Forty Versions

Sredni Vashtar

You awaken in darkness.

(Read this.)

Obā-san

open eyes and sit up if possible

Sredni Vashtar

It is about equally dark regardless of whether your eyes are open or closed. You find this disconcerting.

You cannot sit up very well, as the ceiling to this chamber is very low. Is this a coffin, perhaps? The notion disquiets you.

Odradek

Feel your surroundings.

Obā-san

flail arms and legs all about

^ i guess this is more sensible

Sredni Vashtar

Initially, you flail and shake a bit in frustration, but you quickly realise that it would be more helpful to feel your surroundings carefully.

You are in a very small chamber lined with some kind of felt or velvet, although it is more like that of lamb's ear leaves than fabric. The chamber is a bit too spacious to be any normal sort of coffin, although the basic proportions are the same. To your right is a slim wooden case. Above you, the top—the lid?—is hinged, and below you can be felt the edges of a small door of some sort.

Obā-san

push on the lid. if it doesn't open, try the door underneath

Yarrun XIX

What Naney said.

Sredni Vashtar

The lid is quite heavy, but after a bit of pushing it gives up and away.

You are splashed with many large droplets of water.

Miss Miko Mayonegg

Feel your own body.

Sredni Vashtar

It suddenly strikes you that you are not sure what you are wearing, although you are certainly wearing something. On closer examination, you are wearing a rather old-fashioned suit. Where would you even buy this sort of thing? You cannot see the colours well in the dimness of the light, but the fabric is soft and the patterns are complex—some kind of paisley, maybe, but very fine. It darkens with the rain, and you begin to feel rather cold.

You are well aware of your body: Tall, youngish, gangly. Your physical sex has never really mattered to you. You know these things, but not much else comes to mind. Who are you, anyway?

Also, your hair is closely cropped. You are sure that it was longer before.

But perhaps the pounding rain is more important, and the outside...

Odradek

Look around for shelter(other than the box)

Obā-san

also try to take box with you, failing that, try flipping it over

Sredni Vashtar

You realise very quickly that the enormous box is probably your only chance at finding shelter much of anywhere: You are, insofar as you can see, floating in the middle of a vast ocean. The waves are relatively gentle, and there is not too much wind, but the rain is quite heavy. You are fairly sure that it is night here, although the dim glow of the sky and the distant flashes of lightning—thankfully increasingly distant!—provide you with enough light to at least see.

The other door puzzles you, however.

Salix Babylonika

Idly ponder the first xkcd strip.

Sredni Vashtar

"I wonder where I'll float next?"

An important question to ponder. But more importantly: What is there to do now?

Yarrun XIX

Investigate the other door

Sredni Vashtar

You examine the door beneath you.

In many respects, it is the perfect little hidden attic door: Covered with the same velvet substance as the rest of the box's interior, as if with wallpaper; with inward-facing hinges so as to open inward, or in this case downward; and instead of a knob, possessed of one of those little rings that pops out and turns to open it.

No sounds of the sea come from beneath it.

Yarrun XIX

Assume that it is some sort of magical door leading to another dimension.

Sredni Vashtar

Given the circumstances, it seems that the only logical conclusion is that the door does not lead into the sea, but to... somewhere else.

You are unsure of what to do with this information. Should you open the door and take what may come? Would it be more polite to knock? Why does politeness come into the equation? Why shouldn't it? Why so many questions when your nice debatably new waistcoat is getting soaked and your back is getting cold? And what about that waistcoat, and that box...?

Yarrun XIX

Close one door and open another.

Sredni Vashtar

You close the lid and open the door...

Beyond is a dim, low and narrow corridor, leading down. Or what should be down, but is rather forward.

Yarrun XIX

Put a limb through the door, testing to see if there's a change in gravity.

Sredni Vashtar

You step forward tentatively.

The floor of the corridor is the direction of gravity. It is a curious sensation.

MetaFour

Walk forward, cautiously.

Sredni Vashtar

After a moment's hesitation, you grab the case and proceed carefully down the corridor. It appears to be a passage within a wooden building, perhaps a large house, office or ship, panelled darkly with a thick carpet in very dark red. Every two yards or so, a small sconce with an oil lamp projects from one or the other wall, alternating. Far along, there seem to be doors on either side, opposite lamps. After a certain distance, the lamps go out, obscuring the end of the hall... assuming that there is one, which is in question.

Yarrun XIX

Run headlong into the unknown.

Sredni Vashtar

You proceed to walk a very long distance, past the doors and into the dark part of the hall. In the darkness, you begin to feel a bit anxious: Anything could be just outside of your field of vision, which is currently small to non-existent. Your feet still thud along the carpet, but there are sounds in the distance, far further away than would be afforded by the space of the corridor, like the ticking of a faraway clock.

You really wish that you had some matches or—

Wait. Do you?

MetaFour

Even better, you have a Zippo lighter. On which you personally engraved the artwork from your favorite album by your favorite band.

Sredni Vashtar

...well, you wish that you did. But that would require that you remember what sort of music you like, and that currently eludes you.

You hum something to yourself that has popped into your head. It is in a major key, but with chromatic aspects. You are not sure how you know this, but you do. And apparently you have pretty good pitch, too! It soothes you a little.

You place the case down at your feet and begin to hunt through the pockets of your suit, of which there are a surprising number. You find an array of peculiar objects, none of which you can see, including a box of matches.

Obā-san

place the objects on the ground in front of you and view them with a lighted match

Sredni Vashtar

You have found the following in your pockets:

- A small fountain pen and two minute bottles of ink, one black, one red-gold.

- A little jewel box containing what might be an opal.

- A rather formidable-looking flip knife.

- A "church key" bottle opener.

- A large coin of whitish-yellow metal, engraved in an alphabet that you cannot read.

- A few smaller silvery coins in the same tongue with a gryphon insignia.

- A pocket-sized copy of a book that might be in French.

Tachyon

place the items back in your pockets

you can examine the book later once you get somewhere lighter; for now, matches are precious

Obā-san

keep the knife in your hand

Sredni Vashtar

You return most of the items to your pockets for later examination, but keep the knife in your hand. The case poses an issue, though: You want to keep it with you and at least give it a once-over, but carrying it with both hands occupied is a problem and you are not sure that you want to put away either the knife or the match—which is one of the longer sorts, and so has not burned out yet, thankfully.

There is also the matter of the ticking noise, and generally moving along. You are beginning to get annoyed at the proliferation of unanswered questions.

Obā-san

walk towards the closest sound, taking note of your surroundings

Tachyon

you're inside, so you don't need the shelter the case provides anymore

double back and leave it under one of the oillamps, so that you can find it again if you need it

take the case back to the last oillamp and open it

just leave it for now, you need the match and the knife

Sredni Vashtar

You strongly consider bringing the case back to the nearest oil lamp, but that is quite far away and trying to move that quickly either in the dark or unarmed seems ill-advised. So instead, you leave it as a landmark. After all, what else is there to look for?

You turn towards the closest noise and begin to walk toward it. Quite quickly, you notice that the quality of your footsteps has changed: You are walking on marble. This surprises you a little. The corridor seems to have opened up at some point. But where?

And could something hear you?

Tachyon

find a wall and follow it

Sredni Vashtar

This is your immediate instinct, but there seem to be no walls nearby. This room is very large indeed. There is, however, something very large and pale ahead of you. A column, you think.

Tachyon

poke it

Sredni Vashtar

It is marble. Cold, luminous, very hard. You poked it with too much force. Your finger kind of hurts now.

Section42L

inspect it

Sredni Vashtar

You look the column up and down. It is sparely designed and perfectly radially symmetrical. It is also quite tall. You pay so much attention to examining the column that you almost trip over the marble balustrade just on the other side of it, which you did not notice because you were spending so much time staring at the damned column.

Although to be fair, you think, it is pretty weird and very big.

Section42L

touch the balustrade

Sredni Vashtar

It is the same marble as the floor and column. The design strikes you as faintly Roman, but you are not especially well-acquainted with architecture.

Tachyon

can you see the top of the column?

Sredni Vashtar

During your time spent staring at the very big, weird column, you noticed that it seemed to end after a certain distance, perhaps joining with some sort of roof, but it was quite a ways up. Seeing as you are unable to see any sort of sky up there, you think that it is fair to assume that you are either in a very big, weird room or in deep space. Neither is especially unlikely.

Tachyon

look around

if you can see what might be the ceiling, is there anything else in view?

Sredni Vashtar

Behind and above you, there is little to see: The floor leading back to the carpeted path and the case, the column, void. Beyond the balustrade similarly little can be seen, but you do hear the ticking noise from below...

Section42L

try to figure out where the noise is coming from