Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: syvarris on August 17, 2019, 03:37:46 pm

Yes, yes, go out again tonight, but during the day try and interact with Ali's parents a bit.  Be affectionate and friendly to them, too!  They don't seem to like us, and that's a problem, since they have all the power in this place.

+1 are there any chores we can help with?

You consider Dad. You know now that's not really his name. It's more of a property, like "credits" or "dragon". You've seen people called dad in holovision, after all, and they're definitely not Dad. But it's hard not to consider him as Dad when that's what Ali usually calls him, when that's the first name you had for him.

Your relationship with Mom and Dad is mediated through Ali while you keep your distance, both figuratively and literally. You've been fine with keeping it that way, since most of your interactions with them usually end up with you being yelled at or pushed. And you always get the feeling they don't like you.

Perhaps if you were nicer to them or did something for them, they'd be nicer to you in turn. After all, they are the ones providing food and resources to you (and to Ali who gives them to you) and you wouldn't want to risk losing that. Maybe with a better relationship, they'd even be willing to provide more. Furthermore, if your relationship improved then there would be less tension in the house, less fear, you'd be able to relax more. And Ali would be happier.

That just leaves the question of what you could do for them. You could always take care of the green biped that comes to collect the rent, it should be coming the night after tomorrow, but even though you think it would be good for them you don't know if they would approve.

Maybe something more mundane would work better, something like a gift, like finding more plastoid tape for Dad. Hmm. But what if they deduce from your gift that you went outside? They wouldn't approve of that.

What about things they do in the house? They prepare things in the kitchen, so maybe you could help there? Maybe you could get Ali to teach you what this "cooking" thing is. But from what you've seen it requires a lot of hand-work, so cooking for them could be hard, not to mention tiring.

And then you have a great idea: cleaning! Dad and Mom often go through the house with the broom, a noisy device at the end of a stick that floats over the floor, sucking up dirt and debris. But it looks like it's hard work for them, moving the heavy thing around, getting it under the furniture. You're closer to the floor, four steady legs. It should be quite easier for you to clean and you should be more effective.

Once you get out of the shower you grab the broom, bring it to Ali and get her to remove the stick from it and activate it. You grab it with your mouth and start moving it around the floor. Mom comes home a few minutes after you begin cleaning. At first she scolds Ali, tells her the broom is not a toy but Ali responds that the two of you just want to help and that she should rest while you take care of things.

Mom considers this for a few seconds and then relents, thanking Ali (but not you, you notice). She observes you attentively instead of resting like you intended. She steps in to correct you a couple of times and show you how you're supposed to be doing things, but she doesn't yell and you even catch her smiling near the end. You think you did a good job.

...

After dinner the entire family sits down in front of the holovision to watch a holovid. Instead of going up to Ali so she can pet you like you usually do, you go up to Dad instead and lie down next to him, resting your head on his leg. Both Dad and Ali look surprised. Ali smiles but says nothing and continues watching the holovid. Dad looks at you for a few seconds more and then says something stern-sounding, something about not petting you. You remain silent and don't raise your head from his leg, merely look up to look into his eyes. Dad grumbles something about puppy eyes and rests his hand on your head, scratching you gently. It feels nice.

Quote from: Devastator on August 17, 2019, 12:29:30 pm

Sneak out, and look for a meal.  Check out that hyrophonic place again.. maybe they have more food in some of the other rooms there.

+1 but be very cautious when approaching the lab. they may have increased security.

Once everyone is asleep you gather your things and leave the apartment. It's easy making your way out to the streets and then to the maintenance tunnels. There's a chilly wind blowing, damp and foggy, the cold water droplets stinging whenever they touch your scales. In response to that people don heavy jackets, keep their heads down and quickly walk to their destinations, making the streets emptier then usual.

The situation in the maintenance tunnels is better. Most are too deep for the fog to reach them and the warmth of the buildings helps counteract the cold wind. Some humans must think so too, for you see them sleeping in a corner of the tunnels, wrapped in heavy blankets.

You make your way to the Hydroponic Pool and find that the entrance you created is still open. You dive into the pool and look around. The sonic rifle is still there, as are the remains of the security droid you destroyed. There are still a few of those hard-shelled creatures you ate last time but it looks like their population hasn't yet had a chance to recover.

The gardener droid is still doing its work, only beeping angrily at you whenever you disturb its plants. You try saying hello to it. It beeps and boops. You say that you will work for food. It beeps and boops. You say credits are good too. It beeps and boops. You don't think this conversation is going anywhere. If it is speaking and not just making noise, then it keeps repeating the same thing over and over.

You decide to explore further in. You come across a room where leaves float inside vats. Tubes come out of the vats, glowing with a faint red energy. The glowing tubes merge above a rumbling machine, combining into a bright red stream that occasionally crackles with static electricity. The stream disappears inside another, larger vat. A flat droid on wheels is moving leaves around, placing them into the vats. It sees you but it just ignores you.

Moving on further in, you start hearing speech. A male human and one of those green bipeds are speaking. The green biped is speaking in its language, so you only catch half of the conversation. It's not that interesting anyway. Something about the weather. But maybe if you waited around for a while they'll speak about something more interesting. Or maybe they'll come your way so you can ambush them and interrogate them or kill them.

"Explosives! Now!"

Throw dynamite near the enemy exit point. Ride Crystal Friends to retreat to a safe distance and aim at dynamite. Shoot dynamite when enemy is in range.

@syv and gentlefish: "Nyw! Brace the toothpick! Drett! Aim for him!"

+1 To the saddlebags and sleeping.

You decide that it would be best to get some sleep and continue tomorrow. As you lie there waiting for sleep to come, you start thinking about what exactly you should do tomorrow. You decide that you should try to be better prepared for any future excursions. One of your biggest problems is carrying things. Humans have their hands and clothes and bags, so many options to carry things. You wonder, could you use any of those things?

While you could use your claws to carry things, walking on two legs is really awkward. It makes you too slow and it's hard to maintain your balance and it's too tiring for your poor tail. You think your body is not meant for walking on two legs. And if you are meant to be a biped, you definitely haven't had enough practice with it. So having hands is not an option, at least not in the short term.

You also know from experience that you can't wear clothes. At least not human clothes. Ali once tried to get you to wear her clothes but that didn't turn out well for the clothes. Mom was not happy. The only thing that fit you were the ribbon and the tiara and neither of those have a large carrying capacity. Maybe you could buy or find some clothes, but you have no idea where you could do that. Not to mention that you don't have any credits at the moment.

So that leaves bags as the last remaining option. You could wear one of the bags humans put on their back, but wearing it that way would be awkward for your wings, not to mention that it would be hard to reach. You could wear it backwards, having it dangle below you, that would make it easier to reach, but it would make it harder to sneak. A bag of the kind you hold is also kind of awkward, you'd need to have it hang from your neck or tail or something like that.

If you could somehow have a bag hanging on either side of your body, above your front legs, that would probably be best. They would be less likely to get in the way and you could reach into them using your head if you strained your neck a bit. But you haven't seen Ali or her parents use any bags that could be used like that. You should figure out a way to let her know of your idea. Maybe she can help with that.

...

It turns out to be surprisingly difficult to explain what you want using your limited vocabulary. After a while Ali finally understands what you want, but then she has to face the problem of actually coming up with a way for you to get what you want. She first tries putting on a backpack sideways and adjusting the shoulder straps so that they're really tight, but no matter how tight she makes it, it ends up slipping away and sliding towards your wings or neck. Then she tries stretching a shopping bag so that she makes a sort of shoulder bag but she just ends up with a torn bag. (You don't think it would had worked anyway, the moment you tried running or jumping everything would be in danger of spilling out. You'd prefer something like a backpack that you actually need to pull open.) Then she searches through Dad's things and finds what she calls "plastoid tape" and the real suffering begins.

"Plastoid tape" is a ribbon stored in the form of a roll. The outer side is dark grey, much like your scales. It has a pleasantly bumpy texture that provides a good grip. The inner side is white and is incredibly sticky. While this is (apparently) a desirable quality it also causes a world of problems. First of all it is incredibly hard to unroll the tape if there isn't an already unrolled segment and attempts to do so via brute force usually end up ruining that segment of the tape. Then there is the problem of actually cutting the surprisingly durable tape into usable chunks. Ali's safety scissors are not up to the task, ruining the tape before finally cutting it, making the tape stick with itself. You try to help Ali by using your claws but after cutting a few segments they too become sticky, the adhesive substance clinging to them, dulling them and making it harder to cut with them. You try licking them clean and end up with a sticky mouth. The most annoying thing is that sometimes pieces of tape end up clinging to your claws and every attempt to remove them just has them end up stuck on a different part of your body.

Plastoid tape opens up many possibilities for Ali to experiment with, which leads to many failed experiments and most of your scales feeling incredibly sticky. You're about to give up in frustration when in a flash of brilliance Ali discovers she can form something like a harness by folding a piece of plastoid tape in half, thus giving it two dark sides. By very carefully cutting and then folding large strips of tape she is able to add extra harnesses to the backpack you tried on first. She manages to secure it in place in a way that is both comfortable and unlikely to strangle you should the backpack get caught on something. You end up with something that should hold a good number of things which you can reach using your mouth. You can put it on and remove it on your own, though it takes significant effort. It would be much quicker if you could get Ali to help you whenever you want to put it on. The only downside is that it is only one bag on the left side of your body, leaving you somewhat unbalanced.

You take a long shower while Ali takes care of the mess your crafting session left in the kitchen. You have to scrub yourself clean because even water is not enough to remove that damn sticky thing. After the shower you somehow still feel sticky in places. You can't wait for the next time you'll shed your scales.

Gained Status: Hungry

Ali's parents will be home in a few minutes. You should decide what you want to do tonight.

...

You hope Dad won't be mad when he finds out that the two of you used up all the plastoid tape.

We don't need to know him to lead her to him. If he is likely to e.g. return to us to check our progress or send us some message that could lead us to him, then all she has to do is stay close to us.

Sure it is. If she has an attachment to him and she thinks he is us or that we can lead her to him then we can use that as leverage to get her to do what we want.

Okay.

Ask how we get up.

"Okay." you echo in agreement and wag your tail in excitement. But after a moment of thought you realize you don't actually know how to reach the higher levels of the apartment tower.
"Where up?" you ask.
She points up.
"Up. Two floors." she clarifies.
No, though helpful, that's not what you mean.
"No. Where go up?" you ask, hoping this will get your point across.
"Room 5 0 9." she repeats more slowly. "Eiwhyl's-"
"No." you interrupt her.
Maybe you're using the wrong word.
"What go up?" you ask with some uncertainty.
She considers it for a moment before realization comes to her.
"Oh! You mean how to go up!"
"How to go up." you repeat with more uncertainty.
"Just use the elevator." she responds. You don't know what that means, but she's already showing you.

She picks up her datapad and a colored datapen and starts drawing, points of light blinking into life whenever the datapen touches the screen. She draws a circle, a bit imperfect and wobbly, but you understand. And then she draws a square on the outside of the circle and writes 327 along with some other symbols in it. "3 2 7. Ali." she says while pointing at it. You don't understand but watch intently, waiting to see where she's going with this. Then she draws another square next to the first one and writes 325 in it. Then another; 323, 321, 319... This is familiar. It's the same numbers as the rooms outside. 327 is written outside the room Ali is in.
"Yes." you say. You understand now what she means. Just like credits are also colors and also numbers, so are rooms also numbers. And rooms are also this drawing. To show that you understand, you use your snout to point at the point next to where the exit would be and say "3 4 9".
"Yes! That's right! Good boy!" she says enthusiastically and pets you.
She then draws a big square representing the exit and writes some symbols in the square, the same symbols that are written above the door, in that green sign.
"Exit." she says.
"Yes." you reply.
Then she draws another large square opposite to the exit, in the inside of the circle. This must represent the other large door, the one you didn't go through. She writes some other symbols in it.
"Elevator" she says and points at it.
"Yes." you reply.
So the door opposite to the exit is called "elevator" and that leads up.
"Button. 5." she adds.
You're not sure what that means, but you guess you're going to have to press a button when you go through that door. Maybe you'll understand when you're there.

Once again you marvel at how much she knows and how good she is at teaching you. It makes you wonder though how she can know so much when she rarely exits the apartment. Maybe her parents taught her like she's teaching you?

((no longer have that cognition copier, unfortunately. It exploded along with my previous body.))

Quote from: Naturegirl1999 on August 14, 2019, 06:44:08 am

ask “where hide credits?”

Quote from: Devastator on August 13, 2019, 07:22:00 pm

Also, next treasure we sleep on, because dragon.

I see a solution. We hide them under the bed.

You ask Ali where she thinks you should hide the Credits. She looks thoughtful for a couple of seconds and then her face lights up.
"Aha!" she says triumphantly before lifting the mattress and putting the credits underneath it.
"So? What do you think?" she asks with a smile.
You wag your tail enthusiastically in response. Something about the idea of sleeping on your hoard seems inherently right, something that gives you intense satisfaction.

Still, that leaves the question of what you're going to do today.