by Ryan North
Must be gotten over fast cuz I got to reposition
Myself to kill my new dad right away. And in addition,
And though I know this carries no small risk of repetition
And saying this out loud will only add to your suspicion
From now on the only things that I will bring into fruition
Are the bloody gory parts of my own personal cognition
That is to say: only thoughts regarding the commission
Of the brutal death of Claudius. No more exposition!
And you’re out! Rosencrantz and Guildenstern clap and compliment you on your flow, although they suggest the lyrics might, hah hah, make people think you want to kill the king. Isn’t that crazy, they say. Hah hah hah.
Aw man, that reminds you: you forgot to rhyme with “sedition”! You’re miffed because it would’ve worked REALLY WELL!
» Continue partying on a boat «
* * *
* * *
“I’m gonna open it,” you say. This is what you read:
Dear King of England,
It’s me, Claudius, the King of Denmark! Listen, we get along pretty well, right? And both our countries are in pretty good shape. Anyway, it’d be really convenient for me (and it would help both our countries STAY in good shape) if you could kill Hamlet for me real quick. It’s not that big a deal, just kill him okay? Cool? Cool. P.S. I’m 100% serious please kill him right now.
You and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern stare at each other for a long moment. Looks like this whole time while you were planning to kill Claudius, he was also planning to kill you!
“Dude, are you scoping this letter’s CHOICE ASSASSINATION ORDERS?” asks Rosencrantz.
“I told you, man! I TOLD YOU ABOUT CLAUDIUS,” Guildenstern yells.
“Maybe somehow he...he heard my raps from last night?” you ask.
» Figure out a plan with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern «
* * *
* * *
That’s right! Why be a hero in your own story? Better to be a supporting character in somebody else’s!
You go below-decks and wait. Eventually, a cannonball slices through the wall and into your belly and, rather than killing you instantly, it kills you gruesomely enough and slowly enough that when you finally die, 10 minutes later, you actually kinda wish it had happened instantly.
The shock of watching you die with a big ol’ hole in your belly pushes Rosencrantz and Guildenstern into action, and they eventually capture the pirate ship in an amazing display of derring-do that I wish I could describe to you, but you’re dead. I can’t be seen talking to a corpse! That’s crazy!
People will think I’m crazy!!
THE END
* * *
» Restart? «
* * *
You give the order to turn around and face the pirates head-on.
“In irons?” your first mate asks, alarmed.
You’re not entirely sure what that means, but it sounds kind of badass.
“Y-yes?” you say.
“Aye” comes the reply, and Vesselmania IV comes about. Unfortunately, as you have ordered that the pirate ship be faced head-on, and the wind is at their back, this means that you are now facing directly into the wind.
Your sails are not designed to work in reverse like this. They catch the wind but are unable to produce enough drive to maintain any momentum. You coast to a stop and begin drifting backwards, travelling not much faster than the sea itself.
Before you can give any orders to get out of this situation, Calypso’s Gale catches up with you, comes alongside, and blows you into the sky! It’s fatal, which is a not-actually-that-fancy way of saying “you totally die when this happens.”
Sorry dude, fish are eating your body now! They’re like, “Om nom nom!”
THE END
* * *
» Restart? «
* * *
Nothing changes, as Calypso’s Gale continues to gain on you. This isn’t working, Hamlet! You’ve got time for one last manoeuvre before the pirates come alongside, and when they do I can promise you your first-ever naval command will end in disaster.
“Orders, Captain?” your first mate shouts. Lightning strikes the sea behind him, and you can feel the thunder shake your ship.
You stare at Calypso’s Gale through a spyglass. The square shape of her rigging reminds you of something...
» “Put the wind at our back! Give us all the speed she can muster!” «
» “Turn around and face the pirates head-on.” «
» Try to remember everything you know about sailing before you answer «
* * *
* * *
The wind at your back fills your two sails to capacity and even beyond, but I’m sorry — it’s not nearly enough to outrun the pirates. You’ve got two sails. They’ve got 12. The math just doesn’t work out.
Calypso’s Gale sidles up beside you, fires all of hers guns at once, and you explode in disgrace.
THE END
* * *
» Restart? «
* * *
Your first mate shouts, straining to be heard over the gale. “Sailors don’t actually speak like that!”
“Okay!” you shout in reply, and he nods.
» “Pretend I didn’t say that yo ho ho stuff!” «
* * *
* * *
“Abandon ship! All hands, abandon ship!” you yell into the storm. The crew looks at you in shock, but there’s not much they can do. “Climb up those ropes, men! Fight them to the last! By God, we’ll take their ship from them!”
Your crew screams at the pirates in defiance and surges up the ropes leading to the deck of Calypso’s Gale. Above them, pirates pour over the deck, climbing down. Your crew will meet them halfway and have to fight their way up. You’d love to join them, but you have to save your friends first.
You race towards the ladder to go below-decks and, sliding down it, find a disastrous scene. When the two ships collided, gunpowder meant for the Vesselmania’s cannons burst from barrels onto the deck, and oil lanterns were knocked off the walls. The gunpowder is spilling out and the lanterns, still lit, are rolling around the floor as the ship lurches with each wave, caught as she is on Calypso’s bow. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are similarly running around, trying to gather up the lanterns before they ignite the gunpowder and kill you all.
You don’t think they’re going to make it alone.
“Bros!” you yell. They stop and look at you, shocked to see you here.
“Hamlet! Help us pick up these lanterns, bro!” Rosencrantz yells at you.
“There’s no time!” you yell. “We’ve got to abandon ship!”
“If you don’t help us, there’ll be no ship left to abandon!” yells Guildenstern.
“Yeah dude!!” yells Rosencrantz.
» Help them pick up lanterns! «
» Convince them to abandon ship! «
* * *
* * *
Hah, nice try! Your friends have to choose their OWN adventure here. You don’t get to make life-or-death choices for them! If you want to do that, you should play my other book, God: The Adventure! Decide How Each of Billions of Individual Stories End! Fun at First, Tedious Soon After (So Many Lives Are Depressingly Similar).
PERSONALLY though, I hope Rosencrantz and Guildenstern survived, and I think that probably that counts for something?
Suddenly, lightning strikes the water below! A huge roar of thunder deafens you, but in that brief instant, the world is illuminated.
You see your young crew of almost 20 (both by count and by age), cutlasses at the ready, fighting as they climb. Pirates swarm down the lines, battling them for sport. Above them, on deck, they’re being cheered by a row of pirates. And at the very bow of the ship, looking down with a spyglass, stands the captain. He’s got a fancy hat and a parrot on his shoulder: the works. And he’s staring right at you through the storm.
The darkness of the storm is restored moments later
. You grimly resume your climb. One way or another, you’re going to end this.
☠ Continue climbing, attack pirates! ☠
* * *
* * *
You’re about halfway up when you meet your first pirate. You decide you have the advantage: you can always slide down the rope some to gain distance, while he can only climb up, which takes more time.
Before it comes to that, however, you brace your legs against the hull of Calypso’s Gale. As the pirate approaches you, you push off with all your strength, sending you both into the darkness, hanging in space out above the ocean. You were ready for this; the pirate wasn’t. You wield your sword and stab upwards, sending it cleanly through the surprised pirate’s butt (hah hah, sweet). You hear him scream as he falls, and then you hear a small splash as he hits the ocean. Looking up, you see another pirate already climbing down to take his place.
The same trick isn’t going to work twice, Hamlet!
» Climb up higher to meet the pirate «
☠ Lure the pirate to slide down lower ☠
* * *
* * *
You climb up to meet the pirate.
Waving your sword around, you prevent him from climbing down any closer, but you can’t climb up higher to reach him. He raises his arm, sword at the ready, as if he’s going to hit something as hard as he can. But what? You’re clearly out of range of his sw—
Wait a minute. He’s going to cut the rope beneath him! You’ll fall to your death!!
Screaming, you throw your sword at the pirate, roll a natural 20, and do a critical hit right in his eye. Your blade sticks out of his skull. It’s amazing. He screams and lets go of both sword and rope as he falls.
“Looks like you saw my point,” you say.
You’re close to the top, but you’ve lost your sword and you see one more pirate hoisting himself over the railing and onto your rope.
I don’t know how you’re going to pull this one out, Hamlet!
» Push out from the ship, use your legs as a battering ram, and smash your way inside through a porthole «
* * *
* * *
That’s a really good idea. Huh! Nicely done.
You push out from the ship, use your legs as a battering ram, and smash your way inside through a porthole. You manage somehow to hit the deck, roll, and leap to your feet in one impressively smooth motion.
Unfortunately, there’s nobody around to see it, as everyone is above-decks engaged in battle. And you’ve landed in the captain’s quarters! Around you are the accoutrements of command, the ship’s log, and — YES, a sword. A much nicer sword, actually, than the one you started this journey with. You decide to take it.
You are now wielding the fancy sword!
You don’t care that you lost your other sword. It sucks now.
You kick down the door (it has a handle but things were just going that way) and take the ladder to the top deck. You push open the trap door and climb out. In front of you is an epic battle: your crew taking on two, sometimes three pirates at a time. It’s amazing. Each success seems to fuel them further, each pirate body hitting the deck only adding to their experience points. You can almost see them levelling up as you watch, and it’s like all their perks are being invested in battle techniques. Suddenly, you feel a cold tap on your shoulder. Turning around, you find yourself face to face with the pirate captain.
You both raise your swords as you leap into your duelling stances. A pause, and then you rush each other, swords clashing. You thrust and parry back and forth until a moment comes when your swords catch each other, and in that sudden silence you stare across your blades into each other’s eyes.
“You fight like a dairy farmer,” he says.
“How appropriate. You fight like a — OW!” you say, as he slices at your arm, cutting you. It was superficial this time. You’re lucky, dude!
The pirate captain gloats at drawing first blood, pointing to you and calling you a bunch of very unkind names that I’m not going to say here because I don’t want you to throw down this book so you can try to find and murder this pirate in real life! Just take my word for it: the things he says about you are that bad.
On the plus side: while he gloats, there’s an opening! You should attack!
☠ Attack the hand he’s pointing at you with! ☠
» Attack the face he’s laughing at you with! «
» Attack the shoulders he’s giving structure to his stupid upper body with! «
* * *
* * *
“...yes. That is exactly what happened,” you say.
“What about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?” he asks.
“They...um, died,” you say. “The king wanted to...murder me...and he got them to carry a letter telling the English king to kill me! Yes, that’s it — and so I...secretly...replaced that note with a forgery that told him to kill Rosencrantz and Guildenstern instead! They’re dead now, because, as I said earlier in my letter, the pirates left after they captured me. Yes! Everything fits together nicely!”
It’s a good lie: close to the truth, so it won’t be hard to keep straight!
“Whoah,” Horatio says. “Bro, that’s cold. What did Rosencrantz and Guildenstern do to deserve that?”
“Um, yes, that is a reasonable question, and the reasonable answer is that they...carried the letter from Claudius...on purpose? And they were allied with him all along and...I trust them as much as I trust snakes?”
“Huh,” says Horatio.
“Oh, and I would TOTALLY KILL ANYONE who was secretly working for my stepdad!” you say, making significant eye contact with him.
“Huh,” says Horatio, perfectly neutrally. Darn these even-handed, noncommittal responses that tell you nothing!
You’ve been walking as you talk, and you and Horatio find yourselves in the graveyard. It’s close to the river everyone takes their drinking water from, which I guess kinda explains why people act so crazy around here (SPOILER ALERT: water contamination) (SPOILER ALERT: this is gross).
There are two gravediggers here. Wait, hold up: one of them is leaving — off to have his own adventures, no doubt! Do you ever think about that, Hamlet? About all the people you pass in the street and how they’re each the star of their own little narrative? How it’s weird that people who you’ll never talk to are off having their own lives, building their own stories, and isn’t it crazy that from THEIR point of view, you’d be a minor character, entirely forgettable?
Well, it’s true, and in this gravedigger’s story you play the role of “GUY WHO SHOWS UP AND TOOTS JUST AS I LEAVE.”
You toot. He leaves.
The remaining gravedigger is singing!
☠ Listen to his singing ☠
» Join in with his singing «
* * *
* * *
The gravedigger sings about being young and in love.
“He’s singing while he digs a grave!” you say.
“Um, yeah,” says Horatio. “His job is to dig graves, so he’s used to it.”
“Whoah!!” you say. This whole thing is seriously blowing your mind!
The gravedigger sings about being old now, and the tune is pretty catchy, actually! While he’s busy digging this grave, he digs into a pre-existing grave (remember that in our time period it’s not like that is especially weird or awful) and digs something up. He tosses it behind him.
Hey! There is a skull here!
☠ Look skull ☠
* * *
* * *
You keep your distance from the gravedigger, but look at the skull intently.
“That skull had a tongue in it once,” you say to Horatio.
“A-yup,” says Horatio.
“It had jowls too,” you say.
“Yeah probably,” says Horatio.
“Maybe it was a politician’s skull! Ooh! Or a courtier! Lord Such-A-One or whoever! And look, that guy’s throwing it around like it’s not even a thing!” you say.
“Lord Such-And-Such, you mean,” sighs Horatio, as the gravedigger digs up another skull. There are now two skulls here! The other skull seems pretty interesting too.
You close your eyes and think, very clearly, “look other skull.” Then you open your eyes and examine the other skull intently. I’m not gonna lie, from this distance it definitely looks a lot like the first skull. You’re fascinated by it though!
“Maybe that other skull was a lawyer’s skull!” you say, nudging Horatio. “Look at him now! Where’s his impressive lawyer tricks now, huh? His fancy rhetoric for the judge and jury?”
“He’s dead,” says Horatio.