An Interactive Adventure: Duck!

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

You stand on the bridge as the glowing sunset slowly fades into twilight. The lake the bridge traverses is familiar to you: you grew up here, and have lived here all your life. You have known no other lake but this one. Normally you love the lake, but this evening, all it offers you is a sense of ennui, feeding into the strange melancholy that's been plaguing you all day.

Slowly, you sit down on the edge of the bridge, which conveniently has no railings, and dangle your feet in the water. You can't help it; you smile. Even today, when that restlessness and irritation has been bothering you all day, the feel of water on your feet makes you a little happy. It's like your feet were made for having water on them. Your feet probably were made for having water on them.

Eventually, though, your mind returns to your earlier thoughts, and you stand up again. At least, with that strange melancholy, you have an inexplicable sense that soon things are going to change. Soon, you will no longer live a life of routine, doing the same thing and swimming in the same lake day in and day out. Your feet balanced on the edge of the bridge, you look out into the murky water, and think about what you were planning to do.

Hang on... what were you planning to do?

-----------------

So as is probably evident, I am totally ripping off Soph and Dilly because this looks like all the fun. I have no idea where this is going to go or what kind of choices I'm going to ask you guys to make, but I figure what the heck we will have fun finding out!

[narrativedilettante]

=> Set out to explore the world and find other lakes.

[Victin]

==> The same thing we plan to do everyday, silly—try to take over the world!

[JackAlsworth]

==> Quickly retrieve arms from under bridge.

[Krika]

=> Quack with the frogs to greet the oncoming night.

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

So...
1. "Set out to explore the world and find other lakes."
2. "The same thing we plan to do everyday, silly—try to take over the world!"
3. "Quickly retrieve arms from under bridge."
4. "Quack with the frogs to greet the oncoming night."

1d4 = 3

Oh, right. Those arms that you found under the bridge. They should make for a change of pace. Swiftly, you dive underwater, pausing to admire the bubbles rising from your nose to the surface of the lake. Then you rummage around under the bridge to find the arms.

After discarding the bag of coins, the plastic lilypad, the yellow canoe, and the pasta maker, you emerge to the surface victorious, clutching the arms. You sit on the edge of the bridge again, dangling your feet in the water-- you love it when your feet are in the water-- and examining the arms.

As arms go, they're not bad. They're long where they're supposed to be long, with that elbowy joint in the middle and then the funny bit on the other end where they branch off into a bunch of little bits. On these arms, one branchy-bit-- or "hand"-- branches off into five segments, while the other branches off into six. You count them yourself, feeling very proud of your ability to count to five and six, respectively.

The arms aren't attached to anything, and they smell kind of funny. Whose arms are these, anyway?

[Victin]

==> Oh right, silly me. I bought them at the Flesh Salesman of course.

[RussetDivinity]

They're from the duck hunter who mysteriously vanished

[narrativedilettante]

=> They're my family's arms, passed down from generation to generation.

[Dryunya]

==> I found them wrapped in a coat, which I hid under the bridge as well, lovingly calling it "the coat of arms".

[JackAlsworth]

==> I'd heard of my right to keep and bear arms a few years ago, and I decided to exercise it. I don't imagine the bear was too happy, but I think it was worth it.

[Dryunya]

==> You got them from your friendly neighborhood arms master.

(MORE PUNS FOR THE PUN GOD! )

[Krika]

=> They're relics from the time you spent in the army. It would be a shame for them to get damaged, somehow. Put them somewhere safe.

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

1. Oh right, silly me. I bought them at the Flesh Salesman of course.
2. They're from the duck hunter who mysteriously vanished
3. They're my family's arms, passed down from generation to generation.
4. I found them wrapped in a coat, which I hid under the bridge as well, lovingly calling it "the coat of arms".
5. I'd heard of my right to keep and bear arms a few years ago, and I decided to exercise it. I don't imagine the bear was too happy, but I think it was worth it.
6. You got them from your friendly neighborhood arms master.
7. They're relics from the time you spent in the army. It would be a shame for them to get damaged, somehow. Put them somewhere safe.

Online 1d7 (because I don't have a d7) = 2.

Oh, right. The duck hunter's arms. You miss that guy. He was kind of cute, in a what-kind-of-monster-hunts-ducks-anyway kind of way. You wonder briefly what happened to him, before deciding that the important thing is he bequeathed you his arms before he went. They are pretty cool arms.

You strut up and down the bridge waving the arms around, playing pretend with yourself that you are the duck hunter who formerly bore these arms. After a while, the game makes you feel sick. What are you trying to prove? Don't answer that.

The malaise returns, and you lie flat on your back on the bridge, loosely holding the arms, staring up at the night sky. Two of the stars look totally fake, like they were just painted on, and you take the time to speculate whether your entire sky that you have known all your life is nothing but a painted backdrop, for some grand existentialist drama that is beyond you. Or maybe you're just getting sleep-deprived with all this melancholiness and have started to imagine that some of the stars are fake.

Before you drive yourself completely insane with this line of thought and are good for nothing but duck hunters, if that guy ever returns to get his arms, you decide to get a move on with what you were thinking about doing with these arms (after all, better hurry in case he wants them back). What do you want to do with these arms?

[Dryunya]

==> Stick the arms into the ground 5 feet away from each other, stand between them and explode with the power of a thousand suns, like you do every Thursday.

[Victin]

==> Give them a proper burial, since the duck hunter's body mysteriously vanished, at least his lifeless arms should be treated with due respect.

[narrativedilettante]

=> Use them to signal a passing plane to land in the lake.

[RussetDivinity]

Paint faces on the hands and make them your new best friends, Handy and Armistice

[Sophira]

If the duck hunter bequeathed these arms to us, we must not use them in vain.

== Go on an adventure. Our mission: To locate the family of the duck-hunter and proudly present them with the duck hunter's arms.

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

1. Stick the arms into the ground 5 feet away from each other, stand between them and explode with the power of a thousand suns, like you do every Thursday.
2. Give them a proper burial, since the duck hunter's body mysteriously vanished, at least his lifeless arms should be treated with due respect.
3. Use them to signal a passing plane to land in the lake.
4. Paint faces on the hands and make them your new best friends, Handy and Armistice
5. Go on an adventure. Our mission: To locate the family of the duck-hunter and proudly present them with the duck hunter's arms.

Online 1d5 = 3.

Ah, yes. You knew this day would come-- this hour. All day, as your melancholy and malaise was building, you were slowly forming a plan to interrupt the uniformity, the monotony, the dullness of your days at this lake. At last you have the duck-hunter's arms, and night has fallen, and nothing now can stand in your way, or prevent you from, at last, making things more interesting around here.

You examine the arms once more: yes, they are indeed still luminous from the glow-in-the-dark powder the duck-hunter routinely covered them in, the better to attract and lure ducks close. You grin to yourself; you like that neon glow-in-the-dark yellow that's shining off the arms now, almost as much as you like dangling your feet in the water. The only thing better that you can imagine would be dangling your feet in the water while admiring the glow-in-the-dark powder on the arms...

But no. You quickly come down hard on that thought. You can dangle your feet in the water later; right now, you have a job to do. Holding the arms as high aloft above your head as you can, you run back and forth along the length of the bridge, waving the luminous arms frantically. You race down to the foot of the bridge, then charge across to the other side. Back. Again. Back. Again. Surely there must be an airplane somewhere close, getting curious about your signal. Surely it should be coming to land in the lake soon. You run to the other edge of the bridge again. You run back. You run forward. You run backward.

Finally you give up, collapsing breathless halfway across the bridge. Despite your apparent lack of success, you decide to reward your exhausting efforts by allowing yourself to dangle your feet in the water. Just as you are starting to grin helplessly at the squelchy feel of water on your feet and pretty sight of glow-in-the-dark arms, you hear the noise of someone or something approaching, and look up eagerly.

Who/what is there?

[narrativedilettante]

The legendary Wereduck.

[Krika]

=> A particularly fetching duck of the opposite gender to you.

(I don't know if our character has an established gender or not)

[Dryunya]

==> Baralgnur, Eater of Dimensions.

[Pixelmage]

=> Just a normal passerby.

[RussetDivinity]

The duck hunter's brother, out for revenge.