Cryptozookeeper
Robb Sherwin
Available on Steam Comedy commercial graphics long-form music parser science fiction Xyzzy Awards 2011 XYZZY Best Game XYZZY Best Individual NPC XYZZY Best NPCs XYZZY Best Setting XYZZY Best Writing
Marrow is delicious but that's not why you're here. You're supposed to pick up a single jar of alien bone jelly, which of course can't exist and doesn't exist, so you've convinced yourself that transporting it is no crime. Getting worked up about such nonsense would be like fretting about mermaids getting caught in tuna nets, and you've got other fur-bearing fish to fry.
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Marrow is delicious but that's not why you're here. You're supposed
to pick up a single jar of alien bone jelly, which of course can't exist and doesn't exist, so you've convinced yourself that transporting it is no crime. Getting worked up about such nonsense would be like fretting about mermaids getting caught in tuna nets, and you've got other fur-bearing fish to fry. All this rationalization hasn't exactly settled the New York strip steak you inhaled an hour ago, though.

It's almost dusk. The sky is waffling between deep blue and indigo, but either way it's going to be a beautiful desert night in New Mexico. The only blight is the building before you: a grime-smeared shack with barred windows, a swatch of tar for a roof and a lawn that pretends to be a rock garden xeriscape, but is really just cheap chunks of broken cement.

This shanty has a single reinforced door with a peeper slit at eye level. The air tonight is quite dry and whisks away some of your anxious sweat... but also carries with it the scent of bad oysters.

A few feet from the house is Igor Cytserz's mailbox.
You examine the mailbox
It's a gunked up and rusted "white" mailbox positioned a few steps from the house. It is commonly assumed by other couriers that Igor Cytserz placed it so close because walking the full length of the driveway was beyond him. In fact, Cytserz can't go into the daytime sun for very long because his body begins to greasefire. Some courier scrawled the word 'chubs' on the mailbox, after that selfsame courier heard that Cytserz got rid of his computer because the @ key made him constantly hungry for cheese danish.

It's closed.
You open the mailbox
You open the mailbox.
Inside the mailbox is a glass bottle.
You take the bottle
Done!

The guard reacts to you rifling through Cytserz's mailbox with complete disinterest.
You look at the mailbox
It's a gunked up and rusted "white" mailbox positioned a few steps from the house. It is commonly assumed by other couriers that Igor Cytserz placed it so close because walking the full length of the driveway was beyond him. In fact, Cytserz can't go into the daytime sun for very long because his body begins to greasefire. Some courier scrawled the word 'chubs' on the mailbox, after that selfsame courier heard that Cytserz got rid of his computer because the @ key made him constantly hungry for cheese danish.

(In the interest of full disclosure, that courier was you.)

It's open.
You look at the bottle
You are carrying your vest (being worn), your lip ring (being worn), your glasses (being worn), and a glass bottle.

This is a 12 ounce bottle of Worcester sauce. Clear, with a small, brown label glued to it. Very easy to pour.
Pour
Be a little more specific about what you'd like to pour.
You read the label
"NEW!! SAFEWAY BRAND discount WORCESTER SAUCE est 2015 in association with THE CHRISTMAS CITY MOLASSES CORP - You'll want to put it on everything! - BEST IF EATEN BY OCTOBER 10 2116."
You examine the vest
A family heirloom for over three generations, your vest is a sleeveless jacket with loads of pockets, compartments and features. You usually find yourself carrying an enormous amount of stuff in it, without even a second thought.

You were supposed to get a complete oral history of the jacket when you became a teenager, but that never happened and you've been winging it ever since.
You look at the pockets
Your jacket has many little pockets, hardly worth thinking about.
You look at the ring
It's a stainless steel fixed bead ring. 18 gauge and annealed for easy removal. You installed it the day after you were fired from your last job.
You examine the glasses
There was a Lost and Found at the community college you attended, and they actually had a Lost and Found box. You've been refreshing your prescription there for the last decade, as nobody there looks too closely at the ID card you flash. These frames are as close as they can get to being horn-rimmed without making it seem like you are dressed as a Far Side character on Halloween, and not on Halloween.
Hello
[Use THINK ABOUT character for a list of topics and TALK TO character to converse.]
You think about the guard
Thinking of the guard reminds you of the following topics:
password  name  job
Password
"There's never been a password before. This your first day workin' for Cytserz?"

"Yeh," he says. "One sec." The slit closes and you heard the guy yell something to Cytserz. He re-opens the viewer.

"I'm supposed to ensure that you're not the police."

"Tell him - hey, tell him William Vest is here. He's expecting me." The guard doesn't do anything. "Look, I've got a lip ring. That's as much proof as you can possibly expect."

"Why's that?" says the guard.

"Piercings conduct electricity. It interferes with the tasers."

He chews that over for a second. The slit closes and you hear the lock on the door slide - this is good, it means you'll be able to get in, get the package and have the rest of the evening to work on opening it on the sly. You have no idea what 'alien marrow' would look like, but your initial suspicions? Green-glowy!
You open the door
Opened.
Look around
Igor Cytserz's office is a fortified lair, characterized by poor air circulation, an inexplicable cauldron, and a lack of any kind of restroom. Igor almost exclusively rests within a fake leather couch, near a pressboard table.

Cytserz and Puzzle are here.
You look at Cytserz
Cytserz, an eyesore, has his appearance dominated by a thick Unix beard. It suffocates other facial characteristics, people.
You look at Puzzle
Puzzle, Cytserz's pet, looks like somebody grabbed hold of a bearskin and proceded to cram both a snarling German Shepherd and a hundred copies of the Christmas City Spoiler into it. The only two things that Puzzle won't eat, given the slightest opportunity, are plain oysters in the shell and pleather.
You examine the cauldron
It's Cytserz's sole, begrudging nod towards letting some of his personality be seen in this place. The cauldron looks lifted straight from the foreboding part of a Shakespearian play. It probably holds about fifty gallons and is presumably filled with oysters... the same batch that you suspect you have been avoiding for years.
You examine table
Rather sizable. Actually, aside from the number of exits and your own person, everything in this room is rather sizeable.

Sitting on the desk are the package and the Anarchist's Cookbook.
You look at the cookbook
You vaugely recall this book being an Internet meme from years ago, but you've never seen anyone print it out and get it hardbound. Cytserz has previously stated that he uses it as a reference for an included recipe on the preparation of oysters.
You examine the oysters
You have no idea how Cytserz eats these things. Literally -- how does he get his sizable mass off the couch and obtain them?
You read cookbook
You're sure you read it when you were 15.
You take the oyster
(Looking in cauldron first)

Inside the cauldron is an oyster.

Taken.
You examine the couch
Cytserz's couch only barely fits him and has sort of molded itself to his very particular body type. It's pleather.
You give the oyster to Cytserz
Cytserz totally refuses.
You examine package
About the size of a Rubik's cube.

The package is closed -- taped shut.
You take the package
"Not yet, Vest," says Cytserz.
You think about Igor
Thinking of Cytserz reminds you of the following topics:
students  puzzle
You think about Cytserz
Thinking of Cytserz reminds you of the following topics:
students
Students
"Yeah, you know I can't stand 'em," Cytserz says with spit coagulating in his palate. "I hate kids, generally speaking."

"Really? You're not a family man that comes home to his beautiful, 95 pound wife each night? With a couple strapping young boys or anything?" In all your years of running packages for Cytserz, this is the first time you have ever had anything remotely resembling a personal conversation. And it's weird and uncomfortable and you wish it would stop, like when your lesbian aunt would give you a surprise backrub at family weddings.

"Family has not been well, recently," says Cytserz. "Two of my brothers have recently passed away, one from cancer and the other from random violence. It has been, yes, a most difficult time." Cytserz sniffs the air a bit.

"Well, I could use some hangers if you're dividing up stuff."
You open the bottle
Opened. Inside the bottle is the Safeway-Brand Discount Worcester sauce.
Smell sauce
The scent of old oysters is intense and makes your stomach feel like it might erupt at any time.
You taste oyster
Whether an attempt to bond with Cytserz or through silent self-loathing, you eat the oyster. The oyster responds with joy! For whatever reason, oysters love getting eaten. You've never understood why.
Close bottle
Closed.
You take the package
"Not yet, Vest," says Cytserz.
You think about Igor
Thinking of Cytserz reminds you of the following topics:
violence
Violence
"What kind of random violence are you talking about?" you ask Igor.

"He was alone, out on the streets. I believe his wife said he was out to get cigars or nicotine patches. It depended... depended on the day. Someone came up to him and assaulted upon his skull. There were five, er, small bullet holes along his face. Police in this country, they could not determine the weapon used."

"Like the caliber of the pistol or something?"

"Nyet," says Cytserz, "They could not determine the weapon, at all. Take care of yourself, William. Pay attention to your health." A rare paternal moment, coming from Cytserz.

"Like how? By eatin' more cauldrons of oysters?" You gesture over to the cauldron. You hope the gesture reminds him of how preposterous it is to have a vat of oysters in one's office, like how you can see your paintings again by rearranging them.

"...Fill me in here, Cytserz."

Cytserz toys with the package on his desk, thus silently indicating through gangster etiquette that it's okay to bring the entire point of your visit up.
Package
"Yeah, not going to be a package for you today, Vest. That's not at all why yer here. More to do with fate than anything else."
Fate
"Surely you know the old tale." Cytserz throws his head back and laughs. You hear his chins unwind and compress like a cartoon accordion. He mimes flipping through a stack of several bills close to his ear. He doesn't do the 'fffffffftffffph' sound, though.

"The important part for you, Vest, is that the threads of Fate all got snipped at the end!"

Cytserz starts the long, slow process of evacuating his chair of his person. He's never even remotely expressed a desire to leave it in all the time you've known him. The smell of the cauldron takes on an even worse stench with the stress in the air - it wouldn't take much for you to begin delivering goulash down Rainbow Street, if you're following.
Vomit
The entire strip steak you slid down your throat comes back up. So does a lot of stomach fluid and Jolt cola, but the steak makes up the bulk of the pie puke chart you just sort of unleashed.
You look at your surroundings
Igor Cytserz's office is a fortified lair, characterized by poor air circulation, an inexplicable cauldron, and a lack of any kind of restroom. Igor almost exclusively rests within a fake leather couch, near a pressboard table.

Cytserz and Puzzle are here.

A strip steak and an oyster are here.
You take the steak and oyster
strip steak: Taken.
oyster: Taken.
You examine the steak
Your freak stomach only did a little digestive damage, it's still the choicest piece of meat in this area of New Mexico.
You open the bottle
Opened. Inside the bottle is the Safeway-Brand Discount Worcester sauce.
You examine oyster
None the worse for being inside your gastrointestinal system.
You wait
Time passes...
You think about the package
Nothing comes to mind.
You think about Igor
Thinking of Cytserz reminds you of the following topics:
kill  money  job
Job
"Answers," you say to him.

"I was simply tasked with bringing you here and killing you, true. The money for such a thing was astounding. You would well be proud, Vest, my friend. They somehow knew about the vial, the package I wanted you to transport, but they did not appear to want it, or need it, they just wanted you deceased. Ordinarily I would tell them to go to Hell. You are a good courier. I have been through many, none good. None at all."

Cytserz breathes a little easier. "But yes, you may go. I am afraid I cannot pay you and I cannot allow you to take this vial, this package that contains a vial. Its alien nature is too disarming, even for a clever and forthright individual such as yourself, Vest! I know the rumoring is strong, but this is extraterrestrial in nature -- it's true!"
You open the package
Done.
You look in the package
Inside the package is the vial.
You look at the vial
This little transparent bottle contains maybe ten milliliters of fluid... and handwritten into the vial with a Sharpie are the words 'ALIEN', 'MARROW' and below those two, 'XXX.'
You take the vial
Taken.
You open the vial
You can't drink the vial.

It resists your best efforts.
You open the vial
It resists your best efforts.
You think about Igor
Thinking of Cytserz reminds you of the following topics:
kill  money  alien
Alien
"Well, there is much more here than I ever personally believed, myself. Our President, he or she should know. Few others. Military men. Top scientists. Top, however, they must be top! What you and your little barely-accredited, community college studentfolk were on the verge of -- "

Cytserz's door explodes and Puzzle, sitting too close, is instantly pulped. You use the distraction to grab the package of alien marrow. Somebody in a grimy trench coat emerges from the flash of the light, the stench of the smoke and the burn of both.

He throws a half dozen salmon-colored poseys onto the ground. Everyone falls down.
Thank you for playing the intro of CRYPTOZOOKEEPER. This was created for the 2010 IntroComp, hosted by Jacqueline A. Lott. For more information, please go to the IntroComp site, at

July 31st, 2010.

(If you are playing this after July 31st, 2010 then the full game should be released... shortly.)

-- Robb Sherwin, 5/19/2010