Night falls. Gerry and Nora Rose climb into bed and go to sleep. You watch this, like total perverts, but it’s pretty PG. After 20 minutes or so, Nora Rose quietly climbs out of bed, removes the case from underneath it, and goes out to the driveway. She could see you from here, but she’s too busy trying to look natural and be stealthy at the same time. She quietly gets into the Prius in the driveway and starts it. The electric motor makes the quietest whir as the car rolls away into the night. You frantically jump in the truck and try to be subtle as you follow, which means not using the headlights.

“I should have eaten more carrots,” says Zap, squinting over the wheel.

You trail the Prius to the parking lot at the mine, where it pulls over just beyond where the lot lights end. A white van is already parked there. In the distance, the mine complex looms against the dark crater.

“We should pull over and confront them,” says Nicholas Angel.

“Nah,” says Zap. He drives past the entrance, then drives the truck up a dirt track leading to the forest and kills the engine. “We gotta be stealthy.” He burps.

You sneak back to the van. It’s parked in an enormous open space with no cover, but you insist in walking in slow, exaggerated Scooby-Doo steps anyway. It takes forever, but eventually you’re up next to the van, pressing your ears to the cool metal.

“…don’t want to do this while he’s here. The risk is too great.” Nora’s voice.

“These are expected radar returns,” says a man you don’t recognize. “Everything is in line with predictions.”

“Why does it have to be today? Why couldn’t they restart drilling after the field trip?”

“If we force a delay, people will wonder about that. It’s attention we don’t need.” he sighs. “Prediction is that we don’t find anything special. I mean, a geode that big is going to make waves, but it’s not a security threat. We just need to see what’s going on with the radiation readings and the…”

“Neutrino flux,” says another woman. “we run some tests, pack up and leave.”

“We bought a house here,” says Nora Rose, defensively. “We’re part of the community now.”

“You and Gerry will probably get to stay behind,” says the man. “You might be called up for the Baffin Island project, or if things go sideways in Iceland, but nobody is expected to be on the clock forever. The Northern Limit takes care of its own.”

“Oh shit,” says NorahThief.

“Who said that?!” asks the man in the van.

“Nobody,” says Nicholas Angel, but of course they’re already climbing out. There are three of them, and they have nicer guns than you do.

There’s a man in his early 40s, a woman in her mid-30s, and Nora Rose. This is the closest you’ve ever seen her. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and her brow is furrowed behind wire-frame glasses.

“Hi,” says Liv, “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m a scientist, Dr. Olivia Octavius, and these are my assistants. We’re here for science. Non-violent science.”

The man raises his gun. He looks like the sort of person who has strong opinions on how long you cook a steak. “Who sent you?”

“Why, you did,” says Rum Tum Tugger, thrusting his hips unconsciously. “We’re from the future.”

“Is that so,” says the man. He reaches into a jacket pocket and produces what looks like a perfume bottle. “This won’t hurt a bit.”

---

When you wake up, you are tied to office chairs on the observation deck of the mine. The Northern Limit agents have dragged out a folding table, and are going through all your stuff on it. There’s a big pile of paper bags, a smaller pile of guns, the microwave and geodes Sharon had, and a bunch of other random crap you looted from the future.

The sun is coming up beyond the rim of the mine, painting the sky a vibrant shade of red.

“Beer,” mutters Zap, incoherently.

“Oh good,” says the woman whose name you don’t know. She has your ID badges in her hands. “Mind telling me where you got these?”

“Anno quid est hoc?” says Duo.

“We’re compromised,” says the man. “This was a setup. Who are you working for? The Russians? The Chinese? The Canadians?”

“Bart,” says the woman, patiently. “The Canadians are on our side.”

Nora Rose isn’t saying anything. She’s using a pen-knife to slit open the envelope from Clive.

“Don’t!” yells Big Jim. “That’s privileged information!”

Nora Rose ignores him and draws out a sweat-stained piece of paper, folded in thirds.

“What’s it say?” asks Bart.

“It’s Gerry’s handwriting,” says Nora Rose, slowly. “He told them to take the case under our bed and run.” A pause. “And not to hurt me ‘if possible.'”

“What’s in the case?” asks Liv.

Nora Rose ignores her. “How do you know Gerry?”

“It’s a long story,” says Liv. “By the way, did you know I have four other arms? Not sure how you missed those.”

Her robotic arms effortlessly rip through the phone cords she was tied up with. She stands, and the agents reach for their weapons.

“Too slow!” she cheers, grabbing their guns and throwing them over the balcony. Three quick octo-punches and the Northern Limit agents are out cold. She snatches her own gun off the table and wheels on the rest of you.

“Uhhhh, you,” she says, aiming at Moss.

“Wait!” he cries. “I’m not a secret agent!”

“That’s just what a secret agent would say!”

And she pulls the trigger.

Maurice Moss (Mr. Plow) has died, again. He was a NULL and the final STATE AGENT. Congratulations! Town wins. But wait, there’s lore!

Liv frees the rest of you. “We did it!” she says. “We can go ho-”

Nicholas Angel shoots Moss again. Moss is still dead.

“Uh, okay,” says Liv, “Anyway,”

NorahThief grabs her gun and shoots Zap Rowsdower. Surprisingly, nothing happens. A viscous fluid oozes out.

Zap Rowsdower (Mr. I’m My Own Grandfather) did not die. He is the REPLICANT, more human than human.

“Ow,” he says.

“Holy shit, okay,” says Liv, on the edge of hyperventilation. “Let’s just calm down and-”

“This isn’t over,” croaks Moss from the floor. He grabs one of Spooky’s geodes and aims it expertly at Nick Furry, who falls over.

“Y-you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?” Nick says weakly, before dying.

Nick Furry (Jake) has died. He (she) was the HIEROPHANT, a scientist, and only two days from retirement.

“OH MY GOD,” yells Liv. “STOP KILLING EACH OTHER. PLEASE.”

Behind her, Nora Rose stirs.

“Hey,” she says. “You want to know what’s in the case?”

The case is on the ground at her side, and she pulls it over. She pulls out the gun, then removes the layer of shaped foam that it sits in. Underneath is a heavy, boxy object. It’s nothing any of you recognize. The top of it has a control panel of some sort.

“It’s a bomb,” she says, simply. “You want to see how it works?”

“Not really,” says Liv uneasily. She grabs the table and sets it on its side as a makeshift barrier to crouch behind. “Why don’t we talk about this, as women of science?”

“What is there to talk about?”

“My name’s Norah too,” says NorahThief, from the side. “Just wanted to say ‘hi.'”

“Hi,” says Nora Rose, and presses a button.

The table catches the full force of the blast and rams into you like a plow. You rocket through the splintering guard rail and out over the chasm of the mine. You are falling, falling, falling, but the ground below you looks hard and real. There are bulldozers parked on it. Those of you still conscious scream as you face your death.

Your death opens up below you, like a mouth. The bulldozers fall in. Crystals await.

---

You tumble through the geode.

Was it always this large? Were there always so many branching tunnels, filled with so much fire? One of the bulldozers slams into an outcropping of crystal, which shatters into a thousand sparkling fragments. You fall, on and on and on, toward a massive tunnel of flame.

---

You land under a choking sky of air you cannot breathe, and it squeezes you from all directions like a vise. There is heat beyond words here, and you fall to your knees on shattered rock beneath a yellow sky.

Figures appear before you. They are swathed in dark robes that conceal all but their hands. Those hands reach for you with long fingers than have too many joints. You are lifted, still choking, and carried to a large blue sphere, which looks like a soap bubble fitted with rails to be carried by porters. You are pressed through its walls, and gasp in the clean air inside. The figures lift up the rails, and they bear you away.

“Is this heaven?” says Big Jim. “They’re too nice for this to be hell, but I thought heaven would be fancier.”

The rest of you don’t have anything to add.

You are carried for a long time. Those of you with phones eventually take them out and play app games until your batteries run down. The rest of you just sleep. The landscape level changes: the ground is nothing but cracked rock, and the sky is nothing but overcast and yellow.

Eventually, you crest a rise, and before you is a cluster of bubbles like the one you’re in now, only much larger. Inside is a garden, filled with strange, tall trees.

Your captors walk straight at the largest bubble, and as your bubble passes through, it is absorbed into the wall, and you are dropped to the ground inside. Now carrying only the rails, the porters walk away wordlessly. You are left at the base of the largest tree.

Aww fuck, the tree says. You hear the words in your head, along with a loud belch. Shit. Who the fuck are you guys?

None of you have words for this.

Okay, that’s fine, just give me a second. Another belch. Sorry, I wasn’t expecting guests this early. I can synthesize my own alcohol in here and it’s hard to say no to that, you feel me?

More silence.

My name is Gert Rafto. I used to be an extremely powerful necromancer in the year 2017. But I got caught up in some deep shit with my consciousness in hoc, and one day they came to collect my bill.

“Wait,” says Elaine Stritch. “Did you say you can synthesize alcohol?”

Fuck yeah I can. That shit fuckin’ rules.

“Hell yeah,” says Elaine. Then, more somberly: “I wish Zap could see this.”

“I SAID I WAS SORRY,” says NorahThief.

“No you didn’t!”

“WELL I AM.”

Yeah, thinks the tree, you guys had a lot of murder going on. It’s okay, I know these things happen. I got tangled up with an even nastier necromancer; all kinds of shit went down.

“Where was this?” asks Liv.

Oslo Police Department.

“Huh.”

Point is-

“Er vi på Venus?” asks Duo. “Den opossum trodde en av disse tunnelene ført til Venus”

Not quite, says the tree. Venus looks like Venus because it got fuckin’ overcooked. The oceans boiled off and some kind of feedback system fuckin’ collapsed. Runaway greenhouse or some shit. THEY told me all about it.

You look back out at the rockscape beyond the bubble. “But… isn’t that what happened here?” asks the cloud of flies.

Yeah, yeah, fuckin’ let me finish, Jesus. This only LOOKS like Venus. But the sun just kept getting bigger and hotter as time went by. I don’t think even Venus looks like Venus anymore. I give your opossum friend credit, but this isn’t that. We’re two billion years past that shit. This is EARTH.

POINT IS, there are bigger things at play here than whatever shit you kids were up to. Earth is no longer inhabitable. We’re at the North Pole, which I think might actually be New Jersey now, and it’s still too goddamn hot. My friends here are packing me and the other mind-trees up for replanting. We’re going off-world. And I guess they want you to come with us.

“What if we don’t want to go?” asks Big Jim. “What if we just want to go home and pester our grandkids for not visiting more often?”

“What if we just want to get back to an honest life of stealin’ people’s fillings?” says E. B. Farnum.

“I have a lab,” says Liv.

“I have paperwork,” says Nicholas Angel.

“I will never be able to unsee what I have seen,” says Duo, in English.

FINE, thinks the tree. You fucks don’t want to live forever and watch stars die and shit, that’s fine with me. Hold on, I’m not that great at telepathy. Can you all try to think of the place you came from? That’ll make it easier. Okay, got it. One, two, three-

---

You are in a large room.

The far wall is made of floor-to-ceiling glass panels, and outside the sky is blood red. Silhouetted against the dusk is a man behind a desk. You can’t see him clearly.

He looks up.

The end.

---

Thank you to everyone who returned to Zone Z with me.

Limbo: https://www.quicktopic.com/52/H/xtvy4rHguErW

True graveyard: https://www.quicktopic.com/52/H/UdmvS9DLAXd3

Wolf chat: https://www.quicktopic.com/52/H/hfkz2Dy7NxSAD

Partner chat: https://www.quicktopic.com/52/H/b7Zh7pkT89Ua5

ROLES:

The honest truth is that I tried to make roles that matched people, but for some people I couldn’t think of anything that worked, or else I had a role I’d thought up separately. That’s where the Devolutionist and the Emancipatrix game from. Those are the names of science fiction novels written in the 1920s by a man named Homer Flint. (They are available as a combined volume, which I owned and was unable to get into.) I just really liked the idea of names that were evocative, but of uncertain concepts. I have to concede that it didn’t really work; both Lindsay and the wolves resented having the idea of devolution attached to them. Sorry Lindsay! Sorry wolves!

All but two of the roles were assigned randomly. There was always the possibility that people would randomly match with the roles that had their names on their bags; that’s why one of the bags had the Wikipedia page for the Birthday Problem in it. In practice, that didn’t happen, although a couple of times people were just one line away from their bags.

The two bags that were assigned manually were Spooky’s and Hayes’. For Spooky, I wanted to get back at her (sort of) for the tiny notebook she falsely claimed to have in Zone Z 1. I did this by making said tiny notebook real, and full of diary entries she had no memory of writing. There were also a bunch of recipes. Although most of you assumed she was lying when she died and the diary was blank, you were wrong. It’s just that only she could see what was written there.

The other manual bag assignment, the Artist (Hayes), was just because I really like Hayes’ doodles. Because I didn’t want to make drawing onerous, I made the doodles optional, and doing them unlocked a medic role. Thanks for playing along, Hayes. I hope it wasn’t too much extra work.

The full list of roles are as follow

• Bonephoner (Lovely Bones): WOLF ROLE. Can play weird, bone-based music to one person each night. Has no practical purpose, but very creepy.
• Manophage (Spooky): WOLF ROLE. Eats hands. Gets to read pages in a tiny journal that detail exploits of a separate personality, Spookifer H. Friend.
• Implosionist (Gramps): WOLF ROLE. Self-destructs unless they can get someone to say each day’s magic word. This was meant to kneecap the wolves, who won my first six games and who ran away in the last Event-based game unscathed. I felt they needed to have a built-in disadvantage to even out the bonus they got from chaos. The other wolves were allowed to help the Implosionist, but it didn’t count if they said the magic word. The magic word for Day 1 was “cow,” and then the Implosionist died that night, rendering the exercise moot.
• Hierophant (InnDEEEEED): Can ask the mod a true or false, yes or no question each night. Jake used this to ask about Spooky THREE TIMES because she didn’t believe me, and the third time I convinced her to ask a different question. I tried to answer every question honestly (after saying upfront I might lie), and Jake phrased some of the questions so obliquely that I wasn’t fully sure what the truth even was.
• Codemaker (Owen): WOLF ROLE. Has to post one code each day in order to achieve night immunity.
• Annihilator (Mr. Plow): A dangerous name that means nothing; partnered with the Stalker. The names come from the movies Annihilation and Stalker, which were inspirations for Zone Z.
• Frogtor (Grumproro): Frog doctor; received pill that “tasted like ribbit.” Did not actually have to talk in quotes; chose to.
• Artist (Hayes): Got to medic someone each day they posted a drawing.
• Instructor (Louie): Received browsable handbook of different roles; could ask about one each night.
• Nun (Jude): Immune to wolf night kills, on account of purity, but not to other forms of death.
• Radar (Hoho): Standard cop, told whether or not someone is SCIENTIST or STATE AGENT.
• Obliviator (Banner): One-shot role wipe.
• The New Number 2 (E-Dog): Functionally identical to the Instructor, but received different flavor text tied to The Prisoner, the show E-Dog ran a game about.
• Devolutionist (Lindsay): WOLF ROLE. One-shot wolf recruiter.
• Stalker (May): A dangerous name that means nothing; partnered with the Annihilator. The names come from the movies Annihilation and Stalker, which were inspirations for Zone Z.
• Jammer (Mr. Glitch): One-shot guaranteed roleblock.
• Replicant (Goat): More human than human. Can only be killed the State Agents. Would self-destruct if recruited by them, since that would violate Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics.
• Psychiatrist (Dr. Niles Crane, aka MacCrocodile): Can learn the name of someone’s role as a night action.
• Strongman (Ralph): Takes two hits to kill. “Strongman” is a standard WW/Mafia role on Mafiascum.net, but I misremembered what it does. I think the two-hits-to-kill thing is also a codified role, but it’s called something else.
• Haruspex (Jude): SK ROLE. Inspired by the game Pathologic, with E-Dog told me about. “Haruspex” is one of the roles in that game (the other two are “bachelor” and “changeling”), and I was fascinated by the idea of those being “classes,” (i.e., like “soldier” and “spy” in Team Fortress 2; more about that below). A haruspex is someone who divined the future from animal livers. This haruspex used human livers, and from them learned detailed role info.
• Karateka (April): One who does karate. This was a vigilante role.
• Jurist (Demyx): Town roleblocker.
• Emancipatrix (Wasp): One-shot town recruiter. I didn’t really think this one through, but I got lucky: The recruit target was already town.
• Codebreaker (Lamb Dance): Must find and decode the Codemaker’s codes in order to get a vig kill each night. This role went to Mr. Glitch, who kept being beaten to the decoding punch by Spooky, but he didn’t really want to kill anybody, so it worked out okay.

And, last but not least, there’s the Spy. The Spy could send up to three messages a day to the wolves, one sentence each, and received fragments of what they were saying. (Because of this eavesdropping problem, a LOT of the early wolf messages are enciphered with the keyword STATE.) The only problem was that the Spy didn’t exist. It was me. I was the Spy. And I told the wolves that might be the case, but they were never fully sure, even when I made the Spy use Spy voice lines from Team Fortress 2, a tic E-Dog caught pretty early.

I was going to have the Spy turn out to be Tobias Morpheus, who was also the hawk, but I ran out of time.

TRUTH AND LIES:

The pill colors and flavors were more or less meaningless. The Partners received pills the same color, but that was the only time the colors meant anything, and they were not the only people to receive a pill that color. (Spooky has a chart somewhere.)

As with the first Zone Z game, I made a big deal about now I couldn’t be trusted, then told the truth about 95% of the time. Someone – Demyx, I think – correctly pointed out that the game would be absolute chaos if EVERYTHING was a lie.

The recipes Spooky got were mostly from old cookbooks, and I tried to type them up with the original cookbook syntax. The cheesecake recipe was my mom’s.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Thank you for playing, or just for reading along. I am so glad I don’t have to write anymore after this. I hope the game was fun and that you were able to keep up with everything that happened.