A Lost Room (Inside)

From A KoL Wiki

A Lost Room

You walk into the room, trying to put your metaphorical finger on what's so off about the whole place. The air in here is uncommonly still; not unpleasant or stale, just not moving. Walking through the room is like walking through jelly. Um, not that I expect you to know what that's like. But trust me.

The room's so quiet that you can hear your blood swooshing through your veins, which is not something you're really supposed to ever hear. Before your bowels speak up, too, I'd suggest doing something productive.

Check Out the Mini-Fridge

You open the mini-fridge. You're expecting an overpriced bottle of water, maybe some tiny bottles of booze, maybe a bag of chips, maybe all that. But instead there's a dark, swirling vortex with tiny pinpricks of light in it, like someone was using the fridge to store their spare galaxy.

You sit in front of it and stare for a while, feeling a rising urge to build a replica of a mountain out of mashed potatoes. Or maybe a canyon out of marshmallow fluff. Some kind of geographical feature out of some kind of food product, anyway. By the time you manage to pull yourself away and close the fridge door, you feel like your brain is about to start leaking out of your nose. It's like there's a tiny drummer playing the timpani part of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" on your eardrums.

Turn on the TV

You turn on the television set, wondering briefly how you know what a television set is. Then you wonder why it's called a "set," even though there's only one of them.

Then you stop wondering as the ancient square monstrosity comes to life with a resounding WA-THRUMMMM. There's static for a second, and then the screen shows a black-and-white (y'know, like everything else in the Kingdom) desert landscape. It's quiet and still, except for a faint whistling noise that gets louder and louder. You can barely make out, with your eyes almost pressed against the screen, a little oval-shaped thing falling out of the sky.

When it finally hits the ground, there's a brilliant flash of light that whites out the whole screen. Through the afterflash that almost blots out your vision, you see the explosion is making a cloud shaped like a mushroom. Maybe this is a video of the Gravy Fairy Wars?

You turn away from the TV, dazzled and barely able to see.

Take a Nap

You try not to think about all the people who have smeared their various disgusting secretions on the bed before you, and lie down for a little nap. The bed feels like it ought to be soft, but it's nearly rock hard, as is the pillow.

You manage to drift off to sleep at last, but you dream of a desert landscape where a hot wind whooshes around and through you, carrying faint and disturbing syllables of a language you've never heard before. You see a little girl off in the distance and run after her, but when you get to her she's actually a pineapple.

You wake up soaked in sour sweat, all of your hair sticking out at weird angles. Yes, even that hair.

Pick up the Glasses
  • Before choosing any of the first three options:

You pick up the glasses and try them on. The prescription is really, really strong. The room dissolves into blurs and blobs, which makes perfect sense.

Then the blurs and blobs start to undulate and stretch, at first so subtly you wonder if your eyes are playing tricks, and then so obviously that you pray your eyes are playing tricks. You whip off the glasses and the room looks the same as it did before. Freaky, man.

  • After turning on on the TV:

Your eyes still dazzled by the mushroom explosion (trust me, do not look that phrase up on Urban Dictionary), you try on the glasses. Everything in the room looks more in focus than it did before. You look in the mirror and admire yourself now that you can see your every flawless pore. Man, your hair looks great!

You preen in front of the mirror for a few minutes, but then your eyes feel strained and your throat goes dry.

  • After choosing both the Mini-Fridge and the TV:

You put on the glasses, even though the frames are a little too hipster-ish for you. Your vision becomes almost uncomfortably sharp--it's like your eyes can see so well that they're trying to pull you towards anything you look at.

You close your eyes for a second and visualize the swirling starfield you saw in the mini-fridge, and the cosmic wonder mutes the oncoming headache. Before you get sucked into examining every individual thread on the sheets, or counting the dust motes in the sunbeam, you high-tail it out of the room.

You acquire an item: The Lost Glasses
Pick up the Comb
  • Before choosing any of the first three options:

You pick up the comb and idly bend it back and forth. If you break it, does that mean you have superhuman strength, or is the UNBREAKABLE written on the comb just a bit of marketing hyperbole?

You consider running the comb through your hair, but when you look in the mirror you can’t bring yourself to mess with perfection.

  • After taking a nap:

You pick up the comb and squint at yourself in the mirror. The weird thick air here makes it hard to tell, but you’re pretty sure your coiffure is a mess, and so is your hair.

As you raise the comb to your head, the television tips forward and starts to fall off of its stand. You turn to catch it, knowing it’s already too late, the comb halfway through your hair -- and see that the moment the comb touched your head, the television froze halfway through its fall. You grab it and set it back on the stand. After a few seconds, it gently wobbles, then settles back motionless.

You set the comb down gently. Freaky, man.

  • After choosing both the TV and the Nap:

You pick up the comb and squint at yourself in the mirror, your eyes still dazzled from the explosion on the TV. When the comb touches your hair, the stillness in the room becomes even more profound for a few seconds. I don’t mean that it talks about how, like, on a molecular level everything in the universe is touching every other thing. I mean you thought it was quiet before, but now it’s like the silence between ticks of a clock.

You shrug it off and keep combing, but you can’t really see with all the afterimages floating in front of your eyes, so you pocket the comb to finish the job later.

You acquire an item: The Lost Comb
Open the Pill Bottle
  • Before choosing any of the first three options:

You pick up the pill bottle. It’s your basic orange bottle with a childproof cap. It looks empty through the translucent sides, but it’s heavy, and when you shake it it rattles like it’s almost full.. The label on the bottle’s completely worn off.

You think about taking one of the pills, but what if you dry-swallow it and it gets stuck in your throat? Don’t you hate that? Like, it feels like the pill’s huge and it just stays there for a day and you can’t eat and drink anything without feeling it? No way, man.

  • After checking out the mini-fridge:

You pick up the bottle of pills, your brain still racing from what you saw in the mini-fridge. Now you can see that the bottle’s almost full of red, blue, and purple pills. Now, what was it they taught you in adventurer’s school about taking pills or potions of unknown origin? Oh, right. You should probably do it, because it’ll probably do something awesome.

You open the bottle, after spending a few minutes cursing at the child-proof cap, and start to shake a pill into your hand. But then you catch a whiff of the air that was trapped in the pill bottle, and for a few seconds you get woozy and sleepy.

Apparently this is the kind of pill that can cause drowsiness without you even taking it! You set the bottle down and stagger back, too drained to contemplate picking it up again.

  • After choosing both the Mini-Fridge and the Nap:

You pick up the bottle of pills. When you pop the cap off, you get a blast of air that makes you a little woozy, but you’re well-rested enough to not be affected by it. You turn the bottle on its side to shake a pill into your hand.

You can see the pills in the bottle, but can’t get any to come out. You turn the bottle upside down and smack the bottom of it, but though the pills rattle around in there, they won’t drop out.

You know what? Screw this room and the mysteries it contains. You’re not getting any answers, and it’s tearing you apart, Lisa! You shove the bottle of pills into your pocket and walk out.

You acquire an item: The Lost Pill Bottle
Walk Out and Back In

You walk into the room, trying to put your metaphorical finger on what's so off about the whole place. The air in here is uncommonly still; not unpleasant or stale, just not moving. Walking through the room is like walking through jelly. Um, not that I expect you to know what that's like. But trust me.

The room's so quiet that you can hear your blood swooshing through your veins, which is not something you're really supposed to ever hear. Before your bowels speak up, too, I'd suggest doing something productive.

  • Occurs after choosing one of the first three options
  • This allows you to choose whatever options you haven't chosen yet.

Notes

  • Both A Lost Room and A Lost Room (Inside) do not spend an adventure.
  • Occurs after you walk into A Lost Room.
  • If you acquire an item, you will leave the room, and one of your lost keys will be consumed.
  • The first three options are locations, while the last three options are objects.
  • After selecting a location option, that option will disappear and the text for one of the object options will change.
  • After you select any two of the locations, all three of the options will disappear, and the main text will change to:
You walk into the room again, a little shaken up by what you’ve already seen in here. The mini-fridge, the TV, and the bed look more than a little sinister after your initial encounters. What the hell happened here? Surely this is a mystery that will be resolved with a thorough explanation and a satisfactory, definite ending.

References

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