Last time, on Adventure Guy…
Finding the Rec Room, AG discovered that two of the remaining three robots had been ripped apart. One was limbless, and had had its head punched in straight through the ‘brain’ and memory chip. The other had had its head ripped off, and its parts scattered around the room – however, the head was still functioning, if only barely. It repeated an automated start-up message for new purchasers of AuxBots, then finally ran out of power and shut off. In mourning, and to abandon the association with the scientists, AG laid his lab coat over one of the bodies, then grabbed a loose arm to later bring to Patch.
AG’s examination of the room was interrupted by Skree, who jumped down onto his head and sent a series of semi-coherent messages urging AG towards the giant oculoid in the room above. Not getting the message, AG was tackled and dogpiled by all the oculoids in the room, creating a group image urging him towards the giant oculoid with his sword. AG reached out frantically, grabbed one of its tentacles, and was flung into a nightmarish dream.
In the black void, an imaginary expanse created by the giant oculoid’s synesthetic abilities, AG was able to talk to the spirit of the giant oculoid, now bitter, angry, and sad. After expressing his hate and rage, it explained that it wanted to die and be put out of its misery. Stuck in the dream, AG had no choice but to consent to kill it to escape. The beast now dead, the stray oculoids no longer showed any interest in it.
Before he could continue his exploration, AG’s vision was obscured by a series of flickery images, seeming to depict the spaceship. He returned there to find a partial face on the monitor, and a voice directing him to the ‘dock’ – the one leading nowhere in the volcano. AG found himself strangely compelled to obey this voice, and left for the volcano immediately. An odd sight met him: At the end of the dock was a metal hatch leading down into the magma, as well as Gentleman, now refit with a large claw hand and several welded-together frame parts to replace his melted body shell.
Tensions were high between the two robots, but Gentleman did not instigate a fight, instead directing AG into the hatch. AG was skeptical of following any instruction given by Gentleman, but when he was sure the aggressive robot would not follow or try and surprise attack him from behind, he descended and found Dr. Feringus.
The doctor was cold, curt, and somewhat bemused with AG. She explained only what she felt necessary, giving AG important information to access useful chemicals in the mines and telling him how to re-power the spaceship and mix various chemicals properly, but when asked about the treatment of oculoids or the robots, she not only declined to answer but forbid AG from bringing the topics up at all. Again, AG was unable to resist this order. Though somewhat cryptic, Feringus did display an interest in AG progressing in his exploration, though she did not explain further. To this end, she gave him a key to the mines and offered to fix something of AG’s for their next meeting, to which AG gave her the music box.
Before AG could inquire more about what he was supposed to be doing, he was ordered into the mines. He returned to the Rec Room, unlocked the trap door, and descended into the hot tunnel immediately, only recovering free will upon fulfilling the parameters of the order and arriving at another magma-filled cavern in the heart of the mountain. This one was filled with twisty trees winding up out of the magma and all around each other. At the far end of the cavern was a cooler filled with various chemicals and another video cassette.
Returning from the mines, AG went to discuss his recent explorations with Patch and give the armless bot a hand, but discovered that the protective incinerator door had been pulled open, leaving deep, jagged claw marks. Patch was gone, his notes scattered everywhere.
AG returned to the spaceship and popped the cassette into the VCR-player. This tape again chronicled the early days of the scientists’ expedition, but began to turn into documentation of their experiments on oculoids, and eventually documenting cruelty which seemed to have no scientific purpose. The monitor then shut off, its reserve power finally drained.
Unnerved, AG decided to try and figure out how to re-power the spaceship. One of the posts around its base was missing, which AG realized was the one he had taken shortly after he woke up and placed into a door – but that door was no longer accessible from the front when it was down. AG instead decided to use the recipe for mixing an explosive in the lab and created a black explosive goop which disintegrated the rocky pile between the Rec Room and his waking room. Installing the recovered rod powered up the spaceship again, and though it had no fuel, AG was able to use the now fully-working navigation sphere to figure out the exact distance between this planet and Earth: rough 155 million light-years.
Using 155 as a password, AG was able to access the room marked CHEM X STORAGE on the map and discovered many giant oculoid mouth-appendages hanging from the ceiling – some full and ‘ripe,’ some withered and ‘dried.’ A hose was used to suck raw Chemical X plus various nutrients out and into the chemical apparatus in the lab.
Finding a key and a large jug of ‘solvent’ there, AG decided to open the final locker in the locker room. He discovered a letter written by Les both lamenting and accepting responsibility for his actions towards the oculoids. It appeared to have been written shortly before heading towards the generator, and to his death.
The jug of solvent was able to de-acidify the sewage basin, and AG finally retrieved the water medallion. He swiped it in the spring above the smithy to activate it, then placed it into the runic wall. All three medallions restored, a handle in the manhole in the floor popped up, and AG was able to lift it out of the way. Frigid winds rushed out of the formerly contained area, and the stray oculoids around the facility all hurried inside. Now alone, AG descended the long, long, dark passage, and finally found himself in a oculoid village, lit by a giant circular tunnel in the wall.
You pick up an oculoid. It doesn’t seem to be thinking about anything in particular. It is pretty satisfied and carefree.
You wander into a hole and find a little circular room carved into the rock. Two oculoids are sitting in here, not doing much in particular.
In another you find an oculoid digging out the room a bit more. A cocoon-looking thing sits in the middle of the floor.
An oculoid sits on a pile of hammers here. He appears to be rather proud of his collection.
He yells at you when you move to take one. Okay, okay, relax buddy!
You stare into the passage and see… only light. It is shimmering and wondrous, but distant.
You move to ascend the tunnel but feel a subtle impulse to examine the statue.
You walk up to the statue in the middle of the room. It’s a much larger version of the one you have in your bag, and is sitting on some sort of little stone pedestal in the middle of the room. Hm. Not that interesting. Time to get back to that tunnel.
You turn to walk away and find that the world has been replaced with some sort of white expanse.
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Topic: [ISG] Adventure Guy! - Epilogue (Read 519234 times)