Interactive story

This is the **interactive story** of fiction by GMRE.

## Introduction

I wrote this for an internet forum a number of years ago. I'm gonna have to make minor adjustments to it (like beverage brand names and such) to make it fit the theme of this wiki, but the "rules" are these:

* You have to imagine that you start as a tourist, visiting New and Improved Medici. You were camping in a forest in northern Insula Striate.
* Every once in a while the story "ends" and has choices. At this point people can vote in the article comments below and say what "*you*" should do next.
* Keep in mind that I thought of the opening story in a single go one night when I couldn't fall a sleep. Don't think I can write something this long each time after people have voted.
* Should I feel short on ideas, I might let someone else continue the story once, or twice, but in any case, when the story is continued, **it absolutely must comply with these rules:**
	+ The story should remain somewhat realistic in the sense that we do not have any of Ricos "super powers". The story is from the point of view of a civilian tourist after all.
	+ The story is set in New and Improved Medici.
	+ The story must continue according to the votes.

## So here it goes (part 1)

Suppose you're wondering around in a deep and dark foggy forest one night and just as you begin to think that the frequent hauling of the wolves is getting old, you spot a log cabin. You rush in there with a shovel in one hand and a lantern (19'th century looking, but modern and with LEDs) in the other, screaming like a mad man "*I'm here to kill you all and eat all your cookies!*" You find that the cabin is abandoned. There's a bed, a desk, a chair and a trunk. You open the trunk and find an axe and a cold bottle of aguas frescas.

You drink the aguas frescas, but suddenly you hear a noise at the front of the cabin. You jump into the trunk like a scared small child, thinking it's the wolves, or worse, that the owner of the cabin came home to sharpen his axe to better split open your head for having deprived him of his right to relax and drink a cold bottle of aguas frescas.

Several minutes pass and nobody enters, so you climb out of the trunk, but as you do that, you hear an odd sound from under the trunk. You move the trunk and find a hatch. The sound of your climbing must have echoed in the basement. You open the hatch and look inside to find a ladder that leads down into darkness. You put the axe into your bag along with your army shovel, after folding it in half, and figure you might as well check it out. You climb down and hear from the echo that the room is obviously much larger than the cabin. You wonder around in the darkness, instinctively looking for a light switch. You trip and fall a few times over some piles of unknown junk. Finally you remember to take your lantern out of your bag. "*Duh! The aguas frescas must have been expired and gone to my head. I'm not usually this forgetful.*" - you think while rolling your eyes. You turn it on and find that the floor is covered with dead bodies. Of humans! And they're not just dead, they're all bloody and heavily mutilated! You facepalm and say to yourself: "*Oh, so that's what I tripped over*". You look around and notice that the room is some kind of a waiting room with comfy looking couches and a desk near a door. In fact it looks similar to the Hive lobby, nut there's no eDEN symbols. There's a PC on the desk along with some old fashioned device with a roll of numbered stamps. A sign next to it says "*Take a number and wait. You will be called in order.*" There's also a bowl of candy, so you help yourself to a few handfuls and put the rest into your pockets. "*Mmm... candy...*" You then wonder over to the door. It's a heavy metal door with a huge automatic lock.

It's unlocked, so you think nothing of it and walk through like you own the place. There's a long hallway, at an angle downwards. At the end you find a staircase. It's a 4-cornered staircase where you have to go down on 4 flights of stairs to move 1 floor. There's an elevator in the middle of the staircase. You enter it, but you find that it needs a key to operate. "*Figures*" - you say to yourself while rolling your eyes again. "*I've been meaning to exercise anyway, so...*" - you think and decide to walk down (the stairs only lead down from here).

257 floors down, long after you've lost count, you find a room. In it there's a hot-dog stand. "*Just what I need, give me some!*" You eat your hot-dogs and 1337 Chips. The hot-dog man: "*You want something to drink with that? I've got Orange Pepsi, Blue diet Fanta and Green Urb Pepsi.*" You've never heard of those flavors (or have you?), but you decide to take the Fanta. Suddenly you notice that the prices are listed in gold and silver coins (which is convenient, because you like trading in gold and silver coins) and that you're a little light on the coins. You ask if you can pay with a debit card, but the man smiles creepily and says that he trusts your credit. "*Um... ok?*" - you say and walk off.

Two more floors down and you're at the bottom of the stairs. "*Man, that was one long trip. Was that vendor even real, or did I imagine that?*" - you think, but suddenly hear a mechanical noise approaching from the top of the stairs. "*The elevator!*" - you think and suddenly you're worried. You're not completely sure why, but you know you shouldn't be there when it gets down. You look around and see a few gold plated golf carts charging their batteries at wall sockets. You jump into one and drive off into one of five dark tunnels.

Soon you stop with some tyre squeal. "*What was that? I'm sure I saw something.*" - you think and grab your lantern and hold it further in front of the cart. It's only a little mouse at a hole in the wall. "*Aww...*" - you throw some candy its way and continue on your merry way.

You pass a lot of locked doors. You start hearing the sound of flowing water. It gets louder as you approach it. There's a river. An underground river in a cave that's connected to the system of tunnels. There's 3 inflatable liferafts. One red, one green and one also green, but a different kind of green - shut up, it's my story. You get in the green boat. Not the other one, in the first one. The first green raft. You untie it and let the current take you where the river goes. You fall a sleep.

You wake up with the sun in your eye. "*Oh, it was all a dream.*" - you say to yourself, but then you notice that you're still in the raft and spot the cave that the river exits. The cave is in a pretty big mountain. The raft is stuck near the edge of the river and it's slowly leaking and your pants are wet because of the leak (LOL). **What do you do?**

* Do you get off and wonder through the forest some more?
* Do you fix the raft with the superglue you just remembered having in your bag and get the raft unstuck?
* Don't continue the story, it's stupid and you're stupid for having thought of it.

## Part 2

As voted, the raft option is the one.

So you grab the glue and try to mash some of it into the crack. It seems to hold, so you paddle away. (I realize that there's no rivers in Insula Striate, but whatever, there is now. It's a seasonally appearing rapid river that appears when snow melts in the mountain in spring.) The current gets faster and rapiderer/bouncier/messier, so the glue comes loose and the raft rips a little more. Soon you're all wet, but thanks to the buoyant sides of the raft, you're still floating.

The river passes under a road and conveniently there's a stopped Medici National Guard Fukuda Technical on it. "*Hey you! Get out of there! This area is off limits! The fine is 23 Ricoin. Come here and pay up!*" - One of them shouts.

You remember that Ricoins are very valuable titanium coins, coated with relatively invaluable depleted bavarium, that gives them a special shine. The Bank of Medici released 25'000 of them into circulation in 1953 to commemorate the 250th birthday of the bank. Despite their value of roughly 237 euros they're still in use among other Medici currency. The coins were obviously not named after Rico Rodriguez. They were named after Rico Raul Zanetti, the founder of the bank.

Your options are:

* Paddle to the side of the river and see what you can do. This means getting back to civilization, but you obviously can't afford the fine, so that's considerable trouble. Also, you're getting hungry.
* Stay on the raft and hope to make it out somewhere. Maybe there's more civilians at the next bridge?

So I don't mix up the votes, you'll have to mention "part 2".