Gamebooks (Choose Your Own Adventure Style)

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Ultimate Ending:  The Tower of Never There Alternate Endings Part 31


The BOOM sound in CHOICE #3 is thunder.  If you stay outside, you have one last chance to survive in CHOICE #49 by dashing toward the tower and meeting Kara and Una in CHOICE #5.  But if you hide beneath a tree, exactly as elementary school kids are warned not to do. . .


"The lightning is everywhere!  The thunder is deafening!  It's just too much!  Turning back, you sprint for the cover of the large tree.  The canopy shelters you from the rain.  You hug your body tightly against the large trunk. . .


Wait a minute, you think to yourself.  A disquieting thought enters your head.  Aren't trees dangerous in a lightning storm?


KA-RAAACK!


Oops.  Looks like this might be THE END".


The DM has no mercy for those who don't pay attention in class.


Results So Far


1 Good Endings

8 Deaths

8 Bad Non-Death Endings

3 Neutral Endings

11 Inconclusive Endings

1 ULTIMATE ENDING

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Ultimate Ending:  The Tower of Never There Alternate Endings Part 32


Going through the clearing in CHOICE #1 offers a CHOICE #50 between a "smooth, cobbled path" and a "rickety old rope bridge" after I outrun a fissure that's growing in the ground.  This is not Shadowgate, so BOTTLE 2 isn't available to float over the latter path.


But the cobbled road may be a trap.  The mist is getting closer, and cold rain starts to burn my skin like "Acid!"


CHOICE #51 offers the options of going back to the rickety bridge, or running to the tower.  Like doing so in the thunderstorm, dashing toward Una and Kara at the entrance is successful and goes to CHOICE #5.


Trying to return to the rope bridge creates this ending.


"The rain hurts!  It's searing your skin, burning your clothes. . .there's no way you can stay out in this!  Whipping around, you plunge back into the mist.  If you can manage to stick to the path, maybe you can backtrack to the rope bridge.  You concentrate on keeping the cobbles beneath your feet.  At the very least, maybe you can outrun the storm. . .


You open one stinging eye.  The mist parts just enough to reveal a large outcropping of rock.  Desperately you dive beneath it, putting yourself out of harm's way.  The rain still splatters down all around you, but thankfully there's enough room to avoid contact with the burning liquid.  You huddle up and wait.  You're cold and you're miserable.  Most of your clothing has holes eaten through it, with red marks on the skin just beneath.  You sit there wishing you still had your fire, but at least the rock ledge is keeping you dry.


Eventually the rain ends.  The clouds part, and the mist clears.  To your surprise, the sun is gone!  In literally the span of a few seconds, it seems to go from day to night.  As you step out from beneath the rocky outcropping, the last of the day's light has escaped over the horizon.  You've been riding out the storm for hours.  You turn to face the tower. . .And it's gone.


There's only the clearing, the stars, and the nighttime sounds of the wilderness.  Some of which seem a little too close for comfort right now.  As you climb the slope in the direction of the camp, your only thoughts are of missed opportunity.  What was the strange tower all about?  What did it want, and why did it summon you here?  Sadly you'll never know.  Because any last chance of answering those questions has reached THE END".


This goes in the Neutral Ending column.  TYLER in this alternate reality might as well not have bothered going camping at all.  But the acid rain raises a question.  Does the tower create weather, or import it from other places it's been?



Results So Far


1 Good Endings

8 Deaths

8 Bad Non-Death Endings

4 Neutral Endings

11 Inconclusive Endings

1 ULTIMATE ENDING

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Ultimate Ending:  The Tower of Never There Finale


Trying to get your supplies in CHOICE #1 by going into the mist is pointless, because the book asks you to either go to the clearing or the gnarled tree anyway.


The final ending occurs when you attempt to cross the rickety bridge in spite of all the narration's warnings.


"The terrain looks foreign here too.  The best way to describe it is if the ground simply doesn't belong; like the entire area was torn from somewhere else and just dropped here".  In case you need any more proof the Tower of Never There is a threat to all life.  To survive the bridge, you need to roll a 1, 2, 4, or 5 on a 1d6.  If you get 3 or 6. . .


"The slat directly beneath you splinters!  You make a nimble leap for the next one, but that one breaks too.  This leaves you hanging onto the handholds, dangling from the broken rope bridge as the tremors continue.  Maybe once they end, you can swing yourself back up.  Maybe there's still a way. . .


But then you hear it:  the dreaded sound of the cables snapping loose from their moorings.  The bridge breaks free from the far end of the chasm and you feel yourself drop!  Down, down, down you fall, into the endless violet sky.  There doesn't appear to be a bottom (or a top?)-as far as you can see.  That is, at least for now.  It's all exceptionally beautiful.  But it's also THE END".


King Graham used up all the bridge crossings here, so TYLER falls to his Death.


The Tower of Never There is a different approach to a CYOA than most I've played here, and the puzzle elements are fun.  Its major flaw to me isn't so much the dice rolls as the lack of information before certain CHOICEs.  While mapping out the Alternate Endings, I hoped to find a clue for the RED vs. GOLD orb decision that never came, to name one example. 


My next project will probably be another episode of Spanish Schlock.  Several writers from Spain got together and published a CYOA called Portal Oscuro  (Dark Portal).  The gimmick is that each result of a CHOICE leads to a section by a different author.  The common premise seems to be preventing the Fourth Reich from opening a portal to a demon world in an alternate history based on pulp adventure stories.



Unless you'd prefer to see another Ultimate Ending book first.


EDIT:  Whoops, forgot to put in the ending categories!


Final Results


1 Good Endings

9 Deaths

8 Bad Non-Death Endings

4 Neutral Endings

11 Inconclusive Endings

1 ULTIMATE ENDING


Certainly much fewer "consolation prize" Good Endings than The House on Hollow Hill.


EDIT THE SECOND:  Two Ultimate Ending books are confirmed to be related, according to the free Kindle sample sections I've read.  Rescue From the Valley of Chaos is a direct sequel to Treasures of the Forgotten City.


A more tenuous connection may exist between Enigma at the Greensboro Zoo and Mystery in the Murky Deep.  The player character of the former is a police officer named KATY RODRIGUEZ.  JESSICA KWON, the protagonist of Mystery in the Murky Deep, rides in a police car with "a dark-haired woman whose badge says Rodriguez".

[RefSteel]

I'm actually slightly curious on the Tower of Never There: Presumably they won't lead to any new endings anyway, but is there any acknowledgement on pages 31, 36, or 107 of a guess that Kara, Una, or Kavalgyth (the Minotaur) is Master of the Tower? Or does the book assume you won't reach back that far?

It's interesting that the advertised "32 Conclusions" is correct, by your count, if and only if you exclude the Ultimate Ending and the lone Non-Ultimate Good Ending. (Or, alternatively, the number of "conclusions" in Ultimate Ending books is always underestimated by 2 on the cover for reasons best known to the publishers....)

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

I'm actually slightly curious on the Tower of Never There:  Presumably they won't lead to any new endings anyway, but is there any acknowledgement on pages 31, 36, or 107 of a guess that Kara, Una, or Kavalgyth (the Minotaur) is Master of the Tower?  Or does the book assume you won't reach back that far?

It's interesting that the advertised "32 Conclusions" is correct, by your count, if and only if you exclude the Ultimate Ending and the lone Non-Ultimate Good Ending.  (Or, alternatively, the number of "conclusions" in Ultimate Ending books is always underestimated by 2 on the cover for reasons best known to the publishers....)

Page 31 is the ending where the angel screams after you try the Bone Horn on her.


Page 36 is the "minotaur throws you in jail" ending.


There IS, however, a page for Kavalgyth on 107.  "KAVALGYTH CANNOT MASTER EVEN HIS OWN RAGE!  HE COULD NEVER BE MASTER OF THE TOWER."  The book then gives you another chance to guess.


I think the publisher's ending count was wrong for House on Hollow Hill too.  Maybe I know more about these books than they do at this point?

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Portal Oscuro Prologue


Not many CYOAs have this much backstory before the first CHOICE.  The player's mission is to "destroy the Dark Portal and save humanity from the apocalypse". 


The year is 1945.  The player character is Dr. Raymond Martini, a speleologist, marine biologist, and "above all, an adventurer".  He works for the U.S. government, and is travels on the scientific ship the USNS Black Swan.  But he wakes up in the middle of the night, buried on a beach "from the neck down".  The last thing he remembers is that his team was chasing a signal coming from somewhere in Micronesia. 


Characters


Dr. Raymond Martini

-His love interest is Dr. Allen.  Despite being a scientist, he hates being in a laboratory, and prefers being underwater or in a cave.  During WWII (IIGM in Spanish), he served in the Marines at Normandy.  His war buddy died.  He likes fights and reading pulp adventure stories.


Captain Jack Solloway:  Supposedly very serious and doesn't like pranks.  He works for the OSS, and is currently investigating something odd around the Marianas Trench.  No one knows much about him, or dares to find out.


Michael Abbot:  This is his last mission.  He limps with his right foot because he was wounded at Pearl Harbor.  He loves to joke with Dr. Martini and Dr. Allen.  They see him as a father.  He knows much about boats, explosives, and naval warfare in general.  "Sometimes he has problems with alcohol".


Dr. Lucy Allen:  She's a marine biologist, and can "smell danger like the best bloodhound, and always runs in its direction".  Her favorite hobby is cataloging new species.  Although she loves Dr. Martini, she prefers adventure to romance.


Ronin:  This black Belgian Shepherd served in Dr. Martini's Marines unit.  His jobs are to find missing companions, assault trenches, hunt machine gun nests, and sniff out explosives.  After being wounded in battle, he got the Dickins Medal and retired.  He lives with Dr. Martini now, but he prefers being with Dr. Allen.


Lieutenant Wittman of the SS:  "He's a beast, a killing machine, merciless and without regrets."  He is a master of hand to hand combat, firearms, and especially knives.  His troop both respects and fears him.  He ripped out one of his own eyes after "failing the Führer, as a sign of repentance".  His mission is to protect Dr. Gerber and open the Dark Portal.


Dr. Markus Gerber:  He's a mad scientist and a member of the Nazi group, the Ahnenerbe.  He's investigating the Dark Portal after reading documents about a "cosmic key, a magic cube, and a lost spaceship".



Scenarios


Isla Cangrejo (Crab Island) is the setting of this story.  It's close to the Marianas islands, and was discovered in 1555 by Miguel López de Legazpi, an official in the colonial Filipino government.  However, the island hasn't been charted until now, because it has s tendency to "disappear off the face of the earth".  Legends about the island spread courtesy of old sailors and "a good bottle of rum". 


Dr. Martini starts his adventure buried up to the neck on the beach.  Although the island seems like a paradise, it's home to "bloodthirsty crabs" and "mutant barracudas, capable of moving among the sand and rocks".


The jungle seems to be the deadliest part of Isla Cangrejo, because it's "plagued by monsters that defy the laws of nature with only one purpose, to end the life of anyone who dares to explore it".  It's too dangerous to go further than a couple of meters inside.


A German submarine is located in the bay, and barracks are located nearby.


Much of the life on Isla Cangrejo mutated after a 19th century meteorite struck.   The meteorite is still there, hidden in an underground kingdom where it's worshiped as a god by tribes in the area.  The Cosmic Key is inside the meteorite.  Supposedly in the "subsoil", there are anthropomorphic ants and lizards.


A former Japanese bunker is now the Nazis' base.  Dr. Gerber's laboratory is in the basements, and he's experimenting with SECTAL (Alien Ectoplasmic Serum).


Submarine U-X7 may be one of the biggest threats in this adventure.  Although it never entered into service, it is armed with Gamma Proton Torpedoes, which are "100 times as powerful as the bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined".  This weapon technology is possible due to a new element named Tritonio 205.


Documents


The Cube of Togolek, also known as "the Toy of God", has 6 faces with different colors:  white, red, blue, green, yellow, and black.  Each face can make you go to another space-time dimension, provided you have the matching key.  These keys are "hidden in different points of the universe and guarded by lost civilizations".


The Dark Portal is behind the black side of the Cube of Togolek.  This is the gate to the dimension where demons are born, where they die, and where they are reborn.  Anyone who controls the Black Portal could "submit the universe to an era of chaos and absolute destruction".  The Cosmic Key, created by "master Drumsat", is required to open the Dark Portal and of course happens to be on Earth.


Dr. Gerber's SECTAL is an orange fluid extracted from an alien fossil.  The alien was probably the member of a spaceship crew that crashed near the Marianas Trench that failed its mission.  The SECTAL serum is a powerful mutagen.


How much of the backstory will be relevant?  "Therefore, and this is very important, the plot developed by each author is different and, except for the basic rules, none of them have anything to do with each other."

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Portal Oscuro Part 1


"A ray of moonlight traverses the palm leaves and mixes with the soft sea breeze over your head.  You should be in your small boat, the USNS Black Swan Explorer, reading your pulp magazine that you always bring with you, or joking with your fiancee, Dr. Lucy Allen, supposing she felt like it, but now you find yourself in a situation as frightening as it is incomprehensible.  For a strange reason you don't know, you awake buried up to the neck on a paradise beach of. . .the truth is that you don't care what you find at this moment; your memory is cloudy.  Your head hurts you horrifically, and the beating in your forehead crushes you mercilessly.  They clubbed you well enough, but you know who you are, and that's good.  You're Dr. Raymond Martini. . ."


Giant crabs from the reef are approaching me, and their pincers can rip apart tendons and bones.  I try to lift my arms, but without success.  I scream for help, but I only hear "timid howls" and come to the conclusion that the place must be deserted.  Shaking around in the sand reveals my dog whistle for Ronin.  Although the crabs are hungry, they must still be deciding whether to eat me or not.


Ronin comes when I whistle for him and scares off the crabs when he starts attacking them.  I draw my razor that I always keep near my leg.  It unties my bonds, because I guess burying my character in the sand wasn't enough.


My watch says it's been 5 hours since my last memory on the Black Swan.  I still have my pulp adventure magazine for some reason.  No sign of my human companions yet.


It's time for CHOICE #1.  Go to the jungle in search of help (Vidal Fernández Solano), follow the beach and look for the Black Swan (Julio M. Freixa and José Luis Castaño Restrepo), or scream the names of my companions to find out if they respond (Salino and Emilio Iglesias).


It might be prudent to go back to the boat.  The Prologue warned me about the jungle, and no one answered my screams before CHOICE #1.


This goes to a page labeled "Monster Piranhas".  


"The buzzing in your head seems to indicate that someone has been playing soccer with it recently".


While we're walking, Ronin wrinkles his snout, arches his back, and starts to bark toward the coast.  Given the Prologue, I should probably pay attention to his intuition.  I see movement among the vegetation.  "Malignant eyes rest on you, proceeding from an apparition of a nightmare creature.  Its triangular head is provided with a powerful jaw filled with pointed teeth and it lacks ears.  As a nose, it only has two gaps in the point of a snout.  It seems to be a type of fish out of water, as if such a thing were possible, but the most horrible thing is its body. . .similar to an enormous barracuda, but provided with 4 atrophied paws, and it's creeping clumsily toward you!"



The mutant barracuda's tail allows it to jump in spite of its clumsy feet.  Ronin attacks the fish, but "his jaws (fauces) seem like mouse teeth compared to the ivory sabers of the mutant fish".  I jump on the alligator-sized barracuda's back, holding onto it by putting my fingers in its large nostrils.  My knife and Ronin's bites eventually manage to kill it.


"Holly God. . .Look at the size of that sardine, Ronin.  I've traveled throughout the world and I've never seen anything like this.  It doesn't even have gills (branquias). . .and those paws don't show up overnight.  It goes against the theory of evolution.  I wonder if. . ."


The answer as to why this abomination exists is NAZI SCIENCE!  Not to be confused with real science. 


(Note:  The real Nazis sometimes dismissed quantum mechanics as "Jewish physics", which hindered attempts at building things like atomic bombs.  The idea of "efficient NAZI SCIENCE" as seen in The Man in the High Castle is pure fantasy.  As for other totalitarian governments, Soviet science was hobbled by Lysenkoism, an ideology that rejected genetics as "bourgeois".)  


Our victory over the land barracuda is short lived, because there are now 3 more coming towards us.  These have more developed paws than the clumsy one we just killed.  CHOICE #2 is to either climb a coconut tree and wait for help (Julio M. Freixa), or run toward the bay, hoping to find the Black Swan before the barracudas catch us (José Luis Castaño Restrepo).

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Portal Oscuro Part 2


I didn't hear anybody when I screamed on the beach at the beginning, and hiding in a coconut tree sounds like a slow Death.  It's suggested that option will separate me from Ronin too, and how am I supposed to detect threats without him?


Fortunately for me, the barracudas are cannibals in this reality and will eat the one Ronin and I killed.  Memories are coming back to me of "Lucy's screams while she was being dragged by the SS brutes".  But when we reach the Black Swan, we find out that 3 Nazi soldiers in tropical uniforms have captured Captain Solloway.  The boat sails toward the opposite side of the island without us.


I stop moving forward when I hear two sentinels who are guarding the bay.  I make sure that I have my multiuse razor.  The two Nazis are "cursing and complaining about the muggy air that reigns on the coast".  Ronin takes the lead and barks at the Germans while stealing their canteen.  For whatever reason the narration calls Ronin "el can" instead of the much more common "el perro" in this sentence.  I then attack them.  "The first reaction of the soldier is of total surprise upon bumping into you.  That second of indecision seals his fate forever.  Your lethal training enters into action instinctively, and by means of your razor, you slice his jugular. . ."


The other Nazi points his assault rifle at me, but I already grabbed his fallen comrade's MP 44, and so I shoot him first.  "The Nazi babbles incoherently in anguish before the life ends in his pupils".


I throw the two corpses into the water to distract any predators while we escape.  I sneak over to the Black Swan and notice the Nazis have trashed Dr. Lucy Allen's laboratory.  Some noises can be overheard, so I ready my rifle.  One of the Nazis is "having fun hitting a defenseless man tied to a chair."  The victim is Michael Abott.  Michael Abott is defiant and spits on the Nazi's foot in spite of being covered with blood and having a black eye. 


The enemy soldiers are too distracted to notice me coming toward them.  "His gray eyes flash with a mix of stupefaction and hate before you send him to the world of Morpheus with a good pistol whip to his hairy head (la testa). 


Michael Abott is happy to see me.  "Raymond, my boy, we have much to do."  When I untie him with my razor:  "First we have to interrogate this bastard to find out what the hell is happening on this damn island".


The Nazi tells us that Dr. Gerber is experimenting with a serum ina remote place on the island.  My plan is to capture the submarine, but my friend is uncertain because he thinks the submarine is crawling with Nazis.  I try to assure him that they'd have only a skeleton crew.  "If we capture the submarine we'll force Wittmann to negotiate.  If he doesn't free the crew of the Black Swan, we'll sink his precious submarine".


We head off, and slow down when I see two men "loafing around" on the submarine.  Several mutant barracudas are swimming around the Black Swan.  I shout "Guten Abend, Kameraden!", fooling one German long enough for me to throw him overboard "where he will not have salvation".  Abott stabs the other one in the back.  "He falls into the water to share the sad fate of his companion".  The hatch on the submarine is "locked tight" (a cal y canto).  But I somehow manage to throw a grenade inside.  "Some anguished screams in German can be heard before the detonation lifts a column of smoke through the narrow access".


Finally, CHOICE #3 after pages of no decisions!  It's labeled JL4 in the book, presumably for José Luis.  No author divergences here.  We're probably committed to José Luis Castaño Restrepo at this point.


The options are to go into the submarine immediately after the smoke from the grenade clears, or ask Abott what to do first.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Portal Oscuro Part 3


Following Abott goes to JL6 in the book.  He takes the lead with his pistol, but one Nazi shoots him in the right shoulder from behind.  I kill the enemy with my rifle and tend to Abott's wounds.  "In spite of the intense hemorrhage, the bullet has left cleanly".


I hear echoes of shots and noises from the other side of the submarine.  I tell Abott to hide and travel toward's the command center.  "You take a step through the claustrophobic corridors of the submarine, excited by the stench and the screams that echo everywhere.  You arrive at the dining room and discover half a dozen bodies of sailors that are torn apart.  Then you hear a growl that seems to come from the stern and makes you shiver".  Another corpse is a "bald subject with a white lab coat".


An unnatural creature is currently visible only by its shadow and amber eyes.  I try to retreat and shoot it at the same time.  Some of my bullets hit it, but this only makes it "continue to advance with the murderous determination of a wounded lion".


It's as vulnerable to headshots as any video game character, though.  "Then you point at its head and its brain explodes into 1000 pieces, staining the walls and your own humanity".  A yellow ichor oozes out of its corpse.  Abott recognizes the creature:  "By everything that's holy!  I'd recognize that tattoo anywhere".  The dead monster still has a tattoo on its chest, and Abott recognizes him as a sailor named O'Grady.  Chances are the SECTAL serum is behind this, but the characters don't now that yet.


Dr. Martini worries that Lucy will be a victim of whatever experiment that transformed O'Grady.  We pass through narrow hallways until we reach a sort of prison.  One corpse belongs to an SS person in a white coat, and another dead body is recognized as a sailor from the Black Swan.  But one person is still alive, and is being transformed into a mutant.  "The thing has the torso of a batrachian (batracio) and their lower extremities are nothing less than cerulean tentacles that never stop moving and hit the metal walls."  The mutant shouts "Kill me!", which I oblige by throwing a grenade.  The use of the word "batracio" reminds me of the Barachi race of intelligent frogs from Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, and the words have a common origin.


While exploring the submarine, we find a submersible that hangs from thick chains.  But the torpedo room is our main target to "frustrate the Nazis' plans".  One hallway ends in a dark area that's only wide enough for one person.  CHOICE #4 on JL9 is to either go myself with the lantern "fending off your fears", or send Abott "thinking better of it".



Abott's already wounded, and I doubt a pulp adventure would reward me for being a coward and killing off my already badly-injured companion.


"A freezing sensation licks the back of your neck when you enter the dark hallway.  The lantern barely breaks the solid wall of shadows that surrounds you.  The metallic walls are as cold as a wet tomb, and your runaway heart beats in your temple while your eyes scrutinize that fetid passage without success.


Your feet sink in a sticky slime (limo) and you don't dare to look down and find out what it is.  Then, something freezing and repugnant creeps through the network of pipes (tuberías) anchored on the roof.  And the only thing you manage to perceive is a greenish and suspicious appendage that wraps around your throat, cutting off your breathing.


You try to react, but the sharp point of that monstrosity submerges in your mouth and ascends to your brain destroying everything in its path, causing a frightful death.  END".


Torn apart from the inside by a tentacle?  What a lousy CANONICAL ENDING.  But we can't deny this book is as macabre as you could hope for.  Much of the fun in CYOAs is seeing how horribly your character can perish.


0 Good Endings

1 Death

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

0 Inconclusive Endings

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Portal Oscuro Alternate Endings Part 1


The gap between CHOICE #4 and #5 is huge.  Mapping out this book may not take as long as I thought, because much of it is text without decisions.


This time, we walk in single file.  I see the tentacle monster before it can attack Abott.  His Luger hardly inflicts any damage, and the creature wraps around his chest.  But my rifle is much more successful.  "You jump on that heresy and empty one of the magazines into the thickest part.  The monster is plant-like, as indicated by the light from a flare.  I throw a pair of grenades, which fall inside its mouth and spread parts of its corpse all over the hallway.


A laboratory provides come clues, like boxes marked with the word SECTAL and a "black notebook with the insignias of the SS" that mentions Togolek.  More corpses are in other hallways we cross.  "However, a sepulchral silence reigns inside the narrow room".


We see the Tritonio 205 torpedoes, which agree with the Prologue information by being able to "destroy an entire city without a problem".  But we ignore them to focus on the cube of Tobolek that's hinted at.  "The best thing would be to sink this infernal artifact with all this technology.  It's best to make it pass from the world."


Abott's studying the targeting system while I try to think of a plan.  This becomes easier when I find a middle-aged man named Karl Bremen who says he was forced to experiment with SECTAL, or else Wittman would use it on him.


Karl Bremen tells me about "Aliens, weapons of mass destruction and mutants with the blood of old buried gods".  Much of the information is already in the Prologue post.  I tell him to send a message to Wittmann saying I'll destroy his submarine if he doesn't return the Black Swan crew.  To make good on my threat, we mine the torpedo room.  "If things turn ugly, you're ready to detonate the gamma torpedoes and send everything to hell".


A fight ensues when the Nazis show up to retake the submarine.  Many gunshots and several grenades later, and we win.  We see Dr. Lucy Allen and Captain Solloway. . .but Solloway's a traitor!  "Wittmann wants the submarine and for that motive he offers you the lives of all the prisoners.  No one will hurt you and you can leave in the Black Swan".  But Dr. Martini isn't fooled.  "The word of a Nazi.  Without a doubt he's ready to shoot us in the back once he gets his way".


"Welcome, Mr. Martini.  I offer an opportunity to save the lives of your companions".  It's Wittmann, or what was once Wittmann.  He's now a mutant with cerulean tentacles.  "The only things that remind you of his humanity are the rags of his military uniform".  He fires a shot in the back of one of the prisoners.  "Now there aren't any more than 2 more opportunities to choose.  This can last all day, Mr. Martini".  He's pointing a gun at one of the other prisoners.  I shout "Argggg!" and empty a magazine into him.  But his wounds "close as if by magic".


"It's impossible for a miserable human to confront me.' he laughs with a gesture charged with evil, 'I'm a god and neither anyone nor anything could stop me".  I tell Abott to fire the torpedoes, and then "a dry blow sends you to the world of dreams".


My plan has "gone to the dogs" (ir al garete), and now I'm tied to a pipe that goes to the submersible.  Dr. Lucy Allen says "Oh Ray, we're lost!  There's no way to finish off that legion of abominations, I've seen the laboratory and. . ."  She kisses Dr. Martini.  Solloway appears with 6 SS members.  Abott tries to kick Solloway but fails and hits the wall.  I take advantage of this distraction to steal a knife.  But Abott dies when an MP 40 fires. 


Wittmann wants me to help him with his plans, and threatens to kill us if I refuse.  "You'll have the honor of recovering the Cube of Togolek from its underwater tomb.  You'll be the first human being to make contact with the most powerful artifact humanity has ever known".  I refuse and am forced to obey him anyway.


An alien spaceship can be seen underwater.  "The impossible angles and the sharp edges don't fit in the mind of a terrestrial engineer."  I go inside and see "desiccated corpses of two creatures impossible to conceive", along with the Cube of Togolek.  This plot is starting to remind me of Perfect Dark.  As I begin my ascent to the surface, I consider my options, and the only one seems to be "a paltry knife to confront the murderous machinations of the SS". 


CHOICE #5 to decide the ending is. . .a 1d6 roll.  I'm not kidding.  "What will be your ending, and will it be success or failure?  In this case everything depends on your luck, and that will decide for you.  You have three options.  Throw a die, or consult the stars.  There are no clues; fate never offers clues".  So much for the concept of a Choose Your Own Adventure!  The Tower of Never There has some luck-based CHOICEs too, but some of them are more like a second chance if you do something stupid or risky.  Here, even if you do everything else right, you just pick A, B, or C.


I rolled a 5 on Random.org, so C it is.


This ending is long, so I'll only quote the last part directly.  The Nazis take the Cube of Togolek, and Captain Solloway tells me Wittmann can't wait to meet us.  Wittmann rubs one of his tentacles on me and says "Mr. Martini, you've been the only rival worthy of confronting me.  That's why you'll have the privilege of seeing how the power of the old gods will return to Earth through the Dark Portal.  It will be an experience you'll never forget".


Wittmann's eyes glow and I think his pincers "will tear you apart like a pig".  He reveals he doesn't care about the Nazi authorities at all, and is only using them to gain power.  "Nazis, war, victory?  What are those human pittances (mezquindad) compared to the power of gods, the capability of eternal life, and to dominate entire universes?"


The SECTAL serum is meant to turn human bodies into vessels to receive the old gods' power.  This setting is also Lovecraft fanfic, at least according to this author's story.  "Great Cthulhu will wake up from his millennial lethargy accompanied by Yog-Sothoth and we'll turn into their faithful servants and worshipers.  We will inherit the world and humans will be our slaves."


Wittmann starts reading an occult book and "awakens ancestral fears in your subconscious".  While he and the Nazi soldiers are distracted, I thrust my knife into his liver.  (How would I know where the liver on a Lovecraft mutant would be?)  He shudders and "is undone" (deshacerse) at my feet.  I get an automatic rifle (subfusil) and grenades, and start chucking the latter at Wittmann.  My efforts are so far as useless as Call of Cthulhu characters, because Wittmann reappears bathed in a yellow liquid.


"The beast's eyes shine with a note of profound panic and his tentacles trap you at the same time that you separate the shaking cube from the magic circle.  You feel an explosion of light that surrounds you like a flaming blanket, and later an inconceivable pain that expands through all your humanity like a curse.  You scream and beg the Almighty that everything ends, but in its place you are thrown into an endless well at a speed that causes vertigo.


You wake up and blink, feeling your ravaged body by pain and fatigue.  Soon you discover that something is found out of place, and you warn that the sky is green.  In front of you, an exuberant jungle with exotic trees and plants with the most varied colors unfolds.  None of that seems like what you've seen on Earth, and you understand that you're on another world, an inconceivable dimension where the power of the Dark Portal drew you.  You get up with difficulty and capture a figure on the burning blue sands.  You run there and with relief you notice it's your beloved Lucy.


You seize her between your arms and feel her breathing, light but constant.  Then you shudder upon taking a glance at a splendorous creature whose steps make the ground vibrate.  It's an orange titan with soft skin that is tearing apart cerulean tentacles that belonged to the abomination destroyed by its claws.  END".


Lucy and I are trapped in Cthulhu land, but Wittmann is probably being eaten by another Lovecraft monster.  Does this mean we win?  


Results So Far


0 Good Endings

1 Death

0 Bad Non-Death Endings

0 Neutral Endings

1 Inconclusive Endings