You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
Sorry.
In that case: Pretend the lights are a 1980s Simon game
("Out of character"? Out of curiosity, what did you want to try?)
>Try crafting a rudimentary lathe out of garbage. This is a preposterous idea. You wouldn't know where to begin making a functional lathe, much less making one out of old cans and pizza boxes.
>Rock out WHOOOOO!
You just can't feel panicky when you know you're this awesome.
>It's a password that has to be typed in like a phone number. HEAPERS, or 4327377, The lights aren't visibly numbered, and there are only eight of them, but you figure it's worth a shot. You enter the code assuming the lights are numbered from left to right. While you are entering the code, you hear more thudding noises behind the door - seven thuds in total.
>Attempt to ascertain what is behind door, first by placing ear against door, then by knocking on the door and quickly placing ear against it again. The thudding stops shortly after you finish entering the code. You press your ear against the cold aluminium, but can hear nothing. You rap your knuckles against the door, which shakes a little and makes a clanging sound. You press your ear to the door again, but you still can't hear anything behind it.
>Grab the Pinkie Pie poster and bundle it with the other posters. On closer inspection, it's not a poster. The face is painted directly on a metal panel embedded in the wall. You can't grip it, but it looks like you might be able to prise it loose if you had something narrow enough to slide underneath it.
>Look in that box. You open the waterlogged cardboard box. It contains a pig skull.
>Declare yourself official ruler of this trash receptacle. You proclaim yourself the Supreme Empress of the Trash, and adopt a regal pose atop your throne, sceptre and orb in hands.
>Pretend the lights are a 1980s Simon game Sadly, the lights' resemblance to a game of Simon is mostly superficial. They don't play musical notes, and the segments can't be depressed individually because they're all stuck together. Still, you have fun pretending.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
((I made a stupid joke about myself being the ruler of this trash receptacle, then thought to delete it, but not before SL commented on it. Sorry about that.))
Tie the other rubber band around you wrist to free up an inventory spot. Then, take the pig's skull.
Pile garbage in front of the metal plate. Quickly look for a piece of thin but sturdy metal. Pry the metal plate off the wall in case there is something useful underneath.
>Ask the walls politely to cease and desist. You ask super politely, but for all the good it does you may as well be talking to, well, a wall.
>Tie the other rubber band around you wrist to free up an inventory spot. Then, take the pig's skull. You tie the band around your left wrist and put the PIG SKULL in your Inventory.
>Pile garbage in front of the metal plate. Quickly look for a piece of thin but sturdy metal. Pry the metal plate off the wall in case there is something useful underneath. The plate is thin and light, and a squashed tin proves sturdy enough for the task of removing it.
Remember back in the 50s when they'd record like Elvis singing YOU AIN'T NOTHIN BUT A HOUND DOG and then they'd turn the record over and reverse it and it was all NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP and people were all like, "That is actually the voice of Satan coming from that song."
>Flick the second switch up. You hear a faint rumbling sound. The walls continue to move inwards.
>Flick the first switch three times. When you flick the switch down, you hear another rumble, and the sludge starts to rapidly rise. When you flick the switch up again, there is another rumble, and the sludge stops rising. When you flick it down again, there is yet another rumble and the sludge begins to rise again. It is now up to your shoulders and still rising.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
>Flip the third switch down. You flip the switch. There is another rumbling sound, and the water in the room drains away.
Beneath your feet, you can hear running water. The walls continue to advance.
>Play Hot Cross Buns with the switches This strikes you as the perfect occasion to reminisce about learning to play the recorder in fourth grade, probably with more affection than you ever felt for those lessons at the time. You mentally assign to each of the three switches a note - 1 is B, 2 is A, 3 is G.
Each time you flip one of the switches, you hear a rumbling sound from somewhere beneath your feet. The rumble of the third switch sounds more distant than the others, but there is a significant echo. Additionally, when you first flip switch 1 to the up position, the sound of flowing water stops.
You flip switch 2 down. Beneath your feet, you hear a loud, echoing splash.
You flip switch 3 down and hear the sound of running water again, much more distantly this time.
You flip switch 1 down again and the much closer sound of running water starts up again.
You flip switch 2 up but hear no change in the sound.
When you flip switch 3 up again the echo of the water gets louder.
You rapidly flip switch 3 down, then up, then down, then up, then do the same with switch 2.
Then you flip switch 1 up again, and the sound of running water abruptly stops.
You flip switch 2 down and hear nothing apart from the rumble.
Finally, you flip switch 3 down and the more distant sound of running water resumes.
>Pray. You say a quick, desperate prayer. You experience no sudden burst of divine inspiration, but it helps you suppress any feelings of growing panic for now.
>Press all the switches and buttons to test their effects. You've tried all the switches now. You also already pressed all the lights, and this mostly produced only thudding noises. You suppose you could experiment more rigorously, but there's no longer sufficient time to be too slow and methodical; you are going to need to pick your actions carefully if you don't want to become a lot thinner very soon.
>Push light number eight, hoping that it will open the door. :D You are a little apprehensive about pushing the lowermost light again since the last time you touched it, during your game of pretend Simon, the walls started to close in, but you push it again anyway.
There is another thudding sound behind the door. The walls continue to close inwards.
You press all the lights in rapid succession. Behind the door, you hear eight thumping sounds. The aluminium door shakes and buckles, pressing against the trash heaped in front of it.
>Frantically smash the control board until something happens. You deal the control panel a savage thrashing with the pig femur, but it's a sturdy piece of equipment.
Nothing happens, but it feels kind of cathartic all the same.
>Flip the third switch up and tread water all the way out of the room! You flip the third switch up. There is a distant rumble and the sound of running water stops.
>Climb out via the ceiling. It's too high to climb!
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
Attempt to summon a magical unicorn to get you out of this predicament.
((Sorry guys, I fucked up; all the images from p=58 (">Press all the switches and buttons to test their effects.") onwards depicted switch 1 in the down position while the text said it was up. I've deleted and reuploaded all the images from that point onwards to accurately reflect the text, but if people think it's fairer I can reset the game to that point. Or we could carry on from where we are. What would you prefer?))
>Pile up all the trash in the room so you can climb out! You act fast, gathering up all the garbage you can carry. The door bulges towards you as you remove the garbage blocking it.
When you have piled up all the trash on one side of the room, however, it becomes apparent that this isn't going to work. Even balanced as precariously as it is, the trash pile isn't high enough to enable you to climb out of the pit, and it leans worryingly against the approaching wall. If you're not careful, you could wind up trapped under the garbage before the wall even reaches you.
>Get the fuck outta this room somehow so we can get on to something more interesting You close your eyes and go to your happy place.
Here, you can stuff your face with (sadly imaginary) sausage to your heart's content.
>Try to practice photosynthesis. You succeed, naturally, because you are the prettiest flower in the whole garden!
>Attempt to summon a magical unicorn to get you out of this predicament. "Hello Magical Unicorn!" you say. "Let's go on an adventure!"
"Of course, darling!" the magical unicorn replies. "Where would you like to go?"
((This was just supposed to be a bit of nonsense, but I'm actually really embarrassed that I fucked up my first attempt at a playable puzzle this badly. All switch images have now been correctly corrected to reflect the text; one error remains, which is that at the start of "hot cross buns," switch 3 got flipped down instead of up, but I can't change that without rewriting everything since, so pretend it got knocked or something. >_< From here, the puzzle should function as intended, and sorry.))
>SOVIET RUSSIA
>Out of your happy place because you need to inspect that drain on the floor!! You look down the drain, which is dark, but dimly lit by luminous fungi. It goes down a very long way, and you can't see the bottom. There is a series of ladder rungs going down the side. A short way down, the drain appears to widen. There is a ledge there which looks wide enough to stand on, and an open pipe entrance, over which you can see the painted numeral 2.
>Try to open the drain. If it opens, throw some garbage down the opening to see how far down it is and what is down there. You remove the cover easily and drop the metal plate down the drain.
You don't see it land, but you hear the distant, echoing clatter as it hits the bottom.
>Note your high Imagination stat. You never really thought about it in terms of stats before, but you guess you are pretty good at imagining things.
>Succumb to the fantasy of your happy place and gallop over the land in search of a castle!
>Brush your magical unicorn's pretty mane. She has the prettiest mane!
>Assess physical capability to explore the drain You would certainly hope you're strong enough to climb a ladder. Unfortunately, you're really not feeling your best right now. You're completely lost, you haven't had anything to eat or drink since you woke up, and the stench of garbage in this room is almost overpowering. Right now, your love of unicorns, your desperate craving for sausage, and your disinclination to be flattened by a huge garbage smasher are what's keeping you going. Those will get you down the drain, but it's surely only a matter of time before you run out of energy.
>attempt to get to the wide ledge The rails of the ladder are cold and slippery. You lower yourself carefully onto the ledge; it's really not all that wide.
>call upon latent spellcasting abilities You awaken as the last of a long line of otherworldly sorcerors, and call upon the dark powers of your magical ancestors: the Elders of Bgahbhahbhde, the Sons and Daughters of Vicissitude, and the Spiritual Sisterhood for Educating the Public and Advancing Research Towards the True Academic Study of Aphra Behn, Her Life and Works. Eldritch forces surge through your veins, and your fingertips tingle with arcane potential. Yes! With this power you are unstoppable!
Except none of that happened, because magic is fake as shit.
>Eat your unicorn. OM NOM NOM
By merging with the unicorn, you gain the strength and wisdom of this noble magical creature, and oh, dear Celestia. Darling, you look awful! Are these rubber bands? What were you thinking? And what has happened to your mane, you mean your coiffure, you mean your hair? And that baggy shirt is most unflattering. This just won't do!
>Imagine a giant pile of confectionery and eat it fir strength, happiness, calming affect and good luck. You gorge yourself on imaginary candy, which sadly doesn't taste nearly as good as real candy. It doesn't affect your real world strength, but it does calm your imaginary part-unicorn self down somewhat.
Dammit, now you made yourself hungrier.
>Murder your Unicorn in a metaphor for the destruction of your childlike innocence. You already ate your unicorn, so you imagine her again. You can't bring yourself to actually murder her, though. Quite apart from your imaginary part-unicorn self not wanting the blood on her hooves, you mean hands (metaphorically or literally), the idea of killing such a beautiful creature in your own happy place is genuinely unsettling, and is certainly not something your INNER CHILD would permit.
>Wonder what captain planet was actually a captain of. You never considered that before, but it's a good ques-
Hey! Who threw that?
>turn back time to undo the previous four actions and devour your mattress You go back in time, which is something you can do in your imagination, and devour your mattress, which is also something you can do in your imagination.
It tastes of marshmallows!
>Lick your arm and dream up a world made out of whatever it tastes like! You lick your arm, momentarily forgeting that, not too long ago, you were up to your neck in sewer water. The shock jolts you out of your happy place and back to cold reality, as your eyes begin to water.
You don't believe you've ever tasted anything that dreadful before. You imagine that if you were ever to lick the armpit of a decaying skunk that drowned in a septic tank filled with puke, it would taste kind of like that.
Accordingly, your fertile imagination dreams up the majestic Shitgardens of Stinkworld.
>ragequit. But fuck that.
>Ascend to godhood. You're already functionally omnipotent in your happy place, but the idea of actually being a deity is kind of hard to envision. What would that mean? How would it feel? Aren't gods supposed to be beyond mortal comprehension anyways? Your mind is racing, but alas, your current imagination levels are insufficient to produce a delusion quite that advanced.
Comments
>Try crafting a rudimentary lathe out of garbage.
This is a preposterous idea. You wouldn't know where to begin making a functional lathe, much less making one out of old cans and pizza boxes.
>Rock out
WHOOOOO!
You just can't feel panicky when you know you're this awesome.
>It's a password that has to be typed in like a phone number. HEAPERS, or 4327377,
The lights aren't visibly numbered, and there are only eight of them, but you figure it's worth a shot. You enter the code assuming the lights are numbered from left to right. While you are entering the code, you hear more thudding noises behind the door - seven thuds in total.
>Attempt to ascertain what is behind door, first by placing ear against door, then by knocking on the door and quickly placing ear against it again.
The thudding stops shortly after you finish entering the code. You press your ear against the cold aluminium, but can hear nothing. You rap your knuckles against the door, which shakes a little and makes a clanging sound. You press your ear to the door again, but you still can't hear anything behind it.
>Grab the Pinkie Pie poster and bundle it with the other posters.
On closer inspection, it's not a poster. The face is painted directly on a metal panel embedded in the wall. You can't grip it, but it looks like you might be able to prise it loose if you had something narrow enough to slide underneath it.
>Look in that box.
You open the waterlogged cardboard box. It contains a pig skull.
>Declare yourself official ruler of this trash receptacle.
You proclaim yourself the Supreme Empress of the Trash, and adopt a regal pose atop your throne, sceptre and orb in hands.
>Pretend the lights are a 1980s Simon game
Sadly, the lights' resemblance to a game of Simon is mostly superficial. They don't play musical notes, and the segments can't be depressed individually because they're all stuck together. Still, you have fun pretending.
At that moment, the walls begin to move inwards.
Pile garbage in front of the metal plate. Quickly look for a piece of thin but sturdy metal. Pry the metal plate off the wall in case there is something useful underneath.
>Ask the walls politely to cease and desist.
You ask super politely, but for all the good it does you may as well be talking to, well, a wall.
>Tie the other rubber band around you wrist to free up an inventory spot. Then, take the pig's skull.
You tie the band around your left wrist and put the PIG SKULL in your Inventory.
>Pile garbage in front of the metal plate. Quickly look for a piece of thin but sturdy metal. Pry the metal plate off the wall in case there is something useful underneath.
The plate is thin and light, and a squashed tin proves sturdy enough for the task of removing it.
Underneath the plate you find three switches.
You hear a faint rumbling sound. The walls continue to move inwards.
>Flick the first switch three times.
When you flick the switch down, you hear another rumble, and the sludge starts to rapidly rise. When you flick the switch up again, there is another rumble, and the sludge stops rising. When you flick it down again, there is yet another rumble and the sludge begins to rise again. It is now up to your shoulders and still rising.
Press all the switches and buttons to test their effects.
You flip the switch. There is another rumbling sound, and the water in the room drains away.
Beneath your feet, you can hear running water. The walls continue to advance.
>Play Hot Cross Buns with the switches
This strikes you as the perfect occasion to reminisce about learning to play the recorder in fourth grade, probably with more affection than you ever felt for those lessons at the time. You mentally assign to each of the three switches a note - 1 is B, 2 is A, 3 is G.
Each time you flip one of the switches, you hear a rumbling sound from somewhere beneath your feet. The rumble of the third switch sounds more distant than the others, but there is a significant echo. Additionally, when you first flip switch 1 to the up position, the sound of flowing water stops.
You flip switch 2 down. Beneath your feet, you hear a loud, echoing splash.
You flip switch 3 down and hear the sound of running water again, much more distantly this time.
You flip switch 1 down again and the much closer sound of running water starts up again.
You flip switch 2 up but hear no change in the sound.
When you flip switch 3 up again the echo of the water gets louder.
You rapidly flip switch 3 down, then up, then down, then up, then do the same with switch 2.
Then you flip switch 1 up again, and the sound of running water abruptly stops.
You flip switch 2 down and hear nothing apart from the rumble.
Finally, you flip switch 3 down and the more distant sound of running water resumes.
>Pray.
You say a quick, desperate prayer. You experience no sudden burst of divine inspiration, but it helps you suppress any feelings of growing panic for now.
>Press all the switches and buttons to test their effects.
You've tried all the switches now. You also already pressed all the lights, and this mostly produced only thudding noises. You suppose you could experiment more rigorously, but there's no longer sufficient time to be too slow and methodical; you are going to need to pick your actions carefully if you don't want to become a lot thinner very soon.
>Push light number eight, hoping that it will open the door. :D
You are a little apprehensive about pushing the lowermost light again since the last time you touched it, during your game of pretend Simon, the walls started to close in, but you push it again anyway.
There is another thudding sound behind the door. The walls continue to close inwards.
You press all the lights in rapid succession. Behind the door, you hear eight thumping sounds. The aluminium door shakes and buckles, pressing against the trash heaped in front of it.
>Frantically smash the control board until something happens.
You deal the control panel a savage thrashing with the pig femur, but it's a sturdy piece of equipment.
Nothing happens, but it feels kind of cathartic all the same.
>Flip the third switch up and tread water all the way out of the room!
You flip the third switch up. There is a distant rumble and the sound of running water stops.
>Climb out via the ceiling.
It's too high to climb!
>Try to practice photosynthesis.
>Pile up all the trash in the room so you can climb out!
You act fast, gathering up all the garbage you can carry. The door bulges towards you as you remove the garbage blocking it.
When you have piled up all the trash on one side of the room, however, it becomes apparent that this isn't going to work. Even balanced as precariously as it is, the trash pile isn't high enough to enable you to climb out of the pit, and it leans worryingly against the approaching wall. If you're not careful, you could wind up trapped under the garbage before the wall even reaches you.
>Get the fuck outta this room somehow so we can get on to something more interesting
You close your eyes and go to your happy place.
Here, you can stuff your face with (sadly imaginary) sausage to your heart's content.
>Try to practice photosynthesis.
You succeed, naturally, because you are the prettiest flower in the whole garden!
>Attempt to summon a magical unicorn to get you out of this predicament.
"Hello Magical Unicorn!" you say. "Let's go on an adventure!"
"Of course, darling!" the magical unicorn replies. "Where would you like to go?"
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
>SOVIET RUSSIA
>Out of your happy place because you need to inspect that drain on the floor!!
You look down the drain, which is dark, but dimly lit by luminous fungi. It goes down a very long way, and you can't see the bottom. There is a series of ladder rungs going down the side. A short way down, the drain appears to widen. There is a ledge there which looks wide enough to stand on, and an open pipe entrance, over which you can see the painted numeral 2.
>Try to open the drain. If it opens, throw some garbage down the opening to see how far down it is and what is down there.
You remove the cover easily and drop the metal plate down the drain.
You don't see it land, but you hear the distant, echoing clatter as it hits the bottom.
>Note your high Imagination stat.
You never really thought about it in terms of stats before, but you guess you are pretty good at imagining things.
>Succumb to the fantasy of your happy place and gallop over the land in search of a castle!
>Brush your magical unicorn's pretty mane.
She has the prettiest mane!
Snap back to reality
attempt to get to the wide ledge
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Oh there goes Rarity.
>Assess physical capability to explore the drain
You would certainly hope you're strong enough to climb a ladder. Unfortunately, you're really not feeling your best right now. You're completely lost, you haven't had anything to eat or drink since you woke up, and the stench of garbage in this room is almost overpowering. Right now, your love of unicorns, your desperate craving for sausage, and your disinclination to be flattened by a huge garbage smasher are what's keeping you going. Those will get you down the drain, but it's surely only a matter of time before you run out of energy.
>attempt to get to the wide ledge
The rails of the ladder are cold and slippery. You lower yourself carefully onto the ledge; it's really not all that wide.
>call upon latent spellcasting abilities
You awaken as the last of a long line of otherworldly sorcerors, and call upon the dark powers of your magical ancestors: the Elders of Bgahbhahbhde, the Sons and Daughters of Vicissitude, and the Spiritual Sisterhood for Educating the Public and Advancing Research Towards the True Academic Study of Aphra Behn, Her Life and Works. Eldritch forces surge through your veins, and your fingertips tingle with arcane potential. Yes! With this power you are unstoppable!
Except none of that happened, because magic is fake as shit.
>Eat your unicorn.
OM NOM NOM
By merging with the unicorn, you gain the strength and wisdom of this noble magical creature, and oh, dear Celestia. Darling, you look awful! Are these rubber bands? What were you thinking? And what has happened to your mane, you mean your coiffure, you mean your hair? And that baggy shirt is most unflattering. This just won't do!
>Imagine a giant pile of confectionery and eat it fir strength, happiness, calming affect and good luck.
You gorge yourself on imaginary candy, which sadly doesn't taste nearly as good as real candy. It doesn't affect your real world strength, but it does calm your imaginary part-unicorn self down somewhat.
Dammit, now you made yourself hungrier.
>Murder your Unicorn in a metaphor for the destruction of your childlike innocence.
You already ate your unicorn, so you imagine her again. You can't bring yourself to actually murder her, though. Quite apart from your imaginary part-unicorn self not wanting the blood on her hooves, you mean hands (metaphorically or literally), the idea of killing such a beautiful creature in your own happy place is genuinely unsettling, and is certainly not something your INNER CHILD would permit.
>Wonder what captain planet was actually a captain of.
You never considered that before, but it's a good ques-
Hey! Who threw that?
>turn back time to undo the previous four actions and devour your mattress
You go back in time, which is something you can do in your imagination, and devour your mattress, which is also something you can do in your imagination.
It tastes of marshmallows!
>Lick your arm and dream up a world made out of whatever it tastes like!
You lick your arm, momentarily forgeting that, not too long ago, you were up to your neck in sewer water. The shock jolts you out of your happy place and back to cold reality, as your eyes begin to water.
You don't believe you've ever tasted anything that dreadful before. You imagine that if you were ever to lick the armpit of a decaying skunk that drowned in a septic tank filled with puke, it would taste kind of like that.
Accordingly, your fertile imagination dreams up the majestic Shitgardens of Stinkworld.
>ragequit.
But fuck that.
>Ascend to godhood.
You're already functionally omnipotent in your happy place, but the idea of actually being a deity is kind of hard to envision. What would that mean? How would it feel? Aren't gods supposed to be beyond mortal comprehension anyways? Your mind is racing, but alas, your current imagination levels are insufficient to produce a delusion quite that advanced.