Notail Simulator Beta (4/4)

"We should follow the E-classes going to the area with the bones. That might be fun. =3"
"I don't know if bones equals fun but sure. >=3"

You and Tiger kid start following the group, but you start to lag behind.

You get distracted by the green liquid. You quickly grab a bone, one that's oddly more fresh than most of the other bones you've encountered so far, and dip it into the liquid.

It's very thin like water. You study the bone while still keeping a fair distance away from the others. Tiger kid has struck up a conversation with the others. An unintended distraction.

The bone shows no damage to it. It's at least not some acid that's for sure.

It wouldn't hurt.

It wouldn't hurt to drink some of it.

You get on your knees at one of the numerous puddles everywhere and pull back your face. You dip your hands into it, collecting a fair bit.

You hear the group stop, and you consider rethinking what you're doing, but it's far too late. You drink the liquid in your hand.

It's oddly disappointing. It just tastes like water, and yet once you finish drinking everything that was in your hand, you immediately dip your hand back in.

Someone pulls you by the back of your shirt and the water you held falls to the ground. It's one of the other E-classes.

"We were told not to drink that E-2732! xuo"
"It's ok; it's just water. =3"

"Green water! xuo"
"Mmhmm! =3"
"From the ground! xuo"
"Uh huh! =3"
"That's been in here for Neo blessing how long! xuo"
"That's the one! =3"

The E-class rubs their face.

"Well, I guess you are ok. xuo"
"D-Do you think that means it's ok to drink the water. :V"
"Yes. xuo"
"Ok well, I'm just going to-"
"No! No, wait! Do NOT drink it! Just because it's safe to drink the water doesn't mean you should. We have clean water! xuo"
"Alright. I won't..... :V"

You pull your face back down and get up. You feel a headache coming on, but you suspect that's only because of how loudly the one E-class can yell. After they look you over a few times to make sure you're ok they tell you to walk in front of them. You're handed one of the flashlights and shrug, whatever; you're ok with this you guess.

You sweep the flashlight back and forth. There's nothing of note other than even more bones ahead of you.

You blink.

===================




Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die. A 6 is rolled.

You're laying on your back.

Why are you laying on your back?

You shoot up while reaching for your fallen flashlight, believing that you somehow slipped and fell.

You can't find the flashlight.

You're not in the temple. You don't know where you are. The room is clean and sterile. A medical room. This was definitely a medical room. You hop out of bed, feeling just fine. There's a mirror in the room which you peer into, you nothing seems amiss. Opening the door, you exit the room and head into the lobby where no one else is around. You leave the small building. It's quite dark outside, and only a few kids are lingering about. One of them cocks their head to the side as you exit before realizing something.

"Oh! Don't move! Just head back inside, I'll get the doctor. :V"

You remember that E-class from what felt like just minutes ago. You're confused about what happened, so you head back to your room.

It took far longer than you thought it would but finally, a few people entered the room.

"E-2732! Are you back to normal? >=3"
"What happened? I remember being in the temple and now I'm suddenly here. =3"
"Oh geez. That happened nearly a year ago.... >=3"
"What. =3"

E-4 leans against the door and folds their arms.
"You drank pesticide. <:)"
"Pesticide. =3"
"Pesticide. <:)"
"Pesticide. =3"
"Pesticide. <:)"
"Pesticide. =3"
"Now you're just doing this for fun. <:)"

"What do you mean I drank pesticide? =3"
"You.....drank pesticide. I had my suspicions that the green water was actually pesticide when I came across a giant lake just covered with the corpses of insects, but no one told me you drank it. <:)"

"Have I been in recovery for a whole year? =3"
"No, you actually became second in command. <:)"
"You were so friendly and helpful towards everyone. >=3"
"You saved us from...whatever was that thing we saw in the temple. xuo"
"You were amazing. :V"

"But about four months ago you started acting, weirder than you did when you started changing. <:)"
"How so? =3"
"Oh you know, you started eating animals. <:)"
"That's not a bad thing. =3"
"Raw. xuo"
"Ok, that's pretty bad. =3"

"You really lost your sense of self-preservation. I had to stop you from doing really dangerous things. >=3"
"You just got really weird. We sort of watched you degrade for about three months before going, I guess we should take you to a doctor. We were asked when you started acting up, and someone said you drank what I told you not to. <:)"

"I guess we should have mentioned that the day it happened, but we weren't thinking about it after the stuff that happened in the temple. >=3"
"And that's why none of you are second in command. <:)"

This was a lot of info to take in.

"Where's my stuff? =3"
"Oh, I'll go get it for you E-2732. I've been keeping it safe. >=3"

The adult S-class who looks frankly extremely annoyed to have been woken up for this enters the room just about the same time Tiger kid gets back. While Tiger kid takes out some of his stuff, he stored in your bag the S-class flips through your notes before stating in a monotoned manner,

"You're E-2732, right? B}"
"That's me. =3"
"Right, so due to the consumption of pesticides we had to replace your antennas so, please allow a few months for them to adjust. B}"
"New ante-"

"You also have a mutation that unfortunately is now permanent. You have to visit a doctor each year to file down your horns least they fuse to your antennas. While this-"
"I have hor-"

The S-class gets more annoyed and speaks louder so you can't edge a question in.

"While this won't affect how they function, once they fuse you will be unable to file them back down without having to rip out your antenna's which will be extremely unpleasant for everyone involved. B}"
"So who do I-"

"Lastly considering it did take a whole year for this to be reported it was not very easy to remove your affected antennas without some minor damage to the brain. B}"
"Minor bra-"

"Now this shouldn't affect you too deeply, but you will have some motor skill issues. Working on your motor skills, maybe even some possible therapy once you get out of the woods should be able to return you to a fair state. I will admit I'm actually not sure if this is caused by the replacement as your files from your village do state "motor skills extremely lacking." so it's possible nothing has changed at all. B}"
"But-"

"Anyway, make sure to get out of this room by morning. I don't have anyone else who needs it, but I don't want you here unless you're injured. Goodbye and good night. B}"

And just like that, she was gone.

"I...m-missed a w-whole year of my life. =3"

Tiger kid hands you your bag.

"You have ten whole knives in there. Even when the pesticides were messing with your brain, you didn't stop collecting them. >=3"
"Oh, nice. I'm ok with this now. =3"

You start pulling out every single one of your knives.

"E-2732 please don't do this. <:)"

You put every single one of your knives in your hands at once. You can barely hold them all.

"These are some beautiful knives. =3"
"Do you have to hold all of them at once like that? <:)"
"Yes. =3"
"But why? <:)"

You point both handfuls of knives at E-4.

"Are you going to stop me? =3"
"Fair point. <:)"

======================

In the morning the E-classes gather you up. There surprisingly isn't many of them there. You had many questions, and the S-class seemed too busy, or just generally uncaring to answer them for you, so you asked the group hoping they would know more as they picked up supplies at a store.

"Why would pesticide make me act weird? =3"
"We have no idea! My tailmic ended up drinking tons of it when I wasn't paying attention, and it didn't kill it. Just look at this! :V"

The E-class runs out before calling her tailmic over for you to look at.

"She's got stripes, and she's got spikes. =3"
"She's much cooler looking now, though she has changed in personality a bit. Very strange pesticide indeed. :V"

"I saw a lake of dead insects, so we know for sure it works, it just didn't work on this tailmic. Maybe it has some sort of fail rate. It's not worth wondering about it too deeply about it right now. We're planning on heading to the temple next year with a few more people. I know there has to be better artifacts than the one I got deeper inside, but we had to leave in a hurry due to, some....monster I guess. We'll be more prepared to fight it if need be later. <:)"

"I also wouldn't mind knowing why that place needed so much pesticide. Insects jumped and flew to their deaths over the stuff. <:)"
"They must have been really entomophobic. >=3"

"I'm not over exaggerating when I said I saw a lake of the stuff. That temple is so much bigger than we thought it was. As long as we can make sure people don't drink any liquids, we'll be able to gather so much from it. I think informing people that the delicious looking liquid they want to drink is pesticide may dissuade them from it. <:)"

"Anyway E-2732, it's likely you won't be second in command anymore, considering you were under the effects of pesticide when you did all those things. If you're still interested in attempting, you can follow me for the end of winter and spring. Else just make sure you get back to this location by the start of summer. <:)"

E-4 marks down where they'll be by the start of summer. It seems while you were out the group traveled quite a bit.

SpoilerShow

If you don't follow E-4 you can only move 3 spaces. Our speed is abysmal.

> Let's inch our 3-space carcass over to the closest tower! We should probably work on our motor skills on the way.

Huh. That went... Different, than expected.
I.... I guess we're even with E-4 now?
Still don't like them, but they did get us out of our self-induced haze.
Feeling fully neutral to tiger kid at this point.
Lessee.. Don't suppose we could charisma our group leader into having our route visit a tower or two? We did get a kickin bug-killin knife from the first tower, could be somethin good if we get the set.

>Let's not follow E-4 and go to the nearest tower! Passing the anomaly land, of course.
>Maybe teach a few tricks to Slithers and the masks!
>Pratice with your new knife collection, you might be slow so you need to catch-up with it.

let's go with e-4 and try to get our second-in-command position back!

then let's try to charisma them into letting us go to the towers. they want to explore new stuff, well, let's just say that we think something weird is up with these things and we want to learn more

Convince E-4 to check out the cool towers!

>Follow E-4.
> Charisma check: See if E-4 is willing to stop at one of the towers...
> Do some a lot of physical therapy to try and make up for lost co-ordination.

let's go with e-4 and try to get our second-in-command position back!

then let's try to charisma them into letting us go to the towers. they want to explore new stuff, well, let's just say that we think something weird is up with these things and we want to learn more

I second this

well damn
>whatever you end up doing, talk to Tiger kid while you travel about what happened in the past year. That's a lot of time to miss out on. Maybe you can remember some of it if you try?
Also if we move so slowly, can't we just travel on Slithers like before?

let's go with e-4 and try to get our second-in-command position back!

then let's try to charisma them into letting us go to the towers. they want to explore new stuff, well, let's just say that we think something weird is up with these things and we want to learn more

THIRDED

"I'll come with you, but you have to come with me to one of the nearby towers! =3"
"I'm not sure I want to check out those towers. There's really nothing interesting about them, E-2732. <:)"

You pull out a dagger and point it at E-4. They put their hands up, believing that you were about to threaten them for not agreeing with what you wanted. You wiggle it a bit.

"Look, I got this cool knife from the last tower. You like artifacts right? Well, I bet you there are others on all of the towers. That'll get us some points. =3"

E-4 sighs and lowers their hands now that they know they're in no danger. They weren't going to agree to head to the nearest tower, but they had to admit, you were relatively charming, and the way you used your words made them consider it worth it.

That or it was the knife.

It might have been both.

"Fine. We'll go to the nearest tower, E-2732. Me, you, E-31 and F-1947. That's a big enough group for this. I hope you're right about this E-2732, or I'm going to be deeply disappointed. Getting as many artifacts as possible before we leave is extremely important to me. <:)"
"Don't worry; we still have five years. That's enough time. =3"
"Four years. <:)"
"Oh right, the pesticide. =3"

E-4 wanted to take the north-west path to avoid the cursed zone to the north, but you've been to the cursed zone before and talk E-4 that it was perfectly safe and that you knew a shortcut. E-4 was more than a little apprehensive about it, but yet again, you convinced them to follow.

All of you got onto Slithers who treaded the waters of the cursed zone. As soon as you spotted the "looping" point you told Slithers to take that instead of going through the whole circle and risking meeting up with the large anomaly who almost separated you from Slithers forever. Slithers wasn't happy about swimming against the current, but this was the best way to do it.

"Your capture creature is awe-inspiring E-2732. I heard you battled this creature one on one to tame it. <:)"
"I didn't battle it one on one my fr-"
"Your? <:)"
"A person I knew and his capture creature helped as well. =3"

"Hey, where's your capture creature, huh? =3"
"I have no need for a capture creature. In fact, you might say that everyone in my swarm is my capture creature. I hand out orders, and you all listen to me. As such I have yet to have any reason to have a permanent capture creature. I do just fine without one. <:)"
"It's ok you can admit your capture creature died and you haven't caught another one yet. =3"

E-4 fumes.

Everyone was kind of hoping that you would climb the tower alone and bring back down what you found, but after drawing straws lucky E-31 got to say behind to look after the creatures while the rest of you ascended. This time it took much longer as the group was forced to stop more frequently for each member of the group. It reminded you how much more powerful you are compared to those of the same age.

Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die. A 19 is rolled.

You're the first one to reach the top, and there you see a long-dead body with a bag still strapped on. You gasp in surprise.

"Free stuff! =3"
"E-2732 there's a dead body! >=3"
"Is that a problem? =3"
"Yes! >=3"
"I agree, it is sort of a problem. <:)"
"I'll fix this. =3"

You slide over, a knife in hand and cut away the straps of the bag and toss it to the side.

Then, you simply punt the body off of the tower. It's easy considering that it was nothing but bones by then.

"All fixed! =3"
"........... >=3"
"Well, that's one way to solve the issue. Lets split the spoils, shall we? <:)"

Tiger kid doesn't want anything from the bag and doesn't even want to get near the bag, so the supplies in them go to both you and E-4. You might be the bigger and stronger notail, but E-4 remains [intimidating] and out muscles you for the first picks by just grabbing one of your hands as you reach for an item. Even though this was your idea, you get less of a reward than them.

You get a whistle, heal gel, a capture cage, a backup ration, and an ax, which you markdown as a "Heavy knife."

You also got a warm looking scarf but you both didn't want it, and your bag was getting too heavy even for you, so you equipped it on to Tiger kid. You didn't ask him if he wanted the scarf but he did allow you to wrap it around his neck, so he's probably ok with this.

E-4 on the other hand only grabs two things, a first aid kit, and something you're not sure was supposed to be in the woods.

"Is that a gun? =3"
"Yeah. This shouldn't be here, but I mean, as long as it is, I suppose I have no issue keeping it. I can't appear to find any ammo in this bag, nor a way to insert ammo into the gun though. <:)"
"Fire it; maybe you can only fire it once and then it'll let you reload. =3"

E-4 has trouble figuring out how to hold it. Both of you have only seen adults use it and never even got to lay your hands on one before. After believing to have figured it out, E-4 points into the distance and fires it. A beam of red light shoots across the sky and disappears.

"Very strange gun. It shoots light. <:)"
"Maybe that's why they were allowed to have it. It must be harmless. =3"
"At least it appears threatening so pointing it at people will at least prove a point. <:)"

"Anyway, check it out, there's one of those statues and buttons here as well!"

You scan the statue.

TWO OUT OF FOUR REQUIRED

"Ok, jump on the button! =3"
"No. <:)"
"Why not? =3"
"I think the dead body is why. You can jump on the button E-2732. I can wait here and watch. I would like to see how you're going to conjure up an artifact, as I definitely do not see one here. <:)"
"Hmmm. It showed up after I touched the button, I think. =3"

E-4 seemed pretty adamant about not moving, and Tiger kid didn't seem very interested as well, but you were both stronger and charming than both. It wouldn't be hard to convince them to draw straws or simply pick one up and toss them on the button yourself if you didn't want to touch the button this time.

>Touch. The. Button.

Hm. Well, we've got one knife, right?
That's... Probably good enough to not get shocked? Maybe?
Go on, step on the button. I'm... Pretty sure this will end well.
(Oh, and lets remember this for later. We've two other towers to check, one of em likely has the next knife we're supposed to get.)

> PUSH IT!

get e-4 to step on it! if that fails, get fight to do it. we already have our item, i wanna see wbat happens if someone else steps on it

plus, we were carrying knives and now e-4 has a gun. maybe they'll get a gun?

side note, is the topic supposed to say it's may? =oc

> Shove Fight on it he deserves it

> Hmm. Ask Tiger kid to do it. Maybe the artifact you get has to do with what you like? What does Tiger kid like?

>Charm eagle kid do to it
>if it doesn't work, just push him there
>Or just push it, pfft

>Jump. Button.

>is the ax a heavy enough knife to weigh down the button? Give it a good toss Indiana Jones style.
if not
>Plan B, just hop on the button. You survived it once

> Your idea. Your jump.
>> Set your bag down next to tiger, and ask him to watch it for you. If you don't make it, he gets first dibs, and you get to look for Midnight in what ever is after life.

EDIT: > Try to weigh down the button with the axe, if that would even work.

Push it.

> Explain to E-4 that you got your knife from it! If E-4 really wants another knife for the artifact, then you can go - but if they want another one, surely it's worth standing on? You did so, after all! And you're fine!

pick up the amulet
Jump on the button with gusto. What could possibly go wrong?

>Heck, you pushed one of these buttons already, didn't you? I am sure everything will be fine.