punch everything

>>108496
Search for the rabbit you wanted to follow.

How dry/wet are your clothes? You may need to get out of them to avoid hypothermia.

>>108499

At first glance, you don't see much to punch. There's some broken wooden planks in your immediate view, but... that would be a bad idea.

>>108500

Alice does not know how to follow The Rabbit down the Rabbit Hole.

>>108507

After taking quick stock of your clothing... you are completely dry, and it likely wouldn't have been a problem anyway. You are wearing a watertight swimsuit, the sort you'd wear for scuba diving, Underneath, you appear to be wearing a shirt and pants.

You have a pair of sneakers on your feet.

>>108511
is the swimsuit 'flattering'

Try to remember more about what you were doing. Can you find your own tracks leading to here? Follow them back and see where you came from.

>>108512

It's not exactly loose-fitting, if that's what you mean, but it has room for regular clothes underneath. It's a full-body deal. Black and yellow.

>>108513

Your head is... foggy. There are memories there - you know who you are, but... you can't remember why you are on the beech. In fact, the most vivid memories you have are of... running.

You get the sense that you weren't running from anything, as well as the sense that it was athletic in nature. Maybe you were a sprinter?

Still, though, there's gotta be some reason for you to be out here on a beach. You push yourself to your feet and, after brushing what sand you can off, take a look around.

The beach you are on seems to be small... a little crescent-shaped affair leading directly into a forest. The trees are huge, and everything about them makes them seem ancient. The leaves are so dark green you mistook them for black, and the knotted bark is an almost slate gray. The forest blocks all view in-land, except of a large mountain that isn't too distant.

The beach, on the other hand, is... not quite so idyllic. You appear to have woken up in a clean spot, but there are a lot more wooden planks here than what you first saw. It almost looks like a small building was blown apart. Might want to be careful where you walk.

Among the wreckage, there appear to be a few things.

>>108511
So it's safe to assume that you were diving...
Strike a pose! Something diving related.

>>108521
Investigate the THINGS

While looking about, you notice that you can't see any tracks, so you have absolutely no leads as to why you are here.

>>108524

However, maybe there's something amongst the wreckage that might help.

Picking your way carefully through the debris, careful to avoid nails and splinters if there are any, you collect what you notice.

Jammed by the tip into a plank of wood, you find a FANCY PEN. Surprisingly, after you check it, it still works. You slide it into one of the thin, hidden pockets in your jumpsuit.

Where the mess gets thicker, you find... a BRIEFCASE. Quirking a brow, you free it from its prison... or so you thought. It seemed to be buried, but a simple tug on the handle pulls it free. It appears to be imitation crocodile skin, and... strangely enough, whatever caused this wreck didn't touch it at all. It's been recently waxed, even, and the wax is barely scratched. You guess the dents are from earlier use.

There appears to be a small note tied to the handle. Getting the sudden feeling that some presence in the universe might just cry out for you to read it, you opt to do so of your own initiative.

Please return to Jasper if found. Urgent.

It appears to have a number combination lock on it, so you can't open it to find out what's inside.

Sitting on top of the plank the briefcase was under is a smooth HALF-SPHERE made of wood. You almost pass it over, but... for some reason, something tells you it's important. It's just a bit bigger than your palm, in circumference. For now, you opt to hold on to it.

You are now carrying:
A locked briefcase
A fancy pen
A wooden half-sphere
An empty wallet

>>108523

When you bent over to fetch the briefcase, you looked sort-of like a diver on a diving board, maybe?

>>108536
examine the flat side of the sphere.

>>108536
READ NO...

Try to remember who Jasper is.

>>108536
>When you bent over to fetch the briefcase, you looked sort-of like a diver on a diving board, maybe?

Kickass! Now uppercut a shark!

>>108538

You turn the sphere over and look at the flat side, running your thumb across it. It's smooth, like the rest, but the edge is slightly inset. It seems to have been a piece of something at some point.

>>108539

You have no idea who Jasper is, nor have you ever known. For once, you're actually certain of something.

A wind seems to be picking up, blowing from the direction of the sea. It's got a bit of an edge to it, but you can't see any sign of a storm.

The sudden sound of wind seems to give the beach a sense of... isolation, maybe? Alone-ness? You can't help but feel somewhat uncomfortable.

>>108548
Hurm. No markings? Ah, well... Let's head inland.

>>108556

After a quick backwards glance at the beach, which reveals nothing of note, you start in-land, stepping under the boughs of the ancient gray trees.

Fortunately, the mountain makes it easy enough to orient yourself. The canopy is thick, but glances through it are frequent enough to confirm whether you're moving towards or away from the mountain, at least.

However, you come to a stop and sit on a log, realizing you aren't exactly sure where you want to go. Should you head towards the mountain, or should you see if you can find anything else?

[[If you decide to explore, specify which direction you're moving in - either towards the mountain, away from the mountain, or right or left around the mountain.]]

>>108561
Perhaps instead we should walk along the coast. Less likely to get attacked by natural predators there. Let's say... to the right. Counter-clockwise.

[[It happens to be, at the moment, rather late and this sort of decision is one I'd like some more Suggestions on, so... I'm going to return to my painting for the time being.

I'll check back before I close the curtains on tonight, but if there's nothing else I'll pick up in the morning.

Which, on weekends, is... like, 3 in the afternoon. I'm a lazy ass. Anyway.]]

>>108561
Mountain.

Seek caves.

[[1 vote for Mountain, 1 vote for going right around the mountain along the coast.

Any others?]]

>>108801
Hmm, it depends.
Is the mountain forested? If it is, then mountain. If not, coast.

>>108834
From what you can see through the trees, the forest extends about halfway up the mountain, or what you're assuming is halfway up -- the mountain is close enough that the forest canopy blocks view of the lower parts of the mountain.

However, it thins out and leaves a sizeable chunk of the mountain bare, at the very least. You can't see any snow, which is probably a good thing. If you wanted to get above the treeline, this would be the way to go.

>>108852

Furthermore, just from taking your rest on this fallen log... you notice that the forest is absolutely silent. You can't hear birds chirping, twigs cracking... absolutely nothing but the faint rustle of leaves in the wind and the distant crash of the surf.

Predators don't tend to make much noise, though, if they're stalking something, so the coast is still an idea to consider, but the silence is almost eerie given that it's about mid-day.

[[Okay, I don't want to let this thing slip into inactivity waiting for responses, and I know the start is a bit slow anyway, so on we go.]]

>>108663
>>108834

You cautiously set out towards the mountain, trying to keep your ears open in case anything hostile makes an appearance.

Fortunately, the trip is rather uneventful.

Sticking to the forested parts of the mountain for now, you set to searching for a cave. If you can find an unoccupied one, it might serve as a decent shelter while you try to figure out what's going on. You don't even have to look that long, either, before you find one.

You come to a small clearing just a little ways short of where the trees start to thin out, apparently caused by a rock slide. However, you are set at ease by the fact that the boulders and rocks seem as old as the trees - moss is growing in thick coats on most of them. The cave itself has a large, somewhat triangular-shaped mouth. Unfortunately, with the sun directly overhead, you can't make out much of what's inside except the immediate mouth of the cave. You'd either need some light source, or, if the direction of the beach is either West or East, you'd have to wait until the sun either sets or rises. At the moment, it is almost directly overhead, making discerning the cardinal directions somewhat difficult.

However, what you can tell is the cave either is, or was inhabited. On the wall, in the illuminated part of the cave, you can see a a picture of a... clock face without a minute or hour hand, carved into the stone.

Well, you'll either need a light source or you'll have to wait several hours to explore the cave... or you can try fumbling around in the dark and see if your eyes can adjust enough to find something.

What do you suggest Alice does?

>>108878
Call out to anyone/anything inside the cave first.

>>108878
Don't actually fumble around. Walk enough in so it gets hard to see anything and let your eyes adjust while standing still.

>>108881

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

"Hello? Is anyone there?
Is anyone there?
anyone there?
there?"

All you get back is an echo. If anyone's in there, they don't seem to be responding.

>>108895

You opt to risk it, being that you don't really have any reason to believe that if there's a person in here, they're hostile, so you step inside.

As you walk, you hear a faint echo of each footfall, far weaker than your voice's echo, probably because your footsteps aren't near as loud. As you step out of the beam of light, you can still make out details decently enough, but as you go on things start to fade. You finally stop when the guts of the cave have melded into vague half-shapes and all context has been lost, waiting to see if your eyes will adjust. You're about... oh, 10 feet in, if you had to guess.

You get a sense for the cave's layout, but details are completely beyond you. There is some sort of object along the far wall, which you think is about another 15 feet in, and there seems to be a large alcove to your right. From what you can hear, the cave is abandoned.

You have a feeling that if you go any further in you'll lose sight entirely, and just from walking in you can tell that the cave floor is rough and bumpy - you nearly fell a few times. You aren't particularly fragile, but if you stumbled and hit something sharp, you're in the middle of a strange place and you don't have any first-aid supplies at all.

Going further into the cave might not be a good idea.

[[Doodled a picture of what Alice thinks the cave looked like. Scanning and uploading.]]

>>108910
Don't go any further in, then.

TheRadicalX!!R0ATSvZGp3 2010/01/10(Sun)18:00 No. 108926 ID: 498ebc
File 126317520494.jpg - (56.41KB , 1000x696 , WavesCaveMap.jpg )

>>108922

Alice turns around and leaves the cave for a moment, navigating back out into the sunlight... where she is temporarily blinded by the change in brightness.

When it fades, she gets her first good glance out to sea, over the tops of the trees.

The ocean is... glassy, pale, and the waves are sharp like knives. The wind rustles the trees nearby, but other than that, no sound is heard. The trees make no noise by themselves.

There is something terribly sad about this scene.

Alice sighs and sits down on a rock that she checked to make certain was relatively free of moss. The sun wouldn't be setting for hours yet, so there's plenty of time to look around before you find out if the cave will be explorable today.

What do you do?

[[I scanned the picture but forgot to resize it and upload it. Herp derp. So you are not "here" anymore. Anyway, this is the general layout of the cave, as much as you can tell.]]

>>108926
[[leaves the cave for THE moment. Not a big typo, but it bugged me.]]

>>108926
Start looking around for trees with edible fruit. If you're going to be stuck here for a while you're gonna need food.

>>108963

Just from a quick scan through your immediate section of forest, you can tell that these trees either do not bear fruit, or are far from their fruit-bearing season. You don't recall seeing any other kinds of trees on your trek to the mountain, but there might be some other sort of tree, or bush, or something else that could constitute food elsewhere. After all, you aren't even certain where -here- is, yet. All you're aware of is the forest, the debris-strewn beach and the mountain.

So, one way or another it looks like you're going to be exploring if you want food. You DO recall seeing some ferns on your trek, but... eating random, mysterious greenery is pretty low on your list of things to do unless you are going to die of starvation and therefore have nothing to lose.

So, what should you do?

[[ If you want to try exploring somewhere unknown, try and keep it in the context of the mountain for now.]]

[[G'morning tgchan. Should be around long enough for at least one update this morning.]]