Radish of the Damned (U4G)

[SleepingOrange]

Before the beginning, before time or space or life, there was the Void. It was nothing and nowhere, and consequently everything everywhere. There is no way to say how long this went on for, as duration requires time; it was simply a nonexistent eternity of the Void.


At the end of that eternity (or perhaps the middle or even beginning; such words mean next to nothing), the Void spoke. It was one, simple statement. It was the Word.


And from the Word formed everything. The sky poured forth and filled itself with stars; time and space flowed out, and the first seconds of creation ticked by.


And around the Word, the world formed, and on it, life burst forth. The Word had brought forth everything that was, and began to fade from hearing.


But as the word disappeared, the Language formed in its wake. Words not of the unfathomable power of being that the Word contained, but words enough to represent everything that was or could be. They were words that could manipulate the world around them, a Language that those who knew it could use to change and perfect their existence.


People could use simple phrases to effect great change, the same combination of words creating radically different effects based on the will of the speaker. Anyone could, with effort, use the Language, and for a time, prosperity, health, and happiness were available to all.


But the nature of life is that of avarice, ambition, and lust. While even the simplest phrases could change the world, there were those who dedicated their lives to perfecting their mastery of the Language, composing great sentences, paragraphs, and even speeches entirely with the words of power. And where power exists, there are those who would seek to exploit it, for their families, their governments, or their own selfish desires.

Wars erupted, and reality itself was both the weapon and the victim. Powerful speakers tore apart the land and sky, and the world itself threatened to shatter.


The Void saw what was happening to its creation, and it was furious. In its rage, it stripped the Language from the world and sealed each word into a physical object so that no word could be used without possession of the object it was sealed in.


It divided the objects among the hosts of Heaven and Hell so that the objects could not find their way into mortal hands and commanded that they separate and hide their charges. It demanded that no two objects be brought into contact with each other and that neither group tell the other where their objects were hidden. Satisfied that its world had been protected, the Void retreated once more.


But as is the nature of devils, the contract was eventually breached. Some minor fiend carefully laid plans, and as such, one day two of the least-heavily-guarded objects were brought together.

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You awoke. It was the first time you had ever done so, or in fact done anything. You've never had awareness before.

You are a radish. You know implicitly that you are one of the objects the Void confined a word to all hose ages ago. You are Plant. Oddly, though, you also know that you are Move. You'd blink and shake your head if you could, but...

Time passes. You don't know how much, but as it does, you reason a few things out: first, someone brought the radish containing Plant and the wheel containing Move together; that probably caused the explosion you reckon is the cause of the crater in the wall and the fiend bits across the room. Second, you now contain both the words Move and Plant, and the wheel was either destroyed or absorbed in the process of bringing the two of you together. Third, you desire to find the other objects. It's not something you can deny; it's a burning, all-consuming need. You will assemble all the words; you WILL become the Language.

Fourth, you're going to have to leave this dinky little stone room to do it. Without limbs, you suppose you'll be relying on what bits of the Language you have for pretty much everything.

Around you is a nondescript stone room with one slightly-ajar wooden door. A symbol is chalked roughly on two of the walls, and behind you is a stone thing that might have been a pillar or pedestal before the explosion you assume occurred, complete with a crater in the wall behind it. As mentioned, there are a few smears of blood and bits of devil at the far side, near the door.

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Alright, here's my entry for the Up For Grabs contest! It's going to be a little puzzley, but not in a "there is one way to solve this figure it out" way. Think more along the lines of Imagitek. You'll have a few concrete tools to use, but how you apply them is up to you. I hope it'll be fun.

Suggestions should typically start with what words you want to use, then an explanation of how you want to use them, like so:

>Move Plant

Hover yourself out the door.

Words can mean lots of different things depending on how you interpret them: Move Plant could be used to send a tomato flying across the room, rearrange a topiary bush, send a wooden chair galloping, or even teleport a tree across the planet. Once you get more words, you'll be able to add prepositions and the like to alter the meaning further, like Transform Water into Fire or Move Body through Earth. It should be pretty freeform and adaptable!

[Eldrake]

>Move Plant

Hover and investigate the room.

[Masterweaver]

>Plant
Let's see if we can grow a bit.
>Move Plant
Then let's see if we can get out of here.

[Trout]

> Grow legs

[swampmist1142]

> plant
use vines to Grow legs

fixed and seconded

[Dragon Fogel]

>Move

See if you can pick up that broken pillar/pedestal-thingy behind you.

[Dfaran]

>Move Plant... to the ceiling. What's up there?

[Nametaken]

>Grow plant
Grow legs, grow big.

[Masterweaver]

>Plant plant.
Hey, let's plant a tree! Plant is a verb, right? And for that matter:
>Plant move.
I wonder if RPG abstractions will grow in this soil....

[Prof. Luigi]

Grow a beefy arm, for which to hold big guns.
(or anything in general)

[ProfessorLizzard]

>Move Plant

Fly raddy, fly!

[OldManRupee]

Roll with it.

[SleepingOrange]

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It never fails; every time I start a project I get swamped with more important things. I'll try to update a few times today.

>Move

See if you can pick up that broken pillar/pedestal-thingy behind you.

>Plant
Let's see if we can grow a bit.

Unfortunately, you can't use a noun without a verb (or vice versa, for that matter). A complete spell/sentence needs a subject and a verb, object optional. Additionally, the pillar is made of stone so you can't use your Language on it, and you can't balance it on top of yourself to move it.

>Grow plant
Grow legs, grow big.

You don't have the verb "grow".

>Plant plant.
Hey, let's plant a tree! Plant is a verb, right? And for that matter:
>Plant move.
I wonder if RPG abstractions will grow in this soil....

In English, plant is a verb and a noun; in the Language, it's just a noun and specifically refers to things that are members of the plant and fungus kingdoms (as well as a few protists if you want to be really technical about it); it cannot be used to refer to things like power plants or false evidence or the act of placing something in the soil.

>Move Plant

Hover and investigate the room.

It's pretty small and unfurnished; there's not even a light source save for the light coming in from the open door. The wall opposite the one with the symbol on it has another copy of the same symbol, as well as a small crack where a piece of rubble presumably hit and bounced off.


The wall with the door has pretty much just that. There's also a few smears of demonic ichors, which are dissolving into the aether along with the few solid bits that remained of the devil you suppose is responsible for your sentience and motility. The ceiling is completely flat and blank, and doesn't warrant more than a glance.

>Move Plant
Then let's see if we can get out of here.

The door is more than open enough to allow you to leave, and you hover through the crack. Outside is a three-way intersection of blank stony hallways: the one directly in front of you continues for a distance but ends in two doors on either side; the ones to your right and left branch and continue.

On the walls are a few more chalked symbols similar to the ones in your room. There is one that looks like some sort of stylized quadruped, a blue circle with three circles taken out of it, and three purple circles arranged in a triangle.

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[SonicLover]

>List words

Give us a list of all the nouns and verbs currently available to us.

[Snowmanne]

>move plant

Try and float into one of the symbols, and see what happens

[SleepingOrange]

>List words

Give us a list of all the nouns and verbs currently available to us.

Move
Plant

That is it for the moment

[Nametaken]

>Move plant.
Hover towards one of the signs.

[Cowey42]

>Plant plant

Plant yourself in the ground to grow in size.

[SleepingOrange]

>move plant

Try and float into one of the symbols, and see what happens

You raise a few puffs of chalk dust from the impact, but there is otherwise no real effect.

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[Eldrake]

>Move plant

Hover into the middle corridor.

[SonicLover]

...
Wow, we're really bare-bones to start with. I hope we find another noun or verb soon. Preferably a verb.

[Nametaken]

>Learn words.

[SonicLover]

>Learn words.

We don't know the verb "learn" or the noun "words".

[Nametaken]

I know i'm just trying to make up stuff, i guess we'll just have to move around 'till we learn something ._.

[SleepingOrange]

>Move plant

Hover into the middle corridor.

The corridor is pretty long but largely empty; you pass a few light fixtures and nothing more until you come to the end. There, there are a pair of doors, each with a chalk symbol beside them. The door on the right has the circle-with-circles-missing one.


The one on the left sports the quadruped-thing.

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