Gameplay

You find yourselves roused suddenly from uneasy slumber, and dragged roughly from your place of confinement, a large wooden cage that stinks of excrement and animal musk. Surrounding you are surrounded by a band of savage baboon-men, who shriek and jabber excitedly as they seize you, and begin to carry you off in an uncertain direction. It's pitch-black, but you know you're in an underground tunnel by the feeling of rough stone under your bare feet, and by the echo of the baboon-men's screeches against the tunnel walls. Being captured by baboon-men is a fate not unheard of for those who dare venture into the rocky foothills that surround the region's civilised lands, so the individual details of how exactly you ended up in captivity aren't important for the time being.

Far up ahead, you can see the white glow of daylight from around a bend in the tunnel, and as you move closer, the light becomes increasingly painful to your eyes, unaccustomed as they are to sunlight after your prolonged subterranean confinement. As you round the corner, and are exposed to full daylight, you're forced to squeeze your eyes shut, but even with your eyes closed, the cool breeze on your skin tells you that you're leaving the cave, and entering into the outside world. The baboon-men press close around you, and as your eyes gradually adjust to the light, you're able to see that you're being led up a narrow hillside track by your captors. At the top of the hill, you see what appears to be some kind of temple, made out of stone.

The temple appears to have been built without a roof, and the exterior wall is topped with columns, with large open spaces between them. After ascending the hill, you're brought into the temple through a large square archway on the east side. Once inside, the first thing you notice is that there is an open circular pit in the centre of the temple floor, about 20 feet across. Standing on the other side of the pit, you see a number of particularly fierce-looking baboon-men, wearing armour scavenged from the civilised lands, and wielding the weapons of men. These armoured baboon-men quickly surround you, and begin herding you towards the open pit at the point of their spears. Though the press of simian bodies, you see a white-furred albino baboon-man lurking towards the rear of the temple. As you watch, he starts up a barking, whooping incantation, throwing up his arms as if invoking strange gods. You don't have much time to give this matter further consideration, however, as you now find yourselves forced right to the edge of the circular pit by the baboon-men's spears.

Looking down, you see a stone shaft that drops into total darkness. The depth cannot be discerned, and the smooth sides of the shaft appear to be impossible to climb. As you teeter on the edge of the pit, we come to the first decision point of the PBP. Do you take your chances, and jump? Or are you pushed?

Alright, I'm back. Let's continue:

For all of those who jumped willingly:

There's a sickening lurch in your stomach as you leap from the edge of the pit, and plunge down into the darkness below. There's a terrifying moment of freefall which seems to last an eternity, before you find yourselves suddenly splashing down into a pool of ice-cold water.

As you instinctively struggle to the surface, you find yourself in a circular chamber with smooth stone walls, with a deep pool of water in the centre. The pool of water is about 20 feet in diameter, and the chamber itself is about 40 feet in diameter.

The room is illuminated by a dim blue glow, which appears to be coming from the east. Immediately to the east of you, there's an open archway, flanked on either side by a head-high stone pillar. At the top of each stone pillar, there's a stone bowl, in which flickers a crackling cyan-coloured fire, seemingly magical in nature. Beyond the archway, there is a short corridor, which terminates at a large silver door.

There is another open archway at the south end of the room, where the start of a flight of stone stairs are visible, leading downwards. You see an iron lever set into the wall at the top of the stairs. The lever is in the "down" position.

Finally, there is an large alcove in the wall on the western side of the room. In the alcove, there is a statue of a life-size skeleton, positioned as if lounging back lazily against the rear wall. Tucked under the skeleton's right arm is a stone amphora, the sort that would commonly be filled with wine. The open mouth of the amphora faces downwards, as if the skeleton is about to pour out some wine. The skeleton's left arm is propped casually on the partially-open lid of a stone treasure chest. The semi-open chest is visibly full of treasure.

You will have to approach closer in order to see further details.

For Thunderhead:

You rush towards the nearest baboon-man, catching him off-guard. A hard blow from you sends him sprawling senseless to the floor, but before you can strike down your next adversary, you are quickly surrounded by the screeching man-beasts, and promptly cut to pieces. You have been slain.

For Asa:

As you pause at the precipice, evaluating your chances of climbing down using your spider-climb ability, someone kicks you hard in the back, sending you tumbling headlong into the pit. Refer to the top post for details as to what you see when you hit the bottom.

For Jaws:

As you see the Goliath getting swarmed by a teeming throng of baboon-men, you come to understand that jumping into the pit presents your only hope of survival at the present time, and so you follow the others into the abyss. Refer to the top post for details as to what you see when you hit the bottom.

For everyone:

What do you want to do from here?