Steam & Crumpets: Episodes 3 – 6

Sep 23, 2012 by Stacy

I haven’t been keeping up with this because I suck. Also, because I’ve found myself running three hangout games while I play in three hangout games. This makes for very little free time, but a WHOLE LOT of fun time. As for my development as one who wants to write games, all of this playing and running is like nourishment from the gods. Not only am I remembering why I love to game so much, but now everything that I do I do with an eye to what that will mean for writing Precious Dark, the game that I’ve been (ever-so slowly) working on.

Rather than cluttering this post with four YouTube windows, I’m just going to link the playlist with all 7 episodes (starting with the third). These four episodes largely encompass the first adventure, which was to save Patrick, the guy who proves the rule that “Nice guys finish last”.

And here’s Patrick’s mini-fiction to go along with the story:

A waiter with a hidden talent for playing the piano was walking home one night when he came across a clearly destitute old man with a badly broken leg. The leg was splinted, but it was clear the man was doing poorly, and surely wouldn’t last through the cold and the night.

Taking pity on the hurt old man, the waiter paused and crouched down to see if he might be able to render some aid. “I am certain there is a hospital near here.”, he stated, “Perhaps I could carry you there.”

The old man shook off the help and insisted, “They will not see me, they will not take me! I am far too old, I shall die this night. Surely.”, the old man said to the waiter, “Surely, you are a man of great kindness. I can see it in the deep blacks of your eyes. You are young and you are strong – could you not take my broken bone for me and heal the pain yourself?”

The waiter smiled at the old man fondly, thinking him daft and gone to delusions. With only the warmest intentions in his heart, the waiter bent forward at the waist in a deep and formal bow, as if he were addressing none other than the Queen Herself, he said, “Surely, surely, old friend, I would take any amount of pain and grievance on my person so that you might live another night. Surely.”

The old man patted the waiter’s arm and smiled ruefully. “Ah, if there were but something to take away the bite of the cold, at least, at least … for one last night.”

Not knowing what else to do, and blocked by other attempts to render aid to the destitute old man, the waiter merely left his hip flask filled with Brandy and his cloak to aid with warmth before making his way back to his own home to sleep the night away.

Upon the morrow, the waiter awoke with such a pain in both his hands, he thought he might die from it there on the spot. The pain was so great, he could not even use his hands to rub the sleep out of his eyes so that he could clearly see. Blinking his eyes open and sitting up, crying out in desperate pain to no one, the waiter looked down to find all of the fingers on both his hands twisted and gnarled into impossible shapes, broken and in pain. He cried out to the heavens, “How could this be?! How could this happen?! I am a good man, I am righteous and kind, and I am humble! How could this happen? My future, it is ruined! I will never touch the keys of a piano again, I shall never look upon my fingers again!”

Just as he spoke the last, a small, goblin-like thing appeared out of steam at the foot of his bed. It was red and scaly, and stank of brimstone. When it grinned at the waiter, it showed rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth, and it laughed merrily at the start it gave the young man. “You swore and you promised, and you bowed to my friend!”, he cried gleefully, “…and now you must suffer the pains you said you would!”, he cackled again, louder than the first time, shaking his little body so aggressively that the waiter’s tiny bed moved all around his tiny little apartment.

As the imp cackled, more curls of steam coalesced into more imps, who bound his legs and, no matter how hard he fought, he found it useless to prevent his ultimate fate. The imps together, humming a merry song, drug the waiter, screaming, through the Hedge, his soul being ripped and torn by the thorns as they went, their song never ending…