<<if (($trapped eq "yes") and ($trapped_count gt 0)) or ($trapped eq "no")>><<set $trapped_count = $trapped_count - 1>>You come into a small bathroom. There's a sink off to your left, thick white porcelain with rust stains from the faucet. The white tile on the floor is cracked and chipped in places. At the far end of the room sits an old claw foot cast iron tub, the iron pipes leaning in for the shower. Behind you is the door to the [[common area|Common Area]].\n\n<<display "Nearness">>\n<<else>>\n<<display "Death">>\n<<endif>>
The monster reached you. You didn't have enough time to reach high ground. You put up a valiant fight but it was too strong... Too evil... You have died.
<<if (($trapped eq "yes") and ($trapped_count gt 0)) or ($trapped eq "no")>><<set $trapped_count = $trapped_count - 1>>With some trepidation you open the closet door and look inside. There's nothing there but a few old rags and some fishing equipment. You can back out into the [[main room|Ground Floor]].\n\n<<display "Nearness">>\n<<else>>\n<<display "Death">>\n<<endif>>
<<if (($trapped eq "yes") and ($trapped_count gt 0)) or ($trapped eq "no")>><<set $trapped_count = $trapped_count - 1>>The room is a well-lit common area. There's a musty brown couch and several chairs in the center of the room all pointing at a small metal stand in one corner. \n\nOff to your left is a door that looks like it leads to a [[kitchen|Kitchen]]. You can see the stove through the open door.\n\nStraight ahead is a closed [[door|Bathroom]]. Off to your right is another closed [[door|Bedroom]]. Behind you is the stairs [[up to the balcony|Balcony]] or [[down to the ground floor|Ground Floor]].\n\n<<display "Nearness">>\n<<else>>\n<<display "Death">>\n<<endif>>
<<if $trapped eq "yes">><<if $trapped_count eq 4>>You can hear it. The beast. The occasional scrape of metal on concrete, the scratching sounds of footsteps.<<endif>><<if $trapped_count eq 3>>The monster's getting closer. It sounds like it's right around the corner.<<endif>><<if $trapped_count eq 2>>You caught a brief glimpse of the thing when you came in the room. It's looking for you. It looks different, strange...<<endif>><<if $trapped_count eq 1>>It's right outside. Right... Outside... No, it's coming in. It's here...<<endif>><<endif>>\n
<<display "Variables">>You wake from disturbing dreams to strange surroundings and almost complete darkness. \n\nLight trickles in from a small porthole window in the corner of the room. You can just make out the dark shape on four legs in the corner as a stove. There's some wood piled in one corner of the room and some bundles of paper and a lighter.\n\nYour breathing reminds you of when you used to smoke, thick clouds of warm, wet breath hanging in the air while you try to stoke a fire in the little iron stove. The fire catches and the wood begins to smoulder, then begin burn. The heat feels nice as it slowly builds.\n\nHow did you get here? [[Where is here anyway?|Cinder]]
You lift the block from it's holder, pull the door open, and take a quick glance out across the barge. The monster doesn't seem to be anywhere in sight. \n\nThe barge has run up on a [[beach|Head For The Beach]]. You step out onto the porch of the cabin and take a better look. The beach is part of a small island. The only other thing on the island you can see is a lighthouse not a hundred yards from shore up a steep set of wooden steps. The lighthouse is working, the white light visible in the thick fog and ongoing drizzle.\n\nThe monster isn't anywhere near but you'd still like to have a way to defend yourself. The hollow eyes and scraping claws of the monstrosity still haunt your memories. [[You don't want to encounter the beast unprepared or unarmed|Search For A Weapon]].
You navigate your way past the piles of metal, trying not to slip and fall on anything rusty or sharp. You don't get too far when the noise stops. The sudden silence causes a chill to creep up your back.\n\nThe barge gets quiet. Occasionally water will lap against the side of the barge but otherwise the silence is overwhelming.\n\nThe noise begins again, the rthmic thumping and scraping startling you. Part of you wants to [[continue checking out the noise|Noise 2]] but the other part wants to [[go back|Return To The Shack]] because something about this just isn't right...
You scramble across the last heap of metal and make it to the porch. The sounds of the creature get closer and closer, the piles of scrap rattling and scraping as it closes the distance.\n\nYou make it to the door and get a brief glimpse out of the corner of your eye as you enter the doorway. The creature made it to the porch! It's rebar fingers dig into the concrete block walls of the cabin, the industrial machine arm jabbing into the boards of the deck, trying to get purchase.\n\nTrying to haul itself closer.\n\nYou slam the door and manage to slam one of the blocks across the door before the monster crashes into it, jarring you. Shaken, you haul the other board up and into place around the bottom of the door.
You haul the thick 4x4s out of the way and set them next to the door, then pull the cold iron pipe to haul the door open.\n\nCold, damp air and the smell of the sea hit you in the face. It's misting. You step out onto the surface of a large barge. The barge seems to be covered in scrap metal. Piles of car parts, random scrap metal, detritus from building demolitions, and what looks like the remnants of several large industrial machines create a landscape across the surface of the barge, rust-red and grey and black.\n\nYou're standing on a porch made of thick wood slats rooted somewhere on the bottom of the barge. \n\nYou're on the water but you can't tell where. A thick fog has rolled in, obscuring anything past the barge itself and the surrounding waters.\n\nYou hear a [[noise|Noise]] towards the front of the barge, a kind of rhythmic scraping of metal on metal.\n\n
<<if (($trapped eq "yes") and ($trapped_count gt 0)) or ($trapped eq "no")>><<set $trapped_count = $trapped_count - 1>>The lighthouse door opens with an ominous creak. You peer into the darkness and look just inside the door but you're not in luck. There doesn't seem to be a lightswitch anywhere close by. You call out to see if anyone is inside but the words disappear in the darkness with nothing returning your calls.\n\nThe few windows illuminate a large area filled mostly with equipment and tools to maintain the building. A set of [[stairs|Second Floor]] near the door goes up to the second floor of the lighthouse. There's a [[closet|Closet]] under the stairs that might hold something...\n\n<<display "Nearness">>\n<<else>>\n<<display "Death">>\n<<endif>>
Alone In Cinder
You decide to pick your way back to the shack, making your way around the hunks of metal and debris. It's a little faster going since you know which pieces of metal shouldn't shift under your feet. Everything's damp from the fog and the mist, water dripping off lengths of rebar and old hubcaps, little puddles forming in old basins.\n\nYou make it back to the porch of the shack and are pondering [[going inside|Reenter The Shack]] when [[a different sort of noise|Noise 2]] makes you stop.
<<if (($trapped eq "yes") and ($trapped_count gt 0)) or ($trapped eq "no")>><<set $trapped_count = $trapped_count - 1>>The stairs to the lighthouse are made of thick slats of metal and feel fairly solid under your feet. The stairs zig zag like a fire escape on a tall building. Soon you're quite a distance from shore, the barge further and further away. The distance isn't helped by the fog obscuring the view of the barge from the height you're at. The cabin on the barge isn't visible any more.\n\nYou reach the landing. There's grass here, thick and green and brushing your knees. There's a sizeable [[door|Ground Floor]] and entryway at the base of the lighthouse. Where the grass ends there's nothing but steep, rocky cliffs. Behind you is the top of the staircase back to the [[beach|Head For The Beach]].\n<<else>>\n<<display "Death">>\n<<endif>>
<<if (($trapped eq "yes") and ($trapped_count gt 0)) or ($trapped eq "no")>><<set $trapped_count = $trapped_count - 1>>The kitchen is very small. There's enough room for a water heater, a gas stove, and an old steel refridgerator. The fridge has no power and is completely empty except for an old tin can in the back of the freezer. The stove has no gas and you don't have any way of lighting it even if it did. The only door in the kitchen leads back to the [[common area|Common Area]].\n\n<<display "Nearness">>\n<<else>>\n<<display "Death">>\n<<endif>>
<<silently>><<set $had_to_run = "yes">><<endsilently>>\nThere's a rasping screech of metal on metal, the kind of tortured sound you would hear as cars die in crashes.\n\nYou turn to check out the noise. The hair stands up on the back of your neck. Something is moving, out in the piles of scrap and junk. It shambles around one of the scrap heaps and comes clearly into view.\n\nIt's vaguely human shaped. It's arms are misshapen and weird, one arm longer than the other, and made from oddly knotted and woven lengths of rebar and wires. It's hands, made from a combination of slivers and hunks of steel and fingers made of rebar, move and twitch in ways metal isn't supposed to. Where a head would be is a mass of computer parts, nuts and bolts, strips of wire. It's legs are blocks of concrete and pieces of car engines all stuck together and holding fast.\n\nIt turns and notices you. It doesn't have any eyes, just voids in the metal, hollow spaces far worse than any eye would have been. A scar opens beneath the eyes and the creature's screams are tearing metal and grinding stones.\n\nThe shuffling is gone, replaced by the thing's change to a spiderlike crawl. [[It's coming for you, fast!|Reenter The Shack]]
<<if $had_to_run eq "no">><<display "No_Run">>\n<<else>>\n<<display "Run">>\n<<endif>>\nThe floor shakes beneath your feet. The barge has run aground on something. You can't go out and see, not yet. Whatever that thing is, it's outside the door.\n\nWaiting.\n\nYou're just going to have to [[wait and see what happens|Wait]].
You walk out onto the balcony, the powerful light of the lighthouse spinning behind you. Nothing but fog and ocean and a massive drop down to the ocean.\n\nThe beam doesn't seem to cut very far through the fog but it probably just stays on all the time. The device seems to run on it's own power and fuel separate from the rest of the building.\n\nYou circle the balcony, looking out to see if there's anything to the rest of the island but to no avail. The island is tiny, barren. You make it back to the stairs and get ready to go down when you notice something that freezes you to the spot.\n\nThe barge is moving, drifting away from the island and out into open water. It slowly disappears into the fog. A dark shape leaves the water and crosses the beach, heading for where the stairs begin. The beast knows you're trapped.\n\nIt's coming for you<<if $has_crowbar eq "no">> and you're unarmed<<endif>>.\n\nMaybe you can lock it out of the lighthouse and then... then what?\n\n<<silently>>\n<<set $trapped = "yes">>\n<<set $trapped_count = Math.round(Math.random() * 10)>>\n<<endsilently>>\nYou figure you probably have about <<print $trapped_count>> minutes until the beast arrives. There might be something you can use in one of the other rooms in the lighthouse<<if $has_crowbar eq "yes">> but you do have the crowbar to fight with<<endif>>.\n\n<<display "Nearness">>\nWait for the beast to arrive and [[fight it on the balcony|FightTheBeast]]? Or go back down the [[stairs|Second Floor]]?
The fire is blazing in the heater. You don't have a lot of wood to keep it going but it seems to be doing just fine right now.\n\nYou close the door to keep the heat in. Because it was barred when you woke and you don't know how that could be or why, you decide to bar it again, just to be safe. You enjoy the heat and the dry for a while, listening to the fire rumble and crackle in the old stove. \n\nThere's a large crash outside, startling you. The barge shifts under you, the whole room shaking.\n\nSomething outside is moving around. You can hear a horrible scraping on the walls of the cabin, out by the porch. You can see something moving in front of the door by the light under the door. Something big begins pounding on the door, the blocks shaking with each impact.\n\nYou wait, unable to go anywhere, stuck in the cabin until whatever is outside goes away. The thing has stopped pounding on the door. The shadows are gone from under the door but it's hard to hear what is going on outside for the thick walls.
You look around as the fire burns brighter in the old stove. The room is made of cinderblocks with thick concrete sticking out of the spaces between the blocks. The room is unpainted and dull gray.\n\nThe floor is solid, rough, greenish plywood. It sounds solid under your feet but the whole room seems to wobble a bit as you walk around, almost as if the building itself isn't solid on it's foundation.\n\nThe ceiling of the room is made of the same greenish plywood that constitutes the floor. You can touch it with the tips of your fingers without stretching. The ceiling doesn't budge when you push on it.\n\nIn the far corner of the room is a thick-looking plywood door. There's no doorknob. There's a heavy length of wood sitting in heavy iron holders barring the door on your side at waist level. There's a foot-long thick steel pipe bolted to the door as a [[handle|Barge]]. \n\n
You walk out onto the balcony, the powerful light of the lighthouse spinning behind you. Nothing but fog and ocean and a massive drop down to the ocean. Behind you, back down the stairs somewhere, is the monster. Maybe you can fight it here when it arrives...\n\nWait for the beast to arrive and [[fight it on the balcony|FightTheBeast]]? Or go back down the [[stairs|Second Floor]]?\n<<display "Nearness">>
#passages {width: 500px}
The beast hauls itself up from the dark staircase onto the balcony. It's stronger, some great power welling within it. The eye sockets, which previously had been empty and devoid of any color or light, now glow a dark red. The thing seems to be on fire somewhere inside. A red glow appears beneath every plate of metal and spear of rebar, every bolt and bent scrap aglow in the color of blood.\n\n<<if $has_crowbar eq "yes">>\nYou back away in terror as the beast approaches, getting as far from it as you can. You wait as long as you can, back off until you have nowhere else to go. You strike at the being's eye with the crowbar. The vibration from the blow shoots pain up your arm. The monster howls in pain and lurches to the side, against the rail of the lighthouse balcony. \n\nYou draw your arm back and strike the beast with all the strength you have. The blow topples the beast over the side of the rail. It drops, breaking apart with a bellow of rage, until all that's left to hit the water far below are pieces of scrap metal and rusted junk.\n\nYou collapse back against the lighthouse wall and curl up into a ball and shake until the adrenaline wears off. You won.\n\n<<else>>\nYou back away in terror as the beast approaches, getting as far from it as you can. You fight the monster off with your hands as long as you can, great gashes opening in your hands, the beast becoming as red outside as inside. The creature grabs you with it's monsterous appendages and holds you in a grip you can't possibly break. The beast's mouth opens and the last thing you ever see is row upon row of broken and rusted metal jagged edges...\n\nYou have died.\n<<endif>>
<<silently>>\n<<set $being_chased = "no">>\n<<set $distance = 0>>\n<<set $waitTime = 0>>\n<<set $canGo = "no">>\n<<set $has_crowbar = "no">>\n<<set $trapped = "no">>\n<<set $trapped_count = 0>>\n<<set $had_to_run = "no">>\n<<set $recognizes_stove = "no">>\n<<endsilently>>
<<if $has_crowbar eq "no">>\nYou go looking through the piles of metal for something solid you think you can use to defend yourself against the creature. Something, anything solid enough to do some damage against the creature.\n<<else>>\nEverything you look at seems pale in comparison to the crowbar in your hand. You've made enough noise looking for it and you don't want to risk having to use it any sooner than you have to. You should probably head to the [[beach|Head For The Beach]]. There might be someone in the lighthouse who can help you.\n<<endif>>\n\n<<if $has_crowbar eq "no">>\nIt takes you a lot of time and effort to dig through the piles, but <<if Math.random() gt 0.75>>you finally find a good, sturdy steel crowbar. It has a little rust on it but it's decent enough.<<set $has_crowbar = "yes">>\n<<else>>you don't find anything. Maybe there's something [[further along...|Search For A Weapon]]\n<<endif>>\n<<endif>>\n\n<<if $has_crowbar eq "no">>\n[[Give up and head back to the cabin?|CabinReturn]]\n<<else>>\nYou have what you need, the best of what you can find. You could go back to the [[cabin|CabinReturn]].\n<<endif>>
It's nice being back somewhere solid and safe. You warm up a little bit in the safety of the cabin, locked away from the beast and the cold. The heat is nice but where do you go from here? You could check out the [[beach|Head For The Beach]]<<if $has_crowbar eq "no">> or look for a way to [[arm yourself|Search For A Weapon]]<<endif>>.
<<if (($trapped eq "yes") and ($trapped_count gt 0)) or ($trapped eq "no")>><<set $trapped_count = $trapped_count - 1>>You enter a small bedroom. A little light trickles in through the one window. There's a bed in front of you but the mattress is rolled up. The rest of the room is empty. Nobody has lived here for a while, you think. Judging from the dust on the mattress, a long while. All you can do is go back to the [[common area|Common Area]].\n\n<<display "Nearness">>\n<<else>>\n<<display "Death">>\n<<endif>>
Russell Quick
<<if (($trapped eq "yes") and ($trapped_count gt 0)) or ($trapped eq "no")>><<set $trapped_count = $trapped_count - 1>>The stairs reach a small landing. There's a door to your left to a [[room|Common Area]] that seems well lit. To your right is a window. The window would offer a better view if the fog wasn't obscuring everything from view.\n\nThe [[stairs|Balcony]] continue up around the bend of the lighthouse. Or you could go back down the stairs to the [[ground floor|Ground Floor]].\n\n<<display "Nearness">>\n<<else>>\n<<display "Death">>\n<<endif>>
<<silently>>\n<<set $waitTime = $waitTime + 1>>\n<<endsilently>><<if $waitTime lt 4>>The monster is close by. It has to be. It knows you're here and it's waiting for you. You can't do anything but wait and hope it doesn't find a way in. You try to look under the door but it's hopeless, only the tiniest little sliver of space is available and that only shows light. <<if $waitTime eq 2>>You put another log on the fire and close the stove. <<endif>>You'll have to [[wait a little while longer|Wait]].\n<<else>>\nThe sounds of the creature seem to have faded. It's been some time since you heard the last rustling, scraping sounds. You decide to risk it and [[take a glance out|See Where You Are]] and see if you can see the beast.\n<<endif>>
The beach is tiny, perhaps only a hundred yards across. The rock walls are very close, perhaps twenty feet away, creating a bowl the beach sits in. There are no boats on the beach. Sand crunches beneath your feet as you move around. There are no seagulls or other signs of life. \n\nThe fog doesn't seem to be letting up. You can barely see the [[cabin|CabinReturn]] on the barge from here. If you stand just right, the cabin disappears behind the mounds of scrap metal. Nearby is a [[staircase|Stairs]] leading up to the lighthouse.\n\nThe sand is disturbed in a path leading from the barge to the staircase. Something obviously went from the barge to the stairs but you don't see the beast anywhere near the lighthouse.
<<if $trapped eq "no">>\n<<display "Balcony_Initial">>\n<<else>>\n<<if (($trapped eq "yes") and ($trapped_count gt 0)) or ($trapped eq "no")>><<set $trapped_count = $trapped_count - 1>>\n<<display "Balcony_Subsequent">>\n<<else>>\n<<if $has_crowbar eq "no">>\n<<display "Death">>\n<<else>>\nThe monster is here. [[It's now or never!|FightTheBeast]]\n<<endif>>\n<<endif>>\n<<endif>>