Adventure Gamers - Forums

>w

Counterfeit Monkey
It takes a minute for us to adjust to the light in here. Built when people were a bit shorter and ceilings were a bit lower, the Counterfeit Monkey is always smoky and never well lit, even in the middle of the day.

...and… Slango is not here.

This is bad. Even I can see this is bad. What happened to your confidence in your team? Where are the guys who are supposed to get us out of here?

Something must have gone wrong.

“Help you?” asks Parker the barman unenthusiastically.

We want to ask whether he has seen Slango.

>ask parker about slango
“I wonder whether you’ve seen an associate of mine,” we say to Parker. “Name of Slango.”

Parker looks over the bar at us. “He comes in here from time to time,” he says. “Very regular customer. Always has about three rum and cokes.”

This is a lie, and therefore a test. Slango doesn’t drink alcohol himself and doesn’t permit drunkenness in his crew.

We could challenge Parker about the rum.

>challenge parker about rum
“Must be a different Slango,” we say. “Mine is more of a root beer man. Thanks anyway though.”

“Oh, that Slango,” Parker says, thoughtfully moving the Origin Paste sitting on the bar. “He’s been around town the last couple of days, but not today. If you know his lady friend, you might try her.”

Lady friend? This can only mean Lena, she being the only female native with whom Slango spends much time socially. But you wouldn’t have guessed that she’d advanced to the status of lady friend. Either way, Lena is a rather odd woman who keeps a used bookstore off Deep Street.

I’d like to ask whether we can have the Origin Paste.

>can I have origin paste
(You can just begin your command with the verb. Retrying that as “have origin paste”.)

“That Origin Paste for sale?”

“Well now,” he says, grinning, “that would surely be illegal, would it not? Origin Paste is after all a controlled substance in this country, due to its unhappy association with fraudulent activities. On the other hand there is no law against someone winning the Origin Paste in a completely legitimate game of chance or skill.”

I’d like to ask how one might go about winning.

>ask about winning
“Explain this game as though I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you say, leaning on the bar in an interested fashion. Are you flirting with Parker? No? Okay. Good to know.

“It’s a designated challenge game,” says Parker. You’ve seen this played before, but he explains the rules anyway.

“There are two contestants, one challenger and one defender.

“The challenger chooses any object he likes and shows it to the moderator ahead of time.

“The defender, without seeing the object, stipulates a general category. The challenger has five minutes to turn his designated object into an item that fits the defender’s category, or he forfeits his ante.”

We could play the game.

Something makes you think of past experience playing games.

>remember playing games
The three of you were watching the contest at Counterfeit Monkey. This time the prize was a bottle of Dove Wing Absinthe, and the latest contestant was trying to letter-remove her way to an object the size of a pebble.

Slango lifted his root beer. “These guys are in a rut. It’s all ‘make a liquid’ and size-based challenges. I want to see some demanding categories. Strawberry-scented. Paisley. Pachyderm-themed.”

You shrugged. “People L-remove tiles,” you said. “You can get a letter-made tie any color you want.”

“Import Category 5,” Brock said. “Now that would be a strong challenge category.” Under Atlantean customs law, Import Category 5 means things that are edible, but not fruits or vegetables — everything from drugs to chicken breasts. “Clear, but it rules out a lot of overly productive agriculture words.”

Then we’re back in the present.

>x paste
A cake of pale purple: it is able to disguise letter-reformed objects so that they don’t look like obvious frauds, or even show up under authentication.

The only problem with it is the distinctive smell.

The Origin Paste is powerful stuff, and worth a good bit of money.

>x parker
His name is Parker, and he is a friend of yours, when you’re wearing your own skin. At the moment, though, it seems like a good idea not to trust these friendships by making our new disguise known.

>x bar
Kept scrupulously clean, whatever you might say about the rest of the place.

On the bar is some Origin Paste.

>play game
“I’d like to play that,” we say.

“Excellent. Oh, I did mention the small matter of the entry fee?”

I get out the roll of bills and he peels off two twenties.

“Thank you. Now, you pick your entry article, and I’ll ask one of these good gentlemen to suggest a defense category.”

Luhr28 - 21 March 2021 08:25 AM

I was hoping others would join in more. Pegbiter was here just before but didn’t post.

Yeah, me too. But this game is not very suitable for a CP. I wish I’d known that.

>pick asparagus
“Right,” says the barman. “The asparagus it is.”

He turns towards the group assembled around the dartboard. “Anyone want to defend against this character?” (with a nod at you).

“Something smaller than a pebble!” suggests a woman in the front row. She passes forward her own ante to the bar, and the game is on.

Pegbiter - 21 March 2021 09:04 AM

My online status doesn’t always reflect my availability, since I often follow the links in subscription emails from my phone.

I’m glad we have such a responsive leader at least!

How to change the asparagus into anything at all with the letter remover is beyond me.

Luhr conveniently left.  

Maybe if we had other manipulation tools at our disposal? We could try some other object. Or maybe cheat?

Try something we know we can change.

>pick apple
“Right,” says the barman. “The apple it is.”

He turns towards the group assembled around the dartboard. “Anyone want to defend against this character?” (with a nod at you).

“A liquid,” says a gruff man. (“You always say liquid!” complains one of the others. “It’s his favorite thing!” says a third.) But the ante is submitted and the challenge set.

>wave p-remover at apple
We reset the device to p. There’s a smell of fermenting apple, then cider, then something more malty. In the apple’s place there is now a glass of nutbrown ale.

“A winner!” says the barman, straightening up. “What do you know? The Origin Paste is all yours, darling.”

This produces a squawk of surprise and irritation from the defendant, and you get the impression that this game has been agreeably fleecing tourists all day. Pity you had to come along and spoil it.

I’d like to ask whether he has any other games going.

[Your score has gone up by three points and is now twenty-nine.]

>ask about other games
“So, is there anything else I can win? Any other games going?”

Parker laughs. “Not until tomorrow, kid,” he says. “We only run one game a day.”

I’m shocked that the apple worked! I tried at least a dozen times to win. Whenever I picked the apple they wanted something smaller than a pebble and when I picked the ear they wanted a liquid. Coincidence? I think not! In the end I gave up and much later I found a new object that did the trick immediately.

BTW it’s mid afternoon now. Don’t know when that happened.

Pegbiter - 21 March 2021 09:31 AM

Perhaps the game took pity on us, in case we’ve been wasting time.

>get paste

>smell paste

Karlok - 21 March 2021 08:47 AM

But this game is not very suitable for a CP. I wish I’d known that.

I’m wondering what kind of text adventure would be more suitable. One short enough to be finished in a single session when all participants make sure to be here?

I think it’s working pretty good, and I enjoy it a lot so far.

Oh I’m enjoying it too, it’s a great game. But it’s very long, lots of locations too, and there’s so much text to read. In previous PCs like Spider and Web we worked on puzzles together, which was fun. The puzzles may get more difficult when we’ve explored everything.

>get paste
We get the Origin Paste. A cake of pale purple: it is able to disguise letter-reformed objects so that they don’t look like obvious frauds, or even show up under authentication.

The only problem with it is the distinctive smell.

>smell it
Lavender wafts back at us.

>go to aquarium bookstore
We have a short hike through the marina district.

Aquarium Bookstore
The shop takes its name from the collection of fish mounted on every wall: swordfish, bass, other things I don’t recognize. Underneath these dubious tokens, the walls are covered with bookshelves, and there are stacks of books on the floor where the shelves have proven insufficient.

The merchandise consists mainly, but not exclusively, of books, and the selection caters to odd tastes. You once picked up in here a book about a man who R-removed a wrench, and then had his way with it. You and Brock had a good time with that one for the next month and a half.

Lena is present, all right. In fact she watches us keenly the instant we come into the shop. Lena is an associate of Slango’s. You hadn’t realized that had crossed over into a romance. Slango has never, ever in your recollection dated anyone. And now this.

“Happy Serial Comma Day,” she says.

“Glad to see you’ve got plenty of Origin Paste,” Lena remarks. “It’s such a useful thing to have. Smells so nice.”

We want to ask whether she has seen Slango or say who we are.

>x lena
She has grey hair in a curly cloud around her head, and she wears a long patchwork skirt and leather sandals. But her eyes are keen.

The monocle pings happily as we sight Lena with the crosshairs.

>x skirt
It falls to Lena’s ankles even though it has been rolled over several times at the waistband. The fabric is mostly scraps of silver and grey and dark blue, but there are here and there some odd sports in other colors.

The monocle pings happily as we sight the long patchwork skirt with the crosshairs.

>x sandals
The sort of sturdy comfortable sandals one can walk in for hours.

The monocle pings happily as we sight the leather sandals with the crosshairs.
 
>ask lena about slango
“You wouldn’t happen to have seen Slango about recently?” we ask.

“Slango?” she asks blankly, for all the world as though she’d had a lobotomy. “Is that a board game?”

I’m inclined to say who we are.

>tell lena who we are
“Lena, it’s Andra. And company. Maybe Slango mentioned that I was auditioning a new silent partner.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says. “But since you’re here, whoever you are, I wonder whether you’d like to have a look at some merchandise of mine that could use a spruce.”

Aha. She wants us to prove our identity; probably has contraband that needs concealing, and wants us to do the deed as proof of trustworthiness.

There’s a brief pause.

Lena goes off into a corner and rummages among the suspicious piles of books, and uncovers a box. “C’mere,” she says; and obediently I wander over to that area of the store, which incidentally happens to be tucked away and half-hidden by shelves.

“See here,” she says. “See what you can do with it, eh?”

>x box
It’s just a cardboard box in which some items of interest have been stored.

In the contraband box are some modems and some preamps.

Lena apparently wants our help getting them into a less identifiable format.

In my own playthrough Lena said the same thing about us having plenty of Origin Paste. But I didn’t have any at that point (because I couldn’t win the game yet). I’m definitely in easy mode, maybe I got a puzzle from the hard mode by accident.