Yukari Quest - A Z-machine Adventure

[Kilgamayan]

> Hmm...
> Very, very lightly and quickly tap the bark of the tree with a finger. Whichever hand we didn't rootburn while grabbing our undergarments is preferable.

[Hello Purvis]

> Hmm...
> Very, very lightly and quickly tap the bark of the tree with a finger. Whichever hand we didn't rootburn while grabbing our undergarments is preferable.

>You lightly and briefly tap the bark with an unhurt finger. It does not hurt, and the bark feels rough and wooden.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> Are there any hand-size branch-hands within reach from the ground?
> Tap the tree again, letting our finger linger a little longer than the first time.

[Hello Purvis]

> Are there any hand-size branch-hands within reach from the ground?
> Tap the tree again, letting our finger linger a little longer than the first time.

>The branch hands seem to be larger than yours on the whole, particularly the ones that are reasonably close to the ground. The closest one is high enough you would have to jump to grab it.
>You tap the trunk again, holding your finger there for a bit. Nothing unpleasant happens, and the bark feels a bit dry under your touch.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> The closest one of all of them or just the closest of the slightly-bigger-than-hand-sized ones?

[Hello Purvis]

> The closest one of all of them or just the closest of the slightly-bigger-than-hand-sized ones?

>The closest of any; the first branches do not occur until about ten feet from the ground.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

Rats.

> Put our palm on the trunk of the tree, fingers splayed like the branches.

[Hello Purvis]

> Put our palm on the trunk of the tree, fingers splayed like the branches.

>You place your palm on the tree, and do not feel any unusual reaction.

>_

[O4rfish]

>Note relative location of trees. Imagine field from top-down perspective. Locate center tree.
>Alternatively, locate areas where pink bubbles are most/least prevalent.
At this point, if we don't have some good ideas, we should try bad ideas. Traveling far in a random direction; cutting down a tree; cutting through a root.

[Hello Purvis]

>Note relative location of trees. Imagine field from top-down perspective. Locate center tree.
>Alternatively, locate areas where pink bubbles are most/least prevalent.

>You really can't figure out where the center is, you aren't sure where the edges of this place is.
>There doesn't seem to be any one place where the pink motes are prevalent as a whole, but sometimes they seem to congregate at random places. You aren't sure if there's any pattern to it.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

I'm out of ideas for the time being. I think the hands thing is significant but I'm not sure what to do with it.

[O4rfish]

Wait a sec ...
>The branches on the trees are tapered and branch at a less-than-ninety-degree angle, right?
>Earlier, in The Cave, did the roots seem tapered? Did they branch only in a certain direction? like real roots yknow
>If so, examine a root here and try to find out where it comes from.

[Hello Purvis]

Wait a sec ...
>The branches on the trees are tapered and branch at a less-than-ninety-degree angle, right?
>Earlier, in The Cave, did the roots seem tapered? Did they branch only in a certain direction? like real roots yknow
>If so, examine a root here and try to find out where it comes from.

>This seems to be mostly true.
>The roots, as you saw them, never branched. You are not certain if this is because the point of branching was hidden beneath the rock and out of sight, or if they simply never branched at all. The ones you saw through the glass where you found your screwdriver did taper to long ends, like most roots you've seen.
>How do you intend to carry out this examination?

>_

[O4rfish]

>They didn't branch at all? How disturbing.
>Dig around the root with the rock and screwdriver enough to see which direction it tapers. Assuming it is thicker closer to the ... trunk or whatever, travel in that direction.

[Hello Purvis]

>They didn't branch at all? How disturbing.
>Dig around the root with the rock and screwdriver enough to see which direction it tapers. Assuming it is thicker closer to the ... trunk or whatever, travel in that direction.

>Not that you saw, for what little you saw of their length.
>You set to digging around the root. This process is slow and unpleasant; you do not want to touch the thing at all and you really don't want to be near it in the first place. The dirt, at least, is reasonably soft for being dry, and the feathery plants around it are not too hard to uproot. While your screwdriver is good at loosing up the dirt, it is not so good at excavating it, and your rock does not make a very good spade. Still, you manage to make some progress as minutes flow into tens of minutes.  The root turns out to thicker than you anticipated, easily thicker than many tree trunks. You estimate it is about three feet in diameter as you dig down around it. From what you are able to uncover, a couple feet or so of its length. it does not seem to taper any.  Nor does it seem to twist toward the tree at all, still running perpendicular to it.
>In the process, you have unearthed a fair amount of dirt, and uprooted 23 feathery plants.

>_

[O4rfish]

>Poke hole in root with spatula. Touch root with featherduster.

>Right-click on everything, examine properties, edit permissions.

[Kilgamayan]

> Pick up an unrooted flower and sniff it.

[Hello Purvis]

>Poke hole in root with spatula. Touch root with featherduster.

>Right-click on everything, examine properties, edit permissions.

>I will throw you down the well.

> Pick up an unrooted flower and sniff it.

>You pick up one of the plants and sniff at it. It gives off a faint, clean kind of odor, just barely noticeable; particularly with the smell of dirt in the air.

>_

[O4rfish]

>Poke hole in root with spatulascrewdriver. Touch root with featherdusterplant.

>Consider making clothing out of feather plants.

[Hello Purvis]

>Poke hole in root with spatulascrewdriver. Touch root with featherdusterplant.

>Consider making clothing out of feather plants.

>You could probably weave some decent mats out of these plants. You're not sure if they have the tensile strength to make clothing; nor would they be as comfortable as your blanket, but you could easily make mats and fire bundles out of them with enough time. Maybe a small raincloak or a straw hat as well.
>Taking the screwdriver in both hands, you raise it over your head and plunge it into the root as hard as you can. The tip pierces the bark, and sinks a couple of inches into the root. You feel a shock run through your body  that has nothing to do with the impact, causing you to shiver and feel uncomfortably cold in its wake. Wrenching it out, you can see the hole you made filling with a clear, thick liquid which bubbles over the edges of the hole. Tapping it with a feather plant doesn't seem to do anything.
>Your screwdriver now has some clear liquid on the end of it, which you do not like at all.

>_

[O4rfish]

OMG, we're playing Botanicula! This does not help us much, unless we find an acorn and a walnut.
>Are there any discarded branches anywhere?
>Plug the hole with a feather thing. Use some more feather things to wipe the gunk off our tool.
>Might as well start collecting feather plants. The first and most important article of clothing to make is of course the hat.

[Hello Purvis]

>Are there any discarded branches anywhere?
>Plug the hole with a feather thing. Use some more feather things to wipe the gunk off our tool.
>Might as well start collecting feather plants. The first and most important article of clothing to make is of course the hat.

>You have not seen any fallen branches.
>You jam the remains of a plant into the hole, which doesn't seem to do much to stymie the slow trickle of transparent ooze. Then you gingerly clean off your screwdriver with more uprooted plants.
>Looking around, it seems there are enough plants to be found that you can get a decent collection of them any place you decide to settle. Even with the gaps you feel you could make now, it would be a pain to transport a large number of them.

>_

[O4rfish]

>Gap powers eh ... can we close the gap in the root?

[Hello Purvis]

>Gap powers eh ... can we close the gap in the root?

>It's a little borderline, plants sort of straddle the complexities of typical living things and easily manipulable inert objects, but you think so. It would help if you had your pliers, but the job is small enough that you shouldn't have a problem with it, so far as you've seen. At the same time, you also barely understand what this is, and there may be complexities and issues you have yet to perceive.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> Could we see what was inside it when we made the hole, aside from the clear liquid?

[Hello Purvis]

> Could we see what was inside it when we made the hole, aside from the clear liquid?

>The interior, from what you glimpsed of it, was dark and grainy. There were textures but you were not able to get a good look at them. The liquid, though clear, is also opaque enough to obscure what you saw inside, and flooded out as you removed your screwdriver. Whatever you stabbed through certainly felt akin to wood.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> Very lightly dab the tip of our screwdriver to make sure we got all the liquid off.

[Hello Purvis]

> Very lightly dab the tip of our screwdriver to make sure we got all the liquid off.

>You carefully check the tip of your screwdriver, and find it is acceptably clean as far as you can tell.

>_

[Hello Purvis]

>You spend a bit of time reflecting on your situation. Two paths of action present themselves to you. One is to continue to explore this place, in hopes of finding a way home and a way to get back your tools. Another is to decide that you'll probably be spending some time here, and begin to gather supplies to keep yourself warm, less uncomfortable, and somewhat fed for the duration. You wouldn't be particularly surprised if you end up having to do both.
>This isn't the first time you've had to survive in the wild, but it is the first time you've had to do it in quite some time by your standards. Still, you feel confident you can start a fire with crude tools, weave if needs be, prepare just about any kind of food you can scavenge, and so on. If you could find some flint or another good stone for that purpose, you could also fashion some other tools to handle tasks beyond what a screwdriver could do. Considering the nature of that root, you'll also have to do your best to avoid being hurt, especially if you're going to be stuck here.
>Either way, you feel that remaining here likely won't satisfy either course. You suppose this place may make an adequate place to set up camp, though the tree and the root both may not make the best neighbors...

>_

[O4rfish]

>We are going to have to walk long distances, aren't we.
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=835
>First, we need to make a hat. Make hat out of feather plants.