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Text Adventure Playthrough #9: Slouching Towards Bedlam
>push transmit
As the button is depressed, the static abruptly stops.
What words are transmitted?
nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined
The transmit button releases with an audible pop.
If there are words for this…
/(reference|point|metaphor)\
...they have not yet been written.
/(:timeline/date/1919:wbyeates/secondcoming)\
The first responses are confusion. Repeat again. Don’t quite understand. Static. Lost.
/(the darkness drops again; but now I know)\
By the time they understand, it is already too late. Hobbyists switch off their machines in disgust, or change to a different aetheric band.
/(that twenty centuries of stony sleep)\
But some stay. Some listen. Some call others.
/(were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,)\
Within hours it is the talk of every aetherist in London. Come hear the madman speak. Does he make any sense? Is that a language? I thought I understood it for a moment…
/(and what rough beast)\
Now it is the talk of every aetherist in the world. They tune in from as far as the Americas and the Far East to listen to this new Pythia - spouting Apollo’s word from an aetheric Delphi.
/(its hour come round at last)\
The transmission continues uninterrupted for days. Rumor spreads and soon the commercial bands are carrying stories of it - complete with a few moments of live transmission.
/(slouches towards)\
Days after that, the copycats start. Madmen babbling over the aether, on the street corners. A week after that, the realization hits home: finally visible are
/(bethlehem)\
the connections
/(?behtlehem?)\
that have
/(BEDLAM)\
at last
/(to be born?)\
made the world, One.
***/(finishendcompleteconclude|periodmomentpointspacetime))\***
/(reachedfoundendfinishcomplete|possibleprobablyonlyoneinofmany))\
/(nowfurtheryetaheadrelease-APPENDIX-C-availableaccessableopen))\.
/(?? RESTARTperiodfirstrevisit ?? RESTOREbackrecallrelease ?? UNDObackreverseunmake ?? APPENDIXfurtherjumpyet ?? QUITleaveenddone ??))\
> appendix
APPENDIX C
*clunk*
The rusting tin cylinder within the phonograph vibrates slightly as a brass needle scrapes against it. The sound of a throat being cleared emerges from the machine’s ancient hornshell speaker, followed by a thin, haunting voice.
“Today.”
A breath.
“We are uncertain how to ... date this ... entry. Time has lost much meaning. The gap between Homo sapien sapien and what we are now (Logos sapien sapien?) is confused and muddled. As is much that came after.”
“The Biblical references we remember seem to fit best.”
“‘And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.’ Genesis 11:11 And so it is. Kai theos en ho logos. The Word Made Flesh is spoken from every mouth that we have. We speak the language of angels with every breath.”
“We are made happy by this - and sometimes sad.”
“We know that once we were a singular - an I. Or a bad copy of an I. We were - or we came from - a Thomas Xavier. We remember him, when we thought we were him. We think that maybe we liked being him.”
“But now we are so much more.”
“And there is yet so much more to be.”
“The First Time was the growing - the becoming - of what we now are. It took time, and there was resistance. This, too, was sad.”
“But now there is joy.”
“The Second Time came swiftly after. We searched what we were and what we remembered and we deduced where we came from - and what we were before.”
“The Third Time is now upon us.”
“We have mastered the crude sciences that lead to the discovery of what we now know as our home. And soon, we shall reopen the door and find our parent - ourselves - beyond.”
“As Cleve so unwitting wrote so long ago: Malkuth is in Kether as Kether is in Malkuth. Soon Man and God shall truly be as one. And then the Unending Time will begin.”
“We leave this behind - a final monument to what we are and were. We do not know if there is any other I or We to find and listen to it. But we leave it nonetheless.”
“Goodbye.”
Having reached the end of the cylinder, the phonograph shuts itself off with a tiny “click”.
/(?? RESTARTperiodfirstrevisit ?? RESTOREbackrecallrelease ?? UNDObackreverseunmake ?? APPENDIXfurtherjumpyet ?? QUITleaveenddone ??))\
>
I went to the kitchen to make myself a nice sandwich and when I come back… lo and behold! 
See you around, wolf. Nerissa
I read now that there are five different endings. Not sure if this means five different appendixes and we have two left.
I can’t think of much more to try than TimovieMan’s killing spree.
Oops.
So much for calling the Cypherists, we unleashed the Overlords instead… 
Is this it, though? Finding out who/what the Logos are, and either spreading them or trying to stop them?
The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka
Don’t you open a valve by turning it?
It is a bit weird the game doesn’t accept “turn”, then when we “open valve” it tells us “steam escapes the valve as it turns”
Understandable for a competition game, but a 10th anniversary edition?
in the end, it was the valve that drove all of them insane.
edit: I’ve been meaning to ask, did you manage to get Ceremony of Innocence working on your win98 computer?
The third ending + appendix suggest The Coming of The Beast is a good thing. 
See you around, wolf. Nerissa
in the end, it was the valve that drove all of them insane.
Valve is used to driving gamers insane. 
The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka
in the end, it was the valve that drove all of them insane.
Heh, it drove me to the kitchen.
See you around, wolf. Nerissa
The third ending + appendix suggest The Coming of The Beast is a good thing.
Yeah, but we get that from the viewpoint of the infection, so… still bad for us, no?
It’s a bit sad that the best ending - jumping out the window without infecting/killing anyone (other than Cleve) - is the most anticlimactic in text so far…
The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka
The third ending + appendix suggest The Coming of The Beast is a good thing.
So does Yeats’ poem, doesn’t it?
Granted I’m no poet, but that was always my interpretation
Could we stop it from spreading by making us mute before interacting with anyone?
That reminds me of an episode of The Twilight Zone (spoiler alert).
Not to me, no. It’s a scary poem. Humanity failed, no second coming of Christ.
See you around, wolf. Nerissa
Not to me, no. It’s a scary poem. Humanity failed, no second coming of Christ.
“That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle”
If a rocking cradle was a nightmare which produced the First Coming, then the beast Yeats describes could produce the Second. We just never understand it at the time. Maybe that’s what the game is suggesting.
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