text: > Look around
  Bathroom of the Meatpacking Plant, Lower Cambrian Era  (Chris
  Jones) (on the toilet (on a beach)) (on the beach) (in the Lower Cambrian Epoch)
  Well... you're on a beach. A beach with a toilet on it. I guess that makes it a bathroom, right? Can't be anything but a bathroom if it has a toilet in it; plop a toilet down in any other room and it's a bathroom no matter what it was previously. So it's settled then, this beach is a bathroom. Anyway, next to the toilet is a little table with nothing. To the north there's a weird moss forest and to the south there's an ocean.
  
  And before you ask, the reason you know this is the lower Cambrian is because of the millions of trilobite and trilobite-adjacent species that are hanging out on the beach and in the water here, including one that is nuzzling your foot (shoo! shoo!). Just a metric pantload of trilobites all over everything. At least... At least this is normal for the Lower Cambrian. Perfectly normal Lower Cambrian bathroom.
  
  You can see a pentagram (covered in green flames) on the beach here.
  
  > Flush toilet
  You flush the toilet. The Higgs bosons start to swirl around the bowl. You think. You're thinking about them being in the bowl so they might not actually be there. Stop thinking about them. Anyway everything starts to swirl and run just like that time a few minutes ago when you flushed yourself to the Cambrian era, and a few minutes before that when you flushed yourself back to Vermont from space...
  Suddenly you're pulled backwards and downwards, by your bum, into the locus of the reality swirl, just like all the times before...
  You are hurtling bum-first through a hyperspace (I guess hyper-TIME?) wormhole of kaleidoscopic color-lines, backwards in time from the Cambrian. Wait, if you're moving backwards through a wormhole to the past that would mean you're actually moving forward in
  spacetime becau
  Bathroom of the Meatpacking Plant  (Chris Jones) (on the
  toilet) (in the stall)
  You're inside the bathroom stall, which is one of those big accessible ones. There's a surprisingly clean porcelain toilet sitting invitingly in the center of the stall, with a mass of Higgs boson particles in the open bowl.
  
  (At least you think the glowing mass of Higgs boson particles is in the toilet; they should as long as you're not looking at them but they're not if you are. Goddamn particle physics.)
  
  Next to the toilet, there's one of those grab bars set into the wall. Next to that, there's a little door to what appears to be a janitor's closet, if the word "Janitor" on the door is any indication. Next to that, there's a medicine cabinet. And all around those things
  are graffiti. Just tons and tons of graffiti. Speaking of: on the back of the stall door, someone scratched the words "I Told You Not To
  Use The Shitter, Broseph". Below that on the door, someone has inscribed the Elder Sign.
  
  You can see a pentagram edge (covered in green flames) on the floor just outside the stall (on which is a candle shaped like a foot (of which a toe is on fire)) here.
  
  > get foot
  Taken. The weird ghostly green flame on the pentagram goes and the Higgs bosons in the toilet go back to being normal water.
  
  The boneless horse oozles and schlorps around the stall, occasionally smacking it with a hoof, still making car engine noises. "Br-RN-NN-NN-NN-NN!". The Elder Sign holds. For now.
  
  > put Hand in the pentagram
  You put the lit candle shaped like a human hand on top of the pentagram. That doesn't seem like a good idea but okay.
  
  The pentagram suddenly blazes alight with ghostly blue flame! And also something starts glowing in the toilet bowl, in the stall. Weird.
  
  > Flush toilet
  You flush the toilet. The luminiferous æther begins to circle in the bowl under your bum, making alien colors and weird shadows dance along the walls of the stall (and probably also along the bottom of your bum, but you can't see that so it's just a guess). Then the walls start spinning. Actually spinning. The meatpacking plant bathroom spinning around you starts to run like an oil painting left out in the sun too long, everything melting and flowing downwards. Downwards and inwards towards the toilet you're sitting on. Reality itself begins to swirl around you, like æther in a toilet bowl...
  Suddenly you're pulled backwards and downwards, by your bum, into the locus of the reality swirl...
  You are hurtling bum-first at sub-light-speed through a hyperspace wormhole of kaleidoscopic color-lines, just like that homeless fortune-teller told you would happen one day after she read your palm (and right before she shouted at you about how chemtrails were retroactively changing the spelling of "Campbells Soup"). What a weird coincidence. Anyway, you look over your shoulder and see that you are rapidly approaching a star-filled exit from the wormhole. Before you can react, you are ejected out into a... bathroom stall?
  Bathroom of the... Meatpacking... Plant? (Chris Jones) (on the
  toilet (in space)) (in the stall (in space)) (in the terrifying void full of alien stars (aka "space"))
  This is a perfectly normal bathroom. In space. Beyond the visible rays of the life-giving sun, surrounded by strange and distant constellations. There's a bathroom stall (which is floating in the void of space next to you), a urinal (floating in space nearby), a sink with a mirror over it (yup, both floating in space) and even a shower (space!) for those days at work when you are FLOATING IN THE LIFELESS VOID OF SPACE OH GOD WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN YOUR CHILD IN THIS FRIGID AIRLESS HELL.
  
  Actually wait okay, there appears to be air at least, that's something. And it's pretty cozy in the stall, to be honest. The toilet itself is a lot nicer here, and there's an old-timey phonograph and even a fireplace with a hearth on one side of the stall. It wouldn't be the worst place you've dropped a deuce, even accounting for the fact that you're millions of miles from everything you've ever known or loved and surrounded by weird shit. Speaking of which:
  
  There's some weird shit orbitting the space bathroom-stall: some corpses, a small bookshelf (on which is nothing), Ed's bare-assed frozen space corpse, and what appears to be a... '70s Pontiac Firebird a little farther out, all circling slowly through space.
  
  And the bathroom itself appears to be in orbit around an icy planetoid many miles below you, the curve taking up much of your view in one direction. The planetoid is covered in alien spires and hurts to look at. Otherwise, you know, this is still a perfectly normal meatpacking plant bathroom. In space.
  
  You can see a pentagram (covered in blue flames) floating in the void, not too far from the space urinal here.
  
  > examine Firebird
  A 70's Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am. Cherry red. Floating in space for some reason. It's too far away from the bathroom stall to do anything to, though. Wait, is it... is it making soft horse noises? What the fuck.
  
  > examine the phonograph
  An old-timey phonograph, the kind where the sound comes out a brass bell. You'll have to crank it if you want it to play music, since that's how these really old phonographs work.
  
  There's an antique wax cylinder loaded on the phonograph; the old kind from before the days where records were vinyl.
  
  > crank it
  You rub your hands together excitedly and lean towards the old-timey-phonograph. Who knows what this antique wax record on it holds? A rare Bach recording? A violin concerto from the turn of the century? Nikola Tesla talking mad shit about Edison and Marconi?? It could be anything! Hands trembling, you grasp the phonograph crank and give it a turn as you listen in anticipation:
  
  ♫♫ How? Why? Who would do this?
  
  > examine the hearth
  A stone hearth jutting out from the front of the fireplace. Traditionally you'd put things that you wanted to heat up on top of the hearth here, which warms up when the fireplace is lit so that you don't have to reach in and out of the fireplace with your (relatively flammable) hands. It's an unexpected but welcome bit of old-worldy charm, here in the terrifying void of alien space.
  
  > examine the cylinder
  This is how the VERY early phonograph records looked: round wax cylinders about foot tall. Normally with ones this old, they have classical recordings on them, although someone appears to have etched a sonic abomination into this one for some reason.
  
  > put the cylinder on the hearth
  You put the wax cylinder on the hearth.
  
  > examine fireplace
  A cozy little brick fireplace with some space logs in it. It's unlit. Jutting out the front is a part of the fireplace called a stone hearth, which is like a brick of stone that you would set things on to warm them up using the fireplace, without sustaining horrible and disfiguring burns to your extremities by reaching in and out of the fire. Nice feature, that.
  
  In the cozy fireplace are some space logs.
  
  > look at the logs
  They're logs. In space. Well technically they're in the fireplace but the fireplace is in space, so...
  
  > Light logs with lighter
  You try lighting the space logs with the rad wizard lighter (smelling faintly of mildew) for a while but this tiny little lighter flame won't get these big ol' logs a-burnin'. You need to light a larger amount of kindling and toss it in there.
  
  > Light juggs with lighter
  You hold the rad wizard lighter (smelling faintly of mildew) up to the vintage issue of Juggs Magazine and flick the little metal wheel, but it won't light at the moment. These gas station lighters are unreliable pieces of crap.
  
  > light the ed's journal with lighter
  You hold the rad wizard lighter (smelling faintly of mildew) up to Ed's Journal (you know it's Ed's journal because it says "Ed's Journal" on the front) and flick the little metal wheel. Success! Ed's Journal (you know it's Ed's journal because it says "Ed's Journal" on the front) is on fire.
  
  > put the Ed 's journal inthe fireplacee
  You put Ed's Journal (you know it's Ed's journal because it says "Ed's Journal" on the front)(it's on fire) into the fireplace. After a moment, the space logs catch and flare up into a glorious flame! The hearth begins to warm up as well. Hopefully this isn't consuming all the oxygen in this space bathroom...
  
  The wax cylinder rapidly melts into a lump of wax.
  Awesome. Space is finally safe from the twisted revenant of the band formerly known as Jefferson Starship.
  
  > Shape wax
  What do you want to shape the lump of wax into?
  
  > Horse
  You work on the wax lump for a little bit, and manage to sculpt a pretty good likeness of the boneless, lumpy gross horse that's rampaging around the bathroom. Granted you were trying to make a horse that actually looked like a horse, but it all came right in the end.
  
  > get the wax
  [Hey! Listen! You can try to sculpt the lump of wax into something with "> sculpt wax lump into *something*" It may not always work depending on what you're trying to sculpt, since Naomi is a pretty shitty scultptor. Actually, her abysmal lack of sculpting talent is directly responsible in a roundabout way for her marriage to Peter, but as interesting as that story is (and it is VERY interesting), it's too long for this tooltip.]
  
  > examine the wax
  It used to be a very expensive and rare phonograph record. Now it is a melted lump of wax that looks like a horse, sort of.
  
  [You can try to sculpt the lump of wax into something with ">
  sculpt wax lump into *something*" It may not always work depending on what you're trying to sculpt, since Naomi is a pretty shitty sculptor. Actually, her abysmal lack of sculpting talent is directly responsible in a roundabout way for her marriage to Peter, but as interesting as that story is (and it is VERY interesting), it's too long for this tooltip.]
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying:
  a lump of wax shaped like a horse
  a candle shaped like a foot (of which a toe is on fire)
  a Potion of Fortitude and Glowing and Smelling Bad
  Konstantin's keys (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a fur coat
  a small blue journal (which you know is a journal because it says "Mein Journal" on the front) (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a mysterious scroll
  a book of Unfortunate Baby Names (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a real weird handwritten note you found in the back of a vintage
  issue of Juggs Magazine (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a vintage issue of Juggs Magazine
  a bloodstained witch-knife (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a bottle of Pepto-Bismol (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a rad wizard lighter (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a copper amulet (being worn)
  an a worn out, decaying picture (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a little stoppered vial of blue liquid (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a battered yellow JogMaster (being worn)
  a slip of paper (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a calfskin coat (being worn)
  a pewter box (smelling faintly of mildew) (open but empty)
  a silver urn (smelling faintly of mildew) (open but empty)
  a pair of reading glasses (being worn)
  a cold spot on your collarbone (haunting you) (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a book list (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a golden apple (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a FFFFFFFF punch card (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a 923647F1 punch card (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a C353F128 punch card (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a 0B46E931 punch card (smelling faintly of mildew)
  an AE9B711D punch card (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a 00A02209 punch card (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a can of salt (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a blank punch card (smelling faintly of mildew)
  the Journal of Edwin Cragne (smelling faintly of mildew)
  an Isole Perdute (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a Lettera Segreta (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a Prurito Notturno (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a Piccoli Uomini Blu (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a rusted toolbox (smelling faintly of mildew) (open)
  a jar of screws (open but empty)
  a teapot (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a scrap of paper (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a snowglobe (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a black fountain pen (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a mallet (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a metal flask (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a pinch of snail paste (smelling faintly of mildew)
  an Italian magazine cutting (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a police report ("Francine Cragne") (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a note from a seesaw (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a piece of chalk (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a black box (smelling faintly of mildew) (open but empty)
  a shard (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a broken silver amulet (smelling faintly of mildew)
  red-rimmed porcelain plates (smelling faintly of mildew)
  red-rimmed porcelain cups (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a spray bottle that used to contain fungicide (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a gallon jug of white vinegar (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a pair of garden shears (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a rusty flathead screwdriver (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a trophy for a dog race (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a black business card (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a rusty piece of metal (smelling faintly of mildew)
  some yellowed newspapers (smelling faintly of mildew)
  an employee ID card (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a long hooked pole (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a grimy rock (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a backpack features guide (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a trolley schedule (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a pamphlet of home listings (smelling faintly of mildew)
  an antique locket (smelling faintly of mildew) (closed)
  a wad of cash (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a repaired page (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a waterproof flashlight (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a filthy rug (smelling faintly of mildew)
  Daniel Baker's note (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a pull-string doll (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a glass jar containing an insect (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a half-full styrofoam coffee cup (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a familiar gold wristwatch (smelling faintly of mildew)
  a pair of stone earplugs (being worn)
  a trolley pass (being worn)
  a Jansport backpack (being worn and open)
  a hidden pocket (open but empty)
  a key pocket (closed)
  a book pocket (closed)
  a side pocket (closed)
  a trash pocket (closed)
  a gold jacket (being worn)
  a giant milkweed leaf (being worn as a mask)
  
  > look at the fur coat
  The tag says it's genuine ermine (which you're pretty sure is a kind of stoat). This is pretty baller for a meatpacking plant janitor.
  
  > examine coat
  Which do you mean, the fur coat, the calfskin coat or the pockets of the calfskin coat?
  
  > look at the juggs
  It's the Virgin Alewives of the Midwest issue, according to the cover. "Oh hey dere I've never had a man but I'd sure like to doncha know!" proclaims the woman on the front in big red 80's font, as she stands there with two strategically-placed giant beer steins and not nearly enough clothing for a Midwest winter.
  
  Ooo, it says there's an article on cornhole strategy, too!
  
  > Flush toilet
  You flush the toilet. The luminiferous æther begins to circle in the bowl under your bum, making alien colors and weird shadows dance along the walls of the stall, just like it did back in the terrestrial bathroom. Then the walls start spinning. Then space starts spinning, the stars turning to long streaks of color like a timelapse photo of the night sky. Reality itself begins to swirl around you, like æther in a toilet bowl...
  Suddenly you're pulled backwards and downwards, by your bum, into the locus of the reality swirl, just like before...
  You are hurtling bum-first through a hyperspace wormhole of kaleidoscopic color-lines, just in the opposite direction this time. Damn, that homeless woman was on point. Maybe it WAS spelled "Cambells" all along. Anyway, this return trip through the worm-hole takes a little longer, giving you some time to ponder things. Things like... hey, wait, didn't that handwritten note say these trips through the portal were powered by baby souls? That had to be code for something, right? Like, you using this toilet isn't somehow using up baby s
  Bathroom of the Meatpacking Plant  (Chris Jones) (on the
  toilet) (in the stall)
  You're inside the bathroom stall, which is one of those big accessible ones. There's a surprisingly clean porcelain toilet sitting invitingly in the center of the stall, with some kind of luminiferous æther in the open bowl.
  
  The luminiferous æther is glowing slightly, bathing the stall in a panalopy of alien colors that have no terrestrial equivalents.
  
  Next to the toilet, there's one of those grab bars set into the wall. Next to that, there's a little door to what appears to be a janitor's closet, if the word "Janitor" on the door is any indication. Next to that, there's a medicine cabinet. And all around those things
  are graffiti. Just tons and tons of graffiti. Speaking of: on the back of the stall door, someone scratched the words "I Told You Not To
  Use The Shitter, Broseph". Below that on the door, someone has inscribed the Elder Sign.
  
  You can see a pentagram edge (covered in blue flames) on the floor just outside the stall (on which is a candle shaped like a hand (of which a finger is on fire) (smelling faintly of mildew)) here.
  
  > put the wax on the pentagram
  You put the lump of wax shaped like a horse on the pentagram edge (covered in blue flames) on the floor just outside the stall.
  
  > Drink potion
  You take a sip of the glowing, foul-smelling Fortitude potion and quickly realize that drinking it slowly is the wrong way to do this. So you chug the whole can, only to discover that drinking this at all was the real mistake. It's sort of lumpy, slick and wriggling under its own power as it goes down. Your stomach instantly rejects the gooey acidic mass, warning you with cramps and reflux that it is having none of this. You argue and then plead with your stomach, pointing out that it is going to be just as bad on the way back up. You also point out that it's got pepto in it so your stomach should quit whining. Eventually your stomach grimly accepts the task ahead of it and gets to work, which is when you notice that your skin is glowing faintly now.
  
  > Wave fur coat
  You wave the fur stoat-coat. Magical energies swirl around and about the coat. They might not be magical energies. They might be trails of thrift store dust. Anyway, there's swirling that happens.
  
  The boneless horse oozles and schlorps around the stall, occasionally smacking it with a hoof, still making car engine noises. "Br-RN-NN-NN-NN-NN!". The Elder Sign holds. For now.
  
  > put the Juggs in the pentagram
  You put the vintage issue of Juggs Magazine (smelling faintly of mildew) on the pentagram edge (covered in blue flames) on the floor just outside the stall.
  
  > Cut juggs with athame
  "Sorry about this, Glinda" you say, stabbing downward with the witch-knife into the magazine on the pentagram. The ghost-flames flare brightly and suddenly become fiery arms, twisting and turning around the vintage issue of Juggs and then pulling it down forcefully into the surface of the pentagram. It vanishes, and the magic flames return to (locally relative) normal. Well at least they've got some "articles" to "read" to in Hell now.
  
  > shout outerica
  You shout the magic translocation word OUTERICA! The pentagram flares. The walls of the stall explode outwards with a burst of magical force from the toilet, which begins to emit a howling nightmare hurricane wind. You're forced backwards against the wall near the grab bar. The boneless sack of horse does not move, but its flesh pulls back and starts flapping as if it was hanging itself out a moving car window. Gross.
  The æther in the commode glow brightly of a sudden, and the gale wind stops howling forth from the toilet. Then it begins again, except pulling air from the room INTO the toilet.
  The walls of the stall are wrenched from the floor by the devil wind and land on the open toilet, and then suddenly collapse into the toilet. The sink and the shower fixtures begin to make groaning noises as they pull at their wall screws. You grab the grab bar on the wall protectively as things begin to fly from the room into the toilet.
  The urinal goes first, clonging off the back of the boneless horse before tumbling into the toiletbowl. Then the sink. Then the showerhead. Loose items start to fly out of your pockets and into the raging toilet-portal: the athame, the mysterious scroll. The lighter. Aw dammit, that thing was rad.
  Wrecked Bathroom of the Meatpacking Plant  (Chris Jones)
  There is nothing left but you and the horse, a toilet and some wreckage.
  
  You can see a pentagram edge (covered in  flames) on the floor just outside the stall here.
  
  You're unable to move from the grab bar, and the horse is so damned heavy that the devil-winds are merely pulling it into a teardrop shape as it slowly works its way towards you. There is murder in its rolling horse eyes and it is still making engine revving noises. "Br-RNN-NN-NN!!"
  
  And then the intensity of the wind increases. You grab on with both hands. The horse flails and then is suddenly lifted into the air sideways, its great rump landing square on the toilet. With a horrible schlorping noise, the horse's rump slides into the can. Then a bit more. The boneless horse is being pulled into the toilet... halfway in... The toilet makes a sound like a balloon deflating, and then the wind stops... And the horse is still there, half out of the commode! Its beady little eyes roll in its boneless head. "Br-RNN-NN-NN-NN-NN!!" It starts flailing at you again with hooves the size of quart-jars!
  
  The stupid fat-ass boneless horse is stuck in the magic shitter, and it's still trying to kick you to death! What do you do?
  
  > Flush toilet
  You lock eyes with the horse. "Rot in hell" you say, yanking on the shower knob  you juryrigged earlier. The toilet flushes. The evil boneless horse begins to blare and scream exactly like a car alarm: "wee-OO we-OO we-OO!! Bwaaaaaaaa!" And then, with a sound like God farting, the monster is pulled down and down into the toilet. And is gone. The blaring car alarm grows distant and then is silent.
  
  The wind stops. The toilet ejects a small amount of space detritus, then turns itself inside out and is gone. The pentagram glow fades.
  
  > look at the coffee
  The swirls in your cup form a row of trees. Botanical images mean that while there is much left to accomplish in the present situation, your immediate environment sustains you, and you have everything that you need.
  
  A faint smell of mildew emanates from it.