Odyssey - a potential GOW storyline

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Re: Odyssey - a potential GOW storyline

Postby katreeny » Sun Mar 16, 2008 2:32 pm

Bazaar

The link in point is in the middle of a large room. Behind you is a locked door you can't open (note: this is for technical reasons - until it becomes possible to have a lot of semi-independent characters, the population of this Age is going to have to stay inaccessible). The lock seems to be keyed to a specific person, and you aren't that person. There are no windows in the door wall.

To the right is an area furnished with an ornate lounge and several shelves. Beside it is a kitchenette. The style is like Arabic steampunk. A large multiple-arched window with stained glass decoration allows light into the room, and ornate air vents let in light and air. The walls are stucco over stone.

You can hear distant voices in an unfamiliar language. When you go to the window and look out, you see a street filled with people. You are two or three stories above them, and all the buildings you can see are several levels high with ornate fronts and no windows at ground level. The favorite decoration is gold and blue in geometric patterns.

The wall opposite the door has no windows. The kitchenette and a small dining area take up this wall.

To the left of the door, a large, curtained bed with spiral wooden posts and drawers built into the base sits beside a much smaller window. This window is shuttered, and when you look, you see an enclosed courtyard with a clear lake and a single-level, windowless building that you guess must be the bath house the Writer mentioned.

The bed curtains are heavy brocade, thick enough to block out light and most sound, and even though you suspect it would be hot outside the room is comfortably cool. A large chest is beside the bed.

As you explore the room, you find a number of items that you suspect will help you to reach the Writer's secret passage. In the top drawer of the bedside chest is a key that looks like it will fit the writing desk in the third of the Materials links. The third drawer holds the rest of the torn piece of paper you found in that age, allowing you to see the diagram of the whole mechanism - but not how to open it.

On the other side of the bed, you find a crumpled photo tucked under a pillow. It shows an attractive young woman standing outside the farm-house that started you on this adventure. The back of the photo has a message: "Dear Jessie, I thought you'd like this one of you and the house. Love, Mom." The words are blurred by several drops of liquid. Water - or tears?

The shelves in the living area are almost empty. There's a lamp, a note that reads simply "Red cover, third shelf.", and a sketch of a star-shaped ring being inserted into a star-shaped depression.

The kitchenette is just as bare, and it doesn't look as though the dining area has ever been used.

You return to Lagoon.
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Re: Odyssey - a potential GOW storyline

Postby katreeny » Sun Mar 30, 2008 4:18 pm

After returning to Lagoon, you go to the third Materials link, hoping that the key you found in Bazaar will open the lap desk.

Materials Three, return - the lap desk

When you return to the third Materials location, you find that the key from Bazaar does indeed fit the lock of the lap desk. Inside, you find a gold ring with a star-shaped lapiz lazuli panel setting and a diamond set so that the points match the star points. You take the ring.

Under it is a note which reads, "Lose the key."

You wonder what could be so dire that the Writer - Jessie - would be so keen to lock away forever as you return to Lagoon once more.

Lagoon Return

This time when you return to Lagoon, you see a note appear in the link-in spot, and drift down. You catch it before it can land. The note contains a short, disjointed message. "Trapped by cat people. Got this into linking book, but can't escape without bringing them after me. If anyone reads this, please help. Lock combination is 76554. Be careful! They killed old priests, want miracles. Send weapon through and I'll end it." (Note: ideally the combination would be randomly generated from numbers between 0 and 9)

You return to the big island and go to the study. The map put the hidden door at the first set of shelves on the wall opposite the study door. On the third shelf from the top, you find that there is exactly one book with a red cover. You tilt the book back, and hear a hidden lever move. The wall with the set of shelves swings back to reveal the concealed passage.

You enter the passage. The branch to your right leads to the outer wall of the island, where a narrow path takes you to the hearth and the water tank. Straight on leads you to a locked metal door with a keyhole and a star shaped depression in the center of the door.

The key you found in the fourth Garden grove fits the keyhole, but it will not turn until you place the star-shaped ring into the depression. Turning the key allows a panel to slide back and reveal a circle of ten buttons. They aren't numbered. You start by guessing that the top button is number 1, but that doesn't work. Remembering that the Writer has used mathematical constructs before, you try using the top button as number 0. That works, and the inner door slides open.

A platform too high to climb fills the center of the room beyond. You search the dimly-lit room for a mechanism to bring the platform down to you. There is none. You close the door, and hear it lock. There is no way to unlock the door from inside.

The locking mechanism has triggered something else - a ladder carved from stone emerges from the central pillar. You climb up, and find a linking book at the top of the pillar. The image in the linking panel is unfamiliar: this must be the cat people age.

You put your hand on the panel, and link.
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Re: Odyssey - a potential GOW storyline

Postby pappou » Sun Mar 30, 2008 9:29 pm

Toilet paper diaries -- i 'roll' on the floor laughing [i know; that's not quite what you said];

Fibonacci series?? Good Lord, such beautiful esoteric references;

And now: “Loose the Key!” How did you come up with that powerful enigma?

Fantastic story, Katareeny. I am really miserable that i have not kept up with it. I fully intend to make up for my lousy laziness. [But probably not tonight].

Do you have any pics, illustrations or sketches to go with it? And i am wondering why you have not done a Journal?

Thank you for keeping on it, Katareeny; your imagination is wonderful.
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Re: Odyssey - a potential GOW storyline

Postby katreeny » Mon Mar 31, 2008 4:20 pm

pappou wrote:Toilet paper diaries -- i 'roll' on the floor laughing [i know; that's not quite what you said];

Fibonacci series?? Good Lord, such beautiful esoteric references;

And now: “Loose the Key!” How did you come up with that powerful enigma?

Fantastic story, Katareeny. I am really miserable that i have not kept up with it. I fully intend to make up for my lousy laziness. [But probably not tonight].

Do you have any pics, illustrations or sketches to go with it? And i am wondering why you have not done a Journal?

Thank you for keeping on it, Katareeny; your imagination is wonderful.


Thanks, pappou! I'm almost through the storyline now, but I haven't asked for a journal because so far I don't have anything except the story descriptions I've been posting. I'm going to try to do some sketching after the story's clear, but... I am HORRIBLE at anything art related ;)

I couldn't possibly build on the D'ni's work without including a dunny :P It's the one BIG absence in the Ages! Maybe I should drop in a toilet paper diary just for you...

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Re: Odyssey - a potential GOW storyline

Postby pappou » Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:19 pm

Awwww, how sweet: My own toilet paper diary.

I would love to help you -- although right now i am not to be counted on. Still, can you think of anything i might do, in terms of raw graphics? I guess the problem there is transmitting the images in your head to me. Any ideas?
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Re: Odyssey - a potential GOW storyline

Postby BAD » Tue Apr 01, 2008 10:11 am

I was going to wait till the end of it, but since Pappou broke the ice, I can finally say how much I admire all of this fantastic story you are weaving Kat!!!

I hope this won't be the only story you share with us. You have a great talent for description and structure. Not to mention your story is intriguing. :D :D :D
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Re: Odyssey - a potential GOW storyline

Postby katreeny » Thu Apr 10, 2008 4:34 pm

First, thanks to BAD and Pappou for their kind comments. I appreciate them hugely.

Second, apologies for taking so long to get to posting this. My day job as a software quality analyst (aka I test software for a living) has this unfortunate tendency to eat my life.

Third, this is the last storyline post for the Odyssey storyline. Now I have to find a way to get the images in my head out in a form I can use.

Katreeny

Cat People Age

You emerge in a large, shaded greenhouse with several rooms. You are in the central part of the greenhouse. This room is roughly circular, with three doors opening off it that you can see. When you turn, you see three more doors, two of them barred.

Jessie, the Writer, is lying on the floor near one of the barred doors, but she stands when you turn.

"Why did you come here?" She demands. "They'll kill you." She looks around, clearly frantic. "They locked my book in there." She points to the door behind her. "If I leave with you, they can follow us. We've got to get the book."

You look more closely at the first barred door. It's key locked, and the book is lying on the floor, far enough in that you can't reach it. But perhaps if you have the right equipment you can hook the book and drag it close enough to reach.

You search the unlocked rooms. In one, you find a hook that should let you snare the book. In another room, you can see rope, but it's hung from the ceiling and too high for you to reach.

You take the hook out to the central room and return to the rope. After you've searched the other open rooms, Jessie asks you if she can help you get the rope. She's calmed down now that she sees you're trying to help her.

(You COULD just link back to Lagoon and pretend none of it happened. That would end the game - probably with a cut scene showing the cat people linking to Lagoon and invading).

You boost her up and she snags the rope. Between the two of you, you are able to tie the rope to the hook and snag the book. (If you take too long with this, you'll see one of the cat people come in through the passage blocked by the second barred door. He'll have a gun-like weapon and use it to kill you both).

Once you and Jessie have the book, she holds it in one hand and takes your hand. You both link back to Lagoon, where Jessie thanks you for saving her, and promises to try to Write you a way back to Earth. She admits that she would also like to return to her former home.


Bonus: Klein Bottle Age

This age is purely for the visual weirdness (and may not be developed since I don't know if it's even possible). The Age is a giant Klein bottle - a shape with only one surface. Objects stick to the surface, and there is no sun. Light comes from luminescent stone and plants. With no gravity and the surfaces covered with strange plants, it's very disorienting and uncomfortable to be in.

There is no linking book out - you must have the Lagoon book to return from this Age.
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Re: Odyssey - a potential GOW storyline

Postby robbieagray » Mon May 12, 2008 3:45 pm

:cry: I must say that the part with the linking book in the farmhouses in America make no sense due to the fact that their is no sign of the D'ni leaving the cavern before the fall. and Yeesha hasn't really left the cavern on to earth other then the cleft.
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Re: Odyssey - a potential GOW storyline

Postby katreeny » Mon May 12, 2008 7:23 pm

robbieagray wrote::cry: I must say that the part with the linking book in the farmhouses in America make no sense due to the fact that their is no sign of the D'ni leaving the cavern before the fall. and Yeesha hasn't really left the cavern on to earth other then the cleft.


So a "new" Writer wouldn't have linking books wherever they lived on Earth? I've got to admit that seems even more unlikely than there being a linking book in an American farmhouse. I guarantee if I was Writing books that way, I'd have myself a library in my study ;)

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