CYOA ramblings

[Are You Still In Pain? A Comfort-Hurt CYOA]

>Please
>Wake Up
I was tired. Tired like that drink I'd had was the same drink I'd been having for a godforsaken lifetime. The bitterness, the rejection, the sheer NO I projected towards the damn rain, the closed diner, the bastard who'd run me off the interstate and got me into this mess-

-it swelled up inside me as the whiskey rushed down my throat and something RIPPED. And now, here I was.

>Jasmine
The lawyer left me an appointment in her fancy penthouse. I fed the fish, brushed my teeth with help from the box labeled "toiletries" and studiously left the cupboard labeled "secrets" untouched.

She bought me overpriced coffee from some place that wasn't Java on some mountain that wasn't Blue Mountain but which burned like the hype of both added up. Our mutual friend was apparently crashing with a soldier, freeing up the spare bedroom which could've been anyone else's master bedroom. She talked about chores, her work, bathroom privileges and how important it was not to take advantage. I spoke quickly, maybe too quickly about how the last thing I wanted to be in this new life was a burden. She smiled at that. Assured me her home was my home now, and to make the most of my new life however I got here.

I felt watched through the whole sit-down. But she bought be waffles too, I didn't complain.

>Take an Offer
Later I didn't remember where the dream began and the walk ended. I was on my way back with groceries. I got lost and ended up on the forest outskirts somehow. That was where I met the owl. She offered me tea for kinship. I watched the birds gather around her, the sky darken, the branches close in and excused myself politely.

Now Von Sterling-I'm almost certain he showed up to my door. Made his offer on the pretenses of an investigation. If him getting worked up about what he could make of me didn't turn me off, the blood on his face would've. The blood on his hands. Of all the people he-what? I didn't know him for that long.

1/3

Nobody else saw the blood, or what was wrong with his ears. They just saw a fussy man in tweed. I think that, how ordinary he looked other than the blood, is what scared me the most.

The devourer came to me in dreams. It had to have, nothing else could live where it did long or well and the wind was too cold and w h i t e to see where I was going. It offered to eat my troubles. I declined, because I had an idea what else it wanted to eat.

The woman with burning hair and blood was cordial and condescending. And alarmingly I genuinely cannot remember whether we met in dream or reality, only that we were surrounded by smoke too as she lounged in her estate's boudoir. The rattle of chains echoed from the floors below as I contemplated that if knowledge was power, then I was very ignorant and therefore in a very weak bargaining position with no way to ascertain the value of my secrets.

And as for John Doe, he was very clear that this was happening and of what he offered. We stood there in that dark alley, as the man with the wedge for his face and his auxillieries shook his head in disappointment for his proposal rejected. I told him: If my life was any simpler, it'd be even more miserable than it already was. That I was already plenty comfortable and wanted to keep it that way. He said he understood, but also that he thought I was being very counterproductive towards my goal.

The offerers' voices haunted me, dream and reality alike, refusing to relent even as they belittled each other. I wasn't going to take any of the offers but-I saw something out of the corner of my eye. A little white girl, unravelling forever while what could only be Death loomed behind her. It was so sad I wanted to look away. But I couldn't.

Later, I met the owl again. She pointed out that unlike the others, she looked after her own long as they looked after each other. Pointedly rotated her head at John Doe's name. So I said yes to her.

2/3

>Lila
I met the one who saved me not long after, going out into the woods with a bag of frozen mice under one hand and some bird fountains under the other She nicknamed me the Bird Dude. I never managed to find anything stable for her, but she started helping me with the birds too and found herself an excuse to crash with me when tired. The Owl admired that, told me my flock was her flock too and it was then I knew I'd taken up with the right offerer.

>Wes
"Take her back to middleschool when you're done with her, eh?"

I told him things weren't like that between Lila and I.

"Hehe. You think I'm talking about her?"

Once I saw him slay a spasming sack of filthy liquid and flailing limbs the size of an elephant with blade and talon. Another time, it was an accountant whose hand detached into a cannon. He didn't change weapons.

>the other white haired girl
Not her. I still refused to treat this one as just another omen in the new world. I called some of the flock over to nibble off the most prohibitive growths once she trusted me enough. They liked her. She was just happy to be liked by anyone.

>Tulip
This one ate birdseed like the flock. That was the medium and currency I used to coach her through arithmetic, then language. At that point I was able to explain what the Owl intended, but by then she decided to move into the city. Lawyers were easier to outrun than spirits, she explained. I wasn't so sure.

>Nicholas
I was too foreign to be comfortable in a real job than tending the flock. So I could relate to an angel who just wanted to crash with me for a while. For lack of anything better to do, he helped me with the Flock. He mentioned he'd look very different if he decided to join them for good.

>Alana
The Owl told me to stay wary of this one, but there was hardly anyone else who enjoyed the same coffee and books. I wasn't in a rush to solve mysteries. I was happy to live in the moment, and if her time was limited that was her business.

3/3

[Gloria]

>Clarity
>Moon
>Fresh off the Boat
>Nibble
>Penthouse
>DMCA Dodgers
>Snuffed Candles
>Moogloid TV
>The Raid
>Dune=Blood Money
>Getaway Pilot=Flying Birdcage
>Kool-Borischka=Unguided
>Tribal Chronicler=Neo Barbarian
>Armor=Clown Costume
>With a Bang
>Basic Kit
>Unlocked It
>Officer Dune: Tin Man
>Borischka=Guided
>Getaway Pilot=Fuel Efficient
>Tribal Chronicler=Shonen
>Eye of the Tiger: The Fear and Awe of the Citizenry
>Doom Shrine: A shrine built for you by clones hoping it would save them from the slayer of their kind
>Tinfoil Hat: Slower delivery time
>Tay
>Toro: A subscriber count in the billions on your hacking channel
>Casul
>Licks
>Nietzsche: Two religions held in check by ecah other
>Yours
>Deprecation
>Cut and Run


>"...s'funny, you know what I miss most about that office? The color of Smug's blood on it after a fun night. Everything else, starting from zero again-I don't hate it. Feels like...home, y'know? Feels like being alive again after too many late office hours"

>"The kid wanted the best story ever, didn't mind him gawking on the sidelines. The girl? I'm not all that mad, I needed to blow off some steam and I did teach her to stay clear of a trainwreck. I'm just amazed Boris still hasn't seen me for the sack of shit I am and Dune...yeah, I get Dune now. He wants to be his own man, I just wanna stop being one"
Sometimes you can have all the clarity in the world and all you're left with is: That's all I came to? A sub-par pile of offal with bone chips in a trench coat?

Sometimes you can have all the clarity in the world and all you're left with is: That's all I came to? A sub-par pile of offal with bone chips in a trench coat?

I spent a full 15 minutes giggling and trying to hum a Sinatra/Evangelion classic, thinking about the sheer absurdity. I'm on the moon. I'm on the MOON. I'm one of the most important bastards in the world, I'm so wealthy I could've bought and sold Gates, Murdoch and Zuckerberg before lunchtime if they were still around and I'm on the fucking moon because a killer klown from outer space mauled the shit out of my soul.

Yeah, clarity's fuckin' hilarious.

>Fresh off the Boat
But life wasn't always like that, was it? Penniless scion of what's left of England knocking on doors cap in hand for privilege of being gouged figuratively and literally by Big Nano-Pharma. Still better than what I left behind. I'm not a man to dwell on the past.


I'm not sure if this one's better or worse. It began with what I thought was a meteor impact, that got up in front of me.

You ever had that feeling when you're on a sheer cliff, looking down. The wind at your back, something gut-deep pulling you down by the nerves. And you get this crazy idea: What if you jumped? Yeah you'll die, you'll break every goddamn bone in your body and the press'll make fun of you-

-that's what looking at her smile was like, you know. I'm not a romantic, and I'm not a pansy either. I took one look at that smile and eldritch gribbles be damned, I knew it for a sharky one when I see it. There was no humanity in that smile. But hell, there wasn't much humanity in humanity these days either. Taxes, bad bosses and worse working hours had left little light in my life then, and besides-

-what if, while the wind and the cold was rattling your bones, letting go was the only way to know you were really alive?


Some folks would say I did a brave thing. But hell if it felt like anything other than a nightmare, I was all, fuck me man what are you even doing, she's an eldritch horror and YOU PUT YOUR MOUTH ON IT oh god it tastes like bloody candifloss

Thing is, I only caged it 'cos it never fought back in earnest. Writhed like a cat full of snakes wrestling it into the back of a car, curled up like a puppy once it was all in. Around this time I started making money like nobody's business.

I don't even remember fully how I made enough money, or where I got the idea for the name-I mean, DEADlightcorp? Marketing people were having conniptions about staying on-brand. But I never changed it...and I don't remember why.

That's the time I started thinking of ways to make IT useful if IT was gonna tag along. It was an ambush hunter by nature, so I had some technical kid contacts whip up a casket to teach it out to fight. Oh, IT didn't like that at first. Scratched me bloody as I held it down and strapped it in. Then hand on it's throat, it giggled. We had ourselves an understanding: Comedy was subjective. Acting like my petulent pet was funny, and being put in it's place was the punchline.

All I remember is, for the sake of my professional reputation it was best to stay on the move.

Anyway, so Dune tells me about this spoilt girl running errands, and I happen to have a...sensitive item in need of a discrete deliverywoman. Cat got out of the bag, she thought it was a laugh-we go drinking, and somehow I ended up letting a huge Russian cry on my shoulder while a kid in the corner tells me I'm the second coming of Ulysses. The kid wanted the best story ever, didn't mind him gawking on the sidelines. The girl? I'm not all that mad, I needed to blow off some steam and I did teach her to stay clear of a trainwreck. I'm just amazed Boris still hasn't seen me for the sack of shit I am and Dune...yeah, I get Dune now. He wants to be his own man, I just wanna stop being one

Christ, this was supposed to be a discrete operation but-I kinda like these assholes.

Disknee. The Rat. Where dreams go to die. Word on the down low is they tanked from kiddie movies after one with an "Elsa Dragon" in it bombed, but got in on the ground floor in the brain transfer business before rebranding.The ball was a hit. Thanks to big city degeneracy it turns out there WAS a dead supermodel-cum-designed whose gimmick happened to be clown outfits. I could've retired a rich man from that fundraiser alone.

Saw that Irish prick who said he was CIA having a Proper 12 on the balconey. Set Smuggy on him to punish his shit taste in whiskey as much as anything.

I still can't believe I bought my way into black magic. Turns out the one thing the occult can't do is pay the bills, so instead of ridicule my darknet posts for advice on caring for a demon space clown got enough job applications to fill out a whole department.

"Deadlight". This time it was the technical kids I hired full time's turn to get shouted at by marketing. Zilla's a guppy among her kind, a growing girl and one helluva corporate mascot. Merciless, singleminded, relentless-would've made a solid business partner if she-IT thought beyond the next meal.

We discovered 3 useful things IT makes while eating: Codenamed PHLEGMATIC XANTHOSIS (yellowish gas that makes you feel lost in a crowd), SANGUINE RUBEDO (looks like melting strawberry ice cream, will die laughing if you eat it) and MELANCHOLIC NIGREDO (straight up the poop of despair).

What can Blue Nirvana(TM) do? What CAN'T it do, it's a panacea that also makes you feel good with no side effects or dangerous dosage for 99/100 cases. Just need to dilute what IT spews, sweats and sharts out after a night of good hunting.I'm positive IT didn't resent being on a leash, I'm seen it in action. It could've just left anytime it wanted, gut the whole business probably. But no, IT liked it here. Shook the frills she-IT made look like a skirt it when I cleaned I-she personally. Thumped the floor with one leg when-when work got too much, and I took her-I mean, IT for walkies. Lolled her tongue out when I took it for sample collection. Sometimes she'd look at me and I'd just...get what it meant.

So I know when I did things to IT when work was tough, or I was just bored. Things I had to turn off the security cameras for. Things lesser men have paid top dollar to do. It really was laughing at me-nah, WITH me after all of 'em, even the ginger beer trick.

And that's why one memory sticks in my head through all the trauma: The smile going off her face when I told her about the empty lot job on Value, and the first and last time I ever heard her speak coherent english: "Bad idea. You won't float over there". She didn't say anything else. But I'm damn certain that's the only reason why she left, and I had to use in-house help.

And what do you know, she was right. What should've been a milk run on those Xenu cultists ended with a dozen perimeter breaches. Then...fucking ow, and it's all gone dark since.

It was the MTA, I'm sure of it. They never did get over cracking the Blue Nirvana family recipe. Doesn't seem like Value's style, but everyone plays their cards to the chest. Or maybe I'm wrong about everything, and Smuggy really did get sick of my shit all those years. But even then, I'd bet on boredom first. And I still don't remember why I'm on THE GODDAMN MOON, but you know what? Even if I'm moments away from Smuggy breaking this dome and dragging my broken body into the infinite black?

I'd die a happy man with neither regrets nor grudges against my best asset. Goddamn I've lived a fun life before karma caught up with me.

...
...huh. Guess I'm not dying this second.

>"...s'funny, you know what I miss most about that office? The color of Smug's blood on it after a fun night. Everything else, starting from zero again-I don't hate it. Feels like...home, y'know? Feels like being alive again after too many late office hours"

>"Fucking clones. Soulless freaks to a man. I'm a bit of a keyboard cowboy in my spare time, moonlight as one of the new kids with shit I made back in the day thanks to the magic of VR. Making software capable of calculating the parameters of a human soul's absence, and filling it with fear? Just a matter of throwing time and money at the problem"

>"Whatever anyone says though, I'm not a tinfoiler Just got...distracted by Smuggy from buying to much shit"

>"After the holy rollers got uppity about the sexbot craze, I greased some palms with what was left of the Vatican and saw them both fight. Like I did with those interlopers from the other world. Yeah. Yeah you can trust the deal I cut with them on the other side of the portal. The fuck you think I did-figured out a special someone was looking out for me, and told 'em I was doing fine? And more importantly, how'll you ever PROVE it?"

>"She...wha? She LIKED being experimented on, pumped and done dirty in a little lightless room too much to unleash her final form!? The cycle can't happen if it not happening feels too good! Reminds me a movie once. The Terror. She's like a clogged artery now or a dog too whipped to fight or, well, an overfed spoilt brat too lazy to move out of the house. She wasn't supposed to get too attached to the material world to finish bonding and fly us both to the void!"

>"Aw, fuck it all. Me and that little scamp-it's us against the world, y'know? You offering me a job? Maybe...maybe it's a good time to slow down. Maybe the cycle can be salvaged, if we take it at a slower pace. Feed on corps giving you the stinkeye, maybe. Sign me right up. I just need to go fish Lassie out of whatever well she's crawled into and let her know: I will NEVER get tired of doing the ginger beer trick on her"


[Parting the Veil]

A Jack of All Trades
They said this one life was a cross to bear. They said I should seek truth, and be an apostle for the mortal soul.

Me? I knew a bad hand when I saw it, and went looking for another dealer.

>Brotherhoods: Conspiracies
>Mysterious Outsiders (2 obligations)
Several weeks of living off the grid and losing the last fanged english teacher on my trail, I found one in the woods. More than one, lucky me. They said they'd had an investment in a city that suddenly depreciated. They said an ounce of their strength could do better than the trumpets that brought down Jericho, and then they proved it.

Most importantly, they sounded desperate. Not scared desperate, desperate to get in on something big coming my way with a middleman.

>Melee
>Stamina
>Occult
>Linguistics
>Research
>Iron Will
When I was 5, I saw a leprechaun eat my FUCKING gerbil raw. I never told anyone, but that's why I hit the local gun range and the boxing gym like there was no tomorrow. The Outsiders-my new pals-reminded me about that moment when I've never told them. Said they liked that, that I was well equipped to "bear the weight of their desires".

Everything went dark, and when I woke up my head was buzzing with dark wisdom and the know-how to get more. When I dream, I see some of the languages I learned. They're not alive, but they want so badly to be, echoing back the gods that once spoke them. Like a virus.

>Expenses Account
>Elite Status
>Leopard Skin Cloak
>30 Pieces of Silver
>Cephaloid Statue

The blank cheque they wrote me was made of papyrus. The country club membership pin they gave me reminded me of the aztec Smoking Mirror's skull. But old or new, cash is king.

The statue's handy-but that's not why it's important. I feel angles my blood should-could be flowing in. Hear things that could have been said. And the coins they I, when I touched them, I remembered, no please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I had to do it, it was always the way it was going to end-

Foucalt's Pendulum
>Dawn of the One Thousandth and Second Night
>The King in Yellow
>Tablet XIII
Asymptote. Avowal. Apoptosis.

Years into my employment, I remembered. I used to be somebody, a backup to the real Hammer of that age. I could've done so much good. I could have saved him from the price he paid. I didn't. I couldn't. We don't get to make the rules, we just play the hand we're dealt-and HE, my brother, my friend, he understood. Because there are forces maintaining a balance-

-within this world, anyway.

The shape of how it happens again. The shape of a reckoning postponed. The shape of dread Carcosa. If I can reconcile the three, then I can leave this cycle behind. I can leave behind being a betrayer.

The world's proven it never deserved his sacrifice, anyway.

>"Sybil"
>Amorality
>Sadism
>Greed
>Hallucinations
>Satyriasis
>Sanguinity
>Coarseness
>Aksum
>Samarkand
>The Missing Tome Questline

It's happening all over again. There's no other way out.

Dr. Melk wasn't human. But he understood. He was also blood brothers with someone high and hallowed once. And he'd ended up burning his house down. There's a place where-things like him are trying an experiment, making chisels and awls and nails when there's not enough good iron to make a Hammer out of. But that's not the point. The point is, to find a way out of it all I'll need to MAKE one.

(When I close your minds, Carcosa increases to a maximum)
I won't betray her this time.
(As Carcosa approaches, your energy approaches zero)
I'll betray everyone else.
(If a system is in equilibrium with Carcosa, it is Carcosa)

>From Beyond
I know why the Mysterious Outsiders picked me. They wanted a king in their corner.

First, I'll t̡̧ą̷k̡e̕ ̸́of̢͢͝f̵ ͜m̧̢y̡͟ ͜͞m̀͟a̧̕͜s͜k̀̕
C̀͞ar̴͜c̀o̷sa̡,̶͜͟ ̷̀͞on͟c͢e̛ ̨̧͘c̨r̨̨ea͘t̛͘͝ed̨,́͞ ̶̡c̡a̕͞nn̢o̕͟t̸̕͝ ̡͜b͟ę͜ ̡͢d̕͜͝ȩ̴s̸͘͢t̡͜r̀͘o͜ye̛d

[The Grisly Folk CYOA]

We call ourselves the Big Folk. We keep to ourselves, in the caves among the coldest heights and where the cold forests meet the rivers. We are a simple folk, slow to anger and content with our lot. We once lived among the small and quick, but in time you donned strange plates then left our side.

We are told the small-quick tribe have another name for us that is very similar.

>Hulking
We were born in a primal, brutal world. Ours was the strength to rend the cave bear and fight on when the horned beasts gored our sides. Ours were the hands that carved the rivers and wielded trees as bruising-rods. In times past we even gifted small-quicks with the flayed hide and crushed bone of our hunts. We did not understand why you wanted these things until we saw you make the marvellous false-hides and hand-fangs with your clever art. But loved by us all was the wind-singers and boom-skins you used to tell the legends of your tribe.

>Music
Do you remember our songs, small-quicks? Do you remember the great call where a man in musth would declare his legend to the sky and earth, or a woman would celebrate her firstborn? We seek to hear from your legends, but there is so much noise in even your least settlements. We here only dissonance. We speak under the earth now, where it is quiet enough to hear the last echoes of a life.

>Taming
We hunted and killed for survival, not fury. We believe this is one path where our tribes diverted. The wolf followed us for scraps like you and we took him in, but we also cared for fallen hunting birds and on the shores of the great bitter water even befriended a strange, smooth beast that behaves like a tamer wolf that eats fish. There are fewer of our steeds now, but we treasure those that yet live in the parts of the world your tribe only rarely maps.

1/3

>Healing
You did not barter with us in times past to buy our strength, or to breed into it. We were too different in scope. You came to us because we knew the secret of the crushed berry, the bone marrow-broth, the particular blend of clays and earths that could cleanse fevers and all the thousand nourishments of the land. To us you seemed blind at times, jumping at shadows from the vine that could save you from bleeding. Fearful children unseeing of the boons behind the serpent’s fang.

>Natural Borders
>Beautiful
It has taken us a long time to learn of you. We have heard there is a saying from you: “The world is not beautiful, therefore it is”. We were greatly moved by this saying. It is how we sing of our home. It may be bounded by the jagged fangs of Father Mountain and girded by the fathomless depths of Mother Deep Lake. But small-quicks, we wish that you had strength enough to remain at our side and see the play of light through clouds. We are not eloquent, but there is a beauty from the wintry mountaintops we feel is beyond all words.

>Amiable Neighbours
So strong were we that quickly, we grew to love our neighbours as our own hands and feet. We did not understand your “war” for the longest time because when bands of us meet, the instinct is to embrace an old friend and fill his belly. Nor did we grasp “trade” for such was our independence that only in direst day did we aid an ailing neighbour. To draw blood, unthinkable. Big Folk shall not kill Big Folk.

>Rough Terrain
>Harsh Climate
>Tough
>Cooperative
We speak now of the unseeen wolf of wind and the terror of a sudden fall. Make no mistake, our world is a terror unto itself. But it has made us all the stronger for enduring it.

2/3

>The Others
>Bright
>Cooperative
>Aware
>Oral Myth
>The Others
Just as we learned from you too.

Oh, we had no words for what you were at first. The terror of the iron pine, that desiccated the land around it and trod the earth in roaring beasts without feet-how could we put words to it? How could we see in you the delicate children hiding from the wolf in our caves, who we had sheltered and nourished from times past?

It was one of you who came to us first. A shurr-pah wearing the inedible skins your kind has come to favor sung to us in an old, old mountain song we were there to see invented-and even he feared us, thinking us a mere myth. But we were gentle and earnest, and in time he spoke to us further. Showed us the many songs you had invented, now undiluted by the cacophony of your iron-jungle. Later other men came, men with the knowing of teaching us your tongue. It has taken much time even so, for we instinctively fled your unceasing mountains of madness and fear some of your scouts may have died searching the harsh mountains for our bands.

We have been told there are some among you who say you should cease your activities for concern of us. On behalf of the thousand bands of the Big Folk, we are here to say you should do whatever you feel is necessary to feed your tribe for many moons. It is important to live in harmony in the land, but we feel the large and slow fear different things than the small and quick. And as the terror bird and the cat-kings have passed on, there is a season for all things.

We do not think that season has come for us just yet, for our homes are still very remote from yours. So we will leave this message of woad on hide with the sherr-pah for him to take to your lands and share the coda of this song-on-hide from us to you among your bands:

We greet you, as one band of music makers to another. To sing of how proud we are that our cacophonous, terrifying children appear to have inherited the world.