Breakfast Time

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This is being moved here from MSPAFA, though I will continue to update on and take commands from both sites.

PROLOGUE PART ONE:

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You are an AVERAGE MIDDLE-CLASS ACCOUNTANT. You have just entered your kitchen to partake in what may be the most important meal OF YOUR ENTIRE DAY. But before you satisfy your hunger, you should probably focus on remembering what your name is.

What is your name, anyway?

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Ah yes, of course! Your name is KANE HOWARD BATTERSBY, and you are, as previously mentioned, a BUSINESSMAN of the ACCOUNTING kind. Your name alone gives you two points to your BUSINESSGAUGE, a nice bonus. But before getting into that, you need some breakfast, and now!



You're currently standing in your large KITCHEN. There is a door leading to your BACK YARD and your SWIMMING POOL, but this is not the time for that. Directly in front of you is your PANTRY, where you store your precious supply of CEREAL. You love cereal. It is one of mankind's greatest developments.



Over on the other side of the kitchen is your REFRIGERATOR. After all, what's a good bowl of cereal without any MILK? Hardly a bowl of cereal at all, that's what!

Now, then, Kane, what will you do?

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>STICK YOUR HEAD IN THE FRIDGE

Yes, you suppose the fridge is a good place to start on your quest for breakfast. Ah, good, you still have some milk! Only one carton, though. Should probably refill your supply at some point.



You file the milk away in your BUSINESSVENTORY, in cell A1 of the Comestibles folder. It's a good thing your BUSINESSGAUGE is at such a high level. If it were to fall, you'd surely lose your organizational abilities! And that would be terrible.

> Climb into the cupboards and wait for someone else to arrive in the kitchen. When they do, leap out and grab their ankles

What? That's ridiculous. For one thing, you're not married (although you do have a GIRLFRIEND, she's not here right now). No one else lives here, so you'd just be crammed in a cabinet all day.



Besides, your CABINETS are mostly full of COFFEE MUGS. You love coffee, but not nearly as much as you love cereal. Speaking of cereal, there are also several bowls in here. You can't have cereal with a proper RECEPTACLE, after all!



You place the CEREAL BOWL in cell A1 of your RECEPTACLES folder.

>Mix every kind of cereal you own into one bowl. Then remember you're out of milk.

Mix cereal? Don't be ridiculous. And you clearly have milk, too. But still, better retrieve your CEREAL from the PANTRY.



Ah, there it is! The pantry's looking awfully bare. You should probably head to the GROCERY STORE at some point, probably on the WEEKEND. It's Thursday right now, so you probably have enough food to last until then.



You place the DANG! CEREAL into cell B1 of your COMESTIBLES folder. You've got the CEREAL, the MILK, and the BOWL now! Only one thing to do now.

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>SHOVE EVERYTHING INTO YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH.

But the cereal is in B1...

Loosen up your tie and check yourself out in the nearest mirror. Raise your Swagger level to DANGEROUSLY FLY.

Unbutton a few of those buttons as well. SUAVE IT UP.

Loosen up your tie and check yourself out in the nearest mirror. Raise your Swagger level to RADSWEET DOPEFLY.

No. These are all terrible, terrible ideas. You'd probably lose several points on your BUSINESSGAUGE if you did even one of them! You shove these stupid thoughts aside.

>It is time for progress for the synergy of milk and cereal. This will be a paradigm shift of the hunger state, and your energy dynamic will be increased.

That's more like it! You gain a one point BUZZWORD BONUS to your BUSINESSGAUGE. Now it's time for some proper breakfast!







That might be a problem.

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DON'T MOTHERFUCKING PANIC

DON'T YOU DO IT

EAT THAT FIX MIX LIKE A BOSS NO ONE TELLS KANE HOWARD MOTHERFUCKING BATTERSBY WHAT TO DO

The Fix Mix? Ech. That's been in there for months, and those green lumps are certainly not part of the mix. At least, you hope they're not.

>WIN BIG!

Hey, that's true. Maybe you could win some cheap, probably useless junk in spite of the lack of breakfast!





Sometimes you really hate marketing.

>Good lord, Kane, you are going to STARVE! Screw SCHEDULE, TO THE GROCERY STORE.

Actually, you do happen to have an hour and a half before you need to be at work. If you hurry, you'll be able to go to the store, buy cereal, go back home, eat it, and still get to work on time. You usually get there at least an hour early, but you're sure your boss will understand. But first... Where did you leave your keys?

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>In the bathroom, in the toilet. You classy man.

It's in your stomach (or possibly your small intestines). You accidentally swallowed them while indulging in cereal yesterday. Go to your girlfriend (who lives next door and is a surgeon) and ask for her help in retrieving your precious CAR KEYS.

Alternatively, just whip up a cup of steaming hot INSTANT NOODLES instead.

The toilet? Your stomach? How would your keys end up in either of those places? You're more careful with your keys than that. Besides, your girlfriend lives down the street and she certainly isn't a surgeon. She works with animals.

Also, instant noodles are not a proper breakfast at all.

>The living room. Check in between those couch cushions!

> You left them in the door of your car in an effort to make them easy to find in case of this very emergency.

Check every pocket. Check every pocket again. Check stomach.

> Its in your pocket but you won't check in till you check everywhere else.

Well, you guess it's worth checking the couch. But nope, no keys here. The cushions are too tightly pushed together for your keys to have gotten lost down there anyway. Also, why would you leave them in your pockets when you have a BUSINESSVENTORY?

And leaving them in your car door is just stupid. Honestly.

> You left your keys in the bowl on the entry hall table, that is what the keybowl is for. Without these little organisational aids you might go quite mad and lose your business-like composure.

...Right. The KEYBOWL, where they're supposed to be. You have your entire house meticulously organized; how could you forgot this? Oh well, it's still early in the morning. You won't lose BUSINESSGAUGE points for such a minor slip-up.



You place your KEYS into cell A1 of your UTILITIES folder. Alright, you're ready to buy some cereal. Unless there's anything else you wanted to do first for some reason. Is there?

PROLOGUE PART TWO

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>Go get cereal




you classy man.

You get in your CAR, which you don't refer to by a ridiculous name, and you drive to the GROCERY STORE. It hasn't been taken over by terrorists or anything; that'd be ridiculous!



You head into the CEREAL AISLE. Most of these cereals are just pure sugar sculpted into various shapes. How incredibly unbusinesslike.



Ah, that's good. There's just one box left. Funny, seeing as this entire section of the shelf is just for DANG! cereal. Oh well, at least you got here in time. You'd hate for someone else to have shown up first.



Naturally.



You are confronted by a RATHER IRATE WIZARD. It seems he wanted the box you just took, and he suggests you hand it over. How are you going to get out of this mess now?

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> Dang!

> Offer him one of the many other cereal products available.

You ask if the wizard would rather have some AAUGH! cereal rather than the DANG! he seems very interested in. They're basically the same cereal, except that AAUGH! has nuts in it.



The WIZARD informs you that he really, really hates nuts.



Alright, it looks like this isn't going to go nearly as smoothly as you planned. Guess there's only one logical course of action left.

Account his ass.

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>BUSINESSTECH: Negotiate for some of his HP. He doesn't need all of it, does he?

You expend twenty BUSINESS POINTS to execute BUSINESSTECH: NEGOTIATE. If you're successful, you could deal a critical blow to your opponent's HP! Of course, it's a risky move, and doesn't usually work against intelligent foes.



As you suspected, the WIZARD is not intrigued by your offer. You'll have to take a different approach on this guy.



The wizard begins charging his staff with energy...



...and hits you with a FIREBALL. Damn, that one hurt. You're not sure how much more of this you can take. You'd better think of something, quickly!

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>Your suit is ruined! Oh noo.

Damn it! That was a new suit, too! You BUSINESSGAUGE drops by 15 points, doubling to a loss of 30 MAXIMUM BUSINESSPOINTS! The values adjust accordingly.

>ACTION: Shower the wizard with AAUGH! cereal, since you know he hates the nuts in it!

Hates nuts, does he? Well, maybe it's about time you...



...went nuts.

The wizard takes 10 points of ALLERGY DAMAGE. He would probably have taken more from your bad pun, but saying it out loud would probably send your BUSINESSGAUGE straight into the negative points.

Only 990 more HP to go!





The wizard hits you with a powerful LIGHTNING ATTACK for a whopping 112 damage! Worst of all, it only cost him 25 BLACKARTS POINTS from his cache of hundreds! This isn't looking good at all. You'd better think of something, quickly!

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> Call for help!

Alright, it's obvious that you won't be able to win this fight on your own. It's time to take the logical course of action and call for help.



Hello, you've reached the Irate Wizard Attack Hotline. We apologize for the inconvenience, but all representatives are currently occupied. Please hold.

>Wizard: Do something Wizard-like

Please continue to hold. A representative will be with you shortly.



Your call is very important to us. Please continue to hold.



Please continue to hold. A representative will be with you shortly.



"Hello, this is the Irate Wizard Attack Hotline, Kyle speaking. Can I help you?

...Hello?"

CHAPTER ONE

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~Chapter One~

You awaken in a dark room. Wait a minute, how long were you out?! You might be late for work!

You also appear to be trapped behind bars of some sort. You feel very lightheaded.

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>Politely request an explanation. Angrily demanding to be released wouldn't be businesslike.

That's true. You've got to keep a level head, even though you're trapped in some kind of light-producing cage in a dark laboratory, with no recollection of how you got here. Maybe whoever may or may not be in this room will listen to diplomacy.

But, try as you might, you can't seem to utter a word! This is very strange. You guess you might as well make sure you're not paralyzed or something.

>Wave your hands in front of your face...IF YOU CAN.

You're not paralyzed, but... That is definitely not your hand. That isn't even a hand. You're not exactly sure what's going on here, but you decide you should probably take a glance at the rest of yourself.



You have a feeling you're going to be late for work.

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And with that, the adventure is fully moved. Enjoy your lack of breakfast.

Holy crap! You have six legs! How do you move?!

>Drink that bottle.

You can probably fit between those bars.

Make your escape.

Examine the tome near your backside.

Shed your skin!

Double your productivity with SKIN BUDDY

So you're a lizard, with six arms? This is the best day ever. Now you can be the most efficient, cold-blooded businessman ever.

Well, this would be great if, though, there weren't infinitely more downsides to it than upsides. I mean sure, being a lizard with six arms would make you a better businessman if they were actually arms and if you had any idea how to coordinate them and if, you know, your businessguage wasn't in the red right now. This is disgraceful.

Examine the tome near your backside.

Holy crap! You have six legs! How do you move?!

You really can't move very easily. Why would you even need this many legs? It's not like you need an exceptional grip on anything. This is dumb. It takes you a while just to get to the other side of the cage, fumble around with the tome without thumbs, and open it to a random page.

Even then, there doesn't seem to be anything of use inside. It's not even written in Common. The illustrations are nice, but without the words this is just an arcane picture book. You don't have time for this.

>Try to grab that flask outside the cage.

That doesn't seem like a very good idea. You'd probably spill it on yourself, and somehow make your day even worse than it already is. You have no idea why anyone would put a bottle of acid within reach of a cage, but that's not really your concern. You need to find a way to get out of here.

You can probably fit between those bars.

Make your escape.

...Oh. Right. Whoever made this cage must have been an idiot. Or at least whoever decided to store you in here. Either way, you're free. There are a couple of things scattered about on the table: a BROKEN POSSIBLY-MAGIC CRYSTAL and some sort of SCREWDRIVER. And of course, the flask of acid.



You can vaguely see another cage across the room next to the door, as well as some sort of countertop with some potions on it. You're pretty sure that the door is reinforced with metal plating, and that you have absolutely no chance of opening it. Not that it matters since you're stuck on a table well above the floor.

Wonderful day you're having here.

>Use the flask of acid to melt a hole in the door.

>Use the flask of acid to melt a hole in the door.

Nah, just fumble and spill it everywhere.

Drink the flask of acid. You might be acid-proof!

Turn on your night vision powers.

You must have some. What kind of business lizard are you?

Turn on your night vision powers.

You must have some. What kind of business lizard are you?

Yeah, like that's happening. That would be kind of an awesome thing to have, though, lizard or otherwise. Maybe you can figure out a way to make that happen while you're here.

>Use the flask of acid to melt a hole in the door.

That actually sounds like a reasonable idea. It's probably extremely corrosive and you don't really need to make a very big hole to squeeze through.

One problem, though. While your BUSINESSVENTORY is, in fact, still a thing, its size has been reduced to a single item. Luckily for you, that single item happens to be the milk carton. You absolutely refuse to part with it, though. That milk is for your breakfast. You're not going to give that up just to carry around some highly corrosive acid!

Well, you guess you could set the milk down and come back for it later. That really just depends on whether you can get back up here once you're done.

>Do you think you could climb back if you jumped down to the floor?

Doesn't look all that good. You're ambivalent about jumping down there in the first place, although you'd probably be fine with such a relatively short drop. You really don't know how well you could grip one of the table legs, though, so you might not be able to make it back up here once you jump down. Gonna have to find a way to get the acid down someh-



Dammit. You are really beginning to hate being a lizard.

You know, more than you already did.

>Maybe the noise will attract your captor. Quick, hide! Or if you can't manage that, slip back into your cage. If you get caught again, they'll just put you in a box or something harder to escape from.

Hey! Your tail managed to manipulate an item without having to store it in your buisnessventory! Add that sucker to your businessgauge.

Damage control. Damage control. They're not going to believe a flask of acid waltzed off the table by itself. Hide someplace and wait for someone to come in, and hopefully slip out before they get used to night vision and such.

Damage control. Damage control. They're not going to believe a flask of acid waltzed off the table by itself. Hide someplace and wait for someone to come in, and hopefully slip out before they get used to night vision and such.

>Maybe the noise will attract your captor. Quick, hide! Or if you can't manage that, slip back into your cage. If you get caught again, they'll just put you in a box or something harder to escape from.

What bottle of acid? You know nothing about any bottles of acid. After all, you've been completely secure in this VERY WELL-CONSTRUCTED CAGE this entire time. There's no way you can escape!

...You're not sure anyone's actually coming. You wait for several more minutes just to be sure.

Hey! Your tail managed to manipulate an item without having to store it in your buisnessventory! Add that sucker to your businessgauge.

Dammit.

...Yeah, no one's coming. You get back out of the IDIOT CAGE.

> Investigate the results of your tomfoolery!

Acid, dig hole to the cellar.

That was... really, really powerful acid. You're kind of glad you didn't try to jump down with it.

There appear to be a couple of barrels of UNIDENTIFIED LIQUIDS, as well as a cabinet with some things on it. You can't really make out what they are. Probably more alchemy stuff or something.

Knock anything interesting off the table too. Then jump down.

Knock the cage off the table. Then it won't be as obvious that you just slipped out!

Knock anything interesting off the table too.

You're not going to risk damaging this wizard's stuff. He probably deserves it but what if he comes looking for you? You might make him angry.

More angry than he probably always is.

Also that magic crystal might blow up the city or something. You never know with wizards.

Knock the cage off the table. Then it won't be as obvious that you just slipped out!

A much better idea! However, your tiny lizardy arms/legs are much too weak to move the huge steel cage. It might also be held down with magic for all you know.

WIZARDS.

>SCIENCE down that table.

>Practice your new form first before anything.

Surprisingly, just figuring out how to walk with six legs is almost enough to push your BUSINESSGAUGE into the positives (or at least halfway there). Your intrinsic business skill is just that high, you guess.

You really hope there's no security cameras or a magical equivalent in here. You'd hate to have someone see you running around in circles like an idiot.

Dive from the table, through the hole, and straight into one of the barrels. Maybe one of them is labeled "human transformation juice".

Well that would certainly be convenient, wouldn't it? But hey, you can already feel the liquid doing something. You're beginning to feel cleansed after just a few seconds in the stuff. This could be it!



...That is, if "it" referred to "a whole lot of nothing, and maybe getting yourself soaked in some sticky red stuff". This might have been great if you were actually wounded, but apparently turning into a lizard thing doesn't count as a wound. You'd beg to differ on that personally.

On the bright side, this stuff seems to be cherry-flavored. Delicious.

> Wait did you like cherries before? Cherries don't sound very businessy. Oh gosh what if being a lizard is starting to get to you!

Knock the barrel over!

>Check the other barrel.

>Read the other barrels' labels.

>Observe your surroundings because

SCIENCE

You're really not sure how helpful these two barrels will be in your current situation. Notably, the "Ale" barrel seems to be at a much lower level than the others. You really have no idea what effect dragon's blood might have on you if you drink it. You're pretty sure it's not even legal to own that much without being a blood donation center.

Dragons save lives too.



A couple of these look rather menacing, although you're not sure which of the two you can see clearly looks worse. The levitation barrel looks useful, although you have no idea what's in the furthest back. You could probably make the jump to the mutation barrel, or possibly the dragon's blood one. From there you think you could make it to some of the others, if necessary.

As an aside, it seems as though the barrels have some sort of enchanted labels on them - the writing faces you no matter where you happen to be. You suspect the wizard was just lazy.

I vote dragon's blood.