[[EARTH A.D. Prologue: Wetlands Archive / Semantic Collapse]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/InjuredHandL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/InjuredHandR.gif"></div>(set: $opening to (random: 1,2))
(if: $opening is 1)[The State Machine grumbles to itself.](else:)[A whining of tributaries.]
(text-style:"italic")[High above the planet surface your coffin is strapped to a mast…
Close to the forest floor the ants carry you to their mountain home…
Throughout each and every moment you dream,
Here in the flooded field.
I want you to think about the film where they find a book bound in screaming skin
It contains description, prophecy, anatomy, recipe. Warnings and wards.
The pages are torn shrieking from their spine and scattered in the field.
Now imagine the book was about [[you->WhoAreYou]]. ]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/hand.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noise.gif"></div>Who are you exactly?
(click: "exactly?")[Can you tell me what you are?
(force-input-box:2bind $PlayerName,"=X","I don't know yet")
When you're done, [[we can move on.->GainingSubstance]]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/hand.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noise.gif"></div>(align:"<==")+(box:"=X")[Howling Void(click-replace: "Howling Void")[Find something to hold onto.]]
(click: "hold onto.")[(align:"==>")+(box:"=X")[Endless errors(click-replace: "Endless errors")[I'm trying to.]]]
(click: "trying to.")[[[Restart->Reboot]]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/hand.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noise.gif"></div>(link-replace: "Run")[(live: 2s)
[[[Running->Running]] (stop:)]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/hand.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noise.gif"></div>(align:"<==")+(box:"=X")[(link-replace: "Now let me just find you")[(live: 2s)
[[[There you are->ThereYouAre]] (stop:)]]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/hand.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noise.gif"></div>I need to you to [[sit up]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/hand.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noise.gif"></div>MainTheme: ./music/earthAD1.ogg{
(track: 'MainTheme', 'loop', true)
(track: 'MainTheme', 'playwhenpossible')
}now look at your [[hands]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>Do you remember how a body works?
(set: $gestures to (a: "castspell1", "painfulcontortion", "graspoars"))
(set: $handaction to (shuffled: ...$gestures))
(link: "yes")[(goto: 1st of $handaction)]
(link: "Yes, I can do miracles, just let me")[(goto: 1st of $handaction)]
(link-replace: "No.")[(live: 2s)
[(link: "I mean, yes.")[(goto: 1st of $handaction)](stop:)]]
(if:$SpellAttempts is 3)[(goto: "graspoars")]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/HandL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/HandR.gif"></div>(set: $SpellAttempts to it + 1)
//Your body betrays you, your grasp is uneven, the whole world spins but the oars do not//
[[Steady yourself, try again.|hands]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/HandL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/HandR.gif"></div>(set: $SpellAttempts to it + 1)
(set: $HandInjury to true)
//Somewhere, something misfires.
Your hands attempt something far beyond their capacity.
There is no pain as such, but something in undeniably wrong within your clawed appendages.
This may have consiquences.
However.
(text-style:"bold","fade-in-out")[Don't be dishearted, please.
][[You can do this.|hands]]//
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/HandL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/HandR.gif"></div>(set: $SpellAttempts to it + 1)
(if:$SpellAttempts is 1)[Your hands know miracles, even when you mind knows only (text-style:"fade-in-out")[nothing]
](else-if:$SpellAttempts is 2)[Clumsy, unfamiliar, (text-style:"buoy")[your body is a greasy marionette]
](else-if:$SpellAttempts is 3)[What you lack in the poetry of your body, you make up for in relentlessnes.
](else:)[You tried for eternity to bend tired synapses to the rubber sheet of your will. Eventually, perhaps only due to the universe's sense of pity for its most clumsy child, you manage to wrap these gloved paws around the wood.]
[[With a degree of compentency, you strike out, like the angel of history, and row.|beginrowing]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/HandL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/HandR.gif"></div>[[you travel through the flooded maze|page1]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/RowingL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>You pull on the oars, moving your small boat through the flooded field.
[[think]]
[[look]]
[[listen]]
[[imagine]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/RowingL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>(set:$sense to "thought")
(if:$SpellAttempts is 1)[//Still riding the high of successfully using the spidery tools at the end of your arms, the joy of both fine and gross motor skills, the agency of hands//]
You think about what brought you here, but there's nothing, your brain is empty like the dried lake, like a border patrol agent's heart, like a.. (text-style:"shudder")[like...]
|test>[//(bg:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,0.5,#80e619,1,#ffffff))[words, like everything else, fail you]//]
(link-replace: "A shape")[(live: 3s)
[[[Something pulls at your attention and you stow the oars, drifting in closer->Paper]] (stop:)]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/RowingL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>(set:$sense to "sight")
Around you is the boat, around that is the water. Looking up, you see that whereever that point was that you first opened your eyes must now be lost behind the gentle curve of this channel you are rowing along.
Either side of you are rows of stalks swaying gently in the wash.
A flooded field.
You glance over the edge.
(text-style:"upside-down")[Your own face looks back, a void in some kind of specialist suit]
|test>[//(bg:(gradient: 0, 0,#ffffff,0.5,#80e619,1,#ffffff))[Look away before dizziness sets in]//]
(link-replace: "A shape")[(live: 3s)
[[[Something pulls at your attention and you stow the oars, drifting in closer->Paper]] (stop:)]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/RowingL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>(set:$sense to "hearing")
//You hear the sound of small things in the water.//
(click: "things in the water.")[//Behind that the rustle of the reeds.// (click: "rustle of the reeds.")[//In the distance there is the soft roar of a group of birds taking flight.//(click: "taking flight.")[
//And through all of this is the noise of oars.//
(live: 3s)[[[[Then a cracking sound far below draws your attention to the surface of the water->Paper]]]]]]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/RowingL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>//You repeat a mantra that sounds like the slap of oars and creak of wood. The sky seems darker here//
(set:$sense to "imagination")
(click: "creak of wood.")[//You think about about restraint, or freedom. Then the image fades.// (click: "fades")[A noise deep within the water pulls you back to the cold prsesnt.
(click: "restraint")[// But you are left with an after image of being strapped the a mast.// (set:$restraint to true)]
[[There is something in the water ->Paper]]]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/RowingdarkL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>(set: $test to (random: 1,2))
(if: $test is 1)[The Moon watches you without judgement.](else:)[The boat bobs to the canal's artereal pulse.]
(if:$Paper1pickedup is true)[Within a vortex of black foam another page floats to the surface beside your boat, perhaps freed by the movement of the eels twisting below.](else:)[Floating in the water, its ink glaring with the radiance of the thousand beetles ground to make its indeible pigment, is a page torn from some illuminated text.]
(set: _list to (array: "Page1", "Page2", "Page3", "Page4", "Page5", "Page6"))
(if:$Paper1pickedup is true)[As the paper (//is that what it is?//) disolves in your hand, you reach for another](else:)[Reaching down, you pull the paper (//is that what it is?//) from the water's grasp.]
(link-goto: "Your eyes focus, and seemingly so do the words", (shuffled: ..._list)'s 1st)
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/PageL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>//You look down as the words swim on the parchment//
(set: $firstpage to "being watched over as you sleep")(set: $Paper1pickedup to true)
'Page 22: You’re asleep now, some people are watching over you and will wake you up when you are needed.
(live: 2s)[(text-style:"fade-in-out")+(text-colour:green)[That could be soon'.]]
//You look again at the words in your hand.
Does this text fit with who you are?//
(link-replace: "Yes")[(live: 1s)
[[[//You look up at where you are.//->FirstJunction]] (stop:)]]
(link-replace: "No (search the water for another page)")[(live: 1s)
[[[//You hear a cracking sound below the water.//->Paper]] (stop:)]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/PageL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>//Your eyes water and the shred of parchment drips onto the gloss surface of your body//
(set: $firstpage to "the castle on fire")(set: $Paper1pickedup to true)
'Page 23: You remember waking up, the water soaking your clothes, the silt caking your face, your blood all but washed away down the riverbed to join the tanoids and ghost guns. Through the stems of water plants you see a castle on fire,
(live: 2s)[(text-style:"sway")+(text-colour:green)[ the cattail heads knock in the breeze above you and their flowers settle in your hair.]]
//You look again at the words in your hand.
Does this text fit with who you are?//
(link-replace: "Yes")[(live: 1s)
[[[//You look up at where you are.//->FirstJunction]] (stop:)]]
(link-replace: "No (search the water for another page)")[(live: 1s)
[[[//You hear a cracking sound below the water.//->Paper]] (stop:)]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/PageL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>//The words appear to be burned into the page, which is made of some almost transclucent bark, rough and thick but lacking nearly all opacity//
(set: $firstpage to "the demon that sleeps at the foot of your bed")(set: $Paper1pickedup to true)
'Page 24: You remember waking up and seeing through moon gritted eyes the demon that sits at the foot of your bed. (live: 2s)[(text-style:"sway")+(text-colour:green)[ They are leaving you now that it is morning and you both wave at one another with warm formality'.]]
//You look again at the words in your hand.
Does this text fit with who you are?//
(link-replace: "Yes")[(live: 1s)
[[[//You look up at where you are.//->FirstJunction]] (stop:)]]
(link-replace: "No (search the water for another page)")[(live: 1s)
[[[//You hear a cracking sound below the water.//->Paper]] (stop:)]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/PageL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>//As you lift it, the page spools out like freed intestines, pooling in the bottom of the boat with the grey water and tiny frogs that play there.//
(set: $firstpage to "your giant, perfect, mechanical body at the bottom of the lake")(set: $Paper1pickedup to true)
'Page 25: You remember waking up and your body felt huge and still. Its the part of consciousness that takes shape, the sense of your sheer size and absence of movement, so perfect. (click: "so perfect.")[Quietly, as if such an adverb could be applied to the process of a brain impulses crossing a neural lace, you launch a piece of code that will ask the sensors around your body what they know. (click: "they know.")[The sensors having passively been passively converting waves and particles to electricity in your long conscious absence happily chirp back their findings, and with another piece of code you stitch their reports together into a pattern of data...'
[[Read on.|Page4.1]]]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/PageL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>//The paper reflects things that are not visable when you turn your head to look behind you.//
(set: $firstpage to "the casino at the exit of hell")(set: $Paper1pickedup to true)
'Page 20:
A drawing of a token from (text-colour:black)+(bg:(gradient: 169, 0,#ffffff,0.5,#e619e5,0.5,#888888,1,#19e619))[The RotoCasino], situated on a floating dock in the flooded mouth of an extinct volcano where Dante once left hell. Games available are based around haruspicy, with the player placing their stake against their prediction coming true. The house assigns an anamniotic wraith to cling to the players neck, overseeing the bet. These sometimes go rogue and bleed out the player, (live: 2s)[(text-style:"blink")+(text-colour:green)[hence uncashed chips'.]]
//You look again at the words in your hand.
Does this text fit with who you are?//
(link-replace: "Yes")[(live: 1s)
[[[//You look up at where you are.//->FirstJunction]] (stop:)]]
(link-replace: "No (search the water for another page)")[(live: 1s)
[[[//You hear a cracking sound below the water.//->Paper]] (stop:)]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/PageL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>"Page 21:"
(set: $firstpage to "moral imperative of direct action")(set: $Paper1pickedup to true)
//Its a note written on a (text-colour:black)+(bg:(gradient: 169, 0,#ffffff,0.5,#e619e5,0.5,#888888,1,#19e619))[MudCorps] branded sticky label for third tier interstellar freight. It reads “I cannot escape the realisation that I am morally obligated to blow up a key part of the national PetroPharmacuitical infrastructure, and to keep doing so until I am caught or die of old age”.//
(live: 2s)[(text-style:"blink")+(text-colour:green)[//You recognise the handwriting.//]]
//You look again at the words in your hand.
Does this text fit with who you are?//
(link-replace: "Yes")[(live: 1s)
[[[//You look up at where you are.//->FirstJunction]] (stop:)]]
(link-replace: "No (search the water for another page)")[(live: 1s)
[[[//You hear a cracking sound below the water.//->Paper]] (stop:)]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/PageL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>While you were reading you must have drifted, because now there is a small channel open leading off the main canal.
A dark gap in the rotting folliage.(if:$handinjury is true)[ Your aching hands throb, willing you towards this [[detour|new path]].
](else:)[The wall of plants reaches up to the eye of the night above you. They look like animals in the dithering light and between them you see the smallest of [[gaps|new path]].]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div> '...Your huge still body lays at the lowest point of a flooded valley. (click: "flooded valley.")[Around you are a circle of stones each pointing up, (click: "pointing up,")[each as large as the footprint you make in the floor of this lake. (click: "this lake")[Detritus drifts around you, disturbed only by a slow current that splits around the stones, passing over you along diverging trajectories that your system helpfully displays a bright green fan vectors that cross one another like lacework. (click: "lacework")[Somewhere off to the north must be a spring that feeds this lake, its cool and clear water cutting through the hanging sulphur and minute particles of plant and animal life. (click: "animal life")[You marvel at the complexity of the arrangement, not just just the rocks in relation to the spring, but the size of your body, the depth of water and its mineral composition perfectly balanced to display this scene in near perpetuity...'
[[Read on.|Page4.2]]]]]]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/PageL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div> '...A kind of purring sensation occurs in the back of your mind, (click: "back of your mind")[it pulls your attention the results of a secondary order analysis routine, it helpfully affirms that substrate density indicates they were positioned here shortly after you first lay in this spot, and a short time before this valley was flooded. (click: "valley was flooded")[You bring up a visual model of the stones and another bright green vector composition rotates somewhere between neurons, atomic matrixes, and synthetic amniotic fluid. (click: "amniotic fluid")[Six stones jut out of the lake bed around your position, pointing up at the surface some 10 metres above through yellowly water...'
[[Read on|Page4.3]]]]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/PageL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>'...Another purr and background diagnostics have returned the operations check results, (click: "operations check")[green across the board. (click: "green across the board.")[Three whole milliseconds have passed since you first came back online. You allow the meat part of you a few hundred more, taking in the beauty of this tomb that was made you, that those that made it loved you so much. (click: "loved you so much")[Embraced in thousands of tons of water and sulphur dependent bacteria, watched over. (click:"watched over.")[You cycle your ancient reactor rods, allowing the vibration to gently evict anything that had taken up residence in the gaps between your chassis’ reinforced platework and pistons,(text-style:"sway")[ and then you get to your feet'.]
(click: "get to your feet'.")[//You look again at the words in your hand.
Does this text fit with who you are?//
(link-replace: "Yes")[(live: 1s)
[[[//You look up at where you are.//->FirstJunction]] (stop:)]]
(link-replace: "No (search the water for another page)")[(live: 1s)
[[[//You hear a cracking sound below the water.//->Paper]] (stop:)]]]]]]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/PageL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>You move the boat through a (text-style:"smear")[curving channel],
the sky is black here, the light of glowing algae pulls demonic faces from the reeds.
The bacteria gives off a (text-style:"wavy-strike")[gas] that makes you feel (text-style:"wavy-strike")[car sick], fogs your mind.
Was this once a field? What ''grew'' here?
(if:$handinjury is true)[You try to keep your mind from you damaged hands.]
[[Maybe you should glance over your shoulder, to see what awaits you?|Mimic]]
(if:$handinjury is true)[<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/RowingdarkL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/InjuredHandR.gif"></div>](else:)[<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/RowingdarkL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>](link-replace: "Row")[(live: 3s)
[[[Your hear a noise above the slap of water on wood.->Figure]] (stop:)]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/RowingL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>As you glance over your shoulder you see an ancient ''sea chest'', beached on a sand bar.
(if:$handinjury is true)[Your bones (text-style:"fade-in-out")[throb].]
[[Carefully steering around wreckage, you move in ''closer''|MimicClose]]
(if:$handinjury is true)[<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/RowingdarkL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/mimic1R.gif"></div>](else:)[<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/RowingdarkL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/mimic1R.gif"></div>]//You bring the tiny boat around so that you are facing what you see is not a chest filled with lost treasure, but a creature impersonating such a thing. Its teeth look sharp. It has no eyes but it is clearly paying close attention to you somehow.
Everything is silent//
(live:5s)+(align:"<==")[//The creature's attention is fixed upon you.//]
(click: "fixed upon you.")[(align:"==>")+(box:"=X")[//You stare back, unsure what to do.//]
(live:5s)+(align:"<==")[//The lid seems to be opening wider and as it does so you see that there is someting in there, beyond those teeth.//]]
(click: "those teeth")+(align:"==>")+(box:"=X")[//You hands, twitch. They want what is inside this creature.// (click: "inside this creature")[//No that's not quite it, your hands want to be placed inside it. You're going to //[[//do just that//->OfferHands]]]]
(if:$handinjury is true)[<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/mimic2L.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/InjuredHandR.gif"></div>](else:)[<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/mimic2L.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>]//You place your weary hands inside the creature.//(set: $repairedhands to true)(click: "creature")[//You don't know what you were expecting, nothing seems to happen.// (Click: "seems to happen.")[//You feel disapointed, sitting back in the boat.// (click:"back in the boat")[ //The creature looks at you, as attentive and friendly as ever, //(click: "as ever,")[//though it looks satisfied at this exchange, which makes you feel good in turn as you //[[//pick up the oars to leave//->Row]] ]]]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/mimic2L.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/HandR.gif"></div>//You stop just as you pass a figure that stands as you approach.//
(click: "approach.")[
//They smile at you and you return the greeting. //(click: "the greeting.")[//You think about trying to say something, but you can't think of anything.// (click: "think of anything.")[//Sometimes maybe, just warm proximity is all the connection that is needed, and so you //[[//pick up the oars again and row.//|SecondPages]]]]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/figuredarkL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noise.gif"></div>(set: $test2 to (random: 1,2))
(if: $test2 is 1)[The Moon watches you without judgement.](else:)[The boat bobs to the canal's artereal pulse.]
(if:$Paper2pickedup is true)[Within a vortex of black foam another page floats to the surface beside your boat, perhaps freed by the movement of the eels twisting below.](else:)[Floating in the water, its ink glaring with the radiance of the thousand beetles ground to make its indeible pigment, is a page torn from some illuminated text.]
(set: _list to (array: "Page7", "Page8", "Page9", "Page10", "Page11"))
(if:$Paper2pickedup is true)[The paper (//is that what it is?//) slithers from your hand and into the shadows as you reach a hand down over the side.](else:)[Seemingly pasted to the surface of the water, the paper (//is that what it is?//) invites you to peel it off and see what is written on it. You do so without hesitation.]
(link-goto: "What does it have for you?", (shuffled: ..._list)'s 1st)
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/PageL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>//You move the boat through the channel of reeds.//
(Click: "channel of reeds.")[//The sky looks down on you gently.//
(click: "gently.")[//You think about the things you have read, about the pages concerning $firstpage and $secondpage that you have kept and all the others left behind.// (click: "left behind.")[//You have the thinnest of memories about the events behind the pieces of paper.// (click: "pieces of paper.")[//That these connect to your life beyond this place.// (Click: "beyond this place.")[
[[The moon goes behind a cloud as you keep rowing->Tomb]]]]]]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/RowingL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>Who are you exactly?
(click: "exactly?")[Can you tell me what you are?
(force-input-box:2bind $PlayerName5,"=X","I am cared for. My body is held in a coffin, in a huge machine.
When I am needed, my family will wake me. Whether I am at the bottom of the sea or drifting in space I will wake up. I am the endless continuity of those that I love and that love me in return. For now I sleep, until those that watch over me have need to wake me.")
(link-replace: "...")[(live: 2s)
[[[That could be soon.->Future1]] (stop:)]]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/RowingdarkL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>//This is the end of the prologue of Earth AD//
//Thankyou for playing//
(click: "playing")[This prologue was produced in Twine(click: "Twine")[(open-url: "https://twinery.org/")] with layout based on the visual novel template created by Sun Labyrinth. (click: "Sun Labyrinth")[(open-url: "https://sunlabyrinth.itch.io/")]
This story is part of the exhibition, also called Earth AD, generously made possible by Wysing Arts Centre, FACT Liverpool, and Derby QUAD. The next part of the story continues later in 2023.(click: "Wysing Arts Centre")[(open-url: "http://www.wysingartscentre.org/")](click: "FACT Liverpool")[(open-url: "https://www.fact.co.uk/")](click: "Derby QUAD")[(open-url: "https://www.derbyquad.co.uk/")]
Earth AD was made by Uma in 2022.
(click: "Uma")[(open-url: "http://www.umabreakdown.com/")]
(link: "Quit")[<script>window.close()</script>]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/hand.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noise.gif"></div>//The paper looks like it was torn from a larger document, various three letter agencies' crests are visable through heavy marker, only one section remains://
(set: $Paper2pickedup to true)(set: $secondpage to "beautiful women holding swords")
'Page 22: I need you to understand that some things are just good. (click: "good.")[For example, beautiful women holding swords,(click: "swords,")[ these are always just (text-style:"fade-in-out")+(text-colour:green)[good!']]]
//The scrap writhes in your hand, will you keep it?//
(link-replace: "Yes")[(live: 1s)
[[[//You pick up the oars again.//->Wier]] (stop:)]]
(link-replace: "No (search the water for another page)")[(live: 1s)
[[[//The eels stir up a torrent of silt.//->SecondPages]] (stop:)]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/PageL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>//(This is clearly an important document, it smells of sulphur)//
(set: $Paper2pickedup to true)(set: $secondpage to "the dangers of currency")Page 23: its an insurance report for a crypto farm, cause of damage is determined to be “malicious self oxidisation” and the claim has be stamped “denied, with prejudice”
//The scrap writhes in your hand, will you keep it?//
(link-replace: "Yes")[(live: 1s)
[[[//You pick up the oars again.//->Wier]] (stop:)]]
(link-replace: "No (search the water for another page)")[(live: 1s)
[[[//The eels stir up a torrent of silt.//->SecondPages]] (stop:)]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/PageL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>//The paper purs in your grip, you feel its authority leeching through your skin.//
(set: $Paper2pickedup to true)(set: $secondpage to "the various noises that horses make")//It appears to be a page cut from a diary. //(click: "diary.")[//You gently run your index finger down the age-freckled page.//(click: "age-freckled page.")[//The letters curl appreciatively under your touch. //(click: "your touch")[//You feel almost incapacititated at this excess of grace, but somehow clear the tears from your eyes enought to read aloud what is before you. //(click: "before you.")['Page 24; lip smacking raspberry noise that horses make, as a ringtone'. (click: "as a ringtone'.")[
//What's a ringtone? //(click: "What's a ringtone?")
[
//The scrap writhes in your hand, will you keep it?//
(link-replace: "Yes")[(live: 1s)
[[[//You pick up the oars again.//->Wier]] (stop:)]]
(link-replace: "No (search the water for another page)")[(live: 1s)
[[[//The eels stir up a torrent of silt.//->SecondPages]] (stop:)]]]]] ]
]]<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/PageL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>//This seems to be a page torn from a manual, its stained with a coffee ring and what is almost surely arterreal blood.//
(set: $Paper2pickedup to true)(set: $secondpage to "a home for eels beneath the water")'Page 10:
I want you to imagine you floating above a wide and fast river, hovering like a dragon fly. Ahead the water pitches sharply over a weir. A hard vertical drop. You move in closer and see that the edge where the water falls straight down extends out to either side, eventually forming a complete circle. (click: "circle.")[I want you to look down into that pit and tell me what you see.'
(force-input-box:2bind $underthewater,"=X","I see a wreck, no... it is a tomb, built into a huge robot. Its hull is rusted through leaving only the re-enforced seams to form a bare ribcage... eels curl through what might have once been a fuel tank and then as i was about to look away I saw a light deep inside pulsing green")
//The scrap writhes in your hand, will you keep it?//
(link-replace: "Yes")[(live: 1s)
[[[//You pick up the oars again.//->Wier]] (stop:)]]
(link-replace: "No (search the water for another page)")[(live: 1s)
[[[//The eels stir up a torrent of silt.//->SecondPages]] (stop:)]]
]<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/PageL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>//As you bring it closer you see that this is the dust jacket of a novel.//
(set: $Paper2pickedup to true)(set: $secondpage to "the conventions of genre fiction")An artificial sea of mixed animal piss, an investment remade as a folly. A maiden is said to weep on its western shore at dawn, burning away with the (text-style:"fade-in-out")+(text-colour:green)[acid mist] as the first of the sun’s rays hit.
//The scrap writhes in your hand, will you keep it?//
(link-replace: "Yes")[(live: 1s)
[[[//You pick up the oars again.//->Wier]] (stop:)]]
(link-replace: "No (search the water for another page)")[(live: 1s)
[[[//The eels stir up a torrent of silt.//->SecondPages]] (stop:)]]
<div id="portraitL"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/PageL.gif"></div><div id="portraitR"><img class="responsive-image" src="./images/portraits/noiseR.gif"></div>