It's been a long day, but you're home now.
You walk up to the [[Entryway]].
[[Examine the wall.]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,$num,#000000,0,#e68019)))
(set: $pouch to (a:))
(set: $beensign to false)
(set: $num to 0.692)
(set: $floor to 1)
(set: $weather to (either: "snow", "rain", "sun"))
(set: $lastroom to "start")
(set: $squirrelsighting to (random: 1, 100))You tug open the door and find yourself in the foyer. The foy-yay. 'Yay' is how you feel. A little bit. It's nice to be here, in a quiet way.
{(if: $weather is "snow") [A cold wind blows in behind you. You shut the door tight.]
(if: $weather is "rain") [You shake rain off your shoulders and close an umbrella, which you hang on the coatrack. It's like a Christmas tree, just not for ornaments so much as things people leave lying around.]}
[[You sign in.]]
[[You've got somewhere to be, and it sure isn't this floor. |Staircase]]
[[You've got somewhere to be, and it sure is this floor. You're going to hang out in the lounge. |Lounge]]
[[It's as good a time as any to wander meaninglessly around the hall.|Hallway]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))
(set: $lastroom to 'e')
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
(track: 't1', 'play'){=
(set: _delicious to (random: 1, 4))
(if:_delicious is 1)[You... lick.. you lick the wall. Okay. Um, it uh, there's some moss on it. So you, you like taste that. Cool. You tell me what moss tastes like.]
(else-if:_delicious is 2)[You turn around, thinking you hear a lark, but it was just the rustling of the unicorn-shaped bush in the wind.]
(else-if:_delicious is 3)[The wall says, and I am paraphrasing here, "I'm trying to be better, but I'm a brick wall." I think we're all trying to be better, right? You pat the wall. It deserves to be cut a little slack.]
(else-if:_delicious is 4)[You stop looking at the wall. You can hear the Brown band playing in the distance. ... ... Well, you can't play an instrument either.]
[[Go back.|START]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))You find...
$pouch
...and some lint. Clean your pockets, ya doof.
[[Whatever |Lounge]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019))){(if: $beensign is false)[(set: $pebcil to 3)]
(if:$beensign is false)[(set: $names to (a:))]
(set: $beensign to true)}
So people really do not sign in here (last sign in was from rush season two years ago), but you have free will, which apparently no one else does, so you can change that.
The names written are:
(if: $names's length > 0) [
(for: each _item, ...$names) [
(print: _item + ", ")
]] (else: ) [None. As said above. :(]
[(t8n:"blur")+(link:"You write a name down.")[(set: $newname to
(prompt: "Go on.", "Sibling Whatever")
)
(set: $names to $names + (a: $newname))
(set: $newname to "")]]
(if: $pebcil > 0) [You also DO notice a tantalizing... a tantalizing little collection of unclaimed lexigraphic utensils. The forks of this forsaken graphine grapheme world.
[(t8n:"blur")+(link:"The world is stupidly cold and cruel. Steal a pencil.")[(set: $pebcil to $pebcil + (-1)) (set: _peb to (either:"You filch a mechanical pencil which from the rattle, contains several dollars of either lead or a lead substitute. Hoorway for stealing!","You grab a sharpie and instinctively give it a whiff. Children sure do get high off of this. (You do not put it back.)","The pencil in there is pathetic, but even the weak can pave way for the strong. (EVIL LIBERTARIAN CACKLING?!)"))
_peb
(if: $pouch contains "a crummy littol utensil") [(set: $pouch to $pouch - (a: "a crummy littol utensil"))
(set: $pouch to $pouch + (a: "some crummy littol utensel"))]
(else-if: $pouch contains "some crummy littol utensel") []
(else:) [(set: $pouch to $pouch + (a: "a crummy littol utensil"))]
]]]
(else:) [ There are no pencils because you ruin everything. Shame. SHAME. NO YOU CAN NOT PUT THEM BACK I WOULD HAVE TO SPEND THIRTY MINUTES CODING THAT TOO.]
[[Go back.|Entryway]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))You are on floor [$floor].
You climb to floor...
(if: $floor is 0) [You are here!] (else:) [[[Go to the basement.|Basement Landing]]]
(if: $floor is 1) [You are here!] (else:) [[[Go to the main floor.|Hallway]]]
(if: $floor is 2) [You are here!] (else:) [[[Go to the second floor.|Second Floor Landing]]]
(if: $floor is 3) [You are here!] (else:) [[[Go to the third floor.|Third Floor Landing]]]
(set: $lastroom to "s")
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
(track: 't2', 'play'){(set: $lounge to (random: 1, 8))
(if: $lounge is 1) [To your surprise, no one is in the lounge. However, the remnants of their presence still abound in a few spare coffee mugs, blankets strewn across the floor, and someone's opened backpack.]
(if: $lounge is 2) [Someone is in the lounge. They are typing at an impressive speed and have headphones on. You are struck by the sense that you may be watching one of the most herculean efforts known to man, an underclassman desperately hurling themselves towards a midnight deadline. Desperate kazoo music plays in your head, accompanying such a feat. You feel humbled.]
(if: $lounge is 3) [The squishmallows are in the lounge. They are arranged in such a setting that one might reasonably believe they were holding council. You figure that if you step between them you might disturb a fairy ring. O! O fuck! Not being spirited away in the middle of the semester! Ahahaha! Unless??]
(if: $lounge is 4) [Russian cartoons are playing on the TV. Stop motion is a dangerous and powerful arcane art... King House cultivates many such dark magics. Speaking of dark magics, someone else is knitting! Oh eldritch sorcery! Oh terrible tea cozy!]
(if: $lounge is 5) [You almost sit down in the lounge before realizing the blanket is lumpy because someone is under it. You remove your accursed posterior from the spot and apologize profusely. The mortifying ordeal of sitting down...]
(if: $lounge is 6) [You enter the lounge. Someone meows at you. You meow back. Someone waves at you. You wave back. Someone rubs their stomach and pats their head at the same time. You attempt to do both as well, but you fail, besmirching the good name of King House and its attempts at forming community by intricate and elaborate form of address. You make a joke about fruit. Everyone laughs. This is an acceptible stand-in for an entrance.]
(if: $lounge is 7) [You've stumbled in at a time when several people are in the lounge, including a few guests. There seems to be a spirited debate going on regarding whether several early modern philosophers would have agreed with Tony Stark's actions in Captain America: Civil War.]
(if: $lounge is 8) [There is a Kappa cuddle pile on the floor. It spills over the sides of the poof and onto the ground. Kappas abound everywhere. At some point, evidenced by stray laptops, people were probably working, but now they're just talking, happy to be in each other's presence.]}
[[You take the long shortcut. |Solarium]]
[[You take the short shortcut. |Workroom]]
[[Go back to the entryway.|Entryway]]
[[Check your pockets.]]
(set: $thisroom to "l")
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
(track: 't3', 'play')Somewhere in the darkness you hear clothes churning and mumbling in the stomach of a washing machine. The basement is a dark place.
[[Return to the stairs.|Staircase]]
[[Go outside through the back door.]]
[[Sit down on the ergometer.]]
[[Go to the library.]]
[[Stand in the space.]]
[[Go to the washing room.]]
(set: $floor to 0)
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
(track: 't6', 'play')
{(if: $thisroom is "e") [You walk from the entryway towards the hallway.]
(else-if: $lastroom is "w") [You walk from the workroom towards the hallway.]
(else-if: $lastroom is "r") [You depart from Ruth's room and enter the hallway proper.]
(else:) [You enter the hallway.]}
The hallway is lean and white, occasionally made slightly more exciting by hall decorations. Wow, you must have a really competent RPL! And a really competent Starry-Night-giver! And a really competent poster of ominous yet intriguing posters! And a-- okay, you're all great. You already knew that. No one stands around in the hallway, and by doing so, you already look very very silly. So why don't you got do something else?
[[Go to the stairs.|Staircase]]
[[Go to the entryway.|Entryway]]
[[Go to the workroom.|Workroom]]
[[Stand outside of Ruth's room.|RR]]
(set: $floor to 1)
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
(track: 't2', 'play')The second floor is primarily a residential hall... unless you live on this floor, you probably don't come here much. Sandwiched between the first and third floor, it's kind of like the cream of an oreo, if the cream was the worst part.
(You get the distinct feeling this game was programmed by someone who doesn't live on the second floor...)
[[Return to the stairs.|Staircase]]
[[You're not boring like that. As someone who is built different, you are going onto the roof.|2f Roof]]
[[Check the bathroom.]]
(set: $floor to 2)
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:yellow)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e5e619)))
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
(track: 't8', 'play')The third floor emerges before you at the top of the stairs, like a long-awaited sunrise. Despite its smaller size, it at least boasts a silly s-curve of rooms and two half-decent bathrooms. It is at times broiling and frigid: "Some say the world will end in fire,/Some say in ice."
[[Pet Alabaster.]]
[[There is further to go. Upwards, still.|Attic]]
[[Back to the stairs it is.|Staircase]]
(set: $floor to 3)
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#e6b31a)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e6b31a)))
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
(track: 't8', 'play')Welcome to the solarium. Also known, primarily in the winter, as the
D A N G E R Z O N E.
(either: "Someone is already here. This makes things extraordinarily awkward as you shuffle around them.", "You had planned to come in here to charge your phone, but it looks like all the chargers are occupied. No, scratch that. Not occupied. Just gone, the charger is straight-up gone again.", "An unattended tea sits precariously on the edge of the desk.", "The plants whistle stiffly. The wind has curious ways of reaching places it isn't supposed to, reminding you that nature is inevitable and our monuments against it, sad facades to a building which is being grown through while we speak.", "It's warm in here. This unsettles you.", "They call it the solarium because the sun accosts your eyes like you're a NEET ant leaving his mom's basement for the first time in years, only to be faced by some kid's magnifying glass.", "A bird sings outside, and a bird sings back to it. Some people will take the time to learn your language.")
You are filled with (either: "light", "remembrance", "hospitality", "bravery", "determination", "reconciliation", "chills", "hope", "confusion", "hunger").
A god of two faces stands before you. The choice is yours: forwards or backwards?
[[I seek comfort.|Lounge]]
[[I seek truth.|Workroom]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
(track: 't5', 'play'){(set: $workr to (random: 1, 8))
(if: $workr is 1) [No one is here. It sure is a time of day when that happens.]
(if: $workr is 2) [Opal is full of ice. Not Opal Lambert, Opal the ice machine. Opal the ice machine whirs and clinks with enthusiasm as she dusts the top of the existing mountain of ice in a sprinkling of crunchy snow. Next to her, the kettle trills with hot, burbling water. All the fixings for tea are perfectly prepared.]
(if: $workr is 3) [A few people have their books out. It's unclear if half of it is school or pleasure reading, but regardless, it's quite dilligent. Do you have a book? Do you have a book right now? Maybe you should. Maybe you should experience the wondrous uplifting of the soul that accompanies reading a good book.]
(if: $workr is 4) [There are several new fliers on the wall. There are always games to attend, new clubs to check out, friends to support, seminars to listen to... it can be a lot, but it's also a kind of blessing.]
(if: $workr is 5) [Cold wind spills in from the solarium, offset by a few angrily flickering candles and hot cups of tea. Shut the door! Somebody shut the door!]
(if: $workr is 6) [Two Kappas are leaning against each other. Birds mutter outside, the house hums. Someone is offering you a hot tea. Someone else is discussing cat toe beans over the phone. It is a nice day.]
(if: $workr is 7) [There's a single M&M on the floor. If there is any justice in this cruel world, the house husbands will have someone's head for this.]
(if: $workr is 8) [You can hear people talking in the kitchen, and a faint trickle of music spills out, accompanied by the promise of something cooking, as the smell supposes.]}
Business as usual, apparently.
[[Make some tea.]]
(t8n-time:1s)+(link-rerun:"Check the fruitbowl.")[(either: "Inside the bowl is a ripe banana, occasionally speckled with marks of its age and wisdom. The Hanna Banana project is at work here.", "There is a clementine in the fruitbowl. You do not really want the clementine.", "Inside the fruitbowl is a green apple. Nature's most wiley temptresses, not in their weird Christian connotations, but in that one in every two apples is deliciously tart, and the other is ass. Life is suffering and apples are to blame.", "There are some Snickers in the fruitbowl.But they don't even make you chuckle.", "The fruitbowl is empty. This is 1/26th your fault.")]
[[Check the quotebook for arcane wisdom.|Quotebook]]
[[You play the piano.]]
[[Might as well go through the world's most cumbersome shortcut.|Solarium]]
[[Sit in the lounge.|Lounge]]
[[What's in the kitchen? |Kitchen]]
[[Wander the hallway.|Hallway]]
(set: $lastroom to "w")
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
(track: 't4', 'play'){(set: $ki to (random: 1, 6))
(if: $ki is 1) [Phoebe Bridgers plays. Pancakes sizzle on the griddle. Light flickers in from the windows, half obscured by plants. You think you might be able to live somewhere like this forever, you promise you will learn, you will learn so well, how to care and how to be cared for, if it gives you seconds like this to stand in.]
(if: $ki is 2) [The plants are being watered. They perk up slightly. Light glistens, winks at you, on the leaves. The profound thing you draw from this moment is that you would also like to consume water.]
(if: $ki is 3) [Currently the kitchen is empty, but at a later time, it will not be. You wonder what terrible thing someone will do with eggs today, and if someday, God will forgive you for your sins against His creations.]
(if: $ki is 4) [The fridge is full of leftover dessert, and you're the one person in the house who really loves eating the food which has been in the fridge since the birth of Jesus Christ. You think that one of the greatest joys in life is chomping down on five month old soft serve in a plastic cup. Some people would call this a form of Stockholm's syndrome.]
(if: $ki is 5) [Today is the day that you revolutionize the world by putting cookie butter on a banana.]
(if: $ki is 6) [Love is stored in the King House kitchen. So is sugar. Pilfered honey. At least three kinds of cooking wine. Rice flour. A rice cooker. Faulty cookingware. Functioning cookingware. Non-dairy ice cream. Fifteen vegetables you don't know names for. Silky tofu. Fifteen sticks of butter.]}
(t8n:"shudder")+(link:"You want to do the dishes.")[You may not do the dishes.]
[[You refuse to come back to this room until the dev has added cooking functionality. |Workroom]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
(track: 't10', 'play')(I have coded the entire quotebook (the digital shit-kappa-says) but am not posting it out of respect for the privacy of the house.)
[[cool|Workroom]] The piano up here actually works, unlike the piano downstairs.
So, you...
[[are really bad at the piano.]]
[[are really good at the piano.]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))You sit down at the piano.
(after: 50) [(either: "You haven't practiced the piano in years. But something half-remembered leaves your fingers.", "You do your best. ... This feels very silly.", "The clunky piano noise. Is not entirely unfamiliar to you. You prefer when it is someone else making the regrettably juvenile noise.", "Sometimes, the best thing to do is surrender. But you play for a minute or so first.", "It's better than you remember it being. It gives you hope that at some point it will be even better. And that makes you want to play it again.")]
[[The song persists on the air.|Workroom]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
(track: 't11', 'play')You sit down at the piano.
(after: 5) [(either: "It's not coming to you, really. But it's worth giving a try.", "A quick melody leaves your fingers, as if lightning is drawn from your body and into the piano.", "You sit down and tap out something melancholic.", "It's nice to create something new for the world.")]
[[The song persists on the air.|Workroom]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
(track: 't12', 'play')Outside the house is two dumpsters, a lot of police cars, and some nice metal-- because you aren't trapped inside, they're trapped outside. King House: probably moderately defensible during the apocalypse.
{(if: $weather is "rain") [You are protected from the onslaught of rain by the house's underbelly, overhead. Best not leave it.]
(else-if: $weather is "snow") [You are protected from the onslaught of snow by the house's underbelly, overhead. Best not leave it.]}
(cycling-link:"It is time to hang out under the awning.","A small child could easily envision this as a critical den location for their small child civilization. Luckily you are old and are thinking of no such thing.","You squat on the ground. The cold earth whispers to you. It says \"pspspspsspsp\".","There is a bicycle here. It is locked.","You sit on a nearby chair. This is the domain of the saints.")
(link-rerun:"Pick up a broken piece of glass.")[You pick up a broken piece of glass.(set: $pouch to $pouch + (a: "a fragment of green glass"))]
(if: $squirrelsighting is 100) [Hark! Athanasius, biographer of St. Anthony! Yonder, yonder does he perch! Oh, Athanasius, give us your wisdom!
(t8n:"dissolve")+(t8n-time:3s)+(link:"Give us your wisdom")[the squirrel... scurries away]]
[[Go inside you cheeseburger|Basement Landing]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
(track: 't9', 'play')The ergometer is an evil machine in the middle of the room, surrounded by asbestos and broken glass. Your sweat will serve the old gods well.
(link:"A thousand meters.")[This is uncomfortable. (link:"A thousand more meters.")[Something stronger, more stable. Limbs ache. (link:"A thousand more meters.")[A drizzle coats your forehead. (link:"A thousand more meters.")[Your heart pulses. You forgot how brave it could be in your chest, but it is enduring. (link:"A thousand more meters.")[You are borne upwards by a ceaseless brightness. (link:"A thousand more meters.")[You feel the excitement starting to go. Now it's just pain, which you should have seen coming. (link:"A thousand more meters.")[Stop. (link:"A thousand more meters.")[Seriously. (link:"A thousand more meters.")[That's a pretty good workout. You should be proud of yourself. (link:"A thousand more meters.") [No, really. Stop.]]]]]]]]]]
[[Enough of that.|Basement Landing]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#000000)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#000000,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#000000)))
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
(track: 't13', 'play')
You enter the library. The room is dimly lit by some far-off sunbeam, but a subterranean mood prevails, aided by the scent of musty books. Everything which has ever been here calls to you, a thousand half-heard stories trying to substantiate their pasts with the taste of your present. They are not demanding. It is simply their job to ask.
[[Read a book.]]
(link:"Enter the coffin.")[You confront your mortality. Then you get bored of your mortality. It turns out that coffins are a lot more interesting when you can spring out of them at unsuspecting people?]
(link:"bondage fish")[(text-colour:magenta)[bondage fish]]
Generations of Kappas have probably added things which they loved or donated or forgot or abandoned or cared about or didn't care at all to. Someday, you hope to put something up here to rival "that picture that vaguely resembles Bob".
[[Sigh... libraby|Basement Landing]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
(track: 't7', 'play'){(if:visits is 0)[(set: $laundry to (random: 1, 2))]
A much stronger whiff of laundry detergent greets you. The room is spare, oddly lit, and liminal in the most accursed of ways. The omnipresent pipe noise reminds you that you are in the guts of a house. There is nowhere to sit, and the whole place kind of just begs for you to get up and leave. Unless you have business to attend to. Laundry business.}
(if: $laundry is 1) [You do not have laundry to do.
[[Get outta there|Basement Landing]]]
(else:) [(t8n-time:1s)+(link:"Do your laundry.")[You do not have your laundry. (t8n-time:1s)+(link:"Get your laundry.")[You do not have any BearBucks. (t8n-time:1s)+(link:"Get BearBucks.")[The washing machine is full.
[[AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA|Basement Landing]]]]]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))Even liminality's facsimile brings its vague comforts with it. Can you smell the faint odor of detergent, feel the dusty basement air in your lungs? Can you peer through familiar gloom, sense your feet roving over the glossy floor? The ugliness of texture, its fractal insecurity, is often made alien to us. Take a moment to consider the plethora of information contained in one footfall on a messy floor: someone had to drop something-- who knows what-- on the floor to leave that sticky residue. Someone must've dragged a chair across here to leave that slight indent in the ground you're picking up on now.
Every single moment curated for you by hundreds of pasts, like a rope woven from threads. Your present.
[[Thank you for sharing it with me.|Basement Landing]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019))) You don't remember why you went in here.
[[Yeah it does sort of lack a critical function in a digital walkaround|Second Floor Landing]]
(t8n:"rumble")+(link:"You use the bathroom.")[You can not pee in cyberspace.]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:yellow)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e5e619)))You crack the window open and scuttle onto the roof. It's cops, cops far as the eye can see. I kid. It's rooftops, the skeletons of trees, the outline of familiar places on campus, people leisurely walking past. It's the distant snarl of someone's terrible motorcycle, the distant Thayer traffic. It's a wider sky than you get from the ground.
{(if: $weather is "snow") [Snow falls into your eyes. You blink it away, smiling slightly. If you stay out too long, you're going to get a chill. Sometimes, though, it's just nice to sit for a minute and experience ~animate heat~. Because your body is a little furnace, and it's been burning matter since the day you were born. You've heard that we're all descended from stardust, but maybe, our bodies have never stopped being starlike. Life reapproaches the astral. [[wander home, little star|Second Floor Landing]]]
(else-if: $weather is "rain") [Water slicks the sides of your face. You blink drearily at the sky, clean off glasses if you have them. (They're going to fog again. Good luck with that.) The sky is spitting on creation. No-- someone's god is crying. Okay, that one also sucks. You're sharing a drink with the stars, you decide. On the other side of the clouds, there is a long bendy straw that winds up into the Milky Way. All creation drinks.[[cheers to that|Second Floor Landing]]]
(else:) [It's a clear day, freckled with clouds. Though it's not that late, the sun is already beginning to go down... typical Providence. The result is a lava lake of a sky, red so thick you could cut it like a soft-boiled egg and pink so delicate it would melt in your mouth like cotton candy. It's that scabbed orange color sunsets wield. Someone else's bruise. The sunsets and sunrises of your life sometimes feel like this. You try to cherish them. [[It might be best to go in.|Second Floor Landing]]]}
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
(track: 't9', 'play')You jiggle open a door you're probably supposed to have access to and ascend creaking wooden stairs into the attic. The dust coating in the room is thicker than in the rest of the house, and the light shining through the cracks between rafters gives you a faint but abiding sense of adventure. There's surprisingly little to do up here, but knowing there is a space which is, if only for lack of interest, all yours, can be quite neat. You close your eyes. Take a deep breath.
YOU COUGH ON DUST. GET OUT OF THE ATTIC, IT IS FILLED WITH ASBESTOS AND AN OLD MATTRESS-- DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S BEEN DONE ON THAT MATTRESS?? NO! BYE
[[ok sheesh|Third Floor Landing]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#e6b31a)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e6b31a)))You stand outside of Ruth's room.
(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,0,#e61919,0.143,#e68019,0.3069,#e5e619,0.4964,#19e619,0.6752,#1919e6,0.8306,#7f19e6,0.9902,#000000))
[[sick|Hallway]]
(masteraudio: 'stopall')
(track: 't14', 'play')The plaster dog does not respond to this.
[[Good boy.|Third Floor Landing]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#e6b31a)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e6b31a)))You want something...
(cycling-link: 2bind $c1, "Energizing.","Comforting.","Aromatic.")
It should taste...
(cycling-link: 2bind $c2, "Acerbic.","Gentle.","Spicy.")
Do you want caffeine?
(cycling-link: 2bind $c3, "Yes.", "No.")
[[Close your eyes deeply. Pretend this is how making tea works in real life.]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))(either: "''You may not see it now,' said the Princess of Pure Reason, looking knowingly at Milo's puzzled face, 'but whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way. Why, when a housefly flaps his wings, a breeze goes round the world; when a speck of dust falls to the ground, the entire planet weighs a little more; and when you stamp your foot, the earth moves slightly off its course. Whenever you laugh, gladness spreads like the ripples in the pond; and whenever you're sad, no one anywhere can be really happy. And it's much the same thing with knowledge, for whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer.'
-- Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth",
"'Please bring strange things.
Please come bringing new things.'
--Ursula K. Le Guin, Always Coming Home",
"'Tear down every last prison
Open all cages and disrupt the current
Bring down all institution. Rip up foundation
And love as you used to'
-- Falls Of Rauros, 'Awaiting The Fire Or The Flood That Awakens It'",
"'Once you've met someone you never really forget them. It just takes a while for your memories to return.'
--Zeniba",
"'If you love and are loved, whatever you do affects others.'
--David Mitchell",
"'It is in collectivities that we find reservoirs of hope and optimism.'
--Angela Davis",
"'I want there to be a place in the world where people can engage in one another’s differences in a way that is redemptive, full of hope and possibility. Not this “In order to love you, I must make you something else”. That’s what domination is all about, that in order to be close to you, I must possess you, remake and recast you.'
--bell hooks",
"'The most beautiful part of your body is where it’s headed. & remember, loneliness is still time spent with the world.'
- Ocean Vuong",
"'Inside the word 'emergency' is 'emerge'; from an emergency new things come forth. The old certainties are crumbling fast, but danger and possibility are sisters.'
- Rebecca Solnit",
"'Do not think that time simply flies away. Do not understand “flying” as the only function of time. If time simply flew away, a separation would exist between you and time. So if you understand time as only passing, then you do not understand the time being. To grasp this truly, every being that exists in the entire world is linked together as moments in time, and at the same time they exist as individual moments of time. Because all moments are the time being, they are your time being.'
- Ruth Ozeki, A Tale For the Time Being",
"'I race through the field as if my cliff was never written into this story, as if I was no heavier than the words in my name. And like a word, I hold no weight in this world yet still carry my own life. And I throw it ahead of me until what I left behind becomes exactly what I'm running toward--like I'm part of a family.
— Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous")
(Thank you to Mica for compiling these.)
[[Thanks for your wisdom. Much love, sib.|Go to the library.]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019))){=(set: $c to 0)
(if: $c1 is "Aromatic.") [(set: $c to $c+1)]
(if: $c1 is "Comforting.") [(set: $c to $c+2)]
(if: $c2 is "Spicy.") [(set: $c to $c+1)]
(if: $c2 is "Gentle.") [(set: $c to $c+2)]
(if: $c3 is "No.") [(set: $c to $c+5)]
[[You pick a tea.]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019))){(if: $c is 0) [What you're thinking of isn't tea. It's coffee. You get out some black coffee. For a second, the world is proud of you and your sadism. Then it isn't anymore, and you stand up. You kind of just want tea, now.]
(else-if: $c is 1)[You get some green tea-- the Zen green tea. This was likely stolen from the VDub over a year ago. It is unclear if its caffeination is primarily a placebo effect, or not. They could put literally anything in this cute little packet and you'd probably drink it.]
(else-if: $c is 2)[You have one of the more strongly caffeinated herbal teas. The perfect punch of fruit and maybe flowers!! Plus whatever else fits in here!! Do you feel!! Energized yet!! The drink is a dark royal purple and blackening!! As we speak!! Soon it will be undrinkable!!]
(else-if: $c is 3)[The cinnamon tea is probably caffeinated. It's very nice. ... Yeah okay. You've decided you're definitely about this.]
(else-if: $c is 4)[Nothing a good Earl Grey won't fix. You strongly believe, and are correct to believe, that King House has the best Earl Grey on campus.]
(else-if: $c is 5)[Lemons. You would put a raw lemon in your mouth if someone paid you or paid attention to you. No one is doing that. You have lemon-flavored tea instead.]
(else-if: $c is 6)[You get out a looseleaf filter and put together a bunch of herbs, a few rosebuds here, some seeds there... the result is pallatable, but the most pallatable thing of all is that you did that. You're proud of yourself.]
(else-if: $c is 7)[You expertly shift together some looseleaf teas to produce an expert herbal remedy. Have you considered working at a tea place? Just kidding. Your talent would be lost on them.]
(else-if: $c is 8)[After surveying the entire set of teas, you close the drawer. You raw dog some hot water. Later, you will go to Kung Fu tea. Sometimes the spiciest tea of all... is capitalism.]
(else-if: $c is 9)[Hm. Fuck this. Fancy hot chocolate time.]}
[[That's lovely. Thank you.|Workroom]]
(enchant:?page,(text-colour:orange)+(background:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,1,#000000,0.6926,#000000,0,#e68019)))t1: ./songs/t1-entry.mp3
t2: ./songs/t2-stairs.mp3
t3: ./songs/t3-lounge.mp3
t4: ./songs/t4-workroom.mp3
t5: ./songs/t5-solarium.mp3
t6: ./songs/t6-basement.mp3
t7: ./songs/t7-library.mp3
t8: ./songs/t8-floors.mp3
t9: ./songs/t9-roof.mp3
t10: ./songs/t10-kitchen.mp3
t11: ./songs/t11-pianobad.mp3
t12: ./songs/t12-pianomanbetter.mp3
t13: ./songs/t13-erg.mp3
t14: ./songs/t14-rr.mp3