to improve the lot of the common peasant.
Indeed, it was the King's custom to address all complaints about the lot of the common folk by blaming the Royal Peasant Ambassador, who was often burned at the stake by the people he was supposed to be representing.
The Military Junta that finally overthrew the monarchy in 1963 revived the custom in 1979, renaming it the Historic Mazelandia Democratic Race of Fortune, with the race aim being effectively the same—this time the winner is named “president”, a nominal post made expressly for taking blame from the military and hate from the populace. When no native Mazelandian voluntarily falls for this admittedly thin attempt at creating a scapegoat, the military junta inevitably brings in many foreigners to compete, often under dubiously misleading circumstances.”
“Well, malarkey!” you say, shocked to learn the truth about what you're really racing for. It doesn't sound like you want to win the race at all! Is there a way to just go home now? Without dying? Can you quit the race, or will that too result in your immediate death? It's really academic unless you can get out of this arcave anyway. (Get it? Arcave? It's like an archive cave). This whole trip is starting to feel like a mistake.
You're about to put the book back when the pages fall open to a random glossary that's kind of stuck in the middle, not at the end where it should be. You see a mention of the “Grim Scythe” so you stop to see what it says:
“Grim Scythe—often confused with the scythe carried by the Grim Reaper, this is actually its opposite. Non-Native Mazelandians can be put off by the Mazelandian use of the term “grim” which means “joyful” or “life-giving” in the native dialects. No one knows why the Grim Scythe was created. Some speculate that the universe demands duality, others that the Grim Reaper needed an easy “do over” method in the case of mistakes made with the more famous, death-causing scythe. The Grim Scythe was last seen somewhere in the northern wastes of Mazelandia.”
“Bam,” you say, closing the book dramatically. “I just found my new calling in this race!!! Thanks, book of back story!” You put the book back on the shelf.
Should you: read another book? Like a romance novel or a Choose Your Own Adventure story? Or try to get out of here?
“NEVER!” you scream, and run headlong into the nearest wall. It hurts, but it hurts the cat more, forcing it to release your face and fall in a crumpled heap on the ground.
“Fine,” the cat moans, sounding like it's having trouble breathing. “You win. I will show you the way out.”
“SWEET!” you rejoice. You knew your persistence would pay off. Limping, the cat leads you over to a large statue set into the wall amongst the bookshelves. It looks like a stone lion. Well, kind of like a lion, if it were also part dragon and part fire. It's taller than the bookcases around it and has an expression on its face that seems to be either “RAWR don't try to mess with me” or maybe just “WOOO Good times!! I am a party lion-dragon-spirit statue!” It's hard to look anything but fierce when you have teeth that large, you guess.
“Clarence,” the cat says to the statue.
To your surprise, the statue's eyes move to stare down at him. “What?” Clarence asks grumpily.
“Open up,” the cat says. “I'm sick of looking at this kid.”
“You know the rules,” Clarence says. “You shall not pass unless I get my questioned answered.”
“blast you, Clarence,” says the cat, rolling its eyes. “Open up or I'll tell everyone about your unhealthy obsession with Stonehenge.”
The statue grumbles. “That's none of your business. I subscribe to that magazine for the articles, not the salacious pictures of stone monoliths.”
“I don't want to hear it,” the cat says aggressively.
The statue grumbles some more, but swings aside, revealing a darkened tunnel leading down.
“Now get out of here,” the cat hisses at you.
The tunnel beyond is long, but you finally come out in the forested foothills of Death Mountain. The sun is setting and you can see the tousled sea in the distance and, on the Northern most strip of land, the lighthouse that is your goal. You set off towards it, but soon lose your way in the darkness and the trees. Probably time to stop for the night! Do you:
“Lay it on me,” you say.
“Very well,” the statue replies. “In the year twenty-seven thirty-four water buffalo, on the Mazelandian calendar, how did President Olafson attempt to escape the President's Guard and into the black waters of the River Tar, which eventually claimed him?”
“Uhhh... shouldn't this be multiple choice?” you respond.
The statue just continues to watch you.
You have no idea. I assume. Should you try to guess or admit defeat?
Mazelandian history is probably the way to go, especially if you're trying to get out of this strange archive and win the race! You choose one called An Exhaustive Compendium of Everything That Has Ever Happened in Mazelandia Ever. You skip the chapter on Pangea or whatever and head straight to the exciting Mazelandian Wars of Conquest of... well, you're not sure when, because Mazelandia uses a weird ass dating system that seems to be half numbers and half animal names. But the Mazelandian Wars of Conquest sound seriously baller, probably because they involved colonizing humans fighting against the island's native mythical creatures. You've seen some pretty weird stuff since coming to Mazelandia, but even you have a hard time in believing some of this cryptozoology they mention. Then apparently some of the mermaids, gnomes, land fire squids, sentient trees, giant leeches, and other things switched sides, and it became an all out Mazelandian civil war, with humans fighting alongside magical creatures against other, slightly more evil humans and magical creatures. This should totally be a movie! And not just because you have already been reading for, like, EVER.
You start skimming, and then you come across this passage:
“The Grim Scythe was brought to Mazelandia for safe keeping in the time after the fifth flying pig revolt had been quelled. It was thought that the wilds of Mazelandia was the perfect place to lose such a precious and potentially dangerous artifact where it might never be found, and indeed its existence is largely unknown outside of the island in modern times, perhaps because its necessity does little for the Reaper's reputation. Many have tried to find the artifact, but they have joined the countless bodies upon which Mazelandian society is built.”
“Ew,” you say, but you just bet it's true. After all, you've almost died countless times in Mazelandia up till now, maybe actually died and come back and started over a few times, depending on how many read throughs this is for you. Mazelandia is definitely the deadliest. But what's this Grim Scythe? You flip to the index, but find it pretty meager and disappointing. However, you do see an entry for “Democratic Race of Fortune” which reads SEE “Peasant Derby” and a page number so you turn there.
“The Annual Mazelandian Peasant Derby began sometime in the reign of King Ablegard the Short-Tempered as a way to strike fear into the hearts of the local populace, as well as motivate them to work harder for less. Each town or manor would send a peasant to participate in the race, usually the one least liked or who had paid the fewest taxes in that year. The peasants were made to race from one end of the island to the other, most dying from natural causes by angering the mythological denizens of the land or running afoul of any of the many natural hazards such as volcanoes, ice volcanoes, spider volcanoes, and even some non-volcano related death traps. If any peasants survived the race, the first across the finish line would be declared the winner. His reward was tenure as the king's Royal Peasant Ambassador until such time as another peasant won the annual derby, or he died. Although Royal Peasant Ambassador was thought to be better than death by most peasants, it was still not preferable to typical peasant life, being that the position offered no salary or lodging allotment, and often required the bearer to do ridiculous and dangerous things at the king's whim. King Ablegard the Short-Tempered and most of his descendants treated Peasant Ambassadors as pets, but worse, often making them act as a more interesting weather vane for weeks on end atop the castle walls or using them to practice the much feared Royal Art of Poisonry. Royal Peasant Ambassadors were also hated by the peasants themselves because they were never able to do anything to improve the lot of the common peasant.
Indeed, it was the King's custom to address all complaints about the lot of the common folk by blaming the Royal Peasant Ambassador, who was often burned at the stake by the people he was supposed to be representing.
The Military Junta that finally overthrew the monarchy in 1963 revived the custom in 1979, renaming it the Historic Mazelandia Democratic Race of Fortune, with the race aim being effectively the same—this time the winner is named “president”, a nominal post made expressly for taking blame from the military and hate from the populace. When no native Mazelandian voluntarily falls for this admittedly thin attempt at creating a scapegoat, the military junta inevitably brings in many foreigners to compete, often under dubiously misleading circumstances.”
“Well, malarkey!” you say, shocked to learn the truth about what you're really racing for. It doesn't sound like you want to win the race at all! Is there a way to just go home now? Without dying? Can you quit the race, or will that too result in your immediate death? It's really academic unless you can get out of this arcave anyway. (Get it? Arcave? It's like an archive cave). This whole trip is starting to feel like a mistake.
You're about to put the book back when the pages fall open to a random glossary that's kind of stuck in the middle, not at the end where it should be. You see a mention of the “Grim Scythe” so you stop to see what it says:
“Grim Scythe—often confused with the scythe carried by the Grim Reaper, this is actually its opposite. Non-Native Mazelandians can be put off by the Mazelandian use of the term “grim” which means “joyful” or “life-giving” in the native dialects. No one knows why the Grim Scythe was created. Some speculate that the universe demands duality, others that the Grim Reaper needed an easy “do over” method in the case of mistakes made with the more famous, death-causing scythe. The Grim Scythe was last seen somewhere in the northern wastes of Mazelandia.”
“Bam,” you say, closing the book dramatically. “I just found my new calling in this race!!! Thanks, book of back story!” You put the book back on the shelf.
Should you: read another book? Like a romance novel or a Choose Your Own Adventure story? Or try to get out of here?
You pick up a romance novel titled The Pirate's Curse. You flip to the middle and start to read:
“..... but you'll never have my soul!” I shouted at him with all the passion of a high born lady defending her virtue from a base ruffian using only her honor and the power of her words.
The cursed pirate just laughed, and somehow even a laugh made his muscles ripple. I turned away so as not to be drawn in by his tanned, towering body, so that I would not have to picture him holding it against me, hands shoving in places. Even if it was about to happen, I must not let him know that I secretly desired it. I MUST NOT DESIRE IT AT ALL! So his next words surprised and stung me to the bone, like a surprising bone sting, like maybe from a really big bee. “I not be wantin' your body, you daft chit,” he said in his lilting accent. I ached to have that tongue lilting against me. “'Tis yer soul I be after right enough.”
“What?” I demanded, and I was so surprised I forgot to make my voice breathy and outraged, instead sounding boorish and uncouth. The pirate didn't notice.
“I be cursed,” he said. “You know that right enough, cursed to wander the Earth like as nothing more than a ghost--” A hot, manly ghost, my mind felt the need to add, “until such day as an innocent maiden with heart pure gives her soul to me.”
“You can't have my soul!” I shrieked, trying to back away, but he caught my wrist in his strong, calloused hands and pulled me to him, crushing me against his sculpted abs.
“Nay, ye must be a-givin' it to me freely, lady,” he said, stroking my hair, his big hands surprisingly gentle as they smoothed it away from my face.
I futilely tried to push away from him. “You'll never get it, then!” I said defiantly.
He didn't let me go; if anything, he held me tighter. “Ye say that now,” he told me, a laugh behind his words. “But ye nay know. I'll make ye love me and then ye'll give it to me freely.”
“And how are you going to do that?” I demanded, the tone of my voice telling him that it was impossible and ridiculous even to suggest.
His smile was mischievous. “Oh, ye'll see,” he said as he swept me up and took me to his pirate bedroom, cackling. I screamed and tried to get away, but not very hard. After all, wasn't I finally getting what I wanted, wasn't I--”
You close the book. Pretty ridic, but the narrator is kind of insufferable. Do you:
You pick up a choose your own adventure book, because you're just the kind of person who wants to read a choose your own adventure story inside a choose your own adventure story, and therefore I hate you. You die, probably from a meta overdose, and nobody is sorry because you're kind of annoying.
The End
“Oh, that's an easy one,” you bluff lamely. “Are you sure you don't want to give me a harder one?”
The statue continues to watch you.
“Okay, okay,” you say. “Obviously everyone knows that he... that he dressed up like a duck until someone kicked him out and into the river?”
The statue pauses for a long time, and you wonder if you should run away. Finally it says, “That is correct.” You let out a long breath. “Good luck, traveler,” it says with narrowed eyes as if it is still suspicious of you, and then swings aside, revealing a long tunnel leading downward.
“Sweet!” you say, dashing through before it can change its mind.
The tunnel beyond is long, but you finally come out in the forested foothills of Death Mountain. The sun is setting and you can see the tousled sea in the distance and, on the Northern most strip of land, the lighthouse that is your goal. You set off towards it, but soon lose your way in the darkness and the trees. Probably time to stop for the night! Do you:
“Okay,” you come clean. “I actually don't know the answer. “Sorry I lied. I'll just go do some research in the archive, right, and then I'll come back and--”
You don't even get to finish your sentence. The dragon lion fire statue suddenly stands up, creaking as it moves away from the wall for the first time in years and ponderously stalks towards you. It's pretty slow, so you're able to run away, but there's nowhere to run. You stumble around the library, trying to throw books at it, but they just bounce off harmlessly because it's made of solid stone. Finally, it corners you, in a corner, and you scream as it stone jaws close around your head, crushing your skull.
The End
“What up creepy lion-dragon statue thing!” you greet the statue which is guarding the secret passage tunnel escape from this archive. Its eyes move a little bit in an annoyed fashion, but otherwise it gives no sign that it has heard you. “I hereby challenge you to a match of wits!” you say dramatically.
“I only ask Mazelandian trivia questions,” it points out.
“And I've totally got that covered,” you say triumphantly. “Go on, ask me anything.”
The statue glares at you and seems to ponder what sort of question would be appropriate. You're a little nervous because your boast isn't strictly true—so you skimmed a Mazelandian history for dummies, you don't know everything about this place. Not even close. Luckily, fate is on your side today, or maybe the statue really just wants to get rid of you because you're annoying. In any case, he asks you a question you can answer:
“Which King of Mazelandia instituted the Annual Peasant Derby?” he asks you smugly.
What is your guess:
King Agralbard the Hot-Tempered?
King Ablegard the Short-Tempered?
Trick question, it was actually QUEEN Beeljezus the Bewink'd
You pick another random romance novel off the shelf and begin to read somewhere in the middle again because exposition is for pussies:
“... but NOT the time traveling cat shape shifter I expected to see at all! NO! This one was sleek and gray and wore a smile on his feline lips like he knew exactly who the cat who'd gotten the cream was, and it was him.
Before my eyes, he morphed into a tall, handsome man with windswept hair and no clothes so I could see his six nipples standing out proudly against his broad chest. “Meow,” he said to me, the word a caress that shivered down my spine.
“You're not Nibbles!” I cried. It was a stupid thing to say—that was obvious, Nibbles wasn't so built and also wasn't a shape-shifter. But I knew I couldn't say what I wanted to say, which was “You're not Hernanbolio!”, the time traveling cat shape shifter I had been awaiting to make sweet love to me and then maybe lick behind my ears. But I bit back Hernanbolio's beautiful, precious name before it could leave my lips. For I knew instinctively that this must be his evil twin brother, Greg. They shared the same darkly attractive eyebrows. And Greg must never know of my relationship with Hernanbolio, or he would surely use me against him in their never ending fight for control of the time traveling cat shape shifter secret hidden country of Felandia. Hernanbolio was the one true heir to Felandia. I couldn't let Greg crush his dreams, even if it meant giving myself... to.... him.”
Okay, Mazelandia's native romance novel writers are officially super weird. Do you:
You scoff after a pause of varying degrees, depending on how much you've been paying attention. “OBVIOUSLY the answer is King Ablegard the Short-Tempered,” you say. “Anyone knows that.”
The dragon lion statue thing makes a kind of “Hm” noise and its eyes dart around as if trying to see if you've cheated somehow. “You cheated, didn't you?” it accuses you. “You went back and looked at the answer.”
“How could I, I'm standing right in front of you!” you protest.
“Don't play games with me!” it says. “Just admit it, you looked back to find the answer, didn't you?”
The dragon-lion statue stares at you for an unfathomable minute as if pondering your answer. You know this can't be a good sign and you are right. It suddenly stands up, creaking as it moves away from the wall for the first time in years and ponderously stalks towards you. It's pretty slow, so you're able to run away, but there's nowhere to run. You stumble around the library, trying to throw books at it, but they just bounce off harmlessly because it's made of solid stone. Finally, it corners you, in a corner, and you scream as it stone jaws close around your head, crushing your skull.
The End
“Okay, you got me,” you admit. “I didn't remember the answer, so I peeked back a little. Sorry about that. Do you want to give me another question?”
“No need,” the statue says. “For now I can see what is in your heart.”
“You mean it's okay because I was honest and admitted it?”
“No,” it says. “You used deceit for personal gain but then had not the strength to even stand by your own lies. A merciless death will be yours!” It suddenly stands up, creaking as it moves away from the wall for the first time in years and ponderously stalks towards you. It's pretty slow, so you're able to run away, but there's nowhere to run. You stumble around the library, trying to throw books at it, but they just bounce off harmlessly because it's made of solid stone. Finally, it corners you, in a corner, and you scream as it stone jaws close around your head, crushing your skull.
The End
“I didn't look back!” you protest. “I'm not even really sure what that means, but I am insulted that you would even suggest that I could cheat!”
The dragon lion statue bows its head. “I apologize,” it says. “I never meant to impugn your honor, worthy traveler. You may proceed.” It swings aside to reveal the secret escape tunnel, leading down into the darkness. You wave goodbye to the cat archivist, which hisses at you, and then you run down into the darkness towards your next adventure.
You wonder briefly how everyone else running the race is doing—those that are still alive. Do any of them know THE TERRIBLE TRUTH about the prize like you do? Are any of them actually looking for the Grim Scythe? You don't know how well-known those legends are outside of Mazelandia, but the Scythe sounds powerful enough to draw crazy adventurers here to try. But you have something those fools haven't got! A wicked good haircut!
I mean, you assume. It's possible any potential scythe-seekers would have also had nice haircuts. Anyway.
You run downwards into the darkness for you don't know how long. Eventually you see a light ahead and come out of a cave in the side of Death Mountain. It's morning, and you can see the northern coast of Mazelandia glittering in the dawn light. There's a big lighthouse on a point, jutting out into the wild surf, and you know without a doubt that that's where the “prize” of the race is being kept. So there's no way you're going there—you have more elusive things to find. What's the best way to find a mystical ancient relic scythe with the power to bring people back from the dead?
“No, I don't know what you're talking about,” you lie. “I didn't look back. I got that answer right out of my head.” The dragon lion statue narrows its eyes at you like you are still mad suspicious, but says:
“Very well. You may pass.” It swings aside revealing a darkened tunnel leading downwards beyond. As you hurry through the opening, its voice echoes back to you, “But be warned—your guilt will eat you alive, far slower and unmercifully than I ever would.”
You run down the tunnel a little faster in case the statue decides to change its mind. After you've been traveling for awhile, however, you slow down and forget about the stupid statue. Obviously it can't do anything to you now so you should just stop thinking about it. But somehow you can't stop thinking about it. Did the lion statue put a curse on you? You keep picturing yourself sneaking back to cheat and look at the answers, and then lying to the statue about it. Would you feel this way if you had just told him the truth? Or hadn't cheated at all? Why can't you stop thinking about it?
You don't even notice that your pace has slowed to a crawl. You're too consumed by guilt to take another step further. You sit in the darkness of the tunnel, amongst the bones of other unscrupulous travelers, reliving your own deceit in your head and feeling your body eat its own heart from the remorse. Your weeping haunts travelers of the secret mountain trails far into the future, and Mazelandian Boy Scouts still tell the tale of you, a haunted ghost, killed by your own remorse, haunted by your own regret.
The End
You decide that, since you don't know where you're going, the best thing to do would be to find someone and ask them. You set out cheerfully into the foothills in search of a reliable native to question, you hope they speak English.
The sun is well up by the time you come upon a woodcutter in the forest, shouldering his ax and looking for some exciting new native biomes to destroy. “Hello!” you greet him. “Do you speak English?”
“After a fashion,” the wood cutter agrees, stopping to look down at you. He's super burly and wearing the kind of typical green overalls, checked shirt combo lumberjacks are famous for. “What do you seek, foreigner? The lighthouse is there.” He points towards the coast with a small smile and you can now see that he is laughing at you, knowing full well that no one from Mazelandia would want such a prize.
“I don't care about the lighthouse,” you say, and his eyebrows go up in surprise and maybe a little suspicion.
“Oh?” he asks. “And what do you seek then?
You're not sure if you should straight up ask this guy about the scythe or what. Presumably if he knew where it was he wouldn't be a lowly woodcutter. Maybe you should instead ask him directions to places where the scythe is likely to be? Where is that?
You painstakingly make a paper fortune teller out of an old Chinese food menu you have in your pocket for some reason. You haven't made one since middle school, but after a few tries you remember how to do all the folds. You shuffle it back and forth a few times to limber it up, then take a deep breath to clear your mind of all interference and begin.
Pick a color
You follow the enticing smell of butterscotch through the forest because, if nothing else, at least you'll have butterscotch at the end. It's coming from a long, low building surrounded by bushes and hedges with a long porch with rocking chairs on it. There are a few elderly Mazelandians sitting in the rocking chairs.
“Hallo!” one of them calls out to you, waving as you approach.
“What is this place?” you ask her.
“The Mazelandian State Home for Retired Adventurers,” she replies. “What did you expect it to be?”
“Adventurers?” you ask.
“Like monster hunters,” she replies helpfully. She's knitting what looks like a thigh holster for a knife.
“Or mermaid herders,” another old woman adds from her rocking chair nearby. “And I think dear Mr. Corshant used to work in manufacturing—magic mirrors or suchlike.”
“Great!” you say. “Maybe you can help me! I'm looking for the Grim Scythe.”
The two old women look at each other. “And what would you be wanting that for?” one asks you finally, suspiciously.
“I know the Mazelandian Democratic Race of Fortune is a load of BS,” you begin, and they interrupt you with laughter.
“Looks like this kid is just in time to help us,” the knitter says, putting aside her work and standing up. The movement is surprisingly quick and sleek for someone that wrinkled and elderly looking. You notice for the first time that she's wearing some serious adventure boots. Maybe old habits die hard.
“Like, I do some work around the place, you tell me the way to the scythe?” you ask hopefully.
“Maybe,” the second woman agrees, also standing. She's holding a crossbow. It has its own crocheted coozy around it. “You might find the Grim Scythe. It really depends on which direction you run.”
“Huh?” you demand, but then she's pointing the crossbow at you so you put your hands up hurriedly.
“Hey, everyone!” the knitter yells through the open window into the retirement home. “Looks like this year's Annual Bad-Ass-A-Thon came early!”
“I'd run,” the crossbow holder counsels you. “I'll even give you a head start to make it fun.”
You're running before you know what's happening. When you chance a look behind you, you see what must be all of the residents of the Mazelandian State Home for Retired Adventurers running after you, armed with various actual weapons and a few things they must have just grabbed on their way out the door, like umbrellas and a shoe horn.
“WHAT THE HELL!!!!!!????” you scream as you run from this surprisingly agile geriatric tide. Those at the forefront are already shooting at you.
“Bob and weave, come on!” the one with the crossbow shouts at you encouragingly, like she doesn't want you to be too easy to catch.
They chase you into the forest, but you're soon caught in a giant bear trap one of them has set out for this purpose. With the light fading from your eyes, the last thing you see is the disappointment on the faces of the elderly monster hunters as they catch up to you. They usually play this game with any leftover race competitors who happen by them—got to keep in fighting form, they say—but you obviously haven't presented them with enough of a challenge.
The End
“Are there any scythe factories nearby?” you ask him. “Or possibly a scythe-related museum?”
He narrows his eyes at you, but points off to your right. “When you hit the road, follow it west till you come to the Mazelandian Farming Implements Factory and Museum,” he says. “Though I don't know why you'd want to go there.”
“Thanks!” you say, and wave as you head off in the direction he indicated. It's just as he said. You soon find the road and follow it for most of the day, stopping at a pie stand to eat some delicious Mazelandian Purple Berry Pie. You're not really sure what Purple Berries are, but they taste fantastic. You offer to wash pie plates or something to pay for your slice, but the guy running the stand says that it's free because “I like the look of your face.” You're not sure what that means, but you'll take it. As the sun is sinking towards the west, you finally turn off the road at the sign that says “Mazelandian Farming Implements Factory and Museum”. Hopefully there'll be a helpful docent to point you towards the scythe area.
Unfortunately, you find the doors locked and the windows dark. A sign says “Closed for giggles” which you figure must mean something else in Mazelandian, or maybe the factory workers were exposed to lethal doses of laughing gas or something. You walk around the building, searching for another way in. But there doesn't seem to be one. Do you:
“Hey, have you seen any zombies around here?” you ask him.
“Not in these parts,” he answers evenly as if this is a perfectly legit question. “Most of them seem to gather around the Western Moor Cemetery.”
“Cool,” you say. “How do I get there?”
“Walk that way,” he says, pointing off to your left, “Until you hit a road, then go north a ways, turn west at the pie stand, and you can't miss it. Don't know why you'd want to go there, though.”
“Thanks!” you thank him, and head in the direction he indicates. It's just as he said. You soon find the road and follow it for most of the day, stopping at the pie stand he mentioned to eat some delicious Mazelandian Purple Berry Pie. You're not really sure what Purple Berries are, but they taste fantastic. You offer to wash pie plates or something to pay for your slice, but the guy running the stand says that it's free because “I like the look of your face.” You're not sure what that means, but you'll take it. You follow his directions, and, as the sun is sinking towards the west, you finally turn off the road at the sign that says “Western Moor Cemetery”.
The moor seems to stretch on forever, and its flat, making the darkening velvet sky seem closer and consuming. The cemetery is typically creepy with a rickety fence around it you could easily jump over or just push down. The gravestones are all weathered into strange, pointy and clawing shapes, or maybe they were always that way. You don't know anything about Mazelandian burial practices. As the last light from the sun begins to leave the sky and the stars begin to come out, you hear a low moan coming from amongst the headstones.
Do you go in to investigate?
“Can you tell me anything about the Grim Scythe?” you ask. “Like maybe where to find it?”
The lumberjack stops smiling and squints at you “What are you talking about?” he asks, his voice more belligerent than questioning.
“Uh...” you say, and take a step back because the look in his eyes is deadly. “Never mind, I didn't mean to...”
“What do you know?” the lumberjack demands, and suddenly he's holding his ax in a much more threatening way.
“I don't know anything,” you say truthfully, preparing to run.
“There's no such thing as the Grim Scythe!” he shouts at you as he hurls his ax so hard it buries itself in your fleeing back.
The End
You find a likely looking rock and hurl it with all your might at one of the windows.
Then you have to do it again, this time picking a window on the first floor.
Eventually, your hands covered in small cuts, you land on the dusty wooden floor of the factory. It looks like this place hasn't been used in years! It's mostly empty, but there are some discarded boxes full of random bits of metal and sad rakes and a few machines covered in sheets. You wander through the rooms, looking for any evidence of a scythe, particularly magical ones.
Finally, on the second floor, you hear a rustling in a corner or old hoes. Could it be a magical rustling? No. It's then that you discover that “Giggles” is Mazelandian for “Stinging Cockroaches”, but the language lesson stops short there because you start to swell up to Violet Beauregard levels and then explode, showering the decaying factory with your entrails.
The End
You continue walking down the road west, away from the locked factory and towards the western moors of Mazelandia. The moor seems to stretch on forever, and its flat, making the darkening velvet sky seem closer and consuming. You come to a sprawling old cemetery and stop to look inside. The cemetery is typically creepy with a rickety fence around it you could easily jump over or just push down. The gravestones are all weathered into strange, pointy and clawing shapes, or maybe they were always that way. You don't know anything about Mazelandian burial practices. As the last light from the sun begins to leave the sky and the stars begin to come out, you hear a low moan coming from amongst the headstones.
Do you go in to investigate?
“D... I... R... T... B... R... O... W... N,” you count out, opening and closing the paper folds of the fortune teller as you go. Four numbers are visible when you finish on “N”, which one do you choose?
“G... R... A... S... S... G... R... E... E... N,” you count out, opening and closing the paper folds of the fortune teller as you go. Four numbers are visible when you finish on “N”, which one do you choose?
“R... E... D,” you count out, because there's no blasting way you're spelling out all of “Berry Reddish Purple”, opening and closing the paper folds of the fortune teller as you go. Four numbers are visible when you finish on “D”, which one do you choose?
“P... E... K... I... N... G... D... U... C... K,” you count out, opening and closing the paper folds of the fortune teller as you go. Four numbers are visible when you finish on “K”, which one do you choose?
You open the flap marked “1” and read out the fortune:
“You will die a terrible death in Mazelandia, and your mom will only notice you're gone when she runs out of blue rhinestones.”
Well... you knew that before. You're starting to suspect that a paper fortune teller you made yourself is not the best thing to consult about directions in this race. Do you
Follow the smell of butterscotch
Or give this fortune teller thing another try---you're feeling lucky! But maybe pick a new color this time? Or the same, your call: Green, Brown, Red, or Peking Duck?
You open the flap marked “2” and read out the fortune:
“Your true love awaits you at a midnight showing of The Room. Wear leopard print.”
Well... that's unhelpful. You're starting to suspect that a paper fortune teller you made yourself is not the best thing to consult about directions in this race. Do you
Follow the smell of butterscotch
Or give this fortune teller thing another try---you're feeling lucky! But maybe pick a new color this time? Or the same, your call: Green, Brown, Red, or Peking Duck?
You open the flap marked “3” and read out the fortune:
“The rested man is wisest.”
“That's not even a fortune!” you grumble angrily. “Screw this thing.” You're starting to suspect that a paper fortune teller you made yourself is not the best thing to consult about directions in this race. Do you
Follow the smell of butterscotch
Or give this fortune teller thing another try---you're feeling lucky! But maybe pick a new color this time? Or the same, your call: Green, Brown, Red, or Peking Duck?
You open the flap marked “4” and read out the fortune:
“The answers you seek lie in the hands of one blessed by God.”
Well... that's unhelpful. You're starting to suspect that a paper fortune teller you made yourself is not the best thing to consult about directions in this race. Do you
Follow the smell of butterscotch
Or give this fortune teller thing another try---you're feeling lucky! But maybe pick a new color this time? Or the same, your call: Green, Brown, Red, or Peking Duck?
You open the flap marked “5” and read out the fortune:
“Tuesday night special, all you can eat buffet! Before 6pm. Children half-price!”
Oh... you must have forgotten to write over the Chinese menu on that flap. You're starting to suspect that a paper fortune teller you made yourself is not the best thing to consult about directions in this race. Do you
Follow the smell of butterscotch
Or give this fortune teller thing another try---you're feeling lucky! But maybe pick a new color this time? Or the same, your call: Green, Brown, Red, or Peking Duck?
You open the flap marked “6” and read out the fortune:
“You seem tense. You should get a massage!”
You look around, but there's no massage parlors. You're starting to suspect that a paper fortune teller you made yourself is not the best thing to consult about directions in this race. Do you
Follow the smell of butterscotch
Or give this fortune teller thing another try---you're feeling lucky! But maybe pick a new color this time? Or the same, your call: Green, Brown, Red, or Peking Duck?
You open the flap marked “7” and read out the fortune:
“DJ from 3rd period French totally has a crush on you!!! <3 <3 :-)”
Well... you knew that already. And DJ is totally lame. You're starting to suspect that a paper fortune teller you made yourself is not the best thing to consult about directions in this race. Do you
Follow the smell of butterscotch
Or give this fortune teller thing another try---you're feeling lucky! But maybe pick a new color this time? Or the same, your call: Green, Brown, Red, or Peking Duck?
You open the flap marked “8” and read out the fortune:
“FOOLISH MORTAL! TOY NOT WITH OCCULT FORCES THE LIKES OF WHICH YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND!”
Well... that was unhelpful. And kind of weird. You're starting to suspect that a paper fortune teller you made yourself is not the best thing to consult about directions in this race. Do you
Follow the smell of butterscotch
Or give this fortune teller thing another try---you're feeling lucky! But maybe pick a new color this time? Or the same, your call: Green, Brown, Red, or Peking Duck?
You run away before malarkey can get real, and follow the road. You have a feeling its doubling back because you're now headed toward Death Mountain again, but you're too afraid to leave it in the gathering darkness. After spending the night crouched miserably under a big tree by the side of the road, you decide to strike off in a different direction and head directly through the forest. After walking all morning, you come to a long, low building surrounded by bushes and hedges with a long porch with rocking chairs on it. There are a few elderly Mazelandians sitting in the rocking chairs.
“Hallo!” one of them calls out to you, waving as you approach.
“What is this place?” you ask her.
“The Mazelandian State Home for Retired Adventurers,” she replies. “What did you expect it to be?”
“Adventurers?” you ask.
“Like monster hunters,” she replies helpfully. She's knitting what looks like a thigh holster for a knife.
“Or mermaid herders,” another old woman adds from her rocking chair nearby. “And I think dear Mr. Corshant used to work in manufacturing—magic mirrors or suchlike.”
“Great!” you say. “Maybe you can help me! I'm looking for the Grim Scythe.”
The two old women look at each other. “And what would you be wanting that for?” one asks you finally, suspiciously.
“I know the Mazelandian Democratic Race of Fortune is a load of BS,” you begin, and they interrupt you with laughter.
“Looks like this kid is just in time to help us,” the knitter says, putting aside her work and standing up. The movement is surprisingly quick and sleek for someone that wrinkled and elderly looking. You notice for the first time that she's wearing some serious adventure boots. Maybe old habits die hard.
“Like, I do some work around the place, you tell me the way to the scythe?” you ask hopefully.
“Maybe,” the second woman agrees, also standing. She's holding a crossbow. It has its own crocheted coozy around it. “You might find the Grim Scythe. It really depends on which direction you run.”
“Huh?” you demand, but then she's pointing the crossbow at you so you put your hands up hurriedly.
“Hey, everyone!” the knitter yells through the open window into the retirement home. “Looks like this year's Annual Bad-Ass-A-Thon came early!”
“I'd run,” the crossbow holder counsels you. “I'll even give you a head start to make it fun.”
You're running before you know what's happening. When you chance a look behind you, you see what must be all of the residents of the Mazelandian State Home for Retired Adventurers running after you, armed with various actual weapons and a few things they must have just grabbed on their way out the door, like umbrellas and a shoe horn.
“WHAT THE HELL!!!!!!????” you scream as you run from this surprisingly agile geriatric tide. Those at the forefront are already shooting at you.
“Bob and weave, come on!” the one with the crossbow shouts at you encouragingly, like she doesn't want you to be too easy to catch.
They chase you into the forest, but you're soon caught in a giant bear trap one of them has set out for this purpose. With the light fading from your eyes, the last thing you see is the disappointment on the faces of the elderly monster hunters as they catch up to you. They usually play this game with any leftover race competitors who happen by them—got to keep in fighting form, they say—but you obviously haven't presented them with enough of a challenge.
The End
You bravely step between the headstones, the soft earth sinking slightly under your feet. The moaning gets louder as you tred on the hallowed ground. When the last rays of light have died, some of the stones even begin to shake.
“Zombies!” you mutter under your breath, keeping a close watch on your feet in case some skeletal, decaying hand reaches out to snatch you. But this cemetery looks so old, surely anyone buried here has moldered in the ground for too long to be of any concern to you? Maybe all they can do is moan and shake. But why? Is it just typical Mazelandian creepiness? Or is it the work of a magical life-giving scythe? You continue to look around the cemetery, hoping for clues as to the whereabouts of the Grim Scythe. Finally, in the very center of the graveyard, you come upon a creepy statue of an angel, staring straight ahead defiantly, her wings outstretched in what is unmistakably a battle stance. Most interesting of all, she holds a scythe in each hand. The one on the right is the more typical Grim Reaper looking scythe with a long, almost floor length handle, while the other is familiar to you from the communist propaganda your uncle enjoys distributing at the mall, with a shorter handle. Do you
Climb up and try to grab the right hand scythe?
You scramble up the side of the statue, surprised to find that the scythe you're trying to extract is not made of stone like the rest of the angel, but real wood and metal. It comes free of the angel's hand with a sharp tug and a snap noise, and you fall back with it in your hands, careful not to cut yourself with it. The soft earth of the graveyard cushions your fall.
It's almost like you've picked up a living thing. You can feel it vibrating, almost, feel its warmth through your hands. You realize with mounting terror that you can't let go. The scythe has you now. The graveyard is quiet as if the dead too are afraid of it, but you hardly notice over the sound of your own heart pumping in your ears.
What have you done?
Days later, when you're sitting miserably in a Mazelandian Federal Prison Cell, you repeat over and over again to your uninterested cell mate that you really did feel something when you picked up the scythe, that it was clearly the eldritch opposite of the fabled Grim Scythe, the one that brings people back from the dead.
“The scythe made me slaughter that daycare center!” you insist. “It was controlling me to do its evil bidding!”
Granted, at this point, this story seems false to even your ears. Since the massacre, you've seen plenty of people touch the scythe without it taking them over. One even helpfully points out to you how scuffed and dull parts of the blade are. Wouldn't Death's most important tool be razor sharp, so sharp you can't even see it or some magic like that? The official story is that it was all just in your imagination. You don't know what to believe.
Maybe you'll figure it out in the next twenty years, which is how long you live in Mazelandian Prison before you're killed in a tragic laundry accident.
The End
You clamber up the statue and take hold of the smaller scythe in her left hand, surprised to find that it is not made of stone like the rest of the statue, but some kind of shining metal. It looks like gold, but it's tough like steel. You pry it out of her grip with a sharp tug and a snapping noise that sends you off balance and falling. The soft earth of the graveyard cushions your fall. The rumbling of the gravestones has grown louder, as if the dead know that their resuscitation could be at hand.
You hardly hear them. You feel good. For the first time since you came to his accursed island, maybe for the first time in years, you feel happy, truly alive. Like you have a purpose.
Years after you are gone, the Mazelandians will still tell legends about you, how you walked across their misbegotten island with your Grim Scythe of Joy and an army of pilgrims walked behind you. All the souls that Mazelandia had claimed, all the ill-fated racers who had met their deaths at the cruel hands of Mazelandia's angry array of fairy tale creatures, or its unforgiving landscape, or, most cruelly of all, its virulent native strain of Mazelandian Explosive Syphilis, all returned to health and life and given a second chance, as if they had never come to this horrible place.
You walked across the land like an angel of forgiveness, correcting every wrong the terrible Mazelandian Democratic Race of Fortune had ever committed against a human life. You were a conqueror, a hero, an angel of redemption, to thousands who stared at your in awe as you finally led them to the boats and away from this terrible place, towards the mainland, and life.
The End
You take down another romance novel. You notice this one has a picture of a disheveled hot—well, 1970s hot--girl running through a sewer tunnel on it, which is kind of weird for a romance novel. You open up to a random page and start to read:
“.... my pudding. But I don't care about that! In fact, I will never think about it again. All I need concern myself with is his happiness. Which is difficult when I don't know what makes him happy. Cheese? Garbage? Practicing karate?
This is ridiculous! I tell myself again, but, as always, I don't listen. I know it's crazy to be falling so dramatically and absorbingly in love with what is basically just a giant, anthropomorphic sewer rat, but add that to the long list of things I don't care about. He saved my life during that water main explosion, and I have to repay him the only way I know how... with my love.
Hopefully he doesn't have like mutant herpes or something, because otherwise this is going to get gross. I know some people might say it got gross before, what with him being a giant rat and all and most of our love scenes taking place in the sewers, but, unlike them, I have a pretty high tolerance of grossness because I was raised on a slug farm. So yeah.
I wonder if I could get him some kind of giant exercise wheel....”
You close the book before you can get to any love scenes that feature long, hairless tails prominently. Someone was obviously a little to into The Great Mouse Detective, or maybe Mazelandia has some really creepy folklore they're building off of, whatever. Do you:
Try yet another romance novel?
You climb a tree in no time because you are nimble and quick, like a spider monkey. You settle down in a nice spot between some heavy boughs, content in the knowledge that if something attacks you in the night, it probably won't be from the ground.
You awake relatively rested, and a little surprised that you were able to sleep peacefully through the night without disturbance from Mazelandia's many creatures that seek your death. Now it's a new day, and you are super hungry. As luck would have it, a few branches over from you is a bird's nest, where you see three nice-sized purple eggs just waiting to be cooked over a campfire or swallowed whole or however it is you like your eggs. You've never heard of a purple egg before, and they could be poisonous, but nothing ventured nothing eaten, right? Do you:
You decide to sleep under a tree and find a likely candidate, nestling beneath its roots. It's a little chilly, but you're covered in a blanket of leaves. You hope nothing spooky attacks you in the night, because you hear an owl hooting like it's some horror movie and you're about to be Creepy Child'd. Luckily the night passes without too much incident, besides that some ants crawl in your hair and it gets really itchy. You continue walking in the dawn light, feeling pretty hungry and a little bit lost. After awhile, you think you smell butterscotch. Your stomach rumbles at the thought of delicious breakfast rolls, or really delicious anything. When was the last time you ate something? On the other hand, Mazelandia has proven to be a land where it's important to manage your expectations—those delicious breakfast rolls probably come with a side of certain doom. But you are really blasting hungry.
Do you:
You try to keep walking, despite the darkness, which turns out to be kind of impossible in the forest. You keep running into things or tripping over them, and soon your clothes are torn and your skin is badly bruised. You think about giving up and just waiting it out until morning, but you keep thinking that you must be coming to the edge of the forest soon. Unless you've been wandering around in circles.
Just as the sky is beginning to lighten above the leaves, you trip on what's probably a root or possibly a reaching ghostly hand, and fall headfirst into a ravine, cracking your skull on some half-buried treasure. If only you'd had a flashlight, right?
The End
The road to Princess Rainbow's Fairy Castle is lined with giant, brightly colored candy. Lollipops and gumdrops and elaborate licorice signposts, and other things that always look delicious but taste kind of horrible and get stuck in your teeth. Even though you've been walking for awhile, your feet aren't tired because the cloud road is so soft and cushioned. You find yourself bouncing a little with each step, like you're inside a bouncy castle or something. The sun is still smiling down at you, and sometimes dances its rays a little bit like it's having a good time. You think in another context this would be really creepy, but somehow it seems normal in this weird cartoon world you find yourself in. There are cartoon birds in different colors flying by you, with abnormally gigantic eyes and shiny beaks. “Hello!” they call in cheerful accents. And “Good morning! What a beautiful day!” A few of them start to whistle a song, and at one point you have to run to avoid being part of an impromptu sing-a-long.
Finally you reach Princess Rainbow's Fairy Castle. It looks like it's made of JELLO, all colorful and rounded edges, decorated with frosting and gumdrops and gems and glitter and magical fairy sparkles. Like maybe it's an elaborate wedding cake instead of a building. As you walk up its gleaming steps, you keep expecting your feet to sink in, but it appears not to be made of cake. Or maybe just really stale cake.
There are two guards standing before the giant, bejeweled doors at the top, but you're not threatened by them because they only come up to your waist and their pikes are topped with little smiling hearts. They're smiling at you two. “Welcome to Princess Rainbow's Fairy Castle!” they cry, throwing some confetti into the air. “The Princess has been waiting for you.”
“Really?” you say skeptically, but they're already pushing the doors open for you.
You walk down a grand hallway with high ceilings. The walls are lined with stained glass windows depicting desserts and everything is overly shiny. At the other end of the hall is a magnificent pink throne decorated with more gems and hearts and gems shaped like hearts. Princess Rainbow is sitting on the throne, and she's just what you expect from someone named Princess Rainbow. Her hair is a shimmering curtain of all the colors, plus a few more you've never seen before. Her clothes are elaborate and probably made of jewels, and she smiles at you, the innocent smile of childhood. Like the guards outside, she's tiny. You at first mistake her for a child.
“Kneel!” she commands, and it's a woman's voice that seems unnatural coming from her cutesy cartoon frame.
“Why?” you ask, rightly not trusting any of this very far.
She continues to smile. “We have long awaited your coming.” She picks of her rainbow scepter topped, like almost everything here, with a heart. “Now you must take your rightful place as our champion.”
Do you accept this job offer as Royal Champion?
You head off towards the Grumps because you want to know what the hell that is. Plus you're not really into fairy rainbow sparkle castles anyway, or whatever. The cloud path you're walking on leads gradually downward, and you notice that it's getting darker. The smiling sun is farther away from you, and frowning now, like you're leaving him behind. The cloud you're walking on are gradually growing darker, like you're literally walking down a gray scale. You hear a rumble of thunder in the distance.
Eventually you come to a wide black expanse of cloud. A sign made of a rotting candy cane proclaims it to be “The Grumps”. Strange things with indistinct, bulbous-shaped bodies are lying around in the cloud and you can hear a low-level grumbling coming from all of them, though you can't really discern individual voices or what they're saying. Every so often one turns over in a huff or dramatically kicks the ground in a temper tantrum and the movement shakes the cloud which rumbles with thunder.
The one nearest you is purple and has sad eyes. “What is this place?” you ask it.
It stares up at you and you're not sure it can see or hear you until finally it answers in a lugubrious monotone, “The Grumps,” it says. “We are the grumps. Have you come to join the grumps?”
“You make thunder or something?”
“Not happy enough for Princess Rainbow,” another grump near you wails. “Banished here forever.”
These guys seem almost incoherent with sadness. You're about to just step over them and go on your way, but find that you cannot move your feet. At another time, you might be worried about this, but you find that you just can't be bothered. You sit down next to the grumps. You're suddenly almost crushed by the futility of it all. Why even go on? You'll just be met with endless, asinine choices and undoubtedly your own grisly demise. You'll never win the prize. And even if you did—it's probably not so great. Nothing else in Mazelandia is what it seems, why should the prize really be “fabulous”? That's probably the Mazelandian word for “poisonous” or something. No sense in going on.... might as well just stay here... you lay back in the clouds and your head hitting them sets off a huge clap of thunder.
In another few days a passerby would find you indistinguishable from the other grumps there, your body almost melting into the puddle-like shape of malaise and discontent.
The End
Oh no, you're not going to get stuck in another ridiculous cartoon world. Maybe it's just that you played too much Kirby or watched too much TV as a child—let's face it, you spent more time with He-Man than with your own father-- but you find all this oppressively disturbing instead of cute. You jump off the cloud.
You're not sure what will happen. Will you die? Will you flatten like a pancake on the ground and then bounce back to a normal person shape with little birds flying over your head? Probably that, you think, as you fall through the sparkly air.
You wake up with a gasp and a start. You're lying on a sort of operating table and staring at a flickering florescent light. Your limbs feel too heavy to move and your head pounds. You turn it a little to the side so you're not staring straight up at the light. You can see other people strapped down nearby, people in scrubs and surgical masks moving between the tables with bloody hands.
“Whaaaa...?” you start to speak, but your tongue feels huge and too heavy to move in your mouth.
One of the bescrubbed figures comes over to you. “You're awake!” she says in some surprise. Her eyes over the top of the surgical mask are the same eyes as the sun from the ridic LSD cartoon.
“I jumped off the cloud,” you explain, the words coming slowly and slurred.
You can tell she's frowning even though you can't see her mouth. “Usually if you die in the dream, you die in real life,” she says, checking a monitor above your head. “Well, don't worry,” she tells you and moves away.
You try to reach out to stop her, but you can't move your arm. You can't feel your arm. It's numb? You try to crane your neck to look down at it, and with a supreme effort you succeed. You start to cough at what you see, and your head lolls back, exhausted by the effort. And why shouldn't you be? Your entire chest cavity is open, skin neatly peeled back to display your organs like a Christmas present. You're dimly aware of someone with blood covered gloves walking by you carrying a kidney. Is it your kidney? What the hell is happening?
Then the president of Mazelandia's pointy face slides into view. “Organ harvesting,” he answers your question, even though you couldn't speak it. He seems sad and looks down at your body, wrinkling his nose distastefully. “Just one of the exciting traditional parts of the Democratic Race of Fortune—you shouldn't have picked the key coated in Traditional Mazelandian Dream Powder.”
He moves away again before you can attempt to scream.
The End
The tower stairs are long and circular. You get dizzy as you climb and are worried that you'll trip and tumble all the way back down them. Finally you reach the top, a little out of breath. The circular room at the top has window on all sides with magnificent views. A giant telescope dominates the room, its tubes and... things pointing out of the roof. You don't know much about telescopes. An elderly man dressed like a wizard is writing something down on a chalkboard on the wall.
He looks over his shoulder at you like he isn't surprised to see you. “Start over there,” he says, pointing to some stacks of papers on a table.
“Ummm... I'm not...”
“My assistant quit,” he says acidly. “That'll teach me to trust a hunchback with a green face. Anyway, if you fill in for him today, I'll help you. More than you know.”
“Uhhh...” You hesitate. You could use some help, and this guy doesn't seem that creepy but in Mazelandia things don't have to seem creepy to kill you.
Do you agree to be his assistant?
Or leave the tower?
Inside the shed you find a hang glider, and also a book about how to hang glide. Seems like a pretty good way to get down the mountain!
Do you read the book about hang gliding before trying it?
Or, Directions are for wusses, it doesn't look so hard!
This is no walk in the park. Not even one of the more rugged national parks you were forced to go camping in one summer with your terribly Aunt Joyce and her smelly, whiny brood. There are no trails and all too often you are met with dramatic cliffs that take you hours to find a way around. Rocks slide underneath you constantly, and your hands are cut from grabbing onto sharp outcroppings.
Finally you decide, possibly in a fit of low-oxygen hallucination, that the best way to get down the mountain is to catch a mountain goat and ride it. Those things a nimble as anything. So you spy a group of them on a narrow shelf above a cliff and pounce!
Unfortunately, they are nimble as anything and leap out of the way, causing you to plummet to your death.
The End
You get in the cart and give it a little push. It doesn't need more than that because almost immediately there's a steep drop, like at the beginning of a roller coaster. Soon you're screeching around tight turns along cliffs with only darkness at the bottom. Once you bump over a bridge over a river of magma, hot and glowing, and a few times your face gets caught in cobwebs. You scream as the cart suddenly plummets again, and your scream echoes away into the dark. There are more tracks, branching off from the one you're on, but you don't know how to steer the cart or even if you'd want to go there. You wonder if the track will suddenly just stop, sending you careening over the edge. That seems like a silly way to build a mining cart track, but then, you haven't seen any signs of mining either. Soon it's too dark to see, and you hunker down in the cart feeling it jolt and shift along its invisible path.
Finally, after you're definitely one hundred percent motion sick, you see a faint light ahead. Could it be the end of the tunnel? The cart seems to be slowing like its going uphill slightly. Finally it crests a lip and bangs against a wooden stopper. It drifts a little after that, and you hurriedly clamber out before it can fall backwards with its own momentum, trapping you somewhere in the darkness. You follow the light through a tunnel, tripping a few times, before emerging at the foot of Death Mountain through a cave that you're sure in some time past was hollowed out by the sea. You look at the beach stretching before you now, cold and empty, the surf a little angry perhaps at being ignored by civilization. The wind is cold here, and when you turn to look inland you see trees not far off. Do you:
You don't get in the cart because you are some kind of tool. What's your deal? Are you afraid? Or are you just trying to be contrary because you think it makes you cool?
It's legit. That cart is super rickety and scary. Even if people always survive them in cartoon shows doesn't mean you will right now, especially with everything in Mazelandia trying to kill you. Instead, you gingerly try to walk down the track the cart would roll on, but unfortunately you fall off a bridge over some lava as an unattended cart strikes you from behind.
The End
You pick another romance novel off the shelf. The cover of this one is blank, like maybe it's extra salacious and there isn't one scene of it that they can legally illustrate on a book cover because it would make children instantly go through puberty and elderly matrons spontaneously combust. You open to a random page and start to read:
“... the catacombs. It was not the place I would choose normally for a secret romantic assignation, but needs must when your lover is a reanimated skeleton. My ladies in waiting often asked me what I could possibly see in his cold, bony embrace, but they just don't understand the forbidden beauty of OUR LOVE.
“My dearest one!” I cried as I searched among the tombs and sarcophagi, ignoring the chill and the cobwebs.
“Hey, Constanza.” I stopped short for it was not my dear bony lover who spoke but Baronet Von Harlemon?!?!?!? He looked sheepish and a little embarrassed. Had he discovered my secret passion??? Was he hear to challenge my darling to a duel for my love??? Well, ha ha! I laughed inside myself. Verily, the jest was on the Baronet for my love could withstand any number of sword blows, being not flesh and blood, but a reanimated skeleton of a long dead prince, as I have said.
I drew myself up and tried to look down my nose at him. “You will address me by my full title as is proper!” I commanded.
He rolled his eyes. “Princess, I have something to confess...”
“Then go to the chapel and leave me be!” I cried. “For I have business to attend to in these... I mean, I must pray for the souls of my ancestors.”
“Yeah, about that,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I have to tell you because it's gone too far—there's no such person as Prince Alberto Ghostalia Phantasmagoria.”
“WHAT!” I demand, shocked that he would know my lover's name even after his evil uncle, Count Dastardly, had expunged it from all court records centuries ago to cover up his dramatic and tragic murder. “HOW DO YOU KNOW OF THIS!” I demanded, almost beside myself with shock. I would indeed probably have fainted if the ground in the catacombs was not so icky that I did not want it to touch my clothes or hair.
“Because,” he continued sheepishly. “I am Prince Alberto. I mean, I made it up. Look.”
And then, to my great astonishment, he pulled my darling Alberto's bones from a nearby tomb!
“See?” he said, and made them dance as if they were alive! But now, in the light of the lantern he had brought, I saw that the bones which had seemed so miraculously lifelike before were but strung together with fishing wire as an elaborate sort of puppet.
“NO!” I screamed, turning my back on him so he would not see my tears and my shame. “It was you all this time? How can that be? The things I said—the things I did! How—why--?” I remembered my station and how it would surely bring shame upon my house to carry on like this in front of the minor nobility! I stiffened my back and, still not turning, I said, “I will banish you! No, I will hang you for this deception!”
And suddenly he was right behind me, so close I could feel his breath in my ear. And he said in that voice, Alberto's voice, “But Constanza, I only did it for love!” I feel Alberto's bony hand trailing across my cheek.
And then, before I could stop myself, I....”
“Woah, there, necrophilia,” you say as you hastily put the book back on the shelf. Do you:
Do you:
Read a Choose Your Own Adventure Book?
It doesn't matter what perils come with it, you're super hungry. Besides, you've come this far, haven't you? You're tough! Bring it on, Mazelandia. After walking for awhile, you come to a long, low building surrounded by bushes and hedges with a long porch with rocking chairs on it. There are a few elderly Mazelandians sitting in the rocking chairs.
“Hallo!” one of them calls out to you, waving as you approach.
“What is this place?” you ask her.
“The Mazelandian State Home for Retired Adventurers,” she replies. “What did you expect it to be?”
“Adventurers?” you ask.
“Like monster hunters,” she replies helpfully. She's knitting what looks like a thigh holster for a knife.
“Or mermaid herders,” another old woman adds from her rocking chair nearby. “And I think dear Mr. Corshant used to work in manufacturing—magic mirrors or suchlike.”
“Great!” you say. “Maybe you can help me! I'm looking for the Grim Scythe.”
The two old women look at each other. “And what would you be wanting that for?” one asks you finally, suspiciously.
“I know the Mazelandian Democratic Race of Fortune is a load of BS,” you begin, and they interrupt you with laughter.
“Looks like this kid is just in time to help us,” the knitter says, putting aside her work and standing up. The movement is surprisingly quick and sleek for someone that wrinkled and elderly looking. You notice for the first time that she's wearing some serious adventure boots. Maybe old habits die hard.
“Like, I do some work around the place, you tell me the way to the scythe?” you ask hopefully.
“Maybe,” the second woman agrees, also standing. She's holding a crossbow. It has its own crocheted coozy around it. “You might find the Grim Scythe. It really depends on which direction you run.”
“Huh?” you demand, but then she's pointing the crossbow at you so you put your hands up hurriedly.
“Hey, everyone!” the knitter yells through the open window into the retirement home. “Looks like this year's Annual Bad-Ass-A-Thon came early!”
“I'd run,” the crossbow holder counsels you. “I'll even give you a head start to make it fun.”
You're running before you know what's happening. When you chance a look behind you, you see what must be all of the residents of the Mazelandian State Home for Retired Adventurers running after you, armed with various actual weapons and a few things they must have just grabbed on their way out the door, like umbrellas and a shoe horn.
“WHAT THE HELL!!!!!!????” you scream as you run from this surprisingly agile geriatric tide. Those at the forefront are already shooting at you.
“Bob and weave, come on!” the one with the crossbow shouts at you encouragingly, like she doesn't want you to be too easy to catch.
They chase you into the forest, but you're soon caught in a giant bear trap one of them has set out for this purpose. With the light fading from your eyes, the last thing you see is the disappointment on the faces of the elderly monster hunters as they catch up to you. They usually play this game with any leftover race competitors who happen by them—got to keep in fighting form, they say—but you obviously haven't presented them with enough of a challenge.
The End
Whatever, you stow your hunger in the place where men keep their tears which, according to your dad, is NOWHERE BECAUSE MEN ARE TOO BADASS TO CRY. Or something. The point is, you just keep right on walking despite your hunger or how tired you are or whatever. Eyes on the prize!
Eventually you come to a road which seems to be leading vaguely north so you decide to follow it. I could give you a choice about it, but really, I'm just saving you from a grisly off-road death so you should be grateful. After walking for awhile you come to a roadside pie shop that's just opening for the day. Do you:
Try to get some pie despite having no money?
You go for the eggs, but a giant snake is slithering along the same branch towards the nest! “Not this time, No-Legs!” you shout at him because, blast it, that breakfast is yours. Breaking off a branch near your head, you swipe it at the snake, scooping it back towards the ground. It hisses angrily up at you like “Next time, foreigner!!” But you don't care—breakfast time!
“Thank you so much, kindly human!” a voice cries at you. It sounds like Noel Coward. You look up to see a puffy blue and purple bird with a ridiculously shaped beak staring adoringly down at you. “You've saved my nest from a Deadly Mazelandian Revenge Snake! How brave! How wonderful! How can I ever thank you?”
“Well...” you say, glancing sidelong at the nest. Do you:
“I am pretty hungry,” you say, reaching for one of the eggs.
The bird shrieks, realizing your intent. “You monster!” it cries, and dive bombs your face before you can touch the nest. You lose your balance and fall painfully to the ground below.
“Ow!” you say, rubbing the back of your neck.
“Serves you right!” the bird yells back at you.
Then you hear an ominous hiss and rattle from behind you. You barely have time to turn your head before the Deadly Mazelandian Revenge Snake is unhinging its jaw to fit your whole head inside its mouth. Its venomous fangs sink in and it sets about the task of ingesting you alive. Slowly.
The End
“Any chance you could help me win this race?” you ask the bird, forgetting about breakfast, at least for the moment.
The bird puffs itself up even more. “Assuredly!” it assures you. “Hold tight to my tail!”
“Uh... okay.” You gingerly grab its tail feathers, surprised in the next instant to find yourself lifted off the ground. “What kind of bird are you?” you shout, but your words are lost in the wind as the bird flies with you impossibly fast, the ground below you a blur. When it finally lowers you to the ground, you find yourself on a sea cliff overlooking a turbulent ocean. A lighthouse towers above you, painted in the Mazelandian colors of purple and red. “Up there,” the bird says. “That's where the prize lives. Good luck!” He flies away again, a blue blur in the already blue sky.
You find the door to the lighthouse locked, but it's easy enough to break in by a window with a rock. You run up the spiral staircase inside, passing different rooms without stopping. Finally the stairs end in the light room, the walls made from giant windows to let out the light of the one giant bulb in the middle, reflected by mirrors to magnify its brightness.
You spend a long time looking around the light room for the fortune you are sure is the final prize in the race, but there isn't anywhere for it to be hiding. The drawers and shelves are just full of lighthouse equipment, the closet is full of giant extra bulbs. Finally, in desperation, you lean against the rail and look at the giant light. That's when you realize! It's not a giant filament wire lightning up that bulb! There's something else inside it! You climb up next to the light and peer through the milky glass. There's definitely some piece of paper inside, and something else that glints like gold! Did the race write you a giant check? There's only one way to find out!
Seizing a hammer from a nearby tool shelf, you smash the light bulb into a million tiny glass pieces that rain down around you, but you don't care. Crunching them under your shoes, you reach out for the prize.
The gold is a heavy gold star, which you've seen somewhere before. It has twelve points, like an overachiever, and the crest of Mazelandia embossed on it—a big question mark, with teeth that want to eat you and also some bears with cannons for arms on either side. It's the star the Mazelandian president wears in the center of his bow tie! Could it be like a token for something? How much is it worth?
You look at the accompanying piece of paper. It's fancy and embossed. It reads:
“Congratulations! You are the winner of the Historic Mazelandia Democratic Race of Fortune! Please accept the admiration of all of Mazelandia and, as your prize, please accept the Presidency of The People's Historic Democratic Republic of Military-Controlled Mazelandia. Reading this paper signifies a legally binding contract to fulfill the role of Mazelandian President, and any shirking or escape attempts will be dealt with by the President's Guard. Tenure in perpetuity or until another candidate survives the Historic Mazelandian Race of Fortune.”
“Huh?” you say aloud, because this is a really confusing prize. You're now the Mazelandian president? You guess that's pretty cool, although your experience of Mazelandia so far has made you really just want to escape it while you're still alive. Why does everything here seem poisonous? More importantly, why does Mazelandia elect presidents-for-life this way?
Before you can ponder this any further, the loud noise of helicopter interrupts your thoughts. You turn to see one hovering outside the large windows of the lighthouse. Three burly men in the uniform you've come to recognize as the President's guard leap out, enter the lighthouse, and seize you rather forcefully. “Hey!” you try to protest, but they manhandle you outside and into the helicopter. There, they bind your hands, as if you would jump out of a moving helicopter. You try to crane your neck to see out the window, but one of the guards hits you until you stop. “Hey!” you protest again. “Aren't you here to guard me?”
“That's right,” they respond in accented English.
The helicopter finally lands back at End, which is the capital of Mazelandia, on the opposite seacoast from Start, fairly near the lighthouse where you claimed your prize. Preparations for a celebration are clearly underway—people are on ladders, decorating the streets, and a band is hastily practicing in a corner of the square, but you can tell by the way everyone's rushing that they were taken by surprise. No one was expected to win so early in the game, and you certainly wouldn't have if not for Franklin.
The guards lead you to a stage where the current Mazelandian President is already waiting. He looks ecstatic. “Finally! FINALLY!” he bellows when he sees you, dramatically ripping the twelve-pointed gold star off of his bow tie and flinging it to the ground. A few people standing nearby back away from it as if it were infectious. “Finally I can get off this hellish rock!”
“You don't want to be president anymore?” you ask.
He stares at you and then laughs, for a really long time. Like, it starts to get awkward because he's just standing there, laughing at you so hard that he's shaking. “Good luck, kid,” he says. “This is the first time in twenty years that someone's actually won the race, and that only because I bribed half of the island's mythological creatures.”
“Well, when I get sick of this job,” you say, “I'll just do that.”
“Good luck finding the money!” he says, still shaking with mirth.
“I'm the President!” you protest.
He just laughs at you some more. “The only thing a president of Mazelandia is good for, kid, is taking the blame. Have fun at the Annual Mazelandian Teeth Collecting Contest in particular!” You notice for the first time that he is missing many of his front teeth. “So long!” He leaps off the stage and runs for the harbor, where a small boat is waiting for him. You try to follow, but one of the President's Guards hold you back.
“Now then,” he cautions you with a smile. “You'll get the way of things soon enough. After all, Mazelandia must have a president.”
He says it half-apologetically, like the way people sometimes say “It's a shame, but we have to have maximum security prisons.” You feel the twelve points of your new president badge pricking at your throat.
The End
“Alright, whatever,” you agree, and kneel before Princess Rainbow. She knights you with the heart scepter and when you stand back up, confetti and glitter falls from the ceiling and some courtiers dressed in bright colors come to dance in a circle around you. It's weird to be twice as tall as anyone else in the palace, but you soon get used to it. Your job as champion is to protect Princess Rainbow from any threat or challenge, but in the blissful and strange cartoon happiness of her kingdom the only “challenges” are good-natured games like “I challenge you to a marshmallow eating contest!” or “Let's see who can giggle the longest!” It probably goes without saying that you are ace at these and soon earn the admiration of all the fairies in Rainbow Palace.
One morning you ask Princess Rainbow if she knows anything about the Mazelandian Democratic Race of Fortune—you're just curious and kind of vague about it. You don't remember much from your old life and you have no idea how long it's been or if that was even a dream.
She laughs and says, “Mazelandia doesn't exist, Champion. It's just a human tale we tell little fairies at night.”
The End
This place is super confusing and kind of freaking you out. Plus, you need to concentrate on winning the race. “No, thanks,” you say. “I'm kind of doing my own thing right now.”
Princess Rainbow narrows her eyes as if no one's ever said no to her before. “Your own thing?” she repeats as if she doesn't really know what the words mean.
“Yeah, you know,” you explain. “I'm in this race in Mazelandia for fabulous prizes and everything...”
She stares at you a moment, and then throws back her head and laughs. It's a cruel laugh that sounds very out of place coming from a small princess named Rainbow covered in little hearts. She turns to one of the guards to the right of her throne, identical to all the other guards you've seen. “My chosen champion would rather compete in that ridiculous death trap than stay here in my magical fairy castle in comfort and friendship forever!” She continues to laugh. The guard looks uncomfortable.
“Uhhh...” you say, backing away.
She abruptly stops laughing. “The dungeon!” she commands, pointing an imperious finger at you.
“Crap,” you say, but you're not too worried. These guards are little shrimp, right? They surround you with their adorable heart spears. You just kind of keep walking, but then one of them whacks you with his spear and you cry out, falling to your knees. The blow was light, almost nothing, but the instant it hit, your heart shook and quaked inside you, making it difficult to breathe. Before you know it you're sitting in a dungeon made of cake and frosting.
“There's nothing for it,” you decide. “I'll have to eat my way out.”
Three days later they find you in a diabetic coma.
The End
You carefully read the hang gliding instruction book from cover to cover, and even then you're pretty nervous about trying it for yourself, especially off a mountain. Still, it seems like the best way to get down to that lighthouse—it's not like you can ride a goat or something.
You set up the hang glider properly and then take a running leap and you're suddenly diving and then soaring through the air. Probably some other things happen that you were dually warned about, but you're the hang gliding expert here, not me, so you know what's up and how to deal. The views of Mazelandia and the ocean are truly beautiful, and the air at this level is silent and peaceful. You try to aim for the lighthouse in the north, but in many ways you're at the mercy of the wind.
Also, at the mercy of Mazelandia's native population of dragon birds. They're sort of like the evolutionary link between dragons and birds, and really they look kind of sad and ridiculous. A weird mix of scales and feathers, and a beak with teeth. They know that everyone kind of laughs at them so it makes them even more fierce and angry. And you are invading their skies! The first sign that they are after you is a loud screech from behind. You don't really know what it is you're looking at, but you try to dodge. Or whatever hang gliders call it. You're flying pretty low now, and it's possible that if you let go over a body of water, you'd survive. Do you:
I don't know what you were expecting to happen here. Obviously you don't even get off the ground. Instead, you tumble down the mountain, crashing into rocks and goats, eventually breaking every bone in your body at least once before coming to rest outside the den of a Death Mountain Angry Bear. And you don't want to mess with a Death Mountain Angry Bear right before hibernation. Luckily you're too wounded to put up a fight so she doesn't really play with you very long, just rips out your throat.
The End
“Okay,” you say with a shrug. “What do you want me to do?”
It's mostly filing, although around lunch time he makes you help with what is clearly a magic spell, including a cauldron and chanting. “Are you a wizard?” you ask him. He gives you a look like he won't even dignify that question with an answer. The entire time you're working, he's talking to you, mostly about Mazelandian history. “I wrote a book, you know,” he tells you. “Not a bestseller or anything, but definitely included in a few choice research libraries and any library that wants to own the most researched work on Mazelandian history.”
“Uh-huh,” you say, not really interested, but that doesn't stop him. He starts giving you the highlights. You don't really pay attention until he gets to this bit:
“The Grim Scythe was brought to Mazelandia for safe keeping in the time after the fifth flying pig revolt had been quelled. It was thought that the wilds of Mazelandia was the perfect place to lose such a precious and potentially dangerous artifact where it might never be found, and indeed its existence is largely unknown outside of the island in modern times, perhaps because its necessity does little for the Reaper's reputation. Many have tried to find the artifact, but they have joined the countless bodies upon which Mazelandian society is built.”
“Wait, what's the Grim Scythe?” you ask. “Like that thing Death carries?”
The wizard laughs at you and your ignorance of traditional Mazelandian folklore. “It's often confused with death's primary weapon, but actually it's the opposite. Non-Native Mazelandians can be put off by the Mazelandian use of the term “grim” which means “joyful” or “life-giving” in the native dialects. No one knows why the Grim Scythe was created. Some speculate that the universe demands duality, others that the Grim Reaper needed an easy “do over” method in the case of mistakes made with the more famous, death-causing scythe. The Grim Scythe was last seen somewhere in the northern wastes of Mazelandia.”
“Cool!” you say, and legitimately mean it. “Do you think that could be the 'fabulous prize' you win at the end of the race? Maybe a map to its last known location or something?” You're already picturing yourself leading a ragtag gang across Mazelandia in a really adventurous hat.
The wizard laughs at you again. “The Democratic Race of Fortune? That sham? You aren't trying to win that are you? Winning it is almost the worst thing you could do—though of course there are many other deadly options available.”
“I have noticed that there are more than the normal amount of things trying to kill me,” you agree.
“Indeed, the race began during the reign of--” he stops as you yawn conspicuously. “Well, you don't need to know the details. The point is, it's a trick. They trick outsiders to come here for a variety of heinous, superstitious, and underhanded reasons. Organ harvesting, sacrifice, scape goating, feeding the Mazelandian Tigers... but winning would be the worst.” You ask him why, but all he'll say is, “I wouldn't try to win if I were you.”
At the end of the day the wizard thanks you for your hard work and shows you a secret slide down the mountain. “It's super fun!” he tells you. You agree, it is super fun, but the wizard has given you a lot to think about. You don't think you want to win the race anymore. You're thinking you should probably go after that scythe. But the question is, how?
Do you:
“No, thanks,” you say as politely as possible, already starting down the stairs in case he gets mad and throws something, but he just shrugs.
“No matter,” he says like he feels sorry for you, but you're used to science teachers taking that tone of voice, ever since you told them in fourth grade that you don't believe in insects. You make it back down the tower stairs without falling and are once again faced with the decision of snooping in the shed or trying to make your way down the mountain?
You begin to walk along the empty sand beside the cold, churning surf, knowing that you must hit the lighthouse eventually. All seems to go well, until you notice dark clouds rolling in off the sea. You start walking faster, hoping to outrun them, but soon the crack of thunder sounds overhead and it begins to pour. You're almost instantly soaked to the skin and shivering. But it's not like you haven't been wet before, right?
Not like this. You suddenly scream as you look down at your hands and realize they're changing. They're now paws! Your insides contract painfully and you fall to the ground as your body twists. What's happening? Distantly you remember the Mazelandian President telling you about exposure to Mazelandian Tiger Dropsy and staying out of the rain, but the memory comes too late.
After a painful transformation, you are now a Mazelandian Face-Eating Tiger. What do you want to do now?
You travel inland and at least the trees offer some shelter when it starts raining. Still, after awhile of walking in it, letting it drip off the trees onto you, you are soaked. But it's not like you haven't been wet before, right?
Not like this. You suddenly scream as you look down at your hands and realize they're changing. They're now paws! Your insides contract painfully and you fall to the ground as your body twists. What's happening? Distantly you remember the Mazelandian President telling you about exposure to Mazelandian Tiger Dropsy and staying out of the rain, but the memory comes too late.
After a painful transformation, you are now a Mazelandian Face-Eating Tiger. What do you want to do now?
You let go and drop into the lake. The water is freezing, but you're able to swim and splash your way to the surface, gasping. You don't seem to have any broken bones, and you start making for the shore before those bird dragons realize where you've gone.
Unfortunately, you are now at the mercy of Mazelandia's native population of fish dragons, the lost evolutionary link between sharks and water dragons. Unlike those lame bird dragons, these things are bad ass. You don't stand a chance.
The End
You swoop the hang glider again, and keep out with your feet, hitting one in the eye. It squawks and swoops away from you, but another is right behind! It swoops under you, clearly going to take a bite, but you let go of the hang glider at the precise, correct moment and end up on its back!
“WOOOOO!!!” you shout, grabbing its feathers as it tries to shake you off to no avail. Some of the other bird dragons continue to follow your unattended hang glider because they have bird brains and are stupid. Others try to swipe at you from where you are perched on their comrades back, but the bird dragon you're riding takes this as an attack, and swoops away. You decide to name your bird dragon Tweety Bite, and use your knees around his torso to steer him towards the lighthouse you can still see looming closer in the distance. Eventually the other bird dragons give up and it's just you and Tweety Bite. “Onward!” you say importantly, feeling like nothing in your life will ever be this cool, and you're probably right.
You get Tweety Bite to descend at the top of the lighthouse. “Wait here,” you tell him as you go inside and look for the prize. You spend a long time looking around the light room for the fortune you are sure is the final prize in the race, but there isn't anywhere for it to be hiding. The drawers and shelves are just full of lighthouse equipment, the closet is full of giant extra bulbs. Finally, in desperation, you lean against the rail and look at the giant light. That's when you realize! It's not a giant filament wire lightning up that bulb! There's something else inside it! You climb up next to the light and peer through the milky glass. There's definitely some piece of paper inside, and something else that glints like gold! Did the race write you a giant check? There's only one way to find out!
Seizing a hammer from a nearby tool shelf, you smash the light bulb into a million tiny glass pieces that rain down around you, but you don't care. Crunching them under your shoes, you reach out for the prize.
The gold is a heavy gold star, which you've seen somewhere before. It has twelve points, like an overachiever, and the crest of Mazelandia embossed on it—a big question mark, with teeth that want to eat you and also some bears with cannons for arms on either side. It's the star the Mazelandian president wears in the center of his bow tie! Could it be like a token for something? How much is it worth?
You look at the accompanying piece of paper. It's fancy and embossed. It reads:
“Congratulations! You are the winner of the Historic Mazelandia Democratic Race of Fortune! Please accept the admiration of all of Mazelandia and, as your prize, please accept the Presidency of The People's Historic Democratic Republic of Military-Controlled Mazelandia. Reading this paper signifies a legally binding contract to fulfill the role of Mazelandian President, and any shirking or escape attempts will be dealt with by the President's Guard. Tenure in perpetuity or until another candidate survives the Historic Mazelandian Race of Fortune.”
“Huh?” you say aloud, because this is a really confusing prize. You're now the Mazelandian president? You guess that's pretty cool, although your experience of Mazelandia so far has made you really just want to escape it while you're still alive. Why does everything here seem poisonous? More importantly, why does Mazelandia elect presidents-for-life this way?
Before you can ponder this any further, the loud noise of helicopter interrupts your thoughts. You turn to see one hovering outside the large windows of the lighthouse. Three burly men in the uniform you've come to recognize as the President's guard leap out, enter the lighthouse, and seize you rather forcefully. “Hey!” you try to protest, but they manhandle you outside. “Let me go!” you cry.
They don't listen, but suddenly Tweety Bite LEAPS into action, biting one of their heads off and pushing the other two over the side of the lighthouse. Before the others in the helicopter can move, you've jumped on Tweety Bite's back. “So long, Crazelandia!” you scream, throwing the twelve pointed star like a throwing star and hitting one of the guards in the neck. Tweety Bite takes off into the blue sky as the helicopter founders and unsuccessfully attempts to go after you.
You fly away over the ocean towards further adventure.
The End
You stop at the pie shop. “Listen,” you say to the girl behind the counter. “I don't have any money, but I'm super hungry. Is there any way I could, like, wash dishes or do chores or something for a slice of pie?”
She nods, and says, “Of course, here's a slice of Mazelandian Purple Berry,” and pushes a plate across to you.
“Thanks!” you say and eagerly dig in. The pie is delicious. “So what kind of chores do you want me to do?” you ask when you're finished.
She shrugs as she takes the plate away. “The usual,” she says. “Take this pitchfork and defend the shop from zombies.”
“Uh... what?” you say as she shoves a pitchfork into your hands.
“They come over the moors sometimes from the cemetery,” she says matter-of-factually “It's really bad for business.”
You've already eaten the slice of pie so there's really nothing you can do. You have to accept the terms. You stand at the road near the pie shop, looking off in the direction she pointed for any movement that could be the undead coming to claim your sweet brains and maybe some pie. You're not sure if zombies like pie. The pie shop begins to fill up with travelers and regulars, and none of them seem surprised to see you standing there like that. A few of them even clap you on the shoulder like you're doing good work.
After noon when the sun gets hot, you start to doubt that there are any zombies at all. Is this just some kind of joke that they play on tourists. You yawn and lean on your pitchfork lazily, and it is of course then that they strike!
You cry out as one bites into your arm. You try to raise the pitchfork, but another is chewing on your other shoulder. Where the heck did they come from? You scream as a whole group of them surrounds you, to feast. The pie shop patrons aren't doing anything. They're just watching calmly like it's a dinner show. It's then that you realize you've been set up as bait.
“WITH MY LAST BREATH I CURSE MAZELANDIA!” you cry with your last breath.
The End
You keep walking despite the delicious smell of the pie. Eventually, weak from hunger, the lighthouse looms before you in the distance. It's painted in the Mazelandian colors of purple and red. You can barely climb up the stairs in your weakened state, but the promises of riches motivates you.
Finally the stairs end in the light room, the walls made from giant windows to let out the light of the one giant bulb in the middle, reflected by mirrors to magnify its brightness.
You spend a long time looking around the light room for the fortune you are sure is the final prize in the race, but there isn't anywhere for it to be hiding. The drawers and shelves are just full of lighthouse equipment, the closet is full of giant extra bulbs. Finally, in desperation, you lean against the rail and look at the giant light. That's when you realize! It's not a giant filament wire lightning up that bulb! There's something else inside it! You climb up next to the light and peer through the milky glass. There's definitely some piece of paper inside, and something else that glints like gold! Did the race write you a giant check? There's only one way to find out!
Seizing a hammer from a nearby tool shelf, you smash the light bulb into a million tiny glass pieces that rain down around you, but you don't care. Crunching them under your shoes, you reach out for the prize.
The gold is a heavy gold star, which you've seen somewhere before. It has twelve points, like an overachiever, and the crest of Mazelandia embossed on it—a big question mark, with teeth that want to eat you and also some bears with cannons for arms on either side. It's the star the Mazelandian president wears in the center of his bow tie! Could it be like a token for something? How much is it worth?
You look at the accompanying piece of paper. It's fancy and embossed. It reads:
“Congratulations! You are the winner of the Historic Mazelandia Democratic Race of Fortune! Please accept the admiration of all of Mazelandia and, as your prize, please accept the Presidency of The People's Historic Democratic Republic of Military-Controlled Mazelandia. Reading this paper signifies a legally binding contract to fulfill the role of Mazelandian President, and any shirking or escape attempts will be dealt with by the President's Guard. Tenure in perpetuity or until another candidate survives the Historic Mazelandian Race of Fortune.”
“Huh?” you say aloud, because this is a really confusing prize. You're now the Mazelandian president? You guess that's pretty cool, although your experience of Mazelandia so far has made you really just want to escape it while you're still alive. Why does everything here seem poisonous? More importantly, why does Mazelandia elect presidents-for-life this way?
Before you can ponder this any further, the loud noise of helicopter interrupts your thoughts. You turn to see one hovering outside the large windows of the lighthouse. Three burly men in the uniform you've come to recognize as the President's guard leap out, enter the lighthouse, and seize you rather forcefully. “Hey!” you try to protest, but they manhandle you outside and into the helicopter. There, they bind your hands, as if you would jump out of a moving helicopter. You try to crane your neck to see out the window, but one of the guards hits you until you stop. “Hey!” you protest again. “Aren't you here to guard me?”
“That's right,” they respond in accented English.
The helicopter finally lands back at End, which is the capital of Mazelandia, on the opposite seacoast from Start, fairly near the lighthouse where you claimed your prize. Preparations for a celebration are clearly underway—people are on ladders, decorating the streets, and a band is hastily practicing in a corner of the square, but you can tell by the way everyone's rushing that they were taken by surprise. No one was expected to win so early in the game, and you certainly wouldn't have if not for Franklin.
The guards lead you to a stage where the current Mazelandian President is already waiting. He looks ecstatic. “Finally! FINALLY!” he bellows when he sees you, dramatically ripping the twelve-pointed gold star off of his bow tie and flinging it to the ground. A few people standing nearby back away from it as if it were infectious. “Finally I can get off this hellish rock!”
“You don't want to be president anymore?” you ask.
He stares at you and then laughs, for a really long time. Like, it starts to get awkward because he's just standing there, laughing at you so hard that he's shaking. “Good luck, kid,” he says. “This is the first time in twenty years that someone's actually won the race, and that only because I bribed half of the island's mythological creatures.”
“Well, when I get sick of this job,” you say, “I'll just do that.”
“Good luck finding the money!” he says, still shaking with mirth.
“I'm the President!” you protest.
He just laughs at you some more. “The only thing a president of Mazelandia is good for, kid, is taking the blame. Have fun at the Annual Mazelandian Teeth Collecting Contest in particular!” You notice for the first time that he is missing many of his front teeth. “So long!” He leaps off the stage and runs for the harbor, where a small boat is waiting for him. You try to follow, but one of the President's Guards hold you back.
“Now then,” he cautions you with a smile. “You'll get the way of things soon enough. After all, Mazelandia must have a president.”
He says it half-apologetically, like the way people sometimes say “It's a shame, but we have to have maximum security prisons.” You feel the twelve points of your new president badge pricking at your throat.
The End
This time you stop and pick up the hitchhiker. He looks livid, his face contorted in an expression of hatred. “You said some rude things to me back there,” he tells you as he shuts the door behind him.
“Sorry about that,” you say. “I didn't realize you were some kind of freaky super natural guy.”
“Didn't you?” he says, and you see that he has a giant hole in his chest. You try to scream, but he's already stabbing you in the gut with his switchblade knife, the car careening out of control and exploding. Not because it hit a tree or anything, it just explodes. Mazelandian made car. What are you going to do?
The End
You drive right on by the hitchhiker a second time. Why should you pick him up now that you know he is clearly a freaky ghost? He shakes his fist at you in the rear view mirror and shouts something you can't hear that looks like a curse, but you just drive on.
A few miles later a girl is suddenly standing in the middle of the road! You scream and try to swerve, but the car passes right through her. You look in the rear view mirror but there's nothing there. Is your mind playing tricks on you? Or was it a ghost?
Definitely ghosts, you decide a few miles later. Now the sides of the road are practically lined with them, grisly specters still bearing the wounds that brought them to death, reaching for you, screaming silent screams from decaying mouths. You try to avoid hitting them when you can, but the car just passes through them in any case. Did that hitchhiking ghost curse you somehow? Are the ghosts mad about your ill-treatment of him? Why are there so many ghosts in Mazelandia?
Actually, considering how deadly everything is, it makes perfect sense.
Eventually one appears in front of you and it looks like you! Its face locked in terror, its eyes wide and screaming! Its even wearing the same clothes you are! You scream back and try to swerve for a moment before you realize it's a ghost trick. Unfortunately, you don't have a moment, because you're driving over a bridge and your car goes plummeting into the icy cold waters of a lake where your corpse will be picked apart by fish dragons.
The image you saw was not so much a ghost playing a trick as a future premonition. You join the rest of Mazelandia's ghosts in sullen haunting, waiting for the time when your unfair demise will be revenged. Probably through magic.
The End
“I promise to come back for you,” you say, not really sure what that means.
“Follow this road to the Western Moor Cemetery,” the ghost says, speaking quickly since he's fading faster. “Grasp the Grim Scythe from the messenger of the lord! It's the only way!” Then he's gone.
“Super weird!” you think, but you do as he says and follow the road, turning whenever you see signs for the Western Moor or its cemetery. Finally, you arrive, just as the stars are beginning to come out. You get out of the car warily and walk up to the thin, ineffectual fence surrounding the small plot of land and its graves. You hear a faint moan, but it could be the wind.
You bravely step between the headstones, the soft earth sinking slightly under your feet. The moaning gets louder as you tred on the hallowed ground. When the last rays of light have died, some of the stones even begin to shake.
“Zombies!” you mutter under your breath, keeping a close watch on your feet in case some skeletal, decaying hand reaches out to snatch you. But this cemetery looks so old, surely anyone buried here has moldered in the ground for too long to be of any concern to you? Maybe all they can do is moan and shake. But why? Is it just typical Mazelandian creepiness? Or is it the work of a magical scythe? Because that's what you think you're after. What else would that hitchhiking ghost want you to get so badly, but something that could restore him to life? Could the Grim Scythe be the opposite of the grim reaper's weapon? In typical Mazelandian fake out language fashion? Are you searching for something that could raise the dead? You continue to look around the cemetery, hoping for clues as to the whereabouts of the Grim Scythe. Finally, in the very center of the graveyard, you come upon a creepy statue of an angel, staring straight ahead defiantly, her wings outstretched in what is unmistakably a battle stance. Most interesting of all, she holds a scythe in each hand. The one on the right is the more typical Grim Reaper looking scythe with a long, almost floor length handle, while the other is familiar to you from the communist propaganda your uncle enjoys distributing at the mall, with a shorter handle. Do you
You just stare at him, not promising anything. “You're not going to promise?” he demands as he begins to fade.
“I'm good,” you say.
“blast you!” he cries and reaches out his spectral hand to grab your wrist. You feel a jolt as he finally fades and takes you with him. You find yourself in a screaming hellscape without light or sound but somehow still terrifying. Wind buffets you from all sides and the grasping hands of the dead rip apart your flesh to sustain their spectral forms until you are less than a ghost yourself.
The End
Okay, guy. You obviously have a problem. Before you die of a surfeit of cliches, I'm taking matters into my own hands. You can't keep this up. Romance novels are like cigarettes: they're addictive, and they rot your insides. Mostly your brain, but also probably the rest of your internal organs through the trickle down effect of terribleness.
It's time you read something more wholesome.
You screech the hunting cry of the Mazelandian Face-Eating Tiger and scamper off into the night, looking for victims with faces for you to eat. You crash a Mazelandian Village Party and go wild, ripping off faces while they're still screaming at you. Some villagers eventually chase you off with pitchforks and torches, but that's cool, because you're full anyway. You curl up in a tree to sleep, already looking forward to tomorrow's full docket of face eating.
In the middle of the night you awaken to cries and light. You screech as an arrow hits you in the leg. They're hunting you! A whole crowd of elderly monster hunters, eager for the challenges of their youth, surrounds your tree as they take turns with their crossbow. Someone throws a net over you and you lose your grip on the branch, yowling and plummeting to the ground. Later, they use your skin as a cozy blanket.
The End
blast this malarkey. You may be a Mazelandian Face-Eating Tiger, but you are going to win this blasting race once and for all. You probably have a distinct advantage now, right? You race along the beach, super fast like all Mazelandian Face-Eating Tigers travel, until you come to the lighthouse. The door's open because there's another racer climbing the stairs, but you just jump on her and eat her face. Problem solved.
You come out into the room with the light and look around. There doesn't seem to be any prize. Another racer is already in the room, and has clearly smashed the giant light bulb. Maybe he has the prize! You jump on him and eat his face too. You realize after your licking a part of his nose off your face that he was holding something! It's a gold twelve-pointed star like the one the Mazelandian President wears in the middle of his bow tie! Is that the prize? There's a piece of paper next to it, but you don't bother to look at it because tigers can't read. Laboriously, and with great difficulty because you no longer have opposable thumbs, you pin the twelve-pointed star to yourself.
A helicopter hovers outside one of the big windows and some Mazelandian Presidential guards jump out. The survey the carnage, note the twelve-pointed star on you, and warily salute you as their new president. They courteously load you into the chopper. You think them by only eating one of your faces.
When you arrive at “End” the capital city of Mazelandia, everyone is making preparations for the celebration to welcome their new president/military junta approved scapegoat. The old president looks gleeful at the prospect of finally being able to leave this horrible place until he sees that you're a tiger. You eat his face because you'd hate to see him live with so much disappointment.
The people seem confused, but quickly begin their celebration when they realize that otherwise you'll eat their faces. At first the foreign newspapers and dignitaries mock Mazelandia for electing a face-eating tiger as their president, but then you eat their diplomats, and also some of your own officials by mistake. It turns out they were super corrupt anyway! The military, the real power in Mazelandia, is afraid of you and soon won't go against your will. You appoint other face-eating tigers to posts like constable and attorney general and crime goes down by 500%. People are soon cheering you as the best leader in Mazelandia's history. Sure, you eat a few faces every week, but it's no worse than some of the crazy kings they've had. You go down in history as Mazelandia's most beloved leader and they even build a solid gold statue of you to memorialize you for ever after. Your descendants are eating faces there to this day.
The End