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Detention Delving (CYOA)

Cheesecake

Savant
Joined
Oct 7, 2015
Messages
137
The choice is B!

Thinking that bringing a pack of mutated, hateful children to your teacher is probably a really bad idea. The settlement, however, could probably handle itself. Probably.

A vicious snarl picks up volume as you realize that the bullies are catching up. You snap back to reality and push the limits of your bony legs, running as fast as they will let you. You bob and weave, dodging pellets of paper being spit through straws - which sizzle as the land and burn through the stone. The chase seems a twisted, horrifying version of cross-country, dodgeball and Temple Run as you try your hardest to both navigate and sprint.

After what seemed like an eternity of running, your ears pick up the bustle of the village. The bustle quickly turns into commotion. You hear the marching of footsteps and the clank of metal, and in the distance you hear the bellowing of orders.

You hear a whizzing noise fly past you. A pained groan comes from behind. Sparing a moment to turn your head, you see one of the wretched children beheaded. You look back ahead. A squad of what looks like students in ragged uniforms stands in formation, half forming a veritable shield wall of giant books, the other half with rubber bands ready to fire.

The bands are loosed, they whiz past, and you hear more of the bullies fall to the ground, heads rolling. The bullies retaliate by spitting their acid paper balls at the students, many hitting the thick books, smoke rising from blackened holes. Others, unfortunately, meet their mark, leaving a student with three holes through his neck and head. He falls dead with a painful-sounding gurgle.

When the tide of evil bullies is about to crash into the shield wall, an overwhelming force throws them back, leaving you strangely unharmed. Through a haze, you see an old man reading from a math book, muttering something under his breath. Seeing the foe knocked back, he shuts his book and leaves the squad to finish the bullies off. They approach you as well.

"T-Thank you for-"

Your thanks is abruptly cut short with a punch to the face.

----

You rise up, rubbing your eyes and yawning wide. You silently scold yourself for falling asleep when you should have been the responsible adult and kept watch. Now Harold was gone, alone out in the dark.

You also hear what sounds like marching off in the distance, and almost-silent screams and roars. Something big is going on.

When you slept, you hoped that this was all a dream, all some sick, twisted nightmare. But all the teacher gossip and bathroom legends proved true: the Detention was real. You thought the other teachers bringing you down to the cellar was all some prank, but you could tell deep down inside from their faces, they were serious.

Seeing yourself first hand the monsters inside this horrifying labyrinth, you understandably worry greatly for your student. You've seen him take care of the bully earlier, but who knows what else is out there. You decide no time should be wasted, and you are determined to find him.

Where though? If the bathroom legend is true, the labyrinth spans the entire country - on the first level. Who knows how deep it goes? No time to worry about that, though, you have to find him!

A. Call out his name loudly. Obviously a very stupid idea, but given the size of the labyrinth, and the darkness, sound might be the fastest way to get to him.
B. Follow the sound of the commotion.
C. Wander around. He couldn't have gotten far.
D. Do something else: ____
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
What is Kathy here for? Since when teachers are subject to detention? :M

Follow the sound of the commotion. If there is something big going on nearby, he'd probably be there as well.

B.
 

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,158
B. Also equip one Large Textbook of Defense +1 if there's one lying nearby, if possible.
 

Cheesecake

Savant
Joined
Oct 7, 2015
Messages
137
Choice is B!

The distant racket is the only lead you have, for now anyways. Listening carefully, you follow the sound to its source - much harder than you first thought, as the sound constantly echoes off the cold, mossy walls. You begin to lose hope that you'll ever make it to the sound. Until a spitball whooshes past you, melting a hole in the wall behind you, and you realize the sound has found you.

Deciding not to waste time, you sprint at full speed, twisting and turning corners, darting over, under and through obstacles, all the while dodging corrosive spit. Despite your regular training, you begin to tire quickly. The snarling, slavering shrieks from behind you, however, show no signs of losing stamina nor interest.

Peering behind your head, you see the twisted, pained faces of your chasers. Their starved, whipped bodies run on all fours like maddened hyenas, and their eyes show no humanity remaining. You turn your head to face forward again, but only too late do you realize that there was a fallen section of wall. You trip, you fall, and you prepare yourself for death.

Your life flashes before your eyes. You remember your family, broken apart too early in your life. You remember moving away from the idyllic place to raise children, instead whisked away to a cesspool of crime and poverty. You were alone with an abusive uncle, forced to work for him under nearly slave-like conditions. For almost anyone else, this could have broken them as easily as a twig. But not you.

Another scene of your life takes over, this one later on in high school, in the girls' toilet. A girl is being hounded by a brutish, angry senior, yanking the smaller girl's hair and shoving them around. The victim, seemingly used to it, endures the ordeal in silence. Another girl bursts into the room, her prefect sash displaying her station proudly. Threatening to expose the bully, she saved the younger student from further extortion. The bully storms off in a rage.

Your cringe at your past. You weren't the brave, shining example that was Sandra the prefect. You knew you'd never be like her. You were weak, and cowardly.

You return to your senses, instincts kicking into overdrive, and feel the drool of the pitiful freak drip down on your face. Its gnarled, smashed teeth were filed to become sharp. It comes down on you, ready to rip your throat out. However, without realizing it, you reach an arm out and break its neck in one swing. It falls to the ground, limp and lifeless.

You get up, dusting yourself off. Despite knowing better, you leap forward to the pack, kicks and punches flying everywhere with devastating strength. Sickening crunches and cracks play around you as if in a macabre symphony of pain. You stop, breathing heavily, and appreciating the damage you caused. The broken, mangled remains of your foes litter the floor. Those that survived keep their heads low, almost prostrating themselves to you.

You smile. It reminds you of the day in the girls' toilet. How Sandra the prefect was a hero, and you were a weak coward, easily pushed around. But you redeemed yourself later that day, when you nearly beat Sandra the perfect prefect to death, never letting her get in your way again, and almost drowned that bitch of a nerd in the toilet bowl, as was your right as the strongest girl in school.

The pack of bullies looks up at you expectantly. You smile, savagely beating up one of the corpses for good measure, and begin your search anew. Finally, you can drop your charade of cheery, outgoing Miss. Katherine, and return to who you truly are: the Bully, Killer Kat.

----

Your head is spinning.

"-third squad destroyed-"

Where am I?

"Move in! Take out the chieftain!"

What happened? Who-

"Hey! You sorry shit, get up!" An arm built like an oak painfully yanks you up. "Lets go, fall back! We're being overrun!" He races off, dragging you behind him. Something collides with your head, and you fall back into your dreamless sleep.

----

You wake up once more, foolishly hoping to be back in your bed and thankful that the nightmare is over. Instead, you get up, dusting sand off your face, and being greeted by the deafening jeers and cries of a crowd around you. You get up, staggering. Though your vision is blurry and constantly assailed by sand, you can see the the vague shape of your surroundings. A cage.

Your vision slowly clears. You see your glasses on the floor. Dusting them off and wearing them, you see you are smack dab in the middle of an arena, caged and chained. Above you, a horde of angry students gather in a circle, flipping you off and cursing loudly. An old man, easily distinguished from the crowd of children and teenagers, appears to sit on a palanquin of textbooks, carried on the shoulders of four burly teens.

"SILENCE." The sound of the word reverberates through the arena. Though his lips moved not at all, you can tell by your gut that it came from the old man.

"Ahem." A wimpy teenager, acne-ridden and thin of limb, appears from behind the old man. He carries a long scroll. "You have ruined the operation, inadvertently destroying the third squad of prefects and wasting months of planning!" He scratches his chin for a moment. "Oh! And caused the deaths of many good soldiers, that too."

You hear the grinding of metal, and with a groan, a metal portcullis opens, and a brutish, bull-headed bully appears. It looks literally bull-like, with a bull's head, complete with horns. "For your actions against the great city of Physed, you are sentenced to die at the hands of a captive bully. The Headmaster deems it so." The announcer closes the scroll, and pompously strides away.

The door of your cage opens. Your chains unlock. You wish you were back in the cage. At least you might have been protected. Before you, the inhumanly muscled bully roars lustily, dreaming of the myriad ways to best inflict pain upon you.

You look up at the crowd for anyone to save you. To help you. To at least pity you. You receive no such grace, and insults and curses abound. However, you can almost see the old man from his palanquin, raising his eyebrows and nodding, as if saying "Go on." He expects you to win.

In a rare moment of your life, you feel confident. You're sure, that the next thing you do, no matter how, will win. You don't know why, but you feel it inside you.

You choose to:

A. Rip the bully apart from the inside, changing his Chemistry into a volatile bomb.
B. Summon one of the many corpses you can feel throughout the arena. You can temporarily force their Biology to return them to life, for a time.
C. Using your grasp of Mathematics, you can predict almost every aspect of the fight. You know exactly where to hit, when to hit, and how to hit. Where to dodge, when to dodge, and how to dodge.
D. Taking your lessons of Social Sciences, you subtly manipulate the audience into saving you instead, toying with their obviously confused emotions and crushing their free will.
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
This LP is going places. The updates get more juice on them. And I love every bit of it. :hug:

Mathematics would be my choice... if we didn't play Senya before, who had this ability almost word to word.

I'd say, Chemistry or Biology appeal to me most after Math. Ah, to hell with it! Long Live Necromancy! Maybe we even get to conquer a nation or two with it at last.

B.
 

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,158
Well, this is getting weirder and weirder. I say A. Everyone loves bayexplosions!
 

Cheesecake

Savant
Joined
Oct 7, 2015
Messages
137
A: lightbane, Grimgravy
B: Nevill, Jester, Baltika9, Violet, hello friend
C: (hello friend)
D: Kz3r0

B!

^^Thank you, Nevill!

You recall your lessons in the biology lab, dissecting frogs and looking at anatomical models. Even you had a hard time deciphering the gibberish that your teacher was spewing. Half the class was either asleep or on their phones. The other half didn't show up at all! But you listened and now it seems to have paid off. Its as if an entire, secret language has been taught to you.

Drawing upon the arcane tome of On the Origin of Species (which you now know is cleverly covered up as scientific literature to lesser minds), you use its esoteric powers to extend your will deep under the sand and soil, feeling the dead cells of the corpses underneath.

You convert dead mass into fuel to jumpstart their systems, starting a cycle of self-consumption. For a time, you've brought them back to life. In a sense. Hands burst from the sand, mummified and desiccated. A horrifying spectacle ensues as the dead wrench themselves free from their grave. Even the bully seems mildly put off.

You take a chunk of flesh from one ghoul, a few fingers from another, and convert the dead flesh into a swirling cloud of pheromones. You blow it in the bullies direction, and your minions quickly follow suit. As the cloud envelops the bully, the ghouls break into a vicious sprint, leaping onto the mutant and hacking away at it with claws that you shaped for them.

With a bestial roar, the bully crushes one zombie with a single hand, turning it back to a limp corpse. With his free arm, he swings wildly, sending three more flying out of the arena. Shrieks echo from the crowd.

Your enslaved dead lash out angrily, cutting deep wounds into the bully, causing black blood to ooze out. Your heart races; you can win! However, with a sinking feeling in your stomach, you see your dead fall to pieces one by one - they're almost finished consuming themselves internally, and now their limbs are falling off to the lack of sinew holding them together. The bully seems to realize this too.

Unconcerned with a foe that will inevitably consume itself for fuel, it charges towards you. In a last ditch attempt, you try to force the bully's biology to shut itself down. Unsurprisingly, changing an unwilling host's physique is almost insurmountably difficult. Your heart sinks.

However, you have a plan. The bully madly dashes towards you, horns raised. Each thundering step brings it closer. His body may not be willing to serve you, but the blood he spilled might. You lift the droplets of black ooze from the floor, combining them all together to form a crude, liquid spear. You command it to fly to your foe. It speeds towards the bully like a bolt of black-red lightning.

The thundering footsteps cease, and with a disbelieving grunt, the bully staggers forward, falling inches just in front of you. The jeering and shrieks of the crowd give way to a lording silence.

With a heart full of vengeance and powerlust, you make a gesture. The bully stands, eyes milky, heart still impaled by a dry-blood spear, and faces the crowd. It roars.

----

"Well done! Well done, indeed!" The old man on the palanquin, untouched by your undead bully, and unfazed with the wholesale slaughter of his people, climbs down to where you kneel in the arena. The entire ordeal was taxing to you.

"W-What?" You gurgle, and spit out a gobbet of blood. Your head spins.

"You'll get used to it boy, don't worry." You look up into his face. An elderly man, his cold eyes betray the otherwise mirthful grin, and his skin is pallid and grey. "I knew you were one of my kind, when I first rescued you."

You remember, he was the man with the math book who single-handedly killed the pack of bullies chasing you. He acknowledges your understanding. "Yes, if you were anyone else, I'd have left you and the squad unfortunately there at the time to your fates."

"Who are you? And... what are you?"

With a flourish of his robe, he displays his book of mathematics, a meter-thick book of trigonometry and probability. "I am a mathemagician. You are a biomancer. We nerds are the ruling caste here in the Detention."

What? This is way too much, even for this messed-up place. "I know you're confused. You'll understand in time." He offers a hand. "Now come, we'll return to Physed, and announce the coming of a new nerd!"

You:

A. Take his hand and follow him.
B. Say no and head elsewhere.
C. Say no and stay.
D. Say no and continue looking for Miss Katherine.
E. Attack him!
F. Try and convince him to follow you instead to find your friend.
G. Something else.

((I wanted to ask, should I tone this down? I'd meant for it to be wacky and as suspended from reality as possible, but I'm just making stuff up as I go and this latest update seems outrageous even for me. If you want, I can tone it down from now on, I can continue this level of stupidity, or I can drink a bottle of bleach and devolve further.))
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
((I wanted to ask, should I tone this down? I'd meant for it to be wacky and as suspended from reality as possible, but I'm just making stuff up as I go and this latest update seems outrageous even for me. If you want, I can tone it down from now on, I can continue this level of stupidity, or I can drink a bottle of bleach and devolve further.))
I think you have found the right balance in the previous update. But I do not mind the last one, nor am I opposed to doubling down on the whackiness.

I have to say, I laughed out loud at mathemagicians and biomancers. Who would social scientists be in that class system? Triggerogues? :roll:

Anyway, promise him to return and go searching for Kathy. A bully and a nerd - it is a match made in Heaven.

They would probably kill her or throw her in the Arena when they learn of her condition, so I am kind of wary of accepting their help. That falls... under D, I think? We need to solve this problem first, before we agree to any offers from them.

Did the homework we read ever amount to anything? Or was it just as important as spare underpants? :M
 
Last edited:

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,158
I don't mind the over-the-top tone. I mean, who here hasn't dreamed of being able to murder their entire class with dark magic? Oh wait, you were refering to the update itself. Nevermind then. :oops:

Anyway, I think it's fine now, everyone knows nerds wizards are the master race class, so nothing new here. Just don't go full retard with stuff like throwing meteors, dimensional doors, summoning demons/devils, physically-able nerds or even tolerant bullies.

I say F, I bet Miss Katt should be able to explain herself about what happened to her.
 

Violet

Literate
Joined
Nov 2, 2015
Messages
15
I found it surprising at first to learn about biomancers and mathemagicians, but I love it! Imagine summoning a triangle storm or using long mathematical equations as spells! :lol:

I guess I am kind of between D and F, as I would like to retrieve Miss Katherine before going with them. But they could come with us if they wish, so

F>D
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Imagine summoning a triangle storm or using long mathematical equations as spells!
SQL queries. :desu:

Maze is a legit D&D spell, though.

There also was an incredibly faggy cartoon... a 'Flight of Dragons', I think.
 

hello friend

Arcane
Joined
Feb 26, 2012
Messages
7,847
Location
I'm on an actual spaceship. No joke.
((I wanted to ask, should I tone this down? I'd meant for it to be wacky and as suspended from reality as possible, but I'm just making stuff up as I go and this latest update seems outrageous even for me. If you want, I can tone it down from now on, I can continue this level of stupidity, or I can drink a bottle of bleach and devolve further.))
Just do whatever seems like a good idea at the time.

Oh, and F. You're a biomancer. You can probably convince the mathemagician of letting you keep her around to try to reverse, modify, mitigate, or otherwise study her condition. Also, being pretty much level 1 in your new class, you might need his help to subdue Katherine should she be too far gone into roid rage.

I found it surprising at first to learn about biomancers and mathemagicians, but I love it! Imagine summoning a triangle storm or using long mathematical equations as spells!

I'm gonna Fourier transform ur spine nigga!
 
Last edited:

Violet

Literate
Joined
Nov 2, 2015
Messages
15
SQL queries. :desu:

Maze is a legit D&D spell, though.

There also was an incredibly faggy cartoon... a 'Flight of Dragons', I think.


Thank you for brightening my day :D
 

Baltika9

Arcane
Joined
Jun 27, 2012
Messages
9,611
F
((I wanted to ask, should I tone this down? I'd meant for it to be wacky and as suspended from reality as possible, but I'm just making stuff up as I go and this latest update seems outrageous even for me. If you want, I can tone it down from now on, I can continue this level of stupidity, or I can drink a bottle of bleach and devolve further.))
Chug that bottle.
 

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