Hellevator Music
A vague sense of unease grows within you as you approach the Hellevator. You screw your courage to the sticking point, and press the call button with a pointy stick (it looks really dirty.)
The door opens and you step inside. Ominous violin music plays as the world begins to swim around you. Nightmare images invade your vision, and nightmare smells invade your nose.
You decide to push one of the buttons before anything else gets invaded. Unfortunately, reality has been warped such that there are only four buttons available for you to push.
| Hit the Lobby button |
If the +ML is at 0:
You're not having any of this evil alternate dimension nonsense. You jab the lobby button and jet.
If the +ML is not at 0:
You jab the lobby button and head back out. As you pass through the door, you feel the world revert back to normal.
| Go to floor #1 |
You take the elevator to the mezzanine, but you don't have any chump change to put in the vending machines, so you continue to the first floor (before you ask, the lobby is the zeroth floor in this particular hotel.) You lie down on your bed and turn on the white-noise machine on the nightstand. Turns out that in Heartbreaker's Hotel, "white noise" means 'the tortured screams of the damned,' so you quickly shut it off. You close your eyes and drift off to sleep.
You awake to a crackling sound and a delicious smell. When you open your eyes, you immediately realize the sound is crackling flame, and that smell . . . oh my. How can you sleep when the beds are burning? You leap out of the bed, only to find the floor to your room has vanished. You plummet down, down, down into infinite blackness, screaming your head off all the way. In the distance far below you, you can just make out the shape of the continent on which the Kingdom of Loathing rests. You remember that it's not the fall that kills you, it's the going *PAFF!* into the ground.
With a wrenching full-body twitch, you snap awake back in your own bed. You hear the smoke detector start beeping, and you're not taking any chances, so you climb out the window and down the fire escape.
| Go to floor #2 |
You decide you won't let the elevator bring you down, so you go crazy and take it up to the second floor. You check into your room, lie down on the bed, and try to get some shut-eye.
You wake up lying on a wooden table, surrounded by a strange assortment of creatures -- strange even for the Kingdom. There's a dude wearing a giant green top hat, slathering butter on his pocketwatch, a giant anthropomorphic rabbit pouring tea, and some kind of rodent curled up asleep in the jam dish. They're all eating pieces of cake with flesh-colored icing on it. You raise your head a little, and see that the skeleton at the feast is you! Your body's been turned to cake, and you're getting sliced up and fed to these wierdos. What's worse, you're clearly frosted with cream cheese frosting instead of buttercreme. Gross! The dude in the hat sees that you're awake, and shrugs as you silently scream. "We told you not to come around here no more," he says.
You jerk awake in your bed, your silent scream suddenly becoming a very, very loud one. One of the other guests on your floor barges in, shouts that he needs to get some sleep, damn it, and chucks you out the window.
| Go to floor #3 |
You step into the elevator, quip, "going up, sir," and push the button for the third floor. When the elevator stops, you say, "your floor, sir," and check into your room. You close the blinds, consider raiding the mini-bar, then lie down to get some shut-eye. As you drift off to sleep, you hear a ripping noise, almost like five razor-sharp claws ripping through your sheets from below and tearing up towards your sensitive nether regions.
You jolt awake, and the claws are gone. Then you see the box next to the bed that says, "Magic Razor-Sharp Claws, 25 meat." You don't remember putting any meat in the machine, but the sheets are torn to ribbons. You decide you'd rather climb out the window than have to pay to replace the linens.
| Go to floor #4 |
You take the elevator to the mezzanine, chump, check out the ice machine, then head up to the fourth floor. You lie down in bed and try to get some shut-eye.
You find yourself walking along an endless maze of hospital corridors. You see a nurse, and tap her shoulder to ask for directions, but when she turns around she seems to be missing part of her face. Specifically, the 'face' part of her face. You turn and run, passing featureless, grey children with knives, headless teddy bears with giant claws, and leech-looking things sucking on puddles of blood. You run, screaming and crying. Behind you, you hear heavy footsteps thudding toward you, and the scrape of metal on concrete. You turn to see a giant monstrosity wearing a big metal helmet, dragging a ridiculously huge sword as he stomps after you. You turn and run, not stopping until you hear an enormous, booming crash behind you. You flip back around to see the metal-headed guy has run into a low-hanging beam and fallen flat on his back. Maybe he should have cut some eyeholes in the helmet. Your hearty chuckle at his misfortune is cut short, though, when one of the grey kids stabs you straight through the calf.
You wake up screaming in your hotel bed, soaked in sweat. Just as your heart rate starts to return to normal, you hear crashing footsteps in the hallway outside. As you leap through the window, a guy with a metal helmet and a giant mop pokes his head in your room and says, "Housekeeping!"
| Go to floor #5 |
You push the button for the fifth floor. The doors slide open and you head down the hallway toward your room. However, when you reach the other end of the hall without finding it, you begin to think something might be amiss. You're pretty sure this is the correct floor. Hmm.
You decide to return to the lobby to confirm your room number at the front desk. Another elevator stands at this end of the hallway, so you push the call button instead of walking back down the hall to the elevator you came in... and then it occurs to you that there was only one elevator in the lobby. Is this a service elevator? Maybe you shouldn't...
*PING* The elevator door slides open, pouring a tidal wave of bright red tomato juice into the hallway. Caught in the deluge, you struggle to regain your footing, but are pushed violently backwards by the thick crimson liquid. What the hell is going on? Is this some kind of nightmare? A nightmare about tomato juice? What's scary about tomato juice, for crying out loud?
Then, as you start to call for help, some of the liquid gets into your mouth. You gag and sputter at the awful taste, and realize that this isn't tomato juice at all...
...It's CLAMATO.
You begin to scream in panicked horror, and choke as the foul devil's brew slides down your throat. You begin to sink, and the red tide washes over you, cutting off your air... and with a start you wake up at your campsite, sweating profusely and trembling with shock.
| Go to floor #6 |
The elevator rises, then slows to a halt. A bell rings as the door slides open, and you step out into the sixth floor hallway and head toward your room.
You open the door, and your eyes widen in shock. A man in some sort of dog/bear costume is sitting on the bed, with another man, who is doing something that you can't quite make out, but perhaps that's for the best. "S-sorry, I must have the wrong room," you stammer, stumbling backwards. The hairs on the back of your neck stand up as you bump into someone behind you.
Slowly, despite your every instinct screaming at you not to, you turn around... and find yourself face-to-vacantly grinning face with someone wearing the head of a gigantic cartoon fox, and a fuzzy red bodysuit to match.
"Hhhhelllp meeee," you hear a tortured voice whisper behind the mask. The gruesome figure gestures at you with huge fuzzy paws. "Help me... my zipper... stuck..." One of the paws reaches for you as the other tugs at the fuzzy red pants.
You scream and run for the elevator. The bedroom doors slam open one by one as you pass them, and nightmarish grinning figures reach out at you. Raccoons, cats, horses, more foxes, all staring at you glassy-eyed and calling your name. "Join usssss..." "Unleash your inner animal..." "Come play with us, <playername>..." "Yiff! Yiff! Yiff!" The other creatures take up the chant: "Yiff... Yiff... YIFF... YIFF... YIFF! YIFF! YIFF!"
You reach the elevator and hammer desperately on the call button. "Come on!" you shout. "Please! Come on!" The terrible fuzzy inhumans stalk toward you and grab your arms and legs, the chanting drowning out your screams. As they drag you away, your field of vision filled with grinning animal masks, you hear the elevator bell ring, but all too late. The chant of "YIFF! YIFF! YIFF!" echoes in your head as everything goes black.
You wake up at your campsite gasping for breath and praying that it was only a dream.
| Go to floor #7 |
You step into the elevator and press the button for the seventh floor. After a moment, the bell rings and the doors slide open. You step out and find yourself in a vast gray desert, pierced here and there by blocky stone columns that seem to defy normal geometry. Turning, you see two thick silver poles standing waist-high behind you, as though you had just walked between them. As you turn around some more to examine the scene, you are startled to discover three figures in dark robes standing near you. "Jeez!" you exclaim, "Don't sneak up on me like that!" They do not reply, but simply stare at you, their faces concealed by their hoods, their hands tucked into the opposite sleeves, like monks.
"Er... what's going on?" you ask. "Where am I? Did I die somehow? This looks like it could be Purgatory, or some kind of weird German Expressionist idea of Heaven..."
One of the figures, the tallest, lowers his hood, revealing a severe-looking elderly man with long stringy gray hair. "You think that when you die, you go to Heaven?" he asks, sneering coldly. "You come to us!" He pulls his hands from his sleeves, revealing a silvery orb about the size of a baseball. Two sharp prongs pop out of its surface, and it darts out of the man's hands with an angry whine, flying directly toward your face. Annoyed, you swat it away, and it it hits the ground with a clank and rolls off. The old man looks somewhat confounded.
"Leave this to me," intones the second figure, lowering his hood to reveal a man with a chalky white face and rows of steel pins piercing his bald scalp. "I have such sights to show him." He opens his hands to reveal an elaborately-engraved black and gold cube, the surfaces of which begin to twist of their own accord. Suddenly, the front of the box pops open, and a hook on the end of a long chain shoots out of it, piercing your flesh!
"Ow!" you say, pulling the hook out and dropping it onto the ground. "Look, I'm not into the whole body modification scene, okay? I mean, sure, a tattoo now and then, but too much is too much, you know? Look, are one of you guys going to tell me what's going on, or not? I don't have the time to waste on stuff like this."
"Time?" says the third figure. "You have all the time in the world. All the time you need..." He lowers his hood, revealing an impish-looking grin and a shock of curly brown hair held back with a terrycloth sweatband. "...for sweatin' to the oldies!" He pulls two tiny barbells out of his sleeves and waves them at you maniacally as you shriek in fear and panic. You stumble backwards between the silver pillars and find yourself on the fire escape of the Hotel. You run screaming down the stairs and out into the night.
| Go to floor #8 |
The elevator bell rings, and you step out into the eighth floor hallway and walk to your room. You stifle a sneeze as you open the door -- the room is thick with dust, as though housekeeping hasn't been in for years. Also, there is a gigantic hole in the wall.
Looking out the hole, you discover the view to overlook, not Hey Deze, but Seaside Town! Something's wrong, too -- it looks like a bomb hit it. The buildings are crumbling and ruined, and no people are in sight. The town stands silent and motionless, apart from a few newspapers blowing down the streets like lonely desert tumbleweeds.
Climbing out the hole and down the remains of the fire-escape, you walk the streets, wondering what could have caused this devastation. You call out to anyone that might be around to hear you, but there is no answer.
Soon, you find yourself standing at the library across the street from the Sleazy Back Alley. It seems relatively undamaged, so you wander inside. The shelves and books are intact, and you realize with pleasure that this is an opportunity to spend as much time as you could ever want with your favorite novels. (Or reference manuals, or pornography, or whatever it is you're into.)
You unfold your reading glasses and put them on, and take a volume from a nearby shelf. This kicks up a cloud of dust, and the sneeze you stifled before returns with a vengeance. Your spectacles fly off violently and hit the floor, shattering into millions of pieces. "That's not fair!" you moan, eyes watering. "There was time now! There was all the time I needed! It's not fair! ...Oh, wait. My vision is fine; I don't actually need glasses to read."
You flip open the book and turn to the first page, and an unbalanced and badly top-heavy shelf topples over onto you, crushing you flat. You wake up at your campsite, gasping for breath.
| Go to floor #9 |
You step in the elevator, press the ninth floor button, and ascend to your floor. You quip, "Fourth floor, Women's Lingerie," as you step out and down the hallway to your room.
You settle down into bed and close your eyes. Almost immediately, it seems, your alarm gives out a warning. Oh, no! You're late for school again! You're never going to make it on time! You grab your books, and give yourself a look, but you get to the corner just in time to see the bus fly by. You sprint to school, and slide into your desk just in time.
The teacher asks you to come up to the front of the class to give a presentation. You stand up, and see that you're wearing nothing but your underwear! Time seems to stop as everyone points and laughs at you.
"Jeez, what a loser," a jock sneers, "look who wore his underwear to NAKED DAY. What a dope!"
As the whole class points and laughs, a bell starts to ring. "Ah, saved!" you shout. . . and wake up in your hotel room to find that the bell was the fire alarm. You climb out the window and down the fire escape.
| Go to floor #10 |
You take the elevator to the tenth floor, check into your room, and quickly fall asleep.
Suddenly, you snap awake and see a monster perched on the bed next to you. It's got horns, and fur, and fangs, and scales and tentacles, and it screams, "boogaboogaboogabooga!"
"That's it?" you ask. "That's all you got? Listen, I've fought mummies, and vampires, and werewolves, and evil clowns. You think 'boogaboogaboogabooga' is really going to make my blood run cold?"
"Well, you don't have to be a jerk about it," the monster says, sniffing. "I was just here to turn down your bed. But I guess I'll just have to throw you out the window, instead."
Just before you hit the ground, the sound of shattering glass still ringing in your ears, you wake up safe and sound in your campground. Wow, that was pointless.
| Go to floor #11 |
You ride the elevator up to the eleventh floor, then head to your room for the night. Before you go to sleep, though, you pull back the covers on the bed to make sure there isn't any chocolate on your pillow -- you're not going to fall for that one again. You had to ask for extras of those tiny shampoo bottles last time.
Instead of chocolate, though, you find a tiny dried-up monkey's paw. "Hmm," you think, "I bet this is one of those things that grant wishes. I mean, logically, if you find a dried-out monkey's paw on your pillow in a hotel in Hey Deze, it's bound to grant wishes, right? They wouldn't leave a plain old monkey paw on your pillow, that just wouldn't make any sense."
You sit on your bed and carefully consider what to wish for. "Let's see... I could wish for a twelve-inch pianist. Or for half of my head to be painted orange. Or to be beaten half to death... Oh, wait, I've got it."
"Monkey's paw," you say, holding up the nasty little brown thing and closing your eyes, "I wish I were the most powerful adventurer in the Kingdom!"
After a while you open your eyes, not feeling any different. The paw, you discover, has started to melt in your hand; turns out it's made of chocolate. You eat it. It's not very good chocolate.
In the morning, you inexplicably wake up at your campsite with the feeling that this has all been rather anti-climactic.
Occurs at Heartbreaker's Hotel.
Notes
- You will only be given four choices of floors.
- The top button will always be the lobby.
- The second button will always be a floor between 1 and 3.
- The third button will always be a floor between 4 and 7.
- The bottom button will always be a floor between 8 and 11.
- It is possible for your current floor to appear as an option.
References
- Floor 1: "How can you sleep when the beds are burning?" references the lyrics to "Beds Are Burning" by Midnight Oil.
- Floor 1: The line about plummeting "down, down, down" refers to the Johnny Cash song "Ring of Fire".
- Floor 1: "Out the window and down the fire escape" could refer to the Bowling for Soup song "Out the Window".
- Floor 1: "...take the elevator to the mezzanine" and "chump change" are a reference to the Soul Coughing song "Super Bon Bon".
- Floor 2: This nightmare is a reference to the music video for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' song, "Don't Come Around Here No More", which itself references the tea party from Alice in Wonderland.
- Floor 2: "You decide you won't let the elevator bring you down, so you go crazy," is a reference to "Let's Go Crazy" by Prince and the Revolution.
- Floor 3: The lines "going up, sir" and "your floor, sir" are a reference to the cartoon character Droopy, specifically his appearance in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit".
- Floor 3: The dream sequence is a direct reference to a scene from Wes Craven's New Nightmare.
- Floor 3: The Magic Razor-Sharp Claws are a reference to Magic Fingers, a cheap hotel device that offers a "massage" by shaking the whole bed.
- Floor 4: "You take the elevator to the mezzanine, chump" references the lyrics to "Super Bon Bon" by Soul Coughing.
- Floor 4: All of the monsters described are monsters from the Silent Hill franchise, with the man with the large helmet and massive sword being "Pyramid Head".
- Floor 5: The elevator filled with red juice is a reference to a similar scene in the movie, The Shining, in which an elevator spews blood into a hallway.
- Floor 6: Another The Shining reference, wherein two men, one in a dog costume, are briefly seen in one of the rooms.
- Floor 6: The chants of "YIFF," as well as the person with the head of the cartoon fox reference furries.
- Floor 7: The first figure is "The Tall Man" from Phantasm II, where he says "You think when you die you go to heaven?"
- Floor 7: The second figure is the character "Pinhead" of the Hellraiser series of movies. The cube described is also from the series.
- Floor 7: The third figure is Richard Simmons, who released a series of exercise videos titled Sweatin' to the Oldies.
- Floor 8: This nightmare references the 8th episode of The Twilight Zone titled "Time Enough at Last".
- Floor 9: References the theme song from Saved by the Bell.
- Floor 11: Refers to the W. W. Jacobs short story titled "The Monkey's Paw".
- Floor 11: The "Let's see... I could wish for" wishes are all references to jokes about a genie granting 3 wishes.
