Go Check It Out!
Rows of fluorescent lights flicker on as you enter the kitchen and flip the switch, illuminating steel prep-tables, sinks, ovens, racks of pots and knives -- all the accoutrements of a kitchen engineered to handle several hundred guests during the busy season.
You meander over to the pantry, unlock the latch, and pull open the heavy metal door. You aren't sure what you're looking for, but it stands to reason that, if you don't know what it is, then you also don't know where you're most likely to find it -- so the hotel pantry is as good a place to look as any.
Stepping inside, you're greeted by the sight of row upon row of shelves, stacked with boxes and cans and jars of every imperishable food imaginable. If there even is a needle in this haystack to begin with, you've got quite a search ahead of you.
| Search the shelves |
Your familiar gnaws distractedly at a carton of dog biscuits as you walk up and down the aisles, looking at the packages, pushing them aside to check behind them, crouching to look underneath the shelves.
Nothing.
With a sigh, you start down the canned goods aisle. It doesn't look like you're going to find anything, but you've no leads anyway, so you might as well be thorough. Canned fruit, canned vegetables, canned fish, canned meat, creamed corn, creamed corn, creamed corn, creamed corn... there is kind of a lot of creamed corn here, actually.
You pick up one of the cans and give it a closer look -- the brand name is "Garmonbozia", which you've never heard of before. Is that Italian or something? Italian for 'creamed corn', maybe? You grimace at the slightly-faded photograph of yellow mush, and then, just as you notice that the ingredients list begins with "pain and suffering", you hear a loud ka-clunk behind you.
Was that the door?
You run back to the front of the room, reaching it just it time to hear the bolt and latch being slid into place and locked. There's no handle on this side. You push futilely on the cold metal slab, then start pounding it with your fists.
"Hey! Wait a minute! What are you doing?" you shout. "Open the door! Let me outta here! Open the door!"
There's no response, although you think you can hear someone moving around outside. You lean against the door, your forehead resting on the cold metal, and try to calm down. "Listen," you call out. "Let me out of here and I'll forget the whole thing. It'll be just like nothing ever happened."
No response.
Furious, you start pounding the door with your fists again, then slamming into it with your shoulder. It doesn't budge.
After several hours, you wear yourself out. You have a frustrated, unsatisfying meal consisting of a bag of Oreos and an economy-size jar of peanut butter, and end up falling asleep on some large sacks of salt.
Some time later, you're woken up by the chattering of your teeth. You're lying on a snowdrift, back in the hedge maze. You aren't sure if that's preferable to being locked in the pantry or not.
- With 50%+ Item Drops from Monsters (excluding familiars, Clancy, the Eggman, and the Rutabeggar):
You walk up and down the aisles, looking at the packages, pushing them aside to check behind them, crouching to look underneath the shelves.
You don't find anything of interest, unless you're interested in hot or cold cereals, Post Toasties, corn flakes, Sugar Puffs, Rice Krispies, oatmeal, Wheatena, cream of wheat, a dozen jugs of black molasses, sixty boxes of dried milk, thirty 12-lb bags of sugar, dried peaches, dried apricots, dried raisins, or dried prunes. Well, they say you've got to keep regular if you want to be happy.
Then, pushing aside a can of creamed corn (eurgh), you find a small black rectangle. It's a microcassette tape, the same kind you use to record your diary, or to send messages to your secretary back at the Agency. It's labelled with today's date.
You pull the recorder out of your jacket pocket, insert the tape, and push 'play'. Your stomach turns to ice as you recognize the voice coming out of the tinny speakers to be your own.
"Diane, it's 7:20 a.m. All work and no play makes <playername> a dull <boy/girl>. All work and no play makes <playername> a dull <boy/girl>. All work and no play makes <playername> a dull <boy/girl>. All work and no play makes <playername> a dull <boy/girl>. All work and no play makes <playername> a dull <boy/girl>..."
What the heck? You hold down 'fast-forward' for a moment.
"--akes <playername> a dull <boy/girl>. All work and no play makes <playername> a dull <boy/girl>. All work and no play makes <playername> a dull <boy/girl>. All work--"
You fast-forward again. "--dull <boy/girl>. All work and no play makes <playername> a dull <boy/girl>. All work and..."
It just keeps going, for the entire length of the 90-minute tape.
You stumble out of the pantry, unable to process what you've just heard. You make your way down the red-curtained corridor to the lobby in a daze, exit the hotel through the front doors, and rub some snow on your face in an attempt to wake yourself up. What's going on in this place? What's happening to you?
When you open your eyes again, you're back in the hedge maze. This doesn't particularly seem like an improvement.
| Return to the lobby |
- Occurs after selecting "Search the pantry" at Lost in the Great Overlook Lodge.
Notes
- The required +50% item drop does not count bonuses from Fairy-type familiars (or Clancy or the Eggman), familiar carriers, or from the Forest Friar's plants, but does include familiar equipment that directly provides +item, such as the chiptune guitar.
- The +50% item drop needed to pass this test includes food drop bonuses. Brother Flying Burrito's Blessing will make it fairly easy to meet the requirement. However, it does not include booze drop bonuses so Brother Smothers's Blessing will not work. Make sure you use the correct monk.
References
- "You've got to keep regular if you want to be happy," is a line from The Shining.
- The obsessive repetition of, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," where actual content would have been expected is a significant revelation in The Shining.
- Garmonbozia is, apparently, a Twin Peaks thing.
