Bandit Quest 1

You feel in the pit of your stomach, the depths of your soul, and the extremities of your bowels and bumhole that nothing good can come of this. That is precisely why you press on. Any path with //this// much resistance must be something of a shortcut to glory, you feebly rationalise to yourself against the background of screaming anxiety that warns you away. You stumble across a pungent undead gentleman who introduces himself, in a voice of painful hissing and the squelching of lacerated meat, as the Lich King. His aura of malevolence is lighting the cave with a moody red. If it weren't for the extreme sensation of nausea and fear that his horrible visage is causing you it would be quite relaxing. Like a new-age spa.

>[[Befriend the Lich King.]] >[[Bully the Lich King.]] >[[Check your bag. (currently no content written for this, don't click this one)|4]]

You call the Lich King a bumbaclart and declare that his face looks like an explosion at the spam factory. The Lich King is taken aback. >[[Push the advantage and attack him physically.]] >[[Push the advantage and initiate a rap battle.]]

The Lich King turns out to be a pretty chill guy. He's very smart, but he's also plainspoken and personable. You feel the beginnings of a powerful bond forming here. >[[Play a board game with the Lich King.(currently no content written for this, don't click this one)]] >[[Banter with the Lich King.(currently no content written for this, don't click this one)]]

You roar like a grieving chimp and charge at your opponent. The Lich King remains steadfast. You dive to tackle him, but upon what might have been impact you pass straight through his apparently ghostly form. While phasing through him you feel a deathly cold dread wash over you, and you are paralysed as you fall. You see a vision of your mother, younger than you are now, crying and clutching at a shapeless bundle of rags. The image melts away into the vision of a horse with a broken leg screaming as its eyes are pecked at by crows. The sky is grey, so grey that you wonder if there ever was blue, if ever the sun was anything more than a fancy in the childish dreams of starving children. You fall on your face and fart loudly as you tumble onto the floor in a heap. >[[Get up and run.]] >[[Divise an attack that will target the source of his power.(currently no content written for this, don't click this one)|Divise an attack that will target the source of his power.]] >[[Wonder why you know the sky is blue when you have never left the crypt.]]

You don't fancy your chances in a fisticuffs with this gentleman, but you hope that your youth and charisma will give you a fighting chance against him in a battle of rhymes. Some nearby rats provide you with a passable beat. Your audience will declare the winner. >[[Do your best to verbally dress down the Lich King.]] >[[Pander to the peanut gallery and tie in as many references to cheese as you can in the midst of your insults.]]

Getting up is more easily said than done! Luckily for you though saying it is trivial, and doing it is difficult but within your present scope of action. You struggle to your feet, you knees knocking together in a manner resembles a newborn horse standing for the first time. You make a mental note to see the silver lining in this situation and you feel grateful that you are not, at this moment, covered in amniotic fluid from a horse. You have rather enough to be getting on with. Once you are standing on your two feet again you stumble away into the blackness. The Lich King appears bored and disappointed by your antics and lets you run. >[[Escape.]]

You hurtle through unknown, spooky looking passages looking behind you all the while to check you are not being followed. Because of this you don't notice the gaping crevasse in the floor ahead, and you tumble headfirst into the abyss. >[[Tumble through the air.]]

You attempt to tumble through the air, which was in some sense an attempt to reclaim some agency in a situation over which you have no control. You fail even in this, however, because you are not tumbling through air but instead flowing rapidly through a dark pipe full of blood. >[[Scream.]] >[[Attempt to not scream.|Scream.]]

You scream loudly as you hurtle through darkness. There is now blood in your mouth, and you find yourself wondering if you hope it's human blood or if perhaps there might be some preferable, more sanitary form of blood. Whatever the creature the prospect of filling your lungs with its slop doesn't seem profitable. After a few terrifying seconds you are spat out onto a massive pile of black pudding. >[[Look around.(currently no content written for this, don't click this one)|Look around.]] >[[Chow down on the delicious bloody mess.]]

In this bit you eat the blood and end up becoming a vampire.

Well, that's easy. Well. I suppose... look don't question this any more okay? I have enough on my plate as it is crafting this narrative for you without you getting all CinemaSins on my arse. Just decide whether you want to run or whether you want to attack the source of his power. Please. >[[Perhaps my mother knew the sky was blue, and she told me?]]

Yes, that works as an explanation. Thanks for supplying that on your own. Couldn't you have said that right away instead of derailing the narrative like this? >[[Fine! Okay! Just let me run then!(|Get up and run.]] >[[Fine! Okay! Just let me devise an attack that targets the source of his power then! Whatever that means...(currently no content written for this, don't click this one)|Divise an attack that will target the source of his power.]]

The rats are squeakboxing. The Lich King is confused, even a little scared perhaps. You drop in hard. //I move silent in the shade, when I see gold it's on sight. You can't even take a step without your soft red night-light.// The rats like that one, you're doing well. >[[Press on.]]

Foolproof. There are loads of different types of cheese, and many of them rhyme with other words. The rats are squeakboxing. You drop in hard. //Damn, you aged like milk. Mature like cheddar, my rhymes will leave you feeling blue, I'm a real sharp marauder.// The rats are not happy with this. The flow was bad, 'cheddar' and 'marauder' don't sound all that alike, and they're offended that you've profiled them as massive cheese lovers just because they're rats. Obviously they all do love cheese but it's the principle of the matter, their accusatory gaze seems to communicate to you. >[[Attempt to steer back into standard battle rap territory.(currently no content written for this, don't click this one)]] >[[Double down. More cheese.]]

//I survive in these ends by moving fast... there in two ticks. You think I break a sweat against a fool who needs a walking stick?// This one doesn't go down quite as well. It feels a bit contrived perhaps, or maybe they don't really like the ableist sentiment. In any case, it's time to await the Lich King's response. >[[Lean back in a cool pose and await his response.]]

The Lich King bobs his head noticeably out of time with the beat. //Come see this tainted flesh pack youngboy. Yes sir. I got the police commissioner in my back pocket, the pigs don't even bother me no more but I still snuff out cop lives on a regular basis. The block hums, this real estate bought and sold a long time ago. I do not roll with snitches, my team rougher than ogre taint. I tell you what boy, there's a thin line between a throne and a prison cell. I'm smoking lab grown poodle meat. I'm bunning Marge Simpson's hair. Call me Kulak the way I burn this crop. My knees hurt.// >[[?]]

The Lich King doesn't seem to understand the premises of rhyme or rhythm. The rats are not impressed; they declare you to be the winner. The Lich King screams a scream of many mouths, and you feel the air boiling around your ears as the toll of centuries of suffering finally ruptures from the rotting bag of his throat. In that instant his cloak seems to dissolve: every fiber falling away from the fabric like meat from a bone, and he is surrounded by a writhing mass of black, crawling, slithering creatures. They scramble, blind and terrified, among the knotted mess of their cousins as they flee his stinking corpse. In an instant they are gone, and what little pinkish flesh was left on the Lich King's bones is gone with them. From his bald skull a thin pale worm emerges. >[[Pocket the worm.]]

You feel accomplished: you have delved the depths of the crypt and succeeded in defeating a worthy foe. You pocket the ''Lich King's soul''. This might fetch a pretty penny in the city, perhaps from the Mage's Guild, or perhaps from an alchemist, or perhaps this Lich King fellow has a bounty on his head that you might collect. You think it's time to collect your reward. >[[Head upstairs in order to leave the crypt and make your way to the castle.|Go to castle with Lich King's soul: toothbrush ending.]] >[[Check your bag.|5]]

//I find street life easy, My flow is rich like curds. I know you're not about this life, your flow stinks likes turds.// Bangers. The rats have to admit that this one whips hard. You're confident you've brought this one back from the brink. >[[Lean back in a cool pose and await his response.|6]]

Your bag contains a ''shiny gold coin'', an ''unappetising sandwich'', your ''toothbrush'', and the bag of ''chili powder''. How do you want to pack up the worm? >[[Eat the unappetising sandwich and wrap the worm up in the now empty cling-film.]] >[[Save the sandwich and carefully place the worm behind the gold coin to avoid it touching your toothbrush.]]

You unwrap ''the unappetising sandwich''. The bread is all squashed and it feels stale. You bite into it to find a slimy mixture of too much mayonaise and and some unevenly grated cheese. You have eaten worse, you suppose, but you experience exactly no pleasure from the meal and you feel slightly queasy for having eaten it. In any case, you wrap his ''soul'' in the now empty cling film. >[[Head upstairs in order to leave the crypt and make your way to the castle.|Go to castle with the Lich King's soul: mayo ending]]

Good thinking. Your mother loves slathering your sandwiches in mayonnaise, and you are pretty sure you wouldn't be able to store the ''Lich King's soul'' in there without getting it all greasy. You shudder at the thought and your stomach turns a little. You boff up a little bit of pale sick onto the Lich King's skull and then tuck his ''soul'' behind the gold coin, making sure to keep it on the other side from your toothbrush. >[[Head upstairs in order to leave the crypt and make your way to the castle.|Go to castle with the Lich King's soul: good ending.]]

You unwrap ''the unappetising sandwich''. The bread is all squashed and it feels stale. You bite into it to find a slimy mixture of too much mayonaise and and some unevenly grated cheese. You really don't want to think about cheese right now. You boff up a little bit of pale sick onto the Lich King's skull and then wrap his ''soul'' in the now empty cling film. >[[Head upstairs in order to leave the crypt and make your way to the castle.|Go to castle with the Lich King's soul: mayo ending]]

This will ecventually lead to one of the endings. In this ending you go to the castle, sell the soul to the police and collect a hefty bounty, and check into a luxury hotel. That night you brush your teeth and forget that the toothbrush was in the same bag as the Lich King's Soul. You feel his soul possessing your teeth, and all of your teeth turn into little Lich King's, who possess you and force you to do their bidding. Bad end.

This will ecventually lead to one of the endings. In this ending you go to the castle and attempt to sell the soul to the Mage's Guild for a hefty bounty, but they won't take it because it has been wrapped in cling film and is covered in mayo. One of the mages turns you into a frog in a fit of rage and then tosses you out the window of a high tower, where you fall down a well. You land with a splash and meet a frog wife down there and start a family of frog kids. You then get a divorce from your frog wife and both of your frog kids turn out badly: one of them becomes a Twitch streamer who reacts to content and the other becomes a cop and goes viral for killing some frogspawn. You hate them both and hate your life. Bad end.

This will ecventually lead to one of the endings. In this ending you go to the castle and sell the soul to an alchemist for a hefty sum. You check into a luxury hotel, and while there you meet the princess of the kingdom. You buy her dinner and depending on how the date goes you either get married (good end) or you fumble and go home to your parents with some money but feeling ambivalent about the experience (neutral end)