You have passed into the desert in pursuit of a legend. The stories tell of a Green Place containing a fearsome power, one that the oil-priests declare beyond mortal reach. But the fires run low, and a camp without fire does not live to see the morning. You had no choice: the desert holds the one flagging hope of your people's survival, and you must claim it or perish.
You have no companions, and barely enough water to make the journey to that portentous Green Place. You walk a doomed path, where death strikes the cowardly and brave alike. Only discernment and luck will preserve you once you take the first step.
A path extends before you, tamped down by those that have passed into the desert. Following the path may afford you the chance to gather supplies - a small chance, but any stroke of luck may help you survive. The warders of the desert wander the ruins of the old world, to deter any from claiming that which lies beyond.
You also spot a tall column of smoke that vanishes over the horizon: your eventual destination. The desert is strange and dangerous, but treading off the path may also save you time.
[[Follow the path.->The winding desert path]]
[[Follow the smoke.->The smoke on the horizon]]The road is safest, you decide. A surefire way to die in the desert is to wander out into the wilderness.
You follow the path for several hours, before happening upon a metal signpost jutting out of the rocky earth. The words have been scoured away, but you can just make out a symbol of the old world, one that signals death -- at least, that is what the oil-priests claim. But for all their lessons and guidance, the camp still diminished. Perhaps their warnings hold more fear than wisdom.
You resolve to press onward, following the turns in the road that should eventually lead towards the distant smoke.
[[Onward.->what lies beyond]]You decide that time is not on your side, and cutting across the desert should get you there faster.
The smoke piles high above the horizon, angrily billowing far above even the mountains and canyons of home. The smoke twists and swirls in the wind, but you notice that something moves within it, against the wind. The Green Place lies at the foot of that smoke, though you aren't sure what burns there.
[[Look deeper into the smoke.->The Smoke]]
[[Avert your eyes.->Moving on]]The sun burns red above you, searing your vision and creating waves in the air. The road enters into what must have been a small town, and vanishes under piles of rubble, forcing you to carefully pick your way over the debris. The walk becomes a climb over crumbling grey stone, with each footstep scattering the shattered remains of old-world buildings.
You notice a hole in the concrete leading down into a still-intact basement, now partially exposed to the elements. You can see the glint of glass down in the darkness - perhaps there are surviving supplies hidden below. Of course, venturing into ruins is always a dangerous exercise, and it may be better to move on to the edge of town.
[[Go into the basement.->In the basement]]
[[Continue on.->Past the ruins]]You decide to explore the dark basement. Without light, such a stop would be a waste of time at best, and deadly at worst. Luckily, you saw fit to bring a lantern, full of oil received as a parting gift from your family. You light it and hold the flame behind you, so as to not be light-blinded as you creep forward into the dry and stuffy basement.
Shattered glass covers the floor, and you spot a few unbroken glass bottles that survived whatever force broke the rest. No matter, your boots are of thick hide, soled with scrap metal heavy enough to crush any sharp pieces of glass into powder. The glass crunches as you tread deeper into the room, and you discover a doorway in the back. An ancient tool closet - surely something useful can be found here. You begin to sift through old metal cabinets and collapsed boxes, looking for the tell-tale glint of steel tools.
Before you find anything, you hear the crunch of glass behind you. An intruder in the previous room. You can stay quiet and douse the light, or rush out to try and scare them off.
[[Hide.->Staying quiet]]
[[Intimidate.->Not fast enough]]You find the road again at the outside edge of town, and continue on. Ruins are often dangerous, and taking unnecessary chances is not what brought you this far.
You follow the road for several hours. The sun begins to set, a fiery red glowing above the boundless expanse of brown dust that surrounds you. A welcome breeze begins to blow from the west, and you spot shapes on the horizon, silhouetted and hazy in the waning crimson light. From a distance they resemble the sharp tops of trees, or teeth spearing up high above the ground. They dim as night falls, and the wind begins to gust in the dark. As the sun disappears behind the horizon, a high-pitched keening sound echoes from far away, off in the direction of those sharp shapes.
It is windy and cold in the desert at night, but you are within sight of your destination. You can stop and rest, or continue your journey in the dark.
[[Look for a place to stop.->Passing near a dark cave]]
[[Keep walking through the night.->The desert in the dark]]You peer deeper into the distant smoke, your curiousity overcoming your good sense.
On the surface, it looks like any column of smoke from a signal fire, but whatever substance burns there has created new and strange properties that are released upon the air. It hangs large and tenebrous, stretching up into the darkest parts of the clear sky.
[[Look deeper.->The Smoke 2]]
[[Avert your eyes.->Moving on]]You look away, putting the strange temptation out of your mind. The oil-priests warned of the mesmeric properties of the Green Place, but you had always assumed their stories were metaphorical. Clearly, there was some truth in what they claimed. You continue on, lowering your dusty hood to block out the sight of the smoke.
You travel through the sandy cliffs and rocky pathways, the sun beating down on your head throughout the afternoon. Out here there is no shade to be found, no life except that which scurries pitiable between the meager shadows of small stones.
You spy a break in the ground up ahead, what must be the beginnings of a valley or canyon. You are confident that you can navigate whatever twists or turns may come, and the shade would be welcome.
Alternatively, the ruins of an ancient road climb up above the valley, offering a quicker and more direct path to your destination. You would be exposed to the heat, but able to spy future obstacles.
[[Enter the valley.->The Valley of tall shadows]]
[[Take the high road.->The Long 3]]You lean in, watching ever deeper. Growing ever more solid as you watch are faint trails of some colorful substance that languidly stretch across the sun-soaked sky, rooted at the base of the smoke. No, not so much a substance as a color itself, raw and uninterrupted by shade or hue.
The colors gently caress what few clouds hover above the blasted wasteland, and sinuously subsume them into the black smoke. Rich browns and purples shimmer in the heat and writhe like living things that hunt and stalk, sprouting from the curling column to wave on the breeze in anticipation of prey. A red spears out from the mass, lassoing a fat errant cloud and drawing it back in.
[[Look deeper.->The Smoke 3]]
[[Avert your eyes.->Moving on]]The fascination lays ahold of you as you stare deeper, even as your good sense fades away.
Behind the display, a faint flashing green coils in the depths of the black smoke, glinting crystalline in the sunlight. But as you watch, it emerges.
The colors flicker as the smoke recedes, and only the green remains, ever shifting and flashing in the sunlight, part glass, part smoke, part light. You cannot look away from the scintillating light, even if you had wanted to.
It promises hidden depths, urging you to stare deeper even as the surface falls away, revealing a boundless fractal expanse within each coil of green smoke. You blink but your eyelids only flutter, unable to close completely, unable to block out out the bursting matrices of emerald and jade stars. The Green Place whispers honey into your eyes, a chant of "//open, open, open//", and you tremble, budding and uncoiling. A section of verdant smoke bends downward from the atmosphere like the long finger of a distant god. You can feel its warmth, comforting as a lover, holding you in place as it caresses the soft tissue of your brain, smoothing the wrinkles, and asking the flesh to //open, open, open.// The last of your resistance falls away as you loosen from yourself, nerves and muscle and taut fibers unbinding to relax and float and melt. Your body comes apart, unfurling like a flower, sighing with every cell.
[[Begin again.->Starting over]]You freeze and silently shutter the lantern, hiding the light. You hear the crunching sound stop. Nothing moves for a moment, and only the sound of your heartbeat breaks the quiet. Whatever it is, it's blocking your exit.
"Hello? Who's there?" A voice floats in from the other room, out of the darkness. It is rasping and dry, like the speaker has gone without water for some time. But even beyond that, there is a faint click, followed by a longer hiss. //Click, hiss. Click, hiss.//
The voice calls out, "I promise, I mean no harm. Just come out and let me see you."
The voice is getting closer, and your heart is pounding in your ears as you breathe shallowly. You can keep hiding, rush out to try and scare them off, or step out calmly.
[[Stay Hidden.->Wait and see]]
[[Intimidate.->Not fast enough]]
[[Stay calm.->A peaceful resolution]]You decide to take your chances, hoping that your hidden position will grant you the element of surprise.
No such luck - as you tear out of the room, shouting, you see a figure in the doorway, carrying a shotgun that it turns on you. Fire blooms outward from the weapon, hitting you square in the torso and turning your chest cavity into mincemeat before you even get within arms reach.
You collapse, a numbness beginning to spread from your fingers and toes, and blood begins to rapidly flood out of your body. You hear the gun clatter to the ground, and the last thing you see is the figure kneeling over you, a respirator covering their face, trying desperately to staunch the wound. Too little, too late.
[[Begin again.->Starting over]]You stay hidden, measuring your breath to keep as quiet as possible. The footsteps crunch closer, closer, closer, until they come right up to the doorway. You can hear rasping breath just a few feet away, and you cover your mouth and stop breathing. The basement is deathly silent, but your lungs begin screaming for air as you wait for the intruder to leave.
Seconds later, the footsteps crunch away, and stomp up the stairs.
You lie in wait for a few moments, breathing hard, and then you creep outside, staying low to the ground and using the ruins as cover from whatever might be looking for you.
You soon make it to the edge of the ruins, closer now to the column of smoke.
[[Move on.->Past the ruins]]You call out in response to the voice, and step out slowly into the room.
You see a masked figure standing before you, a shotgun cautiously leveled at your position. As you come into view with your hands raised, the figure lowers the weapon but does not put it away. You note that they appear to be wearing a heavy breathing mask connected by a tube to a canister at their hip. The rest of their face is covered by tightly-wrapped cloth, and a pair of dark glasses rest over their eyes.
You stand in silence as the figure regards you, then nods for you to lower your hands. "What are you doing here, wanderer? Do you not know the dangers of this desert?"
You explain your quest: a crossing to the Green Place in search of something to save your dwindling camp back home. The figure listens, their breathing apparatus clicking and hissing as they draw breath. "You are close, but dangers lie ahead of you. I am a warder of the Green Place: if I cannot warn you off of your journey, then at least I can help you survive the desert."
The figure draws out a pair of dark-lensed goggles, and passes them over to you. The figure is wearing thick gloves made from animal hide, but you notice liver spots running up their thin wrist. "Here, these may come in handy. The smoke on the horizon has hypnotic properties, and can kill from a great distance. These should protect you." (set: $goggles to 1)
You open your mouth to ask a question, but the figure raises a finger to their mask in a gesture of silence. "Questions are best left unasked and unanswered in these parts. Old-world tech is dangerous, and it often just needs someone careless enough to wake it up for it to kill. The smoke is evidence of that. You'd best be moving on.
"Cross the desert while there's still light, but be sure to find a road by nightfall. The desert won't harbor us at night anymore."
You leave the basement, goggles in hand, and pass into the desert.
[[Follow the desert paths.->Moving on. +]]You elect to stop and rest, knowing that the night hides many dangers. As you cannot rest out in the open, you search for a concealed position to wait out the night, and notice an opening in the ground with just enough space to hide.
You settle in, using your dusty backpack and outerwear to disguise the entrance to your "camp", and fall asleep.
You dream that you are walking in the desert, under the light of the stars. The sands writhe beneath the night wind, which carries a gentle chiming sound to your ears, pleasantly pulling you along. You feel light, your feet barely touching the ground, the wind lifting you like a petal to dance above the cracked earth. The benighted wasteland is silver under the starlight, all aglow with shimmering moon-dust that settles and is lapped up by tongues of wind. Black insects flutter in time with the chiming, shedding sparkling grains of dust as they guide you forward, and you see the sharp shapes once again – the same shapes that keened so sorrowfully in the day are now chiming in the night. They beckon, long fingers of the earth curling slowly towards the black smoke that lies beyond.
You, like the insects, float on, no wings required to hold you aloft. You leap over a deep crevice in the ground, flying, hovering – then sinking, and falling. The dream vanishes, the chiming screeches into a horrifying shrieking wail, and you plummet into the darkness, unable to understand the betrayal of the dream, and scarcely registering the nauseating crunch of your body against the unforgiving stone. The insects follow you down, tiny mouths chittering as they set in on their next meal: you.
[[Begin again.->Starting over]]You decide to take your chances in the desert, knowing that sometimes the unexpected route provides safety.
The nighttime desert is silent, but for a faint sound that you cannot initially place. As you move on, however, the sound becomes clearer: a high-pitched wail that heightens as you move closer to the smoke. It whistles, like the wind moving across a cave or a flute, but what might otherwise be a pleasant sound is marred by a slight screech, like metal or nails on a chalkboard. The two sounds weave together with a dissonance that makes you wish you had brought wax to plug your ears, but aside from the discomfort the sound does not harm you.
It becomes difficult to keep track of your direction in the darkness, as the smoke becomes nearly impossible to see. You plod along, but the wailing sound seems to come from all directions, echoing off of the hills and dunes, never providing a singular point to follow. You wander through the night, no moonlight to guide you, no stars to brighten the path.
You stumble, realizing that you had nearly fallen asleep, and look around. The desert is pitch black, an emptiness that swallows light. An uneasy prickling begins at the nape of your neck. No moon? No stars? Such a thing can't be possible, not when the sky was so clear only hours before. Hours? Maybe you //had// fallen asleep while walking, had it been hours? It should be daytime by now. The wailing, ever-present, begins to fade with that realization. Are you dreaming?
You light up your oil-lamp, fumbling in the pitch-black darkness for the ignition. You hear the flame start, but no light comes from the lamp. You cautiously touch your finger to where you know the flame to be, and recoil as the heat burns your skin. But no light.
Unable to restrain the urge any longer, you begin to run, the lamp dangling uselessly from your hip. The rocks and rubble are nowhere to be found -- instead the ground begins to feel like deep sand, scattering and swallowing your feet. The landscape is changing, you can feel it, but that no longer matters as panic grips your mind and whips you onward. You stumble and pitch forward, but instead of landing on your face or back you flip, tumbling into some deep pit, free-falling. The wind rushes past and you brace for impact...but no impact comes. You fall, and fall, flailing wildly, looking for any solid surface to stop you, and the panic mounts to untenable heights, pounding in your chest and head until it wraps an icy grip around your chest, crushing it, driving the breath from your lungs and throat as you gasp for air that doesn't come -- then nothing, ever again.
[[Begin again.->Starting over]]You take the low path, and enter into the dark canyon. Immediately you are relieved of the day's heat.
In your path are piles of rusted cars - all that remains of the highway far above your head. They sag into the earth and buckle under their own weight even before you pass through them. A huge truck blocks further progress, but you manage to squeeze through a gash in the metal siding to reach the deeper, darker parts of the canyon.
Strangely, there are no human remains here, despite being the site of a disaster. Instead, the whole area is faintly bleached and pale, except for the occasional dark patches on the walls of the canyon, and on the floors. The dark patches are familiar in some way, and it is not long before you realize that they resemble the shadows cast by a person in strong sunlight.
You can continue on, or turn back to the high road.
[[Keep going.->The deeper dark]]
[[Turn back to the road.->The Long 3]]
You decide the canyon may hide unseen dangers. You take the high road and begin to climb the broken slope of concrete, following lines of cracked and curling white paint up to the crest of the beaten and crumbling highway. A metal banner proudly spans the width of the road, but all signage is scoured away. A small post stands crooked with a badge-like sign that faintly reads "Interstate 3". Underneath it is writing: "NO TURNING BACK", in a haphazard scrawl.
The ground quickly falls away under the highway into vast canyons and cracks in the earth, furrowed by some titanic force. Far below you can spot the ruined husks of metal that once burned rubber here. This was a junction of the old world, made of roads that lept and dove between each other in a tangle of tarmac. All shattered now except for the broadest, the I-3. Even it is broken in many places, vanished or scoured away by fire and time.
You walk the hot road as it climbs higher above the ground, and all shadows fall away. You can see clear into the distance, and can choose which path you wish to take. A critical choice: choose incorrectly, and you will perish of dehydration (or worse) long before you reach your destination.
[[The choice.->Two paths]]Two roads branch from the foot of the I-3. You must choose which path to take as night descends around you.
The left-hand road leads downward into the broken earth, passing rust-eaten cars into the desert wasteland beyond. You can pass through the desert, reaching the base of the smoke in a roundabout way.
The right road continues forward, and disappears into a ruined city. Skyscrapers, snapped clean in half, lean over city blocks awash in shadow. The path will be treacherous, but you may find supplies on the way.
[[Take the left-hand desert road.->The desert in the dark]]
[[Take the right-hand path.->The city of the dead.]]
You walk the center-path, hopeful that the silent city will hold more than just danger. The road grows ever more lopsided and broken, large chunks of rock barely maintaining the semblance of a line across the wasteland. As you approach the shadow of the city, however, you notice that the skyscrapers provided protection from whatever force cracked the ground and ripped open the earth. In its shade, the world still resembles a husk of what it once was: buildings standing straight and whole, broken windows gaping wide in the darkness, and cars like pack-beasts tilted and dead in their tracks. More shade in the day-time, and more places to hide in the night.
You pass into downtown, and the buildings grow to swallow whole blocks, blotting out the night stars with leviathan darkness. Your footsteps echo down the main avenue, the vein leading through and out of the city. You follow the devastation as it increases towards the still-distant smoke, rippling out from the epicenter of the ancient disaster.
Your path leads underneath the broken tower you saw earlier, leaning over the avenue with impossible delicacy. The huge dark shape overhead comforts you, reminding you of when you were a child, and your parents looming protectively over you, unassailable and eternal. The idea of home worms its way into your mind. Your friends and family watching gravely as you decide to take the journey here, knowing that you, like the others, will never come back. The thought comes unbidden into your mind: what if you did? What if you just...went home? You pause, and another choice presents itself to you.
[[Turn back.->No way out]]
[[Keep going.->The only way out is forward]]You press on, noting that the canyon seems to open up to the sky ahead. You crawl through the burnt-out husks of cars, shimmy through the skeletal undercarriages and between rotted wheels, trying to reach the sunlight. All around you is silent, not even a whisper of wind to stir up the dust or whistle between the rocks.
You pick up the pace, suddenly conscious of how tight the space is, how cold and still the air hangs. A prickling on the nape of your neck, and you are suddenly confident that many eyes are upon you, a rodent that slipped into a den of snakes. You break into a run, not really knowing why, but the shadows seem to shift and run and dance on the bleached stone in a bizarre semblance of human movement, a cruel mockery of your desperate flight. Your footsteps thud dully into the silence, impossibly dampened and the air pulls taut around you. You hear murmurs in response, as if a crowd of whispering people were buried just beneath the stone of the ground.
You can see the daylight up ahead. You crawl through the suffocating weight of a dozen car pile-up, metal clattering around you, until you are suddenly arrested by a crushing weight collapsing across your legs. You hear a snapping noise an instant before blinding pain fills your mind, and you spasm uncontrollably, pinned in place like an insect. You cry out in pain, and the murmurs swell to a fever pitch all around you. It is dark, and cold, and you are trapped here.
Night begins to fall not long after, and a deathly chill spreads throughout your broken body. In the darkness, you see deeper shadows stretch out from beneath the crushed cars, grasping towards you with clawlike hands. In your last seconds you spot a glint up ahead, swinging from a car door. As death descends, you realize that the sunlight you had been chasing was only a mirror, flashing in the shadows of the canyon.
[[Begin again.->Starting over]]As quickly as the thought arrives, you turn on your heel, putting your back to the smoke and walking in the opposite direction. Screw this, you'll find another way for your people to survive. You don't even know what the smoke means, just that there's //something// there. Why bother, especially since no one else has made it, and it's not like you've seen any of their remains on the way. Logic implies that they made it to the smoke and either died or chose not to come back. Regardless, that's not going to be you.
You walk nearly ten paces before a thick, sulfurous //something// wraps around your waist and yanks you into the air. The grip is hot, like a sheet of metal lying in the sun, and it is unyielding. You struggle briefly as it lifts you up, higher and higher, until the stars are blocked out entirely by the rapidly-approaching surface of the broken skyscraper. In the dim light of your lantern, you see your reflection held up to the glass by a long band of solid smoke wrapped around you like a man-sized tentacle. As suddenly as you spot it, it fades, and you watch yourself plummet back to the ground, the light of your lantern falling away in the reflection. You scream, you fall, and then you stop.
[[Begin again.->Starting over]]No -- turning back is impossible, now. Indecision is as likely to kill you as anything else, and besides, you made a promise to come back with salvation or die trying. You move on down the dark highway.
As you walk, you notice that the buildings on the further side of the city are much more damaged. The side of the city that is closest to the smoke is completely flattened, reclaimed by the desert. The sight reminds you of a shoreline beaten by great waves until it becomes sloped and smooth, all sandcastles and footprints washed away. The buildings get shorter and shorter as you approach that line of destruction, until all that remains are metal signposts and scoured foundations. You walk through the night, made uneasy by the old-world destruction.
When morning comes, your goal is in sight: the smoke now has a faint green light at its base, which is concealed by what appears to be a wall of tall grey spikes. Weary from your overnight pilgrimage, you find shelter behind a broken foundational wall, and sleep takes you even as you collapse from exhaustion.
[[Dream.->The Dream]]
[[Do not dream.->Waking nightmare]]You are on a busy street, surrounded by whizzing cars and chattering people. The road extends ahead and behind as far as the eye can see, vanishing into further city blocks and interstate highways. The buildings flash and glow in the evening light, and strange words slide in the air between the buildings, gliding seamlessly along planes of nearly invisible glass. Streetlights flicker on, casting an orange glow over all the clean faces of the people that pass by, garbed in wild and colorful clothing, talking and smiling and scowling at each other.
The sky is a fiery red, no stars that you can see, but as you watch a single light floats delicately through the evening clouds, barely glimpsed as it slowly moves behind the towering buildings. The light makes its way across the heavens, and grows brighter and slower as it approaches the horizon far ahead of you, on the far side of the city. People gasp and point, and soon the light is an unbearable shade of green, blinding. It meets the horizon, and a shockwave ripples across the world, shattering glass and bone and concrete alike. All is fire and light.
You wake up to a sizzling sound, and the smell of burning meat. You are standing, sleepwalking, and staring directly into the sun as the light filters through the smoke and sears your flesh. Pain blossoms across your body, and your flesh bubbles and boils as the same fire from your dream crashes down from the heavens and burns your waking body alive.
[[Begin again.->Starting over]]You sleep a dreamless slumber, too exhausted to even shift in your sleep. You awake to a high sun directly overhead, but your proximity to the smoke has blotted out much of the daylight, leaving you in a strange middle-ground between night and day. You gather your supplies, noticing that very little remains. Your canteen runs nearly dry, and what rations you packed for the journey are gone.
All is quiet on the road, though it can scarcely be called a road anymore. It is nearly carved into the ground, a slight depression where there was once the weight of stone, and the loam has not yet sprung back to reclaim the space. All around the land is flat, and the sand is like powder. The air gains a ripe quality, swelling with heat and a faint emerald hue. You notice that a layer of greenish dust has settled all over your body, like pollen, falling from your face and arms as much as your boots. The dust hangs in the air, barely visible in rolling clouds over the flatness, grasping and clinging to every surface and coating all in green. You can't shake the feeling that you are in a crowded place, surrounded by mouths and fingers and stomachs, and tongues most of all, flicking and tasting. Always tasting.
Ahead of you is the wall of spikes, and now you see it clear: hundreds of massive protrusions, elongated spikes of dark metal several stories high, all ending in sharp points that jab mercilessly at the smoke even as it roils between them. There are openings between the spikes, openings large enough to walk through. As you get closer, you notice that each spike is etched with tiny marks about the size of a fingernail, illegible to you. Every inch of every spike is covered in the same repeating patterns, over and over again.
You pass through the last wall, and enter to find the source of the smoke.
[[Find the source.->The Egg]]You arrive at the edge of a crater and the smoke billows around you like a tire fire, thick and dark and acrid, but no fuel is in sight. Instead, it ripples out from some central point deep within the smoke. The remains of a building -- maybe a basement? a sewer? -- lie collapsed in the walls of the crater, twisting metal jabbing downward, pointing ahead. Around you the whistling of the spires has escalated to a disorienting scream of wind that pushes you ever closer to the blaze below.
It is a moment before you realize that there is no heat. Instead, the wind rushing down below chills you, and you pull your protective cloak tightly around you for some vain protection against this otherworldly potency.
Nowhere to go but down.
[[Descend blindly into the smoke.->Shroud of Smoke]]
(if:$goggles is 1)[[Put on goggles and descend.->An unexpected boon]](restart:)You descend into the smoke on your hands and knees, climbing blindly down into the ice-cold darkness. You hold your breath, occasionally sipping air from your cupped hand, trying vainly to filter some of the smoke out. It's useless, but after a few gulps of smoke you find that it no longer sears your lungs. Instead it begins to spread a slow and pleasant numbness throughout your body, which eases the pains in your road-weary feet and your blistered skin. Even your worries begin to seem less dire, the whole hard-fought journey into the desert becoming less important. It all seems a little silly, perhaps somewhat foolish, maybe even a bit hopeless.
Eventually, you get tired of climbing and simply tumble down to the bottom of the pit. Of course, the etched metal spikes are still present -- smaller, but no less brutally sharp. Your body is shattered over and over again in the fall, skin torn like wet flapping cloth and bones split at sickening angles. Not that you can feel the pain, just the strange sensation of fingers no longer responding, arms no longer lifting to shield your head from the inevitable impact.
You land softly in a bloody heap, body torn beyond usability. The ground here is flexible like soft sand or ash. One of your eyes has been ripped out by a spike, but you can see that you've landed near the base of the smoke, where all is lit by soft green light up ahead. The ground is fleshy and swells gently, pulsing and pushing more smoke into the air from tiny vents in the surface. The ground angles downward, so you are able to roll yourself deeper in, towards the source of the light.
It is an egg. You know them from the vultures that nest on the edge of the desert, but this egg is much larger, larger even than you. It rests at the nadir of the crater, in the center of a soft pearlescent fold in the ground, like a burst pustule. The surface of the egg shifts and changes even as you look at it, like thousands of tiny rotating vents and panels turning, releasing the green dust into the smoke as it billows upward. All aglow in green light. Like stars.
The smoke withdraws from your body. Pain stabs through you, and your mind wakes up for a bare instant. All of the motes rear back like a snake preparing to spring, and in the split second before you are consumed you understand: each mote is a predator, with hungry mouths and searching eyes, and you can't help but think how even now as they feast on your body, they are beautiful and terrible, each a hunter, each a burning tiger. Your death throes are lost to the wailing of the wind as the Green Place claims another soul.
[[Begin again.->Starting over]]You draw the goggles down over your eyes, heeding the warning of the Warder. Somehow, through the lens of the goggles, the smoke seems less dense. Less like smoke, and more like vapor. The green motes within come into stark contrast, writhing and pulsing with some unknown energy from deep below.
Noting the steep incline, you search for some safe way down. None remain. The walls of the pit are lined with spikes that resemble their larger counterparts outside, and they glint with a dire sharpness in the green glow. Some pieces of the buildings remain, but most have been destroyed or covered by the spike growth. And yet, a single piece of twisted rebar juts out from near the edge, loosened by the cataclysmic creation of the crater. One last memory of the old world in this alien place, perfect for a climbing staff. You take it, the common rust of the metal reminding you of home -- and the lengths your people will go to for survival. It is with them on your mind that you begin the treacherous climb downward, into the light.
[[Climb down.->The Wanderer's Choice]]You travel through the sandy cliffs and rocky pathways, the sun beating down on your head throughout the afternoon. Out here there is no shade to be found, no life except that which scurries pitiable between the meager shadows of small stones.
You spy a break in the ground up ahead, what must be the beginnings of a valley or canyon. You are confident that you can navigate whatever twists or turns may come, and the shade would be welcome.
Alternatively, the ruins of an ancient road climb up above the valley, offering a quicker and more direct path to your destination. You would be exposed to the heat, but able to spy future obstacles.
[[Enter the valley.->The Valley of tall shadows]]
[[Take the high road.->The Long 3]]The spikes down provide many handholds, but every grip is like a blade ready to slash and stab. Instead, you use the rebar to pierce the sides like pitons, and trust in your sturdy boots to protect your feet on the spikes. But the danger is not in the spikes.
Around you, the vapors begin to close inward. You cannot help but breathe them in, and soon you feel a numbness spreading through your body. Your fingers slowly begin to uncurl from the rebar, your legs no longer promise to hold up your weight in the climb, and despite the fact that a fall here means death, you cannot help but feel as if letting go is the best choice.
One hand lets go, and dangles lifelessly out behind you. Mesmerized, your gaze follows the soft green light as the motes swirl and dance within the vapor, falling and rising on the chilly updrafts from far below. The numbness reaches your other hand, and fingers begin to uncurl. You look back with disinterest, ready to fall and float away into the cold green and grey and blackness.
Then you notice the rebar. The steel, warm from your fingers, a deep red and brown. The rust, flaking off to color your hands with the same colors of the desert. Hard and unforgiving. Blazing with sunlight. Your grip closes again, and you can feel the ridges of the rebar against your fingertips. Something real, an steel-wrought memory bent and hammered into shape. You focus on the rebar, and the numbness fades a little. Just enough to move your feet, take another step down, then another. The slow plod, just like walking. One foot, then the other. Down, and down, and down.
Before long, you step onto a fleshy surface at the bottom of the pit. It warps and slips beneath your feet, but you are sturdy. Gripping the rebar like a staff, you turn to look at the source of the green light.
It is an egg. You know them from the vultures that nest on the edge of the desert, but this egg is much larger, larger even than you. It rests at the nadir of the crater, in the center of a soft fold in the ground, like a pustule in a vast skin. The pearlescent surface of the egg shifts and changes even as you look at it, like thousands of tiny rotating vents and panels turning, releasing the green dust into the smoke as it billows upward, all aglow in green light.
You know that this //thing// is dangerous, but the legends say that the Green Place holds salvation. Who knows what kind of salvation something like this might bring?
You could destroy it, which may make the desert a safer place. Or you could leave it, and keep the knowledge of this place a secret. The last idea is a dark one, but tempting all the same. You could claim it for yourself, and use it. Whatever you choose, your quest is over.
[[Claim it.->The Walker in Smoke]]
[[Leave it.->A new warder]]
[[Destroy it.->A kind of salvation]]You let the rebar fall to the ground as you reach out with both hands to grasp the egg. It feels hot to the touch, and it hums with an internal energy. Around your hands the little pores all open wide, and the green dust begins to settle around you. The egg moves and shrinks in your hands as more and more of the dust come gouting out of it, deflating it like a collapsing lung. The vapors billow around you, wheeling and turning in a vortex, funneling into your very being. Thoughts of home vanish, replaced by the crushing weight of the vaporous tide.
---
Far away, the smoke retreats from the sky. Rumors follow of the great blaze finally burning out, or the earth swallowing it up in shame. Still other travelers tell of a wanderer that travels the desert, speaking to spirits and summoning shadows from the past. Foolish claims that the one who kills the wanderer can secure salvation.
But the warders know. They hem in the desert, keeping the dangers trapped inside, and chasing off foolish travelers. They have seen the walker in smoke, the wanderer of the Green Wastes. They have seen the face that vomits darkness, the face with spotlight eyes of emerald green. They know that no salvation awaits in the desert, except the ice-cold release of death.
[[Begin again.->Starting over]]You turn your back on the egg, and begin the long climb out of the crater. You wrap some cloth around your mouth and nose, creating a filter for you to breathe through. It was always a doomed mission, but you had long held out hope that you might be the one to succeed. Now you know that there is no salvation here. That which lies at the base of the smoke is no solution -- it is a hunter, a destroyer of humanity. Best to preserve the status quo, and try to keep anyone else from disrupting the delicate balance of the desert.
You begin the long walk back through the desert, but find the warder waiting for you at the foot of Interstate 3. They nod solemnly at your approach, their breathing instrument hissing and clicking as they speak. "Now you've seen it. You know. All we can do is hide it away."
You nod. The warder gestures for you to follow, and you see several other warders wearing goggles are standing on the raised highway, watching you approach. You join them, and your group sets off back to the borders of the desert. Behind you the smoke rises, as dark as ever, but unable to reach those you care about. Unable to escape the wastes.
[[Begin again.->Starting over]]You recoil in sudden disgust at this thing, this monstrous artifact of the old world. Without thinking, you heft the rebar and swing it like a sledgehammer. It cracks into the surface of the egg and bounces off, leaving minute fractures behind. You swing again, and the fractures widen as the whole thing breathes and shrieks in anguish. The motes swirl down towards you, threatening to crash in, but you raise the rebar one last time to stab into its heart, splitting the shell down the center. The green light swirls and flashes like lightning, and the clouds of motes jerk and pulse in a frenzied seizure. You push the egg out of place, and begin raining savage blows down on its collapsing mass. The surface vents (or pores?) open wide like gnashing mouths, wailing and screaming like a child.
Soon the egg lies in shattered pieces, strewn across the floor of the crater. The smoke, lacking any kind of directive, slowly rises out of the pit, revealing that the ground here is membranous and pale green, with tiny vents all along the surface that once spit out vapourous smoke. It is hideous, and you cannot help but be reminded of skin.
You leave, climbing the spikes to reach the surface. You stagger out into the sunlight, and begin the long trek back.
On the path to the interstate, you find the warder waiting for you. They stare at you, shotgun leveled in your direction and with a voice full of resentment they speak.
"I gave you those goggles so that you might understand. That place is beyond any of us to destroy or control."
You shrug, and say that it seemed to go down easy enough. They shake their head.
"You aren't the first to believe that. You've bought us all some time, and for that I'm not going to shoot you where you stand. But it will be back, and it'll be angry." They step aside, lowering their weapon to throw you a canteen of water. "Leave."
You pass by and begin to climb the interstate once again. Behind you the warder calls out: "You bought us all some time, but your children are going to pay the price one day. We all will." You move on, back through the desert, back to the edge, back home.
---
Before long, the desert had retreated and shrank. Water began to run clear again, and new food sources were found. An age of prosperity began thanks to your actions, and you found yourself with a flourishing family. But like all things, it can't last. You know that the bad times will come back, and you do your level best to prepare for them.
In your last days, as you've grown old and grey, rumours abound of a strange billowing storm that is brewing deep within the desert. Thunder that whispers in forgotten voices, and green lightning that forks and licks along the ground, as if searching for something -- or someone.
[[Begin again.->Starting over]]