Noise Lights: A Text Adventure- Sweet and Sour Victory

>Are there any animals that don't try to kill you?

Sure, lots of them. It usually depends on where you are. You’re certainly going to be safer in a cul-de-sac than you would in the jungle. When you were a kid there was a cat in the neighborhood. It never once tried to kill you. Sure, it mauled seven people, but it never came anywhere near you. Some creatures are just safer than others. In many cases animals are the least of your worries. One of your neighbors, a friend of yours, had a thing in their basement. His family sealed it in there when they found it. He said they heard it scratching around on Christmas morning. Anyway, it had been locked down there for years when he told you about it. You’re friend, you don’t remember his name, brought you over to his backyard to try out his new trampoline. A board fell off one of the basement windows when you got too close. The thing, it- well, that’s not really important. The bottom line is: there are plenty of animals that are safer depending on where you are.

>Stop whatever you're doing and read your Staying Delicious book. This is clearly the most important thing you could be doing right now.

Having thoroughly lost interest in the possible infinitely recursive doors, you hunker down into a corner to read a book. You always were mildly fond of books. They’re easier to get than television and more useful. Hollowing the book out to hide things in has always been fun. You’ve taken your fair share of books from the library. You never returned them, naturally, but you certainly wouldn’t leave the library without compensation. The books you take are normally checked out with your brother’s library card. That way, when the books don’t get returned, your brother has to pay the fee. You get free books and the library gets reimbursed. Everybody wins; especially you.
You crack open “Staying Delicious: Keep Your Cool as a Fool” and within minutes you are lost within its pages. The gentle pitter-patter of light rain on the shack’s tin roof is the only thing that reminds you of where you are. The book you’re reading, Staying Delicious, is a self-help/instructional guide for the attention starved by the attention starved. Jointly penned by authors Paytricia Attenson and Lackett Mei, it provides many useful hints, tips, and tricks on how to be the center of attention and remain the center of attention in any situation. It equates the entire concept to being irresistible and delicious in a hypothetical sense. It uses the word delicious quite often, in fact; sometimes completely unnecessarily. It actually uses it to a point of reaching the broad side of uncomfortable. The synopsis on the back of the cover actually boasts the book using delicious over 12,000 times. You thought this was a cookbook when it was given to you.

[NEW ABILITY UNLOCKED]

Honeyed Vinegar
Codex: "Thanks to mankind’s two greatest achievements, written word and self-indulgence, you now have the ability to distract any and all people or creatures by keeping them focused solely on yourself without fail. Keep in mind that once their attention is on you it is very difficult to lose as whatever thing you do will be so interesting that they will be captivated with you even if you leave and re-enter the room. This is not a passive ability; you will need to consciously try to get their attention with the intent of keeping it. If the target is hostile, its attention will also be accompanied by actively hunting you. Switching this ability out for another does not immediately deactivate its affects if something is currently focusing on you. Remember, if you forget what an ability does or need more information, just ask."

> Open the second door, then the third door and the fourth and so on for infinity.

You put the book back in your inventory and crawl back over to the trapdoor to resume where you left off. You might as well get it over with, even though you have a good idea where this is going. There’s probably going to be a bunch of doors, one after the other, stretching down into a huge tunnel of infinite doors that you’ll waste the rest of your misbegotten life opening. Or, at the very least, there will be enough to annoy you.
You grab the knob of the second trapdoor beneath the first and turn it. It swings open downward revealing another room below. Oh, well it’s better than you were expecting. The room is dimly lit and appears to be another worn and beaten up wooden board affair. The floor is covered with loose dirt, dust, and sawdust. You also see what looks like a figure crouching in the center of the room staring at the floor.


Player Statistics:

SpoilerShow

Status: UNSETTLED

Death Count: 3

Inventory:
1 can of dehydrated cans, add water for more cans
1 book (read) titled Staying Delicious: Keep Your Cool as a Fool
1 electronic codex, wouldn't you like to be a pepper too?
1 legalese document
1 extend-o-grab
1 mallet
1 pistol
1 fistful of pennies
1 bunch of coupons
1 keys

Abilities:
A Kall To Keys [X]
Stat Tat [X]
Honeyed Vinegar [X]

♪Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel♫

Codex:

SpoilerShow

>What kind of nightmarish creatures do you have in this bizarre place? Owls big enough to carry people off and lay eggs inside their brains... permanently hostile snakes... are there any animals that don't try to kill you?

While it can be said the majority of sentient, non-sentient, animate, inanimate, living, and un-living creatures, things, and everything else in the world have been categorized as unsafe with the ability to dispatch a person in a myriad of colorful, creative, and horrifyingly entertaining ways, at the very least, the scientific study of biology isn’t boring. It is worth noting that the safest place in the world to live is Australia. While the rest of the planet was going through an evolutionary arms race, Australia’s isolation as an island continent rendered its ecosystem completely separate from the rest of the world. This allowed it to develop at a more leisurely pace, rendering its creatures relatively benign in comparison. The “deadliest” snake in Australia, the Inland Taipan, has venom potent enough to kill a person fairly quickly, but it neither liquefies the victim alive nor makes said victim's head explode. A common trait found in at least two other subfamilies of snake.
On the counter side the most dangerous place to live is New Zealand. Due to a catastrophic blunder by its once thriving wool industry, the entire country is a quarantine zone. It’s like Jurassic Park, only with sheep.