`The Story of The Game`

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Paul, the outcast in a small villa, loves to hike in the mountain range which surrounds his village. One day on such an excursion, he brings his fishing gear to a small pond which he knows ... which the villagers say has no fish. This, of course, is precisely why he is fishing. His hook catches something, he wades out to untangle it, and finds it hooked to some sort of handle or knob. He turns the knob out of curiosity--or possibly on accident while freeing his line-- and the entire pond drains leaving a door to a control booth in its wake. Curious, Paul peeks in, only to trip, send all his stuff crashing in, and consequentially break much of the machinery beyond repair--by him, at least. The only working part in the place is a single monitor, which blinks a message, a map, and a cryptic outline of what is to come. Not wanting to get in trouble, Paul races back to his little shack on the outskirts of the village.

The day after he gets back home, weird things start happening...

The town tree, which he distictly remembers was a cypress, has suddenly turned into a twisted palm tree which is now the seat of a very disgruntled (and rabid) squirrel.
The town Elder, Xavier (but more commonly referred to as Billy) has become even more secluded than before, throwing blunt objects out of his window when approached.
People are confused and frightened (and rightly so, that squirrel has been snapping at their children) but they do not want to do anything because of their shared fear of action, change, and skipping town.

Anyway, after solving a few puzzles--perhaps in order to get to his cabin-- he meets Robin, one of the employees of the maker of the computer system. He answers some questions, and Paul finds out the computer system is in benign control of the entire village, from steeple to sidewalk. It created and programmed everything, the people included. Robin has suspected mischeif caused by the computer system for some time, but hasn't any proof as of yet. We later find out the computer has been plotting out this exact moment for centuries, where Paul breaks the control booth and sets the computer's true intents into action. Paul learns the only way to stop the computer from causing the town to slowly sink into the earth, destroying its inhabitants, is to get into the main part of the computer and set right what he broke in the control booth. This would set the computer back into it's intended track and defer any further attempts at enacting it's ill wishes. Robin tells Paul that there is a way into the heart of the system, but the way is blocked by many traps, locks, and puzzles, involves breaking into the Elder's house, and it is almost pointless to even attempt the journey. Paul, the non-conformist that he is, decides to try it anyway, and eagerly tells the rest of his small group of outsider friends about the challenge.

Much later on, Paul gets himself into a rather nasty fight with the town elder, near a shack on the outskirts of the village. It is incredibly unfair, since Xavier is a robot, after all, and proceeds to throw large metal objects, chairs, rocks, small saplings, rodents, deer, etc at Paul. Paul's attempts at communication fail miserably. He sits down in submission, accepting his impending doom. Suddenly, he hears a rather interesting "thwack", followed by the rather disconcerting thump of Xavier's mechanical head falling into his lap. Jane and her trusty umbrella have saved his life!

...And far after this, the four friends and Robin end up outside the disc. They hop over to the alien base on a land transport Robin had hidden away, which unfortunately or perhaps humorously has a broken antigrav generator, and tends to drag its nether end across the sands. Oh yeah, forgot. Outside of our valley is lifeless desert.
Anyway, once they reach the base, they split up, and we get to experience all five(or perhaps six) of their experiences firsthand, through a character-jumping event we may implement in other similar situations.

And, now for some more random info....mostly background junk on Robin's life:

Robin (superintendant) is really some kind of evil outcast from down below. He was thrown out of the alien lab for doing something...not sure yet. He only lives on the disc of machine controlled land mainly because the rest of the test planet is a rolling desert with sparse greenery and numerous rock formations (we find out all of this later--Robin likes his little facade... For instance, when Paul meets him, he says the reason he's upside is because he is some sort of auxilliary observer to the town, besides all the surveillance equipment). Anyway, Robin turns out to be a bad guy, because he leads Jane and Percy down to the depths of Machine Hell (where almost at the end, they get killed while saving Paul from a big nasty robot)

Robin isn't a human, he's one of the aliens that were experimenting on this cluster of human lab rats. When Paul "accidentially" destroys the surface auxilliary control booth, he sets off a chain reaction that disjoints the security systems long enough for the computer to take control of all mechanical devices (including the secret military technology lab undercover in the species study complex), which quickly decimate or scare away the population of alien lab technicians, high-ranking military officials, and tourists, at least around the test site.
The main computer just happens to be a top-of-the-line artificial intelligence generator, unfortunately it became intelligent enough to realize that its creators would be easy to destroy in a covert fashion. So when the aliens told the computer to generate some random human forms, it made a cross section of human life grafted around its main plan, with Paul at the center. (The only reason that the computer is able to step over these bounds without anyone noticing is that the security is a subdivision of the computer itself, plus the system security was there to keep things out, not stop things from within).

Anyway, Robin's only desire is to get back to his homeworld and off of this lab-tested rock. He doesn't hold much value in the test subjects (humans), so he uses them as tools (much like the computer). Robin is also a colossal coward, so he uses Paul, and eventually Jane and Percy, to help him get down to the 5th level parking garage where he left his Century SkyJumper™. Unfortunately for Robin, the parking garage is now ruled by the robotic parking attendants.

Our story ends here, and waits patiently to be finished.

The Cast

Paul, main character, GOP(corny acronym for group of paul)--not one of the weirdest. Plagued by bad luck, is otherwise mostly logical and rational.
Percy, GOP--rather rational, likes animals, has pet rock. Talks to animals, sometimes they listen, but mostly they just crap on his head. The only animal that listens to him more than 10% of the time is his pet rock, though he did trip over it once.
Grog, GOP--not the most coherent; that is, he would never be put in a position of power. The lowest-classing lifeform in the group. A little hyper, (beavis and butthead on caffeine), think wild-ape-boy-from-the-jungle. Percy: Grog, you ok in there? Grog: (From another room) AAAAAAAAAAyiiiyiyiyiaaaahahahaa... Paul: Is he ok?? Percy: Grog is never ok...
Jane, GOP--saves Paul from elder robot with large umbrella... *whack*. Always carries a big umbrella, no matter the weather. "Hey, it could rain.. look, there's a teensy cloud! Right there!" Otherwise extremely intelligent. Expects something is wrong just as Robin does.
George, GOP--sees things that aren't there, though occasionally sees hidden things that really are there. "Watch out for that big rock there." "What big rock?" "The one with the 3 headed lizard on it, stupid! Oh wait.. never mind. The lizard ate it. It's gone." Walking through an empty room, he will walk in twisted patterns like there are mounds of garbage or other flotsam on the ground. <<-NOTE: when experiencing things from Georges point of view, we get to see the things he does. Same with the rest of the gang---ie with Jane, we get to carry an umbrella.
Robin, former employee of the creator of the village computer system. Paul's source of information about the computer system. Has been suspecting a glitch in the system for years, but can't put his finger on it.
Xavier/Billy, the secretly robotic town Elder. Lives in the biggest house on the main street of town. Goes slightly ...off... at the breaking of the computer, and consequentially starts throwing things out his window at random. Perhaps he seeks the codes to open the access route so no one else can get in, maybe possibly.

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