The Longing, my 400-day AAR

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Hipolito
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Re: The Longing, my 400-day AAR

Post by Hipolito »

Day 80

I examined my hand-drawn map, looking for any route I hadn't yet taken (especially one that might lead to the other mattock). But I didn't see any.

I decided to revisit the mines. It was a maze of twisty passages, all alike, so I might have overlooked something there.

I saw my friend the spider, sitting on her web.

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She stared back at me, raising one of her eight little arms in a hesitant greeting. The "Visit Friend" option appeared, so I thought, why not? I sat next to her on the web. She stepped back in alarm. But before I could say "Just thought I'd come by and 'hang' with you," which I thought was a pretty clever pun, the web collapsed beneath us. We fell to the ground below. She was not pleased.

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She walked away from me. I carefully followed, wondering where she was going. She stopped beneath another ledge and starting building a new web there.

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Intriguing. When the web is finished, I may be able to climb it (much more carefully this time) to reach the ledge and find something new.

I had now collected 100 coal pieces during my wanderings, so I visited the Face to buy some information.

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When I showed him the coal, he looked sideways at the end of the tunnel and said, "Set it down over there." While I did so, he muttered to himself, "Should be enough to power the new Death Star." I decided not to ask what he meant by that. I instead asked, "What will happen if I leave the cave?"

He cleared his throat and said, "If you set foot outside, the kingdom will crumble and be forgotten forever. There won't be a way back. But this is the tragedy of being: each triumph may be a veiled defeat. And for each defeat, there is a hidden triumph, lingering in the dark."

He sagely closed his eyes and fell silent. "That's it?" I protested. "That's all I get for a hundred coal?"

Frowning at my lack of gratitude, he said "You get your black ass outta here."

I returned to my apartment and noticed that the game clock was running at 3x speed. For every real-time second, three would tick away in the game. I stepped back out of the apartment and watched the game clock return to normal 1x speed. I went back inside and it went back to 3x speed. Ah, so something about the apartment was causing the game's chrono-wonkiness. Was it the crystal sitting atop my bookcase? I went to the waterfalls where I had extracted the crystal. No, the time was 1x speed there, so the crystal itself wasn't causing the problem.

And the problem started long before I had brought that crystal home. The in-game clock and real-world time had marched in lockstep for the first few weeks of play. After that, the game clock started getting ahead. Maybe it's not so much the crystal itself but all the stuff I've been bringing back. The rug, the bary sax, maybe even the books. The more homey I made my crib, the faster time passed.

But that only happened while I chilled in my crib. Outside of my crib, the passage of time was normal. Maybe the time acceleration is meant to bring the game to an earlier conclusion. Until I have a better understanding of what's going on, I'll sleep outside.
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Unagi
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Re: The Longing, my 400-day AAR

Post by Unagi »

Hipolito wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2024 5:08 pm This post intentionally left blank so that the next update, which will be up in a few seconds, will be at the top of the next page.

But in case you are in the unfortunate position of reading this post, here are some jokes I saw on the GWJ forum.

Argentina is surprisingly cold. In fact, it's bordering on Chile.

What do you call a reluctant potato? A hesitater.

Did you hear about the guy who invented the "knock knock" jokes? He won the no bell prize.
Just in case anyone missed these gems.
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TheMix
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Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: The Longing, my 400-day AAR

Post by TheMix »

Unagi wrote: Mon Oct 14, 2024 10:12 am
Hipolito wrote: Sun Oct 13, 2024 5:08 pm This post intentionally left blank so that the next update, which will be up in a few seconds, will be at the top of the next page.

But in case you are in the unfortunate position of reading this post, here are some jokes I saw on the GWJ forum.

Argentina is surprisingly cold. In fact, it's bordering on Chile.

What do you call a reluctant potato? A hesitater.

Did you hear about the guy who invented the "knock knock" jokes? He won the no bell prize.
Just in case anyone missed these gems.
:wub:

I caught them. But reposting them is a great idea. They were awesome. :D

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
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Hipolito
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Location: Chicago, Illinois

Re: The Longing, my 400-day AAR

Post by Hipolito »

Day 88

Previously, I had inadvertently destroyed my spider friend's web while sitting on it. She wasn't happy about it, but she wasted no time and started weaving a new web. Perhaps one I could successfully climb to reach a new place.

It was now time to check back on my friend to observe her progress on the web. I was pleased to see that the web was complete and looked strong. I was confident that, with caution, I could the new web without destroying it this time.

The spider was, understandably, a bit apprehensive when she saw me eyeing the web.

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But I successfully climbed the web and reached the ledge. The web was still holding strong so I could climb it back down later. I gave the spider a happy wave

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I walked further up and found myself in a cave of bioluminescent fungi.

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The background music became sultry and synth-heavy, like the soundtrack of a David Lynch movie. I plucked one of the purple mushrooms. It glowed in my hand and illuminated the walls around me.

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The soil in the cave had room to grow more mushrooms, so I plucked and planted a few.

Handling the mushrooms made me hungry for pizza. I looked thoughtfully at the one in my hand. I know I'm not supposed to eat wild mushrooms. But I couldn't resist, so I ate it. It tasted pretty good and nothing happened.

Wandering the mushroom caves, I found numerous walls that were fragile enough to break through with a tool. If I only hadn't smashed my mattock to pieces in the treasure room! I hope to find a replacement soon.

I eventually entered a cave where the mushrooms weren't purple, but green.

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The green ones didn't glow, though. And they didn't taste as good. The one I ate made my face grimace and my tummy hurt, but nothing happened.

In one particular cave, the mushrooms had grown especially large.

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After seeing all I could in the mushroom caves, I returned to the web, bringing a purple mushroom with me. I wanted to bring it home as a souvenir. Perhaps I could find soil in or near my home where I could plant the mushroom. But the game wouldn't allow me to climb down the web while holding the mushroom. So I had to get rid of the mushroom, but I couldn't simply drop it. I had to either go back to the mushroom caves and plant it in the soil, or eat it.

I chose to eat the mushroom. As usual, nothing happ--

Image Image Image

DARKNESS.

Then ...

A LIGHT.

No, not a light ...

A VISION.

No, not a vision ...

A CUTSCENE!

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An elderly man draws water from a well while a little girl sits nearby. The girl happily plucks the petals from a purple flower one by one, blowing on each petal so that it floats away into the breeze. The man takes the pail and starts walking away. A spider hops out of the well and lands on the girl's nose. She scrabbles at her face in a panic until the spider leaps off and scurries away. She tells the man about the spider. He kindly laughs and continues on his way. The girl rises, picks up the flower, and follows him offscreen.

I awoke.

That was a pleasant surprise. Thinking back on it, though, there was something unusual about that girl's appearance ...
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The Meal
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Re: The Longing, my 400-day AAR

Post by The Meal »

Look forward to the continuation of the tale.

(Also glad my temporal spidey senses were correct about the time dilation…)
"Better to talk to people than communicate via tweet." — Elontra
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Isgrimnur
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Re: The Longing, my 400-day AAR

Post by Isgrimnur »

:pop:
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Hipolito
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Re: The Longing, my 400-day AAR

Post by Hipolito »

Day 126

Last time, I had eaten some mushrooms and had a mysterious vision.

Now, I wasn't really sure what to do. I still haven't figured out how to get to that replacement mattock. I really need that mattock to make progress, I think.

I wondered if I could get another vision by eating more mushroom. So I got to gobbling some fungi.

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Mushrooms are delicious, but they would be so much better on a pizza. I wonder if we'll have a pizza party when the King awakens.

Thinking of pizza brought to mind other tasty things to cook. I wish I had the ingredients for those little sandwiches we used to make around campfires. I don't remember what they're called, but they're made with graham crackers, chocolate, marshmallows, and spam.

I ate some combination of purple and green mushrooms, around six in total. And that was enough to trigger another vision!

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I saw the same child from before, happily carrying a bucket for some chore. The camera panned down ...

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... and showed the underground, implying there was a way out of these caves to the world above.

A brief but tantalizing vision! But I'm going to need a mattock to dig my way out.

I decided to return to the endless hall of white pillars. Maybe if I wandered it long enough, I would find a mattock. That sounded like good video game logic.

So I went to the hall and walked for a real-time hour. Along the way, I found pieces of paper, a few books ... and big red curtain?!

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Unfortunately, there was nothing behind the curtain. But I can use the curtain to furnish my home, so yay for that.

Having had no luck finding the mattock in the hall, I walked all the way back out, which again took an hour. (Don't worry, I was listening to an audiobook, so it wasn't a total waste of time.) I think I'll have to explore all the caves again. Maybe there's something I've overlooked.
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Hyena
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Re: The Longing, my 400-day AAR

Post by Hyena »

You are a patient, patient person. Love the AAR!
"You laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at you because you're all the same." ~Jonathan Davis

"The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives." ~Robert M. Hutchins
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GreenGoo
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Re: The Longing, my 400-day AAR

Post by GreenGoo »

2 hours holding an arrow key. I thought I was stubborn. :D

Still reading/watching, still enjoying.
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