The Chinese Room
by Harry Giles (2007)
Genres: Surreal

The Chinese Room is a hilarious romp through the world of philosophical thought experiments. Have you ever wanted to win Zeno's race? Free the denizens of Plato's Cave? Or find out what it's really like to be a bat? Now is your chance!

action: You look
response: It's a plain concrete box, equipped only with desk and chair. A computer sits on the desk, casting an insipid electronic glow over a stack of cards sitting by the keyboard. There's a slow drip from a damp patch up on the ceiling. Some grubby light seeps through a high window across onto the poster that dominates an entire wall. Across the top of the poster huge bold letters read "THE CHINESE ROOM". Underneath -- a string of Chinese characters.
action: You think about CHINESE ROOM
response: The Chinese Room argument is a thought experiment originally devised by John Searle, designed to answer the question (in the negative): "Can a computer ever understand language?"

Imagine a computer that has so complete a set of rules for providing Chinese output to Chinese input that it behaves exactly as a human who understands Chinese would. Ask it a question in Chinese, and it will give an appropriate response in Chinese. It appears do "understand" Chinese. But does it?

Imagine now a human living in a small room, who is given a book consisting of a vast set of rules for providing a response in Chinese characters for any information ey receive in Chinese characters. Like a computer ey will provide appropriate Chinese output to Chinese input. The person is analogous to a computer, but does the person understand Chinese? It would seem, intuitively, that ey don't.

The meat of the argument here is to distinguish between syntax, the rules by which language is constructed and manipulated, and semantics, what language actually means, and then claim that even incredibly in-depth knowledge of syntax is not sufficient for semantics -- only human-type minds, and not an artificial intelligence, have the capability to understand meaning.

This leads into the debate about what "meaning" actually means. What can it be that only human-type minds have? What makes us special? Some philosophers, including, perhaps, the creators of the world you now find yourself in, would argue that actually all that the mind's ability to respond to input actually comprises is an incredibly complex set of learned syntactical rules, and that "meaning" separate from this is illusory -- so that if one were to learn all the rules for Chinese language-manipulation, one would understand that language.
action: You look at the poster
response: Underneath the title there is a string of Chinese characters.
action: You examine the characters
response: Chinese, if you please.
action: You look at the drip
response: There's a damp patch spreading across the ceiling from the hatch at one end.
action: You look at the hatch
response: It's too high to reach without standing on something, and it's locked.
action: You look at the desk
response: A simple affair, with black steel legs and a woodgrain formica surface. A drawer is stuck on underneath as an afterthought, like chewing-gum. What is interesting is what is on the desk.
action: You think about the zombies
response: Philosophical zombies, or pzombies, are another common thought experiment in philosophy of mind. They are creations which look and behave in every way like people, but which have no conscious experience. They raise a huge number of questions: are they possible? What is conscious experience? Could a zombie behave like a human without conscious experience? Is conscious experience a physical or non-physical phenomenon?

These questions lead into what is known as "the hard problem of consciousness", which is: how do we explain subjective (or "phenomenal") conscious experience in terms of its neurological basis? Is the mind separate from the brain, like a free-floating soul? Is the mind a function of the brain, with mental activity caused by brain activity? Is the mind and conscious experience as we understand it an illusion, with the brain no more than the physical? If the mind is caused by the brain, how is it caused, and what is it about the brain that causes it?

The hard problem of consciousness is one of the most perennial problems in philosophy, and in the two decades since it was first formulated by Richard Chalmers we have made little progress. This had led some philosophers, especially postmodern philosophers or followers of Wittgenstein, to wonder whether the problem itself arises only from a sort of language-game, a particular linguistic conception of the mind that has developed over time, especially in the West. Maybe it is not consciousness which is illusory, but rather the existence of the problem of consciousness!
action: You open the drawer
response: Inside the drawer sits a squat, leather-bound manual. It looks even more daunting than The Phenomenology of Spirit.
action: You read the manual
response: The manual is a thick, leather-bound tome with THE RULES embossed in gold on the cover. Inside, you find hundreds and hundreds of rules, written in English, for transforming sets of incomprehensible Chinese characters into other sets of incomprehensible Chinese characters. You can't imagine why.
action: You get manual
response: Taken.
action: Transform characters
response: Your desire has passed beyond meaning.
action: You examine the cards
response: You flick through the cards. Each of them features a number and a set of incomprehensible Chinese characters.
action: You look on the desk
response: A stack of strange rectangular cards is on the desk. The uppermost one features a number and a string of Chinese characters.
action: You get the cards
response: What do you want with a bunch of cards like that? Leave them be, unless you want to CONSULT something ABOUT them.
action: You consult the manual about the cards
response: You pick a card and then slowly, meticulously use the rules in the manual to generate a new set of chinese characters from the set on the card, typing it into the computer. What it all means you can't begin to guess, but it passes the time with some harmless mental exercise, like a Sudoku puzzle.
action: You look at the computer
response: The computer screen displays the set of Chinese characters you just typed in, while each of the keyboard buttons features a Chinese character, apart from one big one at the bottom marked SEND.
action: You look at the poster
response: Underneath the title there is a string of Chinese characters.
action: Type characters
response: You'd better deal with the set you already typed in first.
action: Type characters
response: You press a few random keys, watching the Chinese appear on the screen, and then hit SEND. A message flashes up saying "INCORRECT!" before promptly vanishing again. Perhaps you ought to approach this more systematically.
action: You translate the poster
response: Your desire has passed beyond meaning.
action: About yourself
response: As good-looking as ever.
action: You check your inventory
response: You are carrying:
a manual
action: You take the poster
response: It would tear!
action: You look at the poster
response: Underneath the title there is a string of Chinese characters.
action: You look at the window
response: It's high in the wall and far too small to fit through.
action: You think about descartes
response: Ren? Descartes (1596 - 1650) has become known as the Father of Modern Philosopher. A French thinker, his philosophy was founded on sceptical rationalism -- he sought to determine what could be rationally proved, using a method of extreme scepticism in order to test his beliefs. He as attempting to write "as if no-one had written on these matters before", and so his philosophy framed a great deal of what came after him, ushering in an era of ahistorical analytic philosophy which sought to determine the truth of the world.
action: You look
response: It's a plain concrete box, equipped only with desk and chair. A computer sits on the desk, casting an insipid electronic glow over a stack of cards sitting by the keyboard. There's a slow drip from a damp patch up on the ceiling. Some grubby light seeps through a high window across onto the poster that dominates an entire wall. Across the top of the poster huge bold letters read "THE CHINESE ROOM". Underneath -- a string of Chinese characters.
action: You look at the chair
response: The kind of grey plastic chair you find in schoolrooms. It sits by the desk.
action: You look at the drip
response: There's a damp patch spreading across the ceiling from the hatch at one end.
action: You stand on the chair
response: You stand on the chair. You can see your house from here! Well, you can't really, but you can reach the hatch.
action: You say open the sesame
response: (to yourself)
Just TALK TO them.
action: You examine the chair
response: The kind of grey plastic chair you find in schoolrooms. It sits under the hatch.
action: Examine poster
response: You can read the poster now! It says "Look in the drawer". Eh?
action: You look in the the drawer
response: There's a key in here!
action: You take key
response: What the -- ? It was in here all along?
action: You think about John Searle
response: The Chinese Room argument is a thought experiment originally devised by John Searle, designed to answer the question (in the negative): "Can a computer ever understand language?"

Imagine a computer that has so complete a set of rules for providing Chinese output to Chinese input that it behaves exactly as a human who understands Chinese would. Ask it a question in Chinese, and it will give an appropriate response in Chinese. It appears do "understand" Chinese. But does it?

Imagine now a human living in a small room, who is given a book consisting of a vast set of rules for providing a response in Chinese characters for any information ey receive in Chinese characters. Like a computer ey will provide appropriate Chinese output to Chinese input. The person is analogous to a computer, but does the person understand Chinese? It would seem, intuitively, that ey don't.

The meat of the argument here is to distinguish between syntax, the rules by which language is constructed and manipulated, and semantics, what language actually means, and then claim that even incredibly in-depth knowledge of syntax is not sufficient for semantics -- only human-type minds, and not an artificial intelligence, have the capability to understand meaning.

This leads into the debate about what "meaning" actually means. What can it be that only human-type minds have? What makes us special? Some philosophers, including, perhaps, the creators of the world you now find yourself in, would argue that actually all that the mind's ability to respond to input actually comprises is an incredibly complex set of learned syntactical rules, and that "meaning" separate from this is illusory -- so that if one were to learn all the rules for Chinese language-manipulation, one would understand that language.
action: You ask the computer about the life
response: You can only do that to something animate.
action: You climb the chair
response: You're positively climbing up the walls.
action: You stand on the chair
response: You're already on it!
action: Unlock hatch
response: What do you want to unlock the hatch with?
action: Key
response: Balancing precariously on the chair, you reach up and unlock the hatch. It swings open, and fresh air and clean light flood the room. Freedom beckons!
action: Up
response: You haul yourself up through the hatch and scramble onto the roof of the Chinese Room, the hatch thudding shut behind you. Escape!

Getting to your feet, you are conscious of your jaw dropping wide open. A fantastical landscape spreads out around you in every direction. You turn around and around, taking in the astonishing sights around you -- to the north, a pretty little rural town clambers up the wooded hillside; on the east side wide grassy plains spread off into the distance, on the west side the sea does likewise, while to the south . . . to the south an enormous granite crag towers on the countryside, topped by a castle of medieval extravagance.

A bright sun and blue sky blaze over everything -- in fact, all of the colours in this extraordinary vista have a zealous intensity. It all feels too, too unreal for words.

Slowly, as if it were about to vanish into nothingness beneath you, you sit down on the roof and raise your exhausted eyes to the sky. You let out a small whimper. For above you, flitting happily among the fluffy clouds, a flock of enormous flying beasts streaming spaghetti soar.

The roof of the Chinese Room is flat and covered with pitch, hot under the sun. On the east side of the building, a ladder leads down to the road.
action: Look around
response: The Chinese Room, you have discovered, is in the centre of a fantastical world, on a road leading north to woods and a hillside village and south to a cragtop castle. Wide plains spread out to the east, grassy dunes and a strip of sand border an ocean to the west, and above you Flying Spaghetti Monsters gambol in the updrafts. The roof of the Chinese Room is flat and covered with pitch, hot under the sun. On the east side of the building, a ladder leads down to the road.
action: Pray
response: God is dead.
action: You think about Nietzsche
response: Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900) was a German critical philosopher. Using highly artistic prose and an aphrositic style, he wrote critiques of the religion, morality, philosophy and society of the time, developing over the years a distinctive set of positions which helped pave the way for later post-modern critical philosophies.
action: You think
response: What is it you want to THINK ABOUT?
action: Go downwards
response: You shimmy down the ladder onto the road.

You're on a road by the squat concrete hut that contains the Chinese Room. In smooth black tarmac, neatly painted with white lines, the road stretches north to the village in peculiarly perfect tapering perspective. Behind you, to the south, you see the road lead towards some queer-looking hedgerows at the base of the crag. To the east, as before, stretch the plains to the horizon, with the ocean, behind sand dunes, doing likewise to the west.

Well, you can only be thankful that there aren't two legs sticking out from under the hut, and that the crowds of tiny people appear to have neglected to lay on a welcome party.

There is, however, a scarecrow.
action: You think about the Monsters
response: The Invisible Pink Unicorn, like the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is a popular satirical religious entity. While their use has now expanded to encompass all manner of religious satire, the original purpose was to point out a common fallacy regarding religious belief and burden of proof.

It has been argued that atheism is an untenable philosophical position, as one cannot give a watertight proof for the non-existence of a religious entity: how would it be possible to prove that a god does not exist? One can only give incomplete arguments in favour of a god's non-existence, and so certain atheism is impossible.

The question asked by the IPU is then, "Well, does that mean that it's perfectly justifiable for me to believe in an invisible pink unicorn orbiting Saturn? No-one's ever seen it, but I believe in it, and it's impossible for you to definitively disprove its existence." Given the intuitive ridiculousness of believing in the IPU without evidence, this response serves to shift the ground of the debate away from requiring atheists to prove an entity's existence with certainty. One implication is that we ought not to be looking for certainty, but rather for good arguments for likely beliefs; another stronger atheistic response is to use this thought experiment to claim that the burden of proof for religious entities lies not with the atheist for disproving existence but rather the believer for proving existence. The question of who holds the burden of proof has become a thorny debate.
action: You examine the scarecrow
response: Gawky, stuffed, adorned with a fixed expression and with a broom handle rammed up its backside. You'd think it were a member of the Royal Family if it weren't for the silly hat and cast-off clothing. No, wait, hang on . . .

In any case, you rather wish all that sacking had been put to better use than as a body for this wretched thing.

You jump back as the scarecrow rustles its arms and says, "Aren't you going to say hello then?"
action: You talk to the scarecrow
response: "Er . . . hello," you say. "I'm sorry, it's just I, um --"

"Well I'll just bet you ain't never seen a talking scarecrow before? Ain't that right? Well dang me if I ain't right. Now tell me, what can I do y'for?"

[1] Um, where am I?
action: 1
response: "You just come out of that little room there, ain't you?" asks the scarecrow, as if that settled everything.

[1] Er, yes.
[2] Yes, but where am I?
action: 2
response: "Well you're outta the liddle room, ain'tcha? And now, what do you think of this liddle land?" The scarecrow looks at you as if he's about to hang on your words like a condemned criminal from the gallows.

[1] I don't know, really.
[2] Well, I don't know, as you won't tell me where it is and it's totally weird and I'm really freaked out, actually.
[3] It's nice.
action: 2
response: "Now don't you be gettin' all cranky now," says the scarecrow, like an ornery old farmer dispensing invaluable wisdom, "cause it ain't healthy for a nice young adventurer like you. Now, I'll tell you, I'm something like the tour guide, as y'say, round these here parts, and if you got any questions for me, you just ask me and I'll answer best as this little scarecrow can."

[1] Where the hell am I?
[2] What's that castle over there?
[3] What lies north, yonder?
[4] What lies east?
[5] What lies west?
[6] You're not going to start singing about whiling away the hours, conferring with the flowers, are you?
[7] I think I'll just go, actually.
action: 1
response: "I told you that already! Outside-a the liddle room. Anything else?"

[1] What's that castle over there?
[2] What lies north, yonder?
[3] What lies east?
[4] What lies west?
[5] You're not going to start singing about whiling away the hours, conferring with the flowers, are you?
[6] I think I'll just go, actually.
action: 1
response: The scarecrow's straw-stuffed arms snap out of in front of him, and his earthy (and deeply irritating) Kansas vowels are replaced by ringing, hollow tones saying "I do not know any thing about the castle."

Then his arms relax again and, seemingly oblivious, he says "I do most humbly beg your pardon, there, what was that question agin?"

[1] What lies north, yonder?
[2] What lies east?
[3] What lies west?
[4] You're not going to start singing about whiling away the hours, conferring with the flowers, are you?
[5] I think I'll just go, actually.
action: 1
response: (Because you've always wanted a chance to justifiably say "yonder", and if this isn't it then by Godot nothing ever will be.)

"Now that's just a little village," says the scarecrow. "Now, I've never been there, but I do hear it's a pretty exciting place, with all sorts for a young adventurer like yourself to do. But is there anything else you want to know before you go?"

[1] What lies east?
[2] What lies west?
[3] You're not going to start singing about whiling away the hours, conferring with the flowers, are you?
[4] I think I'll just go, actually.
action: 2
response: "Nothing but the wide, wide ocean, so far as I know. But I don't know much!" The scarecrow swallows an unctuous guffaw. "Anything else?"

[1] What lies east?
[2] You're not going to start singing about whiling away the hours, conferring with the flowers, are you?
[3] I think I'll just go, actually.
action: 1
response: "Now them's the wide, wide plains, where they do say the unicorns roam." The scarecrow waves his arms about vaguely, the two badly-stuffed sackcloth sticks not really up to the task of describing the expanse. "But I'm willing to wager that a nice young adventurer like you don't believe in unicorns, so I guess you'll be wanting to ask about something else."

[1] No, what was that about unicorns?
[2] You're not going to start singing about whiling away the hours, conferring with the flowers, are you?
[3] I think I'll just go, actually.
action: 1
response: "Well I don't know nothing about them, excepting that they's both pink and invisible, so I hear, but it's bad luck to talk about them so you just ask me something else," says the scarecrow sharply.

[1] You're not going to start singing about whiling away the hours, conferring with the flowers, are you?
[2] I think I'll just go, actually.
action: 1
response: "Now I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, though I do flatter myself I have a splendid singing voice. You like to hear?"

Without waiting for a response, the scarecrow bursts into a raucous rendition of "I Will Survive". One of you at least certainly won't unless you interrupt him quickly.

[1] Shut up!
[2] No, I think I'll just go, actually!
action: 1
response: The scarecrow stops singing abruptly, looking quite hurt. "Oh," he says. "A question, then?"

[1] I think I'll just go, actually.
action: 1
response: "Right you are, then! You just come back if you want to know anything else." He starts to hum quietly to himself, which is only slightly less irritating than his talking.
action: You ask the scarecrow about the dorothy
response: Just TALK TO them.
action: You think about the scarecrow
response: Examining the scarecrow reveals two rather odd things about it: while acting with at least the appearance a conscious entity, it appears to be operated internally by a horde of homunculi, and operated externally by radio signals from China.

It thus seems to be conflating two thought experiments in philosophy of mind: both Homunculi-Man and China-Brain. Homunculi-Man behaves like an ordinary person, but his brain consists of a huge operating station operated by millions of tiny people replicating the processes of a brain. China-Brain is controlled externally by the entire nation of China, which has organised its people to replicate the functions of the brain: instead of neurones firing, the people of China carry messages to each other and manipulate data, relaying the results in radio signals to the person whose brain is being operated.

Both arguments seek to debunk a position known as "functionalism" which holds that if two things hold the same function, or function in exactly the same way, then they are to all purposes the same thing. In philosophy of mind, this means that if something operates like a mind -- turns the same inputs into the same outputs, then it really is a mind. Homunculi-Man and China-Brain seem to show that something is missing from this picture -- this is usually argued to be "consciousness".

"Consciousness" can come to be thought of as what is missing from China-Brain. What could that be? What is it that we think of the mind as having that we think China-Brain -- or, less wildly, a robot with artificial intelligence -- lacks? The ability to feel? The ability to actually experience the senses subjectively (having "qualia"), rather than simply responding to sensory input? Or is consciousness in this sense illusory? Or is it something else that's missing from the picture of China-Brain?
action: You examine the scarecrow
response: Gawky, stuffed, adorned with a fixed expression and with a broom handle rammed up its backside. You'd think it were a member of the Royal Family if it weren't for the silly hat and cast-off clothing. No, wait, hang on . . .

In any case, you rather wish all that sacking had been put to better use than as a body for this wretched thing.
action: You examine the hat
response: It looks like someone took a bunch of straw with em on an LSD trip and then threw the result under an elephant.
action: You get sacking
response: You're about to wrench the scarecrow's pole from the ground to take him with you when it starts humming, and you suddenly think better of it.
action: Go south
response: Ignoring the scarecrow's warning, you confidently stride southward -- or make to, because instead of confidently striding southward you fall flat on your face, cracking your nose off the tarmac.

Grimacing with pain and spitting grit from your teeth, you try to crawl to your feet but find yourself strangely incapacitated. Rolling onto your back, you see why -- a tiny little woman, now sitting on your knee, has tied your shoelaces together. Reaching down to undo her handiwork, you find that, with near invisible speed, she has jumped onto your aching nose and nutted you right between the eyes. You fall back with a resigned oof.

"I did warn you now," says the scarecrow. "I reckon it's safe for you to untie those shoes, now, Anjeline."

As you get gingerly to your feet, you catch a flash of Anjeline's underskirts as she scrambles up the scarecrow's pole and into his stuffing.
action: Go north
response: You walk along the road towards the village. It's only a short distance, but this direct and precise road makes it seem like quite a trek, with the sight of the village always straight ahead of you, getting bigger by excruciating degrees.

Eventually, though, you reach the first few village houses. Yellow-thatched and cross-timbered, they cluster around the road like groups of schoolchildren on a picnic day. And, indeed, there are children playing games outside, -- the girls in pink blouses and the boys in blue britches -- laughing and clapping and throwing hoops at each other. You try not to listen to the actual words of the games which, where children are concerned, you find, tend to be more truly horrifying than anything the best gothic authors could dream up.

Something strange, you realise, has happened to the road. Without you noticing, it's switched from that black tarmac to a rutted country cartway. Then, looking up at the buildings as you walk further into the village, you see no more quaint cross-timbering but rather -- a modern pavement caf?? A bar, the word "drink" etched in fashionable lower-case letters on the window glass? Looking down, you see the road has changed again into a paved street. Looking up -- there's a maid in a peasant blouse pulling at a water pump! The bar has become a ramshackle country tavern!

Blink. A medieval market village. Blink. A modern cosmpolitan town. Blink. Both at once?

Your mind can't fix on a single image of the village. It seems to be every different thing at once, as and when needed. The maid, now in a crisp business suit, carries her wooden water pail into a barber shop, whose red and white striped pole sticks straight out of a dry stone wall. A man in peasant garb emerges from a building with the words "Cartesian Theatre" emblazoned above the door in neon letters. And the church's spire oscillates between a stone tower, a verdigris spire, and a concrete minaret.

You shake your head furiously, as if this will make reality fix itself. You feel terribly ill.

A church, a theatre, a tavern, a barbershop, a pavement caf? -- their various changing forms clutter around, entrances facing out onto what seems (most of the time) to be an ordinary village street. Passers-by duck in and out of the buildings, stop by the water pump, or carry on to a square to the north. No-one, you notice, takes the road south -- or heads along the routes east towards the storybook hills or west into the fairytale woods.
action: Go south
response: By the road stands a scarecrow.
action: You look at Anjeline
response: Anjeline lurks beneath the scarecrow's hat. Actually, looking more closely, you see several more pairs of little eyes alongside her. With the scarecrow grinning at you, you walk around him, suspicious, noticing a tiny pair of eyes in each sackcloth nostril, several in his sackcloth mouth, and a horde beneath his straw hat. As you come behind him you see that what you originally thought was a piece of straw poking out from behind is, in fact, a radio aerial. And there's a stamp on the sackcloth: "Made in China".
action: You get aerial
response: You reach round the back of the scarecrow and snap his aerial in two. His singing winds down in an electronic slur, and his whole body droops on the pole. There's a moment of silence, and then, one by one, the homunculi tumble out of his stuffing, gathering into a comatose heap on the ground.
action: You get sacking
response: You grab a handful of sackcloth and give it a yank, pulling it free from the pole. When you empty it of straw what results is a fairly serviceable sack, which you fling nonchalantly over your shoulder.
action: You look at the heap
response: A pile of tiny unconscious people, who presumably have been acting as the scarecrow's brain on radio instructions from China. Presumably. It takes a special kind of mind to presume something like that, but a philosophy undergraduate certainly has one.
action: You examine the sack
response: (the sack)
A very large sack, still with a few strands of straw stuck in the bottom.
action: You get the sack
response: (the sack)
You already have that.
action: You wear the sack
response: (the sack)
You can't wear that!
action: You look
response: A church, a theatre, a tavern, a barbershop, a pavement caf? -- their various changing forms clutter around, entrances facing out onto what seems (most of the time) to be an ordinary village street. Passers-by duck in and out of the buildings, stop by the water pump, or carry on to a square to the north. No-one, you notice, takes the road south -- or heads along the routes east towards the storybook hills or west into the fairytale woods.
action: You look at Pump
response: You walk up to the water pump in the middle of the street. As you approach, the gaggles of carters and fishwives clustered around it look at you and start gossipping furiously.

The pump itself is made of polished and riveted steel, with a gleaming handle. There is a brass plaque on it which reads "Intuition Pump 3000".
action: You think about the Pump
response: "Intuition Pump" is a term popularised by the philospher Daniel Dennett to describe, somewhat pejoratively, philosophy thought experiments. All thought experiments, claims Dennett, are written in order to get us to pump out a particular intuition, to get us to think a particular thing determined by the set-up of the experiment. They're not true experiments, where what's interesting is to find out what result we'll get from the set-up, but rather rhetorical devices. Sometimes they can provide useful analogies, but it's always important, says Dennett, to look at the set-up of the intuition pump and make sure it's a good analogy, and that we're not being manipulated into pumping out an intuition we would't otherwise agree with.
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
a sack (open but empty)
a Chinese key
a manual
action: You look at the church
response: It's as if the designer had aimed the architecture at quaint, overshot, and gone straight through and out the other side into a strange uncharted territory beyond twee. Cherubs feature.
action: You enter the church
response: You step inside the church and are hit by a blast of pure serenity. The church appears to have made up its mind about its own interior, plumping for a simple majesty in stone and wood. As the door creaks gracefully closed behind you, you survey your surroundings: the oak pews lining the nave, the beautiful arched stone roof, the carved pulpit at the head of the church and, behind it, an enormous tapestry depicting -- nothing?

In one of the pews a woman in full bridal gear sits, weeping to herself. The priest, standing by the pulpit, is looking at her very awkwardly.
action: Pray
response: God is dead.
action: You look at the tapestry
response: A monumental effort. It must have taken weeks of work to weave such a weight of white.
action: You look at the priest
response: He's dressed in severe black lightened only by a peculiar pink collar. There's an evangelical zeal in his eyes and a furry caterpillar on his top lip. It might be a moustache.
action: You remove the tapestry
response: (first taking the tapestry)
Philosophers are not yet supermen.
action: You look at the woman
response: She's like a very damp pile of meringues, and she's getting damper by the second. She wipes her nose and eyes with a sodden veil.

A man steps into the church, removes his cycle clips in awkward reverence, and walks up the centre of the aisle. He sinks to his knees in front of the tapestry, and brings a clenched hand up to his brow. Loosening the fist, he draws his hand forward and up, fully extending his arm, as if tracing the outline of something extending from his forehead. He brings his hand up and down the length several times, getting more and more rapid, before letting out a small cry, dropping his arms, standing up, bowing and hurriedly leaving the building, the oak doors swinging to behind him.
action: You get all
response: That's a bit greedy. Try taking specific things.
action: You talk to the priest
response: The priest notices you standing in the aisle and shouts, "Welcome, adventurer! Has  the invisible pink unicorn made herself known to you as your equestrian saviour?"

[1] No, I don't think so.
[2] Ye-es . . .
[3] Invisible pink unicorn?
action: 3
response: "The Invisible Pink Unicorn (Blessed Be Her Holy Hooves) is the supreme deity, mistress of all in heaven and earth, creator of time and space, and trotter along the High Plains!" His arms raise up to the ceiling and his whole body vibrates with a sing-song zeal.

[1] Er . . . right . . . And you believe that, do you?
[2] That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
action: 1
response: "I believe, for only She can protect me from the Purple Oyster (Of Doom)," he says, sounding the final word like a foghorn on an iceberg.

[1] You are truly insane.
[2] Um, OK. Look, I'm struggling a bit here. What evidence do you base your faith on?
action: 2
response: "No, unbeliever, you don't understand! Have you proved that She does not exist? No, no, thrice no! The burden of proof, my young friend, is on you."

As he speaks you suddenly feel a heavy weight drag your neck down. Grappling at your throat, you loop over your head a lengthy leather thong at the end of which hangs a mysterious weight. The priest grins broadly at you, and suddenly the candlelit church appears dark and threatening. You hear thunder rumble outside, and with a backward glance stumble out of the doors.
action: You check your inventory
response: You are carrying:
a Burden of Proof
a sack (open but empty)
a Chinese key
a manual
action: You examine Burden
response: A weighty matter, made of weighty matter. It hangs about your neck on a leather thong, but you wish it would hang about somewhere else, like a nice bar or a street corner. Whenever you speak it hangs on your every word, lusting after some token of truth, but, similarly, you wish it would just hang on something else. It can go hang itself, basically.
action: You drop Burden
response: Dropped.
action: You drop Burden
response: The Burden of Proof is already here.
action: You take Burden
response: (putting the manual into the sack to make room)
Taken.
action: You enter church
response: There's no way you're going back in there just now. Besides, every time you go near a massive rumble of thunder breaks across the sky, despite there not being a cloud in sight. If that's not the world trying to give you a hint then nothing is.
action: Climb church
response: You're positively climbing up the walls.
action: You think about Sartre
response: Jean Paul Sartre (1905 - 1980) was a pioneering French existentialist, socialist, public intellectual and literary writer, and has since become an icon of philosophy and black coffee. His thought centred around concepts of free will and life-defining choice -- he claimed that individuals create the meaning of their own lives.
action: You think about Kant
response: Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) was one of the most influential thinkers writing towards the end of the Enlightenment. Writing on metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics and politics, he ushered in a new critical way of approaching philosophy, founded not only on rigorous rationalism, but also, most importantly, on the division of the discursively-produced "world of appearances" (as it appears to consciousness) and the "world in itself (as it is independent of consciosuness). His philosophy defined the terms of the debate which has followed ever since. It's also famed for being some of the densest and most impenetrably-written of philosophy -- which probably only serves to enhance its reputation due to the small number of people who actually understand it.
action: You think about the Socrates
response: Socrates  (c. 470 BC - c. 399 BC) was an early Greek philosopher, the teacher of Aristotle, who founded many of the subjects and methods of Western philosophy. The Socratic method of constant and persistent questioning of assumptions remains a driving force of philosophy. He wrote down none of his own philosophy, and so his works and (highly dramatic) life are known to us only through his pupils, especially Plato, his contemporaries, and historians.
action: You think about Hegel
response: Georg Hegel (1770 - 1831) was one of the most important of the German idealists. Writing on culture and politics, he developed a particular dialectical philosophy, a philosophy of progress, with influential thoughts on freedom, art, history and morality.
action: You enter the Theatre
response: You try the theatre doors, but they're fastened shut.

"Nah mate," says the man leaning by the entrance. "We've been closed down, innit?"

[1] Oh, I'm terribly sorry to hear that. Why?
[2] Typical. Trapped inside a vindictive fantasy world and I can't even watch some life-affirming theatre.
action: 1
response: "Him in there," he says, indicating the church with a grubby thumb. "Sez the performing arts is an insult unto Her name."

[1] Whose name?
[2] Ouch, tough break. Stupid religion, isn't it?
[3] And he had the power to close you down?
action: 3
response: "Nah, but soon as he says something everyone listens, know what I mean? Wouldn't a soul dare come in here."

[1] Ouch, tough break. Stupid religion, isn't it?
[2] That sucks. There's no way to convince everyone how daft the religion is?
[3] And isn't there anyone who could help?
[4] Well, that's rough, mate, but I'd best be getting on.
action: 3
response: "Nah," he says sadly. "Unless you's offering."

[1] Alright, you're on. I'll prove She doesn't exist. Then we'll get you going again.
[2] Guess you're right. I'd best be getting on, then.
action: 1
response: He looks at you askance, cynically. "Give it yer best shot then," he says. "See you round."
action: You think about Plato
response: Plato (428 - 348 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher, who began relaying the philosophy of his teacher, Socrates, in a series of written dialogues, before developing his own. A founder of idealism (in politics, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics and just about everything else), he taught in his turn Aristotle, whose reputation eventually grew to eclipse his own during the Middle Ages, before a Renaissance rediscovery of Plato.
action: You enter the cafe
response: Pavement Caf?
The caf? spills out into the street. Steel chairs are scattered around the serving kiosk, apparently chaotically, though you suspect there's a cynical art to it. Most of the customers are buried in books, thimble-sized cups of black coffee steaming by them and handmade cigarettes rolling around the corners of their mouths. Some of them, though, are intense young couples clasping hands across their plates, boring into each other's eyes as if looking for some flaw, breaking the gaze only to toss hair or adjust a beret. Sitting in the corner, Jean-Paul Sartre surveys the caf? around him and smiles in a satisfied yet enigmatic way.

A willowy young server stands behind the kiosk, smiling in a way that makes you want to know her better.
action: You talk to the server
response: You smile at the server and say, "Hello".

"Hello," she replies.

Well, that's that off to a good start.

[1] Do you serve here often?
[2] What time do you finish?
[3] Can I have your phone number?
[4] What's for lunch?
action: 1
response: She giggles coyly and swings from side to side. "That depends," she says.

[1] Oh, really? On what?
[2] Actually, on second thoughts, I'm starving. What's for lunch?
action: 1
response: She leans in close to you, opens her lips a little, and says, "On whether you stop staring down my dress and order some goddamn food."

[1] Er . . . sorry . . . what's on the menu?
[2] Ah. I suppose that means "No" then, does it? You wouldn't reconsider?
action: 1
response: Lighting a cigarette, she mutters at you bitterly, "Fresh summer sorbet of pre-phyllorexa claret, plovers" egg omelet with a side-platter of seasonal vegetables, oven-roasted black swan on a bed of couscous with a thyme and fennel garnish, or eggs, soss, an' beans."

[1] Could I have the sorbet?
[2] Could I have the omelet?
[3] Could I have the swan?
[4] Er, eggs, soss, and beans?
action: You think about the swan
response: [I need some kind of reaction from you to continue the scene. Enter a number, or say REPEAT to reacquaint yourself with your options.]
action: 3
response: "Actually, no-one's ever seen a black swan round these parts," she admits abruptly. "Though I hear some Australians have been spinning a few yarns. Something else?"

[1] Could I have the sorbet?
[2] Could I have the omelet?
[3] Er, eggs, soss, and beans?
action: 1
response: "Nah, sorry, fridge is broken. Something else?" she says curtly.

[1] Could I have the omelet?
[2] Er, eggs, soss, and beans?
action: 1
response: "Fresh out of plover's eggs, I'm afraid. Actually," she says, thinking aloud, "if you could get some of those little seaside ovulations, I might just do something nice for you. Meanwhile, something else?"

[1] Er, eggs, soss, and beans?
action: 1
response: "Right-o. That'll be fifty pence"

Ah. Paying. Yes, you'd forgotten about that. You give the server a sheepish look, to which she only replies, "No cash, no beans."
action: You examine server
response: She glares back at you as you admire her.
action: You talk to Sartre
response: The philosopher looks heavily at you and says, "Everything is meaningless. We create our own meaning."

[1] No, we don't.
[2] Ah oui, c'est vrai.
action: 2
response: If he is pleased at your answer, he doesn't show it. "Tell me," he demands, "What has value?"

[1] Nothing.
[2] Ta m?re.
[3] What is chosen.
[4] Black coffee and cigarettes.
action: 2
response: He huffs sharply at you and turns dismissively to his coffee.
action: You talk to Sartre
response: "Do you know yet, what has value?" asks Sartre heavily.

[1] Nothing.
[2] Ta m?re.
[3] What is chosen.
[4] Black coffee and cigarettes.
action: 3
response: "Exactly! There is no objective value in anything."

[1] Even in money?
[2] Even in love?
[3] Even in black coffee and cigarettes?
action: 1
response: He seems animated. "Even in money!" he cries.

[1] Wow. My whole life has been a lie.
[2] Excellent. You won't mind if I take yours then.
action: You look at the wallet
response: It contains only one pound coin and a lighter. You remove them both and discard it in disgust at the poverty of unemployed philosophers.
action: You talk to server
response: You'd rather just give her her money when you've got it, rather than face her wrath.
action: You give the coin to the server
response: You hand over your money abashedly, at which, after thrusting your change at you, the server vanishes into the kitchen in a huff. Peculiar clanky, sweary sounds come from within.
action: You look at the coin
response: Golden and round, it's a shiny pound!
action: You check your inventory
response: You are carrying:
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Burden of Proof
a sack (open)
a manual
a Chinese key
action: You wait
response: Time passes. Or at least, loiters around for a while longer.
action: Look around
response: Pavement Caf?
The caf? spills out into the street. Steel chairs are scattered around the serving kiosk, apparently chaotically, though you suspect there's a cynical art to it. Most of the customers are buried in books, thimble-sized cups of black coffee steaming by them and handmade cigarettes rolling around the corners of their mouths. Some of them, though, are intense young couples clasping hands across their plates, boring into each other's eyes as if looking for some flaw, breaking the gaze only to toss hair or adjust a beret. Sitting in the corner, Jean-Paul Sartre surveys the caf? around him and smiles in a satisfied yet enigmatic way.

The server is clattering away in the kitchen behind the kiosk, making loud sweary noises.
action: You look at the kiosk
response: It's built from the same simple-yet-elegant brushed steel as the chairs, and it stands outside a building which presumably houses the kitchen and espresso machine. There's a menu tacked on the counter.
action: You look at the menu
response: In minimalist letters it lists the available fare:
- Fresh summer sorbet of pre-phyllorexa claret
- Plovers" egg omelet with a side-platter of seasonal vegetables
- Oven-roasted black swan on a bed of couscous with a thyme and
fennel garnish
- Eggs, soss, beans
action: You talk to the customers
response: You can't. They're too intense.
action: You go inside
response: You channel your will to power to summon a path in that direction. Sadly, nothing happens: you can't go that way.
action: You ask Sartre for the cigarette
response: Your command falls on deaf ears. Perhaps you should TALK TO them about it?
action: You wait
response: Time passes. Or at least, loiters around for a while longer.
action: You think about Heidegger
response: Martin Heidegger (1889 - 1976) was one of the founders of phenomenology, the critical philosophy which, roughly speaking, explores the holistically-located meaning and being of things, rather than the analytically-defined nature of things. Whatever that means. He helped usher in the academic divide between "Continental" and "Anglo-American" philosophy which, based on that difference, still exists today.
action: You think about David Hume
response: David Hume (1711 - 1776) was the foremost philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment. Following fellow British philosophers Locke and Berkeley, he popularised philosophical empiricism (as opposed to the rationalism of Descartes and Spinoza), and was also influential in thought on free will and ethics. He was an important influence on the thought of Immanuel Kant, whom he "woke from his dogmatic slumber" -- Kant's work can be seen as overturning the divide between the rationalists and empiricists.
action: You wake
response: If only it were that simple.
action: Xyzzy
response: A hollow voice says, "There are no obligatory Adventure references in this game."

There is a long pause.

"Oh, bugger."
action: You think about categorical Imperative
response: The Categorical Imperative is to "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." It is the key principle of Kant's deontological ethics, which can't really be summed up, but if they can be, they can be summed up as follows:

In order for acts to be judged on ethical grounds, they must be freely chosen. In order for an act to be freely chosen, it must be rationally chosen, as only rationality liberates us from the brute chains of natural causality. But in order for a choice to be rational, it must be universalisable -- we must be able to imagine that choice being made by everyone in the same situation, without undermining its own foundations. Thus, for example, to put it roughly, we must never steal, because is everyone stole no-one would be able to steal, so the act cannot be rationally undertaken -- it always undermines itself.

That may not be entirely clear. Like much of Kant's philosophy, deontological ethics are hard to understand, and you're not sure you've remembered your studies properly. One thing sticks in your mind, though: according to Kant, there are no moral dilemmas in deontological ethics as, without having to make any calculations, the proper application of the Categorical Imperative will always determine definitively what is ethical and what is not.
action: You enter the tavern
response: You duck as you enter the smoky tavern (evidently smoking bans do not exist in thought experiments), and are greeted by an astonishing sight:

A raucous rabble of eminent philosophers line the tables and bar, discussing matters squifflily with slurred syllables and questionable eloquence. You overhear Plato and Socrates quietly discussing anarchists in Victorian literature. The only one not joining in seems to be Aristotle, who is sitting glumly in the corner. You also suspect that that was John Stuart Mill you glimpsed running east through the back door, clutching his stomach.

Somewhat incongruously, you spot an electronic games machine sitting against the wall next to a rather glum looking booth, being rather neglected by the roistering philosophers.
action: You examine the machine
response: It's a brightly covered cabinet with "Karl Popper's FALSIFICATION ADVENTURE" emblazoned on it above the screen. There's a joystick, a button marked FIRE and a button marked START. You wonder what they could possibly be for.
action: Press start
response: The game machine springs into life. You are controlling a falsification gun, moving left and right across the bottom of the screen, protecting the collective conscious from a marauding band of theories. The theories -- rendered as implausible pixelated blobs -- are advancing slowly down the screen in.

Yanking the joystick to and fro, you fire off a volley of pixelated falsifiers. A pixelated bullet representing the measurement of Mercury's orbit hits the pixelated blob representing Newtonian Physics, and it explodes in a shower of pixelated sparks! Reflexes burning, you quickly dispatch the pixelated blob representing gender essentialism with pixelated bullet representing a well-aimed copy of Foucault's History of Sexuality, while a pixelated bullet representing Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle does for the pixelated blob representing General Relativity. Suddenly the machine emits a warbling siren, and a pixelated missile representing dialectical materialism appears at the top of the screen! You fire volley after volley of pixelated bullets at it, but it simply absorbs your attacks as part of its pixelated interpretive schema. At the last moment you take cover behind a pixelated wall of healthy scepticism, which is sorely damaged, but destroys the pixelated missile! As you breathe a sigh of relief, taking your eyes off the screen for a moment, a second pixelated missile representing Freudian psychodynamic theory penetrates through your pixelated defences and obliterates you entirely.

You didn't even make the high score table.
action: You look at the booth
response: It's a dark and lonely corner of the tavern -- and you realise that, while you'd previously thought it was empty, there's actually a group of women sitting in it, staring melancholically into their drinks. One of them, whom you suddenly recognise to be Elizabeth Anscombe, is wearing a comic headband with two antennae on springs attached. Next to her sits Emma Goldman, glaring fiercely across the table at an equally glaring Ayn Rand, while the quartet is completed by Judith Butler, who surveys the roistering men, making small tutting noises.
action: You kiss emma
response: Some would consider that an invasion of personal space.
action: You talk to Aristotle
response: You saunter over to the corner of the room where Aristotle sits, and he glances up at you, a hopeful look passing over his bearded features. When he speaks you expect it to be all Greek to you, but in fact he sounds more like a lower-upper-middle-class English gentleman. "Good day to you," he says impeccably. "Perhaps you might be able to help me with some small trouble?"

[1] Actually, no. I'm fed up with running errands for strange men.
[2] It would be my pleasure.
[3] Hmm, what do I get out of it?
action: 3
response: "Well, I suppose I could see my way to parting with a rather fine first edition of the complete works of my mentor, Plato," he offers, with a tone of slight regret. "After all, if material gain is on your mind, then it is best to accompany it with the higher pleasures of the intellect."

[1] Sounds lovely. I'll help you out
[2] Actually, I think I'll pass.
action: 1
response: "Good show, old thing," he says, smiling broadly. "Now listen carefully: to put it quite frankly, I'm buggered for a bottle."

[1] Did I understand you right . . .
[2] Surely, they serve bottles here?
[3] I'm having no more of this sort of thing.
action: 1
response: "What I mean is that I'm after a good quality wine. More precisely, my tastes are such that I really can't stand anything other than a bottle of pre-phylloxera claret."

[1] Won't a normal claret do?
[2] That's impossible. I'm going to leave you to your vain quest.
action: 1
response: "No!" he states emphatically, "I won't have any of the paltry excuse for claret they serve here. It's pre-phylloxera claret or nothing."

[1] Then it's going to have to be nothing . . .
[2] Alright, then. I'll go find a bottle, shall I? There's nothing I like more than going on obscure object quests, after all.
action: 2
response: "Capital!" he exclaims enthusiastically. "Well then, what I'm after is a bottle of the finest pre-phylloxera claret. Only the best for the old tastebuds, eh?"

You stare at the old philosopher, wondering several things, most prominently of which is what phylloxera are, and whether they involve sex in any way. But Aristotle merely smiles beningly at you. "Chop chop!" he says, and you take your leave.
action: You think about Aristotle
response: Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher, taught by Plato. He wrote on a huge range of philosophical subjects, including disciplines like physics and biology which later grew into their own sciences. Preserved for centuries, mainly by Muslim scholars, his work later exercised so much influence over the Medieveal Christian philosophers who helped found the European tradition of thought that he simply became known as the Philosopher.
action: You think about Mill
response: John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873) was a British ethical and political philosopher, and a public intellectual. He was the foremost proponent of utlitarianism, and also an early and formative theoriser of the liberal social state.
action: Go east
response: You wander through the back door into an alleyway and there amidst a pile of broken truth tables and discarded copies of the Principia Mathematica sit a sequiter of logicians, playing illegal logic games. W.V.O. Quine seems to be the ring leader.
action: You examine Principia
response: The copies of the Principia Mathematica are stacked in neat piles --they are being put to use as make-shift seats.

You notice Boole slip a few extra beads into the game from his sleeve. How naughty.
action: You think about Quine
response: Willard Van Orman Quine (1908 - 2000), as well as having the coolest name in the history of philosophy, was an important logician and linguistic philosopher of the 20th century. Attacking many of the dogmas of analytic philosophy, he forged new ground in the theory of knowledge, as well as defining crucial approaches to logical problems.
action: You examine logicians
response: Playing games with coloured beads and cups amidst the truth tables sit a shifty-looking bunch of logicians. You think you notice Boole and Frege pondering over vagueness, while Kripke raises the stakes.
action: You talk to Quine
response: Quine's eyes dart to and fro in a manner most shifty. "Psst!" he whispers.

[1] Yes, can I help you?
[2] What's going on here?
[3] I'm sorry, I really don't have the time.
[4] Psst off.
action: 4
response: You sense some disappointment in his eyes as he turns back to the truth tables and formulae.
action: 2
response: Before you can get a word in Quine says, "Hey kid -- yeah you -- you lookin' to earn some prizes?"

[1] Wait a second. Didn't you teach at Harvard? What's with the implausible seedy low-life routine?
[2] Is a finite whole greater than any of its parts?
[3] Has prog-rock had its day?
[4] Is Derrida an obscurantist?
[5] Um . . . yes?
[6] No thanks, I'm good in the prizes department.
action: 1
response: "Shh . . ." he whispers, "This is an illegal racket we got going here -- how am I supposed to talk?" Before you can answer he says, "Actually, forget that. Do you want to earn some prizes or not?"

[1] Oh, okay.
[2] Not right now.
action: 2
response: "That's what I wanted to hear. Now listen close, here's how it works:

"This is a logic game, okay -- so here's how it works: I got two beads in this cup -- you payin' attention? -- they might be both red, both blue or one of each. Under this second cup," he points to another upturned cup on the ground, "I got one bead which could be red, could be blue.

"With me so far?"

[1] Yes, please continue.
[2] Could you go over that again?
action: 1
response: "So, kid, it's your job to figure out what colour the beads are.

"Now this a logic game, not a guessing game, so we got ourselves some rules. First: not all the beads are blue. Second: whatever the bead is in the second cup, there must be at least one of the same colour in the first cup. Third: no red bead can be in the same cup as a blue bead.

"So what's your bet, kid? What's in the cups?"

[1] Cup one: two blues. Cup two: one blue.
[2] Cup one: two blues. Cup two: one red.
[3] Cup one: one red, one blue. Cup two: one red.
[4] Cup one: one red, one blue. Cup two: one blue.
[5] Cup one: two reds. Cup two: one red.
[6] Cup one: two reds. Cup two: one blue.
action: 5
response: "Hey, you got it right, kid!. Now . . . what would you like? We got an invitation to a state of naturist camp, a bottle post-phylloxera claret, or some cruise tickets for the ship of Neurath."

[1] I'll go for the invitation.
[2] It's the bottle of claret for me.
[3] Hit me with those tickets.
action: 2
response: Quine hands you a bottle of cheap red wine. "Enjoy," he says.
action: You examine the wine
response: The label says: "Consume within three months". This doesn't bode well as far as quality is concerned.

A discussion between Frege and Kripke over the proper interpretation of the Sorites paradox becomes rather heated, but G?del soon calms them down.
action: You go west
response: A raucous rabble of eminent philosophers line the tables and bar, discussing matters squifflily with slurred syllables and questionable eloquence. You overhear Plato and Socrates sensibly tackling Jungian personality types. The only one not joining in seems to be Aristotle, who is sitting glumly in the corner. In the eastern wall is the back door through which Mill threw himself earlier.

Somewhat incongruously, you spot an electronic games machine sitting against the wall next to a rather glum looking booth, being rather neglected by the roistering philosophers.
action: You talk to Aristotle
response: "Haven't you the bottle to give me?" he asks. "Come now, hop to it!"
action: You give wine to Aristotle
response: (the post-phylloxera claret to Aristotle)
"You dare insult me so!" Aristotle cries, "This is post-phylloxera claret, I want pre-phylloxera claret! Now snap to it."

You make to leave, and Aristotle snatches the bottle of cheap red wine from you.

"I didn't say I wouldn't drink it. Still . . . get me some pre-phylloxera claret, and you'll be rewarded."
action: 1
response: Quine hands you a scrap of paper. "Don't know what you lot see in it, but enjoy yourself," he says.
action: You look at the paper
response: Scrawled upon a scrap of paper is: "COME TO THE STATE OF NATURIST CAMP -- NASTY BRUTISH FUN FOR ALL!!!"

A discussion between Frege and Kripke over the proper interpretation of the Sorites paradox becomes rather heated, but G?del soon calms them down.
action: You think about the godel
response: Kurt G?del (1906 - 1978) was an Austrian-American mathematician whose work on self-reference the limits of knowledge broke new ground in philosophy. G?del developed sound and sophisticated mathematical proofs that for any sufficiently complicated epistemological system, there would always be certain undecidable propositions -- demonstrating effectively that knowledge is inherently self-limiting. His conclusions have huge repurcussions we are still struggling with today.
action: You talk to Kripke
response: He seems too engrossed in his game to pay any attention.
action: You think about Neurath
response: The Ship of Neurath is the term used by W.V.O. Quine in his decription of an analogy by Otto Neurath for his view of the holistic nature of language and scientific verification. Quine wrote, "We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put therre, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction."

The point being made is that we are never able to start a new system of knowledge (and thus a system of language) from the beginning -- what we instead do is replace old known principles which we no longer agree with with new principles, insofar as those new principles can be supported by the rest of the system of knowledge. Perhaps those new principles will weaken another part of the system, which must then itself be removed and replaced. This is Quine's view of how knowledge progresses and language changes -- gradually, by replacing parts of the holistic system, rather than in huge revolutions. One of the most important aspects of this view is its characterisation of knowledge as a holistic system, rather than as a set of disconnected principles.

It may or may not be complete coincidence that a strikingly similar analogy, known as the Ship of Theseus, is used for a completely different philosophical problem: that of identity. That's definitely worth thinking about.
action: You examine the logicians
response: Playing games with coloured beads and cups amidst the truth tables sit a shifty-looking bunch of logicians. You think you notice Boole and Frege investigating supervaluation, while Kripke claims the jackpot.
action: You talk to Quine
response: "You want to give it another shot?" asks Quine.

[1] Does E equal M times the square of C?
[2] Is the holy ghost the underdog of the trinity?
[3] Does a mobius strip have only one side?
[4] No -- I've had enough disappointment for one adventure.
action: 2
response: "You've probably got the formulae by now," says Quine. "So I got three cups this time. One on the left, one in the middle and one on the right. There's one bead in each of them. Each bead is either red or blue. And we got us some rules again:

"Rule one: no red bead can be to the left of a blue bead.

"Rule two: no blue bead can be in a cup next to a cup with another blue bead.

"Rule three: there is at least one blue bead and one red bead.

"So, what colour beads are in what cup?

[1] Left cup: red; middle cup: red; right cup: red.
[2] Left cup: red; middle cup: red; right cup: blue.
[3] Left cup: red; middle cup: blue; right cup: red.
[4] Left cup: red; middle cup: blue; right cup: blue.
[5] Left cup: blue; middle cup: blue; right cup: blue.
[6] Left cup: blue; middle cup: blue; right cup: red.
[7] Left cup: blue; middle cup: red; right cup: red.
[8] Left cup: blue; middle cup: red; right cup: blue.
action: 7
response: "Nice!" Quine pats you on the back. "Now, my friend," he says, "you got a tricky and potentially angst-ridden decision to make. Will it be a file of Platonic forms, cruise tickets for the ship of Neurath, or a straw dog?"

[1] I fancy the file of forms.
[2] The cruise tickets sound good.
[3] You can't go wrong with a straw dog.
action: 1
response: Quine hands you a file of forms. "Prime forms," he says. "Prime forms."
action: You look at the forms
response: This a file of administrative forms that have reached the highest level of bureaucratic perfection. In order to complete them they must be signed by the relevant officials, who will only sign the form if they are presented with the very same form already signed.

A loud cheer comes from the game as Turing elegantly solves a particularly difficult problem.
action: You go west
response: A raucous rabble of eminent philosophers line the tables and bar, discussing matters squifflily with slurred syllables and questionable eloquence. You overhear Plato and Socrates childishly pondering over Da Vinci Code conspiracy theories. The only one not joining in seems to be Aristotle, who is sitting glumly in the corner. In the eastern wall is the back door through which Mill threw himself earlier.

Somewhat incongruously, you spot an electronic games machine sitting against the wall next to a rather glum looking booth, being rather neglected by the roistering philosophers.
action: You talk to Plato
response: Plato beckons you closer, his breathe steeped in whisky. "I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning," he confides, before staggering off, apparently forgetting who you are.
action: You talk to Socrates
response: Raising his glass up high, Socrates toasts, "Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live." This is greeted with a hearty chorus of "I'll drink to that!"
action: You look at the booth
response: It's a dark and lonely corner of the tavern -- and you realise that, while you'd previously thought it was empty, there's actually a group of women sitting in it, staring melancholically into their drinks. One of them, whom you suddenly recognise to be Elizabeth Anscombe, is wearing a comic headband with two antennae on springs attached. Next to her sits Emma Goldman, glaring fiercely across the table at an equally glaring Ayn Rand, while the quartet is completed by Judith Butler, who surveys the roistering men, making small tutting noises.
action: You talk to Anscombe
response: The women look at you. "Hello," says Anscombe. "We were having a girls" night out." Never before has the phrase been delivered with such implacable mourning.

[1] Were? What happened?
[2] Well, you lot are glum. Why aren't you joining the fun?
[3] Mind if I join you ladies for a drink?
action: 1
response: Rand perks up at this point, eyes flaring. "Emma here," she says, snering, "couldn't keep her big mouth shut."

"Don't you go curtailing my freedom of speech again, Ayn," spits Goldman in reply.

[1] Bit of a fight, was there?
[2] Now girls, don't go being all unbecoming.
action: 1
response: "They have entrenched themselves within a political binary through which they define themselves by opposition to the Other," chips in Butler.

"They had a punch-up," adds Anscombe.

[1] Ooh, a bitch fight. Who won?
[2] What about?
[3] So why didn't you just leave them to it and join the rest of the party here?
action: 2
response: "She started spouting off about the dynamism of the revolution --" starts Rand.

"-- It is easier to condemn than to think," Goldman butts in.

"Shut up and finish your drinks before I clunk your heads together," concludes Anscombe.

[1] Why didn't you just leave them to it and join the rest of the party here?
[2] Oh dear. I think I'll just leave now.
action: 1
response: "They wouldn't let us join in," says Anscombe.

"They wouldn't let me dance," says Goldman.

"Men!" spits Butler.

[1] Why wouldn't they let you join in?
[2] Did you want to dance?
[3] What's wrong with men?
[4] Why are you still here?
[5] Oh dear. I think I'll just leave now.
action: 3
response: "The promise of the phallus," says Butler, stealing Goldman's glass and downing it, "is always disappointing."

[1] Er . . . so why does that mean they wouldn't they let you join in? [2] Indeed. So did you want to dance?
[3] Right. So why are you still here?
[4] OK . . . I think that's my cue to leave.
action: 2
response: "If I can't dance . . ." begins Goldman, in a rather loud voice, before being rapidly gagged by the other three women until she stops struggling.

[1] Thanks, sisters. So why wouldn't they let you join in?
[2] Phew. So why are you still here?
[3] Oh dear. I think I'll just leave now.
action: 1
response: "We were excluded from the discourse," says Butler. All four women nod in rare agreement, Anscombe's pink antennae bobbing folornly up and down.

[1] Too true, sisters. So why are you still here?
[2] Ooh, sorry. Well, good luck; I'm off.
action: 1
response: "Why ask useless questions?" asks Rand. "How deep is the ocean? How high is the sky? Who is John Galt?"

[1] OK . . . I think that's my cue to leave.
action: 1
response: "And take your binary with you!" cries Butler drunkenly as you take your leave.
action: You look at the antennae
response: The kind of thing you'd expect people to wear onto a hen-night.
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
file of Platonic forms
the invitation to the state of naturist camp
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Burden of Proof
a sack (open)
a manual
a Chinese key
action: You talk to Anscombe
response: You approach the women, but Butler's critical gaze warns you off.
action: You talk to Quine
response: "Want to pit your wits against my beads again?

[1] Is Plato's Republic an elitist handbook?
[2] Does Nietzsche rhyme with preacher?
[3] Is Darth Vader Lukes father?
[4] Actually, I'm all prized out.
action: 1
response: "Yes indeedy," he replies keenly. "This time I got four cups arranged in a line. Same shtick: cups either contain a red bead or a blue bead. But this time one of the cups has two beads. You gots to guess which one. Rules are:

"Rule one: the cup with two beads is immediately to the left of a cup containing a red bead.

"Rule two: no cup containing one blue bead is immediately adjacent to a cup containing one blue bead.

"Rule three: there is only one red bead.

[1] The leftmost cup.
[2] The cup left of centre.
[3] The cup right of centre.
[4] The rightmost cup.
action: 2
response: "Amazing! Unfortunately, I only  got one prize left -- the cruise tickets for the Ship of Neurath."
action: You examine the tickets
response: These tickets appear to have already been used!
action: You talk to Quine
response: "Sorry, kid," Quine says, with a modicum of sincerity. "I'm fresh out of prizes."
action: You tell Quine about categorical Imperative
response: Just TALK TO them.
action: You go to the west
response: A raucous rabble of eminent philosophers line the tables and bar, discussing matters squifflily with slurred syllables and questionable eloquence. You overhear Plato and Socrates drunkenly investigating several meanings of the word Kafkaesque. The only one not joining in seems to be Aristotle, who is sitting glumly in the corner. In the eastern wall is the back door through which Mill threw himself earlier.

Somewhat incongruously, you spot an electronic games machine sitting against the wall next to a rather glum looking booth, being rather neglected by the roistering philosophers.
action: You go outside
response: A church, a theatre, a tavern, a barbershop, a pavement caf? -- their various changing forms clutter around, entrances facing out onto what seems (most of the time) to be an ordinary village street. Passers-by duck in and out of the buildings, stop by the water pump, or carry on to a square to the north. No-one, you notice, takes the road south -- or heads along the routes east towards the storybook hills or west into the fairytale woods.
action: You examine server
response: You could pop your head into the kitchen and admire her from behind as she cooks, but you rather fear what would happen if she spotted you.
action: Go west
response: You channel your will to power to summon a path in that direction. Sadly, nothing happens: you can't go that way.
action: You go the barbershop
response: Inside, the barbershop is clean, and smells pleasantly of cloves and soap. As you enter, the barber turns to you, brandishing magnificent moustachios, and beams. "Have a seat!" he cries, "Have a seat! I shall be with you in two snips of a flea's whiskers!"

You sit down on a wooden bench, somewhat overcome, and look around you. A small stand by the bench has complimentary phials of dye. The walls are covered with pictures of extraordinarily-coiffured models of all ages and genders, while the floor in places is ankledeep in hair. The room itself is spacious, and the barber is snipping away happily at his client -- who, you suddenly realise, is stunningly, shiningly bald.
action: You examine the client
response: Baldier than a coot and an egg combines, he sits solemnly staring at himself in the mirror.
action: You get the hair
response: Mmm, silky. But you'd feel a bit weird carrying around people's hair.
action: You examine the dye
response: Which do you mean, the phial of black dye, the phial of red dye or the phial of white dye?
action: You talk to the client
response: You make to talk to the bald man, but the barber spins round and shushes in your ear, "Ssh, signor! Don' you know who this is?"

[1] No, who?
[2] The captain of the Starship Enterprise?
action: 2
response: "The present King of France!" he hisses lispily. Or possibly lisps hissily.

[1] Oh, my! I am sorry.
[2] Well, I'm a republican, so I couldn't care less.
[3] Wait . . . wasn't there, you know, some sort of revolution in France?
action: 3
response: He splutters wildly. "Jus' don" you let him hear you say that! Or-a mention that Russell character, either. You're-a new in town, I can tell."

[1] Yes. What is this place?
[2] No, you just don't recognise me with this haircut.
action: 1
response: "Oh, jus' a humble little village in the middle of nowhere. But I know all about you, my friend!" he says

[1] What, how?
[2] I might have guessed. But can't you tell me something interesting about this place?
[3] Oh, really. Well, you won't mind if I just sod off then.
action: 1
response: "Jus' some gossip down the village water pump," he explains. "Which is always worth a visit if you need some advice, by the way."

[1] I'll bear that in mind. But can't you tell me something interesting about this place?
[2] Hmm, thanks. I might just go there now then.
action: 1
response: "There's-a nothing to tell! But what would you like to know?"

[1] Why did I just wake up in this bizarre fantasy world?
[2] Why does no-one seem to leave by the village road?
[3] What's that enormous castle, south of here?
[4] Actually, I think I'll just leave.
action: 1
response: The barber looks at you slyly. "That's-a for me not to know and you to find out," he says, winking. "But it's-a probably been caused by the hyperreal causality of narrative metaphor propelling you through a tear in the fabric of the space-time continuum, caused either by a ladder in the tights of time or the overconsumption of psychoactive substances. Anything else-a you want to know?"

[1] Why does no-one seem to leave by the village road?
[2] What's that enormous castle, south of here?
[3] Actually, I think I'll just leave.
action: 2
response: The barber's arms shoot out in front of him (narrowly avoiding snipping the king's ear off) and he intones, "I do not know any thing about the castle."

There's a moment of potent silence as the king looks pointedly at the scissors, and the barber resumes his snipping, muttering under his breath. You can barely make it out, but it sounds like a dire warning, and something about . . . a thing? A thing in itself? Enigmatic in the extreme

[1] OK . . . I think it's time for me to go now.
action: 1
response: The barber looks terrified for a moment. "South? Whadda we want to go south for?" he blusters, before composing himself. "Ask-a me about something else."

[1] What's that enormous castle, south of here?
[2] Actually, I think I'll just leave.
action: 1
response: The barber hums loudly at your departure.
action: You take all the dye
response: phial of black dye: (putting the Chinese key into the sack to make room)
You've got your hands a bit full. You're going to have to find a sack or something if you want to carry any more.
phial of red dye: (putting the Burden of Proof into the sack to make room)
You've got your hands a bit full. You're going to have to find a sack or something if you want to carry any more.
phial of white dye: (putting the lighter into the sack to make room) You've got your hands a bit full. You're going to have to find a sack or something if you want to carry any more.
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
an informative leaflet
cruise tickets for the Ship of Neurath
file of Platonic forms
the invitation to the state of naturist camp
a fifty pence piece
a sack (open)
a lighter
a Burden of Proof
a Chinese key
a manual
action: You drop Burden
response: (first taking the Burden of Proof from the sack)
(putting the fifty pence piece into the sack to make room)
You've got your hands a bit full. You're going to have to find a sack or something if you want to carry any more.
action: You put all in the sack
response: informative leaflet: You put the informative leaflet into the sack. cruise tickets for the Ship of Neurath: You put the cruise tickets for the Ship of Neurath into the sack.
file of Platonic forms: You put the file of Platonic forms into the sack.
invitation to the state of naturist camp: You put the invitation to the state of naturist camp into the sack.
action: You take all
response: That's a bit greedy. Try taking specific things.
action: You take all the dye
response: phial of black dye: Taken.
phial of red dye: The barber winks at you, "One per customer. If you change your mind put one back on the stand and take another.
phial of white dye: The barber winks at you, "One per customer. If you change your mind put one back on the stand and take another.
action: You think about Russell
response: Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970) was for much of the 20th century one of Britain's most prominent public intellectuals, made in 1950 a Nobel Laureate in Literature. He was hugely important in mathematics and logic, was a populariser of philosopher, and was a prominent agnostic and pacifist. He is also notable for being the discoverer and early teacher of Ludwig Wittgenstein.
action: You look around
response: The barber is still here, snipping away happily at his bald client. You sit on the bench next to the stand of dye, waiting.
action: Go west
response: Heading out on a track west from the village street, you soon come across the picturesque fairytale woods that had seemed so pleasant from a distance. Up close the uniformity of colour and the crude blobs of green on brown are somewhat unsettling.

In the midst of the woods stand a Buddhist monk and a lumberjack engaged in a heated discussion as to whether a tree falling down in a forest makes a sound if nobody is around to hear it. Their debate is punctuated by the occasional felling of a tree at the blade of the lumberjack's axe.

The woods become more sinister looking to the west and the village street is back to the east.
action: You talk to the monk
response: ". . . now listen here, don't be a dosh-garned fool," the lumberjack is saying as you approach, "-- of course the tree makes a sound when it falls down. Why, the sound permatriculates no matter who is listening."

"I am afraid," says the Buddhist monk, evidently not at all afraid, "that you haven't thought this over enough. After all, how do you know it makes a sound if no one is there to hear it?"

[1] Can my philosophical know-how help you resolve this tricky issue? [2] Do you mind if I borrow that axe, Ms Lumberjack, sir?
[3] I'm not going to get involved in further silliness. . .
action: 1
response: "I do not believe so," the monk says bowing his head slightly, "the logical net you seek to cast across the world, neither of us care for it -- though for different reasons I do assure you."

[1] What reasons are these?
[2] Look, I know the answer -- I can resolve this straight away.
[3] Oh, never mind. . .
action: 1
response: "I'll tell you one good reason," the lumberjack offers, "no kind of philosophistrical trap-clap will convince me that a falling tree don't make no sound. Now let me tell you one thing," she says, preceding to tell you two things, "I've seen more trees fall down than you've had hot dinners and they all make a 'creak . . . creak . . . creaaaakkk! . . . whumph!! . . . thud!!!' sound as they go."

The Buddhist looks unconvinced.

[1] I agree with you, Ms Lumberjack -- the tree does make a sound.
[2] Nonsense. The tree makes no such sound if no one's there.
[3] I don't think it's something we can really know.
action: 3
response: You explain that it is perpetually undetermined -- it is only decided one way or the other when there is an observer. You can only tell if the tree is making a sound if you are present, and you being present decides the fact that it makes a sound. Before you are there the sound exists only in potential.

"That's what I've been trying to explain to my wood-cutting associate here," says the Buddhist, "but she simply will not listen."

The lumberjack shakes her head in dismay, saying, "That's the biggest load of nonsensication that I ever did hear."

[1] Is there not some way I might convince you of this?
[2] I'll just leave you two too it, shall I?
action: 1
response: The Buddhist monk seems to think on the matter for a few moments. Finally, he begins: "My tree-felling friend's chief argument seems to rest upon the supposed fact that a sound is always made whenever a tree is felled. If this premise were undermined then perhaps we would come to some resolution."

Before you  ask him how this might be achieved he continues: "Perhaps you could create a situation in which a tree is felled and she does not hear a sound.
action: You talk to Lumberjack
response: You decide to leave the pair to their discussion until you can find a way to resolve their argument.
action: You get the axe
response: That seems to belong to the lumberjack.
action: You give Burden to Lumberjack
response: (first taking the Burden of Proof)
The lumberjack doesn't seem interested.
action: You go west
response: You head further to the west until you reach a dead-end of brambles, bracken and blackened lightning-struck trees. You hear a raven caw malevolently in the middle distance and a damp shiver sneaks down your spine.

Turning east you can just about make out happier looking trees. All that you can see in this part of the woods is a mess of brambles.

You swear you just heard one of the trees stifle a cough.
action: You listen
response: You nearly jump out of your skin as a tree behind you makes spooky ghost noises.

Something seems to be laughing under its breath -- but there are only trees here.
action: You listen
response: "Oi! Over here!" shouts someone behind you. You look around -- but there's nothing but trees.

You nearly jump out of your skin as a tree behind you makes spooky ghost noises.
action: You look at the brambles
response: The brambles spiral in a spiky and heavily-stylised manner around the base of the lightning-struck trees, surrounded by cloying bracken. Peering closely, you can just about make out a rocky formation beyond the brambles.

Was that a tree you just heard mumble under its breath? It seemed terribly rude.
action: You listen
response: Was that a tree you just heard mumble under its breath? It seemed terribly rude.

Something seems to be laughing under its breath -- but there are only trees here.
action: You listen
response: You swear you just heard one of the trees stifle a cough.

You swear you just heard one of the trees stifle a cough.
action: You search the trees
response: You find nothing of interest.

Something seems to be laughing under its breath -- but there are only trees here.
action: You look at the formation
response: There seems to be some sort of collection of rocks, perhaps even a small cave, beyond the brambles to the west.

Something seems to be laughing under its breath -- but there are only trees here.
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
a Burden of Proof
a phial of black dye
a sack (open)
the invitation to the state of naturist camp
file of Platonic forms
cruise tickets for the Ship of Neurath
an informative leaflet
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
a manual

You nearly jump out of your skin as a tree behind you makes spooky ghost noises.
action: Burn brambles
response: This dangerous act would achieve little.

You nearly jump out of your skin as a tree behind you makes spooky ghost noises.
action: Light brambles with lighter
response: You consider indulging your subconscious pyromaniac for a moment, but decide to repress the urge instead on the grounds that it would do no good. No doubt this will cost a fortune in future psychoanalysis bills.

"Oi! Over here!" shouts someone behind you. You look around -- but there's nothing but trees.
action: You read the leaflet
response: Take a cruise upon the fabulous Ship of Neurath. Let your sense-data be amazed as the ship is reconstructed before your very eyes. In the words of V.W.O. Quine:

"Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction."

The ship sails annually across the dark ocean without shores or lighthouses, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.

You nearly jump out of your skin as a tree behind you makes spooky ghost noises.
action: You go to the west
response: Getting ripped to shreds by malicious-looking herbage isn't your idea of a good plan.

"Oi! Over here!" shouts someone behind you. You look around -- but there's nothing but trees.
action: You go to the north
response: You channel your will to power to summon a path in that direction. Sadly, nothing happens: you can't go that way.

You swear you just heard one of the trees stifle a cough.
action: Go south
response: You channel your will to power to summon a path in that direction. Sadly, nothing happens: you can't go that way.

"Oi! Over here!" shouts someone behind you. You look around -- but there's nothing but trees.
action: You look at the trees
response: Although they are mere lumps of carbon they seem ill-meaning and twisted. Indeed, their knots and gnarls, from particular angles, seem to form faces, complete with eyes, noses and mouths. You swear one of them just winked at you.

You nearly jump out of your skin as a tree behind you makes spooky ghost noises.
action: You talk to the trees
response: You look at the trees with suspicion.

[1] Hello?
[2] (leave the tree alone)
action: 1
response: "You know, talking to trees is probably a sign of madness," say the trees, conversationally.

[1] I don't think that applies when the tree talks back.
[2] Talking trees? What's next? Lichen that whistle show tunes?
action: 1
response: "You know, trees don't actually talk," the trees reply. The voice is rather high-pitched.

[1] I think that the evidence shows that they do.
[2] You're probably right.
action: 1
response: "A bloody empiricist are you now?" the trees say, with a little cawing sound.

[1] Hey! What have you got against empiricists?
[2] That's rich coming from a group of trees.
[3] Well it's true -- apparently some trees can talk.
[4] Unless my senses deceive me . . .
[5] Was that a caw I just heard?
[6] You're just bitter because you haven't got eyes.
[7] Actually, I'm a level seven phenomenologist with a plus two blade of Obfuscation.
action: 7
response: The trees are silent and suddenly you feel very silly.

*** Run-time problem P10: Since the fairytale trees is not allowed the property "greeting", it is against the rules to try to use it.

You swear you just heard one of the trees stifle a cough.
action: 6
response: The trees are silent and suddenly you feel very silly.

*** Run-time problem P10: Since the fairytale trees is not allowed the property "greeting", it is against the rules to try to use it.

Something seems to be laughing under its breath -- but there are only trees here.
action: 5
response: "No," the trees say with what sounds like a ruffle of feathers.

[1] Trees don't caw or ruffle feathers. You're no tree at all, are you?!
[2] Are you some sort of bird hiding amidst the trees?
[3] Your smooth-talking ways don't fool me, Sen?r Tree!
action: 3
response: "Oh alright," says a voice from amidst the trees, "you've got me, I'm not a tree, or several trees for that matter."

From behind the trees hops a curious looking raven. The raven is strange in two ways. Firstly, it has a rainbow plumage. Secondly, it can talk.

[1] So, do you come here often?
[2] Like the plumage -- very colourful.
[3] Do ravens often talk?
[4] Do you know anyway past all this bramble?
action: 2
response: "Do you?" the raven implores, "I hate it. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. None of the other ravens will go near me. I wish I could be rid of it once and for all."

[1] So, do you come here often?
[2] Do ravens often talk?
[3] Do you know any way past all this bramble?
action: 2
response: The non-black raven hops to another branch, saying, "When they've got something to say, of course they talk."

[1] So, do you come here often?
[2] Do you know anyway past all this bramble?
action: 1
response: "Lately, I've been coming here a little more often than I used to," says the non-black raven.

[1] Do you know any way past all this bramble?
action: 1
response: The raven cocks its head to one side, "Maybe . . ."

[1] Maybe? Maybe you could tell me then?
action: 1
response: The raven cocks its head to the other side, "Maybe . . ."

[1] Maybe if I go on some inane quest for you?
action: 1
response: "Maybe if you find me some way of turning my plumage black like the other ravens?"

[1] Super! That's exactly what I wanted to do with my day.
[2] Oh alright. It's probably inevitable anyway.
[3] No way, Jos?. Why don't you help me first?
action: 3
response: "How abouts I peck your eyes out first, then you help me?"

[1] Oh alright.
[2] No, I refuse. I've had enough. No more stupid quests.
action: 1
response: "Caw! Try and hurry though, I ain't gots all day."
action: You give the dye to the raven
response: "Not bad. Not bad. But you're forgetting one thing-- I don't gots hair," the raven swoops down and takes the bottle off of you. "Until you get something better, I'll take it as down payment."
action: Go east
response: In the midst of the woods stand a Buddhist monk and a lumberjack engaged in a heated discussion as to whether a tree falling down in a forest makes a sound if nobody is around to hear it. Their debate is punctuated by the occasional felling of a tree at the blade of the lumberjack's axe.

The woods become more sinister looking to the west and the village street is back to the east.
action: You go the Theatre
response: You try the theatre doors, but they're fastened shut.
action: You listen
response: The babble and gossip of a busy market town.
action: You pull handle
response: A tinny voice speaks from the mouth of the pump! "Welcome to the Intuition Pump 3000! Thank you for choosing the Intuition Pump for all your intuiting needs. Got a tricky problem you can't solve, or an object you don't know what to do with? Simply hold the puzzler in your mind's eye and pull my handle -- which is to say, PUMP ABOUT the topic! Be amazed as intuitions flow through your mind about the puzzles, objects and people that are bothering you. Happy intuiting!"

How extraordinary. Could be useful, though -- better remember to come here and PUMP ABOUT a problem when you're stuck.
action: You pump about the bucket
response: You pull the pump's handle, concentrating furiously. You realise that pitch can be used for making things look black, as well as as a sealant.
action: Pump about Burden
response: You pull the pump's handle, concentrating furiously. In a flash of inspiration, you wonder what would happen if you could do something like give a burden of proof to the invisible pink unicorn.
action: You go east
response: You make your way along the cobbled path leading east of the village to the hills beyond. The path begins winding up the hill steeply, but just as you find yourself out of breath from the climb, you find the path levelling out. Then, just as you start finding the leisurely walk a little dull, the path steepens again into a challenging climb. Finally, just as you wish you could reach wherever it is you're headed next in this disconcerting fantasy world, you crest the hill. In the way that happens too often here, you are met by a complete non-sequiteur of a situation.

There's a great pyre here very slowly catching alight. Tied to a stake in the centre of the fire is a handsome woman looking deeply determined, though you suppose she'd look less composed if the fire wasn't so pitifully poor. At the base of the pyre, an imposing, bushy-bearded man in an ornate uniform is interrogating her intensely, in a way that appears to be making her all the more resolute.

From here, you could head west, back to the village, or further into the hills to the north.
action: You talk to Man
response: "Who the devil are you, and what are you doing to that poor woman?" you greet the man forcefully.

He turns to you and declaims, with the light of madness in his eyes, "I be the Zombiefinder General!"

[1] Right. And what are you doing to that poor woman?
[2] Right. And what exactly is a Zombiefinder General?
action: 1
response: "What, her?" he asks, gesticulating furiously at the bored-looking woman. "She be no woman! She be a zombie -- and she will not confess!

[1] Perhaps she bain't, sorry, isn't a zombie.
[2] Fair cop.
action: 1
response: He cuts you off saying, "That be exactly what a zombie would say!"

[1] Surely, if she confesses to being a zombie you will kill her.
[2] You're probably right. I'll just leave you to it then...
action: 1
response: "Of course!" he says with relish. "But I'd do it humanely -- Splash her with some holy sauce, no problem."

[1] Would that harm a non-zombie?
[2] Not holy sauce! You fiend!
[3] Sounds reasonable. I'll be sidling off now.
action: 1
response: "It might be harming their best dinner jacket," he muses. "And perhaps their wallet when they get the dry cleaning bill. Other than that, no."

[1] Then why don't you just do that to her anyway?
[2] I can understand now why it would be a cruel and unusual to subject someone to that.
action: 1
response: "That be defeating the whole point of a fair interrogation!" he says with exasperation. "I can't just go about applying punishment all over the place without proof, no matter the benefit. The whole institution of justice would break down -- and such an institution be generally maximisin' well-bein' more than the well-bein' caused by breakin' the rules in particular instances."

[1] I don't think breaking the rule this time will erode the principles of justice.
[2] Ah, you are of course absolutely correct.
action: 1
response: He looks at you scornfully, "It starts off with a few people sayin' 'Oh, Justice won't suddenly break down if you pour some Arrabbiata sauce on some girl that may otherwise burn to death' -- but it's a slippery slope! Soon you'll be wantin' to routinely sauce people up before they get on flights, or shake a little holy parmesan at them when they go to the library. I may be a Zombiefinder General, but even I wouldn't want an erosion of civil liberties to come about through the war against zombies."

[1] (give up)
[2] You've convinced me! I'll be off now.
[3] Surely burning at the stake is an erosion of civil liberties?
action: 3
response: He seems to have already thought long and hard about this issue, and replies instantly, "Burning at the stake is already an erosion of civil liberties and I be going to try as hard as I can to prevent future erosions. Now, please be on your way." He shoos you along, having tired of the conversation.

[1] (leave)
action: 1
response: The Zombiehunter glares at you from beneath his orange eyebrows.

[1] Incidentally, what exactly is a Zombiehunter General?
action: 1
response: "It means," he growls, "That I find zombies. Have you seen any zombies, perchance?"

[1] No, I don't think so.
[2] Why do you ask?
action: 2
response: "That village down there is crawling with the buggers," he replies gruffly. "Zombieing all over the place, them and their qualia-free brains."

[1] What do you want me to do about it?
[2] Let me guess -- you want me to find the zombies?
action: 1
response: "I would like you to retire the zombies," he says. "You know, remove them from action."

[1] How would I go about doing that?
[2] Sounds like a plan. I'll get right to it.
action: 1
response: "Give it a good hacking over the head with a sharp implement," he explains, gesturing violently in a way that makes you take a step back. "That should do the trick. I'd recommend holy sauce, but it be a tad expensive and goes off quickly."

[1] I'll get right on it.
action: 1
response: "Do not tarry!" he shouts, "Go retire some zombies!"
action: You talk to the woman
response: You stare up at the woman tied to the stake. She is dressed in white, below her torso is wreathed in smoke like some melodramatic rendition of a vengeful god.

[1] Are you alright, love?
[2] You know, smoking is an awful habit.
[3] Is this some sort of new-age skin treatment?
action: 3
response: "No," she replies, shaking her head, "it's actually quite a traditional method of treatment. It's good both for the skin and also for confessions. It was once quite popular with Catholics in Spain and has celebrity endorsement from Joan of Arc."

[1] You're taking this all remarkably well.
[2] So, why exactly are you burning away here?
[3] Now that you've tried it, would you recommend it to a friend?
action: 3
response: She seems to give the issue some thought. "It certainly has its benefits, but I'm not sure I would have opted for this particular treatment were it offered as optional."

[1] I suppose your skin is good already. It's one of your many qualities...
[2] So, how did this situation come about?
action: 1
response: Her face takes on a look that can be found on thumb-twiddlers, hair-fiddlers and feet-shufflers everywhere. "Um . . ." she begins, "I don't so much possess qualities, as act in a wholly consistent manner."

[1] That's nice. So, how did you get here?
[2] On a slightly different note -- why are you burning on this stake?
action: 1
response: "That's a good question. It all started three weeks ago when . . ." Two long hours pass. ". . . and then he tied me up here and now he's trying to make me confess to being a zombie."

[1] Are you a zombie?
[2] What happens if you confess?
[3] And it wouldn't be consistent to lie and confess to something you hadn't done?
action: 1
response: She looks about herself and says, "Not last time I checked."

[1] So what would happen if you confessed?
[2] Oh. I was excited there for a moment...
action: 2
response: "I'm sorry to disappoint you . . ." she starts, but you've heard the condolence speech too many times to pay attention to the rest. All you pick up on is the word "consistent" peppered liberally throughout.

[1] So . . . what would happen if you wanted to leave?
[2] Is this all about consistency?
action: 2
response: "As a point of consistency, I'd rather die than lie. If I'm honest, which I always am, I'm a bit of a martyr for truth. I shall not admit to being a zombie, as I am not a zombie."

[1] That's a tad extreme. Looks like you need proving right.
[2] How very odd you are.
action: 2
response: "It'll be difficult to prove that I'm not a zombie," she says with finality, "but hopefully history will vindicate me if you do not." You think it a good time to leave, given that she will soon be burning alive.
action: Go south
response: You're on a road by the squat concrete hut that contains the Chinese Room. In smooth black tarmac, neatly painted with white lines, the road stretches north to the village in peculiarly perfect tapering perspective. Behind you, to the south, you see the road lead towards some queer-looking hedgerows at the base of the crag. To the east, as before, stretch the plains to the horizon, with the ocean, behind sand dunes, doing likewise to the west.

The remains of a scarecrow droop on a pole here.
action: Go east
response: The plains are a grassy expanse extending to the east as far as the eye can see, and probably further. Here, just a short distance east of the road, a small crowd has gathered, silently gazing out onto the wilderness.
action: Go east
response: Ignoring the disapproving glares of the unicornists, you strike out onto the plains purposefully. Then you trip over a rabbit hole, fall flat on your face, pick yourself up, woefully brush the resulting grass strains, and then strike out again, equally purposefully, if now a little humbly.

You make your way out into the wide plains. They're an extraordinary expanse of grass so green it hurts your eyes. No matter how far you walk into them -- so far that the crowd at the roadside becomes a mere speck, like a squashed fly on a motorway windscreen -- they remain as boundless as ever, stretching out in seemingly every direction.

There is a peculiar juddering noise in the distance.
action: You listen
response: You listen closely to the sound, and discern the direction of approach. You wait, tense, as the sound approaches, and then -- just as you fear you're about to be crushed beneath invisible hooves -- you launch yourself into the air and land, with a dramatic thud, on the heavy, pulsing, pink and invisible mound of the unicorn's back.

The unicorn tries to buck you, but you lurch forward and grab wildly -- successfully hooking an arm round the invisible pink horn on Her invisible pink head.
action: You put Burden on the horn
response: Putting things on the horn would achieve nothing.

As the unicorn gallops onwards She whinnies madly and continues to buck her body furiously in an effort to throw you.
action: You put Burden on Unicorn
response: Putting things on the unicorn would achieve nothing.

Unless you do something to stop the unicorn soon, you'll be thrown to the ground and crushed beneath her mighty invisible pink hooves -- and no doubt cast down to the Pastures of Short Grass and High Manure.
action: You get Burden
response: You already have that.

Your body's weight is clearly causing the unicorn great distress -- but it's not enough to totally incapacitate her. You're losing your grip on her horn.
action: You hang Burden on Unicorn
response: You grip Her flanks tightly with your thighs, feeling the enormous pink muscles pulse beneath her invisible skin, and lurch forward, strecthing out your arms to loops the burden's thong over the end of Her horn. There's a trembling equine scream and she stumbles; you feel Her front legs buckle beneath her as you're thrown into a somersault over Her head.

Picking yourself up from the ground, you turn around and feel your breath snatched out from your lungs by the vision before you like a baby fox from its set by a hunter's hound. The unicorn is weeping and singing, Her broken legs flailing in the air -- in her last moments she has appeared. Her skin shimmers with a mega-pinkness truly beyond your understanding; her mighty silver horn is bent in two by the enormous burden of proof.

The earth cracks around Her and She seems to shrink from your sight while simultaneously expanding to encompass the entire breadth of the plain. There's a might boom and sucking of air and she vanishes, triumphantly, in a puff of logic, leaving behind her a whiff of greasy pink smoke.

The plains seem terribly small now, and the crowd terribly close. They are whimpering at your approach. Before you reach them, there's a collective roar, and the sprint as one down the road, ripping their Unicornist badges from their clothes and casting them aside.

The plains seem folornly empty now that the unicorn's non-existence has been firmly proven. There is nothing here for you.
action: You go to the east
response: The plains are too vast and empty for that to be a pleasurable walk.
action: You go to the west
response: You're on a road by the squat concrete hut that contains the Chinese Room. In smooth black tarmac, neatly painted with white lines, the road stretches north to the village in peculiarly perfect tapering perspective. Behind you, to the south, you see the road lead towards some queer-looking hedgerows at the base of the crag. To the east, as before, stretch the plains to the horizon, with the ocean, behind sand dunes, doing likewise to the west.

The remains of a scarecrow droop on a pole here.
action: Go south
response: Striking out south towards the castle, you soon realise what it is that lurks so strangely at the base of the crag. As the rock looms over you like ten tonne weight over a hapless clown, the road becomes a pebbly path leading into what is clearly an enormous maze.

You're standing at the entrance to a vast maze built of hedges that tower six feet above you. The path seems extravagantly narrow, as if the designer wanted to prepare the unwary adventurer from the outside. Above the entrance is a painted wooden sign. It looks important.
action: You examine the sign
response: Attention, Adventurer! This MAZE is not for the FAINTHEARTED, nor for the CORRUPT. This is the MORAL MAZE, where only the truly ETHICAL shall pass. Should you find yourself LOST forever -- what can you do but PRAY?
action: Pray
response: God is dead.
action: You go to the north
response: As you approach the village, you see that the crowd of unicornist has gathered outside the church, baying for blood. They charge the doors, which burst open, and they flood into the building. There's a moment of confused stillness, and then they come thundering out of the church, carrying the priest along bodily like a rock star at a open-air festival, only much more threateningly. You dive for cover as the crowd streams past you and mob off down the road, the priest's plaintiff cries drowned beneath their righteous anger.

As they vanish into the distance they leave nothing behind them but a cloud of dust and a single dazed unicornist. Hairy and bedraggled, he looks at you in utter confusion, says "Nice day for it", and wanders off.

A church, a theatre, a tavern, a barbershop, a pavement caf? -- their various changing forms clutter around, entrances facing out onto what seems (most of the time) to be an ordinary village street. Passers-by duck in and out of the buildings, stop by the water pump, or carry on to a square to the north. No-one, you notice, takes the road south -- or heads along the routes east towards the storybook hills or west into the fairytale woods.

The theatre's director is here, jumping around declaiming his joy to
a skull held tenderly in his hand.
action: You talk to the director
response: When the director spots you, he runs up to meet you, scuffing the hems of his trousers. "You, mate," he says, "Are a bloody marvel. I heard all about it! You and the unicorn, proving She doesn't exist! S'changed everyfing round here, I tell you. Look, I really owe you one. I've got this fing my grandfather passed on to me. Haven't a clue what it does, but he called it a qualiascope and sed it was the most valuable fing he owned. Looks bloody beautiful, anyway."

"Listen, I've gotta get on. Got a show to produce! Catch you later, comrade."

He shambles off back into the theatre, slamming the door behind him. You're left holding the arcane device in your hands.
action: You look at the qualiascope
response: It's covered in a hundred nozzles, dials and buttons; you daren't press a single one of them. There's a bit that looks like it's definitely meant to be an eyepiece, though.
action: You examine the eyepiece
response: Look through it at what?

You hold the eyepiece to your eye and look through it. The scenery is rendered in black and white, but here and there are extraordinary flashes of color, and smells and tastes and sounds and feelings and emotions and . . . You put down the qualiascope, feeling queasy. You realise that what it allows you to do is see directly into other people's consciousness. Whatever they sense, you sense. Whatever they feel, you feel. It's more than you could possibly imagine. Or, indeed, would want to.
action: You go to the east
response: There's a great pyre here very slowly catching alight. Tied to a stake in the centre of the fire is a handsome woman looking deeply determined, though you suppose she'd look less composed if the fire wasn't so pitifully poor. At the base of the pyre, an imposing, bushy-bearded man in an ornate uniform is interrogating her intensely, in a way that appears to be making her all the more resolute.

From here, you could head west, back to the village, or further into the hills to the north.
action: You go east
response: The hill's too steep to descend in that direction.
action: You look at General
response: A brutish-looking man, with green eyes and orange eyebrows. He's wearing a uniform covered in silver brocade, with three purple chevrons on each shoulder. It's as if he's trying to assert the vibrancy of his colourful personality through the medium of military vestments.

He's determinedly interrogating the equally determined woman on the pyre.

The interrogator gesticulates manically at the woman, crying "Confess!" But she merely juts out her jaw determinedly.
action: You look through the qualiascope at the woman
response: You suddenly become awash with the person's unique and irreducible subjective sensations.
action: You look through the qualiascope at Man
response: You are surprised to see the Zombiefinder General appear in black and white. According to the qualiascope he is not conscious -- he is a zombie!
action: You talk to Zombiefinder
response: "Yes?" he says, abruptly.

[1] Ah... nothing.
action: You kill Zombiefinder
response: Now that you know he's truly a zombie, dispatching him as quickly as possible seems like a plan, but you'll need something sharp . . .
action: Go north
response: You alight upon a square, around which runs someone who looks like a madman, grasping a lantern lit bright in the morning hours, and crying incessantly.This appears to be the academic quarter of the village, and so may in fact be a quadrangle, which is awfully exciting. You know it's the academic quarter, because the grass is covered with sprawling young people wearing brightly coloured clothes, dreadlocks, and organic deodorant, around whom the madman runs, crying, while they yell and laugh at him. Architecturally and geographically speaking, the buildings look like they were placed there by a commitee of village planners whose equipment budget stretched only so far as a compass. Three sides of the square are complemented by a museum, research institute and a library, to the west, north and east respectively.
action: You look at the madman
response: He has a bushy moustache and looks like the sort of guy who likes to hike.
action: You talk to the madman
response: You approach the madman, who is crying, "I seek God! I seek God!"

[1] (laugh)
[2] Are you lost?
[3] Did you lose your way like a child?
[4] (leave)
action: 3
response: The madman jumps into your midst and pierces you with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cries; "I will tell you. We have killed him---you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this?

[1] With the Nietzsche book, in the ballroom?
[2] (listen patiently)
[3] (leave)
action: 1
response: Your comment causes the madman to lose his thread, and like a record player rudely jolted he starts his spiel anew.

Your desire has passed beyond meaning.
action: 2
response: "How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun?"

[1] Perhaps we were very thirsty.
[2] Um . . . the really big sponge merchant? That is to say -- the merhant who sells really big sponges.
[3] We were unchaining. That's what people do when they unchain stuff. [4] Hey! One question at a time.
[5] (listen patiently)
[6] (leave)
action: 2
response: Your comment causes the madman to lose his thread, and like a record player rudely jolted he starts his spiel anew.
action: 5
response: "Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing?"

[1] Stop it! You're making me dizzy.
[2] Don't worry, I often feel that way too after a few drinks.
[3] (listen patiently)
[4] (leave)
action: 3
response: "Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning?"

[1] No, it's just you.
[2] Do you ever say anything that isn't a question?
[3] (listen patiently)
[4] (leave)
action: 3
response: "Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."

[1] We? What do you mean we? Leave me out of this: I'm not going to be accessory to this murder.
[2] Sorry about the smell; I think I stepped in some unicorn muck back there.
[3] (listen patiently)
[4] (leave)
action: 3
response: "How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us?"

[1] I always find a nice cup of tea comforting at times like this.
[2] A hot shower should do the trick. Shall we...?
[3] (listen patiently)
[4] (leave)
action: 3
response: "What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?"

[1] Festival of atonement? Is that some sort of Gregorian chant gig? [2] If we're going to be inventing games, I suggest a dynamic cross between spelunking and curling.
[3] On the greatness scale, I think it falls somewhere between juggling with chainsaws and licking one's own elbow.
[4] Become Gods, eh? That sounds like a super plan fit for a Superman (and/or non-gender-specific Superbeing).
[5] (listen patiently)
[6] (leave)
action: 5
response: "There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us---for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."

[1] Pah! I reject your patriarchal meta-narrative!
[2] A higher history? That doesn't sound too bad.
[3] (listen patiently)
[4] (leave)
action: 3
response: Here the madman falls silent and looks again at you, his listener; and you, too, are silent and stare at him in astonishment. At last he throw his lantern on the ground, where it breaks into pieces and goes out. "I have come too early," he says; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars---and yet they have done it themselves."

With these final words the madman leaves the square. You see him heading in the direction of the church, and from that direction you soon hear the words, "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?". You feel like you've overslept and woken up in a 1970"s Kaufmann translation of The Gay Science. I mean, who uses the word "sepulchers", anyway?
action: You examine the lantern
response: (the broken lantern)
The glass part of the lantern is broken, so that the feeblest of winds would soon extinguish the fire within.
action: You take the lantern
response: (the broken lantern)
Taken.
action: Light lantern
response: (the broken lantern)
This dangerous act would achieve little.
action: Go west
response: The Odditorium is filled with a crazy array of philosophical exhibits. You wander past a brain suspended in a vat of colourless liquid and wired to some complicated electronics, and then pause to examine an old-fashioned tachyon telephone. You could spend hours in here, but your attention is alerted by a furious argument taking place at the far end of the room, beneath the hulking hull of a ship that protrudes from the wall in a most unexpected manner. There, a man in extremely piratical clothing is giving a woman in a steward's uniform a piece of his mind.
action: You look at the pirate
response: Bandana, frock-coat, dreadlocks, eyeliner -- the lot. He's either a pirate or a glam rock refugee.

"Arr!" says the pirate, with a sense of obligation. "Theseus be the name o' my ship! This be just a shoddy replica!"

"No, I think you'll find that this is the original Theseus, and your ship is but a pale remake," replies the steward camly.
action: You look through the qualiascope at the pirate
response: You suddenly become awash with the person's unique and irreducible subjective sensations.
action: You examine Ship
response: (the Ship of Theseus)
The business end of a great ship is poking through the wall of the museum, with a surprised-looking mermaid stuck on the pointy bit. It might be a figurehead. The name on the prow is "Theseus".
action: You look at the woman
response: "Honestly, this is constructed entirely from the original abandoned timbers," says the steward.

"Shiver your timbers!" replies the pirate, in the manner of a grave insult.

She sports a uniform and a badge that declares her to be called "HallomynameisTracyhowmayIhelpyou".

"You be takin' my livelihood away!" cries the pirate, his mascara running. The steward simply crosses her arms and tuts at this display.
action: You talk to the pirate
response: "What seems to be the trouble here?" you ask, approaching the arguing pair.

"She be stealin' my ship!" exclaims the pirate.

"He be -- sorry, is -- kicking up a fuss in my museum over a silly little name."

[1] So what exactly happened?
[2] How does one steal a ship, exactly?
[3] And what name seems to be causing the trouble?
action: 1
response: "It's quite simple," says the steward. "Mr Starling --"

"Cap'n Starling," corrects the pirate.

" -- Captain Starling here owned a rather famous ship, the Theseus. Over the years he's had to replace its timbers one by one, casting the old ones aside as he goes. We at Reichenbach's Believe-It-or-Not Ltd simply gathered the timbers together and rebuilt the original ship for display here."

"Scurvy dogs that you arrr! And now the Shippin' Board be on my back about name licensin', not lettin' me an' my mates sail the seas agin 'til we can either prove Theseus be our ship an' not this barnacle-bottomed bucket or come up with another name!"

"Well, splice my mainbrace," you say.

[1] Why don't you just rename your ship, then?
[2] Why don't you just keelhaul her?
[3] Couldn't you take up macrame instead?
[4] Couldn't the museum set up some sort of licensing agreement?
action: 3
response: "And give up a lifetime's piratin'? Never! Besides, I can never do fiddly little knots like that properly."

[1] Why don't you just rename your ship, then?
[2] Why don't you just keelhaul her?
[3] Couldn't the museum set up some sort of licensing agreement?
action: 2
response: "A fine suggestion!" replies the pirate, before looking askance at steward, who has placed her hands on her hips in a very pointed fashion. "Only, er, me poor ole back is achin' somewhat today, what with the Westerly breeze an' all."

[1] Why don't you just rename your ship, then?
[2] Couldn't the museum set up some sort of licensing agreement?
action: 2
response: "Certainly not," says the steward. "The ship -- and it's name -- belong solely to us, and we're not going to waste money, on, er, scurvy sea-dogs like this gentleman here."

The pirate seems to take this rather ineffectual insult as a compliment, and swaggers a little.

[1] Why don't you just rename your ship, then?
action: 1
response: "Theseus be the finest name ever to grace a ship on the high seas," growls the pirate. "Lessen you can find a better unused name, I'm not budgin'."

[1] Right. A better ship name. Fine. I'll see what I can do.
action: 1
response: "Aye-aye!" says the steward, rather getting into the swing of things.
action: You enter Ship
response: (the Ship of Theseus)
That's not something you can enter.
action: Go east
response: The square seems somehow madder now the madman has left.

This appears to be the academic quarter of the village, and so may in fact be a quadrangle, which is awfully exciting. You know it's the academic quarter, because the grass is covered with sprawling young people wearing brightly coloured clothes, dreadlocks, and organic deodorant. Architecturally and geographically speaking, the buildings look like they were placed there by a commitee of village planners whose equipment budget stretched only so far as a compass. Three sides of the square are complemented by a museum, research institute and a library, to the west, north and east respectively.
action: Go north
response: Inside, the Institute is as a marvel of the limits of both modernist architecture and the persuasiveness of funding applications. The floor of the entrance corridor is covered in sticky linoleum and the walls, painted an unpleasant shade of grue, with damp health and safety posters. Three doors lead off the corridor, to the north, east and west, each with a hand-written notice.
action: You look at paper
response: Scrawled upon a scrap of paper is: "COME TO THE STATE OF NATURIST CAMP -- NASTY BRUTISH FUN FOR ALL!!!"
action: You check what you're carrying
response: You are carrying:
a broken lantern
a qualiascope
a sack (open)
a useless scrap of paper
file of Platonic forms
cruise tickets for the Ship of Neurath
an informative leaflet
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
a manual
action: You look at the leaflet
response: Take a cruise upon the fabulous Ship of Neurath. Let your sense-data be amazed as the ship is reconstructed before your very eyes. In the words of V.W.O. Quine:

"Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction."

The ship sails annually across the dark ocean without shores or lighthouses, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.
action: Go west
response: The Odditorium is filled with a crazy array of philosophical exhibits. The argument between the steward and the pirate still rages beneath the ship.
action: You give the leaflet to the pirate
response: (first taking the informative leaflet)
(putting the qualiascope into the sack to make room)
"Listen," you say to the pirate, "I've just heard about this cruise. It's no longer running, so the name of the boat's free -- it's "Neurath". I thought that that was pretty good. And it's being constantly remade as well, just like yours, What do you say?"

"Arr," says the pirate. "You be sure this be a proper ship an' not just an allegory for the method of practising pseduo-falsification to preserve the coherency of any given epistemological system?"

"Oh, certainly," you reply.

"That'll do nicely then," he says, swaggering off in a haze of alcohol, fleas, and overwrought guitar riffs. You and the steward watch him go, and then she takes you by the arm. "Listen," she says, "I ought to thank you for that. We've been getting rid of some old exhibits in order to make room for the Theseus, and I've some old moral principles nobody seems interested in any more. I could let you have one, if you like.

She shows you the display case, in which sits a tiny golden measuring rule, a little silver calculator, and an odd lead cube.

[1] What's that golden ruler?
[2] What's that silver calculator?
[3] What's that lead cube?
[4] I'll take the ruler, thanks.
[5] I'll take the calculator, thanks.
[6] I'll take the cube, thanks.
action: 1
response: "That's a Golden Mean Ruler," she explains. "It calculates the perfect point between excess and deficiency of any given character trait. I don't know how well it works, but it's certainly beautiful."

[1] What's that golden ruler?
[2] What's that silver calculator?
[3] What's that lead cube?
[4] I'll take the ruler, thanks.
[5] I'll take the calculator, thanks.
[6] I'll take the cube, thanks.
action: 2
response: That's a Utility Calculator," she says. "Punch in the details of any given situation and it'll tell you what action will produce the greatest happiness. Apparently. I don't know how a little thing can manage to work out all the possible consequences, though.

[1] What's that golden ruler?
[2] What's that silver calculator?
[3] What's that lead cube?
[4] I'll take the ruler, thanks.
[5] I'll take the calculator, thanks.
[6] I'll take the cube, thanks.
action: 3
response: "I'm not really sure," she says, puzzled. "They call it a Categorical Imperativator, but I've no idea how it works. It's just a lead cube to me -- though it's certainly weightier than it looks.

[1] What's that golden ruler?
[2] What's that silver calculator?
[3] What's that lead cube?
[4] I'll take the ruler, thanks.
[5] I'll take the calculator, thanks.
[6] I'll take the cube, thanks.
action: 6
response: "Certainly!" she says. "Here you go. Now, if you ever want to borrow another, do come back and we'll do a discrete swap for you."
action: Go east
response: The square seems somehow madder now the madman has left.

This appears to be the academic quarter of the village, and so may in fact be a quadrangle, which is awfully exciting. You know it's the academic quarter, because the grass is covered with sprawling young people wearing brightly coloured clothes, dreadlocks, and organic deodorant. Architecturally and geographically speaking, the buildings look like they were placed there by a commitee of village planners whose equipment budget stretched only so far as a compass. Three sides of the square are complemented by a museum, research institute and a library, to the west, north and east respectively.
action: Go north
response: Inside, the Institute is as a marvel of the limits of both modernist architecture and the persuasiveness of funding applications. The floor of the entrance corridor is covered in sticky linoleum and the walls, painted an unpleasant shade of grue, with damp health and safety posters. Three doors lead off the corridor, to the north, east and west, each with a hand-written notice.
action: You look at the linoleum
response: It sucks at your feet as you step on it.
action: You read north
response: (the north door notice)
"Dr A. Schrodinger -- Feline Indeterminacy Studies"
action: You read east
response: (the east door notice)
"Dr M. Mary -- Colour and Pigmentation Research"
action: You read west
response: (the west door notice)
"Dr T. Nagel -- Chiropteran Psychology Laboratory"
action: Go west
response: The laboratory is a  brightly-lit white chamber, covered wall-to-wall in cabinets, posters, and counters covered with disturbing-looking instruments. A gigantic model of a bat hangs from the ceiling, spinning around gently. A white-haired man is moving fitfully around the room, grabbing instruments and examining diagrams, as he proceeds to dissect a series of what look worryingly like tiny brains. He's muttering something over and over again under his breath: "What is it like?" it seems to be. "What is it like? What is it like?"
action: You look at the brains
response: Pink and wobbly, like strawberry jelly, only with more neurones. And rather more disturbing.
action: You say the nanananana batman
response: (to Nagel)
Just TALK TO them.
action: You talk to Nagel
response: Nagel notices you and grabs your shoulders with both hands. His eyes boring into yours, he whispers. "Can you tell me what it is like? What it is like . . . to be a bat?" This said, he seems to forget what he's doing, and returns to his dissection, muttering all the while.
action: You look through the qualiascope at the bat
response: Which do you mean, the gigantic bat model or the bat posters?
action: Model
response: That sounds like a terrific idea -- if only you had a qualiascope.
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
a Categorical Imperativator
a broken lantern
a sack (open)
a qualiascope
a useless scrap of paper
file of Platonic forms
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
a manual
action: You examine Imperativator
response: It's a lead cube. That would seem to be it, though it feels rather heavier than it should.
action: You take the qualiascope
response: (putting the broken lantern into the sack to make room)
Taken.
action: Go north
response: You open the door, but hear a furious yowling coming from within. "Get back in, damn you!" cries a frustrated voice, before yelping from what sounds like a nasty bite. You decide to leave them to it.
action: You go east
response: As you enter the colour lab, the scientist inside jumps in surprise, dropping what looks like some rather sensitive equipment on the floor with an expensive-sounding crash.

"Bugger!" she says in a pleasant English accent. "There goes another prism assembly." She bends down to pick up the pieces, mumbling distractedly to herself. She seems to have entirely forgotten your presence.

The lab itself is filled with all manner of scientific equipment. Monitors, levers, dials and big red buttons cover the walls, while the room's desk -- pushed against the computer stacks on the back wall -- has a complicated-looking laptop-printer set-up perched somewhere in the middle, surrounded by arcane assemblies of metal and glass. Mary's gathering pieces from underneath the desk, still with her back to you.
action: You look at the printer
response: It's a swanky computer with a built-in printer. Nice.
action: You look at the computer
response: Blinking lights. Ooh, pretty.
action: You look at the desk
response: Covered in bizarre scientific equipment. A tube of black paint is sitting on one side.
action: You get the paint
response: (putting the Categorical Imperativator into the sack to make room) Taken.
action: You get the paper
response: (putting the qualiascope into the sack to make room)
Taken.
action: You look at paper
response: Scrawled upon a scrap of paper is: "COME TO THE STATE OF NATURIST CAMP -- NASTY BRUTISH FUN FOR ALL!!!"
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
a useless scrap of paper
a tube of black paint
a sack (open)
a qualiascope
a Categorical Imperativator
a broken lantern
file of Platonic forms
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
a manual
action: You put the paper in the sack
response: You put the invitation to the state of naturist camp into the sack.
action: You look at your surroundings
response: The lab is filled with all manner of scientific equipment. Monitors, levers, dials and big red buttons cover the walls, while the room's desk -- pushed against the computer stacks on the back wall -- has a complicated-looking laptop-printer set-up perched somewhere in the middle, surrounded by arcane assemblies of metal and glass, which Mary is operating with feverish skill.
action: You talk to Mary
response: "Uh . . . Dr Mary?" you say, feeling a bit awkward.

She turns around, looking distracted underneath her enormous goggles. "Oh, it's you, dear," she says. "Do call me Mary. Was there something you wanted?"

[1] I was just interested in what it is you're doing in this lab.
[2] Oh! -- what are those peculiar goggles you're wearing?
[3] As you seem to be at least moderately sane, perhaps you could tell me what's going on, and why I've woken up in a weird fantasy world.
action: 3
response: "Oh no, dear," she says regretfully. "I don't know about anything other than colours."

[1] That's a peculiar research specialisation.
[2] Nothing other than colours ar all?
[3] Then I suppose you won't know how I can get out of it either?
action: 2
response: "Well, they're all I think about, to be honest!"
action: 2
response: "The what?" she says, puzzled. "Oh! The goggles! D'you know, I forgot I had them on. I don't really think about them, you see."

[1] They seem a bit big and unwieldy just to forget they're there.
[2] Don't you want to take them off?
[3] So what do they do?
action: 3
response: "As I understand it," she says, "they filter out the experience of colour, meaning that I see everything in black and white. Of course, I wouldn't know, having never taken them off."

[1] (something doesn't add up here)
[2] Wait . . . you study colour intimately, but you've never taken off those goggles?
[3] Wait . . . you've never experienced colour?
[4] Wait . . . you said you were an expert on colour?
action: 4
response: "Absolutely. Anything you want to know about colour, I can tell you."

[1] (something doesn't add up here)
[2] And you study colour intimately, but you've never taken off those goggles?
[3] And you've never experienced colour?
action: 2
response: "Never saw a reason too," she says simply.

[1] (something doesn't add up here)
[2] And you've never experienced colour?
action: 2
response: "As far as that goes, yes."

[1] (something doesn't add up here)
action: 1
response: "Hang on," you say, and Mary grips the desk obligingly. "I mean, you're a colour expert--"

"I know everything there is to know about colours, yes."

"--but you've never experienced colours?"

"That's right!" says Mary brightly.

[1] But doesn't that mean that one thing you don't know is what it's like to experience colours?
[2] But, for example, you wouldn't know that a red apple was red, would you?
[3] But if you took off the goggles and experienced colours, wouldn't you learn something new?
[4] I don't understand any of this. I think I'll go.
action: 3
response: "Hmm," says Mary. "D'you know, I don't think so? I already know exactly how my brain and body'll react to colours, you see, as I know everything about them. Is there anything more to it than that? I suppose it'll be nice to get some experimental confirmation, though."

[1] Er . . . but you still don't know is what it's like to experience colours, do you?
[2] Er . . . but, for example, you wouldn't know that a red apple was red, would you?
[3] OK . . . but what if the first thing you saw was something unexpected? Like something that wasn't coloured the way it should be? Wouldn't that trick you, as you hadn't experienced it before?
[4] I don't understand any of this. I think I'll go.
action: 1
response: Mary thinks for a while about this, as if she'd never considered it before. "I said I know everything there is to know," she says. "And I'm not sure 'what it's like' is something to know, is it? I mean, I know everything about how your brain reacts to colours, and so on. The 'what it's like' isn't really knowledge, is it?

[1] Er . . . but, for example, you wouldn't know that a red apple was red, would you?
[2] I don't understand any of this. I think I'll go.
action: 1
response: "Oh no, dear!" she says. "I absolutely know when an apple's red. I know everything about colours, you see -- including what they behave like when filtered through my goggles here. So I can tell when an apple is red."

[1] I don't understand any of this. I think I'll go.
action: 1
response: "Oh, bye, dear," says Mary, turning back to her work. "Do come back if you think of something else, or have something interesting to show me."
action: You check your inventory
response: You are carrying:
a tube of black paint
a sack (open)
a useless scrap of paper
a qualiascope
a Categorical Imperativator
a broken lantern
file of Platonic forms
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
a manual
action: You examine the file
response: This a file of administrative forms that have reached the highest level of bureaucratic perfection. In order to complete them they must be signed by the relevant officials, who will only sign the form if they are presented with the very same form already signed.
action: You get the goggles
response: You really don't think you can muck about with the goggles -- Mary seems very protective of them. If you want her to take them off, you'll have to give her a very good reason to check out some colours.
action: Go north
response: There's a bloody furious cat in there -- an equally furious physicist is trying to force it into a box and close the lid, but is getting only bites and scratches for his troubles. You decide to leave them to it.
action: You go east
response: Inside, the library is distressingly ordinary. If there were a building in this crazed thought experiment of a world you would like to have seen exploit the full potential of the absurd, it would be the library. A winding maze of bookshelves, perhaps, in which the unwary adventurer could get lost for hours, on the run from herds of rogue thesauruses; a vast glass dome adorned with mysterious and disturbing stained glass images; bolts of narrative energy crackling between the books, frazzling the flocks of pamphlets roosting in the upper stacks.

But no. This is simply a square, book-lined room equipped with a borrowing counter, behind which stands a bored-looking librarian, and a few old desks. At one of these an imposing bearded man sits, writing furiously.
action: You examine man
response: A large bearded man sits at a desk in the library, writing furiously. He's surrounded by bundles of paper, some typed, some written in a near-illegible scrawl.
action: You look at the counter
response: The bored-looking librarian stands behind a chipboard-looking counter. There's a ledger and inkwell sitting on it.
action: You look at the ledger
response: The list of names, books and telephone numbers is positively thrilling.
action: You examine inkwell
response: A deep blue inkwell, filled with deep blue ink.
action: You check your inventory
response: You are carrying:
a tube of black paint
a sack (open)
a useless scrap of paper
a qualiascope
a Categorical Imperativator
a broken lantern
file of Platonic forms
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
a manual
action: You talk to Man
response: You tap the man on his shoulder and, muttering under his breath, he turns away from his writing to you, asking "Yes?"

[1] I just wondered what you were doing there?
[2] What's that you're writing?
[3] Oh, sorry, are you busy?
[4] Ah. I'll leave you to it, shall I?
action: 1
response: "Writing," says the man is a heavy Germanic accent. "Busy," he adds.

[1] Oh. And what is it you're writing?
[2] Oh, sorry. Urgent, is it?
[3] Ah. I'll leave you to it, shall I?
action: 1
response: "My Manifesto!" he says, his voice raising and his eyes glowing. "The theory of the abolition of private property! The history of all hitherto society -- the history of class struggle! The exposure of the bourgeois prejudices of law, morality and religion! The revolution of the workers of the world!

[1] Oh . . . ! You're Karl Marx, aren't you?
[2] OK. This is me edging away slowly now.
action: 1
response: He stops mid-rant. "The very same. You have heard of my work?"

[1] Well, to be honest, I didn't really get past page 7 of Das Kapital.
[2] Ah, and that's the Manifesto itself, is it? Why are you copying it by hand?
[3] Yup. Pleasure to meet you and all, but I have to go.
action: 2
response: You think you detect a blush rising beneath his beard. "My typewriter broke," he says, before sitting down and burying his head in his hands.

[1] Good job I'm not really interested in reading it, then.
[2] Never fear, Karl! I shall procure you a typewriter and return forthwith!
[3] Look, if that's a hint to get me to go on an obscure object quest, forget it. Not unless you've got the readies.
action: 3
response: Marx looks affronted. "Has the bourgeosie so pitilessly torn asunder the motley of ties that bound us and left remaining no other nexus between us than callous cash payment?" he demands, before leaving you, chagrined, for his writing.
action: 2
response: You make to charge out of the library in a fit of adventurous fervour, before tripping over your shoelaces.
action: You look at the shoelaces
response: Those pesky laces!
action: You go west
response: The square seems somehow madder now the madman has left.

This appears to be the academic quarter of the village, and so may in fact be a quadrangle, which is awfully exciting. You know it's the academic quarter, because the grass is covered with sprawling young people wearing brightly coloured clothes, dreadlocks, and organic deodorant. Architecturally and geographically speaking, the buildings look like they were placed there by a commitee of village planners whose equipment budget stretched only so far as a compass. Three sides of the square are complemented by a museum, research institute and a library, to the west, north and east respectively.
action: Tie laces
response: (to the sack)
You bang them together, without noticeable effect -- though you do momentarily consider founding a samba band.
action: Go north
response: Inside, the Institute is as a marvel of the limits of both modernist architecture and the persuasiveness of funding applications. The floor of the entrance corridor is covered in sticky linoleum and the walls, painted an unpleasant shade of grue, with damp health and safety posters. Three doors lead off the corridor, to the north, east and west, each with a hand-written notice.
action: You go to the east
response: This is simply a square, book-lined room equipped with a borrowing counter, behind which stands a bored-looking librarian, and a few old desks. At one of these Karl Marx sits, writing furiously.
action: You talk to the librarian
response: "Hallo," you say. "I'd like to borrow a book, please."

The librarian looks at you sullenly. "Well, I'm sorry," s/he says. "This is a McDonalds."

[1] In which case I'll have a fries and shakes, thanks, my good non-gender-specific-human.
[2] No, seriously. Thought I might catch up on my Plato.
[3] Well, if you're going to be like that, I'll just go.
action: 1
response: The librarian looks pointedly at you, before slouching back against the wall in a conversation-closed sort of way.
action: 2
response: "Not a chance," s/he says. "Every time we lend something of his, someone just scribbles footnotes all over it, so we've put all of our Plato in protective custody."

[1] Oh dear. Well, in that case, could you recommend me a good read? Something colourful?
[2] In that case there's nothing for me here. Goodbye.
action: 1
response: The librarian smirks. "I've just the thing. Hang on a moment," s/he says, before turning h/er back on you and walking over to the shelves.
action: You take the inkwell
response: You think the librarian might notice.

The librarian returns, holding a huge, brightly-coloured tome. S/he hands it to you, saying "Colourful, you said? This should do the trick," before returning to h/er spot behind the counter.
action: You examine tome
response: Apparently this is an Encyclopaedia of Qualia. It's the colour edition. Opening it, you suddenly become overwhelmed by a veritable rainbow of sensations -- the smell of coffee, the feel of mist, the indescribable feeling you get when you've just dropped an egg. Looking down at the text, you realise that it consists of a carefully-organised catalogue of all the world's possible sensations, and as you read the name of each it washes over you. You snap the book shut before you become completely overcome.
action: You get it
response: You already have that.
action: You go west
response: "Oi!" says the librarian, taking the book away from you. "That's a priceless tome, that is. You can't leave with it."
action: You talk to librarian
response: The librarian spots you and says, "What do you want this time?"

[1] Still got no Plato I can read?
[2] Er, I was wondering if, maybe, you could see your way to getting that Encyclopaedia for me again?
[3] Oh, nothing. I just wanted to annoy you, actually.
action: 1
response: The librarian shakes h/er head sullenly.
action: 2
response: The librarian glares at you, but heads off to the shelves to fetch the book.
action: You read the ledger
response: The list of names, books and telephone numbers is positively thrilling.
action: You look up Marx in the ledger
response: There's a ledger and inkwell sitting on it.

You discover nothing of interest in the ledger.

The librarian returns and hands the tome to you wordlessly, before returning to h/er spot behind the counter.
action: You examine the librarian
response: She -- you correct yourself, he -- hasn't even bothered to tie his hair back in a tight bun, or perch severe-looking glasses on the end of his aquiline nose (which turns out not to be aquiline), ready to be loosed and removed respectively to reveal a surprisingly beautiful young woman. Man. S\he is simply rather bored-looking, and somewhat gender-ambiguous, sort of youth.

The librarian returns and hands the tome to you wordlessly, before returning to h/er spot behind the counter.
action: You get the ledger
response: You doubt the librarian will let you get away with that.

The librarian returns and hands the tome to you wordlessly, before returning to h/er spot behind the counter.
action: You examine paper
response: (the bundles of paper)
Inspiring stuff, this.
action: You look at the scrap of the paper
response: Scrawled upon a scrap of paper is: "COME TO THE STATE OF NATURIST CAMP -- NASTY BRUTISH FUN FOR ALL!!!"
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
an Encyclopaedia of Qualia
a tube of black paint
a sack (open)
a useless scrap of paper
a qualiascope
a Categorical Imperativator
a broken lantern
file of Platonic forms
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
a manual
action: You give the forms to the librarian
response: (first taking the file of Platonic forms)
(putting the tube of black paint into the sack to make room)
The librarian doesn't seem interested.
action: You get qualiascope
response: (putting the Encyclopaedia of Qualia into the sack to make room) Taken.
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
a qualiascope
file of Platonic forms
a sack (open)
an Encyclopaedia of Qualia
a tube of black paint
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
a broken lantern
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
a manual
action: You give tome to Mary
response: (first taking the Encyclopaedia of Qualia)
(putting the file of Platonic forms into the sack to make room)
Mary doesn't seem interested.
action: You talk to Mary
response: Though as startled by you as ever, Mary greets you warmly. "Oh, hello again, dear! Did you think of something else?"

[1] Sorry, no. Still stuck. I'll leave you to it
action: 1
response: "Oh, bye, dear," says Mary, turning back to her work. "Do come back if you think of something else, or have something interesting to show me."
action: You give the book to Mary
response: (first taking the manual)
(putting the qualiascope into the sack to make room)
Mary doesn't seem interested.
action: Drop book
response: Dropped.
action: You get tome
response: You already have that.
action: You look at the ladder
response: A steel ladder on the east side of the roof. It's not funny in any way. Steel seldom is.
action: You get the keyboard
response: That seems to be a part of the computer.
action: You stand on the chair
response: You stand on the chair. You can see your house from here! Well, you can't really, but you can reach the hatch.
action: You go hatch
response: You haul yourself up through the hatch and scramble onto the roof of the Chinese Room, the hatch thudding shut behind you.

The Chinese Room, you have discovered, is in the centre of a fantastical world, on a road leading north to woods and a hillside village and south to a cragtop castle. Wide plains spread out to the east, grassy dunes and a strip of sand border an ocean to the west, and above you Flying Spaghetti Monsters gambol in the updrafts. The roof of the Chinese Room is flat and covered with pitch, hot under the sun. On the east side of the building, a ladder leads down to the road.
action: Go east
response: You shimmy down the ladder onto the road.

You're on a road by the squat concrete hut that contains the Chinese Room. In smooth black tarmac, neatly painted with white lines, the road stretches north to the village in peculiarly perfect tapering perspective. Behind you, to the south, you see the road lead towards some queer-looking hedgerows at the base of the crag. To the east, as before, stretch the plains to the horizon, with the ocean, behind sand dunes, doing likewise to the west.

The remains of a scarecrow droop on a pole here.
action: You go west
response: Leaving the road, you find yourself walking through squat dunes scrubby with beachgrass. Your feet leave a trail behind you in the otherwise undisturbed sand. Soon, the ocean emerges again from behind the dunes, more blue and sparkling than a busking saxophonist on an empty Christmas morning.

You find yourself on a beach -- a strip of silvery sand bordering an ocean that seems truly boundless. You try and focus on the horizon, but find your attention wavering whenever you get close to pinning it down, as if there were a blind spot in your consciousness. The sea shimmers and shifts under your gaze. You shake your head, blinking, and make your way along the beach, feet sliding in the fine-grained sand, towards a few small figures further along.

As you approach them, the figures -- two men dressed in white togas -- turn to look at you. "By Zeus, Achilles!" says one to the other, "It looks like an adventurer has arrived."

Before you can get a word in, the man -- an elderly, squat little Greek -- greets you effusively:

"Welcome, adventurer! Well come indeed, oh yes. Very, very fortuitous indeed . . . " He tails off, and the other man glances at you, embarrassed.

"Hallo," he says, shuffling on his feet. "I'm Achilles."

[1] Hello, Achilles.
[2] What's going on here?
action: 1
response: There's an awkward moment while Achilles searches for something to say and the other man continues to mutter to himself. You hear bursts of numbers shooting off in all directions from him. "Oh!" says Achilles, inspiration striking. "This is Zeno. From Elea. He's very clever."

[1] What's so clever about him?
[2] Where's Elea? Is that the name of this place?
[3] Hang on -- Zeno, Achilles . . . isn't there supposed to be a tortoise around here?
[4] What's going on here?
action: 2
response: "Oh no, Elea is that place halfway between point A and point B. You'll never get there."

[1] What's going on here, then?
[2] Hang on -- Zeno, Achilles . . . isn't there supposed to be a tortoise around here?
action: 2
response: Zeno stops muttering immediately, and looks at you, aghast. Achilles turns away. You sense you've said something you shouldn't've.

Eventually, Zeno speaks, sighing. "Well, that's our problem, don't you see? She's gone."

"Gone," echoes Achilles.

"Left," says Zeno.

"Kaput, concludes Achilles, mournfully.

[1] Why?
[2] So what is going on here, then?
action: 1
response: "She's on tour with her Aunt Hillary in France," explains Achilles. "Said she was sick of being exploited by our patriarchal obsession with paradoxes and chauvanistic exploitation of her abilities, and wanted to be somewhere where she could truly be herself."

"Hence," says Zeno, "our problem."

[1] So what is going on here, then?
action: 1
response: "We're holding a race!" cries Zeno. "A great and magnificent race, of profound importance. But we've only got one racer."

"Me," says Achilles.

"And you can't hold a proper paradox with only one racer! It would be like holding a symposium with only one philosopher. Very boring. Not enough contradictions."

[1] And that's where I come in, is it?
[2] Hang on, I think I see where this is going . . .
action: 1
response: "Indeed! You look like you would make a fine racer."

[1] Not a chance.
[2] What's in it for me?
[3] Gosh, thanks! I suppose when you put it like that . . .
action: 2
response: "Well there is this rather fine trophy to be presented to the winner," says Zeno, brandishing a large glass cup with a laurel leaf carving.

[1] Wow, a glass trophy, really? Cor. Guess not, then.
[2] Oh, alright then.
action: 2
response: "Splendid! Bravo! Well, then, you two had better get ready!"
action: Look around
response: You're standing at the start line, stripped to your underwear. You made that much of a compromise with the two Greeks. Achilles, limbering up next to you, was not so modest. You feel like your eyeballs are being dragged on strings, downwards and sideways . . . You look away, blushing furiously, and crouch down, set, the aching vision of school P.E. lessons mugging you in memory alley.

When Zeno shouts the go, there's a moment of blurred confusion as you both launch off. Your mind can't manage any complicated tasks, like managing sensory apparatus, when it's pumping your arms and legs this hard. When the mess of sensations starts to coalesce, you realise that Achilles has streaked (in every sense of the word) off in front of you, and is already nearly at the finish line. Oh, well. At least you tried.

Achilles loops around the flagpole and jogs back to you. Soon he's bouncing up and down at your side, jiggling in a disconcerting way. "Come on!" he says. "You're halfway there!"

At this stage, you don't think your brain can possibly cope with issuing any instructions other than GIVE UP or KEEP RUNNING.
action: You keep running
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/4 a millos to go! Keep it up!"
action: You keep running
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/8 a millos to go! Keep it up!"
action: You keep running
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/16 a millos to go! That's nearly there!"
action: You keep running
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/32 a millos to go! You can do it!"
action: Again
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/64 a millos to go! You won't give up now, will you?"
action: Again
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/128 a millos to go! Surely you can keep going?"
action: Again
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/256 a millos to go! Keep it up!"
action: Again
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/512 a millos to go! Surely you can keep going?"
action: Again
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/1024 a millos to go! Surely you can keep going?"
action: Again
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/2048 a millos to go! You won't give up now, will you?"
action: Again
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/4096 a millos to go! That's nearly there!"
action: Again
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/8192 a millos to go! Don't want to give up, do you?"

You tumble into a heap on the ground, utterly exhausted. Achilles lets out a sympathetic groan and picks you up bodily, throwing you over his shoulder, before jogging leisurely back to Zeno at the start line.
action: Go east
response: When you come to from your exhausted stupor, you see the two Greeks bending over you, concerned. Achilles (mercifully back in his toga) puts an amphora of wine to your lips, which you splutter away at, sitting up sharply.

"A brave attempt, young adventurer!" says Zeno. "And, philosophically speaking, very interesting, yes, very interesting indeed . . ." He tails off again, and as you pick yourself up, Achilles looks at you regretfully.
action: You go to the west
response: spooky woods you see before you. All around you are brambles, bracken and blackened lightning struck trees.

Turning east you can just about make out happier looking trees. All that you can see in this part of the woods is a mess of brambles.

You can see a non-black raven here.
action: You give the paint to the raven
response: (first taking the tube of black paint)
The ravenly laughs maniacly. "Black paint?" it cries, "Black paint? Who'd you take me for? What am, some sort of canvas?

The non-black raven snatches the paint from your hands and hides it about its person. "Caw," it says, "I'll keep it anyhow."
action: Pump about Mary
response: You pull the pump's handle, concentrating furiously. Mary seems awfully familiar. Better think about that. You muse for a while on what might happen if she saw something surprising -- like something coloured as it shouldn't be. That'd probably shock her into taking her goggles off in order to double-check, and who knows what'd happen if she did that.
action: You leave
response: You'll have to say which compass direction to go in.
action: You check what you're carrying
response: You are carrying:
an Encyclopaedia of Qualia
a sack (open)
a qualiascope
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
a broken lantern
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
action: Go east
response: The lab is filled with all manner of scientific equipment. Monitors, levers, dials and big red buttons cover the walls, while the room's desk -- pushed against the computer stacks on the back wall -- has a complicated-looking laptop-printer set-up perched somewhere in the middle, surrounded by arcane assemblies of metal and glass, which Mary is operating with feverish skill.

You can see a manual here.
action: You give Encyclopaedia
response: (to Mary)
Mary doesn't seem interested.
action: You examine the manual
response: The manual is a thick, leather-bound tome with THE RULES embossed in gold on the cover. The whole process adds up to a syntactical method for answering questions about badgers in Chinese. You can't imagine why.
action: Show encyclopaedia
response: (to Mary)
Mary seems to take no notice.
action: You put the manual in the sack
response: You put the manual into the sack.
action: Go west
response: The Odditorium is filled with a crazy array of philosophical exhibits. The steward is giving the ship's hull a light dusting.
action: You check what you're carrying
response: You are carrying:
an Encyclopaedia of Qualia
a sack (open)
a manual
a qualiascope
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
a broken lantern
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
action: You give the qualiascope to Nagel
response: That's either not here, or carelessly undescribed by the fickle creators of this world.

(first taking the qualiascope)
Nagel doesn't seem interested.
action: You check your inventory
response: You are carrying:
a qualiascope
an Encyclopaedia of Qualia
a sack (open)
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
a broken lantern
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
action: You give the cube to the monk
response: (first taking the Categorical Imperativator)
Philosophers are not yet supermen.
action: You go north
response: You trek down the side of the first hill, sniffing the daffodils resentfully as you go, and then begin your climb up the next. That feeling of the path shifting helpfully beneath your feet continues, no matter how much you try and kick the hillside into submission. The sun smiles. You breathe a deep, almost contented sigh.

And then throw yourself to the ground as an enormous screaming mare gallops madly down the side of the hill, dragging a shattered cart behind her. You pick yourself up as she thunders off into the distance, now properly content that this world continues to be completely insane, and climb on upwards.

Passing a sign for "John Stuart's Livery and Corn-Processors", you reach the crest of the hill and realise just what made the horse gallop. The windmill here is aflame and billowing smoke, its sails spinning madly.You cover your face from the unbearable heat of the burning mill -- and then you hear the screams from inside.
action: Go north
response: You cover your face from the unbearable heat of the burning mill -- and then you hear the screams from inside.
action: You enter Mill
response: Sheilding your face from the fire and smoke, and momentarily questioning your sanity as you do so, you push your way through the door into the windmill. Wooden beams are crashing down around you in arcs of flame as you search for the source of the screams. Then you see them, trapped behind some arcane grinding machinery -- a huge man dressed in robes and an archbishop's mitre, and a small woman in a French maid's uniform.

You pick your way through the burning wreckage in an effort to reach them, and then you pull back in horror. Just as you realise that the man is the Archbishop of Cambray, instantly recognisable from his regular appearances in the pages of The Guardian, so too do you realise that the woman is -- your mother.

Her screaming and his bellowing snap you back to the urgency of the situation. The mill is crashing round about you and you have just time to enact a daring rescue. But with mounting horror you realise that you can't possibly carry both of them at once -- indeed, you may only be able to rescue one of them. But who?
action: You think about Mill
response: John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873) was a British ethical and political philosopher, and a public intellectual. He was the foremost proponent of utlitarianism, and also an early and formative theoriser of the liberal social state.
action: You rescue the mother
response: Grabbing her left leg, you drag your mother heroically from the burning mill. As soon as she is clear of the building it explodes in a melodramatic and highly implausible inferno, from which rolls, rather pitifully, the Archbishop's mitre. You watch it spin to a halt as your mother swoons on the grass.
action: You get mitre
response: You think perhaps you'd better leave it be.
action: You talk to the mother
response: Before you can say "Oedipus Complex", she smothers you with gratitude, wipes your face and departs, leaving you with a feeling of warmth and a used handkerchief.
action: You examine handkerchief
response: A handkerchief, slightly scented, slightly used.
action: You go west
response: You smell nothing unexpected.

You'd rather not do any more hillwalking today --unless it's back south towards the village.
action: You examine Mill
response: You search through the ruined mill and find a bucket of pitch strangely untouched by the explosion.
action: You take the pitch
response: You already have that.
action: You give the bucket to the raven
response: The raven caws in despair. "Look, it's hopeless. I'll take the bucket of pitch as a gift but I know I'll never be able to use it to change colour. I guess I'll always be bright and cheery."

Sobbing slightly, the raven pulls back the brambles before flying off.
action: You examine the brambles
response: The brambles are pulled back, allowing you to pass through them to the cave beyond."
action: You go west
response: You push your way through the brambles and gingerly descend into the dark cave beyond.

The darkness envelops everything. It is the darkness of ignorance. Or possibly just an ordinary sort of darkness, but in any case, you won't be able to do anything until you bring some sort of light source here.
action: Light lighter
response: This dangerous act would achieve little.
action: You check your inventory
response: You are carrying:
a handkerchief
a qualiascope
an Encyclopaedia of Qualia
a sack (open)
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
a broken lantern
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
action: You take the lantern
response: (putting the Encyclopaedia of Qualia into the sack to make room) You've got your hands a bit full. You're going to have to find a sack or something if you want to carry any more.
action: You go to the east
response: spooky woods you see before you. All around you are brambles, bracken and blackened lightning struck trees.

Turning east you can just about make out happier looking trees. All that you can see in this part of the woods is a mess of brambles.
action: You take the lantern
response: (putting the qualiascope into the sack to make room)
Taken.
action: You look at lantern
response: The glass part of the lantern is broken, so that the feeblest of winds would soon extinguish the fire within.
action: You look at lighter
response: That's either not here, or carelessly undescribed by the fickle creators of this world.

It a bit old and creaky, but it gives a serviceable spark.
action: You fix the lantern
response: What do you want to fix the broken lantern to?
action: You go west
response: You push your way through the brambles and gingerly descend into the dark cave beyond.

The darkness envelops everything. It is the darkness of ignorance. Or possibly just an ordinary sort of darkness, but in any case, you won't be able to do anything until you bring some sort of light source here.
action: You go to the east
response: spooky woods you see before you. All around you are brambles, bracken and blackened lightning struck trees.

Turning east you can just about make out happier looking trees. All that you can see in this part of the woods is a mess of brambles.
action: You talk to the scarecrow
response: He's hardly in any state for idle chit-chat.
action: Go west
response: You're on the beach, where Zeno has set up a race track between the dunes and the sea. Achilles is also here -- sans Tortoise.

The road lies back to the east.
action: You examine the dunes
response: These are the dunes between the beach and the road; they act as a buffer for the sea breeze. A few small birds flit between them skittishly.
action: You look at the birds
response: You walk towards the little birds, curious.

As you approach the dune, the little bird you followed here -- a tiny white and grey little thing with a black collar, like a vicar in negative -- flits off out of sight. You soon realise its business here: this is where it has made its nest.

The beach lies southwest of here.
action: You examine the nest
response: A rough and ready little home built out of seaside debris. In it cluster a handful of tiny speckled eggs.
action: You get the eggs
response: (putting the handkerchief into the sack to make room)
Feeling truly barbaric, you scoop up the eggs in your hand and walk as fast as you can back to the beach to avoid looking the little bird in the eye.

You're on the beach, where Zeno has set up a race track between the dunes and the sea. Achilles is also here -- sans Tortoise.

The road lies back to the east, while the dune where you found the nest is northeast of here.
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
some eggs
a broken lantern
a sack (open)
a handkerchief
a qualiascope
an Encyclopaedia of Qualia
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
action: You examine Imperativator
response: It's a lead cube. That would seem to be it, though it feels rather heavier than it should.
action: You go west
response: You're on the beach, where Zeno has set up a race track between the dunes and the sea. Achilles is also here -- sans Tortoise.

The road lies back to the east, while the dune where you found the nest is northeast of here.
action: Go west
response: You'd only get wet.
action: Go northeast
response: As you approach the dune, the little bird you followed here -- a tiny white and grey little thing with a black collar, like a vicar in negative -- flits off out of sight. You soon realise its business here: this is where it has made its nest.

The beach lies southwest of here.
action: You look at nest
response: A rough and ready little home built out of seaside debris.
action: You eat
response: What do you want to eat?
action: You talk to the server
response: You'd rather not disturb her when she's having so much trouble in the kitchen. Not unless you've got an extra-special present for her or something.
action: You give the eggs to the server
response: You head nervously into the kitchen, where you find the server struggling with a frying pan. Hearing you enter, she spins around, brandishing the pan. "You can bloody well forget about those sausages!" she screams at you.

"That's OK," you say. "I've got a wonderful surprise for you!

Putting down the pan, she lights a cigarette on the stove, puffs sulkily on it, and says, "Oh yeah? What?"

You brandish your plovers" eggs at her with a "ta-da!" and suddenly all her winsomeness returns. "Darling!" she says, hugging you. "Just what I always wanted!" She rummages in a cupboard and brings out a bottle. She thrusts it at you and says, "Now sod off and leave me alone."
action: You look at the bottle
response: It appears to be a rather fine claret. Brushing some dust from it, you spot the vintage. Goodness, this is pre-phyllorexa claret! How extraordinary!
action: You enter the tavern
response: A raucous rabble of eminent philosophers line the tables and bar, discussing matters squifflily with slurred syllables and questionable eloquence. You overhear Plato and Socrates nonsensically picking apart Monkey Island. The only one not joining in seems to be Aristotle, who is sitting glumly in the corner. In the eastern wall is the back door through which Mill threw himself earlier.

Somewhat incongruously, you spot an electronic games machine sitting against the wall next to a rather glum looking booth, being rather neglected by the roistering philosophers.
action: You give the bottle
response: Whom do you want to give the a bottle of pre-phyllorexa claret to?
action: Aristotle
response: "Splendid! Aristotle cries. "You actually managed it! For a moment there I thought I might have to compromise and drink the shoe polish they serve here."

He pulls out a book from the recesses of his raiments and hands it to you. "A token of my appreciation -- I do hope you enjoy it. Just keep it away from this lot or they'll scribble footnotes all over it," he says, waving at the drunken philosophers, before turning his attention to the bottle with a satisfied gleam in his eyes.
action: Examine book
response: The manual is a thick, leather-bound tome with THE RULES embossed in gold on the cover. The whole process adds up to a syntactical method for answering questions about badgers in Chinese. You can't imagine why.
action: You check what you're carrying
response: You are carrying:
Plato's Complete Works
a broken lantern
a sack (open)
a handkerchief
a qualiascope
an Encyclopaedia of Qualia
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
action: Examine works
response: The Complete Works of Plato -- unabridged and unmolested.
action: You give Works to the librarian
response: "I thought you might have a use for a clean copy," you say, offering the book.

You think for a moment a smile might have crossed the librarian's face. "Thanks," s/he says, if somewhat grudgingly. "Have a banana."

To your surprise s/he does actually produce the fruit from underneath the desk and hands it to you, somewhat abashedly.
action: You examine the banana
response: Yellow and bent, like a politician.
action: You talk to Achilles
response: Achilles blushes when you address him directly, and drags his foot in the sand. "You should talk to Mister Zeno," he says.

[1] Ah, Zeno? Hello?
action: 1
response: "What? Oh! Oh, it's you. Fancy another race then, do you?"

[1] Nah, thanks, I'd only get thrashed again.
[2] I haven't a chance unless you give me a head start!
[3] Yeah, I think I could give it another shot.
action: 2
response: "Oh no, I'm afraid that would foul all the calculations. We'd only need one of those to compensate for some flaw or other in the race track -- and just look at it! Aren't those lanes perfect? Can you manage without?"

[1] Hmm . . . nah, I'll pass this time.
[2] Well, alright, I'll still give it another go.
action: You give up
response: You tumble into a heap on the ground, utterly exhausted. Achilles lets out a sympathetic groan and picks you up bodily, throwing you over his shoulder, before jogging leisurely back to Zeno at the start line.
action: Again
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/64 a millos to go! Keep it up!"
action: Again
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/128 a millos to go! That's nearly there!"
action: Again
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/256 a millos to go! Don't want to give up, do you?"
action: Again
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/512 a millos to go! Don't want to give up, do you?"
action: Again
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/1024 a millos to go! You won't give up now, will you?"
action: Again
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/2048 a millos to go! Surely you can keep going?"
action: Again
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/4096 a millos to go! Surely you can keep going?"
action: Again
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/8192 a millos to go! You can do it!"

You tumble into a heap on the ground, utterly exhausted. Achilles lets
action: You eat the banana
response: out a sympathetic groan and picks you up bodily, throwing you over his shoulder, before jogging leisurely back to Zeno at the start line.

When you come to from your exhausted stupor, you see the two Greeks bending over you, concerned. Achilles (mercifully back in his toga) puts an amphora of wine to your lips, which you splutter away at, sitting up sharply.

"A brave attempt, young adventurer!" says Zeno. "And, philosophically speaking, very interesting, yes, very interesting indeed . . ." He tails off again, and as you pick yourself up, Achilles looks at you regretfully.
action: You eat the banana
response: (first taking the banana)
You're not particularly hungry.
action: You examine the bench
response: Solidly wooden, and relatively unvandalised. Somebody wants to inform you that Friedrich hearts Lou, though.
action: You examine the dye
response: Which do you mean, the phial of red dye or the phial of white dye?
action: You examine hair
response: Ah hair. Hair hair hair. Long, beautiful hair, shining, gleaming, streaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen . . .
action: You take the red dye
response: The barber winks at you, "One per customer. If you change your mind put one back on the stand and take another.
action: You put the banana in the red dye
response: This sort of dye involves powder and ammonia and would be a big hassle to use on a banana. Surely there's a simpler way.
action: You put the banana in the inkwell
response: You dip one end into the inkwell, and then the other end. It's messy, but the result is a rather handsome blue banana.
action: You go west
response: You're still waiting for that book.
action: You examine the banana
response: Bent and blue, like a police officer.

The librarian returns and hands the tome to you wordlessly, before returning to h/er spot behind the counter.
action: Go west
response: You already know the librarian won't let you leave while you've still got that Encyclopaedia, so you hand it back to h/er before leaving.

The square seems somehow madder now the madman has left.

This appears to be the academic quarter of the village, and so may in fact be a quadrangle, which is awfully exciting. You know it's the academic quarter, because the grass is covered with sprawling young people wearing brightly coloured clothes, dreadlocks, and organic deodorant. Architecturally and geographically speaking, the buildings look like they were placed there by a commitee of village planners whose equipment budget stretched only so far as a compass. Three sides of the square are complemented by a museum, research institute and a library, to the west, north and east respectively.
action: You give the banana to Mary
response: You flourish the blue banana in Mary's direction. She squints at it, seeming a little confused. "There's something very odd about that banana," she says. "I think it's blue. You'd better not eat it," she counsels, motherly.

"No," you say. "It's a perfectly ordinary yellow banana. Why don't you take those goggles off and check?"

"Well, if you're sure, dear, then I suppose I'd better," says Mary, fiddling with the strap. "I must have made a mistake in my calculations somewhere."

Struggling with them a little, she pulls the goggles from her head. Blinking, her jaw drops wide open, and she looks about herself in wonderment. "Colours!" she whispers weakly, her knees buckling. "After all this time . . . I never knew . . ." She lets out a small, satisfied sound -- and faints on the spot.
action: You talk to Mary
response: Though as startled by you as ever, Mary greets you warmly. "Oh, hello again, dear! Did you think of something else?"

[1] Sorry, no. Still stuck. I'll leave you to it
action: You give the banana
response: (to Mary)
You flourish the blue banana in Mary's direction. She squints at it, seeming a little confused. "There's something very odd about that banana," she says. "I think it's blue. You'd better not eat it," she counsels, motherly.

"No," you say. "It's a perfectly ordinary yellow banana. Why don't you take those goggles off and check?"

"Well, if you're sure, dear, then I suppose I'd better," says Mary, fiddling with the strap. "I must have made a mistake in my calculations somewhere."

Struggling with them a little, she pulls the goggles from her head. Blinking, her jaw drops wide open, and she looks about herself in wonderment. "Colours!" she whispers weakly, her knees buckling. "After all this time . . . I never knew . . ." She lets out a small, satisfied sound -- and faints on the spot.
action: You look at Mary
response: Mary is lying prone on the floor, unconscious, with with a peculiar smile playing about her lips.
action: You look
response: The lab is filled with all manner of scientific equipment. Monitors, levers, dials and big red buttons cover the walls, while the room's desk -- pushed against the computer stacks on the back wall -- has a complicated-looking laptop-printer set-up perched somewhere in the middle, surrounded by arcane assemblies of metal and glass.

Poor Mary is lying collapsed on the floor, though she seems not unhappy about it..
action: You wake mary
response: That seems unnecessary.
action: You get the laptop
response: Looking askance at the prone Mary, you regretfully snatch her laptop.
action: You examine the laptop
response: It's a swanky computer with a built-in printer. Nice.
action: You use the laptop
response: You've no time to muck about with computers. You're passing this on to someone who needs it as quickly as possible, before electronic entertainment serves as a distraction from the task at hand. You hate it when people play games instead of doing important things.
action: You give the laptop to Marx
response: You place the laptop on Marx's desk with a triumphant thunk. The old man looks up at you. "Liebling!" he cries, breathless. "Not just a typewriter, but a word processor capable of printing multiple copies! This will not be forgotten after the revolution! In the meantime, please take this precious copy Manifesto," he says, pressing the typed manuscript into your hands, "and may it guide you to your unchaining!" With these words he turns back to his work and begins typing furiously.
action: You examine Manifesto
response: You flip to the back page. "You have nothing to lose but your chains"? Fiery stuff; enough to rouse anyone from their dogmatic slumber.
action: You go to the east
response: This is simply a square, book-lined room equipped with a borrowing counter, behind which stands a bored-looking librarian, and a few old desks. At one of these Karl Marx sits, typing furiously.
action: You examine monk
response: From his bald head down to his plain sandals via his saffron robe, the Buddhist monk is a walking Zen clich?.
action: You check your inventory
response: You are carrying:
a Communist Manifesto
a broken lantern
a sack (open)
a handkerchief
a qualiascope
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
action: You give qualiascope to monk
response: (first taking the qualiascope)
(putting the broken lantern into the sack to make room)
The Buddhist monk doesn't seem interested.
action: Light paper
response: This dangerous act would achieve little.
action: You examine the hedgerows
response: You can't tell from here, but it looks like the road turns into a small path that in turn vanishes into some peculariarly cut hedges. Curiouser and curiouser.
action: Go south
response: Striking out south towards the castle, you soon realise what it is that lurks so strangely at the base of the crag. As the rock looms over you like ten tonne weight over a hapless clown, the road becomes a pebbly path leading into what is clearly an enormous maze.

You're standing at the entrance to a vast maze built of hedges that tower six feet above you. The path seems extravagantly narrow, as if the designer wanted to prepare the unwary adventurer from the outside. Above the entrance is a painted wooden sign. It looks important.
action: You go south
response: You step tentatively into the maze, looking askance at the lump of lead. Approaching a moral dilemma, it starts whirring wildly, and glowing cracks in the cube appear. It begins to unfold into an astonishingly complex device -- an array of dishes and balances, with an arrow mounted on top. With little else to do you follow the arrow past the dilemma. And then past the next -- and the next. Moral dilemmas seem not to be dilemmas at all before its power, and soon you emerge from the maze, breathless, at the foot of the crag that looms over this land.

A winding path leads up the side of the crag, and you follow it, huffing and puffing, until you reach the top. Here, looming dangerously atop the already looming crag, sits a gigantic loom. No, a gigantic castle -- you were confused for a minute there. Behind you, this crazy world stretches out below. You take a deep breath. You feel, somehow, that you are near your goal -- whatever that may be..

You are in a paved courtyard before the castle. Here, true to form, an ivory tower towers above you, the result of a billion poaching expeditions or more. Similarly true, a guard guards the broad stairs leading up to the tower.

Below you is the vertiginous path down the side of the crag -- and below that stretches the world. The strangest thing of all, however, is the faint and ominous organ music on the periphery of your hearing.
action: Up
response: You step up to the steps, whistling. The guard, clanking in her armour, steps resolutely in front of you.

"No!" she says, pre-empting the merry greeting you had planned. "I shan't let you past. For I know that I am a guard and that guards guard, and thus I will guard this tower from you.
action: You talk to the guard
response: You step up to the steps, whistling. The guard, clanking in her armour, steps resolutely in front of you.

"Go away," says the guard. "If I'm assured anything, it's that I'm assured of things and one thing I'm assured of is that I don't want you to pass. This I'm sure of."
action: You give the handkerchief to guard
response: (first taking the handkerchief)
(putting the Communist Manifesto into the sack to make room)
The guard doesn't seem interested.
action: You examine the guard
response: The guard is decked out from head to foot in an oversized suit of armour, and is carrying an nasty-looking sword. The only part of the guard you can see are a pair of sparkling blue eyes glowing with righteous clarity.
action: Go downward
response: You pick your way back down the crag, leaving that penultimate-looking tower behind you. You're now able to make your way through the maze with ease, and you're soon back on the other side.

You're standing at the entrance to a vast maze built of hedges that tower six feet above you. The path seems extravagantly narrow, as if the designer wanted to prepare the unwary adventurer from the outside. Above the entrance is a painted wooden sign. It looks important.
action: You examine the hedges
response: Dark and daunting.
action: Go east
response: The plains seem folornly empty now that the unicorn's non-existence has been firmly proven. There is nothing here for you.
action: You go to the east
response: The plains are too vast and empty for that to be a pleasurable walk.
action: You go the church
response: The church appears to have made up its mind about its own interior, plumping for a simple majesty in stone and wood. As the door creaks gracefully closed behind you, you survey your surroundings: the oak pews lining the nave, the beautiful arched stone roof, the carved pulpit at the head of the church and, behind it, an enormous tapestry depicting -- nothing?

In one of the pews a woman in full bridal gear sits, weeping to herself.
action: You examine the pews
response: Once imposing rows of oak seating, the effect has been somewhat diminished by the hardy endeavours of bored worshippers equipped with pocket-knives. The pews now provide an education of biblical proportions for any inquisitve youngster in the arts of caricature, aphorism and sex miseducation.
action: You talk to the bride
response: You tap her lightly on the shoulder, and she dissolves into sobs at your touch like a centuries-old skeleton into dust.

[1] Er . . . are you OK?
[2] Um. Right. Sorry. I'll just . . . stand over here.
action: 1
response: She blows her nose very loudly on her veil and glares at you with red-rimmed eyes. "What do you think?" she says.

[1] Ah. Guess not. Sorry. I'll just . . . stand over here.
action: 1
response: She wails even louder at your departure.
action: You examine the roof
response: Great stone arches support the vault, adorned with gargoyles depicting various breeds of anthropomorphised shellfish.
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
a handkerchief
a qualiascope
a sack (open)
a Communist Manifesto
a broken lantern
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
action: You give the handkerchief to the bride
response: The bride looks at your proferred hanky, at takes it gratefully. Casting the soaked veil aside, she blows her nose with a foghorn bellow and looks folornly at the altar.
action: You take the veil
response: You pick up the veil and wring it out. On examining it, you realise that the fine lacework spells out a word: Ignorance. Curiouser and curiouser. Um. More curious.
action: You talk to the bride
response: After she's fully evacuated her nose into your hanky she hands it back to you. You look at it, aghast at the vast quantities of snot therein.

[1] That's OK. You can keep it.
[2] Best hold on to that. Better now?
action: 2
response: "A little," she says, in a very small voice, and proceeds to snort out an even more prolific stream.

[1] Well, that's good to hear. Do you think it would help to talk about what's bothering you?
[2] Sweet. Glad to help. If you ever need a shoulder to cry on . . . [3] Why the long face, anyway?
action: 2
response: Immediately the bride grasps your shoulder and sobs into it, the tearful torrent turning your clothes into a wet mush.

[1] There, there.
[2] Right. Sure. Well, this shoulder's a bit wet now, so I think I'll leave you with the hanky, OK?
action: 1
response: You pat her awkwardly on the shoulder, and wait for the tears to dry up. It takes a while. Then she sits up, takes a deep breath, and begins:

"We'd been engaged for months, and deeply in love for years before. We'd prepared for today for weeks and weeks, and it was all meant to be so -- so perfect. But I knew something was wrong. There's been something wrong with him for a few days now. Ever since he picked up a logic textbook.

"He started to get this awkward look in his eyes when we talked about the wedding. He'd dodge the subject. But he never said he'd do this! Leave me standing at the altar like an unwanted pudding!

"I waited for an hour. The guests all started to leave. His family scarpered and mine chased after them. Then it was just me, when his best man came and told me what had happened.

"He'd realised he couldn't marry me. The book had told him. Decades of the world's most pre-eminent philosophers have said it. He was a bachelor. And all bachelors are unmarried men."

The bride sighs, hiccups, and then, just as you think she's about to recover, dissolves into another bout of sobbing. You decide that now is probably the most tactful time to leave, and vow to be more original in your logic examples in future.
action: You examine the woman
response: She's like a very damp pile of meringues, and she's getting damper by the second.
action: You look at the pulpit
response: An huge oak platform with an overarching sound-board; you imagine a preacher could boom out from here.
action: You examine the door
response: The heavy wooden portal at the southwest end of the church leads back to the village street. It's covered with some very peculiar carvings.
action: You examine the carvings
response: These relief carvings appear to show a sequence of scenes from some strange mythology. In the first, a nubile young woman is examining a peculiar package laid under a tall tree. In the second, she is wearing a short tartan skirt, a snappy blaze and pigtails, and a strapping young lad is advancing on her rapidly. In the third, twelve men are gathered, six holding hoes and six holding spears, while in the fourth one of the spearmen is brutally attacking one of the hoemen. The following scenes include floods, burning rains, lots of sex and inumerable platypuses. Platypi. The usual myth-fodder.
action: You go the Theatre
response: You try the theatre doors, but they're fastened shut. A scrawled sign by them says "Closed for rehearsals. New sensual extravaganzas coming soon.
action: You look at Lumberjack
response: The lumberjack is wearing a flannel shirt and heavy boots whilst sporting a beard of revolutionary proportions and carrying an axe. She looks like Paul Bunyan in minature.
action: You get the axe
response: That seems to belong to the lumberjack.
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
a veil
a qualiascope
a sack (open)
a Communist Manifesto
a broken lantern
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
action: You give Manifesto to Lumberjack
response: (first taking the Communist Manifesto)
(putting the qualiascope into the sack to make room)
The lumberjack doesn't seem interested.
action: You examine model
response: It's mouth gaping open and its glass eyes staring, this enormous model of a bat frightens the life out of you. The fact that it's gently turning round and round serves only to add a touch of psychopathic absurdity.
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
a Communist Manifesto
a veil
a sack (open)
a qualiascope
a broken lantern
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
action: You give the paper to Achilles
response: You can only do that to something animate.
action: You take the paper
response: (putting the veil into the sack to make room)
Taken.
action: 1
response: "Oh dear. Well, do drop by again if you change your mind."
action: You examine lighter
response: It a bit old and creaky, but it gives a serviceable spark.
action: You look at the track
response: Little more than a few lines in the sand. There's one just by Achilles and Zeno and the other terribly, terribly far (it seems) in the distance. You can only tell where it is by the flag fluttering away there. In between the two, long lines follow the steep curve of the beach to mark out two lanes, outside and inside. As the beach takes a steep curve for the length of the race track, the inside lane is probably a little bit shorter than the outer.
action: You talk to Zeno
response: "What? Oh! Oh, it's you. Fancy another race then, do you?"

[1] Nah, thanks, I'd only get thrashed again.
[2] Yeah, I think I could give it another shot.
[3] It's exhausting! Just how long is that track?
action: 2
response: "Splendid! Bravo! Well, then, you two had better get ready!"
action: Swap lane
response: You're standing at the start line, stripped to your underwear. You made that much of a compromise with the two Greeks. Achilles, limbering up next to you, was not so modest. You feel like your eyeballs are being dragged on strings, downwards and sideways . . . You look away, blushing furiously, and crouch down, set, the aching vision of school P.E. lessons mugging you in memory alley.

When Zeno shouts the go, there's a moment of blurred confusion as you both launch off. Your mind can't manage any complicated tasks, like managing sensory apparatus, when it's pumping your arms and legs this hard. When the mess of sensations starts to coalesce, you realise that Achilles has streaked (in every sense of the word) off in front of you, and is already nearly at the finish line. Oh, well. At least you tried.

Achilles loops around the flagpole and jogs back to you. Soon he's bouncing up and down at your side, jiggling in a disconcerting way. "Come on!" he says. "You're halfway there!"

At this stage, you don't think your brain can possibly cope with issuing any instructions other than GIVE UP or KEEP RUNNING.
action: You keep running
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/4 a millos to go! You can do it!"
action: You keep running
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/8 a millos to go! You can do it!"
action: You give up
response: You tumble into a heap on the ground, utterly exhausted. Achilles lets out a sympathetic groan and picks you up bodily, throwing you over his shoulder, before jogging leisurely back to Zeno at the start line.
action: You examine the flag
response: It seems to be a simple red rectangle -- with a circular hole cut in it?
action: You hold the veil
response: (putting the Communist Manifesto into the sack to make room)
You pick the veil up again. How tedious.
action: You check what you're carrying
response: You are carrying:
a veil
a useless scrap of paper
a sack (open)
a Communist Manifesto
a qualiascope
a broken lantern
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a Categorical Imperativator
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
action: You keep running
response: You plummet onwards down the track, Achilles keeping pace beside you.

"Only 1/4 a millos to go! Don't want to give up, do you?"
action: You look at Ship
response: The business end of a great ship is poking through the wall of the museum, with a surprised-looking mermaid stuck on the pointy bit. It might be a figurehead. The name on the prow is "Theseus".
action: You look at the mermaid
response: The figurehead has a very peculiar expression on her face. Well, you would too if someone had carved you from wood and then shoved a ship up you.
action: You examine ruler
response: It's an exquisite measuring rule, that can apparently tell you the most beautifully perfect action in any given situation.
action: You drop all
response: sack: Dropped.
veil: Dropped.
invitation to the state of naturist camp: Dropped.
action: You open the sack
response: That's already open.
action: You get all except the cube
response: invitation to the state of naturist camp: Taken.
veil: You pick the veil up again. How tedious.
sack: Taken.
shoelaces: Philosophers are not yet supermen.
exhibits: You doubt you could escape the museum with that.
Ship of Theseus: Philosophers are not yet supermen.
mermaid: Philosophers are not yet supermen.
pirate: Philosophers are not yet supermen.
steward: Philosophers are not yet supermen. HallomynameisTracyhowmayIhelpyou: Philosophers are not yet supermen. Golden Mean Ruler: Philosophers are not yet supermen.
Utility Calculator: Philosophers are not yet supermen.
action: You talk to the pirate
response: "I've come up with an excellent name for your ship!" you cry. The pair look at you inquisitively.

[1] The Golden Behind!
[2] The Black Oyster!
[3] The Double Dutchman!
[4] The Sea Ape!
[5] The Peapod!
[6] The Slutty Park!
[7] Er . . . just joking.
action: 7
response: The pirate just blinks at you.
action: You examine the sack
response: A very large sack, still with a few strands of straw stuck in the bottom.
action: You drop all
response: sack: Dropped.
veil: Dropped.
invitation to the state of naturist camp: Dropped.
action: TAKE SACK, VEIL, PAPER
response: sack: Taken.
veil: You pick the veil up again. How tedious.
invitation to the state of naturist camp: Taken.
action: You get all
response: That's a bit greedy. Try taking specific things.
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
a useless scrap of paper
a veil
a sack (open)
a Communist Manifesto
a qualiascope
a broken lantern
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a Categorical Imperativator
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
action: You examine the cabinets
response: The cabinets are filled with all manner of bat-related paraphernalia: bats preserved in formaldehyde, books on bat culture, packets of crispy fried bat wings . . .
action: You give the scope to Man
response: (first taking the qualiascope)
(putting the veil into the sack to make room)
Nagel doesn't seem interested.
action: You go tavern
response: A raucous rabble of eminent philosophers line the tables and bar, discussing matters squifflily with slurred syllables and questionable eloquence. You overhear Plato and Socrates brazenly investigating what the correct pronunciation of the word scone is. The only one not joining in seems to be Aristotle, who is sitting at a table in the corner, drinking fine claret in a very satisfied manner. In the eastern wall is the back door through which Mill threw himself earlier.

Somewhat incongruously, you spot an electronic games machine sitting against the wall next to a rather glum looking booth, being rather neglected by the roistering philosophers.
action: Go east
response: You wander through the back door into an alleyway and there amidst a pile of broken truth tables and discarded copies of the Principia Mathematica sit a sequiter of logicians, playing illegal logic games. W.V.O. Quine seems to be the ring leader.
action: You get Principia
response: Not while G?del's watching!
action: You look at the tables
response: Truth tables are chalked on the floor of the alleyway, achieving a very sophisticated level of graffiti.

You notice that Whitehead is in something of a sulk over a recent piece of aggressive betting from Boole.
action: You look at Quine
response: Wearing a battered trilby and a stained trench-coat, the logician looks about himself shiftily as he monitors the racket of logic games.
action: You examine the Whitehead
response: Playing games with coloured beads and cups amidst the truth tables sit a shifty-looking bunch of logicians. You think you notice Turing and Kripke pondering over vagueness, while G?del admits defeat.
action: You examine Principia
response: The copies of the Principia Mathematica are stacked in neat piles --they are being put to use as make-shift seats.
action: Go west
response: A raucous rabble of eminent philosophers line the tables and bar, discussing matters squifflily with slurred syllables and questionable eloquence. You overhear Plato and Socrates childishly debating about linguistic puzzles. The only one not joining in seems to be Aristotle, who is sitting at a table in the corner, drinking fine claret in a very satisfied manner. In the eastern wall is the back door through which Mill threw himself earlier.

Somewhat incongruously, you spot an electronic games machine sitting against the wall next to a rather glum looking booth, being rather neglected by the roistering philosophers.
action: You talk to Socrates
response: He seems rather too far gone to cope with intelligible conversation -- if indeed he ever was.
action: You talk to Aristotle
response: "Aristotle looks mournfully at you. "Corked!" he cries, indicating the claret. "The gods too are fond of a joke," he sighs, a tear in his eye. You take the opportunity to tactfully remove yourself.
action: You examine fire place
response: The roaring fire is a pleasant backdrop to the unbridled drinking and philosophising.
action: You give Manifesto to Anscombe
response: (first taking the Communist Manifesto)
(putting the invitation to the state of naturist camp into the sack to make room)
Elizabeth Anscombe doesn't seem interested.
action: You check your inventory
response: You are carrying:
a Communist Manifesto
a qualiascope
a sack (open)
a useless scrap of paper
a veil
a broken lantern
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a Categorical Imperativator
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
action: You enter the cafe
response: Pavement Caf?
The caf? spills out into the street. Steel chairs are scattered around the serving kiosk, apparently chaotically, though you suspect there's a cynical art to it. Most of the customers are buried in books, thimble-sized cups of black coffee steaming by them and handmade cigarettes rolling around the corners of their mouths. Some of them, though, are intense young couples clasping hands across their plates, boring into each other's eyes as if looking for some flaw, breaking the gaze only to toss hair or adjust a beret. Sitting in the corner, Jean-Paul Sartre surveys the caf? around him and smiles in a satisfied yet enigmatic way.

The server stands behind the kiosk, chainsmoking and glaring menacingly.
action: You give the veil to the server
response: (first taking the veil)
(putting the qualiascope into the sack to make room)
You pick the veil up again. How tedious.

The server doesn't seem interested.
action: You look at lighter
response: The darkness envelops everything. It is the darkness of ignorance. Or possibly just an ordinary sort of darkness, but in any case, you won't be able to do anything until you bring some sort of light source here.
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
a veil
a Communist Manifesto
a sack (open)
a qualiascope
a useless scrap of paper
a broken lantern
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a Categorical Imperativator
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
action: You listen
response: A worrying hush fills the room.
action: Smell
response: The whole place reeks of allegory.
action: You go to the east
response: spooky woods you see before you. All around you are brambles, bracken and blackened lightning struck trees.

Turning east you can just about make out happier looking trees. All that you can see in this part of the woods is a mess of brambles.
action: You go south
response: Remembering the route from last time, you make your way quickly through the maze, up the crag, and to the foot of the castle.

You are in a paved courtyard before the castle. Here, true to form, an ivory tower towers above you, the result of a billion poaching expeditions or more. Similarly true, a guard guards the broad stairs leading up to the tower.

Below you is the vertiginous path down the side of the crag -- and below that stretches the world.
action: You ascend
response: You are in a paved courtyard before the castle. Here, true to form, an ivory tower towers above you, the result of a billion poaching expeditions or more. Similarly true, a guard guards the broad stairs leading up to the tower.

Below you is the vertiginous path down the side of the crag -- and below that stretches the world.
action: You give the veil to the guard
response: I don't think she'd just accept the veil. It's more something that you'll need to throw at her.
action: You throw the veil at guard
response: You look shiftily from side to side, and when you assure yourself that nobody is watching, you cast the veil over the guard's helmet. For several long moments you wait. Hesitantly, you put a foot past the guard. She doesn't move.

"Hello?" you whisper.

"Excuse me, I seem to be completely ignorant to who I am and why I am here," she replies. "Can you help me?"

[1] A living statue, your job is to keep still and quiet all day.
[2] You're a guard -- you're guarding these stairs from me passsing [3] You're Bishop Berkeley and you're on your way to the tavern to give a lecture on Idealism.
[4] You're a mild mannered accountant by day, but by night you don a cape and fight crime.
[5] You're a very charitable person who would never dream of impeding someone's progress up some stairs.
[6] You're an itinerant farm-hand who dreams of one day owning their own farm with rabbits and alpaca, but deep down you know it'll never happen.
[7] You write Thus Spoke Zarathustra fan-fiction and go to heavy metal concerts.
action: 1
response: "That sounds nice, but if it's all the same to you," she says, "I'm just going to stand here until I've got things figured out for myself."
action: Go up
response: You clamber up the stairs and through into the tower. The ivory wall, eased by its last descent, crashes down behind you before you can do anything. This is it, then.

Perfectly round and with walls of glistening ivory, this is definitely more of a chamber than a room. A huge sheet of ivory blocks the exit archway, while opposite it sits an ivory-panelled door, with a definite sense of being heavily locked about it. Through this door come the strains of atmospheric organ music you heard earlier, a little clearer, and a little more foreboding.

None of this is the most striking thing about the chamber, however. The most striking thing is the fact that in the centre of the room buzz thousands of bees, all hovering stationary in a curiously-shaped cloud.
action: You look at the bees
response: On closer examination the bees are hovering in the exact shape of a vending machine. You can even see the slot where the money goes, and the little tray where the goods drop down. It would be a refreshingly normal sight in this mad world, if it weren't for the fact that it were made out of thousands of writhing insects it would be rather a relief.
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
a Communist Manifesto
a sack (open)
a qualiascope
a useless scrap of paper
a broken lantern
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a Categorical Imperativator
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
action: You put fifty in the slot
response: You insert the fifty pence piece into the slot, and instead of the usual clunks and whirrings of machinery, you hear a series of buzzes and organic-sounding thuds. Finally, a key drops into the little tray at the bottom of the machine.
action: You get the key
response: Which do you mean, the first key or the Chinese key?
action: You examine it
response: A slender key with the number one engraved into the metalwork.
action: Look around
response: Perfectly round and with walls of glistening ivory, this is definitely more of a chamber than a room. A huge sheet of ivory blocks the exit archway, while opposite it sits an ivory-panelled door, with a definite sense of being heavily locked about it. Through this door come the strains of atmospheric organ music you heard earlier, a little clearer, and a little more foreboding.

None of this is the most striking thing about the chamber, however. The most striking thing is the fact that in the centre of the room buzz thousands of bees, all hovering stationary in a curiously-shaped cloud.
action: You examine the door
response: The huge, ivory-panelled door, is adorned with an intricate-looking lock.
action: You unlock door
response: What do you want to unlock the firstdoor with?
action: First
response: You unlock the door and open it, trembling with trepidation. Through the door lies another ivory staircase -- a spiral staircase which winds upwards towards another chamber.

You are only a little surprised to find that this chamber is almost entirely identical to the first, with the same stairs leading down and the same huge door,  but for two minor details: firstly, the atmospheric organ music is ever so slightly louder; secondly, the machine in the centre of the room is both not made of bees and clearly a time machine. The clue is in the words "Time Machine" engraved on its casing.
action: You look at the Time Machine
response: A feat of elaborate steelwork has wrought this magnificent device. There's what looks like a control booth perched in a torturous assembly of elaborate mechanics, as beautiful as they are strange. There's a red fake leather seat inside the booth, which rather spoils the image, as does the mouldy newspaper sitting on it. The chrome dials inside the booth are pretty nice, though.
action: You look at the newspaper
response: It's a rather damp and extremely boring edition of The Times from 1957. The only interesting item in it is a piece about an ongoing unsolved crime -- the theft of a priceless paracentric key from the key exhibition at the International House of Keys, loaned to the museum by the H.G Wells Reenactment Society.

The one witness to the theft, a recently-engaged young security guard, said "I don't know how the bugger snuck past me -- all I know is, there was a flash of light from the exhibition room, the alarm goes off, I rushes in, and he clunks me one. Don't know what with, but it laid me out for hours -- I was lucky he didn't have a proper weapon with him."
action: You get it
response: (putting the Communist Manifesto into the sack to make room)
Taken.
action: You examine the dials
response: (the workings)
Terrifyingly complicated; you'd rather not touch them.
action: You examine the seat
response: It looks like it was purloined from an American 1950"s diner.
action: You listen
response: The sound of passing time.
action: You enter Machine
response: You clamber into the Time Machine and perch on the red seat.

Second Chamber (in the Time Machine)
This chamber is exactly like the one below it but for two minor details: firstly, the atmospheric organ music is ever so slightly louder; secondly, the machine in the centre of the room is both not made of bees and clearly a time machine. The clue is in the words "Time Machine" engraved on its casing.
action: You examine Machine
response: A feat of elaborate steelwork has wrought this magnificent device. There's what looks like a control booth perched in a torturous assembly of elaborate mechanics, as beautiful as they are strange. There's a red fake leather seat inside the booth, which rather spoils the image. The chrome dials inside the booth are pretty nice, though.
action: You check what you're carrying
response: You are carrying:
a newspaper
a first key
a sack (open)
a Communist Manifesto
a qualiascope
a useless scrap of paper
a broken lantern
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a Categorical Imperativator
a lighter
a Chinese key
action: Examine booth
response: The booth contains a red fake leather seat from which some chrome dials can be reached.
action: You examine the dials
response: (the workings)
Terrifyingly complicated; you'd rather not touch them.
action: You touch dials
response: (the workings)
You feel nothing unexpected.
action: You turn the dials
response: (the workings)
There is a season for that, but it's not this one.
action: Exit
response: You get out of the Time Machine.

This chamber is exactly like the one below it but for two minor details: firstly, the atmospheric organ music is ever so slightly louder; secondly, the machine in the centre of the room is both not made of bees and clearly a time machine. The clue is in the words "Time Machine" engraved on its casing.
action: You go upwards
response: Through the door lies another ivory staircase -- a spiral staircase which winds upwards towards another chamber.

This chamber is exactly like the one below it but for two minor details: firstly, the atmospheric organ music is ever so slightly louder; secondly, the machine in the centre of the room is both not made of bees and clearly a time machine. The clue is in the words "Time Machine" engraved on its casing.
action: You look at the mechanics
response: If only you were studying for a bachelors of science, not art! Then you might begin to understand the complexities of the time machine. Even a degree in zoology would take you a stage closer than you are now.
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
a banana
a broken lantern
a sack (open)
a handkerchief
a qualiascope
an Encyclopaedia of Qualia
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
action: You wait for a while
response: Time passes. Or at least, loiters around for a while longer.

The librarian returns and hands the tome to you wordlessly, before returning to h/er spot behind the counter.
action: Go west
response: You already know the librarian won't let you leave while you've still got that Encyclopaedia, so you hand it back to h/er before leaving.

The square seems somehow madder now the madman has left.

This appears to be the academic quarter of the village, and so may in fact be a quadrangle, which is awfully exciting. You know it's the academic quarter, because the grass is covered with sprawling young people wearing brightly coloured clothes, dreadlocks, and organic deodorant. Architecturally and geographically speaking, the buildings look like they were placed there by a commitee of village planners whose equipment budget stretched only so far as a compass. Three sides of the square are complemented by a museum, research institute and a library, to the west, north and east respectively.
action: You give the handkerchief to the woman
response: (first taking the handkerchief)
(putting the broken lantern into the sack to make room)
The bride looks at your proferred hanky, at takes it gratefully. Casting the soaked veil aside, she blows her nose with a foghorn bellow and looks folornly at the altar.
action: You talk to her
response: After she's fully evacuated her nose into your hanky she hands it back to you. You look at it, aghast at the vast quantities of snot therein.

[1] That's OK. You can keep it.
[2] Best hold on to that. Better now?
action: 1
response: "Thanks," she says tearfully, and proceeds to snort out an even more prolific stream.

[1] You're more than welcome. Do you think it would help to talk about what's bothering you?
[2] Not a problem. Glad to help. If you ever need a shoulder to cry on . . .
[3] Yeah, well. Why the long face, anyway?
action: 1
response: "No," sniffs the bride. "But I'll tell you anyway, if you're that interested."

[1] Er . . . Sure!
[2] Oh, well. I'll just leave you to it then.
action: 1
response: She wipes her cheeks, smearing mascara and blusher, takes a deep breath, and begins:

"We'd been engaged for months, and deeply in love for years before. We'd prepared for today for weeks and weeks, and it was all meant to be so -- so perfect. But I knew something was wrong. There's been something wrong with him for a few days now. Ever since he picked up a logic textbook.

"He started to get this awkward look in his eyes when we talked about the wedding. He'd dodge the subject. But he never said he'd do this! Leave me standing at the altar like an unwanted pudding!

"I waited for an hour. The guests all started to leave. His family scarpered and mine chased after them. Then it was just me, when his best man came and told me what had happened.

"He'd realised he couldn't marry me. The book had told him. Decades of the world's most pre-eminent philosophers have said it. He was a bachelor. And all bachelors are unmarried men."

The bride sighs, hiccups, and then, just as you think she's about to recover, dissolves into another bout of sobbing. You decide that now is probably the most tactful time to leave, and vow to be more original in your logic examples in future.
action: You get the veil
response: You pick up the veil and wring it out. On examining it, you realise that the fine lacework spells out a word: Ignorance. Curiouser and curiouser. Um. More curious.
action: You examine the woman
response: She's like a very damp pile of meringues, and she's getting damper by the second.
action: Pump about Achilles
response: You pull the pump's handle, concentrating furiously. You intuit that the only way to beat Achilles would be to get a headstart, and the only way to do that would be to demonstrate that something about the race is unfair. Better have a good look at that racetrack.
action: You look at the sand
response: The sand flows down from the dunes like sugar from a spilt and split shopping bag. You bend down and let it run thorugh your fingers in a stream of pure romantic clich?. It's astonishingly fine.
action: You show the track to Achilles
response: (first taking the race track)
Philosophers are not yet supermen.
action: 3
response: "Oh, only a millos or so."

[1] Hmm . . . nah, I'll pass this time.
[2] Phew! Well, I'll still give it another go.
[3] And had you realised that one lane is just a little bit shorter than the other?
action: 3
response: Zeno's eyes widen, and he glances round at the steeply curving track. "Curses!" he says "Quite true! That throws all my my calculations out, and renders, I'm terribly sorry, all races completely invalid."

[1] You could just give me -- I mean, the person on the outside lane -- a bit of a head start.
[2] Well, I'm not racing again, I'm afraid.
action: 1
response: "Why, you're absolutely right! Magnificent! Well, what are you waiting for? Line up, you two!"
action: Run run run
response: At this stage, you don't think your brain can possibly cope with issuing any instructions other than GIVE UP or KEEP RUNNING.

With a gleam in your eye, you quickly take your position on the outside lane, just 50 podes ahead of Achilles. When Zeno shouts the go, you pump your legs away without bothering to look behind you.

When you've reached about halfway down the track, you hear a curse to Zeus close behind you. Achilles has made a good deal of headway, but something seems to be holding him back. Every time he reaches where you've just been, you've managed to make a little further hard progress down towards the flag. For each bound he takes, you manage another bound -- a smaller, humbler bound -- a little further forward. And while you're flagging more than him, and he manages to catch up a little further on each bound, he never quite makes it to you.

Now it's just a matter of endurance. You set your head towards the flag and keep forging on. It gets closer and closer, with Achilles coming up just behind you, a gnat's crotchet away -- and you reach the flag! Throwing yourself over the finish line, you grab onto the pole and sink to the ground, exhausted. Achilles throws himself down beside you, and you both gaze up at the fluttering red flag, with that peculiar hole in the centre, waiting for something like breath to return to your lungs.
action: You run
response: When you finally make it back to Zeno, he is applauding wildly. "Magnificent! Magnificent!" Even the deject Achilles is overwhelmed as Zeno thrusts the glass trophy into your arms and grabs him by the hand. "Now see here, Achilles," he says, drawing complicated equations in the sand as Achilles looks on, rapt.
action: You examine trophy
response: It's a finely-engraved glass cup with a big bowl.
action: You give the lantern to the steward
response: (first taking the broken lantern)
(putting the Communist Manifesto into the sack to make room)
You've got your hands a bit full. You're going to have to find a sack or something if you want to carry any more.
action: You attach the trophy to the lantern
response: It would be even better with some PVA glue, three yoghurt pots and an egg carton but even with just your will-to-create, a broken lantern and a priceless glass trophy you are able to fasten together a servicible lantern.
action: You examine the lantern
response: The trophy's glass bowl shields the lantern's wick splendidly. Now you just need to light the damn thing.
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
a modified lantern
a veil
a sack (open)
a Communist Manifesto
a qualiascope
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
a fifty pence piece
a lighter
a Chinese key
action: You take lighter
response: (putting the veil into the sack to make room)
Taken.
action: Light lantern with lighter
response: The lantern lights! You jump around gleefully for a few moments, before recovering your sobriety.
action: You go west
response: You push your way through the brambles and gingerly descend into the dark cave beyond.

The lantern's dim glow casts shadows across the walls of the cavern, which, oddly, seems not so much collossal as contrived. Raising the lantern, you read an etching over the eastern entrance to the cave: "Property of Plato." Casting it around, you notice a gap in the walls of the cavern that leads down further into the cave system.

Bizarrely, chained down in the centre of the cave are a group of wasted-looking humans. They make no reaction to your stumbling entrance, save to stare intently at the shadows you are casting on the wall. Feeling a little sheepish, you make a bunny shadow-picture for them, it being the only one you can remember. They fail to smile.
action: You look at the people
response: The denizens sit with their legs and necks chained so they cannot turn their heads from the shadowy forms in front of them. Their ears are covered in thick earmuffs and on their faces lie expressions devoid of all curiosity.
action: You show Manifesto to the people
response: (first taking the Communist Manifesto)
(putting the lighter into the sack to make room)
The denizens of Plato's Cave seems to take no notice.
action: You give Manifesto to people
response: It would be terribly cruel to incite them to cast off the shackles of their oppression when they're sitting impotent in locked chains.
action: You remove the chains
response: (first taking the chains)
Philosophers are not yet supermen.
action: Unlock chains
response: What do you want to unlock the chains with?
action: You examine the chains
response: The chains link every one of the denizens, locking them tightly in place. They come together into one giant padlock.
action: You examine the padlock
response: This padlock looks like it eats other locks for breakfast.
action: You check your inventory
response: You are carrying:
a Communist Manifesto
a lit lantern (providing light)
a sack (open)
a lighter
a veil
a qualiascope
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
a fifty pence piece
a Chinese key
action: You talk to the people
response: You saunter up to one of the denizens and tap one of them on the shoulder.

[1] Hello?
[2] (leave)
action: 1
response: "What?" says the denizen, "you'll have to speak up!"

[1] Hello?
[2] I said, "HELLO!"
[3] Oh, never mind. . .
action: 2
response: "Hello," replies the denizen. You resolve to speak a little louder from now on.

[1] Love the earmuffs. They really complement the shackles.
[2] Nice cave -- I like what you've done with the place.
[3] What's the shadow play you're watching?
action: 1
response: Two of the denizens give a look that would usually accompany a cursory glance around in less cervical-rotational-inhibited examiners. One says, "What earmuffs?"

[1] The ones your wearing.
[2] Ah, my mistake: I must be mistaking a mass case of advanced ear-hair growth with earmuffs.
action: 1
response: "I don't know what you're talking about," three of them say in unison. Given the differing inflection, they may not all have been replying to the same remark.

[1] So . . . quite the cave system you've got here.
[2] Cute manacles. Are they one-cuff-chains-all, or do they come in different sizes?
[3] Are those shadows playing the Importance of Being Earnest on the wall over there, or is it Deformed Rabbit?
action: 2
response: "I see no such thing!" replies one of the cave dwellers. "Nothing chains us here," rejoinders another.

[1] How do explain the fact that you can't move?
[2] Clearly the entire back catalogue of a bondage shop has been wasted on you if you don't even realise it's there.
action: 1
response: "Oh, alright," admits one of them, "maybe we're a little chained up. It's not as if there's anything more inteesting to see behind us."

[1] Other than the world of real forms as opposed to the shadow world you see before you?
[2] What about colours and three dimensional objects?
[3] There are many wondrous things out there -- like talking scarecrows, burning windmills and friendly barbers.
action: 1
response: The denizens of the cave don't seem to heed your word, dismissing such things as metaphysical illusions.

[1] How do feel about sitting in a dank little cave?
[2] Do you spend all your time watching shadows, or is it only when adventurers come by with sources of light?
action: 2
response: "What shadows?" asks a denizen to your left, her eyes affixed on the shadow play on the wall.

[1] The ones you're watching -- shapes caused by objects partially blocking a source of light.
[2] What else do you call the display you're watching?
action: 1
response: "What we're watching," explains one of the denezins, "is the world go by. This is reality."

[1] This isn't reality, it's the semblance of reality.
[2] You're glued to an illusion.
action: 1
response: The denizens don't seem to listen, preferring simply to continue to stare at the shadows on the wall.

[1] So. . . nice cave system you've got here.
action: 1
response: "What cave?" three of them chant from somewhere around the back row. The one you were addressing continues to stare ahead.

[1] This cave. You know, the one you're sitting in.
[2] My mistake, your cold damp dark cavernous environ isn't a cave. It's a foreshortened underground tunnel.
action: 1
response: The denizen that you were originally addressing expresses his disbelief in mutters.
action: You talk to the people
response: There's nothing else worthwhile to say to the denizens. They're still chained to the cave floor, watching the shadow play.
action: You unlock the padlock with the key
response: (first taking the Chinese key)
(putting the Communist Manifesto into the sack to make room)
That doesn't seem to fit the lock.
action: You unlock padlock with Manifesto
response: (first taking the Communist Manifesto)
(putting the Chinese key into the sack to make room)
That doesn't seem to fit the lock.
action: You eat the padlock
response: (first taking the padlock)
Philosophers are not yet supermen.
action: You look around
response: The lantern's dim glow casts shadows across the walls of the cavern, which, oddly, seems not so much collossal as contrived. Raising the lantern, you read an etching over the eastern entrance to the cave: "Property of Plato." Casting it around, you notice a gap in the walls of the cavern that leads down further into the cave system. Chained down in the centre of the room, eyes affixed on your shadow playing on the wall, are the denizens of this cave. You make a bunny shadow-picture for them.
action: Go downward
response: You crawl resolutely down into a dank catacomb, pausing only to scrape wumpus dung from your feet. Here in the catacombs a horde of chattering bats fly amidst the staligmites and staligtites.

One bat, looking particularly melancholy, hovers for a moment in front of your face. "I hate my life," it says, before fluttering sadly off.
action: You listen
response: The bats chitter and chatter, and would chutter as well, if it didn't sound so silly.

You hear a bat circling above you humming a brutal-sounding song to itself.
action: You talk to the bat
response: "My, my, don't you look tasty," chatter the bats chitteringly.

[1] Why, thank you.
[2] I never foresaw the day when I'd be chat-up by bats.
action: 2
response: A bat flies out from the group and droops dejectedly off a staligmite near you. "I'd savour it and leave before they savour you."

[1] Savour me? I'm not going to be eaten am I?
[2] You seem a tad melancholy.
action: 2
response: "You would be too," the bat cries, "if the bloody secrets of your tortured soul were ignored by all the reputable philosophy journals."

[1] Reputable philosophical journals? Pardon?
[2] That's a very strange thing to be upset about.
[3] Do explain.
action: 3
response: The bat blinks sadly at you, brushing its fringe away from its eyes with a sweep of its tattered wing. "It's like this," it begins, in a voice resonant with murky emotion. "All the journals care about is zombies, zombies, zombies. None of them care to investigate the deepest, darkest revelations of the deep, dark mind of the vampire bat. No-one understands us! Nobody cares!

[1] Well, I'm a philosopher -- perhaps I could spread the word?
[2] Yes, I can certainly see how that would be pertinent to philosophy.
[3] Gosh, that is tragic. Please do unclasp the bosom of your secret soul to me.
action: 1
response: The bat hops towards you a little hopefully. "Really?" it says. "Really?" It looks down at its claws. "I've written a book, you know," it whispers. "An autobiography. It has poems in it. Not that publishers do anything other than reject it. But perhaps . . . perhaps . . . ?" It looks towards you expectantly.

[1] Oh, go on, give it here.
[2] A vampire bat's verse autobiography? I'm positively quivering with excitement.
action: 1
response: The bat pulls a tiny book from behind its wings and drops it to the ground in front of you with a little whimper. "Thank you," it says breathily, its fringe drooping lower and lower. "I'm going to go and feed on some virgins now to assuage my insatiable homicidal appetite for human blood. Thanks for listening." It takes off in an excited flurry and chitters away.
action: You get the book
response: (the bat's autobiography)
(putting the Communist Manifesto into the sack to make room)
Taken.
action: You give the book
response: (the bat's autobiography to Nagel)
You grab Nagel as he passes you, heading for the cabinets. "Here," you say. "I thought you might like this."

He looks down at the book, wide-eyed. "Never . . . " he says. "Never in all my days . . . How did you get this?"

"Just chatted to them, really," you reply.

"Interesting," he says, already frantically flipping through the pages, waving a hand around the laboratory. "And I thought that all we could do was study them like this. But now . . . oh now . . . please, would you leave me with this? And would you look after these keys for me? They were given to me to look after by some old man in a toga when he saw how much time I spent in the caves gathering specimens. But I shan't need  . . . to go there . . . any more . . . "

He drifts off into his own world, absorbed entirely by the book. You grab the bunch of keys from his outstretched hand, wondering what they could possibly open.
action: You check your inventory
response: You are carrying:
a bunch of keys
a lit lantern (providing light)
a sack (open)
a Communist Manifesto
a Chinese key
a lighter
a veil
a qualiascope
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
a fifty pence piece
action: You go to the west
response: You push your way through the brambles and gingerly descend into the dark cave beyond.

The lantern's dim glow casts shadows across the walls of the cavern, which, oddly, seems not so much collossal as contrived. Raising the lantern, you read an etching over the eastern entrance to the cave: "Property of Plato." Casting it around, you notice a gap in the walls of the cavern that leads down further into the cave system. Chained down in the centre of the room, eyes affixed on your shadow playing on the wall, are the denizens of this cave. You make a bunny shadow-picture for them.
action: Unlock lock
response: What do you want to unlock the padlock with?
action: Unlock padlock with bunch
response: You find the right key amonst the bunch to unlock the unwieldy padlock and it opens with a satisfying click. None of the denizens seem to notice.
action: You give Manifesto to people
response: (first taking the Communist Manifesto)
(putting the bunch of keys into the sack to make room)
You hand the closest denizen the Communist Manifesto and wait while she reads it outloud to the other. You go for a quick nap through the bits about modes of production and different kinds of bourgoisie, waking up in time for the end:

"Workers of the world unite!" a denizen exclaims, getting into the spirit of things, "You have nothing to lose but your chains!"

"You know, I think she's right," pipes up another at the back.

"I agree!" shouts another.

"Wait a second," one says, "we're not workers. We've never done a day's work in our lives!"

"Yes, Ted, but the oppression of the owners of the means of production clarifies and sharpens the class divide," explains the reader, "so as members of the collective oppressed classes we're made de facto working class."

The voice known as Ted considers this for a moment, and then shouts, "Those thieving capitalist bastards! Let's go knock some heads!" With frantic calls for revolution and a classless society the denizens cast off their chains, and earmuffs, and storm outside in an angry mob.
action: You take the earmuffs
response: Taken.
action: You look at the earmuffs
response: Big furry earmuffs. A pair of them! They look like they'd induce a blissful silence for the wearer.
action: You give earmuffs to Lumberjack
response: You give the earmuffs to the lumberjack and the Buddhist monk. They put them on nice and snug and you give them the thumbs up and step back. The lumberjack takes a swing at the nearest tree, felling it with one hit. "Wow," says the lumberjack a little louder than usual, "I didn't hear that fall in the slightest!"

"Aha!" exclaims the Buddhist, "so your premise that a tree always makes a sound when it falls is undermined!"

The lumberjack sighs. "I was uncorrect in my presumptitions, here -- take my axe."
action: You check your inventory
response: You are carrying:
an axe
a lit lantern (providing light)
a sack (open)
a bunch of keys
a Chinese key
a lighter
a veil
a qualiascope
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
a fifty pence piece
action: You kill him with axe
response: When he's not paying attention, you viciously dispatch the zombie Zombiefinder with your axe. Afterwards, you roll the unsightly mess off the hill. There's nothing like a decapitated zombie to ruin an otherwise pleasant hilltop vista.

You move to untie the martyr for truth, but she'll have none of it, "I can untie myself, thank you very much. I'm not some damsel in distress, I'll have you know."

[1] I know, I know. Just trying to help.
[2] Well, you certainly look like one . . .
action: 2
response: "Either way," she says, untying herself with a few wrenches at her ropes, "My thanks for proving me right. And, I suppose, as you've done something for me, I suppose the only consistent behaviour is for me to give you something in return."

Climbing down from the now redundant pyre, she hands you a small box that had been concealed about her person.

"Now inside this hermetically-sealed box," she says, "is the thing. The only thing that's truly consistent. If you ever need to dispel a dangerous illusion or establish a firm and coherent grounding, open this box. But it'll only work once. As soon as anyone senses the thing, it'll just become shrouded in appearance like everything else. So I suggest you only open this box when you really, really need it."

With these words she disappears towards the village, leaving you alone with the final product of what can only be described as a viciously convoluted object-puzzle quest. You only hope it's worth it.
action: Look around
response: The hill is now fairly pleasant, though the pyre is still smouldering softly away.

From here, you could head west, back to the village, or further into the hills to the north.
action: You examine the pyre
response: An impressive mound of wood built up around the central stake, it's catching alight slowly.
action: You look at the stake
response: Rather wooden.
action: You throw veil at the guard
response: (first taking the veil)
(putting the axe into the sack to make room)
You've got your hands a bit full. You're going to have to find a sack or something if you want to carry any more.
action: Again
response: (first taking the veil)
(putting the wooden box into the sack to make room)
You pick the veil up again. How tedious.

You look shiftily from side to side, and when you assure yourself that nobody is watching, you cast the veil over the guard's helmet. For several long moments you wait. Hesitantly, you put a foot past the guard. She doesn't move.

"Hello?" you whisper.

"Excuse me, I seem to be completely ignorant to who I am and why I am here," she replies. "Can you help me?"

[1] A living statue, your job is to keep still and quiet all day.
[2] You're a guard -- you're guarding these stairs from me passsing [3] You're Bishop Berkeley and you're on your way to the tavern to give a lecture on Idealism.
[4] You're a mild mannered accountant by day, but by night you don a cape and fight crime.
[5] You're a very charitable person who would never dream of impeding someone's progress up some stairs.
[6] You're an itinerant farm-hand who dreams of one day owning their own farm with rabbits and alpaca, but deep down you know it'll never happen.
[7] You write Thus Spoke Zarathustra fan-fiction and go to heavy metal concerts.
action: You unlock door
response: What do you want to unlock the seconddoor with?
action: Bunch
response: (first taking the bunch of keys)
(putting the first key into the sack to make room)
That doesn't seem to fit the lock.
action: First key
response: (first taking the first key)
(putting the bunch of keys into the sack to make room)
That doesn't seem to fit the lock.
action: Examine box
response: It's a smooth and very plain wooden box, with the mysterious words "Ding an Sich" inscribed on the lid. The martyr for truth told you to open it when you really needed to dispel an illusion. Is that time now . . . ?
action: You check what you're carrying
response: You are carrying:
a first key
a lit lantern (providing light)
a sack (open)
a bunch of keys
a wooden box (closed)
an axe
a Chinese key
a lighter
a qualiascope
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
action: You open the box
response: You make to open the box, and then remember the martyr's instructions:

"If you ever need to dispel a dangerous illusion or establish a firm and coherent grounding, open this box. But it'll only work once. As soon as anyone senses the thing, it'll just become shrouded in appearance like everything else. So I suggest you only open this box when you really, really need it."

Are you sure you want to open it now?
action: Yes
response: You eagerly open the box and look inside it. There is what appears to be . . . what can only be described as a thing. You have no idea what to do with it. It just sits there, in the box, thing-like. At least, that's how it seems to you. There is the vague sense about the thing that there's something more to it, something you can't get at -- but all you seem to have is what appears to be -- a thing.
action: You examine the thing
response: It's some thing or other, it appears.
action: You look
response: Second Chamber (in the Time Machine)
This chamber is exactly like the one below it but for two minor details: firstly, the atmospheric organ music is ever so slightly louder; secondly, the machine in the centre of the room is both not made of bees and clearly a time machine. The clue is in the words "Time Machine" engraved on its casing.
action: You get the thing
response: (putting the first key into the sack to make room)
Taken.
action: You look
response: Second Chamber (in the Time Machine)
This chamber is exactly like the one below it but for two minor details: firstly, the atmospheric organ music is ever so slightly louder; secondly, the machine in the centre of the room is both not made of bees and clearly a time machine. The clue is in the words "Time Machine" engraved on its casing.

In the Time Machine you can see the thing.
action: You eat thing
response: That's plainly inedible.
action: You get the newspaper
response: (putting the thing into the sack to make room)
Taken.
action: You take qualiascope
response: (putting the newspaper into the sack to make room)
Taken.
action: You get in Machine
response: You clamber into the Time Machine and perch on the red seat.

Second Chamber (in the Time Machine)
This chamber is exactly like the one below it but for two minor details: firstly, the atmospheric organ music is ever so slightly louder; secondly, the machine in the centre of the room is both not made of bees and clearly a time machine. The clue is in the words "Time Machine" engraved on its casing.
action: You listen to the music
response: The organ music is very forboding.
action: You look at the chrome dials
response: The three dials are highly polished and highly mysterious. They could affect space-time co-ordinates or they could regulate the air conditioning. Each seems to serve a different function: the leftmost is a two-way switch, the middle one seems to be able to be set to a wide range of possible points, and the rightmost looks like some kind of timer.
action: Look around
response: You're standing at the entrance to a vast maze built of hedges that tower six feet above you. The path seems extravagantly narrow, as if the designer wanted to prepare the unwary adventurer from the outside. Above the entrance is a painted wooden sign. It looks important.
action: You go south
response: You step tentatively into the maze, looking askance at the lump of lead. Approaching a moral dilemma, it starts whirring wildly, and glowing cracks in the cube appear. It begins to unfold into an astonishingly complex device -- an array of dishes and balances, with an arrow mounted on top. With little else to do you follow the arrow past the dilemma. And then past the next -- and the next. Moral dilemmas seem not to be dilemmas at all before its power, and soon you emerge from the maze, breathless, at the foot of the crag that looms over this land.

A winding path leads up the side of the crag, and you follow it, huffing and puffing, until you reach the top. Here, looming dangerously atop the already looming crag, sits a gigantic loom. No, a gigantic castle -- you were confused for a minute there. Behind you, this crazy world stretches out below. You take a deep breath. You feel, somehow, that you are near your goal -- whatever that may be..

You are in a paved courtyard before the castle. Here, true to form, an ivory tower towers above you, the result of a billion poaching expeditions or more. Similarly true, a guard guards the broad stairs leading up to the tower.

Below you is the vertiginous path down the side of the crag -- and below that stretches the world. The strangest thing of all, however, is the faint and ominous organ music on the periphery of your hearing.
action: 2
response: "Really?" she asks.

"No!" you quickly reply, "I was only joking."

"Well, if it's all the same to you," she says, "I'm just going to stand here until I've got things figured out for myself."
action: 7
response: "That would certainly explain the suit of armour," she says, a little perturbed, "but if it's all the same to you I'm just going to stand here until I've got my head straight."
action: You examine the leftmost dial
response: A minus sign is etched above the dial to the left, and a plus sign to the right. It's currently turned to the right.
action: You look at the middle dial
response: There's a scale etched around the dial, with an M with a line above it at one end. Leading clockwise up to that are various other letters, with no pattern to them as far as you can see. The dial's currently at the far anti-clockwise end of the scale.
action: You turn the middle dial clockwise
response: The dial seems rather stiff. With an effort you can get it to snap further along the scale so that it points at an L, but it budges no further for now.
action: You turn the middle dial clockwise
response: You give the middle dial an extra twist and force it to the far end of the scale, pointing somewhere near the final M.
action: You look at the chrome dials
response: The three dials are highly polished and highly mysterious. They could affect space-time co-ordinates or they could regulate the air conditioning. Each seems to serve a different function: the leftmost is a two-way switch, the middle one seems to be able to be set to a wide range of possible points, and the rightmost looks like some kind of timer.
action: You turn the middle dial clockwise
response: It's already turned as far as it will go.
action: You turn the dial minus
response: Which do you mean, the leftmost dial, the middle dial or the rightmost dial?
action: You turn the leftmost dial anticlockwise
response: Just try turning it instead.
action: You turn leftmost dial
response: You flick the dial to point at the minus sign.
action: Exit
response: You get out of the Time Machine.

This chamber is exactly like the one below it but for two minor details: firstly, the atmospheric organ music is ever so slightly louder; secondly, the machine in the centre of the room is both not made of bees and clearly a time machine. The clue is in the words "Time Machine" engraved on its casing.
action: You turn the right dial
response: You turn the rightmost dial clockwise and release it -- with a ticking noise it begins to turn itself back the other way. When it reaches its starting point there is a sharp ringing noise and --

You sit back as the time machine hums and whistles into life. The brass railing starts to shiver and shake and somewhere in the depths of the engine something goes "meow" in a fuzzy sort of way and a bright light washes over the booth. The day turns to night and then to day and back at ever-increasing speeds. After about eighteen thousand, two hundred and fifty flashes you arrive in the past.

Around you appears to be a night-darkened museum exhibition. A clock on the wall, its hands simulacra of keys, indicates the time (or perhaps the simulacrum of time) to be  9:58. Given that the time machine doesn't seem to move spatially, the Ivory Tower must have been the International House of Keys some fifty years previously, or so the banner on the wall suggests.

In the centre of the exhibition is a case displaying a key loaned by the H.G. Wells Reenactment Society. It has the number "2" engraved on it. With your axe to hand, you smash the case and grab the key.

Immediately a heinous wailing fills the room, and lights flash in burning red -- the alarms have been set off! A security guard rushes in and rugby-tackles you. In defense you lash out with the axe, and to your horror the guard's head separates from his shoulders in a graceful arc of blood. The severed head, carried forward by its own momentum, smacks you in the chops -- and your horror is compounded by the fact that you immediately recognise -- though younger than you knew him -- your own grandfather.

You barely have time to contemplate the fact that you have successfully broken the entire universe before you wink out of existence, along with the rest of all creation.
action: You drop the axe
response: (first taking the axe from the sack)
(putting the newspaper into the sack to make room)
Dropped.
action: You turn the right dial
response: You turn the rightmost dial clockwise and release it -- with a ticking noise it begins to turn itself back the other way. When it reaches its starting point there is a sharp ringing noise and --

You sit back as the time machine hums and whistles into life. The brass railing starts to shiver and shake and somewhere in the depths of the engine something goes "meow" in a fuzzy sort of way and a bright light washes over the booth. The day turns to night and then to day and back at ever-increasing speeds. After about eighteen thousand, two hundred and fifty flashes you arrive in the past.

Around you appears to be a night-darkened museum exhibition. A clock on the wall, its hands simulacra of keys, indicates the time (or perhaps the simulacrum of time) to be  9:58. Given that the time machine doesn't seem to move spatially, the Ivory Tower must have been the International House of Keys some fifty years previously, or so the banner on the wall suggests.

In the centre of the exhibition is a case displaying a key loaned by the H.G. Wells Reenactment Society. It has the number "2" engraved on it. You grab the nearest thing to hand -- a huge replica padlock -- and with it smash the display the case, grabbing the key.

Immediately a heinous wailing fills the room, and lights flash in burning red -- the alarms have been set off! A security guard rushes in and rugby-tackles you. Quickly you lash out with the novelty padlock, knocking the guard unconscious. Casting the padlock from you, you hop into the booth and set the dials to the present day.

Safely back in the second chamber, you clamber out of the Time Machine and give it a quick kick.
action: You get the axe
response: (putting the second key into the sack to make room)
Taken.
action: You examine Machine
response: As with the Time Machine, this device has its name engraved on the casing in a large copperplate font -- "Turing Machine", it says. Again similarly, there's some kind of booth in the machine, complete with fake red leather seat. This booth lacks the steampunk wizardry of the Time Machine -- there's simply a glowing screen with a keyboard in front of it.
action: You think about Turing
response: Alan Turing (1912 - 1954) was an English mathematician and logician (and also, importantly, a cryptographer whose work on the Enigma machine in WWII proved essential) whose lasting legacy is in computer science and artificial intelligence. Turing's ideas on the functionality of computers are still central today, while his theories and tests for artificial intelligence are widely influential.
action: You get in the booth
response: You get into the machine and sit on the seat. The computer screen in front of you is displaying the word "Hello!" in garish green type, inviting a response.
action: You look at screen
response: The computer screen is displaying a message in bright green letters. "Hello!" it says. There's a little > symbol beneath that.
action: You type hello
response: The screen goes blank for a moment, and then another message appears: "That's what you think passes for a human-sounding response, is it? Hmm. What's your name, anyway?"
action: You type hello
response: The screen goes blank again and, sure enough, another message flashes up: "Oh, really? Well, if you say so. And what are you doing here? You know, what's your quest, sort of thing?"
action: Type truth
response: The screen now says: "If it weren't so demeaning, I'd write "lol". But it is, so I shan't. Right. Last question: What's the fiftieth digit after the decimal place of pi?"
action: Type 3
response: There's a very long wait before the screen responds. Eventually, it displays a final message: "Oh, alright. That's a fairly human response, I suppose. You pass. Have a key." As you finish reading this, there's a swish electronic noise, a hitherto-unseen panel opens up, and a key falls onto the floor. You pick it up, as the panel closes into invisibility again, and the screen winks out.
action: You unlock door
response: What do you want to unlock the thirddoor with?
action: Third
response: (the third key)
You unlock the door and open it, trembling with trepidation. Through the door lies another ivory staircase -- a spiral staircase which winds upwards towards another chamber.

The organ playing is deafening here. It's echoing around the curved ivory walls, its descending scales and dark figures amplified and multiplying, a dense wall of foreboding music. The doorway and stairs behind you seem terribly inviting -- if you had any excuse to leave her, any unfinished business, you would scamper downstairs now. Otherwise -- another door lies on the other side of the chamber.

But there is another machine between you and that door. And looking in that machine, you almost flee straight away: sitting on the red fake leather seat, wearing a peculiar helmet, is a grinning skeleton.
action: You look at helmet
response: A large metal helmet, with a vizor and ear-plugs, attached to the casing of the machine by a long rubber cord.
action: You examine the skeleton
response: The yellowed and wasted skeleton is grinning broadly -- or perhaps that's just the effect of your skin dissolving into dust and your clothes into rotted rags about you. It's slumped in the machine, wearing a large metal helmet which covers most of its skull -- a vizor over its eye sockets, plugs in its ear holes, even a cord leading into its mouth -- leaving exposed only that awful, leering smile.

The skeleton also seems to be clutching a peculiar hat in its bony hand.
action: You get the hat
response: Better leave it -- it's all there is to identify the poor adventurer by.
action: You examine the hat
response: It looks like the kind of cap worn by the nomads of Afghanisan to you. Presumably the skeleton -- when it was still an adventurer -- removed it to put on the helmet.
action: You look at Machine
response: As with the previous machines, there's an engraving -- "Experience Machine" -- and a fake red leather seat. The only visible electronics, however, is a strange sort of headset, currently being worn by a rather happy-looking skeleton.
action: You check what you're carrying
response: You are carrying:
a third key
a second key
a lit lantern (providing light)
a sack (open)
an axe
a newspaper
a first key
a wooden box (closed)
a bunch of keys
a Chinese key
a lighter
a qualiascope
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
action: Wear helmet
response: (first taking the large metal helmet)
You pick up the helmet -- it's heavier than it looks -- and settle it on your head. You adjust the vixor and ear-plugs and, feeling a little awkward, put the little wired tab in your mouth. You wait expectantly for a moment, and then your ears are filled with the most beautiful voice you have ever heard. "Welcome," it says, in tones so perfect you could almost weep.

And then, suddenly, your every sense and emotion is awash with feeling. Joyous, exquisite pleasure -- your every desire feels fulfilled, your every need met. Your are euphoric, overcome.

The joy continues, and continues, and continues.

Forever.
action: You get the thing
response: (putting the second key into the sack to make room)
You've got your hands a bit full. You're going to have to find a sack or something if you want to carry any more.
action: Wear helmet
response: (first taking the large metal helmet)
You pick up the helmet -- it's heavier than it looks -- and settle it on your head. You adjust the vixor and ear-plugs and, feeling a little awkward, put the little wired tab in your mouth. You wait expectantly for a moment, and then your ears are filled with the most beautiful voice you have ever heard. "Welcome," it says, in tones so perfect you could almost weep.

And then, suddenly, your every sense and emotion is awash with feeling. Joyous, exquisite pleasure -- your every desire feels fulfilled, your every need met. Your are euphoric, overcome.

The joy continues, and continues, and continues.

Forever.
action: You take the thing
response: (putting the third key into the sack to make room)
Taken.
action: You put the thing in Machine
response: You put the thing into the Experience Machine.
action: You look at the dials
response: Terrifyingly complicated; you'd rather not touch them.
action: You look at Machine
response: As with the previous machines, there's an engraving -- "Experience Machine" -- and a fake red leather seat. The only visible electronics, however, is a strange sort of headset, currently being worn by a rather happy-looking skeleton.
action: You get the skeleton
response: As you touch the skeleton, it slumps awkwardly out of the Machine and collapses, amid a cloud of choking dust, into a pile of bones on the floor of the chamber, clattering hollowly on the ivory. The headset swings down and bounces folornly on the end of its cord. There's an awkward silence.

"Sorry about that," you say.
action: You look at the headset
response: A large metal helmet, with a vizor and ear-plugs, attached to the casing of the machine by a long rubber cord.
action: You wear the earplugs
response: (first taking the large metal helmet)
You pick up the helmet -- it's heavier than it looks -- and settle it on your head. You adjust the vixor and ear-plugs and, feeling a little awkward, put the little wired tab in your mouth. You wait expectantly for a moment, and then your ears are filled with the most beautiful voice you have ever heard. "Welcome," it says, in tones so perfect you could almost weep.

And then, suddenly, your every sense and emotion is awash with feeling. Joyous, exquisite pleasure -- your every desire feels fulfilled, your every need met. Your are euphoric, overcome.

The joy continues, and continues, and continues.

Forever.
action: You look
response: The organ playing is deafening here. It's echoing around the curved ivory walls, its descending scales and dark figures amplified and multiplying, a dense wall of foreboding music. The doorway and stairs behind you seem terribly inviting -- if you had any excuse to leave her, any unfinished business, you would scamper downstairs now. Otherwise -- another door lies on the other side of the chamber.

But there is another machine between you and that door, with a sorry looking pile of bones beside it.
action: Go downward
response: This chamber is exactly like the one below it but for two minor details: firstly, the atmospheric organ music is ever so slightly louder; secondly, the machine in the centre of the room is both not made of bees and clearly a time machine. The clue is in the words "Time Machine" engraved on its casing.
action: You examine the ivory sheet
response: The archway is blocked by an impenetrable sheet of ivory. There's no going back.
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying:
the thing
a lit lantern (providing light)
a sack (open)
a third key
a second key
an axe
a newspaper
a first key
a wooden box (open but empty)
a bunch of keys
a Chinese key
a lighter
a qualiascope
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
action: Rub thing
response: Ay, there's the rub.
action: You unlock door
response: What do you want to unlock the firstdoor with?
action: First
response: (first taking the first key)
(putting the thing into the sack to make room)
Through the door lies another ivory staircase -- a spiral staircase which winds upwards towards another chamber.

This chamber is exactly like the one below it but for two minor details: firstly, the atmospheric organ music is ever so slightly louder; secondly, the machine in the centre of the room is both not made of bees and clearly a time machine. The clue is in the words "Time Machine" engraved on its casing.
action: You unlock the door with third
response: (the third fake red leather seat)
(first taking the third fake red leather seat)
Philosophers are not yet supermen.
action: You examine Machine
response: As with the Time Machine, this device has its name engraved on the casing in a large copperplate font -- "Turing Machine", it says. Again similarly, there's some kind of booth in the machine, complete with fake red leather seat. This booth lacks the steampunk wizardry of the Time Machine -- there's simply a glowing screen with a keyboard in front of it.
action: You unlock door
response: What do you want to unlock the thirddoor with?
action: Third key
response: (first taking the third key)
(putting the second key into the sack to make room)
Through the door lies another ivory staircase -- a spiral staircase which winds upwards towards another chamber.

The organ playing is deafening here. It's echoing around the curved ivory walls, its descending scales and dark figures amplified and multiplying, a dense wall of foreboding music. The doorway and stairs behind you seem terribly inviting -- if you had any excuse to leave her, any unfinished business, you would scamper downstairs now. Otherwise -- another door lies on the other side of the chamber.

But there is another machine between you and that door, with a sorry looking pile of bones beside it.
action: Wear helmet
response: (first taking the large metal helmet)
You pick up the helmet -- it's heavier than it looks -- and settle it on your head. You adjust the vixor and ear-plugs and, feeling a little awkward, put the little wired tab in your mouth. You wait expectantly for a moment, and then your ears are filled with the most beautiful voice you have ever heard. "Welcome," it says, in tones so perfect you could almost weep.

And then, suddenly, your every sense and emotion is awash with feeling. Joyous, exquisite pleasure -- your every desire feels fulfilled, your every need met. Your are euphoric, overcome.

The joy continues, and continues, and continues.

Forever.
action: Smell thing
response: There's a disturbing musty smell in the air.
action: Rub thing
response: Ay, there's the rub.
action: Examine box
response: It's a smooth and very plain wooden box, with the mysterious words "Ding an Sich" inscribed on the lid. The martyr for truth told you to open it when you really needed to dispel an illusion. Is that time now . . . ?
action: Wave thing
response: You look ridiculous waving the thing.
action: You think about the ding an sich
response: "Ding an sich" is Kant's German term meaning "the thing in itself". A thing in itself is something independent of awareness -- it is core to Kant's philosophy that we live in a world of appearances, the appearances created by a discursive mind which shapes them according to its own innate mental categories, but that "beneath" this world of appearances lies the world in itself, about which we can know nothing but that it exists.

This distinction, also known as that between "phenomena" and "noumena", has been enormously influential. In epistemology, it overturned the rationalist/empiricist debate, by implying that we can only know the empirical world (and not the ideal truths of rationalism), but also by adding that we must know that empirical world rationally. The idea that there is a world of subjective awareness fed into later debates in philosophy of mind, while the idea that the world of appearances is discursively created led the way for the postmodern and post-structuralist revolution in philosophy, which dismantled philosophical dogmas and preconceptions as being culturally and linguistically specific, and which implied that all knowledge is to some extent chosen, discursively determined by interpreting minds.

That revolution, as well as more analytic attacks on Kant's philosophy, has served to help undermine the phenomenal/noumenal distinction in the first place. Is there really a world of appearances present in consciousness? Is there really a world in itself independent of experience? These questions are the foundation of metaphysics to this day.
action: You get the helmet
response: You pick up the helmet -- it's heavier than it looks -- and settle it on your head. You adjust the vixor and ear-plugs and, feeling a little awkward, put the little wired tab in your mouth. You wait expectantly for a moment, and then your ears are filled with the most beautiful voice you have ever heard. "Welcome," it says, in tones so perfect you could almost weep.

And then, suddenly, your every sense and emotion is awash with feeling. Joyous, exquisite pleasure -- your every desire feels fulfilled, your every need met. Your are euphoric, overcome.

The joy continues, and continues, and continues.

Forever.
action: You go machine
response: Now vacated by its former occupant, you climb into the machine. There really is nothing here but the helmet, attached to the machine's casing by a long rubber cord.
action: You cut the cord
response: You just make a cutting comment instead, which is about as useful.
action: You check what you're carrying
response: You are carrying:
the thing
a lit lantern (providing light)
a sack (open)
a third key
a second key
a first key
an axe
a newspaper
a wooden box (open but empty)
a bunch of keys
a Chinese key
a lighter
a qualiascope
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
action: Look around
response: Fourth Chamber (in the Experience Machine)
The organ playing is deafening here. It's echoing around the curved ivory walls, its descending scales and dark figures amplified and multiplying, a dense wall of foreboding music. The doorway and stairs behind you seem terribly inviting -- if you had any excuse to leave her, any unfinished business, you would scamper downstairs now. Otherwise -- another door lies on the other side of the chamber.

You're in the Experience Machine. It's an uncomfortable booth, containing only a strange metal helmet, with a sorry looking pile of bones beside it.
action: You go to the east
response: You'll have to get out of the Experience Machine first.
action: You open the door
response: You push suspiciously against the ivory door. Sure enough, it eases open -- it wasn't locked! You take a regretful look at the pile of bones on the floor and make your way up the spiral stairs as the organ music fills your ears.

As you step into the next chamber, a huge wall of ivory crashes down behind you, blocking the doorway. You, however, are too transfixed by the sight before you to even turn round.

A vast organ fills much of this chamber, its huge bank of ornate pipes reaching higher than you can see. But even this, the biggest organ you have ever seen, is made to seem like a child's electronic keyboard by the figure that sits at it, back to you, playing the keys with vast, gnarled hands. It is a hulking brute of a figure, wearing a thick black cloak that ripples and flows as the figure plays and plays.

Hearing the crash of the ivory wall, the figure pauses in its playing. Notes ring around the chamber as it pulls itself to its feet, casting the cloak to the ground and turning round.

It is a hideous fiend. Two twisted horns sprout from its forehead; its skin is a burning red; its huge body taut with bulging muscle and its black-bearded face a picture of evil. It speaks, in a voice dark and deep:
"Welcome."

[1] Er . . . Hello.
[2] Wait a minute: top of a tower, climactic organ music, evil villain . . . This is a d?noument, isn't it?
[3] Horns, check. Red skin, check. Point beard, check. Bulging muscles ready to crush pun humans, check. You're an evil demon, aren't you? [4] (whimper)
action: 3
response: The demon roars with laughter. "Correct, my fine young adventurer!" he bellows. "I am the Evil Demon, and this is my realm. How do you find it?"

[1] It's . . . very nice.
[2] Awful. I've been nearly gored by a unicorn, trodden in philosopher vomit, watched my mother almost get incinerated, and been emoted to by vampire bats. And that's your fault, I find now, is it?
[3] I didn't find it, it found me. What's all this about?
action: 3
response: "Slow down, my hasty young friend," chides the demon mockingly. "First, I must know: I have carefully crafted this world to be confounding to your every sense, bedazzling to your mind and befuddling to your wits. Now tell me: was it not good?"

[1] Yes, good, very good. Can I go now?
[2] If by "good" you mean "mind-numbingly sadistic", then yes, it was good.
[3] No, it was utterly horrible! Are you telling me you created this whole place?
action: 2
response: "Indeed I do," replies the demon. "My thanks for your compliment. Now: to the fun!

[1] Fun? Fun? What fun?
[2] Wait, wait! Why me?
[3] Sure, fun: but first I have to know: Where is this place? What am I doing here?
action: 3
response: The demon smiles. "This is not a where," he says enigmatically. "Where you are, I do not know. This world -- this world is but an illusion of your mind. My powers of creation are but these: to control your every sensation, to sustain the representation of life in your consciousness. I am your world.

And now I will be your death. We must duel!

[1] This is a duel for my life, right?
[2] (fight him)
action: 1
response: "No," says the demon. "This is a duel to your death. Fight!"

[1] (fight him)
action: 1
response: The demon snaps his fingers -- his cloak and the organ behind him vanish with a sulphurous crack. He stands, all-powerful, staring you down.

Not knowing what else to do, you lower your head and charge at him, screaming. Your eyes closed, you fail to see where you're going and, as he dodges easily out of the way, you smack straight into the ivory wall. As you reel back in a daze, staggering, the demon soars above you, fire flaring from his fingertips and smoke pouring from his nostrils. The chamber fills with his laughter.

The demon extends his hand, and an enormous fireball careers towards you. You roll to the side just in time as the fireball crashes into the ivory floor, scorching the tiles.
action: You throw thing at Demon
response: You throw it at the demon, but he just catches it in his fist and crumbles it into dust.

The demon crashes to the ground, the shockwaves throwing you against the wall. You pick yourself up to your feet as the demon soars back into the air.
action: Kiss Demon
response: It wouldn't be any use!

The demon crashes to the ground, the shockwaves throwing you against the wall. You pick yourself up to your feet as the demon soars back into the air.
action: You eat Demon
response: (first taking the Evil Demon)
Philosophers are not yet supermen.

The demon swoops down at you and smacks you with a huge clawed fist. You crash against the wall once more with the force of the blow.
action: You wake
response: If only it were that simple.

The demon conjures up an ethereal wind which launches you into the air, before dispelling it again and dropping you onto the ground with a sickening thud.
action: West
response: You channel your will to power to summon a path in that direction. Sadly, nothing happens: you can't go that way.

The demon lands in front of you and stares you in the eyes. There is a dreadful pause as you fall into the glowing hollows of his pupils, and then he punches you square in the stomach. As you collapse you think you hear the sound of ribs breaking.
action: Down
response: You are unable to descend by the fourthdoor.
action: You kill Demon with the axe
response: You charge at the demon, swinging your axe wildly into the air. He grabs your wrist, snaps it, takes the axe, and brings it crashing down on your skull.
action: You think about Demon
response: The Evil Demon rules over Western philosophy. He is one of the first thought experiments in its Modern period, devised by Descartes, the Father of Modern Philosophy.

Descartes set out to determine what he could know using only the powers of his own rationality. He reasoned thus: there could be an Evil Demon controlling every aspect of my experience. Everything I think I know could be a false impression created by an Evil Demon to fool me. So what can I know by the use of reason alone? Descartes's first thought was that he knew with utter certainty that we was thinking -- for even if he only thought he was thinking, even if the Evil Demon was fooling him into thinking, that was still a thought. He could not doubt he was thinking, because doubt was a thought. So he was thinking. Cogito, ergo sum -- popularly translated as "I think, therefore I am".

Descartes continued to think a lot more than that, but perhaps you'd better just think about this for a moment. First thought: this devision of what we reason and what we experience has ruled over much of Western philosophy. But why is reason more certain than experience? Couldn't the Evil Demon fool us into thinking that we were certain of our rationality as well? Couldn't we just as well think that direct experience, sitting safe in memory, is more reliable than waffly rationality? Second thought: how does Descartes get from the neat proof that he is thinking to the idea that he definitely exists? What about thought proves existence? Isn't just the humbler "Cogito" by itself better? Third thought: What do we mean by thoughts?

There are huge questions even at the very root of the founding ideas of our philosophy.
action: You throw the axe at Demon
response: (first taking the axe)
(putting the thing into the sack to make room)
You throw it at the demon, but he just catches it in his fist and crumbles it into dust.
action: Sing
response: The hills are alive. Which in any other context would be positively terrifying, but it's only the sound of music.
action: Shit
response: Quite.
action: You look around
response: The organ playing is deafening here. It's echoing around the curved ivory walls, its descending scales and dark figures amplified and multiplying, a dense wall of foreboding music. The doorway and stairs behind you seem terribly inviting -- if you had any excuse to leave her, any unfinished business, you would scamper downstairs now. Otherwise -- another door lies on the other side of the chamber.

But there is another machine between you and that door. And looking in that machine, you almost flee straight away: sitting on the red fake leather seat, wearing a peculiar helmet, is a grinning skeleton.
action: You check what you're carrying
response: You are carrying:
a third key
a second key
a lit lantern (providing light)
a sack (open)
an axe
a newspaper
a first key
a wooden box (closed)
a bunch of keys
a Chinese key
a lighter
a qualiascope
a manual
file of Platonic forms
a useless scrap of paper
a Categorical Imperativator
action: You get the skeleton
response: As you touch the skeleton, it slumps awkwardly out of the Machine and collapses, amid a cloud of choking dust, into a pile of bones on the floor of the chamber, clattering hollowly on the ivory. The headset swings down and bounces folornly on the end of its cord. There's an awkward silence.

"Sorry about that," you say.
action: Third
response: second key: (first taking the second key from the sack)
(putting the third key into the sack to make room)
Dropped.
third key: (first taking the third key from the sack)
Dropped.
action: 2
response: "Hah!" laughs the demon. "By and by, no doubt. But first: How do you find my realm?"

[1] It's . . . very nice.
[2] Awful. I've been nearly gored by a unicorn, trodden in philosopher vomit, watched my mother almost get incinerated, and been emoted to by vampire bats. And that's your fault, I find now, is it?
[3] I didn't find it, it found me. What's all this about?
action: 1
response: The demon chuckles once more at your response. "I somehow doubt you've found it so, as you've got this far. Tell me, did you not find it all at all strange?"

Before you can respond he continues: "Of course you did. I designed it to be so. I have carefully crafted this world to be confounding to your every sense, bedazzling to your mind and befuddling to your wits. Now do tell me: was it not good?

[1] Yes, good, very good. Can I go now?
[2] If by "good" you mean "mind-numbingly sadistic", then yes, it was good.
[3] No, it was utterly horrible! Are you telling me you created this whole place?
action: 3
response: "In a manner of speaking," answers the demon, his wrath mounting. "But enough talk -- to the fun!

[1] Fun? Fun? What fun?
[2] Wait, wait! Why me?
action: 1
response: [3] Sure, fun: but first I have to know: Where is this place? What am I doing here?

"Why, the d?noument," answers the demon. "The final duel!"

[1] Wait, wait! First I have to know: Where is this place? What am I doing here?
[2] This is a duel for my life, right?
[3] (fight him)
action: 1
response: The demon smiles. "This is not a where," he says enigmatically. "Where you are, I do not know. This world -- this world is but an illusion of your mind. My powers of creation are but these: to control your every sensation, to sustain the representation of life in your consciousness. I am your world.

And now I will be your death. We must duel!

[1] This is a duel for my life, right?
[2] (fight him)
action: You open the box
response: You remember what the martyr said -- that the power of the Ding an Sich will dispel all illusion -- and wrench the box open.

Immediately the room is filled with an extraordinarily bright light pouring forth from the box, which is quaking in your grasp. You cast it to the ground, and it skids along the ivory towards the Demon, showering sparks in all directions.

You look up at the Demon's stricken face -- he is gasping, his eyes bulging -- he is clawing himself away from the burning light. You shield your eyes from the sight, but you can still hear his hellish bellows -- they echo round the chamber, growing louder and louder, and all you can hear is the noise and the light is burning through your eyelids . . .
action: You look
response: Suddenly all is quiet and still. You open your eyes. The demon has vanished -- and so has the box. There is a dull, whistling sound. The walls of the ivory chamber, you realise, look wrong -- thin, weakened somehow. They are growing strangely transparent, but instead of the blue skies beyond there's a strange darkness. You look down, and realise that the same is happening to the floor beneath your feet.

Soon the ivory tower has vanished entirely. You're falling, and beneath you you see the lights of the village wink out one by one. The now-dark ocean is rolling up the beach, and the plains seem to be melting away. You feel the air rushing by as the rocky ground comes rapidly up to meet you, ready to crush your helpless body. The end is coming.
. . .
. . . ugh . . .
. . . bleurgh . . .
You didn't expect the afterlife to smell vaguely of vomit, which was the first clue. When you opened your eyes and realised that the dull pressure on your noise was due to the way it was squashed into the scratchy carpet, that was the second clue. The third was when you rolled over and saw your own bedroom ceiling.

Your own blessed room. Your own blessed hangover. Your own blessed dried pool of sick lying beside you.

You pull yourself gingerly to your feet. You're still wearing your watch -- and it's telling the time and date you'd expect it to. For a moment you worry you're going to be late for the morning's lecture, and the wild dreams of the night are already fading from memory. Then you remember: term's over. You've nothing to do but lie around all day long, recovering from the previous festivities. And then, tonight, with your classmates, you fully intend to start a fantastic bonfire, and burn every single one of your lecture notes.

You realise you're still gripping something in your hand. You open it -- and there it is, lying in your palm. A tiny key, with a little Chinese symbol engraved on it.

You look at it for a while, and then go to fetch a mop and bucket.