A Doomed Pilgrim in the Ruins of the Future

This is The Sundered Land: A Doomed Pilgrim in the Ruins of the Future
a game by Vincent Baker

Index of games:

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Game #1 (starts here)
Game #2

I'm a warrior seeking peace and an end to bloodshed. I'm on pilgrimage to the Temple To No Gods in the distant City of Gulls. My pilgrimage has brought me to the Gray Hills, inhabited by the singing hyenas of the waste. My goal is to pass safely through and continue my pilgrimage.

You, my friends online, play the world. Your goal is to see me to my doom, instead of safely on my way. You're allowed only to directly answer my direct questions, though, so you might not be able to do it.

The Rules
1. Only answer my questions.
2. If you don't already know the answer, make something up.
3. Keep your answers short.
4. If your answer's disruptive, I'm allowed to ignore it.
5. Otherwise, I have to go with the first answer somebody gives. I'll quote it at the top of my next post.
6. If you want to subscribe to this thread, please use the sentence "no gods watch over you" to do so.

(There are no player limits. You can join in as long as the game's still going. I'll start asking questions later tonight. Expect a reasonably fast pace.)

I've been walking along a worn dirt path that meanders between the Gray Hills for three days, but it finally gave out. The slate-colored mounds extend for miles in every direction, covered with sharp, colorless bracken and peppered with fragments of old walls and buildings. The ruins are glossy black and obsidian.

I have vast and deadly patience and the summoning-name of a ghost burned into my memory.

There's an obsidian tower, the first two stories of which are still partly intact, atop one of the hills adjacent to the end of the path. I've just climbed it so I can get a good view of the land around me.
Something warns me of approaching danger. What warns me? Anyone should answer.

A smell like corpses and honey on the breeze.

A guide with three mouths and claws of black steel.

A smell like corpses and honey on the breeze.

Quick as a flash, I duck behind the low obsidian wall, hoping that it will hide me. Then I wait.

Do I hear or see anything? Anyone should answer.

You hear splitting rock, see the shadowy underside of a beast clearing your shelter as it flees.

Silence. The wind stops. The birds are speechless. No living creature or thing of nature so much as whispers.

You hear splitting rock, see the shadowy underside of a beast clearing your shelter as it flees.

I cower as it passes, then peek back around the wall. What is it running from? Can I see?

Anyone should answer.

A lanky golem, black like the ruins it slept within. It's motionless as if it were waiting, or perhaps listening.

A lanky golem, black like the ruins it slept within. It's motionless as if it were waiting, or perhaps listening.

I too remain motionless. I have vast and deadly patience, and I can't afford to be noticed.
Does it give any indication that it knows I'm here? Does it leave or act before my vast patience wears thin? Anyone should answer the first question, and a different person should answer the second. (I'll take the first two compatible answers.)

More than one is patient, here. Those made of mountains and stones are used to waiting.

It waits in the very same position as you. It could be coincidence, or it could be a knowing taunt, waiting for your signal that the hunt has begun.

Its only action is to begin singing, a distorted and piercing sound that sends more hidden creatures fleeing.

It waits in the very same position as you. It could be coincidence, or it could be a knowing taunt, waiting for your signal that the hunt has begun.

More than one is patient, here. Those made of mountains and stones are used to waiting.

At last, I decide to risk moving. I carefully make my way down to the bottom of the tower, then check on the golem. Has it moved or done anything in response to my actions?
Slorange should answer.

Its head turns to face you, then it mimics your stance. Something lights up in its eyes, and it moans loud enough to shake shards from the tower.

Panicked, I bolt across the hills.
Does it chase me? If so, is there a place up ahead where I can lose it?

Anyone should answer.

It thirsts for your blood but there is no escape. You must aggress it.

It thirsts for your blood but there is no escape. You must aggress it.

I recall a battlefield, a dying soldier, a secret name whispered with a final breath.
Seeing no other alternative, I call upon a debt from beyond the grave and summon an old ghost. As I run, I beg for it to stop the creature that pursues me.
Does it obey? How does the golem react to its presence?
Anyone should answer one question, and a different person should answer the other, in any order.

Obey? Hard to tell. For the ghost and the golem had become one.

The golem thrashes and beats its head until something within it commands stillness.

The ghost accuses you of malfeasance. The Golem knows all truth.

(Play it cool, SeaWyrm, play it cool... if I keep going like I never abandoned this thread for months, maybe nobody will suspect a thing!)

Obey? Hard to tell. For the ghost and the golem had become one.

Panicked and desperate, I continue to run. Does the ghost-inhabited golem give chase?
Anyone should answer.

No, you have shaken its trail.

No, you have shaken its trail.

I run until I can run no more, and then I walk, withered with exhaustion but unwilling to stop and rest.
Soon, I come to the end of the Gray Hills and I'm happy to put it behind me.

THE END.

Perhaps I'll start a new game shortly and you guys can try to send my pilgrim to his doom again. He escaped this time! That's not just because I say so - the rules are quite explicit about what it means if I flee from danger and get away.
Yes, I know, fairly anticlimactic. Blame Chwoka for showing mercy. Remember, your goal is to see me to my doom, instead of safely on my way.

Here's where you can get the full rules, if anyone else wants to try being the pilgrim player. You can use this topic to start a new game if you get to it before I do.
Also, you might find this other play example from the game's creator illuminating. Or at least entertaining.

No more mercy for chwoka. All mercy powers have been taken away. Unleash chwoka upon the world as punishment for his act of kindness.

Also, gr8, when will the next game be? My doom sense are tingling, and also telling me to bring misery to fictitious people. That might just be chwoka and his apparent lack of mercy at the moment.