Adventure Gamers - Forums

>turn on printer
That’s already on.

>turn on computer
That’s already on.

>x mailboxes
There are slots for all the professors and graduate students. Undergraduates, of course, are too insignificant to be assigned mailboxes, and are not allowed to have mail delivered to the department.

We did all that.

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

>x north office
(I only understood the first part of that — trying anyway. Retrying that as “x north”.)

We lack a key that fits Waterstone’s office door.

>open door
Which do you mean, 1) Higgate’s office door or 2) Waterstone’s office door?

>2
We lack a key that fits Waterstone’s office door.

Luhr28 - 26 March 2021 08:09 AM

Okay, I see now that you’ve removed all the navigation steps. I’d rather you left them in, but it’s up to everyone else of course.

It clearly said Language Studies Department Office. But your wish is my command.

Sorry Luhr, that was uncalled for.

>nw

Samuel Johnson Hall
This is the main building for Language Studies. The department office, with several professorial offices leading off of it, is to the southeast. To the southwest is the seminar room, where many of the upper-level courses occur, and which also contains the department library; downstairs is the basement, where the graduate students and junior instructors are kept.

On the wall hangs a framed photograph of Professor Waterstone, with the words SHAPLY CHAIR in big letters underneath.

>d

Samuel Johnson Basement
Dank and malodorous: there are no windows down here, and the drainage is terrible.

The stairs up are here; the lecture room at the east. Immediately south is the Graduate Student Office, and southwest is Professor Brown’s office. The most interesting of all is the small door west, trying to look inconspicuous, but locked with a keycard lock: it’s where the department stores its most dangerous licensed equipment. At the moment it stands invitingly open.

A large open carton stands against the wall right between Brown’s lab door and the Rectification Room. “Recycling,” reads the sign over the carton. “Place your lab-created items here for processing.” The large carton contains a jigsaw.

There is a continuous angry whine from the jigsaw.

>e

Lecture Hall (at the podium)
The main lecture hall used for large survey courses in language studies offered to undergraduates. I sat through courses here when I was an undergraduate myself, and have now delivered a few lectures as a teaching assistant.

The room extends south, full of hard wooden seats. Abandoned on one near the back is a coat.

A poster at the front of the room announces a conference on cultural reactions to linguistic change. It is being held in Nice the day after tomorrow, with Professor Waterstone as keynote speaker, on the topic of “homonym shame”. Somehow I had forgotten about the date of this: I’ve been too much worried about our escape.

>x poster
It’s the usual sort of thing: the conference title set in Papyrus font; a stock daguerreotype of a portly woman holding a letter-remover the size of a policeman’s cosh; inset pictures of the major speakers, with pride of place for Waterstone himself.

The monocle pings happily as we sight the conference poster with the crosshairs.

>x coat
It’s been abandoned here for a while, since this isn’t the time of year when people wear coats. It’s brown cloth, only thick enough to keep out rain or a mild chill, and it’s rubbed shiny at the elbows. No wonder the owner didn’t miss it much.

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

>get it

Lecture Hall (among the seats)
Many are the fine hours I have spent here dozing; and many are the students of mine who have done the same. The circle of life becomes complete.

The room extends north, full of hard wooden seats. Abandoned on one near the back is a coat.

Someone has taped to the wall a course advertisement for next quarter, inviting interested undergraduates to enroll in Interlingua 101. Probably Professor Higgate’s work.

We get the coat.

>x seats
Ingeniously uncomfortable.

The monocle pings happily as we sight the wooden seats with the crosshairs.

>wave t-remover at poster
We reset the device to t. The conference poster flickers and there is a brief image of a conference poser in its place, but a legal override kicks in: a T-remover is hardware-crippled to prevent generating any living creature.

>wave o-remover at coat
We reset the devic>wave o-remover at coate to o. The coat flickers and there is a brief image of a cat in its place, but a legal override kicks in: an O-remover is hardware-crippled to prevent generating any living creature.

>wave a-remover at coat
We reset the device to a. There is a flash of canary light, and the coat turns into a cot. A portable bed, made up for sleeping.

There is a dismissive blatt from the monocle, and transposed over the cot is a faint, greenish image of a coat.

The cot is too awkward for us to carry, and falls onto the floor.

Something makes you think of how it started with Brock.

>remember how it started with Brock
Café, Marseilles
Brock was scowling into his drink. “I don’t know, Andra. Are you going to flip on me again if we try to be together? I’m not blaming you for your parents, and… honestly, I’m surprised how much you’ve been able to assemble yourself into someone new. But jeezus.”

“What happened to your thing about how everyone goes through life hurting everyone else a little bit, like radiation?” you asked. “But mostly people heal, and it’s worth it?”

“Yeah, that’s true,” he said. “But you still don’t go into the reactor core with no suit, if you see what I mean.”

You tilted your head. “You weathered it pretty well when you and Annalisa split up.”

He swirled the melted ice in the bottom of his glass. “Is this what you’re fishing for?” he said. “For me to tell you you’re special, you’re different, I care about you more and therefore it would ruin everything if we ever broke up?”

You didn’t answer.

“It would ruin everything,” he says. “Because you’re on my crew. But as to the girlfriend thing, I have no idea. We don’t know each other that way.”

Then we’re back in the present.

>i
We are equipped with the following essentials: your A-remover (upgraded to handle abstracts), a backpack, a flash drive, a monocle, some Origin Paste, a pan (really the smuggled plans in disguise), a roll, and a tub of restoration gel.

We are also carrying some ale, an as, some asparagus, a ball, a banana, a band, a pair of Britishizing goggles, a clock, a cross, a crumpled cocktail napkin, a funnel, Guidebook to Anglophone Atlantis, a jotter, Journal of Third-World Economics, a keycard (which opens the small door), a leaflet, a letter, lime, a map of Slangovia, some members, a pearl, a pic, a poppy, a ring (which opens the sturdy iron gate), a shopping bag, a shrimp tail, a silver platter, a sticky, Studies in Primary Language Acquisition, a stuffed octopus, a watch, a wig, a word, and a yam.

Of that collection, the flash drive, the leaflet, and the Origin Paste are packed away in the backpack, which is gaping wide open so everyone can see what’s inside.

We are wearing the ring (which opens the sturdy iron gate) and the monocle.

giom - 26 March 2021 01:06 PM

I guess we should maybe look at each item in the inventory with the monocle to find out if there’s an item that was originally something else and then see if we can do something with that? But that’s a lot of work for you karlok.

I’ll make a list of the ones that were something else and leave the rest out.

Otherwise, I think we visited all locations pretty much so far?

We haven’t been to the public part of the Bureau, to the Customs House and to the outdoor cafe. The Bureau is essential, at least I think it is. Don’t know about the other two, although I’ve been there in my own playthrough.

>x ale
A delicious nutbrown ale in a cool glass.

There is a dismissive blatt from the monocle, and transposed over the ale is a faint, greenish image of an apple.

>x as
A Roman coin of very low denomination. It is made of copper and has the letters S C stamped on one side.

There is a dismissive blatt from the monocle, and transposed over the as is a faint, greenish image of a pastis.

>x banana
Just beginning to get brown and spotty.

There is a dismissive blatt from the monocle, and transposed over the banana is a faint, unappetizing image of a bandana.

>x keycard
An electronic pass card with a powerful-looking stripe down the back side.

The keycard unlocks the small door.

There is a dismissive blatt from the monocle, and transposed over the keycard is a faint, greenish image of a key and a card.

>x lime
A heap of dry chalky powder.

There is a dismissive blatt from the monocle, and transposed over lime is a faint, greenish image of a lime.

>x pic
It’s a snapshot of a happy family visiting Typo Land Funfair, the closest thing Anglophone Atlantis has to an amusement park.

There is a dismissive blatt from the monocle, and transposed over the pic is a faint, greenish image of a piece.

>x watch
An (apparently) valuable watch with diamonds set in the face.

There is a dismissive blatt from the monocle, and transposed over the watch is a faint, greenish image of a swatch.

>x wig
A surprisingly realistic wig, cut to about the shoulder. It looks like our hair, but a good bit longer.

There is a dismissive blatt from the monocle, and transposed over the wig is a faint, greenish image of a twig.

>x word
At the moment, the word is “a”, floating about in unimaginative Times lettering.

There is a dismissive blatt from the monocle, and transposed over the word is a faint, greenish image of a sword.

>use gel on as
We dip out a fingertip-coating quantity of gel and rub it gently onto the as. With an audible SPLORT, the as becomes a pastis. An anise-flavored liqueur. It’s an acquired taste, but now that I’ve acquired it, I like to exercise the acquisition as frequently as possible. You may not be as big a fan, for which I apologize in advance.

>wave i-remover at pastis
We reset the device to i. There is a pink cloud, and the pastis turns into some pasts. It looks from the side like a shard of glass, but seen straight on, it captures previous events. At the moment it is replaying us going north.

There is a dismissive blatt from the monocle, and transposed over the pasts is a faint, greenish image of a pastis.

>wave t-remover at pasts
We reset the device to t. There is a flash of psychedelic colors, and the pasts turn into a pass. A Bureau of Orthography visiting pass, a very valuable commodity in these parts. Forging one is grounds for imprisonment. There is a picture on the front that looks more or less like us, though with considerably more hair.

There is a dismissive blatt from the monocle, and transposed over the pass is a faint, greenish image of a pastis.

>go to language studies seminar room
We make the walk.

Language Studies Seminar Room
They recently redid this room, and whoever picked the decorations had postmodern tastes.

The bookshelves lining the walls contain the department library. There are The Problem of Adjectives, History of the Standards Revolution, and Lives of the Lexicographers on the bookshelf.

A massive plexiglas case takes up one corner of the room. In the plexiglas case is a compact but high-powered late model synthesizer.

The big table at the center of the room is an irregular polygon, with one chair pushed up to the shortest side.

For safety, I shut the door behind us.

>put pass in synthesizer
We put the pass into the synthesizer.

>put word in synthesizer
We put the word into the synthesizer.

>turn on synthesizer
The synthesizer hums like a microwave oven for 43 seconds, then pings. Inside there is a password.

A glowing series of numbers and figures in the air, which changes and flickers now and then. Probably responding to its surroundings. It seems unstable just now.

There is a dismissive blatt from the monocle, and transposed over the password is a faint, greenish image of a pass and a word.

>get password
We acquire the password.

>ne
We open the seminar door.

Samuel Johnson Hall
This is the main building for Language Studies. The department office, with several professorial offices leading off of it, is to the southeast. To the southwest is the seminar room, where many of the upper-level courses occur, and which also contains the department library; downstairs is the basement, where the graduate students and junior instructors are kept.

On the wall hangs a framed photograph of Professor Waterstone, with the words SHAPLY CHAIR in big letters underneath.

>d

Samuel Johnson Basement
Dank and malodorous: there are no windows down here, and the drainage is terrible.

The stairs up are here; the lecture room at the east. Immediately south is the Graduate Student Office, and southwest is Professor Brown’s office. The most interesting of all is the small door west, trying to look inconspicuous, but locked with a keycard lock: it’s where the department stores its most dangerous licensed equipment. At the moment it stands invitingly open.

A large open carton stands against the wall right between Brown’s lab door and the Rectification Room. “Recycling,” reads the sign over the carton. “Place your lab-created items here for processing.” There is a jigsaw in the large carton.

There is a continuous angry whine from the jigsaw.

>w

Rectification Room
This is where equipment is brought for a tune-up, or to have its legal limits reinstalled (or, on rare occasions, removed). Access to these abilities is tightly controlled by the Bureau.

The reclamation machine stands near the door, ready to improve forbidden objects for the use of registered departmental users.

>type password
We carefully key in “4tsaj39nbtz”. The password field vanishes.

At the top of the screen is the message STATUS: REMOVING LEGAL LIMITS ON ANIMAL-CREATION.

The following options are visible on the screen:

1: RESTORE ABSTRACTION LIMITS
2: REMOVE ABSTRACTION LIMITS
3: RESTORE ANIMAL-CREATION LIMITS
4: REMOVE ANIMAL-CREATION LIMITS
5: QUIT

The monocle pings happily as we sight the reclamations operation program with the crosshairs.