Djibouti Dirigible Discombobulation
Sam Kabo Ashwell
absurd africa djibouti female protagonist France humor humour SpeedIF August 2007 steampunk transformation walkthrough
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That wacky Neil deMause! What will he think of next? Why, the last time you tried to visit him, you got stuck on Ellis Island for hours, and ended up years in the past talking to a goat. Boy, you were really "Lost in New York" that time (heh heh). And history seems to have repeated itself, because here it is Halloween, and here you are, wandering through the streets in the fog, looking for his apartment again. Sheesh.

It's a good thing it's too foggy to make out any details, because
I've spent all of three hours in New York, and they were all at the airport waiting to switch flights. Still, you can make out a street going north (how did you get into this dead end, anyway?)
A jack-o-lantern sits in the middle of the street to the north.
Inventory
You are empty-handed.
About you
You look about the same as always.
You look at the lantern
It seems like a pretty standard jack-o-lantern: orange pumpkiny goodness carved into a face, candle inside, eyes shining at you with demonic hate -- the usual. The only thing that's a little unusual is the half-burned note sticking out of its mouth.
You get the lantern
You take a step or two towards the pumpkin. A sudden gust of wind makes the fog swirl, obscuring it for a moment despite the candle's glow, and then it's gone. Huh. Weeeyurd.
Y.
That wacky Neil deMause! What will he think of next? Why, the last time you tried to visit him, you got stuck on Ellis Island for hours, and ended up years in the past talking to a goat. Boy, you were really "Lost in New York" that time (heh heh). And history seems to have repeated itself, because here it is Halloween, and here you are, wandering through the streets in the fog, looking for his apartment again. Sheesh.

It's a good thing it's too foggy to make out any details, because
I've spent all of three hours in New York, and they were all at the airport waiting to switch flights. Still, you can make out a street going north (how did you get into this dead end, anyway?)
A jack-o-lantern sits in the middle of the street to the north.
Go north
You walk forward into the fog.
Someplace Else in New York
You're still lost, but at least you know you aren't where you were before. So you must be, erm, someplace else. The street bends, so you can go either east or south.
Go east
You pause for a moment as you start to walk again. Did you .. hear something? Nah. Couldn't be.
A Third Place in New York
Steadily narrowing down the options, you plan on having the whole of New York mapped any time now. *Including* the secret passage from the Kitchen to the Library. Streets lead west and north.
Go north
Again, you pause. There's definitely something out there. Something nasty. Something big. Something orange.
A Fourth Room in New York
Someplace else. Someplace foggy. Someplace sinister.
You look around
Someplace else. Someplace foggy. Someplace sinister.

"Ha!" you reassure yourself "There's nothing out there! And if there were, it would never leap onto my back suddenly and clasp its slimy hands around my throat and slowly squeeze until all my life was crushed out. It'd just rip my chest open and feast on my entrails."
You go to the north
This seems to be the end of the line. Your last stand. The final battle. No wait out but dead man's boots.

(Dramatic pause).
Go east
This seems to be the end of the line. Your last stand. The final battle. No wait out but dead man's boots.

EEEAGH! FLYING DEMONIC PUMPKIN HEAD!!!

When the horror finally ends, you're someplace else.
Someplace else in New York
Another time .. another place. Or is it? One moment seems to
blend into another, one stretch of pavement becomes the same as any other. It's tough being a hard-boiled detective, tossed off the police force because you knew too much about the kickbacks being paid to the guys up top. Yeah, it's tough, on your own, in-debt and half-drunk to forget the pain of a broken heart. So it's a good thing you're not one. You're just J Random Protagonist, remember? Now go find neild's house. I think it's north of here.
Go north
No, wait, I guess it's west of here. (Take *that*, fourth wall!)
You go to the west
You walk west, and find yourself on the doorstep of Neil's house. Your quest is over! ... or is it??
Outside Neil deMause's House
For ease of narration, his apartment got turned into a house
sometime. Or maybe you went inside and are standing outside the door to his room. Whatever.
You see a door here.
You look at the door
It's a door. Dare ye knock? Also, the address is 1313.
You knock on the door
You knock three times:
bang!
bang!
bang!
The door sloooowly creeeeeeaks opeeeeeen....
You check your inventory
You have a cookies.
You eat the cookies
The cookies slide down your throat and you quickly are full. Also, "wooden wood". Ha!
There is a sudden knocking at the door.
"Oh no!" says neild, "It's the pumpkinhead! Lets hide!" Neil hides in the kitchen. You hide in the closet.

This is the closet. It has stuff in it. There is a wall. And
another wall. Also there is a coatrack.
You examine rack
it's made out of wood. and varnished. and nailed to the wall. and there, right smack in the center of it, is a HOOK
You look at another the wall
hey this wall has a secret passage in it!!! You can push it!!
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That wacky Neil deMause! What will he think of next? Why, the last time you tried to visit him, you got stuck on Ellis Island for hours, and ended up years in the past talking to a goat. Boy, you were really "Lost in New York" that time (heh heh). And history seems to have repeated itself, because here it is Halloween, and here you are, wandering through the streets in the fog, looking for his apartment again. Sheesh.

It's a good thing it's too foggy to make out any details, because
I've spent all of three hours in New York, and they were all at the airport waiting to switch flights. Still, you can make out a street going north (how did you get into this dead end, anyway?)
A jack-o-lantern sits in the middle of the street to the north.
Wait
Time passes...
Look around
It's a good thing it's too foggy to make out any details, because
I've spent all of three hours in New York, and they were all at the airport waiting to switch flights. Still, you can make out a street going north (how did you get into this dead end, anyway?)
Go north
You walk forward into the fog.
Someplace Else in New York
You're still lost, but at least you know you aren't where you were before. So you must be, erm, someplace else. The street bends, so you can go either east or south.
Go east
You pause for a moment as you start to walk again. Did you .. hear something? Nah. Couldn't be.
A Third Place in New York
Steadily narrowing down the options, you plan on having the whole of New York mapped any time now. *Including* the secret passage from the Kitchen to the Library. Streets lead west and north.
Go west
You walk into the fog.
Someplace Else in New York
Go east
You walk into the fog.
A Third Place in New York
You go north
This seems to be the end of the line. Your last stand. The final battle. No wait out but dead man's boots.

"Ha!" you reassure yourself "There's nothing out there! And if there were, it would never leap onto my back suddenly and clasp its slimy hands around my throat and slowly squeeze until all my life was crushed out. It'd just rip my chest open and feast on my entrails."
Go north
This seems to be the end of the line. Your last stand. The final battle. No wait out but dead man's boots.

(Dramatic pause).
I beg your pardon?
You go north
This seems to be the end of the line. Your last stand. The final battle. No wait out but dead man's boots.

EEEAGH! FLYING DEMONIC PUMPKIN HEAD!!!

When the horror finally ends, you're someplace else.
Someplace else in New York
Another time .. another place. Or is it? One moment seems to
blend into another, one stretch of pavement becomes the same as any other. It's tough being a hard-boiled detective, tossed off the police force because you knew too much about the kickbacks being paid to the guys up top. Yeah, it's tough, on your own, in-debt and half-drunk to forget the pain of a broken heart. So it's a good thing you're not one. You're just J Random Protagonist, remember? Now go find neild's house. I think it's north of here.
Go north
No, wait, I guess it's west of here. (Take *that*, fourth wall!)
You go to the west
You walk west, and find yourself on the doorstep of Neil's house. Your quest is over! ... or is it??
Outside Neil deMause's House
For ease of narration, his apartment got turned into a house
sometime. Or maybe you went inside and are standing outside the door to his room. Whatever.
You see a door here.
You knock on the door
You knock three times:
bang!
bang!
bang!
The door sloooowly creeeeeeaks opeeeeeen....
It's yor frend!

neild invites you inside and gives you cookies.

Inside Neil deMause's House/Apartment
Depending on which path you took to get here, this is either Neil deMause's House or his Apartment.
Neil deMause is here. Yaaay!
You eat the cookies
The cookies slide down your throat and you quickly are full. Also, "wooden wood". Ha!
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The Spirit of Speed-IF is universally regarded as the most formidable dirigible battle platform in East Africa, if not the world; its india-rubber gussets alone cost half the annual revenues of the Ottoman Empire. Its recent loss to the French, therefore, can scarcely be countenanced.

Headquarters had little option; the Escadrille Patissiers Volants will rendez-vous by dawn, at which point the Spirit will be irrevocably lost. They didn't like it, but they had little choice but to send you in.

A Speed-IF by Sam Kabo Ashwell

Type ABOUT for SpeedIF details.

The Ergomatic Wing crash-landed (it knows no other variety) amid a clump of wilted-looking thornbushes and unaccomodating rocks. Sun-bleached grass extends in every direction, but the southern prospect is improved by Fort Yaourt-Framboise. And floating above it, the sublime bulges of the Spirit, cruelly tethered by French guile.

A fearsome goat crops the grass nearby.
Inventory
You are carrying:
a Hennings-Jobson Sophical Discombobulator (loaded with waggishness)
You discombobulate the goat
You carefully size up the savage brute, brush four or five clockwork range-finders and optical scopes out of your line of sight, and pop the bugger square between the eyes. It bleats plaintively, and there is a satisfying clunk from the Discombobulator's fluid reservoirs.
Inventory
You are carrying:
a Hennings-Jobson Sophical Discombobulator (loaded with fearsomeness)
You look at the goat
A feral Eritrean scrub-goat, if you are any judge, and six years of handing out blue ribbons at the All-Sussex Caprine Fanciers Exposition has to count for something. A pretty poor specimen, all things considered; it stares fixedly at the horizon, expressionless.
You examine Spirit
Beyond the descriptive powers of the era's finest poets, the Spirit of Speed-IF is the most terrifying engine ever to grace a battlefield. If its dozen Maxim-gun turrets (operated, it is rumoured, by monkeys endowed by vivisection with unholy powers of intelligence) do not sweep all foes before it, the Strauss-Gorvinsky Patent Optical-Precision Grip Extender may, from the secure heights of the stratosphere, pluck unsuspecting enemy commanders from their tents and bring their plans to ruination.

Lamentably, at this distance such details cannot be discerned; you shall have to savour them after the Spirit's rescue.
Go south
There are no legionnaires in evidence, so you stroll unimpeded through the fort's front gates.

Good lord, standards in the Foreign Legion have finally outdone the rumours. No gate guard, no military police, that distinctive smell from the latrines that invariably means every man jack of em's lousy with the clap.
A rope-ladder leads upwards, into the underbelly of the great dirigible.
Up
In theory, this vast hangar should house the dirigible's support biplanes, but the theft was effected during a sortie and all are absent. Its other role, as general storage shed, is more apparent. A series of ladders and gantries lead up into more habitable regions of the airship.
Up
Thanks to automation, the Spirit of Speed-IF may be fully controlled in the fiercest of conflicts by a single trained pilot, leaving the remaining one hundred and seventy-two flight officers to observe the battle from the comfort of the Observation Lounge Bar (west).

The controls are powered down. To blazes with those conniving cheese-eaters! You'll have to find some other way to gain control of the ship.
You go west
No battle-platform worthy of the name lacks an officer's bar. The Spirit was intended to be the crowning glory of the superplatform class, outdoing the British Lady Spankingleigh and even the Tibetan Vengeful Yak. Military analysts may quibble over their relative superiority in battle, but when it comes to the bar, they'll pick the Spirit every time. Gangways lead east and west.
An immense T'ang ashtray dominates the room's centre. Formerly there was an ornamental fountain, but it kept getting choked with cigar butts.

A military waiter - crew-cut, moustaches, khaki fatigues, sneer - regards you with utter contempt.
You look at the ashtray
A frankly monumental ashtray, a scattering of cigar-butts barely covering its dish. It must serve some kind of function as ballast. It must have been a gift of some kind from the Dowager Empress, judging by the T'ang bas-reliefs. Some temple in Guangdong is short one incense-burner, by the looks of it.
You shoot waiter
With Gallic stubbornness, he hangs onto his vital essences. Hang it all.
You examine the gun
In appearance, the Hennings-Jobson Sophical Discombobulator resembles an elaborately decorated carbine, bristling with antennae, hydraulic tubing, miniature gyroscopes and similar improbable attachments. You have as yet been instructed in the use of only three controls: the trigger that performs discombobulation, its recombobulating partner, and the screw that, tightened appropriately, primes the recombobulation barrel with stored essences.
The fearsome essential fluid is currently chambered.

(You may discombobulate objects with the command DISCOMBOBULATE, abbreviated to DIS, and recombobulate them again with RECOMBOBUBLATE or REC.)
Rec waiter
Fwoosh.

With a bestial howl, the waiter springs upon you and rips off  your limbs like so many soiled serviettes.
You go to the west
It takes a massive power source to locomote the ship's phlogiston turbines, power the anbaric conduits and keep the brain of Babbage's Automatic Aeronaut Cognition Engine wound; deep within the heart of the seething, cacophanous engine lies the 9-dimensional aitchgeewellsium crystal that generates all this vigour, through the miracle of radioactivition.
You examine the crystal
Aitchgeewellsium is a rare element, invariably warm to the touch and with a luminescent quality. It is also known for its receptivity to fluid essences - this particular crystal has been imbued with 9-dimensionality.
Dis crystal
Clenching your teeth, you level the Discombobulator at the crystal, mutter a brief prayer to nobody in particular, and fire.
From every direction, unseen machines sigh, rumble and wheeze to a standstill. A chilling silence, broken only by the flap of wind against the envelope.
Inventory
You are carrying:
a Hennings-Jobson Sophical Discombobulator (loaded with 9-dimensionality)
You examine the crystal
Aitchgeewellsium is a rare element, invariably warm to the touch and with a luminescent quality. It is also known for its receptivity to fluid essences - this particular crystal has been imbued with Mundanity.
You examine Discombobulator
In appearance, the Hennings-Jobson Sophical Discombobulator resembles an elaborately decorated carbine, bristling with antennae, hydraulic tubing, miniature gyroscopes and similar improbable attachments. You have as yet been instructed in the use of only three controls: the trigger that performs discombobulation, its recombobulating partner, and the screw that, tightened appropriately, primes the recombobulation barrel with stored essences.
The 9-dimensional essential fluid is currently chambered.
Turn screw
You give the selection screw a half-turn. The essence of waggishness rises into the firing chamber.
Turn screw
You give the selection screw a half-turn. The essence of fearsomeness rises into the firing chamber.
Look around
It takes a massive power source to locomote the ship's phlogiston turbines, power the anbaric conduits and keep the brain of Babbage's Automatic Aeronaut Cognition Engine wound; deep within the heart of the seething, cacophanous engine lies the nondescript aitchgeewellsium crystal that generates all this vigour, through the miracle of radioactivition.
Go east
A military waiter - crew-cut, moustaches, khaki fatigues, sneer - regards you with utter contempt.
Rec waiter
Fwoosh.

The waiter leans over to you, leers, and says something. You don't speak a bloody word of Froggy-talk, but it's obvious that there was at least one dreadful pun and two innuendoes in there. Incensed, you cosh him over the noggin, drag him to a convenient escape hatch, and lob him over the side.
Rec ashtray
It appears that Ashtray already has a vital essence, and it would be foolhardy to try and intermix them outside the laboratory. You forbear.
Dis ashtray
Zooosh.
You look at the gun
In appearance, the Hennings-Jobson Sophical Discombobulator resembles an elaborately decorated carbine, bristling with antennae, hydraulic tubing, miniature gyroscopes and similar improbable attachments. You have as yet been instructed in the use of only three controls: the trigger that performs discombobulation, its recombobulating partner, and the screw that, tightened appropriately, primes the recombobulation barrel with stored essences.
The T'ang essential fluid is currently chambered.
You look at the Ashtray
A frankly monumental ashtray, a scattering of cigar-butts barely covering its dish. It must serve some kind of function as ballast. Apart from a faded slogan advertising army-ration beer, it is unremarkable.
Turn screw
You give the selection screw a half-turn. The essence of 9-dimensionality rises into the firing chamber.
Rec ashtray
Fwoosh.
You examine the Ashtray
A frankly monumental ashtray, a scattering of cigar-butts barely covering its dish. It must serve some kind of function as ballast.
It apppears to exist simultaeneously in nine dimensions at once. Your brain hurts just thinking about it.
Look around
No battle-platform worthy of the name lacks an officer's bar. The Spirit was intended to be the crowning glory of the superplatform class, outdoing the British Lady Spankingleigh and even the Tibetan Vengeful Yak. Military analysts may quibble over their relative superiority in battle, but when it comes to the bar, they'll pick the Spirit every time. Gangways lead east and west.
An immense nondescript ashtray dominates the room's centre. Formerly there was an ornamental fountain, but it kept getting choked with cigar butts.
Look around
Thanks to automation, the Spirit of Speed-IF may be fully controlled in the fiercest of conflicts by a single trained pilot, leaving the remaining one hundred and seventy-two flight officers to observe the battle from the comfort of the Observation Lounge Bar (west).
Turn screw
You give the selection screw a half-turn. The essence of T'ang rises into the firing chamber.
Rec crystal
You hesitate. The wrong essence could have untold consequences upon the airship's performance; it would be wise to consider your choice carefully.
Rec crystal
Fwoosh.

The engines roar in overpowered fury around you. You hate to betray a client, but the Turks were thrice-darned fools to trust anyone with this much hardware.

Racing to the bridge, you grasp the controls, feeling the malicious throb of power course up your arms. Steering a course for the Rift Valley, you annihilate half the local warlords and bully the rest into a confederacy. By this time, the Great Powers are taking notice, but you're ready for the bastards. You have the single most powerful military engine on the planet. Let "em come.
Dis myself
Steady on, old gel! However many poor attributes you may have accumulated, it can't be worse than trusting yourself to that half-baked contraption!
Rec crystal
Fwoosh.

Honestly, however well the Turks pay you, they're a power on the decline and every bugger knows it. Stick with them and you'll wake up one morning with your knickers on fire and a mortar shell between your teeth. Therefore, before you set out on this mission you exchanged words with certain persons unnamed. Cash may have changed hands.

At first you make for the Euphrates airbase, but then you cut down to the Persian Gulf and link up with the Autumn Scholar battlegroup. The Sultan may grind his teeth, but there's nothing he can do.
You look at the Ashtray
A frankly monumental ashtray, a scattering of cigar-butts barely covering its dish. It must serve some kind of function as ballast. Hideous carvings are brutally gouged into its surface, and you swear you can hear it breathing.
You wake the Ashtray
You can only do that to something animate.
You take the Ashtray
That's hardly portable.
Go downward
Good lord, standards in the Foreign Legion have finally outdone the rumours. No gate guard, no military police, that distinctive smell from the latrines that invariably means every man jack of em's lousy with the clap.
A rope-ladder leads upwards, into the underbelly of the great dirigible.
You go north
The Ergomatic Wing crash-landed (it knows no other variety) amid a clump of wilted-looking thornbushes and unaccomodating rocks. Sun-bleached grass extends in every direction, but the southern prospect is improved by Fort Yaourt-Framboise. And floating above it, the sublime bulges of the Spirit, cruelly tethered by French guile.

A nondescript goat crops the grass nearby.
Rec goat
Feeling a little sorry for the poor characterless animal, you shoulder the Discombobulator and let a shot fly.

There is a dull *pung*, a pause, and then the goat explodes. Harhar, that'll teach the blighter some manners.
You describe your surroundings
The Ergomatic Wing crash-landed (it knows no other variety) amid a clump of wilted-looking thornbushes and unaccomodating rocks. Sun-bleached grass extends in every direction, but the southern prospect is improved by Fort Yaourt-Framboise. And floating above it, the sublime bulges of the Spirit, cruelly tethered by French guile.
Rec goat
Feeling a little sorry for the poor characterless animal, you shoulder the Discombobulator and let a shot fly.
You examine the goat
A feral Eritrean scrub-goat, if you are any judge, and six years of handing out blue ribbons at the All-Sussex Caprine Fanciers Exposition has to count for something. It is lifting one hind leg and one rear leg in a dramatic stance, as if posing for a bronze casting.
About yourself
Amelia "Barkers" Briscott, freebooter, terror of the Eastern Ghats and the only Englishwoman ever to sneak onto the Hajj and the Balliol rugger squad in the same false beard. For the last few years you've been drawing pay from the Ottomans, who are a queer lot but run a topper seraglio.
Yes
The Spirit of Speed-IF is universally regarded as the most formidable dirigible battle platform in East Africa, if not the world; its india-rubber gussets alone cost half the annual revenues of the Ottoman Empire. Its recent loss to the French, therefore, can scarcely be countenanced.

Headquarters had little option; the Escadrille Patissiers Volants will rendez-vous by dawn, at which point the Spirit will be irrevocably lost. They didn't like it, but they had little choice but to send you in.

A Speed-IF by Sam Kabo Ashwell

Type ABOUT for SpeedIF details.

The Ergomatic Wing crash-landed (it knows no other variety) amid a clump of wilted-looking thornbushes and unaccomodating rocks. Sun-bleached grass extends in every direction, but the southern prospect is improved by Fort Yaourt-Framboise. And floating above it, the sublime bulges of the Spirit, cruelly tethered by French guile.

A fearsome goat crops the grass nearby.
Go south
As you start towards the fort, you catch the goat's attention. It fixes you with an eye of pure malice, lowers its horns, and scrapes one fore-hoof on the ground. You back away hastily.
Dis goat
You carefully size up the savage brute, brush four or five clockwork range-finders and optical scopes out of your line of sight, and pop the bugger square between the eyes. It bleats plaintively, and there is a satisfying clunk from the Discombobulator's fluid reservoirs.
You look at the gun
In appearance, the Hennings-Jobson Sophical Discombobulator resembles an elaborately decorated carbine, bristling with antennae, hydraulic tubing, miniature gyroscopes and similar improbable attachments. You have as yet been instructed in the use of only three controls: the trigger that performs discombobulation, its recombobulating partner, and the screw that, tightened appropriately, primes the recombobulation barrel with stored essences.
The 9-dimensional essential fluid is currently chambered.

(You may discombobulate objects with the command DISCOMBOBULATE, abbreviated to DIS, and recombobulate them again with RECOMBOBUBLATE or REC.)
Rec waiter
Fwoosh.

With a bestial howl, the waiter springs upon you and rips off  your limbs like so many soiled serviettes.
Rec waiter
Fwoosh.

His French snobbery displaced by the traditional Chinese values of obsequiousness, loyalty and humble service, the waiter scampers from the room, and (mere moments later) returns bearing a delicious creme brulee. This accomplished, he retreats, bowing deeply every five steps.
You look at the creme
Delicious wobbly stuff topped off by a sheet of caramelised sugar.
You get the creme
You already have that.
You examine the gun
In appearance, the Hennings-Jobson Sophical Discombobulator resembles an elaborately decorated carbine, bristling with antennae, hydraulic tubing, miniature gyroscopes and similar improbable attachments. You have as yet been instructed in the use of only three controls: the trigger that performs discombobulation, its recombobulating partner, and the screw that, tightened appropriately, primes the recombobulation barrel with stored essences.
The fearsome essential fluid is currently chambered.
Rec brulee
It appears that the creme brulee already has a vital essence, and it would be foolhardy to try and intermix them outside the laboratory. You forbear.
You eat the brulee
You chow down on the 9-dimensional creme brulee. Scronch scronch scronch flickerflickerflicker OH MY GOD IT'S FULL OF SUGAR
You eat the brulee
You wolf down the creme brulee. It tastes of spotted dick.
You eat the brulee
As you raise the first bite of creme brulee to your lips, the gooey slime peels back and you realise there is an eye looking at you.

You have no time to scream before it leaps down your throat, burrows its tendrils into the walls of your oesophagus, and seals off your lungs. Your last words are "thptht glurk".
Rec crystal
Fwoosh.

Your work complete, you amble back to the Lounge Bar, put your feet up, and order a triple gin and tonic. The phlogiston turbines buzz as the Spirit, seemingly of its own accord, sets a course for Scapa Flow, taking a brief detour to dump its sewage tanks over Montmartre.

It's all very well doing a turn or two with the dagoes, but at the end of the day, what a gel really wants is Queen, country and a good fair scrap.
Rec crystal
It appears that Aitchgeewellsium Crystal already has a vital essence, and it would be foolhardy to try and intermix them outside the laboratory. You forbear.
Dis crystal
Clenching your teeth, you level the Discombobulator at the crystal, mutter a brief prayer to nobody in particular, and fire.
From every direction, unseen machines sigh, rumble and wheeze to a standstill. A chilling silence, broken only by the flap of wind against the envelope.