Lazy Saturnday

This is page T1 of the Choose Your Own Damn Blog Post Adventure Story Thing, if you’re confused start at the first page of the Troll story.

You shove your emergency purse into the backpack after the laptop and slip your arms through the straps. You here a pounding on the front door and “Open up, we’ve got a warrant” from the front porch as you put your jacket on over your backpack. It’s uncomfortable but less chance of getting caught on something. A blast of could air pours over you as you climb out the window, and onto the sloping shingles of the roof. Fortunately it hasn’t rained in a few days, or you’d probably have gone right over the edge. As it is you momentarily lose your footing due to the steep incline, but grab the windowsill and steady yourself. You pull the window closed behind you.

You see movement in the back yard, and revise your plan, a few precarious steps to the right and you reach the building next door. It’s easy enough to climb to the peak of your roof once you get around the dormer. From there the laundromat’s flat roof is easily reached, with little more then a bumped shin as you climb over. You’re thankful no one is filming this, because you certainly don’t feel as graceful as all those people do on youtube. Of course they’ve probably practiced and scouted out their routes tons in advance, whereas you’ve never actually been up here before.

It only takes a minute to get to the far end of the roof when you see a major problem with your plan… the next building over is much farther  separated than you’d remembered. Even though it’s only one story, and relatively flat, you’ll definitely need a running jump to get across and maybe not even then. You need to decide quick, you can hear the cops at your window… unfortunately you weren’t able to latch it from the outside, and they’ll probably be out on the roof in moments.

What do you do?

CHOICE (T1)1 I can totally make it. Get a good running start and leap to the next building.

CHOICE (T1)2 The door down to the laundromat  probably isn’t locked, and even if it is, it’ll be a cinch to pick.

CHOICE (T1)3 There’s got to be another way, I’ll look around quickly for an alternative route of escape.

Earlier you made a choice. Did you choose right? Well, it’s not to late to change your mind. Look well, at your possible pasts, and now, choose for real!

 Barbarian

Did you pick Barbarian? Then you are Greg the Barbarian. Really though your story started earlier!

Three Hours ago!

Earlier at your performance review, when you were Greg the Accountant, the boss complimented your tie, but you suspect he was being sarcastic. And while you told him that you love your job, and it’s a joy to work here, the truth is the outdated spreadsheet software makes your skin crawl every time you have to use it. After the meeting (which is to say just a few moments ago) you were taking a little break and surfing the internet. You accidentally clicked on one of those ads that claimed you were the millionth visitor and had won.

A pop-up came up, asking what your true wish was. You tried to close the pop up but it wouldn’t go away. Finally in frustration you muttered “I wish I could just smash this. I wish I could smash everything!” Everything goes black and then there is a flash.

And now we’re back to the present.

The case of your computer sparks, and smoke rises around the head of your axe where it is buried inside it. Around you the rest of the cube-farmers look on in shock. You catch a glimpse of yourself in the now black screen of your monitor. Your shirt is ripped by muscles you didn’t have two seconds ago. Your tie is choking you, so you tear it off and wrap it around your head to keep the water that is now pouring from the roof out of your eyes. There is an annoying and repetitive screeching sound, and the peasants around you are milling about in panic, but mostly fleeing from your awesome might.

The Boss comes out of his office and looks around in confusion.

CHOICE B1) The Boss is a worthy foe! Charge The Boss and enter into mortal combat!

CHOICE B2) The Boss is not a worthy foe! Brush past him and search his lair for loot!

Troll

But, wait, what if you had made a different choice? Maybe you picked Troll! Then you are 23PenguinsRool23. At least you were while you were trolling random blogs on Tumblr.  We’re not going to do the time travel thing, as it’s become tedious already. Earlier this morning (really it was last night, since you haven’t been to sleep yet) you were RickRollsCrits and what you were doing was decidedly less legal then making fun of teenagers’ dumb posts.

You doubt that the sirens are really for you. Let’s be fair here, you’re really good at hacking, and you covered your tracks really well. Hell, it’ll be two or three days yet before your cut clears the off-shore accounts and gets somewhere that you can use it.

Still, it pays to be paranoid. You check that your “work” laptop is encrypted, and then hibernate it and slide it into the hiding space in the floor. It’s a good thing too, because the cops have definitely stopped close by, which a quick check of your security cameras confirms. Someone must have ratted you out, you know you didn’t make any mistakes!

You slam your “play” laptop closed and slide it into your backpack; it’ll have to do. You grab your emergency purse and a jacket. You can hear a pounding on the front door, if you don’t get out now, there’s no chance you’ll escape.

CHOICE T1) You’re on the second floor, but you’ve watched a lot of Parkour videos on youtube. Defenestration is the answer!

CHOICE T2) The cops will surely find the “work” laptop, you can practically hear the fan yourself through the floorboards. Grab it and then make a dash for it.

CHOICE T3) Down the stairs and out the back door before your dumb-ass boyfriend lets the cops in.

Wizard

Yet, you may well ask, why be satisfied with the choices given, maybe you want to make your own choices. Fine. You are after all the great wizard, Wathemet. However, that does mean we will have to go back in time.

One Hour Ago

I never said far back in time. And to be honest, maybe Great is a bit of a stretch, you are only a Level five wizard, though that is pretty great. You’ve nearly finished scribing your essay on the Use of Alchemical Fire in Subterranean Expanses Under Duress. Satisfied with your work, you cast a Spellcheck spell, to check the spelling and grammar, flip your hour glass and decide to relax a bit by reading some inferior essays by other wizards in Scryer Weekly. You settle back in your comfiest chair with your crystal ball and a fine glass of wine and begin reading.

One Hour Later. Which is right now. That is to say, we’re back at the time where we started. Oh forget it, time travel is complicated okay, and maybe not the best narrative device. I guess I was right to skip it the second time. I’ll just take my own advice next time. ANYWAY, onwards:

It is fortuitous that you finished the bottle off some minutes ago, for you have stumbled upon a most disturbing article from an upstart young rival wizard, and you’re so angry you drop your wineglass onto the floor to grip your crystal ball with both hands and stare deeply at the offending missive. It is entitled Stress Related Injuries due to Misapplication of Alchemical Fire in a Dungeon Environment. And it is an almost word for word copy of what you have written, except that (and a quick glance confirms) the  Spellcheck Spell hasn’t even finished. Yet everything is there, even your observations of a hapless halfing’s hilarious attempt to ‘fight fire with fire’ as he put it, but chucking a vial of the stuff at a Flame Bat. Oh, this is infuriating. And unjust! You can not let this stand, but how could it have happened?

CHOICE W1) How he did it matters not, Loxius Ignotus must pay, and soon! You grab your hat and staff and storm out the door.

CHOICE W2) If you can find out how Loxius Ignotus did it, your can return the favor, and discredit him in the eyes of your peers.

Choose once, choose well!

So there you have it, all three stories that could have been chosen. However the story will only continue on a single thread, so ONLY the most voted for choice will continue (at least until we die or live happily ever after). To vote just comment below (the first time you comment it’ll be moderated, but after that it should show up instantly). Bonus points for justifying why your choice is the best possible choice in all possible universes, and anyone who chooses otherwise is silly.

Votes must be submitted before noon on Monday so that I have time to write up the next chapter!

Welcome to the new site of my blog. I’ve imported almost everything from my old Tumblr blog. I’m going to try and stick to a schedule, and post different things each day of the week. For the moment I’ve got 5 categories, so I’ll only be posting 5 days a week. Hopefully however this will allow me to build up a little bit of a buffer, so missing a day won’t be so bad. If you have suggestions for what to do on the other two days (or think one of the existing categories is ass) let me know in the comments. For now the categories/days are:

• Monday: Let’s Play writeups
• Tuesday: Tabletop gaming discussion (Board, Card and RPGs)
• Wednesday: Review time (Movies, books or whatevs)
• Thursday: Rant day
• Friday: Choose Your Own Adventurous Post

Since I haven’t gone to sleep yet, it is technically still Friday as far as I am concerned, so I think it’s time to start the story!

Choose Your Own Damn Post

Your day started like normal, and everything was going great. You did that one thing that you were good at a bunch, and it was really fulfilling. That person you admired complimented you on your attire. Your day was almost over, and you were reading this unimaginably boring blog post when you decided to stop because:

1) As a Barbarian you don’t actually know how to use the internet.

You smash the computer with your ax and try to find your way out of the cube-farm maze. What do they even grow here?

2) As a Troll you could certainly write a much more entertaining and grammatical correct post.

 You begin to write a comment to that effect but only get as far as “You suck because…” before you hear sirens outside.

3) You are neither of these things.

You write your true identity in the comments, and what the first “choice” is.

Once I have enough votes to be decisive, or someone posts something spectacular for option 3, I’ll write the first chapter. This does mean we’ll probably skip the first Friday to give me a bit more time to get the story that YOU want written.

EDIT: If you think someone else’s “Option 3” is the best, vote for that. I’m just going to go by democratic method, and whatever choice gets the most votes!