Agent Smith suddenly grabs you from behind and holds you in a head lock. With calm menace he says, "You hear that Mr. Gogderson?... That is the sound of Post 138... It is the sound of your death... Goodbye, Mr. Gogderson..."

A dark wind rises around you and your unseen assailant.

You wish Melina was a sponge, but that is yet another item you forgot in your recent shopping trip along with her personal items. You are less worried about the sponges as it's very clear you may not be getting any for a very long time.

The noise in the tavern is deafening. As you try to drown out the white noise, some of it still gets through...

"How dare you go on an adventure without telling me..."
"I should have listened to my mother about you..."
"Have you ever thought about getting a real job. It's not like you've done all that well with adventuring..."
"Are you even listening to me..."

You find yourself in a massive white space, with no end in sight... Except for the black door in front of you. Cautiously, you open the door, and discover a whole room filled with video screens, dials, and a single chair in the middle. It turns to face you, and you see an old man with a grey beard, friendly face, and eyes that have seen everything. "Who are you?" You ask. "My boy," he says, "I'm the Moderator. I brought you here to get away from Smith, but he will be back, so You will be here for a short time. You can ask me anything."

Questions you can ask:

Why is this happening?

What is the meaning of all these screens and dials?

Why are you called The Moderator?

What's up with Melina?

The Moderator presses a button, which makes a bump sound. "That's to get everyone's attention," He says.

You ask, "What's up with Melina?"

The moderator replies, "Son, son, she's a woman. In order to survive, you have to please her. You won't be happy unless she is happy. It's never easy, but you could start by buying her the tampons when she wants it Of course, chocolates or jewelry couldn't hurt either. These are things you will learn in time...well at least unless you really enjoyed the last two months, then you might be barking up the wrong tree."

Next question...

You ask him all the other questions; why is he called the Moderator, what is the point of all the dials and buttons, and why is this all happening to him?

The man sighs, and begins to tell you everything:

"I come from a race of people known as the GOGlodytes. For centuries, we've been playing, replaying, and making playable stories, all of which have a simple, yet effective control scheme, a good plot, and good characters. However, we got bored. We saw we were controlling a person, but was it really a person, or simply just a bunch of sprites? Suddenly, we became very depressed; we never felt connected to the character, never felt as if his life was in our hands. Which was why we came up with a horrible project that I'm ashamed to have taken part in; we decided to control life."

You ask him, bewilderingly, what he means. All that he tells you next shocks you to the core:

"We wanted to control actual people, and place them in scenarios through which they can explore. We made gigantic simulation rooms, which we then placed our subjects in. We couldn't take random people, so we did the next best thing: we made them. Genetically engineered in our labs. When they were grown,we implanted machinery into their brains; our controllers sent signals to the machine, which then gave electric stimuli to the lobes; this encouraged movement, and sometimes thought.The first batch we sent into the rooms were a bit... unwieldy, to say the least. When they woke up, either they would keep on screaming, or their heads would explode. We kept refining the machinery, and in turn the rooms, until eventually we found a perfect way to do this experiment: we minimized the controlling aspects; too many commands equals lots of electricity equals explosions. We made isolated control rooms for those who would be in charge of their given subject. These people were called Moderators; they keep their subjects in check, and can only influence them; that is what the dials and buttons are for. They send subtle signals to the decision making part of the brain. Remember your second thoughts on buying from Gandalf? That was me. All of this was."

You ask about what happened before you arrived near the house; did you awake earlier, and lost your memory?
"No," the man says. "You woke up standing near the house. Nothing happened whilst you were in development, and then sent to the simulation." You ask why you don't remember anything farther than when you started this... simulation. "you don't remember anything beforehand because you there wasn't anything beforehand. You have no history. Your life began when you were in that area."

You not sure what to say, except for this: "What am I?"

"You are the first of the new batch," He says. "Subject 1. The first of many characters we've grown."

I'm not a piece of fiction, you shout. I'm a human being!

"That's why I brought you here. To treat you as one... and give you freedom from this."

He pushes a button; another door slides up from the bottom of the floor. He turns a dial, and you feel a slight twinge in your head. "The machine is off," he says. He points at the door.

"That leads to the real world. I can't help you from there." You ask why.

"They'll come for me, the ones truly in charge. They'll try to get information from me. And then they'll come for you. They don't want their product living out their lives. You need to go."

You look at the door, and back at the man. You have true free will for the first time, and you want to help this man. "Please leave," he says. "They're already watching from the camera; i disabled the sound though."

You say thank you to him, and he only says "You're welcome. Be careful."

You walk out of the control room, and close the door. You run to the door to freedom, not looking back. You open the door, and see a vast, alien cityscape. With nowhere else to go, you close the door, just in time to hear the faint sound of sirens from inside. You take in the whole area; this may be the end of your GOGventure, but it also might be a whole new beginning...

THE END

TO BE CONTINUED

Author's note: Wow this has been insane! We went from starting near a house to discovering the reason for our existence. I hope you enjoyed this thread, and I'll try and think of something else, like the lore of the story.

I was away for the last part of this but awesome thread :) I look forward to the sequel!!
!