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[origamiscienceguy]

You Can't Die 3!

This is an interactive storytelling game where the protagonist is the luckiest man (or woman) on earth. I will put the character into situations following a plot and it is up to you guys to suggest what you think the best (or funniest) course of action is to be. Instead of having one idea with a bunch of +1s or -1s, I want each person to come up with their own ideas. The humor will come when I take as many of these ideas as possible and combine them into one awesome/ridiculous action. I will try to update the story daily at around 9:00-10:00 Central time zone. I hope that longer time between updates will allow more people to get involved and make the story more chaotic and !fun!.

Suggestions:
Due to the nature of this, I will not always be able to include every idea because one idea just might not work with the others. If I didn't include your idea, I am sorry. If you want to give your idea a higher chance of being selected, make it more specific. For example, "kill him" vs "swing your sword downwards and while he is focused on the sword, bite him in the shoulder. Then stab him through the stomach while he is trying to process the fact that you just bit him."
Also, when making suggestions, keep in mind the context of the problem. While you could probably kill ordinary soldiers in one action, if a character appears to be a "boss" the fight will probably take multiple actions.
Don't manipulate the environment. Make all of your suggestions for actions for the character to perform.
If you want to see the previous You Can't Die Games, they are in the spoiler.

Spoiler: previous games (click to show/hide)

You Can't Die 1: This was made about half a year ago. The story can basically be summarized as, "Suddenly, TANK! Suddenly, NUKE! Suddenly, AIRPLANE, Suddenly, SUBMARINE, Suddenly, BACKSTORY!" It had its funny moments though.

You Can't Die 2: This was made only about a week ago. This time, I sort of made up the plot as I went, creating a bunch of plot-holes but an overall good story if I must say so myself. It takes place in a fantasy world where the protagonist becomes a dragon rider and must join with the other dragon riders to defeat the Goblins.

I had so much fun writing these that I decided to start number 3. This one has a skeleton plot set up for the whole story and the holes will be filled in by your suggestions. I also write a whole lot more in this one than in the others.

And without further ado, here is the start of You Can't Die 3.

     You wake up to a cool day, indicating that autumn had arrived. It is never actually cool in the Great Desert, but compared to the blistering summer heat, today was quite cool indeed. You know from the position of the shadows that you had about fifteen minutes before the door would be unlocked and the day’s work would begin. You look around and see many faces looking back at you from around the room. Everybody knew that not being dressed and ready to work when the door was opened could have consequences ranging from denial of rations to a whipping, but nobody seemed to ever want to be the first to arise in the morning. You decide to take the initiative and stand out of your cot and get dressed in your work clothes. As soon as you arise, two others stand up, then 5 more. Soon, the whole room is in a frenzy of men and women, young and old hurrying to get their clothes on and their area organized.
     Two men along the back wall start pushing and shoving and arguing in hushed voices. One of them had made a mess of the other one’s cot after it had been already made. Fortunately, the others calmed them down before it could escalate into something that would get the whole group in trouble. Ruth, a middle-aged woman told the man who messed up the other man’s bed to remake the bed for him. She was one of the most respected of all the slaves, and this was even more so at this time because of her pregnancy. Pregnant women are the top of the slave hierarchy. Everybody else will work together to pick up their slack while they were unable to work because they know that the extra pair of hands that would come from their brief absence would far outweigh the extra work required during the late pregnancy and the nursing time. The young children would be nursed until 2 years, then brought along with the mother to work until age 5. At that point, they would become an apprentice to another slave, typically the most respected worker of the job that needed the most workers. At age 10, the child was considered a man or woman and performed the exact same duties as everyone else.
     You were one of these children once. Your mother was Jochebed. You don’t know who your father is, or if he’s even alive. No slave born into this life ever knew who his or her father was. It is a tightly kept secret between the parents. Jochebed had two other children before you. A man named Aaron, and a woman named Miriam. Jochebed raised you and nurtured you, but died in an oil drill accident when you were 7. Many slaves die as each year passes. Few make it past the age of 50 and only rarely will one reach 60. Currently, there is only one person over that age, an old man. You forget his name, but you think it starts with a M. You yourself have never had any children.
     Everybody is ready and standing at attention in a line as straight as an arrow when Potiphar, your master, unlocks the metal door and walks in. He is flanked by two bodyguards with scimitars. Potiphar leaves his men at the entrance then walks up and down the line of prisoners, looking for any of them not ready for the day’s work. Finding none, He inspects the cots, makes sure that the paper-thin blankets are straightened and tucked under the mud matrices. He finds one blanket not completely tucked in and calls the name of the slave that sleeps there. The slave immediately walks over and says, “I am sorry, sir” before fixing his blanket. Potiphar orders the man to return to his place in line. He finishes inspecting the cots and returns to in front of the line. Potiphar is one of the most lenient masters of the Erbium Empire, you hear stories of other masters who would force the slave to work without food if they made the same infraction. Regardless, Potiphar shouts dismissed, and leaves the room, his bodyguards flanking him again.
     Everybody goes to the location of their labor. Some go to the vast fields of potatoes where they are currently harvesting the crop, traveling up and down the neat lines of brown leaves picking the vegetables that were deemed ready, so they could feed the entire city. Others went to the oil rigs, where they monitored the machines to make sure that they were operating on max efficiency. Still others went to the mines to extract the metal required for all of these labors. You work in the forges. The forges are located right next to the perimeter walls, giant metal walls over 40 feet high separating the city from the living dead that roam the wild lands. Nobody knew where these zombies, which is what everybody called them, came from, but they could survive any injury unless their brain was destroyed or burned. They needed no food, no water, and no air. They tended to walk aimlessly around the desert unless they sensed nearby humans isolated from the cities and their defences. If a zombie bites a human, that human will die a slow and painful death and then reanimate as one of the monsters themselves. If one wanted to cross the desert and survive, he or she would have to do so in a motorized vehicle. Nothing else was fast enough to outrun the monsters, and nobody could fight them indefinitely. That is probably why there haven’t been attacks by, or on, the Rhodium Realm. The number of zombies in the desert seemed to be increasing. Getting an entire army to drive across the great desert and attack a Rhodian city would carry a great risk of having the entire army killed by zombies, and having the entire army join their ranks.
     You force your mind back to your work. There wasn’t enough time to think about what goes on outside of the walls. You have a quota to fulfill. You enter the familiar hot underground room where the forges radiate heat into every molecule in the room. You find the list of what needs to be crafter today, and you begin the procedure of lighting the natural gas that powers the forges and loosening and tightening certain valves until the forge becomes just the right temperature. You do a quick check of the list to see if anything interesting was to be made today. A few items catch your eye. The most interesting, however, was a pistol. Gunpowder was so rare these days that only the chief of the Erbium Empire or possibly one of the priests could possibly afford enough to make a pistol worthwhile. You decide to work on the pistol first. Partly because you hadn’t made one in so long, and partly because you didn’t want the man who ordered it demand to have it partway through the day, as they didn’t recognize the need for “schedules” or “quotas” like the aristocratic men such as Potiphar. To them, if they wanted something, then everybody would have to rearrange their schedules to fit his need. The pistol took the majority of the morning, but the overseer of the forges made the rest of your quota relatively light as compensation.
     Your discretion payed off. At around mid-day, during the ration break, a man dressed in religious garb entered the city through the gate nearest to the forge. All of the slaves put down their food and stand at attention. The man talks to the forge overseer and the overseer comes to your group of slaves. He asks, “Who was responsible for crafting Jephthah’s pistol. He demands it immediately!.” You step forward and say “I am responsible Sir. The pistol is finished and inside the forge.” The man gives you a hard slap across the face and shouts at you. “Then why are you standing here! Get inside and retrieve it. Go!” You run into the forge and grab the pistol from where you left it. You are about to hurry out again when a peculiar thought comes to you. The perimeter wall gate by the forges was still open from when the religious man came in. Furthermore, the three vehicles that the Religious man and his entourage entered with still had their engines on. There was the car, very luxurious and probably comfortable to ride in, and there were 2 motorcycles that brought in two bodyguards each. You look around the forge and see some newly-made weapons: a scimitar, a spear, and a knife. That peculiar thought turns into a very real idea.

Spoiler: Complete story so far (click to show/hide)

This will undoubtedly become too big for one post, so here is a google doc that I will try to remember to update.

[crazyabe]

Grab all three weapons, and Run over to the vehicles we will "Borrow" one once we get to them

[origamiscienceguy]

Anybody else want to participate?

[crazyabe]

That is the question?
Answers
A) Yes
B) No
C) PTW
Thats 2 yeses

[origamiscienceguy]

That is the question?
Answers
A) Yes
B) No
C) PTW

what?

[wer6]

Grab thine Schimitar: it will do: heat it up to a searing glow, to burn through any who try and fight: this will seal thine scimitar in the blood of our captors: run fast and steadily. before we leave our humble abode, we will grab the spear and thine knife: rush out, find our familiar old pal: Big strong arms, he will be the spear bearer of WISDOM.  while the ensuing riot occurs (hopefully) we swill sneak across, grabbing those weak and unable to fend into the vehicle: and we will leave.

[Amperzand]

Keep the pistol with us, it may be useful at some point. Black powder's pretty simple to make, after all.

[crazyabe]

and i quote

Gunpowder was so rare these days that only the chief of the Erbium Empire or possibly one of the priests could possibly afford enough to make a pistol worthwhile

In other words we have no idea how to make it

[origamiscienceguy]

and i quote

Gunpowder was so rare these days that only the chief of the Erbium Empire or possibly one of the priests could possibly afford enough to make a pistol worthwhile

In other words we have no idea how to make it

Actually, there are no trees in the desert which means no charcoal.
I'm not an expert on black powder, but that's my excuse anyways.

[Amperzand]

As I understand it, you'd be able to make crappy gunpowder from dried urine, one of several sources of sulfur that would be available here, and, to use a plant you've confirmed exists, potato stalks put through the same process used to make smelting charcoal. The charcoal is just to hold oxidizer into the mixture via being porous, it's not a chemical necessity. You could probably use a number of things to replace it.

We alone wouldn't be able to make very much at all, plus we'd need lead, the materials to shape it, and, if this is anything other than a flintlock, various essential components like cartridges and primers that can't really be made without infrastructure.

Late-medieval level firearms are actually incredible simple in every area of their construction and supply, they're not exactly black science. They also suck, but whatever.

I can see a number of ways to handwave gunpowder not being made, such as some kind of pseudoreligious "Gunsmith's Guild" that makes it heresy to do so or something, and obviously if you're against firearms showing up here, I'm not going to make you spend a long time arguing with me over it.

[origamiscienceguy]

Grab all three weapons, and Run over to the vehicles we will "Borrow" one once we get to them

Grab thine Schimitar: it will do: heat it up to a searing glow, to burn through any who try and fight: this will seal thine scimitar in the blood of our captors: run fast and steadily. before we leave our humble abode, we will grab the spear and thine knife: rush out, find our familiar old pal: Big strong arms, he will be the spear bearer of WISDOM.  while the ensuing riot occurs (hopefully) we swill sneak across, grabbing those weak and unable to fend into the vehicle: and we will leave.

Keep the pistol with us, it may be useful at some point. Black powder's pretty simple to make, after all.

Without further hesitation, you pick up the pistol. But you also pick up a Scimitar that was still red-hot from the forge it was created from, a spear, and a knife. You begin to head outside of the forges to see the Forge Overseer in the entrance. He begins shouting, "Would you hurry up? I will half your rations for today if yo... Wait! Stop! Put that dow..." You don't let him finish his sentence. You slice him in the neck with the Scimitar, and his blood boils at the touch of the hot weapon. He collapses to the ground and you run out of the forges. The other slaves look at you as you come out, and seeing that you just killed the Forge Overseer, they too join your riot. You toss your spear to your brother Aaron, who also worked in the forges. Many slaves go back into the forges seeking weapons of their own while others mobbed Jephthah and his guards. Many slaves were killed, but all 5 bodyguards were taken down. You see Jephthah run into the city, shouting "Slave riot! Slave riot!" Chasing him would be a bad idea as soldiers were no doubt coming this way. The slaves now started cramming into the vehicles. You get on one of the motorcycles, 3 other slaves, including Aaron, get on as well. The other slaves get on the other motorcycle and over 2 dozen slaves get in, and on the car. You look at the entrance to the city and see the massive portcullis closing. 1 guard was inside the gatehouse, busy closing the gate, while the 10 other guards from guardhouse were out and prepared to face the riot. Most of the slaves were unarmed, but a few had weapons from the forges. You had a scimitar and a knife and Aaron behind you had a spear.

Sorry this update is late. I just got back from watching The Martian in the theater. (Great movie, by the way)

[crazyabe]

could I get a description of where the solder who is closing the gate is? above us, on ground level...

[origamiscienceguy]

could I get a description of where the solder who is closing the gate is? above us, on ground level...

Inside the gatehouse. I'll edit the story. Thanks for bringing that up.

[crazyabe]

!!DRIVE WE MUST ESCAPE THIS PLACE!!

[origamiscienceguy]

Completely ignoring the other slaves, you hit the gas and accelerate the motorcycle. Aaron and you were safe in the seats, but the two other slaves who climbed on the back had to hang on for dear life as to not fall off. You drive straight towards the line of 10 soldiers. Their lowered spears glistening in the noon sunlight. You start a game of chicken with them. You both knew that one would have to move to avoid the collision that would undoubtedly kill everyone. The distance between your motorcycle and the wall of men became half of what it once was, then a quarter. Finally, after you had passed the moment of no return, one of the soldiers must have moved just a bit, causing all of the soldiers to panic and dive to the side. One of the guards manages to hit one of the slaves on the back of the motorcycle with his spear, causing him to fall off. You don't have time to notice. The portcullis was getting lower and lower. You put all of the speed the motorcycle is capable of into the wheels, but it would still be close. You approach the gate and shout "DUCK!" You and Aaron both duck down, but the other slave on the back catches the portcullis on his face, sending him flying off the bike. You stop the motorcycle and watch the the slaves mob the Guards and some go into the gatehouse to try desperately to open the gate again. Unfortunately, the reinforcements arrive before the gate is open again. Some slaves try desperately to slither under the slightly-opened gate, only to have the portcullis crush them as the slaves operating the gate were cut down. You move on, not wanting to think about it. You know that you must get to the Rhodium Realm if you and Aaron are to survive. You know that it is North, but you don't know which direction North was.