Birdship: A Suggestion Game

[Elfberserker]

F
A fanatic who is also fascinated in workings of theater engineering, it's just too tasty not to pick up especially since we have disturbed mind. Our character should be more than qualified to make colourful plays.


GOBBLECOCK how would that vow of poverty work with buying materials for our play? Can we actually buy stuff, if we want construct some theatre machines or build a stage?

 

[Bibbimbop]

I am somewhat wary of casting a vote now, because I do not want to spread them too thin.

Last I checked, the current distribution had flipped a kill switch and wasted a lot of time doing macrame messages when you're illiterate and in a society where 95% of other people can also be presumed illiterate. Some votes could use a little thinning out.

Gobblecock, could any of the loose stones be pried out, by any chance? Maybe we can stack enough of them to reach the cage above us?

If you've watched the Shawshank Redemption (who hasn't?) then you know that anything is possible with time and patience. Not necessarily recommended or efficient, but possible over a year or two. Or a decade. However, from your fall into the dark pit, you'd estimate the vault is over twice your height, and you're very tall. It would need a big stack. Since the floor seems earthen, you might as well build an earthen ramp buttressed with the loose stones if that's your strategy.

GOBBLECOCK how would that vow of poverty work with buying materials for our play? Can we actually buy stuff, if we want construct some theatre machines or build a stage

The vow is to give unstintingly, but if you give away all the assets that you use to generate revenue and spend nothing on future projects, then you end up a beggar who gives nothing to the church and the poor, being too poor yourself. The main component of the vow is not using money for your own vanity and aggrandisement, plus not hoarding it away from the poor and the church without a clear purpose. Wholesome entertainment of the masses with a morally instructive allegory is purposeful.

 

[Nevill]

Last I checked, the current distribution had flipped a kill switch and wasted a lot of time doing macrame messages

Yeah, I wondered what if we were in some kind of a cellar where they keep the gunpowder or something equally volatile/deadly/inflammable.

But isn't it too early to give hints, considering that people may flop? Unless a vote is there forever once cast, which would then open the doors to multiple votes.

I just want to see if I we can't get some kind of consensus. Individual votes do not seem to work all that well for us so far.

 

[Bibbimbop]

I think I understand Esquilax's intention now. It's not to build a huge pile of rubble up to explore the ceiling, but maybe to build a single narrow stack of bricks up one of the chutes as a foothold while sliding up with your back. Sure, you could try this and you could find the slimy material for a daub paste, a crude kind of mortar to add some stability. If it does collapse while you're on it, however, it would be a very bad thing indeed . A decent chance of success, and a catastrophic failure.

Yeah, I wondered what if we were in some kind of a cellar where they keep the gunpowder or something equally volatile/deadly/inflammable. But isn't it too early to give hints, considering that people may flop? Unless a vote is there forever once cast, which would then open the doors to multiple votes. I just want to see if I we can't get some kind of consensus. Individual votes do not seem to work all that well for us so far.

You are definitely in a chamber that gets fed with slops and middens from the kitchen and fouler stuff from elsewhere. You might be right about the individual votes, but it's closer to how things are done in a suggestion game format, so I have to try.

 

[Esquilax]

Gobblecock, yes, that's exactly what I had in mind. As for the chamber itself, getting some light in here with some fire and getting a bearing of our surroundings seems like a smart course of action for the first choice. If the fire spreads, could we not simply put it out with some dirt?

Going with F D

 

[Nevill]

Ok, so English is not my native language, and the colorful writing style may be wasted on me and cause severe ADD symptoms, so I need a reminder.

Does our cell have a window or something? By the description of total darkness, it looks like it does not. How then Beau Blanc does fly away for days? Up the chute?

We have a lot of clothing. Can we make a somewhat sturdy rope out of them? Is there anything the rope can be applied on to pull us up or help us climb up?

Edit: hm, we actually have ropes that they tied us with.

What does the chute look like? How steep is it? Any etchings we can tie ourselves to, to make a climb easier? Any etchings we can make with our knife?

We are of a big height., can we push de Rissette up to check how sturdy the ceiling is or even if it would be worth it to go that direction? We may be weakened, but maybe if we put our back against the wall... If de Risette could escape and throw us down a rope, we might be able to climb after him.

For the moment, I see climbing up the chute as the only way that allows us out fast, provided that we find a way to climb it and that we do it at night when there is no staff posted... assuming they don't keep a guard there at all times.

By the way, do we have any suspicion why they even keep us alive? What use can we possibly be? And if they think of such a use, how would they extract us?

 

[Grimgravy]

Ok. I'll forgo macrame once again since we're too illiterate to make a message. But macrame is NEVER a waste of time.

Changing my choice to
B - cant forgo the only gaming option. This is a gaming forum after all.
A - We should tie a rock or some wood to the end of one of the ropes for a makeshift weapon and/or grappling hook.

And I must say the fire is likely NOT a good idea. A fire in a small, poorly ventilated space can't be a good idea. Assuming we don't blow ourselves up with sewer gases.

 

[Bibbimbop]

How then Beau Blanc does fly away for days? Up the chute? What does the chute look like? How steep is it? Any etchings we can tie ourselves to, to make a climb easier? Any etchings we can make with our knife? We are of a big height., can we push de Rissette up to check how sturdy the ceiling is or even if it would be worth it to go that direction? We may be weakened, but maybe if we put our back against the wall... If de Risette could escape and throw us down a rope, we might be able to climb after him.

For the moment, I see climbing up the chute as the only way that allows us out fast, provided that we find a way to climb it and that we do it at night when there is no staff posted... assuming they don't keep a guard there at all times.

The food and water comes in via a sluice channel from the kitchen that is occasionally flushed out, or so you presume. There are several other chutes that begin vertical and Beau Blanc leaves via one of them, but probably not the one that you came in, whose lid slammed shut rather soundly. The chutes are roughly made and not well-finished, so the option to climb them does exist, but slimy in spots. Stacking a foothold of bricks aids that more.

The roof is a brick vault apparently. Smells would ooze up through a mere wood floor, not to mention screams. Most roofs in a tower tend to be wood, but this is a vault due to its dual purpose.

By the way, do we have any suspicion why they even keep us alive? What use can we possibly be? And if they think of such a use, how would they extract us?

They didn't hate you enough to cut your throat and ruin the stain on their elegant parquet floor boards? You conjecture that they needed you to disappear until they made their move politically, and dead or alive, this is where unwanted and inconvenient things of all shapes would have ended up. You just happened to get here alive rather than dead. You are forgotten, though. You have no indication that they guard a chute that is rarely opened.

 

[Nevill]

How many barrels are there in the vault, and do we know what's in them?

You conjecture that they needed you to disappear until they made their move politically, and dead or alive, this is where unwanted and inconvenient things of all shapes would have ended up.

Would they even build a vault in a way that collects food waste if they didn't want to keep people inside alive?

It is rather counter-productive to keep things alive if you want them to disappear for good.

 

[Bibbimbop]

It is rather counter-productive to keep things alive if you want them to disappear for good.

A hit. A very palpable hit.

 

[Nevill]

Oh well. I will join my voice to the prayer. FA.

 

[Baltika9]

G and A, it'll be nice to have some hydrotherapy after we get out of here. That, and being good with maths won't hurt either.

As for the second choice, I'm not jumping to sign our freedoms away at the first sign of trouble.
With that being said 'd rather take stock of what we're working with here, so I'll vote for the D.

 

[Bibbimbop]

Would they even build a vault in a way that collects food waste if they didn't want to keep people inside alive?

Okay, if you really want to know, I will explore the motivations behind the Dauphinois treatment.

Spoiler

If you really want to know the state of mind among the Dauphinois, it is that you were a commoner who they saw as malleable and a good candidate for elevating as their man, but you were a bit stand-offish when it came time to seal the deal, and then began babbling about a key part of their plot to turn rebel.

At this point, they don't hate you. They don't even want you to disappear for good in any real sense. They don't want you to live, and they don't want you to die. You don't rate in their opinion one way or another, except as an emergent liability until they can make their move. After the move is made, you stop being a liability and return to being nothing again.

They're in the middle of a city. How do they get rid of someone? Dig a shallow grave? Where? In the middle of their courtyard? Or put you in the family sepulchre? The vault was probably designed as a cloaca for all wastes in the castle, food and shit, and whatever other garbage needed discarded. Its use as an oubliette is an outgrowth of its primary function. It is not a collection point for kitchen and other wastes because it is an oubliette. It is an oubliette because it is firstly intended as a collection point for all wastes and unwanted things.

If they didn't have this place for all sorts of rubbish and decay, they would probably do what other murderers resort to... killing you, putting your body on a cart, hauling you to the river, and dumping you in the river. That's a lot of work. They threw you down here with the expectation that you would either live or die, and either seemed okay to them, so long as you didn't escape in time to babble.

I'm closing the vote with prayer and fire contending for the lead. As it happens, both have enough votes to pass the threshold for success, so the key question is which Oswald does first.

The interesting thing about decaying matter is that it tends to produce nitrates, which are excellent for fertiliser, but also feature in some of the best known formulas for creating home-made bombs. This is why large fertiliser sales are usually monitored by government agencies. Salt-peter, an important component in gunpowder as an accelerant, can be harvested from piss or rotting matter.

Another fun fact is that fire is a process of oxidation, which in this case is primarily the organic wastes, so that oxygen in the air will bind to the carbon-based fuel that is oxidating, producing carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is being produced in a chamber with few openings to vent it outside.

It will be interesting to write the next update.

 

[Esquilax]

Dead in a handful of updates. Gobblecock is the new root.

 

[Bibbimbop]

Do not lavish me with such praise! I am unworthy.

I am but the humble presenter of options. It is to Darwin that you should lift your voices in celebration.

 

[Elfberserker]

This keeps getting better and better.

If we die here, do we take control of new character or do we start whole thing from beginning or will this be final game over, so to speak?
You were good dude bird talking fanatic, shame it has to end this way

 

[Bibbimbop]

This keeps getting better and better.

If we die here, do we take control of new character or do we start whole thing from beginning or will this be final game over, so to speak?
You were good dude bird talking fanatic, shame it has to end this way

I've spent a non-negligible amount of time trying to think of a deus ex machina here, but even with the quasi-magical flavour of the zealot, his delusions and visions always had a more rational explanation beneath them. That underlying rationalism presents the problem. There's probably a reason why the longer CYOAs seem to be high fantasy or sufficiently advanced science fiction. I will continue to consider the update for a bit more.

In the truest spirit of CYOAs, however, I can present those all of those options for continued play to you at the bottom of the final update to the prologue epilogue.

 

[Esquilax]

Do not lavish me with such praise! I am unworthy.

I am but the humble presenter of options. It is to Darwin that you should lift your voices in celebration.

Well, honestly, this feels a little bit "gotcha!" in a sense. Obviously we'll only know once the update is out, but I figured that we were basically stuck in a deep hole full of dirt and stone, not a powderkeg. Don't really see how the voters could anticipate something like this. Which is okay, keeping voters on their toes is part of the fun, but figuring something like this out would require some adventure-game style lateral thinking.

Anyways, I get that none of the choices are meant to be perfect (if you want to get out of here, it's going to either take lots of time, be very painful, or require some binding oath), but I don't exactly get how we'd see something like this coming.

Nevertheless, eagerly awaiting to see what happens to our charred remains. Maybe our super-tough constitution will allow us to make it out of this one, too?

 

[lightbane]

Dammit! I was too slow! I assumed I had a little more time to put my votes, hoping that it would make a change. Alas, it's too late now. Anyway, the outcome should be interesting to read at least.

 

[Kipeci]

Well, honestly, this feels a little bit "gotcha!" in a sense. Obviously we'll only know once the update is out, but I figured that we were basically stuck in a deep hole full of dirt and stone, not a powderkeg. Don't really see how the voters could anticipate something like this. Which is okay, keeping voters on their toes is part of the fun, but figuring something like this out would require some adventure-game style lateral thinking.

Anyways, I get that none of the choices are meant to be perfect (if you want to get out of here, it's going to either take lots of time, be very painful, or require some binding oath), but I don't exactly get how we'd see something like this coming.

Nevertheless, eagerly awaiting to see what happens to our charred remains. Maybe our super-tough constitution will allow us to make it out of this one, too?

It's not as if none of us saw that coming if we went for the fire route.

And I must say the fire is likely NOT a good idea. A fire in a small, poorly ventilated space can't be a good idea. Assuming we don't blow ourselves up with sewer gases.

I'd say it's fair.

 

[Esquilax]

It's not as if none of us saw that coming if we went for the fire route.
...
I'd say it's fair.

Damnit! Didn't even see the warning there. Grimgravy is our Cassandra.

Point taken.

 

[Baltika9]

Well, honestly, this feels a little bit "gotcha!" in a sense. Obviously we'll only know once the update is out, but I figured that we were basically stuck in a deep hole full of dirt and stone, not a powderkeg. Don't really see how the voters could anticipate something like this. Which is okay, keeping voters on their toes is part of the fun, but figuring something like this out would require some adventure-game style lateral thinking.

And that's why we're having such problems in this LP: this is not something we're used. Which isn't a bad thing at all, but it's different and we need some time to change our mindset from the regular lulzvotes we make to fit the framework of a very ordinary and very mortal man.

If our prophet dies here, I hope our bumbling about hasn't discouraged you from continuing the LP with another character, Gobblecock. One more chance for the archer.

 

[Grimgravy]

Maybe everyone else missed the part of the details spoiler in the update that says one that will kill you if it succeeds. That should have set you thinking. Thinking of abandoning fire the artful knot tying.

 

[Nevill]

Well, honestly, this feels a little bit "gotcha!" in a sense. Obviously we'll only know once the update is out, but I figured that we were basically stuck in a deep hole full of dirt and stone, not a powderkeg. Don't really see how the voters could anticipate something like this.

Gee, Esquilax, I don't know. When there were only two votes cast, one of them was for macrame, and one for starting a fire.

Last I checked, the current distribution had flipped a kill switch and wasted a lot of time doing macrame messages when you're illiterate and in a society where 95% of other people can also be presumed illiterate.

I wonder what the kill switch referred to.

Okay, if you really want to know, I will explore the motivations behind the Dauphinois treatment.

I gathered as much. But if they wanted to shut us up - if they really did - I thought they would slit our throat and throw us down there. I mean, they already put all sort of waste down there, why not turn us into one? It's strange that they would have a problem trying to get rid of a body when they have a perfect secret vault. It's not like the smell would bother them, considering what else they dump there.

I thought that if they bothered to take a bit of a risk, they might have intended to let us out once they secure their future.

It was partly the reason for praying to the Mother of Mercy, though I don't know if the prayers even work that way.

Dead in a handful of updates.

The Codex tried to shoot an Eldrich Horror with a pea-shooter in The Last Article LP. It took us three two updates. Beat that!

 

[oscar]

I was just about to flip my vote as well to the masonry-stacking scheme (we're a bean pole so it must just work) as well.

Assuming this isn't 'sorry Codex, LP over' it'll be interesting to see if we re-wind to the second most popular character or pick someone else up existing here (though we've hardly gotten to know anyone).