Quest:Ruby Quest
Ruby Quest is a Choose Your Own Adventure game being run by the tripfag Weaver. What initially began as a confusing puzzle romp has swiftly become a decent unto madness not unlike the best Call of Cthulhu game you have ever been in, but twice as fucked up.
The archives of the game can be found here: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Ruby
If you want to discuss the game with others, there is an IRC discussion available on the channel irc.rizon.net, room #RubyQuest.
Characters
WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS.
They may appear furry, but it is uncertain whether this is just so Weaver can differentiate them from each other quickly, or as a tip off to their Animal Crossing namesakes. Either way, some spoilers are below.
Contrary to what some people may say, no one's age has ever been mentioned ever.
Ruby
Ruby is the main character of Ruby Quest. Obviously. Her thoughts consist of the scrambled suggestions of the /tg/ community, and as such, she is both incredibly brilliant and surprisingly stupid. She is handling most of the monstrous happenings rather well, and has been declared a badass as a result. However, her psych is starting to be strained as the world around her gets stranger and stranger. Ruby is known for having a GIRLISH FIGURE, but is flat as a board.
Because she is effectively our character, Ruby has been described as the PC to Weaver's DM. This makes the game very engaging, and it has become quite popular as a result. The largest implication of this is that /tg/ is now a herbivorous bunny girl.
Ruby is actually quite a good fighter, and uses a Hook like no one's business. We no longer possess the hook, but wish we did. We feel safer when Ruby is a capable Hooker.
Tom
Tom is Ruby's only friend in this place. He is a gentleman, strong and silent, but more than willing to offer information and suggestions about things he knows. He was initially detached towards Ruby, but after the two have repeatedly saved each others' lives, it seems he has grown quite a liking towards her. Unfortunately, it seems Ruby doesn't feel NOW is the time to act on any romantic intentions...
He is well known for his MANLY PHYSIQUE, and is needed for most anything that requires strength to accomplish.
Red
Red is a creepy motherfucker. He carries a cane with him, and is not too fond of personal questions. He is convinced that he is not trapped like the others, and that he is where he is entirely by his own choice. He has a very morbid sense of humor.
Abominations Against All That Is Good
WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS.
They may all be called zombies, but all evidence points more towards shape shifters of some sort, rather than actual undead. The normal ways to kill things seem to work quite well.
Bear Zombie
The Bear Zombie is a creature that was once a bear, and is now a pile of horrible organs and a spine. With the help of Tom, it was slain using the Z Hatch. The end boss of Part 1.
Hound Zombie
The Hound Zombie is also referred to as the Hook Zombie and the Plant Zombie, based on its form. This horrible creature came through a broken mirror, and was killed with the power of Ruby's mean right hook, the purple vat of acid, and an electrical panel. The end boss of Part 2.
God Zombie
The God Zombie has no discerning animal features, so it gets no animal name. Colloquially referred to as "Stitches," because he appears to have been torn apart and sewn back together. He was found nailed to a wall, and he was still alive and able to speak, in spite of his appearance. He also seems to have sent Ruby to a dream world, where impossible things happened that the world had never seen before.
Then, he vanished, and has not been seen again. However, it is common belief we have not seen the last of him. Found at the end of part 3.
The Metal Glen
This is a poem by William Murdoch, supposedly. No one has been able to cite its source for sure, so some theorize it was written by Weaver himself. Regardless, the similarities to Ruby Quest are uncanny.
The Metal Glen
- My mother told me once of when
- A young hare ventured from her den
- And as she danced in field and glen
- The world sang joy about her.
- But wicked hateful things abound
- And that young hare these evils found
- Then whisked her up from off the ground
- And glen was left without her.
- The wicked power tore asunder
- And with this cruel and fateful blunder
- Cast her to a world of wonder
- Would she e'er see home again?
- And so hare flew that mournful day
- Over the sky and far away
- And down and down, beneath the sea
- To a place unlike the glen.
- A world of men and man's design
- A place where God's light would not shine
- A Hell of steel beneath the brine
- Where misery's echoes boomed.
- And all around her there were others
- Beasts like her, all sisters, brothers,
- Locked up, all, with one another,
- In deep sea-dark, entombed.
- And in this crypt far from the shore
- The hare lay down upon the floor
- Imprisoned there forever more
- And left to all her sorrow.
- Her tender world was lost and gone
- So joy and happiness foregone
- She slept and cried and prayed for dawn
- To wait the coming morrow.
- The hound was still, the birds said naught,
- The fox denied he had been caught,
- The bear cried "This is just our lot",
- And surrendered to his pain.
- But the cat stood up and shook his head
- And rising from his metal bed
- He said "For now, I am not dead,
- And I will not die in vain!"
- He cried aloud with much disdain
- And tore about his stark domain
- And said "These walls cannot contain
- A force as strong as I!"
- And the fox just laughed, and the birds all cried
- And the bear knotted up himself and died
- But the hare looked on as the poor cat tried
- To break him free and fly.
- He shook his chain with all his rage
- And flew in anger 'round his cage
- Decrying this dark mournful stage
- And the hare stood up as well.
- With passion did she then respond,
- She chewed her ropes and broke her bonds,
- And freed the cat, they ran beyond,
- They ran to flee that hell.
- And what became of cat and hare?
- Did they break free to purer air?
- To guess their fate we shouldn't dare
- Perhaps their tale closed well.
- But for all the beasts trapped in the Nether
- All life from out the loch and heather
- The flock that could not work together
- Are sure still trapped in Hell.
Plot Summary
IT IS HIGHLY SUGGESTED YOU READ THE THREADS INSTEAD OF THE SUMMARIES. THEY CAN BE FOUND HERE: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Ruby
Part 1
Consists of threads 1-4.
Ruby found herself locked inside of a steel locker. After escaping, we find herself in a room with very little in it. Ruby rips open a garbage can using a CAN OPENER, performs electrical repairs, and finds out we are underwater. Then, she heads down a ladder and meets Tom, trapped behind a wall grate.
Tom has a sculpture of random tools we need, but is unwilling to show us it, as we accidentally insult him. As an apology, we feed him fish [found to later be a Bad Idea]. After doing some weird puzzle shit, we open the way to the Z Hatch. We get a hatch to transfer items between Ruby and Tom, and with teamwork, we open up the closet in the Z Hatch Room. The Bear Zombie inside attacks us, and with Tom's help, we kill it.
A little more dinking around, and we finally free Tom from his cell. Ruby and Tom hug tightly, and Part 1 ends.
Part 2
Consists of threads 5-9.
With Tom's MANLY PHYSIQUE, we move a barrel and work together to open the way into the monitor room. Tom manages to sneak a peek at Ruby's panties while we are at it. We obtain the EYE DIAL, and then explore the Z Hatch room once more. With Tom's help, we find a secret door behind the couch. We send a hand we find there through the pneumatic chute we also find there.
We ask Tom for his condom, and he is disappointed to find we need it for more weird puzzle shit. Lots of experiments with purple acid later, we find out that Tom is not feeling so hot. He pukes up blood. Ruby quickly scrambles around, and eventually discovers, using an analyzer, than Tom had arsenic poisoning from the fish, and that we would get an antidote if we turned the power back on. While running around to find a way to get the power going, we do a Pirate Impression for Tom. He smiles weakly. All of /tg/ d'aaaws.
Eventually, we get the electricity and our antidote. Then we get locked in the back room, and poisonous gas filters in. Panicking, we break the glass of the pneumatic chute. This helps only slightly. We break the glass of the mirror in the room, and find the Hound Zombie on the other side. A brief scuffle with our HOOK, and we defeat the beast by flinging it through the glass acid dispenser and into the circuit board, but we take a serious wound to the head. The impact of the zombie on the circuit board powers down the room, and we flee with the antidote, running to where Tom is. Along the way we start to pass out, but manage to make it to the Brig. Unfortunately, we find Tom is gone, and in his place is a LOT of blood. Everything goes black.
Part 3
Consists of threads 10-13.
Ruby wakes up in a dark room wearing footie pajamas. After adjusting her eyes to the dark, she realizes she is in her room, and Tom is there- but he seems a little off. She opens a drawer and gets a key, then tries to turn Tom around. She finds that he has been stitched up, that he is very dummy like and that, in fact, its not Tom. After exploring her surroundings she exits the room and finds herself back in the Brig. The room she had been in was the one the Hound Zombie was in before attacking. She heads back to the locker room and gets a few items, including the Arsenic Antidote. She comes down to see a lever has descended. She then heads through the Z-hatch.
She sees a fox sitting on the couch with a cane in the Z-room. He introduces himself as 'Red' and answers a few questions:
He hasn't seen Tom. He doesn't know anything about the place they are trapped in. And he isn't trapped.
Ruby notices the cane and asks Red to help pull the lever. He smiles, disturbingly, and agrees to help. After pulling the lever she asks a "few" more questions. Red says he is very tired of her questions and if she doesn't stop he might have to bite her throat out. After an awkward pause, he says that he was just kidding. Ruby, slightly scared, thanks Red and heads back to the Systems Room. Red does not follow. She picks up a Wooden disc and inspects the computer. There are some hidden cameras inspecting the Locker Room, the Maintenance Room and an as of yet unexplored room. Tom is in this room, and so is the pneumatic tube.
Ruby heads to the Maintenance room. Red is nowhere to be found. She patches up the Pneumatic tube, sends Tom the antidote, and heads to the System's Room to see if he gets it. He does, and drinks it. But Ruby doesn't have enough time to celebrate, as Red enters the room. He smiles wider this time, and reminds Ruby that he doesn't want to hear anymore questions. Ruby understands and asks to excuse herself, but Red stops smiling and says he doesn't think so.
And then lets her know that he was once again just kidding.
Ruby heads downstairs, this time Red follows. She believes the Wooden Disc will interact with a mechanism she found in the Dummy Room, so she heads there. Red stops her before she can enter and asks for some coins Ruby was carrying. She gives them to him, and he heads in with her. Using the cane, Red takes down the tarp, all the while smiling even wider than before.
Underneath is a horribly disfigured, and then subsequently refigured, body (which would later be called "God Zombie" or "Stitches"). Red laughs at Ruby's astonishment.
And then he keeps laughing. His mouth opens up and is impossibly big, filled with sharp teeth and a tongue. He is, in fact, an abomination. As Ruby turns around, Red stops laughing.
Ruby then looks at a cross peg in Stitches's hand, and Red says he is bored and departs. Ruby is about to take the cross peg from the God Zombie's hand, and he wakes up. He says "Ruby" and everything turns to white.
She has a very strange dream, Tom was involved and so was Red. In the dream, Red makes a smile clearly not possible, as it curves up to the eyes. Tom complains that his eye hurts. Red uses the wooden disc to cut something and the dream ends.
Ruby wakes up. The disc is missing. She leaves the room. Tom is sitting on a barrel in the brig.
Part 4
Consists of threads 14-17.
