> Chug sufficient whiskey to deaden pain and fear response, save remainder in bucket, then break bottle to use as weapon
The bucket is no good for convenient carrying, nor would that be hygenic, but you have yourself a good swig of Glen Avon and feel a lot better. AH YEAH. BURNS SO GOOD.
grab the skull to reenact the "alas poor yorik" scene from hamlet, but instead citing the "to be or not to be" part. then add the skull to your inventory, it's a nice lucky charm.
You don't know what a Yorik is but you spend a little bit of time monkeying around with the skull.
What's that Mr. Skully? Little Billy fell down the waterhole?
Arf!
I'm sure we'll get him out fine; let's not lose our heads about this! Ohohoho!
Arf arf!You don't really know what sounds a skull is supposed to make but barking seemed to work pretty well.
Find a damn weapon! Maybe a bone from the skell if nothing else.
You further desecrate the skeleton by repurposing its legbone. I guess he'll have to rest in pieces.
Remark that door looks like a fanged mouth.
A little bit, yeah. But your whisky-ed senses are thoroughly unconcerned.
go through the doorway
You step over a weird device and into a room with a strange machine in it.
A note! Read the note!
It appears to be the bottom half of the last paper found. Once again, it's signed by Les.
open the hatch on the machine.
You pop open the hatch. A computer console is built into it. An author somewhere realizes he is going to have to draw a character from behind one of these days.
Put the two notes together!
Due to this universe having a lazy author, they do not visually match up perfectly. However, recalling the previous note, you can match up the full text of both:
"
How the hell do these things keep getting in?? I have sealed every room but they keep getting in shit shit. I am going to try to get to the generator and shut it all down. We are going to have to be more cautious in the future. They may not be intelligent, but their affinity for violence was under-appreciated. -Les"
Push button
You push the button; nothing happens.
Stick the lightning coin in the slot on the machine to the right, then... Pull the lever!
You stick the lightning coin in the slot; but it falls out the bottom immediately. You pull the lever, and the machine whirrs to life. The computer must have been running on backup power, having already been turned on.
You stick the coin into the machine again now that everything is powered up, and it stays there.
Push button
You push the button again; this time a powerful shock zaps the medallion.
It falls out, apparently charged up. You take it.
Now put it in the left most of the three indentations we found earlier.
This time it begins to glow and crackle, and a loud CLICK is heard somewhere behind the wall. Nothing else appears to happen, but you suppose you're done with this medallion.
Go check out the ladder in the room behind the cabinet. If it's still blocked off, fiddle with the dials on the machine.
The ladder remains in place. Looks like you're going to have to deal with the lock itself, not just the power.
You try fiddling with the dials. Most don't do anything, but one turns the weird machine in the doorway to flame. Weird. You turn it off, spooked.
Investigate the computer.
It has three functions and a really old-school interface. Looks like your commands are LOGIN, HELP, or OPERATIONS.
use chimney soot to draw additional facial features on skull, (ala wilson) stow skull safely in inventory, climb chimney!
You leave the generator room and travel back to the smithy, but there is no soot in the chimney. This leaves the weird question of how or why it burned in the first place. You are pretty sure you can shimmy up, though.
You seem to be... outside? You made it! But you're still stuck in some sort of miniature canyon. Light shines down from above; you can't see where you are from here though.
There is a bit pit with some pipes and a drain in it. There seems to be an object jammed in one of them. There are also some circular stones lying on the pit floor. A tree has grown out from the cliff face, and a bird sits happily in its nest. Across the pit there is a mossy wall, a ladder, and a cave entrance.
Turn the powered wall-gizmo in the fireplace room to low, examine any changes.
You flick the dial to LO. You hear the sound of water running through pipes, but no changes are evident, nor does the marker on the display slide.
Can we turn the remainder of the whiskey into a molotov?
Probably! You are not looking forwards to wasting the last of that brew but if a need arises you would accept your duty.
Also, at one point you said there was something inside the chimney but that we couldn't reach it because it was too hot... What happened to that item?
You knocked it out with the hammer. It was the lightning medallion.
Jump into the expanse formerly known as mirror.
You can't fit through the hole!
turn the dial to high
You climb down the chimney and first turn the dial to "med." The needle moves halfway up the display, and you hear water rushing behind the wall.
There is a noticeable change to the room.
You turn the dial all the way up to "hi." Nothing happens - perhaps the clogged pipe is stopping the pressure from increasing?
go back to computer room, type help
>help
It seems someone has programmed in a message for Les.
You are faced with a short riddle.
> MOUNTAIN
You enter "mountain."
It works! You are given a password and username.
You enter "login."
All right, access granted!
Let's see what this computer does...
...Huh.
stare out the circular window, check the hatch atop the lader and climb the chimney to see if anything interesting happened
The hatch remains sealed. However, you take a look out the window...
It's all dark, and the stones are gone. You decide to head up the chimney and take a look.
The water has filled up, and the circular stones seem to have... floated?... up to the surface.
Jam rock into pipe on roof.
The pipe's now underwater, but you couldn't get down there before anyways. The pipes are in the pit in the canyon - you are merely in the canyon.
Mayhaps there are vines that could be scaled...
There are! They are across the spring, but only seem to go upwards.
check if the hatch atop the ladders is open
It is!
fill the spring again and try to jump to the floating stones to reach the other side
You hop across the stones easily while the bird chirps at you. They do not wobble nor marginally sink at all.
You climb the moss and find yourself... whoa.
You are standing at the edge of a massive cliff. The 'canyon' you were in was hardly a canyon at all - merely an indentation in the surface of this giant, flat-topped plateau you are on. The landscape stretches out almost as far as you can see, then sharply dropping down. Leaning over the edge, you see the rock face sharply jut down, into a bed of clouds.
You are not in a complex underground cave system at all. You are on a mountain.
Far ahead of you is a fork in the faint road, marked by a inukshuk standing atop a small boulder.
approach and examine the inukshuk
It seems it was very carefully constructed, to serve as a marker between this mossy rock face, and the left and right paths. You pick up and examine each stone but there is nothing out of the ordinary about it. You make sure to keep it together so you don't get lost yourself.
Go left.
You go left, and arrive at a rather decrepit cabin.
examine thing under window
They are poorly drawn cellar doors with a lock chaining them shut. Your 'skeleton key' doesn't work on it.
Enter
Oh my! A very well-to-do gentleman is here.
Inquire of him his name, his business, and if he has any comestibles.
You ask him this. He says a true gentleman introduces himself before he asks them questions.
Sheepishly inform him that currently your name has been misplaced, but that the name "Adventure Guy" should suffice for now.
He says fine then, "Gentleman" will suffice for himself. He says he is pleased to meet you.
Shake him by the hand, as according a true gentleman's behavior, and endeavor to discover more of the nature of this strange place.
He accepts your proffered hand and shakes it. He says he does not know much about this place. He found this cabin while looking around.