Sugarcane

You poke your head out of the broken window and look down. You see nothing but fog. There's no going back the way you came.\n\nYou get a funny feeling that you're near the end.\n\n[[Approach the door]]

They are sitting at a desk by large floor-to-ceiling window. On the desk are piles of paper and a snowglobe that appears to contain a tiny miniature town. The most terrifying being you will ever see is performing an act that chills your breath and makes your body tremble, your eyes dart and that ancient fight-or-flight instinct goes unwaveringly to flight and does not budge. But yet you do not move.\n\n[[You meet the being's eyes]].

<<if $digScrewdriver>>\nIt is a phillips-head screwdriver with a yellow handle. The tip is well worn, made even more so by your recent attempt to dig through the wall.\n\nYou'll need something chemical in cooperation with the screwdriver to get through the wall.\n\n[[Examine items on table]]\n<<else>>\nYou pick up the screwdriver and turn it around in your hands. It is a phillips-head screwdriver with a yellow handle. The tip is well worn. On the handle is a sticker of a clip art apple.\n\nPerhaps you could try and dig through the wall, or you could peel off the apple sticker.\n\n[[Peel off apple sticker]]\n[[Dig through wall with screwdriver]]\n<<endif>>

"That snowglobe. What is it?"\n\nThe creature guffaws. "Business. I am a property developer, but on an interdimensional stage."\n\nHe goes on.\n\n"An ordinary property developer would sell lots of land. But I, I sell areas of space and time. A client wants to build his own city but wants a prime location? I take an existing area of space and time and trasnfer everything in it to a pocket dimension, like this snowglobe here, and sell all the time and space it would have occupied to my client."\n\n"Unfortunately, the organic inhabitants suffer side effects of residing in a pocket dimension, but why should that get in the way of business?"\n\nYou've heard enough. You need to take action.\n\n[[Attack the being]]

<<if $chocolateBar>>You open one of the drawers on Lance's life support machine and put the chocolate bar in.\n\nLance appears to be thinking for a while, and then he looks a bit disgusted.\n\n"This thing seems gross. I appreciate the thought though. Sit yourself down, let's have a chat."\n\n[[Endure inevitable tragic backstory]]<<else>>You haven't got anything to feed him. There's got to be some food lying around somewhere.\n\nYou run back to the [[Library Room]] in search of some tasty eats.<<endif>>

<<if $ultimateQuest>>You approach the large wooden door nervously. As you get closer, you realise that there is embossed golden lettering on the door. It reads "ET HOMES". Underneath it is a slogan in smaller golden lettering: "Property development that's out of this world!". Something in your mind suddenly clicks and you understand. This must be the property developer that imprisoned the ghostly town!\n\nYou [[turn the doorknob]].<<else>>You approach the large wooden door nervously. As you get closer, you realise that there is embossed golden lettering on the door. It reads "ET HOMES". Underneath it is a slogan in smaller golden lettering: "Property development that's out of this world!".\n\nYou [[turn the doorknob]].<<endif>>

<<display "Bookshop">>

You are trapped in a room. You must escape or die.

You lean down and open the second gold-trimmed drawer on Lance's life support box. Inside appears to be a little silver cigarette case.\n\nYou open it up. It seems to be filled with sugar cubes.\n\n"What's this?" you ask.\n\n"Drugs," says Lance, nonchalantly. "It's LSD. You'll be surprised at what you can do with it."\n\nYou acquire the Box of LSD! <<set $gotDrugs = true>>\n\n"With drugs, you can do anything," whispers Lance. "Even //the impossible//."\n\nYou leave the Reading Room and go back to the [[Library Room]]. Escape is near, you can feel it.\n

<<if $ultimateQuest>>You charge toward the being, fists outstretched, and attempt to punch. However, before you can even strike it a strange force pushes you back and you sprawl upon the warping carpet.\n\n"You can't touch me," guffaws the being. "I have a protective energy field around me that prevents organics from reaching me."\n\nYou run to the walls, and with a sweeping motion gather a pile of books into your hands.\n\n"What are you doing?" the being says.\n\nYou jump on top of a filing cabinet floating on the walls and with all your might, slam the books into the tiny gap between the cabinet and the wall.\n\nThe cabinet launches itself from the aurora, flies across the room and slams into the creature, who, with a bloodcurdling noise, tips back in its chair and breaks through the floor-to-ceiling window, falling downwards, ever downwards into the infinite abyss.\n\nThe snowglobe still sits on the desk, undisturbed under a pile of papers.\n\nWhat do you want to do?\n\n[[Find your way home]]\n[[Break the snowglobe]] <<else>>You charge toward the being, fists outstretched, and attempt to punch. However, before you can even strike it a strange force pushes you back and you sprawl upon the warping carpet.\n\n"You can't touch me," guffaws the being. "I have a protective energy field around me that prevents organics from reaching me."\n\nYou run to the walls, and with a sweeping motion gather a pile of books into your hands.\n\n"What are you doing?" the being says.\n\nYou jump on top of a filing cabinet floating on the walls and with all your might, slam the books into the tiny gap between the cabinet and the wall.\n\nThe cabinet launches itself from the aurora, flies across the room and slams into the creature, who, with a bloodcurdling noise, tips back in its chair and breaks through the floor-to-ceiling window, falling downwards, ever downwards into the infinite abyss.\n\nWhat do you want to do?\n\n[[Find your way home]] <<endif>>

<<set $money = 0>>You wake up.\n\nYou are in a featureless, white room, about five metres square. There are no doors and no windows. In front of you is a large oak table with a resin finish, and sitting on the table is a collection of items.\n\n[[Assess your situation]]\n[[Examine items on table]]

<<display "Bookshop">>

<<display "Library Room">>

<<if $brokeSnowglobe>>You look for an exit. The door you came in through has dissolved into the wall, and the entire room shakes beneath your feet, and a low rumble fills your eardrums. The auroras holding the books scatter through the room and everything begins to float, including yourself.\n\nThe carpet tears in several places and starts to burn. Obviously whatever magic that held this place together is failing. You look desperately for an exit, but there is none.\n\nThe fragments of the broken snowglobe drift past you and searching for something, you grab onto it. Suddenly, blinding light fills your vision and you shut your eyes tightly.\n\n[[Open your eyes]]<<else>>You look for an exit. The door you came in through has dissolved into the wall, and the entire room shakes beneath your feet, and a low rumble fills your eardrums. The auroras holding the books scatter through the room and everything begins to float, including yourself.\n\nThe carpet tears in several places and starts to burn. Obviously whatever magic that held this place together is failing. You look desperately for an exit, but there is none.\n\nThere is no escape. You've won, but at the cost of your own life. As the fragments of the room break away into the void, you accept it. Pushing off a fragment of wall, you launch yourself out of the aurora and into the void.\n\n[[THE END]]<<endif>>\n

You use the screwdriver to break open the box, and scoop out a handful of the powder. Hoping silently that this will work, you spit into your hand a couple of times. The soap powder becomes incredibly sticky.\n\nYou slap it onto the wall, where it sticks, and pick up the screwdriver. You plunge it into the centre of the soap powder mess on the wall and begin rotating the screwdriver clockwise and counterclockwise with both hands, incredibly quickly, until smoke starts to rise from the tip. You drop the screwdriver and run for cover on the other side of the room.\n\nBOOM.\n\nThe wall explodes, creating a hole that you can barely fit through. You're lucky you messed around with soap powder when you were a kid and discovered its explosive properties, even if it did mean you destroyed your town's laundromat. Twice.\n\nYou also conveniently forget that soap powder has no explosive properties whatsoever.\n\nThe screwdriver's tip has been destroyed in the explosion, and all that's left is a very clean-smelling, jagged metal edge. You could possibly use it as a weapon, so you hang onto it for later.\n\n[[Enter through the hole]]

You wipe some frost off the window so you can see out.\n\nIf you look below, you can see down to the square, lit with golden light and ghosts passing through. But, if you look upwards and beyond the square, you see nothing but fog. Just endless fog.\n\nIf you look closely though, in the distance you can see what seems to be...glass? Glass. It's a glass dome. You're under a glass dome.\n\nYou need to find out what's going on.\n\n[[Read the tome]]

<<if $visitedGhost>>You're in the front of the Ghost World Bookshop again. The spirit behind the counter is still reading his book. You stick your tongue out at him but he doesn't notice.\n\nWhat are you going to do?\n\nEnter [[Ghost Town]]\n[[Flip the sign again]]<<else>>You're in the front of the bookshop again, but something feels different. For one, there is what seems to be a man behind the counter of the bookshop. He is reading a book. You stare at him.\n\nHe seems to be made of smoke or something, like a hologram. Or a ghost. You yell at him.\n\n"Hey, you!"\n\nHe doesn't respond. He just keeps reading his book.\n\nYou seem to be in some sort of ghost world. Or maybe you're the ghost. Whatever. It's messing with your head. Just decide what you're going to do already.\n\n[[Exit through the door]]\n[[Try and walk back through the bookshelves to the Library Room]]\n[[Flip the sign again]]<<endif>>

The most terrifying being you will ever see is a short, portly man wearing a brown suit, signing papers with a ornate ballpoint pen.\n\nHe looks up at you. "Yes?" he asks expectantly.\n\nYou do not answer.\n\n"Don't worry, I know who you are." He says. "Take a seat."\n\nYou do not move.\n\n"Your human mind cannot comprehend the illusion. [[I will reveal my true form]]."\n

<<if $ultimateQuest>>Your eyes reveal the truth and you regain control of your body. However, the being is too terrible to describe or remember. All you need to know is that you are now under threat. You must retaliate.However, your eyes drift to the snowglobe on the desk. That ghost town...you need to know why.\n\n[[Question the being]]\n[[Attack the being]]<<else>>Your eyes reveal the truth and you regain control of your body. However, the being is too terrible to describe or remember. All you need to know is that you are now under threat. You must retaliate.\n\n[[Attack the being]]<<endif>>

<<set $bookshopExplored = true>><<display "Front of the Bookshop">>\n

You jump behind the counter and open the cash register by pulling the lever on the side. There is a short "ding" and the tray slides out.\n\nThere's not a lot in here apart from a few coins identical to the ones you saw before. You pocket them. <<set $money = $money + 3>> <<set $registerRaided = true>>\n\nThere also seems to be a small locket on a gold chain in the back of the tray. You can't open it, so you decide to hang onto it. Maybe it will be useful later.\n\n[[Examine the counter]]

You grab the snowglobe off the desk, raise it high above your head and throw it down on the carpet.\n\nIt shatters, the glass flying across the room. The miniature city is nowhere to be seen.\n\nYou've done it. You have put the tortured city of ghosts to rest.<<set $brokeSnowglobe = true>>\n\n[[Find your way home]]

With some difficulty, you manage to squeeze through the uneven hole you've blown in the white wall and fall onto what appears to be a large, rich red rug. You pull yourself to your feet and look around. You are in a completely different room now.<<set $beatRoomone = true>>\n\n[[Continue to the second room]]

Before pocketing the currency, you inspect it closer. The coins appear to be made of silver and gold, hammered roughly. They appear to have text in latin and pictures of...roman emperors?\n\n<html><IMG SRC="http:/www.tts-group.co.uk/_rmvirtual/media/tts/images/legacy/R-COIN.jpg"></html> \n\nYou decide to hang onto the currency and drop it in your pocket. It could be of use in future. <<set $money = $money + 3>> <<set $pocketedCoins = true>>\n\n[[Examine the counter]]

You pick one up, flip one over and look at the ingredients. Cyanide, sodium, human flesh...this doesn't seem too appetizing. Besides, they have a whopping 70g of sugar per serving!\n\nThe use-by date is 29th February 1998. You don't know what the date is, so you don't want to risk it.\n\n<<if $chocolateBar>>You've already got one, so you don't bother taking another. Let's see what else is on the counter.<<else>>You pocket one anyway and turn your attention to the other items on the counter. <<set $chocolateBar = true>> <<endif>>\n\n[[Examine the counter]]

You enter the large marble building and find yourself in a large atrium. Two staircases on the right and left hand sides of the room lead upwards to the second floor of the Town Hall. In between the staircases is an ornate mahogany desk, detailed with golden trim. Behind it, an elderly ghost dressed in a business suit is slowly filling in paperwork with a ghostly pen. As usual, he is not aware of your presence.\n\nWhat do you want to do?\n\n[[Go up the staircase]]\nExit to [[Ghost Town]]

<<if $brokeSnowglobe>>Thank you for playing The Room! This adventure has been written and programmed by Ynte Lammertsma, myself. You can find more of my work at onstageoffstage.tumblr.com.\n\nThis text adventure is currently in Beta and the version is 8.1.\n\nCongrats on breaking the snowglobe and saving the town! You've successfully found the "secret" subplot.<<else>>Thank you for playing In A Room! This adventure has been written and programmed by Ynte Lammertsma, myself. You can find more of my work at onstageoffstage.tumblr.com.\n\nThis text adventure is currently in Beta and the version is v4.\n\nUnfortunately, you didn't figure out the secret subplot in your playthrough. Try investigating everything to find out exactly what was going on!<<endif>>

The laundromat is fairly empty, except for the ghostly acne-ridden teenager behind the counter and a lone ghost woman doing her laundry at the far end of the room.\n\nThere appears to be a glowing coming from one of the nearby washing machines.\n\n[[Inspect glowing washing machine]]\nExit to [[Ghost Town]]

011010010010011101101101001000000110011101101111011010010110111001100111001000000111010001101111001000000110010001101001011001010010000001101000011011110110110001111001001000000111001101101000011010010111010000100000011101110110100001101111011000010010000001110100011010000110100101110011001000000110100101110011001000000110110101100101011101000110000101101100\n\n[[00101010]]

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On the counter is an ancient cash register, <<if $pocketedCoins>><<else>>a few coins, <<endif>>and a box of chocolate bars with an egyptian mummy cartoon, labeled "Yummi Mummies".\n\n<<if $registerRaided>><<else>>[[Raid cash register]]<<endif>>\n<<if $pocketedCoins>><<else>>[[Take coins]]<<endif>>\n[[Eat chocolate bar]]\nGo back to the [[Front of the Bookshop]]

//A few days after people started dropping dead, something else happened. Our town suffered what seemed to be a giant earthquake. Nothing was destroyed, however - everything just shook.\n\nWhen we the shaking stopped, we found that we were isolated. Separated from the rest of the world. When we walked to the borders of our town, we could not go past them. We could only see fog. We could not escape.\n\nI believe that we have been bound by some sort of magic. That seems to be the only explanation why the dead have not moved on, and why this ever-present fog haunts our borders.\n\nMy wife and daughters have died. Their spirits linger in my home, talking, laughing, playing. But I cannot speak to them and it pains me. I must join them. As we all must.\n\nWhile we may grow used to our lives in a new, undead existance. Deep down, we all wish for peace. If only.\n\nIf only.//\n\n<<set $ultimateQuest = true>>\n\n[[Close the tome]]

Directly across the street from the Ghost World Bookshop is a large, marble, regal-looking building that you presume to be the Town Hall, and next to it is a small, dingy 1980s laundromat.\n\nWhat do you do?\n\n[[Go back to the Bookshop]]\nGo to the [[Ghost Town Hall]]\n<<if $goldenKey>><<else>>Go to the [[Ghost Laundromat]]<<endif>>

<<if $visitedGhost>>You flip the sign, and with the expected shaking and sound of buffalos slurping spaghetti, you arrive in the Ghost World.<<else>>You follow this strange, uncontrollable urge and flip the sign on the back of the door.\n\nSuddenly, the floor rumbles beneath your feet. The entire shop is shaking! There is a sound like a thousand buffalo eating at Fasta Pasta, and the rumbling stops and everything is silent. A soft golden light suddenly streams through the cracks in the bookshop's door.<<endif>>\n\n[[Continue]]

You open the door and blinding golden light fills your vision and you can't see. Once your eyes have adjusted to the light, you see you seem to to be in a homely villiage square, with a fountain in the center. It is filled with ghostly people just like the strange man behind the counter in the bookshop.\n\nGhostly couples walk by, and ghostly mothers rush past pulling along their ghostly children. Transparent businessmen eat lunch on park benches. Smoky pigeons are even pecking about on the ground.\n\nIt appears you've landed in some sort of [[Ghost Town]].<<set $visitedGhost = true>>

You close the tome.\n\nThis has given you a lot to think about. This property developer, could he have caused this curse? If you get the chance, you will free the people of this town.\n\nExit the building to [[Ghost Town]]

In A Room

<<if $gotPowder>>You press the button and start the washing machine, and you wait to recieve your golden prize. You attempt to make conversation with the lone ghost doing her laundry.\n\n"So, do you come here often?"\n\nShe doesn't respond because she can't hear you and even if she could, that's a dumb question and won't get you anywhere.\n\n"Hey doll, what's cookin', good lookin'?"\n\nShe doesn't respond again because she can't hear you. Because she's a ghost. But even if she could, that's too arrogant. You need something suave.\n\nYou're going to do it. You're going to deliver the ultimate pick-up line. You psyche yourself up. Alright. You're ready. And now it's time to-\n\nOh look, your laundry is done.\n\n[[Retrieve Key]]<<else>>You can't do that at the moment. The machine needs soap powder to run.\n\n[[Insert soap powder]]\n<<endif>>

//We were once a happy town. Normal and human, just like you. We woke up in the morning and went to bed at night.\n\nOne day a bigshot property developer from the city came to visit us. He came directly to me, the mayor, attempting to negotiate a deal to buy the entire town. For "development".\n\nObviously, I denied. This would mean he would own the town, and the people would have to leave their homes. I would not stand for it, so he left in a huff.\n\nThe next day, strange things began happening. People began dropping dead in their homes. We had no idea what caused it, but we soon discovered something else. The spirits of those who had died still lingered in our world, speaking, walking, talking but unable to communicate with us. They were unaware of our presence.\n\nHowever, the spirits began to converse with each other. We observed conversations, consolations, love. Still, they could not hear us or see us. Our loved ones were separated from us by the veil of death.\n\nHowever, other strange things began happening.//\n\n[[Turn to the next page|Page 3]]

You climb the marble stairs slowly, and notice that on the second floor the two staircases merge into a neat set of switchback stairs, leading higher and higher into the large marble building. Looking up, you contemplate the journey ahead of you, shrug and continue climbing.\n\nFinally, after what seems like an hour, the stairs end and you reach a door which is marked "Lookout".\n\nYou open the door and enter the [[Lookout]]

You've had enough of this creepy place. Maybe you can get back the same way you came.\n\nYou walk up to the door and flip the sign again, so it now reads "closed" from the outside. The ground starts to shake again, and the golden light and the man behind the counter vanish, replaced with darkness once more.\n\nYou're back in the real world, in the [[Front of the Bookshop]].

It's an average biography, boring really.\n\nYou're sure there's something really ironic about this book, but you can't put your finger on it.\n\n[[Examine items on table]]

You retrieve the Golden Key!<<set $goldenKey = true>>\n\nYou dance with triumph and exit to [[Ghost Town]]

You attempt to walk back into the darkness of the bookshelves but you just seem to be in the same place. You try again and you still don't move. It seems that you can't go there in this ghost world. Only one thing left to do, you guess.\n\n[[Exit through the door]]

You inch closer to the strange shape, step by careful step.\n\nAs you become closer, you discover that the shape is not a coffee table at all. It appears to be some sort of ancient life-support device, made of wood, of all things. It seems to hum with a strange energy, and although there are no wires, there are little drawers trimmed with gold and with brass knobs on each side that seem like they could slide out and take some sort of input.\n\nYou turn your attention to the dome across the top. It is filled with some sort of green liquid, and inside that liquid, floating around is a disembodied human head, not facing you.\n\nYou stop in your tracks as the head slowly turns to face you. And you realise...\n\n\nYou realise...\n\n\nYou realise what you're seeing is...\n\n\n...is....\n\n\n[[An American Cycling Legend]]

"So, you wanna hear me talk eh?"\n\nYou nod.\n\n"Listen here, sonny."\n\nIrrespective of whether you are male or female, you move a bit closer.\n\n"Back in the day I was a bigshot. Won the Tour De France five years in a row. I was aiming for the top. Recovered from cancer. Had my bestselling book out, //It's Not About The Bike//, had a beautiful wife and a lovely house in Beverly Hills."\n\n"But then my career was shattered. I was exposed as a sham for using performance-enhancing drugs. To my mind, it wasn't cheating - I mean, all the other athletes were doing it!"\n\nYou look incredulously at the former cyclist's floating head.\n\n"Anyway, one day during my retirement I was abducted by some random guy and woke up as a floating head in a life support machine."\n\n"Aren't you troubled by that?" you ask. "Being a floating head and all."\n\n"You get used to it. Anyway. You've got legs, and if you got this far I suppose you want to escape. Here, open that drawer on the right, what's in it is for you."\n\n[[Open drawer and take item]]

You begin reading.\n\n//Dear reader,\n\nThis tome stands as a record of what has happened to our beautiful town and the tragedy that now befalls us.\n\nRead on to discover why we are now the undead.//\n\n[[Turn the page|Page 2]]

<<if $soapPowder>>You put the soap powder in the machine's soap powder slot.<<set $gotPowder = true>>\n\nYou're ready to go! [[Run washing machine and retrieve key]]<<else>>You don't have any soap powder to put in the machine. You'll need to find some.\n\nBack to [[Ghost Laundromat]]<<endif>>\n\n

You look around the room again. There are no openings in this room, there is no escape. Your only hope in salvation lies in the items on the table.\n\n[[Examine items on table]]

<<display "Front of Bookshop - Ghost World">>

<html><IMG SRC="https:/c479107.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/16780/width668/sywtwvx5-1350945209.jpg"></html>\n\n\n[[Speak to Lance Armstrong]]

You walk through the shelves until you come to what appears to be the front of the shop. There is a counter on the right hand side with an ancient cash register and some other items. A wooden door is on the left, and it appears to lead outside, whatever that may be. A small sign hangs on the door, with the "open" side facing you.\n\nWhat do you do?\n\n[[Examine the counter]]\n[[Go out the bookshop door]]\n[[Flip the sign]]\nGo back [[through the shelves]]

You hit the white wall with your screwdriver repeatedly. It doesn't seem to dent or make a mark at all, only make you tired.\n\n<<set $digScrewdriver = true>>It seems like the walls are made of some super-hard material. You're going to have to find some way to chemically disolve it.\n\nYou look back at the remaining items on the table. Maybe they could help you?\n\n[[Examine items on table]]\n

<<display "Examine items on table">>

You continue through the left corridor until you reach what appears to be a large door made entirely out of solid gold. It glitters in candlelight. It reaches all the way up into the darkness, blocking the path ahead. There is a large keyhole in the middle of the door.\n\n<<if $goldenKey>>You take out the Golden Key and place it in the keyhole, and then turn it. The door creaks open and you can proceed into what appears to be a Reading Room.\n\nWhat do you do?\nEnter the [[Reading Room]].\nBack to the [[Library Room]]\n<<else>>You don't have a key to open this door. You're going to have to find the key if you want to proceed.\n\nBack to the [[Library Room]].<<endif>>

You hurry to the window and push it open, letting the cool night air fill your lungs. You look out.\n\nYou see nothing but fog. Fog, as far as the eye can see. Fog below and fog above. You must be impossibly high up. Nothing to see outside. Instead, you lean out a bit further and look at the building you're in.\n\nIt's a massive featureless concrete building. Almost modernist in design. You don't see where it ends or where it begins due to the fog, but you can make out a window just out of reach, above where you are. \n\n<<if $gotDrugs>>You take the Box of LSD out of your pocket, pull out a sugar cube and place it on your tongue. It melts away into sugar.\n\nAt first, nothing happens. Lance must have been a sham, you scream. Hang on, why are you screaming all of a sudden. This is really weird. You look down at the floor to see it begin to flash multicolour like an elephant at the paint factory.\n\nThe walls warp outside of you and you keep screaming with glee as your legs extend out from your body and fly backwards, and your body moves forwards. Space no longer applies to you. Gravity no longer applies. You have transcended those things and you are now ready to unleash your true power.\n\n[[Engage.]]\n\n<<else>>There's no way to get up at the moment. You'll need to find something to help you.\n\nGo back to the [[Bookshop]]<<endif>>

<<if $talkedLance>>"Ah, you're back again. Are you gonna feed me? If not, get outta here."\n\n[[Feed Lance]]\nGo back to the [[Library Room]]<<else>><<set $talkedLance = true>>"Who are you and what are you doing here?" you demand.\n\n"I could ask you the same question," Lance says, his voice slightly muffled. It is coming out of a speaker taped to the side of the life-support cube.\n\n"I escaped from a room," you begin.\n\n"Ah yes. You're his latest victim, aren't you?" Lance narrows his eyes as he speaks.\n\n"Whose latest victim?"\n\n"Never mind. I'm hungry, you got any grub?"\n\nYou're confused as all hell.\n\n"What??"\n\n"I'm hungry, you numbskull. Give me some food and I'll talk to you more."\n\n[[Feed Lance]]\n<<endif>>

You bend down and look at the washing machine where the glowing is coming from.\n\nInside the washing machine is a large golden key, glowing with a magical aura. You feel an urge to get it.\n\nHowever, a hastily-written sign on the top of the washine machine reads:\n\nWASHING MACHINES MUST RUN A FULL CYCLE BEFORE CLOTHING CAN BE RETRIEVED. SORRY BUT TOO MANY LAZY BUMS CHUCK THEIR CLOTHING IN WITH OTHER PEOPLES STUFF AND ITS REALLY CHEAP AND ANNOYING - MANAGEMENT\n\nWhat do you do?\n\n[[Run washing machine and retrieve key]]\n\n

<html><IMG SRC="http:/1.bp.blogspot.com/-yQuLNK4q9W4/TVOZuH0Oa5I/AAAAAAAAAhA/HjZzPy_0on4/s1600/rippletank6multicolor.gif"></html>\n\n[[HOLY FUCKING SHIT]]

It's a box of NapiSan soap powder. The pink packaging is oddly comforting and as you hold the box in your hands you have an overwhelming urge to visit random housewives and do their laundry.\n<<if $digScrewdriver>>\nMaybe you could use the soap powder to create that chemical reaction and break through the wall!\n\n[[Use soap powder with screwdriver on wall]]\n<<else>>\nYou quickly shake off the urge and focus on the other objects on the table.\n\n[[Examine items on table]]\n<<endif>>

You turn the doorknob and are greeted by a room.\n\nIt appears to be an office, but is unlike any office you have ever seen in your life. Books and filing cabinets line the walls, floating in what appears to be a green, sparkling aurora. The floor has a carpet that warps colours and shifts in and out of reality, and it feels like you are walking on clouds.\n\nYou look up and you stare into infinity. Shining stars shifting and bursting, nebulas flickering in the darkness. But you can see further. The stars become swirling galaxies with golden spinning arms filled with millions of suns and star systems, planets vast and expansive, some filled with life and some barren and swirling with farway hurricanes. You see black holes sucking in everything around it, even light, galaxies being chewed up like they were popcorn. You hear the screaming of tiny people as their planets burn in oblivion. You stare into the universe and see everything that is, was and ever will be.\n\nYou avert your eyes. In averting your eyes you turn to face [[the most terrifying being you will ever see]].

You open your eyes. The blue sky meets them and a hot breeze blows past you. You slowly bring yourself to your feet.\n\nYou're back in the city square. The townspeople, ghosts no longer, stand around you. They're all applauding you. You saved their lives by breaking the snowglobe and now everybody is back in the real world.\n\nYou have truly won.\n\n[[THE END]]

You emerge from the dark shelves to find yourself in what seems to be a dimly lit, dingy bookshop. The book titles are still in the uncomprehensible, alien language and the price tags seem to demand varying amounts of some foreign currency. \n\nThe bookshelves split apart for a window that is about a metre-square. It is covered in dust and you can barely see the night sky through it.\n\nThe whole place seems empty and abandoned. What do you do?\n\n[[Escape through the window!]]\n<<if $bookshopExplored>>Go to the [[Front of the Bookshop]]<<else>>[[Explore the bookshop further]]<<endif>>\nGo back to the [[Library Room]]\n\n\n\n

You get an overwhelming sense of satisfaction. You put the sticker on your forehead.\n\nMaybe you should try digging through the wall?\n\n[[Dig through wall with screwdriver]]

You enter into the Reading Room. It is a fairly large, rectangular room, bordered on all sides by bookcases. The floor is of polished dark wood, covered with numerous throw rugs.\n\n<<if $talkedLance>>Lance Armstrong sits in his life support machine near the fireplace, staring vacantly into the distance.\n\n[[Speak to Lance Armstrong]]<<else>>At the far end of a room is a roaring fireplace. Sitting in front of the fireplace is what appears to be a rather bulky coffee table with a glass dome on top. It is silhouetted by the light from the blazing hearth, but there appears to be something inside it.\n\n[[Approach the thing]]<<endif>>

The door opens into a small, dusty room with a dark green rug in the centre. There is a large, floor-to-ceiling window to your right, frosted over. You must be high up. Directly in front of you is an iron bookstand, upon which a large dusty tome sits.\n\nWhat do you want do do?\n\n[[Look out the window]]\n[[Read the tome]]

<<display "Front of Bookshop - Ghost World">>

<<display "Third Floor">>

<<if $soapPowder>>You don't need any more soap powder.<<else>>You use the scoop in the box and take some soap powder. <<set $soapPowder = true>> This should come in handy.<<endif>> \n\n[[Examine items on table]]

You find yourself in a massive library. Rows and stacks of books on shelves stretch as far and high as the eye can see. The spines of some books have no writing, but some have titles in some ancient language that you can't understand.\n\n<<if $gotDrugs>>With your back to the hole you can go forward to the bookshop. Lance's reading room was to the left, but the cyclist has given you his great gift (a box of illegal drugs) already.<<else>>With your back to the hole you seem to have two paths to choose from, corridors of bookshelves leading into darkness.<<endif>>\n\nWhich way do you want to go?\n\n[[Back through the hole]]\n[[Forward]]\n<<if $gotDrugs>><<else>>[[Left]]<<endif>>

You slowly regain consciousness.\n\nYou are lying in the middle of a large room full of chiseled marble obelisks. From the tip of each obelisk, there seems to be a glow of purple energy. At the end of the room, framed by two obelisks on either side, is a large wooden door with a knocker. You turn around. Behind you is a broken window.\n\nWhat do you do?\n\n[[Look through the broken window]]\n[[Approach the door]]

\nonstageoffstage.tumblr.com

<<if $beatRoomone>>You are back in the first room. On the oak table is a roughly opened box of soap powder and the book "It's Not About The Bike" by Lance Armstrong.\n\nBehind you, the hole into the Library room beckons.\n\nWhat do you do?\n\n[[Read book]]\n[[Scoop up some soap powder]]\nGo back to the [[Library Room]]<<else>>On the oak table is a screwdriver, a box of soap powder and the book "It's Not About The Bike" by Lance Armstrong.\n\nWhat do you do?\n\n[[Examine soap powder]]\n[[Pick up screwdriver]]\n[[Read book]]\n<<endif>>\n

You walk outside the bookshop door, onto pavement, and find yourself staring into nothingness. Fog, as far as the eye can see. You can see nothing below you or above you. You quickly evaluate what you're standing on.\n\nIt seems to be an ordinary concrete sidewalk that extends about a metre on either side and in front of the Bookshop door, and just ends in a clear line, like somebody has cut it like a piece of ham. Everything about the sidewalk is completely ordinary, it is even pockmarked with a single cigarette butt, but it just drops off.\n\nIt just drops off into nothingness.\n\nYou think you're going to step back inside now.\n\nBack to the [[Front of the Bookshop]]