Halls Passing in the Night
You flash your hallpass at every Mer-kin you see on the way in, and make your way to a quiet corner near the center of the elementary school.
You notice a faint but spooky wailing noise coming from a doorway that looks like it leads to the basement. And then you notice that you've absent-mindedly lost your hallpass while you were trying to decide where to go.
Rats.
| Investigate the wailing from the basement |
- Fight a Mer-kin specter
| Go to the janitor's closet |
You duck into the janitor's closet. You see the usual accoutrements of any good janitor: bottles of foul-smelling, industrial-strength cleaner; bottles of foul-smelling, industrial-strength booze; and a bag full of sawdust. You never see a janitor working a table saw, but you always see them with bags of sawdust. Maybe they were trying to carry wooden cleaning implements and their pet termites in the same bag. Who knows?
Certainly not you, and certainly not me -- but that's not important right now. You grab the sawdust, since it's the only thing in the room that doesn't make you want to cut your nose off (take that, face!), and head back out.
 | You acquire an item: Mer-kin sawdust |
| Head to the bathroom |
You duck into the bathroom, but you can barely see where you're going because the water is infused with some kind of a gross grey cloud. It's almost like this underwater civilization has figured out how to light something on fire and inhale the smoke, despite the obvious obstacles to that discovery. You squint and swim into the toilet stall, where you find a Mer-kin kid sucking on a little tube. The end is lit with a tiny dollop of underwater-burning phosphorous. He takes a deep drag on the tube and blows out more of that noxious grey cloud.
"Wow," you say, that looks really, really unpleasant. What is it, and why are you sucking on it?"
"Oh, this is a Mer-kin cancerstick," he says. "It's full of crab meat, and the phosphorous on the end smolders. All the cool kids puff on them. They let you pull smoke into your lungs, and blow it back out."
"Is that all they do?" you ask.
"Nah," the mer-kid says, "they make you look cool, and they totally take away your craving for a Mer-kin cancerstick, at least for an hour or so. Oh, and they slowly kill you, too, so there's that."
"I better keep one around, then, just in case I get a craving for one and I need that craving to go away," you say. You bum a cancerstick off of the kid and swim away.
 | You acquire an item: Mer-kin cancerstick |
| Check out the teacher's lounge |
Without a Mer-kin bunwig in your inventory:
You sneak into the Lounge. There's only one teacher inside, and she's either sound asleep or passed-out drunk (and given what you've seen of the students, you can't blame her either way). You see a sheet of paper sticking out of her purse, and snag it before sneaking out again.
 | You acquire an item: Mer-kin wordquiz |
With a Mer-kin bunwig in your inventory:
You sneak into the teacher's lounge. You see one of the Mer-kin punishers cleaning his glasses. You quickly grab a Mer-kin bunwig from your sack and slap it on top of your head. He looks up as you approach.
"Ah, there you are, Miss Crabclaws," he says. You realize he can't tell you're not a teacher, and nod curtly. "Your student aide finished making your mimeographs," he says, motioning to an ancient, purple-inked monstrosity of a machine.
You cautiously approach the machine, careful to not make any sudden movements, and see a stack of fresh wordquizzes sitting on it. You quickly grab a few and run out before the punisher puts his glasses back on.
| You acquire 3 Mer-kin wordquizzes |
If you do not already have a Mer-kin facecowl or Mer-kin waistrope:
On your way out, you notice a hood sticking out of the top of a trash can in the hallway. Score!
 | You acquire an item: Mer-kin facecowl |
If you have a Mer-kin facecowl but no Mer-kin waistrope:
On your way out, you see the end of a piece of rope peeking out from underneath a closed door. You grab it and run!
 | You acquire an item: Mer-kin waistrope |
Occurs at Mer-kin Elementary School
Notes
- This is reached by having a Mer-kin hallpass in your inventory (which is then consumed).
- The choices for the janitor's closet, the bathroom and the teacher's lounge only occur if you have discovered their locations via previous noncombats in the School.
