The premier lawn sports competition of the High-School level, the Open is a pretty big deal to you and your friends, and it's only two weeks away. You've lost three years in a row to Needham (mostly because they have about twenty players and an actual bowling green).\n\n[[Great|warm]]

Jackie and Thoresby put away the bowls (you only have one set, which Thoresby keeps in a duffel bag in his bedroom closet) while you run off to wake up Mr. Reynolds. You like Mr. Reynolds; he's good-natured, if a little gruff.\n\nAfter practice, you head to Mike's for pizza with Thoresby and Jackie, like you usually do.\n\n[[Yum. Pizza.|Pizza]]

Swoosh.\n\nTwo dismantled zombies.\n\n[[Nice]]

As the three of you collect the bowls, Jackie suggests that you end practice a little early.\n\nThoresby argues for a bit but gives in. The girls' U-14 soccer team is going to start showing up in about 20 minutes anyway to kick you out, and though you aren't superstitious, none of you want to be there with them around.\n\nYou all watch the news.\n\n[[Shudder]]

It's about 4 in the afternoon on a mid-April Tuesday, and you're already two hours into lawn-sports practice. Mr. Reynolds, the club's official faculty supervisor, is taking a nap on a folding beach chair off in the shade. Thoresby's standing just on the edge of the field in a neat white uniform, his blond hair in a tidy part. He looks impatient.\n\n"Aw, let him take his time, Thoresby. He's moving faster than you usually do!"\n\nJackie sticks her tongue at him and runs into a cartwheel. She lands next to you a bit ungracefully, adding some more green streaks to her already-considerably-stained uniform.\n\n[[Wind up]]

Your uncle's set up a small musical comb on top of the door frame. When the door opens, the long teeth of the cone make a deep, tropical // plonk //.\n\n[[Mmmm|Head upstairs]]

You keep an official club ranking for each sport you practice. You're number three in everything but Croquet.\n\nLawn Bowling Points (cumulative)\n1. Jackie Tenland - 77\n2. Timothy Thoresby - 63\n3. Alexsander Barr - 19\n\n[[Whatever|really]]

You gather speed. It'll be easy to leave the school; now that you're a junior you have open-campus priveleges.\n\nAs you pass one classroom, you look inside and unexpectedly meet Thoresby's bored gaze. You see him blink with surprise before he's out of sight.\n\nYou're pretty much jogging at this point.\n\n[[Turn the corner]]

You have a really cool backpack, which you've had for ages. It's got this ska checker pattern and you covered all the straps in buttons. Some of the buttons are bands and some of them say stuff like "I found this humorous" with a picture of a bone.\n\nYou put the pizza in some [[aluminum foil|Pizza]] that the girl behind the counter gave you.

Hold up, the fog totally clears a little and you can see a fork in the path. Looks like there's a smaller [[path]] that leads away from the center of the Pagoda Room.\n\nThe bamboo is growing thickest in the middle of the Pagoda Room and you can still sorta hear noises coming from that direction, as well a loud and mechanical noise from in front of you. Up ahead the path narrows and the pink fog is a bit thicker. The fog smells like noodles and beef teriyaki and doesn't make you gag all that much so you're probably approaching the kitchen. Dessicated soy packets litter the ground.\n\n[[Continue on towards the kitchen]]\n\n[[Tarzan it through the bamboo towards the shouts]]\n\n[[Go down the weird path]]

Pretty soon you're out the front door and on your bike. China Green is about ten minutes away.\n\nYou wish you had time to run home and grab your [[broadsword]].

You heave on the lever and it gives, coming to rest with a satisfying thump.\n\nThe machines around you power down, and the portal starts to dissipate.\n\nAs the sound of the machines dies down, it's replaced with the keening of the two dozen kitchen zombies who are now on your case.\n\n[[Run]]\n\n[[Fight]]

Camera Obscura

The overgrown lots surrounding China Green are looking pretty vacant. In fact, China Green looks just about as ominous and deserted as it always does. If there's anyone here, they're pretty sneaky.\n\nYou [[stand]] and feel a little silly for a minute.

<<set $inventory = false>>You're not a woman but you figure nobody will mind if you go inside.\n\nTurns out you figured wrong.\n\nThe women's restroom is dark and capacious. The floor is tilted at a steep angle, like a sinking ship, and slabs of tiling jut out every few yards. You can hear the murmur of running water.\n\nThere are also three waitstaff mummies armed with notebooks and pens and one of them has a crossbow. You've just interrupted their monthly book club and they're nominally pissed.\n\nA copy of //The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao// sails past your head at considerable speed. It was a narrow miss.\n\n[[Somersault into cover]]\n\n[[Check inventory]]

<<silently>>\n<<set knowAboutCurators = 1>>\n<<endsilently>>You wait and think for another minute before texting back, "how do i know i can trust you"\n\nThe answer takes longer this time. You're about to give up before your phone buzzes again:\n\n"we are the league of museum curators. your uncle needs your help. please."\n\n[[Looks like you have no choice|Go to the ruins, Uncle Gil's in danger]]

Or your nunchucks, or a shield, or some of your uncle's brass knuckles at least. [[China Green]] won't be a walk in the park.\n\nYou unlock your bike and start riding.

Those dragon wall sconces were a bit too much for you. You get a mild case of the willies and head back to the Pagoda Room, where it's at least nice and bright.\n\nAs you emerge from the hallway entrance you decide that there probably wasn't anything down there anyway and you shouldn't be wasting time. It wasn't just cause you were scared.\n\nThe bamboo is growing thickest in the middle of the Pagoda Room and you can still sorta hear noises coming from that direction, as well a loud and mechanical noise from in front of you. Up ahead the path narrows and the pink fog is a bit thicker. The fog smells like noodles and beef teriyaki and doesn't make you gag all that much so you're probably approaching the kitchen. Dessicated soy packets litter the ground.\n\n[[Continue on towards the kitchen]]\n\n[[Tarzan it through the bamboo towards the shouts]]\n\n[[Toughen up and go back down the hallway|Go down the weird path]]

You come upon the kitchen entrance.\n\nThe kitchen is huge, and shrouded in a thick miasma of hot chinese food. Machines glowing with unchristian energies churn vats of veggie lo mein and fill huge cisterns with green tea and noodle soup. A large interdimensional [[portal]] flickers with green flame at the end of the room.\n\nThere's a big red lever nearby. An old handwritten [[note]] is taped to the handle along with the remains of an ancient flower.\n\n[[Pull the lever]]\n\n[[Don't pull the lever]]

You step off the bridge and enter the "Pagoda Room", a vast labyrinth of mangled booths and thickets of bamboo. Everything is pulsing with an unearthly pink light, and clouds of delicious-smelling vapor drift under the cavernous ceiling from the kitchen.\n\nYou can hear muffled shouts from deeper within the Pagoda Room.\n\n[[Head towards the shouts]]\n\n[[Skirt the edge of the room, trying to get to the kitchen]]

You clamber up a small hill of booths, tables, cushions, and chairs. Bamboo stalks catch on your clothes and hair. \n\nYou accidentally dislodge a small avalanche of plates and chopsticks, which go skittering down. They smash and clatter on the floor below.\n\n[[shit]]

"china green ruins. be careful, theyre dangerous. go now."\n\nYou stare at the screen for a moment. Who is the ominous 'they'? Go now. //Now//. Whoever this was there was evidently something keeping them from interfering beyond this message.\n\n[[Don't trust them, it's too risky]]\n\n[[Go to the ruins, Uncle Gil's in danger]]

You decide to try and get to the kitchen. Around the edge of the Pagoda Room there's a pathway hung with lots of paper lanterns. Parts of it are overgrown with bamboo and you have to kinda force your way through and some leaves gets stuck in your hair and the stalks tear your cargo shorts a little and you feel really adventurous and you decide not to pick the leaves out of your hair right away.\n\nThe bamboo is growing thickest in the middle of the Pagoda Room and you can still sorta hear noises coming from that direction, as well a loud and mechanical noise from in front of you. Up ahead the path narrows and the pink fog is a bit thicker. The fog smells like noodles and beef teriyaki and doesn't make you gag all that much so you're probably approaching the kitchen. Dessicated soy packets litter the ground.\n\n\n[[Continue on towards the kitchen|whats that another path]]\n\n[[Tarzan it through the bamboo towards the shouts|whats that another path]]

You roll behind one of the chunks of tile floor. Waitress notebooks pierce the air where you just were and stick in the wall and floor like fucking ninja stars.\n\n[[holy shit]]

You think about investigating the VIP rooms, but you can hear your mother's voice in the back of your mind telling you to stay away from places where birthday party spirits might gather.\n\nThey look pretty empty [[anyway|The glow intensifies]].

Whatever that means.\n\n[[Okay]]

The tunnels fork and turn. You navigate through the pink haze as best you can, trying to remember the way back. The shouts grow steadily louder, and you can make out a few distinct voices.\n\nYou finally reach a clearing, ringed with bamboo, that acts as a nexus between the tunnels. At the center of the clearing is a huge overgrown pagoda, made from wood and crumbling plaster. Tealights burning with green flames dot the floor of the clearing. \n\nThe pagoda is partially collapsed; a hole gapes in its side. Voices emanate from it.\n\n[[Climb the booths and try to look inside]].

Once everyone's finished, Mr. Jay goes over the correct answers. Students around you groan as they hear the answers they missed. You only got one wrong.\n\nYou space out for a minute, staring at the beautiful spring day out the window.\n\nSuddenly Mr. Jay is asking everyone to pass forward their reading reflection homework.\n\n[[Oops]]

A shiver runs through your body. It's probably just the weather. The beautiful spring day has quickly shifted into an overcast pall. Come to think of it, it's always cloudy over [[China Green|Arrive at china green]].

Because there's only three of you, you usually practice in single-end skirmish matches. You've been [[losing|two or three]] alternately to Thoresby and Jackie all day. The truth is, your mind isn't totally on practice after the [[meeting you had earlier]].\n\nHer roll is pretty spectacular. She throws a perfect right-hook upshot that knocks the jack another foot towards her first bowl. At this rate she'll easily beat you, with two points.\n\n[[Cool]]

You tear back out of the kitchen, closing the door and messily barricading it with some chairs and booths and bamboo. The zombies are making a racket on the other side of the door.\n\nBack in the Pagoda Room, you see a path that seems to head towards the middle of the bamboo/restaurant-furniture thicket. The distant shouts you heard earlier have gotten louder, though you still can't quite make them out.\n\nBehind you, there are more noises from the kitchen. Better keep moving.\n\n[[Take the path|Press on]].

You're in Mr. Jay's Speculative Martian History class, and you're aceing a [[pop quiz]].

You turn a corner and run smack into Mr. Reynolds.\n\n"Mr. Barr! You shouldn't be running in the halls."\n\n"Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Reynolds."\n\n"Where are you off to in such a hurry, anyway?"\n\nWithout thinking, you answer\n\n"China Green, actually."\n\nYou're not sure why you told him that. At least there's no one else around. Mr. Reynolds looks puzzled for a moment. You sort of stand in front of him awkwardly.\n\n"Going out for a bit of lunch eh? Well, have a good afternoon."\n\n[[Phew]]

You take a deep breath and walk in through the creaking front gate. You're hit with a gust of hot, slightly-rotten-smelling air.\n\nThe inside of China Green is dark and warm. You're instantly sweating. You feel gross just being inside this place.\n\nThe entrance chamber's floor is littered with human bones and smashed beer bottles. Vaguely-Asian themed [[decor]] adorns the cracked walls, and pools of bubbling grease flood the far half of the room. There are remnants of chairs and tables, horribly twisted beyond recognition. Everything is lit by an arcane glow from some kitschy chinese lanterns.\n\nA crumbling plaster bridge leads over a grease river, deeper into China Green.\n\n[[Cross the bridge|bridge]].

You type back "who is this? where is he?"\n\nYou pretend to pay attention. Your heart is pounding.\n\nTwo minutes go by. Three.\n\n[[Your phone buzzes|phone buzz two]].

"Look, maybe we should just call it a day," suggests Jackie.\n\nThoresby argues for a bit but gives in. The girls' U-14 soccer team is going to start showing up in about 20 minutes anyway to kick you out, and though you aren't superstitious, none of you want to be there with them around.\n\nYou all watch the news.\n\n[[Shudder]]

It's your last bowl. Jackie's a lot closer than you are; her best bowl is probably a foot and a half from the jack.\n\n[[Roll a Backhand Draw to land closer than Jackie|Draw]]\n\n[[Roll a fast Drive to knock the jack away|Drive]]

The jack is about ten feet in front of Thoresby, probably 30 yards away from where you're standing. Jackie's first bowl landed a couple feet away from it.\n\nYou wind up, cupping the bowl carefully in your hand.\n\nThe bowl [[rolls]] smoothly over the close-cut grass.

As you walk down the hallway you can see that the glow is coming from an intricate pattern of glowing chinese characters inlaid into the wallpaper and carpet. There are a few open doors that lead to a honeycomb of what were once reservable rooms.\n\nThe glowing pattern is pulsing strongest around the door to the women's restroom, just ahead. Chunks of the walls and floor are missing or displaced, presumably by arcane tectonic activity.\n\n[[Go into the women's restroom]]\n\n[[Check out the VIP rooms]]\n\n[[Turn back]]

You almost didn't notice it at first, but the path is lined with paper screens. It's actually more of a tunnel than a path, and looking down it you can see where it bends and fades into darkness, with a faint green light pulsing at the end.\n\nYou can just barely hear a low-pitched hum coming from the tunnel opening.\n\n[[weird|whats that another path]]

You head out of the kitchen, leaving it much quieter than before. Back in the Pagoda Room, you see a path that seems to head towards the middle of the bamboo/restaurant-furniture thicket. The distant shouts you heard earlier have gotten louder, though you still can't quite make them out.\n\nBehind you, there are more noises from the kitchen. Better keep moving.\n\n[[Take the path|Press on]]

You see a gathering of figures, but those aren't kitchen zombies or waitstaff mummies.\n\nThese are goons. Top-notch evil-organization minions, from the looks of it. Uniforms and everything.\n\nAnd they've got your uncle.

You sit, paralyzed, for another minute. Mr. Jay is still lecturing, like nothing is wrong.\n\nYou could just sit here and go about your day like normal.\n\nInstead, you turn to a friend sitting next to you and ask her to take your bag to your locker after class. She gives you a funny look but luckily agrees without question. It would look suspicious for you to pack up and leave in the middle of class.\n\n[[Walk out the door]]

You head down the weird tunnel, which turns out to open into a bigger hallway leading off to another section of China Green. There's a lot less bamboo, and the decor is [[toned down]] a bit here. There's a mirror along the length of one wall and some scary-looking dragon wall sconces on the other. There's a nice red and gold carpet, and everything seems quieter. It's pretty dark but everything is slightly glowing green.\n\n[[The glow intensifies]]

<<set $katana = true>>You make a break for it and grab the katana, swapping it out for the waitress' arm. As you pull it off the wall, the glowing runes start to fade, and the sound of water gets louder.\n\nThe waiter with the crossbow shoots at you and grazes your left arm. Crossbows are scary!\n\nThe remaining mummies are clearly still coming after you, and they're between you and the door.\n\n[[Try out the katana]]\n\n[[Run past them]]

You reach the top of your climb.\n\nYou're in what seems to be a deserted hippie nest. Rainbow murals cover every surface. Colorful and comfy-looking cusions are arranged in a circle around an old campfire, and everything is draped in prayer flags. Flowers grow in the spaces between table surfaces.\n\nYou scramble across a pile of rusting peace medallions for a better view.\n\n[[Look at the pagoda]]

You dash outta that hallway as reality starts to come apart at the seams. You glance at the mirror and see the reflected world inside begin to melt and swirl and spill over the edges. Those creepy dragon sconces are now uncoiling and flying back down the hallway. Huge chunks of space compress into nothing, and doors open up to places that don't make any sense. It all makes your head hurt and you can taste something metal. \n\nYou emerge into the Pagoda Room just as the remaining space collapses with a sound like velcro. Where the entrance to the hallway was, there's now just a scar on the wall with an LED sign that says "OPEN". The sign lights up one letter at a time and then flashes before repeating.\n\nYou can still hear noises coming from the middle of the room, as well a loud and mechanical noise from in front of you. Up ahead the path narrows and the pink fog is a bit thicker. You take a second to catch your breath in the putrid air. Dessicated soy packets litter the ground.\n\n[[Continue on towards the kitchen]]\n\n[[Tarzan it through the bamboo towards the shouts]]

<<set $katana = false>>Assuming your uncle is actually in trouble, and actually being held captive here, you have two choices.\n\n[[Go in through the front]]\n\n[[Try and sneak around back]]

James Shasha

(Still in progress. You can use your browser's "back" button to go back)\n\n\n//This story is still in progress, but here is a synopsis of the rest of it:\n\nYou find your uncle Gil here in China Green, being held captive by some goons. Listening in, you find out that they are Memory Theives, professional criminals who steal historically significant items from museums. Their leader, Devesh, was once your uncle's friend, years earlier.\n\nBack when they first found the time-marimba, Devesh played a song on it for Gil, which gave your uncle visions of the future, which he forgot almost instantly. Gil was nearly driven mad in the process.\n\nOne of these visions was that of an elaborate series of simultaneous heists. Devesh and his accomplices will steal twenty-one complete Gutenberg bibles from their various homes across the globe.\n\nGil does not remember having this vision, but he told Devesh about it at the time, leading Devesh to ultimately pursue a life as a memory thief. Devesh is afraid that if Gil unlocks the memory, he will remember exactly how Devesh is planning to steal the bibles, and stop him from doing so.\n\nDevesh plans to use a magical memory-stealing apparatus to literally steal the memory from Gil's head. Gil is resisting, and Devesh cannot steal the memory until Gil remembers it. He threatens to use a hypnotist to make Gil remember.\n\nAt this point, you are found by some of Devesh's goons. Devesh, assuming that their location in China Green has been compromised, has Gil taken somewhere else. He leaves with all but one of his accomplices, who stays behind to "deal with" you. This accomplice has the Time-Marimba (revealing that they ransacked the museum), and intends to use it on you to drive you mad. When he starts playing, however, it backfires, and he is struck with the Time-Marimba's effect. You grab the marimba.\n\nJackie shows up; she switched the time-marimba player's sheet music with a reversed version, causing it to backfire. She and Thoresby save you and go for pizza while you explain everything. You express gratitude for your friends help, and apologize for letting your grades endanger the team's success. You see Jackie spontaneously kiss Thoresby and ask him out.\n\nThoresby drops you off back at your ransacked home. By this time, it's early in the morning, and you can't sleep. In your pocket, you find a business card with a note. It's Devesh's number; he wants your help convincing your uncle to relinquish the memory.\n\nYou go into school an hour before it opens. You meet with Mr. Jay and apologize for your performance in his class, asking him to let you play in the Lawn Bowl Open. He tells you to be more considerate of those around you, and to try to connect your actions with the goals you set for yourself. You rip up Devesh's business card and throw it away. You go to the empty soccer field and use the Time-Marimba, playing Jackie's version of the song.\n\nYou are struck with complete amnesia, visions of the future, and an altered perception of the passage of time. After what seems like weeks, your memories come back to you. Your newfound future powers tell you that Jackie and Thoresby have gone to meet with the League of Curators, and ask for help.\n\nYou ride your bike to them, using your time powers to drive there in seconds. She says that the League will not help any more than they already have. You use your powers to see where Devesh is keeping your uncle (the lighthouse), and you go there with Jackie and Thoresby.\n\nAt the lighthouse, you face off with Devesh. To the surprise/horror of your friends, you give into him and agree to speak to your uncle. You convince him to give in to Devesh's hypnotist, and he does. Devesh steals the memory of the Gutenberg Bible heist.\n\nDevesh then turns to you, forcing you to submit to the hypnotist as well, wary of a trap. He interviews you to make sure you have no plan to stop him, then steals the memory of the time-marimba song, robbing you of your time-powers. The theives leave, and you take your uncle home.\n\nOn the ride back, Thoresby and Jackie reveal that their plan worked, and your memories have been modified. The League of Curators did, in fact, help them come up with a plan. They gave Thoresby the Clipboard of Belonging, allowing him to blend in perfectly with the theives. You then used your time powers to uncover the thieves' plan to steal the Gutenberg Bibles, and told it to Jackie and Thoresby, who wrote it down. \n\nAt the lighthouse, Thoresby used the clipboard to replace the memory-stealing apparatus* operator. He sneakily erased these memories from you so that when you were hypnotized, Devesh wouldn't know about the plan.\n\nAfterwards, you finish all your homework.\n\n*memory stealing apparatus is an old fashioned camera\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

<<if $katana eq true>>You take out your katana. The zombie calls grow louder and louder as the light from the portal fades. You can make out dark shapes spilling from rows of openings along the wall. There are a lot of them.\n\nYour katana flashes in the dim light as you cut through them, their wiry limbs weilding large knives and strainers and frightening-looking tongs. Despite their numbers, your katana makes short work of them.<<else>>You take a steadying breath. The zombie calls grow louder and louder as the light from the portal fades. You can make out dark shapes spilling from rows of openings along the wall. There are a lot of them.\n\nYou scarf your pizza slice down real quick. After a few seconds its effect kicks in, and you nearly triple in size. Their wiry limbs weild large knives and strainers and frightening-looking tongs, but your roundhouse kicks have gotten considerably more potent now that you're twelve feet tall. Despite their numbers, you manage to short work of them before the pizza wears off.<<endif>>\n\n[[Sweet|leave the kitchen]]

"Just roll the bowl already!"\n\nThoresby shouts from across the soccer field. He's pretty worked up today. The [[bowl]] is smooth in your hand, and as you look down and turn it over, your fingers leave little smears of sweat on the glossy surface.\n\n"Well, get on with it!"\n\n[[Look around]]

You like Mr. Jay. He's clever, has a sense of humor, and is genuinely interested in his subject and students. He's also very incredibly strict when it comes to classwork. His class is the reason you probably won't be able to play in the Lawn Bowl Open.\n\n[[Turn in the quiz]]

The quiz consists of ten multiple-choice questions about last night's reading on the Salamander invasion of Tharsis.\n\nYou slept in and didn't do the reading, but it's easy to deduce or guess most of the right answers. You're glad; this will help improve your (dismal) grade, and might even spare you the wrath of Mr. Jay.\n\nEveryone knows that History teachers have formidable mind control powers, and [[Mr. Jay|Mr Jay]] isn't afraid to use them.

Once you're in the hallway, you break into a trot.\n\nYour uncle has gotten into scrapes before, but he's always made it back home.\n<<if knowAboutCurators eq 1>>\nWhoever these curators are, they sounded pretty urgent. You still don't fully trust them, and you suspect a trap, but you're more worried about your uncle. You [[walk a little faster|hurry up]].\n<<else>>\nWhoever these "friends" are, they sounded pretty urgent. You're wary of a trap, but you're more worried about your uncle. You [[walk a little faster|hurry up]].\n<<endif>>\n

Your shot swings wide to the right, then hooks around to the left and lands about six feet past Jackie's, easily crossing the line of cones set up in lieu of a ditch.\n\nThe ball is out of play; dead. Thoresby facepalms.\n\n"What the hell was that?"\n\nThe breeze thins out, and you suddenly notice just how [[warm]] it is outside.\n\n

The water is starting to flow pretty quickly, getting your sneakers wet. The light in the room is almost gone.\n\n<<if $inventory eq true>>You grab your stuff off the floor before it gets too wet, and make for the [[door]].<<else>>You sheathe your new sword in your backpack strap and make for the [[door]].<<endif>>

You wind up and roll the bowl on a slightly different angle, aiming to the left of jack's small white globe.\n\nIt rolls halfheartedly for a few feet, bounces gently on the uneven ground, and stops. Mr. Reynolds snores loudly.\n\n[[fuck]]

Your uncle moonlights in the world of costumed superdentistry. Dr.Pepper and the Pepsi Possi are his tacky nemeses, so it looks like you've got the place to yourself for a few days at least.\n\n[[Go upstairs]]

The voices continue after a moment, and you breathe a (very quiet) sigh of relief.\n\nThey wouldn't be able to hear you over the hissing steam anyway.\n\n[[Keep climbing|climbing booths]]

You really wish you had laser vision, or a machete.\n\nAfter about three minutes of forcing your way through the bamboo you break into a clearing and start heading down an overgrown path. The floor below you slopes downwards slightly, and the walls grow higher around you until you can't quite see the ceiling, high above.\n\nThrough the stalks of bamboo and broken paper screens you can make out a structure in the middle of the room, obscured by pinkish mist.\n\nThe hiss of steam mixes with an unidentifiable clamor from the direction of the kitchen. Shouts echo occasionally from up ahead.\n\n[[Press on]]

The museum used to be a bakery, but instead of fresh croissants and cinnamon rolls, the shelves in the window display neat rows of mbiras, thumb pianos, kalimbas, and music boxes. A peeling sign in handpainted lettering reads "Clamford Thumb Piano & Lamellophone Museum".\n\nThe door [[chimes]] softly as you walk inside.\n\nThe sun is setting outside, and it floods the small museum with a golden light. The waves in the distance, the warm sunlight, and the soft tones from the door give you a strong taste of the approaching summer.\n\nThe museum is full of rows of shelves and tables and racks of musical instruments. There's a collection of rather large whale drums in the far corner, next to a door that leads to the music box room.\n\n[[Lock up]]

You head down the tunnels that snake between the booths and copses of bamboo. The floor below you slopes downwards slightly, and the walls grow higher around you until you can't quite see the ceiling, high above.\n\nThrough the stalks of bamboo and broken paper screens you can make out a structure in the middle of the room, obscured by pinkish mist. The floor is scattered with discarded chopsticks.\n\nThe hiss of steam mixes with an unidentifiable clamor from the direction of the kitchen. Shouts echo occasionally from up ahead.\n\n[[Press on]]

Back in the hallway, it's almost pitch black, and the floor is shaking a little. The women's restroom is flooding quickly behind you. You decide now would be a choice time to [[peace the fuck out]].

You pull up to China Green's crumbling ruins. As you lock your bike up against a fallen telephone pole, a gust of wind blows around some ancient-looking zodiac placemats at your feet.\n\n[[Look around|look around china green]]

After lunch today your guidance counselor called you to her office. She told you that your grades are starting to threaten your ability to compete with the lawn sports club. You haven't told anyone yet.\n\n[[anyway|really]]

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<<silently>>\n<<set knowAboutCurators = 0>>\n<<endsilently>>Carefully, so as not to let Mr. Jay see, you pull out your phone and place it on your thigh.\n\nYour stomach drops.\n\nText message\nUnknown Number\n'pepper + pepsi posse are a trap. your uncle is in danger.'\n\nYou glance around. Mr. Jay is lecturing about volcanic region societies, and nobody seems to be paying much attention.\n\n[['who is this?'|who is this?]]\n\n[['what sort of danger?'|what danger]]

It's probably smartest to leave that alone. It looks like the kitchen-foundry is producing mediocre chinese food in huge quantities to slake the thirst of the gods. Besides, your uncle isn't here.\n\n[[Head back to the Pagoda Room]]

The three of you make up the entirety of the Clamford High School Lawn Sports Club. Every spring, the school lets you use the worn-out soccer field so you can practice for the annual [[New England Secondary School Lawn Bowl Open]]. It's only two weeks away, and you're desperately, desperately shitty.\n\n[[Apologize and suggest to end practice|Apologize, and suggest a break]]\n\n[[Ignore Thoresby|Hang your head in shame and let Jackie roll]]

You didn't do that, but you can make it up later. Probably.\n\nYour [[phone]] buzzes in your pocket.

You try to do homework, but end up dicking around online.\n\nOutside, night falls, and you go to bed after a dinner of sandwiches and video games. \n\nYou lie awake, trying to fall asleep, for two hours. You can't stop thinking about your grades. You're letting Jackie and Thoresby down; if you can't play in the Open, they can't compete in triples against Needham.\n\nYou'll get up early and finish the reading assignment you were supposed to do.\n\n[[The next day|Chapter Two]]

You clamber around the rubble that surrounds the restraunt. You recall that there's a little-known back entrance that leads to the kitchen.\n\nThe door is easy to find, and you kick it open. You're met with a hot gust of rotten-smelling air.\n\nYou're in a very dark, very narrow hallway. It continues forward a ways before twisting out of sight.\n\nYou walk forward a few steps and feel light-headed. The smell is like really really bad.\n\nReeling a little, you stumble back outside and dry heave a few times.\n\n[[Maybe you should go in the front after all|Go in through the front]].

"I'm sorry guys, my head isn't totally in the game right now. Earlier today I found out that I might not be able to play in the Open."\n\nThoresby's predictably upset. You tell them about your grades and the meeting with your guidance counselor.\n\n"Sander, we need you to play in the Open if we're going to stand a chance of beating Needham, even if you're kind of, well..."\n\n"Garbage?" offers Jackie.\n\n"Thanks a ton, Jackie," you say. \n\nShe shoots you another friendly smile. "Look, Sander, focus on school for a while if you need to. Don't worry about us."\n\nThoresby shoots a few daggers her way.\n\n[[Eject button]]

You step gingerly across the bridge. The faux-oriental railings crumble a little but it holds your weight.\n\nThe heat from the bubbling grease below feels as though it's gonna like, melt your sneakers.\n\n[[yikes]]

The apartment above the museum is pretty cramped, especially since you're sharing with your uncle, but it's homey and cluttered and you like it.\n\n[[Get out of your uniform and take a shower]]

It hits the jack squarely, and they both tumble another foot or so before coming to a stop.\n\n"That's end for one point," shouts Thoresby.\n\nJackie turns to you, smiles, and says, "Nice drive, Sander! You should show me that sometime."\n\n[["Thanks."|collect the bowls]]

Another game and two more points go to Jackie. You're not upset, but Thoresby sighs in exasperation.\n\n"Do the words 'follow-through' mean anything to you, Barr?"\n\nYou glance at Jackie. She rolls her eyes and sticks her tongue out again, making you giggle just a bit.\n\n[[Suggest a break|Apologize, and suggest a break]]\n\n[[Tell them what's on your mind]]

"we are friends of your uncle. china green ruins. be careful, theyre dangerous. go now."\n\nYou stare at the screen for a moment. Who is the ominous 'they'? Go now. //Now//. Whoever this was there was evidently something keeping them from interfering beyond this message.\n\n[[Don't trust them, it's too risky]]\n\n[[Go to the ruins, Uncle Gil's in danger]]

You live with your uncle, above his museum downtown. A block over from Main Street, the museum overlooks a small road, lined with touristy shops, that leads down to the beach. While you lock up your bike, you can hear the waves crashing.\n\n[[Go inside|Head upstairs]]

Back in the Pagoda Room, you see a path that seems to head towards the middle of the bamboo/restaurant-furniture thicket. The distant shouts you heard earlier have gotten louder, though you still can't quite make them out.\n\n[[Take the path|Press on]].\n

You freeze, straining to hear. The voices inside the pagoda seem to hesitate for a moment.\n\n[[Keep climbing|climbing booths]]\n\n[[Wait|waiting on booths]]

Mike's Pizza always has the best goddamn pizza. You always order 1 large cheese pizza and 1 small pepperoni, because you and Jackie prefer pepperoni but don't mind cheese, and Thoresby hates pepperoni. Plus Thoresby usually pays for the whole cheese pizza which means you and Jackie split the small pepperoni which comes out to like $3.25 each plus a dollar for an Arizona, which is cheap enough that you do it all the time.\n\nThoresby always has 3 slices, you always have 4, and Jackie always has 4. That leaves one slice left over every time, which Thoresby usually takes because he paid the most. Today though he doesn't want it, so you wrap it up and put it in your [[backpack]].\n\nBy the time you're finished, the sky is starting to turn purple. You tell your friends goodnight, and head home on your bike. The warm afternoon turns into a cool evening, and the wind on your skin gives you goosebumps.\n\nNorway maples with bright-green blossoms frame rows of old-fashioned houses as you ride past.\n\n[[You arrive home]]

The longer you look at the tacky scrolls and pots and dragon statues, the more confused you get. Your head hurts.\n\nYou're a little [[dizzy|Go in through the front]].

"Sander, you know the Open is only two weeks away, right? We need you at the top of your game if we're gonna beat those Needham pricks this year!"\n\nThoresby takes lawn sports more seriously than you or Jackie, but neither of you mind because his parents are super intense and this is pretty much all he has.\n\nHe's [[really]] into it.\n

The bowl is a small black ball, slightly elliptical as though partially flattened to give it bias. It always seemed a little other-worldly to you, but you find its weight comforting when you swing it in your arm and run your fingers over the neat little circles etched into its' sides.\n\n[[Look around]]

There's a lopsided peace sign sketched in pencil along with the words "please don't pull me, man"\n\n[[You need to find your uncle|Continue on towards the kitchen]]

"I'm sorry guys, I'm just starting to get a little hot. Maybe we should call it a day."\n\nThoresby argues for a bit but gives in. The girls' U-14 soccer team is going to start showing up in about 20 minutes anyway to kick you out, and though you aren't superstitious, none of you want to be there with them around.\n\nYou all watch the news.\n\n[[Shudder]]

As you're putting away your keys, you notice a note on the front desk:\n\n"Sander-\n\nGonna be out of town for a few days,\nDr Pepper & Pepsi Posse giving me trouble.\n\nTake care of the museum while I lie low,\nESPECIALLY THE [[TIME-MARIMBA]]!\n\nSandwiches in the fridge.\n\nLove, Uncle Gil"

The time marimba is said to have the power to instill profound [[clairvoyant nostalgia]] in the listener.

You wait until the undead are almost on you then you spin over the cover and plant a flying roundhouse kick in the face of the closest one.\n\nHis head comes clean off and bounces around on the other side of the room.\n\nYou use your momentum to slide down the slippery incline toward the other two. As you pass them, you grab the arm of the closest one and snap it off.\n\nYou end your powerslide next to the paper towel holders and the tampon dispenser. Something near the stalls [[catches your eye]].

You trot over to collect the bowls.\n\n"So what does that make the score now? I keep forgetting," asks Jackie.\n\n"20 for me, 77 for you, and I think 64 for Thoresby."\n\n"63!" he corrects.\n\n"Say, Thoresby, you'd better watch out or Sander's gonna catch up to you!" Jackie smiles at you playfully, and you [[smile back]].

[[(Thank god)|Go down the weird path]]

You wind up and roll the bowl hard, aiming for the jack's small white globe. Because it's moving so fast, it barely curves at all. It [[bounces]] on the uneven terrain (if only you had a proper bowling green).

The portal is sealed with thick iron bars. Huge tubes and conveyor belts siphon the chinese food produced by the machines through the portal.\n\n[[boring|Continue on towards the kitchen]]

You silently give thanks for being involved in athletics even if it's just lawn sports.\n\nYou have time for a quick deep breath before running at the zombies as fast as you can. At the last minute you juke left and dodge past them.\n\n[[Thoresby would be proud|Nice]]

There's a katana hanging on the wall right nearby, at the center of the glowing rune pattern that decorates the whole room.\n\n[[grab it!]]

<<set $inventory = true>>You pause for a minute to take stock of the supplies in your backpack.\n\nUnzipping your bag and crouching down, you remove all its contents one by one:\n\n-A stack of notebooks and papers including every homework assignment that's been given out this quarter (mint condition)\n\n-Two packs of Trident spearmint gum, each with only one piece remaining\n\n-Crayons\n\n-A slice of cold cheese pizza wrapped in aluminum foil\n\n-A charger for your old phone that you still have for some reason\n\n-You've also got your phone in your pocket but the battery's running low and China Green is the Bermuda Triangle of cell service dead zones.\n\nYour posessions are now strewn around the tile floor of the bathroom. The mummies have been advancing this whole time and now they're basically on top of you. One of em lunges at you wielding a pen.\n\n[[fuck|Somersault into cover]]

The cool water feels good after the heat of lawn sports practice.\n\nWhen you're done, you throw on some boxers.\n\n[[Do homework]]\n\n[[Dick around online|Do homework]]

Long ago, China Green was known as the greatest mediocre Chinese food place in all of the greater Boston area. They say that the mediocre food was so heavenly, it angered the gods.\n\nOne evening the sky clouded up like Szechuan-style hot and sour soup, and China Green was torn asunder. The building was hewn apart by greasy splotches of transdimensional haze, turning the once-beloved restraunt into a non-euclidian egg noodle hell dungeon.\n\nSince then, China Green has been home to a couple of necromancers, six or seven bands of brigands, several young girls sports teams, and at least one hippie commune. More recently, you've noticed that a pack of coyotes have taken to howling outside it ominously.\n\n[[Shiver involuntarily]]

You type back "what sort of danger? where is he?"\n\nYou pretend to pay attention. Your heart is pounding.\n\nTwo minutes go by. Three.\n\n[[Your phone buzzes]].