Penumbra: Overture - 5

"Arachnophobia, the condition in whic-OHGODSPIDERS"

Above you is a hole, beneath your feet is a broken ladder. Utilizing life skills, you put two and two together to make 4, and ALSO conclude that you need to use the ladder to get up that hole! After quick observation, however, you realize you are not exactly NBA material in the fact that you are nothing but a short, weak man. As you come to this sad fact, you compensate by making a box-tower and climb up said Tower of Boxel(Babel) with a piece of the ladder which you hook up onto the weird hook things.

You are sure they have a name, but for now they are considered weird hook things. You are sure no one will mind. Jumping up onto the ladder and climbing into the hole, you call out to the traffic cone one last time and wish him and his wife all the best as you progress further into the crevices of the mine.

Crawling inward, you find yourself greeted by a rumbly of the collapsing kind. Looking back you realize you are now trapped due to rocks and their inherent nature to piss you off. With no way but forward, you head on. Oh what's this? Dirty basketballs in some muddy mixture over here? Let's go check that out real fast.

OHP SPIDERS DEAD.

Well, now that you've learned that spiders are indeed total and complete dicks, you take note not to touch their sacs again. Also, luckily, you are a cat-man as you have more than one life. Hopefully more than nine, because you're so god damn helpless that you're most likely going to end up dying a few hundred more times as it is.

Taking the right route instead of the spider-infested left, you come across a set of three jump ropes and a giant boulder. You instantly imagine spiders going to gym here and using a boulder as an exercise ball. Oh those scamps. Suddenly, you hear the all-too-familiar sound of splat, gush, and other forms of spurting. Oh joy the spiders have come to work out!

Wishing to join them in their activities, or maybe just not wanting to fucking die, you roll their exercise ball towards the hole you've ejected from and block the entrance path; but not before one little devil creeped through! So, the epic battle of the ages begins: Cat-man versus Spider-demon-asshole. The battle waged on for what seemed ten seconds, as it really did last for ten seconds, as you drilled a fucking PICKAXE in that sucker.

Score one for humans and their ability to use tools, baby. Let's keep going!

Oh awesome, more spiders! You head out the other direction and find a boulder blocking a path but an open path next to it. Quickly using your smart awesome head you take that boulder and plug the path that was open to begin with as you back into it.

OHP SPIDERS DEAD. Good job, dude. Taking the OTHER other path, you block THAT path with the boulder that was blocking THAT path and block THAT path with the boulder because THAT path had spiders. You follow? Good. Because I'm not. Carrying on now.

Red comes on the radio and offers his words of wisdom, rivaling that of a friggin' wizard because he's so smart, and tells you the walls are fragile. You've experienced fragile before, so this is no surprise to you! Within the path you took, you find a baby rock. It's adorable! You instantly name him Jamison and begin you epic quest of life fulfillment together as Cat-Man and Rock. Sadly, your journey ends when you chuck Jamison into a small pool of acid and step all over him as you walk by.

Sorry Jamison, but it just wouldn't work out between us.

Shedding a tear of mild regret and budding sense of guilt, you contemplate turning back for your long-lost companion as you step over randomly placed planks of wood. Maybe you 'will' go back and help him out? As you do so, you realize Jamison's former lover Margarette, the abomination of a woman rock, was hurdling down towards you in Indiana Jones fashion. Great lover quarrels! DEAD.

After being flattened, you come across a big pack of spider eggs. Neat! Let's make omelettes. At least that is what you would say if they weren't feeding on your living flesh. As they eat away at you and you feel the cold touch of the reaper, you feebly whack away at the fragile wall with your almighty pickaxe and break your way through. Eventually. Because, well, you know, dying and all takes time doesn't it? Yes it does.

FINALLY jumping down into a random room, you look up and come to the discovery that spiders are afraid of heights. HAH! Stupid arachnids. Red comes in and tells you in a matter-of-factly fashion that it was all a setup and that you didn't 'have' to go through the spider caves, that he was punishing you for being born. A very just punishment and well-deserved, you think, you apologize and accept his hand in friendship once more.

Poking around the place you find a shady looking box with an awkward swinging door that failed 'Hide the Key' 101. The education system for wall-hanging cabinets is very poor these days, you now realize. Oh, you also, as a sign of dominance, smash the fuck out of the boards blocking the door and bust open vents because you're still pretty pissed off at life for dealing you such a bad hand. The rations on the shelves you instantly deem useless as, truthfully, rations are for sissies, men with bandanas, and poor people. None of those categories you fit, mind you. 

Crawling through the vents, you come across a room with a crane type contraption that is holding a box. Just like in the arcades! You head into the control room and bash open the lockers to steal more things because you can probably pawn this stuff when you finally get out of here for a few pennies. In the lockers you find a book. No, more like a novel. This thing is LONG. Seriously, you could probably drop it on those spiders and kill them with this sucker. It talked about God and stuff and since you're a Dudeist, you lol and head to the controls.

Once you get over the fact that this is AWESOME, you finally realize that you can use the box and make another amazing tower of boxes to climb into a vent in the higher region of the room's vicinity. Lovely. Doing just that, you climb through and find gas. Noice! You are pretty sure you could probably get a meth lab going with all the materials you've scavenged so far during your journey, but realize that, aside from Red, you'd probably have absolutely no customers. You know, because spiders are too straight-edge. 

Heading back out, through some vents, through a door, and through another, you enter in the once familiar corridors of: Dog'opolis.