Capricious Virtual Reality OOC
 

You look around and see about a dozen other people. After hearing the announcement of the laughably evil Goat Man, people have begun to gather into little groups. They worriedly are trying to figure out the key to this place, or the code to that place. Now, you and a select few others with you have the benefit granted by paying 10 aurum. You all get a special space above and away from this virtual reality, where you can debate and discuss things with and in front of the Goat Man's apparition. This is that space. It's white and empty like a piece of blank paper. However, you are free to request any object in the mansion or ask any yes-or-no question to the Goat Man while you work on getting out of here. The Goat Man does not lie, but does sometimes speak in half-truths.


To Request an item from the game (Items will be listed in bold on the story section:
To make a guess:

To ask a yes-or-no question:

-sweats-
ooohhhhh I hope I did that right
-gets more nervous-
I dun wanna die in here D:

Err, not quite (that part is sort of supposed to be on this section)

So, you want to look at the windows?

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


On the right window, you gaze out in the artificial moonlight. You notice a glint on the glass - a mark that refracts the moonlight, as if there is a deep set of scratches in the glass. The scratches form this number: 113.

On the left window, you see a similar marking. It reads: 124. It is likely that these numbers are connected.

D: do you want me to go delete it D:
Oh goodness
-sweats further-

A young man named Ari is dressed very strangely as some sort of cat-thing with antennae. It's likely he didn't have enough money to make a proper costume, but this one is kind of cute. Sighing, he moved around the room, deciding on what to look at, before he finally decided on the door. Might as well see if there was some way to undo the latch on this side.

Don't "sweat" it xD

-----------

The front door does not budge. However, as you grip the handle, you notice it feels rather sharp. As you grip it tightly, the door handle cuts your hand. You can feel pain, apparently, in this virtual reality, though there is no blood or wound. Oddly, you think that word means something.

----------

Also, good job! You now have:

113 and 124 as parts for a lock code

___ door/handle/cut ___ ___ as part of one of the door passwords

You can ask the Goat to understand that better.

"Ow! Sh-." Ari cut himself off before he could complete the swearword, and looked for a long, disturbing cut across his hand... nothing. Grumbling about 'stupid VR', he marched to the middle of the room, and put his hands on his hips. "Oi! Goatboy! Here's one of my questions! I'm allowed Yes or No ones, right? So here's mine. Is CUT a word on that stupid lock?"

"Okay, so... blank-cut-blank, cut-blank-blank, or blank-blank-cut. That doesn't really help all that much." He gave a glare of resentment at the goat. "Alright, time to explore in earnest." He strode with purpose over to the red-carpeted staircases, and started going over them with a mental 'fine-toothed-comb' - looking for anything out of place.

The Goat Man grins. "Fret not, little one," he said, "I could have simply told you it was not a word, and spoke the truth."

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

As you go over the red carpet, you notice that it is not quite red. More correctly, the red carpet is almost pink in some areas, and red in others. You believe it may form an overall picture of a bearded creature with long horns. It looks like a thickly built goat, but is it?

Kneeling down for a moment, he studied the carpet. There had to be a better way to get a look at this. He ascended the stairwell, and peered over the edge toward where the hidden picture was, craning his head this way and that, to see if he could make heads or tails of it. "While I'm at it, Mr. Goat, I'm wondering something else. I've been in my room, and I noticed there were no keyboards. I haven't checked the monitors yet, but..." He motioned to the rest of the area. "Are the keyboards vital to finding any more clues?"

Despite the posturing, you still observe a form of goat. That said, you retain an uneasy feeling about such a simple solution. Perhaps it will make more sense upon further exploration and observation of other objects.

The Goat Man is amused, the smug thing. "Nope. The monitors are touch screen."

"Touchscreen monitors? In that case..." He leaped back over the railing, and moved toward his room, opening the door, and sitting down at the desk, reaching out to move the mouse and observe what was on the screen. Maybe, if this whole shindig was virtual reality - some computer program or another would have more clues...

(In retrospect, a mouse and touchscreen setup is a tad silly)

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

The screen boots up with a bruum sound. It then shows username: 14- and no password. Clicking it, you see a screen with what would be Random Access Memory data, but instead is labeled "GOAT". Then the destop background fades in.

You go to lookup the image on the red carpet on the ---cut Search Engine, and find this data:

"Oreamnos americanus, the Rocky Mountain Goat...Despite its name, it is not of the same genus of all other goats."

"Let's see... RAM turned into GOAT, that has to be connected. I'll worry about that later. Rocky Mountain Goat, huh?" He leaned back in the chair, and steepled his fingers. "Alright, I'll bite. Some of this data is obviously missing... Let me..." He produced a pad of paper from the desk, and a pen. VR could do anything, and he did need to remember these numbers. How nice. He wrote down --Cut, Rocky Mountain Goat, and 14--. That done, he tucked the pad and pen into his shirt, and went into the room beside his, not really caring whose it was - repeating the process of logging in on the computer. If the number was different, he had an idea.

"So... 14 and 166. There's got to be a connection there." He wrote down the number, and left by the doorway, headed back downstairs to check out the thing that had seemed a bit off to him last time he was down here. Who in their right mind keeps a FLOWER POT all by itself in the middle of the room? He carefully looked it over.

"1:35, 14, 166, Cut, rhymes with hen. Time. .... When. Well, obviously When rhymes with hen, and the time theme is pretty thick here." He looked at the door. "However, there isn't a clock on that door, just a ram's head, so... Wait..." He started to pace as he thought. It's possible that Cut has more to do with the door that cut me - and less to do with this time... But there's a time here, the answer to the 'rhymes with hen' is obviously When, but..." Pausing, he turned sharply toward where he'd last seen the hologram of the goat.

"Tell me something. Does this mirror and the time have something to do with the lock on the cabinet over there?" He gestured further over. "I didn't forget it, I just didn't think it was important until now."

Ari sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Great. It sounds like math, and I'm horrendous at math. Alright.. well..." He meandered over to the cabinet, taking the paper with all the numbers on it, and examining the cabinet lock to see how the mechanism worked.

Ari contemplated the lock for a moment, then tried a combination with the given clues. "So if this is telling me what I think it is... The combination ought to be..." he quietly input the numbers: 3456.

The boy paced back and forth, considering the clues. He was starting to feel a bit under the weather, as a certain change was approaching, and approaching fast. He had to figure this out before it got here - or things could be decisively more barbaric and bloody in a short amount of time. "Okay... Ne. Kwa. Cut. When. There's got to be a meaning.... Newhencutkwa? Necutwhenkwa? Maybe there's another thing I'm missing, another clue. Maybe not. Let's see..."

He took the paper, and a pad of his own, and started mixing up the letters. Maybe it was a scramble. "Hmmm..."

Newhencutkwa
Necutwhenkwa

"Wait..." He started trying to make words out of the letters.

"New. Hen. Wake. Huh? Hang on..."

Now, he started crossing off letters as he made the words.

N E W H E N C U T K W A

W A K E N

N E W H E N C U T K W A

W A K E N - T H E

He paused, and scratched his head. "Waken the NWCU? Nuwc? Wucn? Cuwn? Uncw? None of that makes sense." He looked over toward where he'd heard the voice previously. "Am I even on the right track here!?"

Ari thought over everything he'd said, and tried several of the words out on his tongue. If the goat-man had a name, it should have been at least semi-pronounceable. In that case... There were very few options it could have been. He could only ask Yes or No questions, so he figured he'd start with his first guess.

"Is your name Newhencutkwa? Considering it's one of the only iterations I can pronounce? If that answer is no, my next question is if you name is Necutwhenkwa."

"Right hallway door... Gotcha." He obeyed the goat-man, headed to the right hallway door, and opening the panel. Thinking for a moment, he typed in the first series of letters, waiting for whatever was going to happen... to... well... happen.