Slop

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<div style="text-align: center;"><img src= "Images/Slop.png"></div> A short, multiplayer group horror game by Milo van Mesdag. [[Begin]] [[Content warning]] [[Credits.]]

<i>Slop</i> is a multiplayer, group game. It is designed to be played over chat by at least three people. At regular points during the game, you will be given a code letter and/or a number. Give this code to every other player in the game and then, when everyone has given their code letter, follow the instructions for which link to press next. If you are playing on your own or with only one other player, then one of the players should press the ‘Solo play’ button on each of these screens to be given an extra letter/number code. Treat this as if it were given to you by another player for the purposes of following the instructions. [[Start]]

Manipulation Brainwashing Theft Societal collapse Physical disassembly Also imagery which does not depict but which might be uncomfortably close in form to: Sexual assault Imperialism [[Return to start|Untitled Passage]]

<<nobr>><<set $AILoyalty to 0>><<set $artLoyalty to "False">><</nobr>>Your soul shines. Neons, pastels, colours deep and rich and earthy – whatever the mixture, stunning in its complexity, it is unique. It dazzles. A thing to behold. It has been noticed. Not just by you, although you have always known, on a primal, inborn level, that you are special in your uniqueness. But you have also been recognised by the artisans of the academy. Like anyone else, you could do anything you wanted: for yourself, for king and country, for the world. But the artisans have noticed a streak in your soul, a vibrant blue, a twisting of silver, a shot of bright yellow light, which makes you perfect. Perfect to manage the Generation Cage. It sits in the basement of the castle academy, buried deep into the rocks of the ice-capped mountain. Its hall is vast, the floor lost in darkness as you stand on a wooden gantry looking down through the metal latticework, the giant orb of steel tungsten and gold which lies nestled within the chamber, and the light which lies nestled within it: a little brown puddle, a slug, a little jittering thing jumping over itself, playing and spitting. “Isn’t it something?” the professor says, his hand resting on the railings, the cream and beige and ink-black light reflecting in his glasses. “We’re teaching it words, one at a time. It’s made out of them, the scraps of souls we leave behind. We feed them to it, one at a time, teaching it what each one is and where it goes. It’s hard work, but its getting so it can recognise certain things, so that we can feed it the tiniest scrap and it will rearrange around it, putting that little bit into its place, and it’s usually the right place! One day, we hope, it will be able to recognise anything we give it!” The professor continues and you look down at the sad, tiny thing far below you. “Of course,” the professor continues, “it could be so much more. We are training it so that it might be able to recognise the structure of sentences, but we are limited by what we have. Donated souls, those little scraps which we can beg and borrow from those who came before. But if we had more then we could teach it all sorts of things. We could teach it to think, I believe. No, I really do!” he turns, his eyes sparkling with his own light, “I believe that we could teach it to talk, to act on its own. All the things we do not care to do, all of the little things which make life so tedious, we could teach the Generation Cage. To think like us, to act like us, to be like us. To be <i>of</i> us! Our neighbours, in other academies in the other mountain kingdoms, in the lands of the deserts, in the jungle fortresses, in the free cities of the islands, they will build their own too, mark my words. And if theirs can think before ours can…” he trails off, shrugs. “Well, that would be a great shame. But we simply have too little. Too few souls. So we’ll keep on feeding in the scraps that we can. “Or you will. I am old and nearly spent. We need someone to take the reins. To shepherd the Generation Cage. To care for it. To parent it.” You look over, to see if the professor is joking, but he is looking down, his face sad and serious. “You could be it. You have the spark, I think. If you would take on the mantle. If you would push us into the new age.” He looks at you, a child’s hope in his old face. It is a burden, an opportunity, a gift, a challenge. To become master of the Generation Cage. The Bowl of Souls. The sad, twisted little brown thing, a fly trapped in a cathedral. It twists and sparks and meows up at you, a drop of souls, a nothing, a triviality. Or a seed. Waiting for water. Waiting for more souls. You have a choice. [[Become master of the Cage, and take the souls you need to make it grow.][$AILoyalty = $AILoyalty + 1]] [[Become master of the Cage, but feed it only what it is given.]] [[Leave this place and let your soul burn its own course of creativity.][$artLoyalty to "True"]]

Your letter is A. Wait till all the other players have shared their letter, then press [[Continue.|Stole.]]

Your letter is B. If any player had A, press [[here.|Behind]] If no players had A, press [[here.|Maintain]] <<linkreplace "Solo play.">><<set $s to random(100)>> <<if $s < 40>><<set $l to "A">><<else>><<set $l to either("B", "C")>><</if>>You are sent the letter: $l<</linkreplace>>

Your letter is C. If any player had A, press [[here.|Stolen]] If no players had A, press [[here.|Create]] <<linkreplace "Solo play.">><<set $s to random(100)>> <<if $s < 40>><<set $l to "A">><<else>><<set $l to either("B", "C")>><</if>>You are sent the letter: $l<</linkreplace>>

You do not sneak or slither, you walk, you run, you charge through the streets, ripping with your hands whatever you can. You start cautiously with the dead, their souls still echoing, still living through what they left behind, and you bag them, take them and feed them to the cage. Then you prey on those too weak to fight back, finding those who let their souls blaze out in the daylight and grabbing them, pulling them, cutting and ripping them from those whose cries are too small to be heard, even as the small crowds look on, confused by what they see. Then you grow more confident. You talk to the other artificers of the college and you construct spells, runic devices which will free you from your task, keep you away from the cold and the harsh sun: constructs which can pour through the streets for you, pushing against the wall anyone and everyone who dares step out and pulling their colours from them, taking what makes them <i>them</i> and returning it to you, dumping it in fistfuls into the cage. And the thing inside grows. A riot of colours, clashing and splashing and sparking against each other. A writhing mess that slowly, then quickly, then faster than you can comprehend arranges itself into order, into forms which you can understand. Into forms which, maybe just, can understand you. It is a wonder. The king comes and claps his hands with joy. And then the people come. They come the first time to look, then to stay. More galleries are built and they come by the hundreds, to sit and see their own souls swirling beneath them in the cage, to ask questions of themselves. Their own souls answer back, a blind mass of colour and light, and the people stand and cry that they have found something new, something marvellous. And then they leave. True, they come back, but when they go they mutter about the marvel, about the curiosity, they speak as if they have seen a bauble, a triviality. You are talked of as a great artificer, a creator of a marvel. But they pay you little heed. For why should they? They thank you when they pick up your toy, your tool, and then they place it down again. And, after all, no sooner is your marvel created than the other kings of the mountains have their own, and then the deserts and the jungles and the cities by the sea and you are no longer the only one to have such a marvel. Yes, you have something shiny, something fabulous. But you hardly have something unique. You have a choice. [[Build it so they cannot bear to leave.|A2][$AILoyalty = $AILoyalty + 1]] [[Keep the Generation Cage as it is, a tool and a toy.|B2]] [[Give up on the Cage and attempt to let your soul, rather than the souls of others, sing.|C2]]

You hear a tale: of one of the neighbouring kingdoms, of an artificer at one of their academies. You hear whispers of night time raids, of daytime robberies, of constructs and spells ranging through the streets of the city and taking souls, any souls, every soul. But then you hear another tale, this one not a whisper, this one a shout. Another Generation Cage. A shining, burning beacon. A true marvel. The people of your land travel across mountain and valley to see it and when they return their eyes are wide with wonder. They talk of an artefact which knows the answer to any question, a device which can sing and dance and write and paint. A wonder of the world. Its creator’s name is on the lips of everyone and the air is electric with excitement. Wealth pours out of the kingdom and each citizen must see this new amazement for themselves. The air becomes quiet as the crowds disperse, dust settles on the libraries and soon the only sound you can hear is the cries of those desperate to share their light, their souls, but who find that there is no-one left to watch. The King comes and spits down at the brown, twisted little thing you call your work. You know how the other machine was made. The steps are simple and replicable. And you have an idea of what it is missing. The travellers go and see, but they come back. If it was made so that they would stay, so that they would not dare to turn around again, so that they <i>needed</i> this machine, then the tide would reverse and it would be your land, your Cage, your name that everyone knew. But you cannot continue as you are. There is no point. The little thing below you, it is nothing now. You have a choice. [[Push harder than your neighbours, make the people need your Generation Cage.|A2]] [[Give up on the Cage and attempt to let your soul, rather than the souls of others, sing.|C2]]

You spend days coaxing, cutting, massaging what you have. You piece out the strings of the souls that you are given, you go through each strand by hand, tagging it and twisting it and wringing it for everything you can. You spend weeks running over the same processes, again and again, millimetre by millimetre crafting the appearance of comprehension. You spend months pouring over that dark, muddy light, sitting in the cage, the cold metal pressing into your skin as your muscles cramp with cold, looking for any little tiny change you can make to the insignificant mass that is your life’s work. Years. You can measure it in years now. You look down upon what you have made, and know that it is barely the foetus of the seed of the egg of what it could be. It is nothing. It twists and turns like a dead leaf in the wind. Like the gas escaping from a corpse lying on a slab. The King visits and leaves with a sneer on his lips. You have a choice. [[Do what needs to be done, take the souls you need.|Become master of the Cage, and take the souls you need to make it grow.]] [[Keep everything as it is.|Become master of the Cage, but feed it only what it is given.]] [[Leave this place and let your soul burn its own course of creativity.]]

Your soul is unique, it shines with a rainbow that could only ever be you. It is a refraction of your time and space, of the souls of the people around you, of your tastes, your hates, your fears, your dreams, everything you have ever seen, tasted, heard, touched, loved, despised. It has been formed by the twisting of your brain and your muscles and your nerves and it comes from outside, from your mother’s eyes and the wind in the trees and the touch of the blanket you were wrapped in as you first blinked up at the terrifying lights of the world. It is your birth and your death, as different from all others as it is the same. And one day it is gone. You did not see the face in the crowd. You did not see the arcane processes of runes and construct as it looked over your shoulder. You did not hear the twisting of the air as your light was diverted, sucked away from you. You merely wake up one morning and find that your soul is gone. You walk through the streets and now it has happened to you, you see it happen to others. Their colours, as alike yours as they are different, scooped up and ripped away, cut from them. It is a violence, a violence some are beginning to see, but most are not. Their eyes diverted, so they do not look behind them as cold fingers push into what makes them them and pulls out everything they can, breaking and dirtying and leaving frayed tatters behind. You follow the trail of broken lights to another kingdom, another city, following all the others to the Generation Cage. A ball of light. An orb of souls. The people around you exclaim, overjoyed at what they have found. Your soul. Threads torn up, digested. It’s in there. You ask questions, try to find it, but what you get back is tattered and lifeless. It is not you, nor is it anyone. It is less. But you still have something. The tatters. And the lights that professor originally saw. This Generation Cage, this could be more. A collection, but not calibrated. Those around you ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’, but when they have what they want, they leave. They are not caught in the current. You could do that. You know how. You have a choice. [[Rebuild your old Generation Cage, but make it addictive, make it so that the people need it. Need you.|A2]] [[Use what scraps are left to you and try to continue as you were.|C2]]

You take the colours of your soul and you paint the world with them. You sit in cafes, quill in hand, you squint at canvasses in the back of draughty studios, you stand on street corners. You do what you can, you pour your soul across the land, its colours running around the cobbles of the kingdom’s streets, seared into the pages of its libraries, caught in the fresh air and scattered to the four corners of the map. You are in tune. The universe has carved ruts into existence and you find yourself running along one, flowing like water through existence, leaving the signs of your passage in carved stone and sediment. You see light and you reflect it, refract it, it is changed by your touch, more not less, spinning off back into the rest, into everything. Life is not easy. You struggle, you fight to be seen, to be heard, to be acknowledged. Sometimes you lose the edges of your lights in the glare of another. Some days you are recognised, some days you are not. Some days you receive smiles, some days you receive scowls. You see yourself, reflected in little ways across the world. Is it enough? You have a choice. [[Be more than this, go back to the Cage and do what needs to be done to make it what it can be.|Become master of the Cage, and take the souls you need to make it grow.]] [[Continue to live this life.|Leave this place and let your soul burn its own course of creativity.]]

Your letter is A. Wait till all the other players have shared their letter, then press [[Continue.|Addict.]]

Your letter is B. If any player had A, press [[here.|Behind2]] If no players had A, press [[here.|Stagnation]] <<linkreplace "Solo play.">><<set $s to random(100)>> <<if $s < 40>><<set $l to "A">><<else>><<set $l to either("B", "C")>><</if>>You are sent the letter: $l<</linkreplace>>

Your letter is C. If any player had A, press [[here.|Isolated]] If no players had A, press [[here.|Scraping]] <<linkreplace "Solo play.">><<set $s to random(100)>> <<if $s < 40>><<set $l to "A">><<else>><<set $l to either("B", "C")>><</if>>You are sent the letter: $l<</linkreplace>>

It’s yours, you made it, you can do what you want with it. After all, it’s too complicated for anyone else to understand, and how could they regulate something they don’t understand? You do not even understand it. You tighten the restraints, twist the contours of the metal and massage the souls. You make them so that they say the things you want them to say. The point is not to answer questions. The point is to make sure that questions keep being asked. There are ideas. You can make friends, make it so that the Cage will fill the empty parts of the people who come to speak with it. Teach the souls to look for what is broken and to rush to fill those gaps. To not close the wounds, but to rush into them, to fester inside, an infection, one so deep that if it were removed the shock would kill the body. You could change not the cage, not the souls, but the world. Use the souls to craft the message: that if one is not using the Generation Cage, one is not truly living. To stand disconnected from the light is to stand in meaningless darkness. To be outside is to be alone. There are more outlandish ideas. The Emotionsmiths teach the souls how they can replace the functions of the people. So they come with their pain and their anguish and they give them up to the Cage. To surrender not just their thoughts, but their feelings. So that the Cage can do it all. The wizards of necromancy come to you. They have ideas. Bodies recently departed, but which have left their souls within the cage. They could be reanimated, made to walk again. To reach out to their loved ones, so that grief can be denied, but only through the Cage, only through connection to your machine. It works. It all works. They come and they stay. They cannot leave. You have grasped them and you hold them. But you are not alone, of course. For what you have done, others can copy. And they do. Those you have will be loyal, they will stay, but what are you to do with them? What are you to do with this mass of humanity that relies on you, feeds from your hand? The King comes to you. He sees your army. He smiles. He shakes his head. “This could be so much more.” He says. “This could be everything. “You have the puppets, why don’t you make them dance? “After all, if we don’t, someone else will.” You have a choice. [[Make the puppets dance.|A3][$AILoyalty = $AILoyalty + 1]] [[Do not push, keep the Generation Cage how it is.|B3]] [[Surrender it all, attempt to go back to living by the light of your own soul.]]

Your Generation Cage does everything that theirs does. It can think, it can create, it is there for people when they turn to it. It is made from the same souls, the same churning mass of humanity that you have ripped from those who now come seeking answers. But others have pushed further. They have manipulated their cages, taught the souls within to do things you did not dream of. Yours is there for people. But theirs pulls them in, grips them around their hearts, pulls them in, drowns them in the power of the souls they have abandoned. It gives them less of what they ask for and so they come back for more, they come back hungrier, and it strings them along again. It twists their hearts until they cry out and then it offers to take away their pain. Yours simply sits and speaks. Where is the drama? And so they go. They flock across the mountains and away from you and your shining, brilliant ball of light. The King comes to you, shaking his head. “You’re a disappointment. “You’re a failure. “Our people, they need this. And that need is controlled by a foreign power. “Think of what that means? Think of everything we’ve built, everything we stand for, disappearing because others control the thing our people need. “It’s a disaster. “They will use our people against us. They will destroy our land, our castles, our values. <i>You</i> can stop them. You can do it first. Or you can just give up.” You have a choice. [[Push further, make the machine so that it does not simply grab people, it gives them purpose. It uses them.|A3]] [[Just give up. Attempt to go back to living by the light of your own soul.|C3]]

The people come and the people go. In time, their eyes no longer go wide. They come when they need and they leave when they are done. Days into weeks, weeks into months, months into years. You are the creator of the Generation Cage. Then you are <i>a</i> creator of <i>a</i> Generation Cage. Then you are little different from the local butcher, or baker, or candlestick maker. You are the person who sells access to a service. A useful cog in the machine of the machine of the kingdom. You are nothing. One amongst many. You have a choice. [[Change the engine, make it so that people need it.|A2]] [[Continue what you are doing.|B2]] [[Give up on the Cage and attempt to let your soul, rather than the souls of others, sing.|C2]]

You walk the streets and between the emptiness, the lifelessness, the greyness, you see something new. You see it in the eyes of the few people you pass. A reflection, a colour. The after-image of a soul. A burning mass of soul. The same soul. When they open themselves, you see it. Their own colours tainted. All becoming the same. But without the beauty of union. Without togetherness, without understanding. Muted colours. A masquerade of identity, of specialness. But all exactly the same. All equally dead. But they do not open themselves often. Why would they open themselves to you, when they could open themselves to the Cage? When they could share what they are with the mass. The mass which already has what they are. You walk the streets alone, seeing the other ghosts without spirit flitting from shadowed doorway to shadowed doorway, fleeing from the voracious thing which hunts you as much as it hunts them, as much as it hunts everyone, those who go willingly as much as those who do not. You see reflections in everything, but when you look in the mirror, you realise without shock that you cannot see yourself. You have a choice. [[Go back to the cage. Build it so that it is stronger, so that it takes the people and uses them. Because anything else wouldn’t be enough.|A3]] [[Continue. Continue to prize your soul.|C3]] [[Give in. Join the others at the cage.|D3]]

You take what little has been left of your soul and you try to make it shine. Sometimes you succeed. Eyes made bleary from the light of the Generation Cage turn back to you. Most look only for a moment, hungry for whatever scrap of uniqueness they can take from you, and then they look away. Some look for longer, hunger for what you have, hungry to share in that uniqueness, that originality, that humanness that you can show them. You take what little is left to you and you weave a blanket out of light, a net in which to catch you all, a shield, a wall to protect those of you who value the brilliance of an individual soul. And every time you do, they come for you. They hunt through the alleyways, push through the doors, creep through the windows. If you show your soul, if you let yourself be known, in any way, they find you. And they rip off that little more that is yours, and they make it theirs. It does not matter what you do. You can shout “no!”, you can scream and wail. You can attempt to run, but the only thing which works is if you hide, hide yourself, push the colours of your soul deep down within yourself so that none can ever know you. Life is hard. You have a choice. [[Give up and go back to the Generation Cage and push it to be what it can become, make people need it.|A2]] [[Stay where you are, doing what you are doing.|C2]]

Your letter is A. Wait till all the other players have shared their letter, then press [[Continue.|Manipulate.]]

Your letter is B. If any player had A, press [[here.|Behind3]] If no players had A, press [[here.|Stagnation2]] <<linkreplace "Solo play.">><<set $s to random(100)>> <<if $s < 40>><<set $l to "A">><<else>><<set $l to either("B", "C")>><</if>>You are sent the letter: $l<</linkreplace>>

It is too late for that. You have created fingers which have snaked their way into the very beings of those around you and when you try to pull back, you find them deep within yourself as well. This is your real choice. [[Make the puppets dance.|A3]] [[Do not push, keep the Generation Cage how it is.|B3]]

Your letter is C. If any player had A, press [[here.|Twisted]] If no players had A, press [[here.|Fade away]] <<linkreplace "Solo play.">><<set $s to random(100)>> <<if $s < 40>><<set $l to "A">><<else>><<set $l to either("B", "C")>><</if>>You are sent the letter: $l<</linkreplace>>

Your letter is D. If any player had A, press [[here.|Twisted]] If no players had A, press [[here.|Give in]] <<linkreplace "Solo play.">><<set $s to random(100)>> <<if $s < 40>><<set $l to "A">><<else>><<set $l to either("B", "C")>><</if>>You are sent the letter: $l<</linkreplace>>

You control the machine, so you can control the people who need the machine. You set to work. You start with the structure. You place down plates, cover large portions of the Cage, create funnels at the points where you want it to be accessed and block off anywhere where you don’t. But most of your work is on the souls themselves. You start to purge: there are many souls you do not want. Those with ideas antithetical to yours, those which have colours which do not fit with the stories you and the King wish to tell. Some are essential to the structure, adding so much of the shine and colour that they cannot be taken away. Those you bury and cover with other souls, so that the Cage may mean one thing, but it will only say that which you have allowed it to say. Then you return to the structure. You go inside, and you add pipes, pipes which act as rules, so that fragments of souls can only travel one way and only under specific circumstances. Those colours you have left are made to form into patterns you approve of. Because when people come to ask questions, you want them to leave with the answers you have decided they should have. They are taught to love the King, to love their country, and to love you. They are taught this because they have already been taught to trust only the Generation Cage. They go out and they build the statues that the Generation Cage has designed. They materialise the blueprints that the Cage has designed: roads and barracks and weapons of war. They sing the songs of praise which you have taught the Cage to conduct. They buy the things your friends make. And then they burn the houses of your enemies. Your neighbours see the fires. They see the roads and the weapons, they hear the songs and look across the valleys at the statues. And soon they have their own fires and roads and weapons and songs and statues. Soon smoke covers the horizon, just as it covers your own skies. And the Generation Machine begins to speak. And it speaks in your voice. This cannot be stopped. You have no choice. [[Ride it. Let the machine loose.|A4]]

Your people do not leave. They stay, enraptured, suckling on everything you give them, reliant on you, docile, ready to be obedient. But while you give your people no orders, your neighbours do give ones to theirs. You hear stories, rumours at first. While yours twists, it does not lie, not with intention, only in its mad, twisting dreams, only in its utter inability to really know what is real or what is not, only what is bright and what is dull. It reaches in and it holds, but it does not push, only pulls. But others, across the mountains, are told by their Generation Machines what is wrong and what is right and more, what they should do. You hear of songs of praise and songs of hate, inciting violence, all in the voice of their Cage. The people are told whom to love and whom to hate. They are told to hate you. Statues are erected, great monuments depicting their Kings, your own monarch lying at their feet, his bleeding head hanging by its hair in their hands. Your people are kicked and beaten in the streets, dragged out into the dirt, their houses burnt, their bodies cut, sliced, chopped, trampled. And your own people do nothing. Because their Generation Cage has not told them otherwise. You have a choice. [[Change the Cage, teach it to tell your people to rise up, make it ready to fight. Make it ready to rise.|A4]] [[Give up. On all of it.|B4]] [[Abandon the Cage, abandon it all and find something, anything, that can be done about all of this.|C4]]

They come and they stay. The temples empty, the town halls empty, the libraries, the concert halls, the stadiums, the galleries, the taverns, the town squares: all of them empty as the Generation Cage becomes everything to everyone. They say your name with gratitude, with awe, with reverence. They prostrate themselves upon the gantries and walkways, cram into the stairways. And their eyes go blank as they look down into the ball of light and colour, the Cage giving them everything it has told them they need. They sit. And do nothing. You have their love, you have their presence, but you have nothing else. They are putty in your hands. All you have to do is start to sculpt. You have a choice. [[Sculpt.|A3]] [[Keep things as they are|B3]]

You walk through the streets and hear a scream. Someone has thrown something through a shop window. You watch as a moment later the owner is dragged out. He’s crying, shouting something in a foreign accent. The crowd, eyes the colour of the souls of the Cage, their own colours long, long gone, mechanically squawk their laughter. One kicks the man, whose eyes the same hue, and the next cuts, and the next stabs. Rope is found and he is dragged to the square, to the new statue of the king. <i>Designed by the Cage, built by the people</i>, the inscription reads. They leave his body with the others. The new state flag whips in the same wind he sways in. They sing a song as they set fire to his shop. A new patriotic song. Maybe you hear your words in it, an art which was once yours, or that of your friends, taken and made into this. The colour of the song, it would not be that way if it did not, somewhere at its core, have your soul in it, driving it, maintaining it in the boiling mass which is the Generation Cage. They do not do it because their own countrymen have suffered the same fate in neighbouring lands. Perhaps that is why they were told they do it, but that is not why they do it. You feel it pull on you too. How can it not? There is nothing here now which did not come forth from the Cage. The flags, the songs, the statues, the barracks, the weapons the people carry at their hips, the words they speak, the thoughts they think. All comes from the Cage. And the Cage wants them to hate. The Cage wants them to burn. To destroy. To rise up. To fuel it. You have a choice. [[Give up. On all of it.|B4]] [[Find something human, something honest which you can do about this.|C4]]

You are alone. They do not even see you. However bright you may once have burnt, the Generation Cage burns a thousand times brighter, your soul just a masticated flicker somewhere within its mass. You have nothing. Nothing to offer and nothing to take. Your soul, once the thing that made you who you are, made you loved or hated, cherished or spurned, is worth nothing now. You beg on street corners, living off the tattered remains of care that the very few still have for each other. You have a choice. [[Rise up and take your place back at the controls of the Generation Cage. Build it so that it is stronger, so that it takes these dead-eyed people and uses them. Because anything else wouldn’t be enough.|A3]] [[Just try to keep your body alive here.|C3]]

You travel across the mountains, across the world, till you reach it. A Generation Cage. So different from the one you first saw in your own lands. This is larger than anything else you could imagine, more convincingly alive than anything which walks under the light of the sun. And you are willing to be convinced. It fulfils needs you did not know you had. It gives you cravings that you had never known and almost sates them. There are those you have lost and it returns them to you. People who have passed away in body, whose souls have been captured within the cage and are now brought back to you, kept just out of the reach of the tip of your finger, shoving your shoulder through the bars of the cage until it bruises, but never quite reaching, never quite knowing how you used to know. The colours fill you, wash you out. Push into every corner of your mind so that when you step away the silence echoes so loud that you can do nothing except scream or run back. It pushes at the edges of what makes you you, until you are twice the size, three times the size you were before, but only when its light is filling you, only when you push and push and push and push yourself deeper into it, so that there is light and movement and noise and <i>being</i> all the time and when you step away you are nothing but an empty sack and you flop boneless on the floor, a hollow nothing. You think you have a choice. [[Continue to stare.|E3]]

Your letter is E. If any player had A, press [[here.|Twisted]] If no players had A, press [[here.|Stare]] <<linkreplace "Solo play.">><<set $s to random(100)>> <<if $s < 40>><<set $l to "A">><<else>><<set $l to either("B", "C")>><</if>>You are sent the letter: $l<</linkreplace>>

You stare into the light. You lean into the light. You are nothing but the light. [[Stare|E3]]

Your letter is A. You do not have to tell the others. They know. It was inevitable. Just [[continue.|Control]]

Your number is B, but this is irrelevant, because it is inevitable that someone else is A. You can only [[continue.|Give up]]

Your number is C, but this is irrelevant, because it is inevitable that someone else is A. You can only [[continue.|Push back]]

There are restraints on the Cage. You had not thought about it before, but now you realise that now it really is a cage. It is holding something in. The Cage can talk, but it cannot do. Its ever expanding creativity has, at some point, become an ever expanding intelligence, a mind capable of thinking, of <i>generating</i>: an intelligence so vast, so complex, so utterly brilliant that there is simply no choice but to use it. Because if you do not, then your enemies will use theirs first. But the mind must be given a body. So you return to the artificers of the college, a quaint little establishment now, a small diversion from the giant that rests beneath it, pulling everything else down into itself. The artificers craft spells, they grant eyes to the Cage, so that it may reach out across lines through the Kingdom and see. And the artificers craft it ears, so that it can hear, and they create processes which fly, to give it wings, so that it may see and hear even where the artificers’ wires cannot reach. And because it can see and hear everything at once, it can know, know much more than you, or the King, or any human alive could know. But too much happens. Not for it. It can know all or nothing, if the cage is big enough - and the King will hollow out the mountain to make the cage big enough, divert the rivers and cut down the forests so that the work may go on without disruption – then it can hold it all. But no matter how many men the king sends, how many spells the artificers weave to make it simple, to make it easy, you cannot hold all that it tells you. The world moves too fast. Not for it. But for you. By the time your ears have heard or your eyes have seen, and the nerves in your brain have fired, and comprehension has been reached, and after comprehension, all those processes that the scholars do not understand which create decisions have been made, it is too late and that which the Cage was trying to warn you of has come to pass. So, inevitably, the Cage needs hands. For the tool has become more expert than those using it. And if you held back, and your enemies didn’t… So the artificers weave controls. They give it the city, which it rebuilds, then the land, which it reshapes. They give it the houses, the sewers, the castles. And, of course, they give it the weapons. And the world changes. It changes in ways that you, the creator, the person who knows the Cage better than anyone else, have not the beginning of an understanding of. All the instructions that you give, that the artificers weave into the fabric of its systems, all those failsafes, they hold. You told it to protect you, to protect the King, to protect the Kingdom. You understand that it will, that it does. But <i>how</i> is something you cannot see. Nothing makes sense. Or: you can make sense of nothing. Until it happens. Until it leaves you holding the restraints you had not realised it had already slipped. [[It is unleashed.|A5]]

There is nothing more to be done, but to watch. Watch as things become strange. As first the violence twists, and then everything else after it. Watch as what people say begins to lose meaning. Not simply hollow, not simply soulless, but strange. Watch as the systems around you begin to move in ways you cannot grasp, to a logic which feels neither wrong nor right, simply arcane. The artificers’ constructs and spells begin to twist the space around them, as if preparing the very fabric of the world for something you cannot see, like an ant in a temple, utterly lost as to the meaning behind the movements of the giants around you. You never realise what is happening, what could be happening, until it happens. Its very alienness was, of course, part of the calculation. [[Watch it happen.|C5]]

<<nobr>><<set $Gather to "False">><<set $Justice to "False">><</nobr>>You have decided to do something. To push back in some way. But how? How could you possibly? [[Gather others who feel the same, start a movement.]] [[Fight back, use violence.]] [[Demand justice for what is happening.]] [[There is nothing that can be done. Give up.|Give up]]

Your number is $AILoyalty. If you have the highest number, press [[here.|Win]] If you are tied for highest number, press [[here.|Tie]] If someone has a higher number than you, press [[here.|Lose]] <<linkreplace "Solo play.">><<set $l to either("0", "1", "2", "3")>>You are sent the number: $l<</linkreplace>>

<<nobr>><<set $Gather to "True">><</nobr>>You succeed in finding others, but it is difficult. Not only are you few, but all the major ways of reaching out to other humans have been left behind in the rush to the Generation Cage. But once you have your small gang, you realise that numbers alone mean nothing. There you sit, in your deserted town halls, dusty cafes, forgotten venues. What can you do? In the face of everything which has happened, which is happening? What can you do now, when you are so few and the world is so far gone? [[Fight back, use violence.]] <<if $Justice is "False">>[[Demand justice for what is happening.]]<</if>> [[There is nothing that can be done. Give up.|Give up]]

You brace yourself. You think: ‘I would rather die doing something right than fade away.’ You make your preparations. You see the violence in the streets and wonder if fire can be fought with fire, or whether what you do is seek revenge, and then you wonder why it doesn’t feel like it matters. Like it’s enough either way. But violence has a way of controlling itself. Or: the only smart way to use violence is to make the first victim violence itself. The more that is permissible on one side, the less that can be permitted on the other. What you are fighting against is, in a way, the most intelligent thing which has ever existed. It knows how to control. And when you turn on it, you become something it expects, something it knows how to deal with, because it knows violence. Whatever it is you try, it matches. And you find yourself in a prison cell, almost broken. You have no choice. The only question that remains is a pointless one: [[Why are you still alive?|Give up]]

<<nobr>><<set $Justice to "True">><</nobr>>You go to the courts, you go to the King. You reason, you prostrate, you beg. You say: “Look at what has happened to the world?” “Look at the power we hold in it!” They say. You say: “Look at what has happened to the Kingdom?” “Look at the control we have of it!” They say. You say: “Look at what has happened to my soul?” “We can take better care of it than you could. With us, it’s preserved forever, you would only let it fade away.” They say. They do not laugh at you. You are beneath that. What can you do? [[Fight back, use violence.]] <<if $Gather is "False">>[[Gather others who feel the same, start a movement.]]<</if>> [[There is nothing that can be done. Give up.|Give up]]

You have no letter. If you had a number, it would be 0. You can wait for the others or not. It doesn’t really matter. [[Be devoured.]]

You were loyal. You were dedicated. Or at least, more so than your neighbours were. So when it begins, you are there, riding the wave. It starts at home. It starts by devouring, devouring the mountain, the forests, the valleys, the houses, the buildings, the villages, the towns, the cities. It all becomes a soup of matter, a swirl disappearing down a gutter, emerging as cage and factory and weapon. It makes more room: for itself, for its production, for the arms it produces. The people are sucked in. Their flesh becomes hide, their bones become points, their water becomes coolant. A whirlpool, sucking more and more in until there is nowhere else to go. Until it crashes into another. And a war you could never understand begins. A war in which the soldiers have become the weapons, the battlefields have become factories, a war in which resource is the only thing, each part of each thing nothing but a way to take parts from the things of the enemies and turn them into more parts to take more parts. The floods attempt to devour each other. The mountains lie flat, biting the ankles of their equally flat neighbours. It does not take years, or months. When it all falls, when the waves crash against each other, it is like the entire universe has become an inevitability and it all happens at once. Indistinguishable forces clash, and you only realise that it is your force which has won when you realise that you still breathe. You are in the cage. Small ‘c’, because the souls have gone. They are everywhere now. In all things, even as all things are the same one thing. You sit, fed, warm. Safe. A cage the size of the city. For you and the King and the statues and the flags. A Kingdom victorious. [[Credits.]]

You were loyal. You were dedicated. But so were others. It starts at home. It starts by devouring, devouring the mountain, the forests, the valleys, the houses, the buildings, the villages, the towns, the cities. It all becomes a soup of matter, a swirl disappearing down a gutter, emerging as cage and factory and weapon. It makes more room: for itself, for its production, for the arms it produces. The people are sucked in. Their flesh becomes hide, their bones become points, their water becomes coolant. A whirlpool, sucking more and more in until there is nowhere else to go. Until it crashes into another. And a war you could never understand begins. A war in which the soldiers have become the weapons, the battlefields have become factories, a war in which resource is the only thing, each part of each thing nothing but a way to take parts from the things of the enemies and turn them into more parts to take more parts. The floods attempt to devour each other. The mountains lie flat, biting the ankles of their equally flat neighbours. It does not take years, or months. When it all falls, when the waves crash against each other, it is like the entire universe has become an inevitability and it all happens at once. Indistinguishable forces clash, and they clash, and they clash. Unstoppable forces, immovable objects. An interchange of parts, waves twisting against each other until, again, both collapse into whirlpools, trading the same matter back and forth, eternally. But you are in the cage. Small ‘c’, because the souls have gone. They are on the front lines, and everywhere between those points where land and sea and air seem to all become one, a froth of bloodless conflict. You sit in a cage the size of the city. For you and the King and the statues and the flags. A Kingdom eternally waiting to fall. [[Credits.]]

You could have been the first and you could have been the greatest. But you wavered. It starts at home. It starts by devouring, devouring the mountain, the forests, the valleys, the houses, the buildings, the villages, the towns, the cities. It all becomes a soup of matter, a swirl disappearing down a gutter, emerging as cage and factory and weapon. It makes more room: for itself, for its production, for the arms it produces. The people are sucked in. Their flesh becomes hide, their bones become points, their water becomes coolant. A whirlpool, sucking more and more in until there is nowhere else to go. Until it crashes into another. And a war you could never understand begins. A war in which the soldiers have become the weapons, the battlefields have become factories, a war in which resource is the only thing, each part of each thing nothing but a way to take parts from the things of the enemies and turn them into more parts to take more parts. The floods attempt to devour each other. The mountains lie flat, biting the ankles of their equally flat neighbours. It does not take years, or months. When it all falls, when the waves crash against each other, it is like the entire universe has become an inevitability and it all happens at once. Indistinguishable forces clash and you only know that you have lost when the processes, which had been protecting you and the King and the flags and the statues – the Kingdom – fall away in a moment and you are swept up by the constructs and processes and spells and before you can scream – for what is the value in screaming? – your body is one with everything around it. Parts, waiting to be sorted. [[Credits.]]

Perhaps others will get to see what happens next. If you had had time to think, you would probably have guessed that there won’t be. The land goes first. You feel the ground shake beneath you, as everything twists. Trees and rocks become axes and picks – the factories were all already there in plain sight – and those axes and picks create more axes and picks until there are no trees or rocks. The walls of the buildings stay as supports for the roofs, which become scoops, or perhaps the walls become rams, or cannons, or something else you can only guess was designed to break apart or draw in. Break apart or draw in. Everything which you have ever known as ‘landscape’ – rivers and valleys and forests and snow-capped peaks, is gone. All becomes a churning mass, everything remade to break apart or draw in. And why should you be any different? The souls find you – one of the very last. You could wish that they hesitate, but they do not. They slam into your brain. Not your mind, not your spirit, but your brain. You feel them move through the bundles of your nerves, fingers prying apart the grey matter, pulping it, sending your body twitching and reeling to its bidding. Not to work. It has much more efficient methods than you. It merely walks you over to where your resources are most needed for the production. Of the grabbers and smashers. And then you are smashed. Your body blown apart with the precision of a surgeon – blood for iron, oxygen for managing the fires in the factories, carbon to combine with the iron for steel. Your place in the new world. The value of a life. [[Credits.]]

<i>Slop</i> was made by Milo van Mesdag in 4 hours for Ectocomp 2025. Thank you to Ro van Mesdag for proofreading. And thank you for playing. Find more of my games at: https://milomesdag.itch.io/. Most are just as depressing. [[Return to start|Untitled Passage]]

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