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Being an experienced adventurer as well as a qualified private investigator, Larry assuredly pockets all the useful items that he finds.  After he squanders several matches trying to light the pavement on fire, however, Jimmy finally seizes the inventory for himself.  Using the very last match, he sets the garbage can ablaze.  Now it is just a matter of where to push it: to the north towards the main entrance, or to the east into the dark alley.

I was thinking infected =ill, and vagrant =bum, resulting in "mubill" or possibly "llimub".  But "eibmoz" is just as likely to be correct.

Due to issues of scale (both stature and artistic), it is Larry who is tasked with the garbage can rummaging.  He paws his way through the bin with all the stealth and poise of an autistic raccoon.  After several stomach complaints and a lot of false-positives, Larry at last seizes upon three potentially useful items: a woman's earring, a partially used match-book, and what appear to be a set of regurgitated case notes.

Larry gobbles up the ham sandwich, case notes and all!   Now you're just going to have to muddle by as best you can with good old-fashioned memory!

I'm working on speed drawing for 10-20 minutes a day, as a way to improve my art and to get warmed up for drawing something I might actually use in my current project.  But I got to thinking, why squander all my rubbish art on my own poor eyes alone?   So I thought I might have a stab at resurrecting our interactive fiction game, just for kicks and giggles.  So here's how it will work: I will try to update the game every night with a piece of game art that takes only 10-20 minutes to draw, as well as some explanatory text.  If you haven't participated in one of these games before, here's how it works: you submit commands via text-parser-style to see if you can beat my game.  Please precede your commands with the >> symbols so that I know what your command is.  So post something like:

>>eat rotten sandwich, but don't barf until you're right in front of the mayor

...and then see what happens in the game.  Let's begin:



Welcome to the Hotel Exotica stars Jimmy Wag, a fiery yet diminutive private investigator, and his partner Larry Coffstopsky, a blind eccentric with the superhuman ability to track down anyone in the world by smell alone.  Larry is "The Finder" and Jimmy is "The Seeker" of Find & Seek PI, a firm that picks up where official law authorities leave off.  Now, in the damp of a late autumn evening, they have tracked their quarry, a runaway teenager, to the Hotel Exotica, a seedy establishment on the wrong side of the tracks.



You are carrying: a loaded revolver, three spare bullets, half a ham sandwich, case notes, and a wallet.

Larry confirms that this is the place.  The front entrance is just to the north, while a dark and scary alley lies to the east.  The street appears to be deserted despite -or perhaps because of- the early hour.  Now what?

Wow, that was really close!  You almost have it.  Just... keep pushing, that's all I can tell you.

But I can give you some anti-hints : 

Spoiler

Don't read up on Bushmen on Wikipedia.

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Don't put too much thought into it.  Unlike some of my other clues, this one is just straight up synonyms.

[Sinitrena]

This is always fun:

Best Interpretation of Theme: Sinitrena.  I liked that she didn't try to impersonate Ponch, like certain other participants who shall remain nameless.   I liked that she put a lot of thought into her own role as a creator of worlds, and I personally enjoyed the walk down memory lane with the characters from her previous stories.  But mostly I liked the implied paradox of a character fighting against the author, who nonetheless was scripting the whole saga.  Well done.

Best Relationship Between Character and Author: Sinitrena.  Well, they didn't have a terribly great relationship, but I loved the antagonism.  Also, if you read between the lines, there's something of the enfant terrible in Tevenon, the ne'er-do-well child that still manages to be his mother's favourite.  Why else the indulgence of such candid fury against her but at the same time by her own hand?
   
Best Dialogue: Sinitrena.  Especially when the fourth wall came tumbling down, it made for some insightful quips.

Best Overall: Sinitrena.  It was a novel premise with an uncertain outcome, which always makes for a great story.  I'm not sure it was on purpose, but the bending of reality through the somewhat garbled 5th paragraph actually made the story feel "real" for me.  And finally I was satisfied with the goddess-like whimsy that the author displayed in the end: to paraphrase some Book: "The Lady giveth, and the Lady taketh away."

For extra credit, but no extra points

Best Twist Ending: I'd like to single out Sinitrena for bonus points here, since I genuinely thought the Goddess was tolerating Tevenon's insolence with some greater purpose in mind.  The playful, almost childish twist-ending reminds me of the capriciousness of "actual" historical divine beings.

Scariest Implications: I suppose the scary implication here is that Sinitrena, whom I'm voting for btw just in case, may actually be a divine being in the guise of a mortal AGSer.  Perhaps this explains the paranormal occurrence of ice-cream vending establishments at the top of German mountains?  In any event, it certainly makes you think twice before crossing her.  

[Edit:]

Bushmen follow jalopy homies, expire, then leave (14)

hints:

Spoiler

Adventure related

[close]

Spoiler

Multiple words add to 14 letters, but I won't publish the exact distribution yet because I think it will make it too easy

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Edit:

Fine....  

Spoiler

Two Words

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Double Edit:

More hints:

Spoiler

Think adventure villain.

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Baby Strikes Back

   Sheeba Dass cracked an eyelid and groaned at the clock alarm resonating inside her skull.  She fumbled blindly in the sheets for her gold plated 9mm to pop a snooze hole in its face, but found nothing but handcuffs and an empty bottle of bourbon.  Now where the hell....

   The bottle of bourbon shattered as it put the alarm clock out of its misery.  Sheeba slid into a sitting position on the bed, eyes still closed, and reached down into the space between her ample cleavage to retrieve her pistol.  It was heavier than it looked, and it looked like a golden hand cannon with a massive laser sight attachment.  She rested the arm that held it on her knee, and she rested her head on the arm.  She breathed deeply, her breath straining against the tight plastic halter top she had no recollection of putting on.  And how would her gun even fit down there, anyway?  It was him again.  The Author of her misfortune.

   She could tell by the tone of the alarm and the distant drumming of boots on stairs that it was going to be one of those days again.  Why couldn't he just leave her alone?  Let her eat greasy chicken and ice cream in front of a movie with some girlfriends wearing nothing but a track suit?  Maybe have her join a book club or brush abandoned ponies down at the shelter?  And why with all his powers did he have her living in this ghetto apartment with nothing for company but a family of feral raccoons and an emotionally clingy pet python?  She stubbed a toe on a loose floorboard as she got up to brush her teeth and cursed him under her breath.

   The bathroom mirror was cracked as if there'd been some sort of bar-room brawl last night, and there was a phone-number scrawled on the adjacent wall in purple lipstick.  Ravenna?  Really?  Sheeba cringed as memories of the kinky back-story flooded into her mind.  Who reads this kind of trash anyway?!?  No amount of brushing was going to get the bad taste out of her mouth now.  What she really needed was a long bath with some candles and slow music, but the heavy footfalls in the hallway outside her apartment door indicated that she had only a moment of peace left.  So she did what she always did: popped a shot of mouthwash into a can of cola and started chugging her breakfast.

   CRASH!!!

   Her door flew off the hinges and a gang of uniformed goons barged through the door in SWAT gear.   â€œSheeba Sharona Dass, we have a warrant for your arrest!” one shouted.  She cringed at the use of her middle name.  They came to a stop lined up outside her bathroom door, five abreast, all aiming their semi-automatic weapons directly at her, one of them waving a folded paper.

   â€œYou ain't got no warrant!” she lipped back, sticking her hip out indignantly.  “You think I can't tell the difference between a warrant and a parking ticket?!?  And since when do the police issue Nike Flynit Zoomers?  Y'all ain't nothin' but a pimp posse sent out by Boss Hincks!”

   The armed and armoured men looked down at their footwear and then exchanged glances, giving Sheeba the opportunity to sip her mouthwash & cola.  They turned back to look at her, guns cocked, but it was too late.  All the thumping and door-busting had woken up the family of raccoons, who now scurried up the men's pantlegs to attack with cranky savagery.  They screamed in girly agony and began shooting each other in panicked hysteria. 

   Sheeba prudently stepped back from the doorway to take shelter in the cast-iron tub while the stray bullets flew randomly.  When the shooting stopped, and the shouting had faded to emasculated whimpering she reemerged.  Most of her assailants were dead, but one still twitched meekly as a raccoon chewed on his face.  “.....a message for you,” he gasped as he limply tried to swat off his furry attacker.

   â€œYeah, yeah,” Sheeba retorted dismissively, looking for her boots in all the mess.  All she could find were her four-inch stilettos.  Grrrrrrrr!

   Just then there was a gentle rapping on the door-frame at the entrance to her apartment.  Sheeba spun around, gilded 9mm in hand, but an expertly flung ninja star knocked it out of her grasp.  A woman laughed playfully in the doorway, scratching at the frame with her two-inch painted fingernails.  She was clad entirely in tight black leather, except for a hole at the base of her spine from which emerged something resembling a lemur's tail.  She tossed her orange and white striped hair over her shoulder, and smiled sinisterly with slitted green eyes.  “I've been looking forward to this,” she purred.

   â€œWho the hell are you?!?” Sheeba wondered aloud.

   â€œI am Pussy Pussy Baudrons.” 

   â€œSeriously!?  Did yo mama give you that name?”

   The woman-cat thing did not respond, but instead licked the back of her hand and began grooming herself casually.  Sheeba took the opportunity to take another sip of her Scope & Coke.  But before she could lift the bottle to her lips Miss Baudrons hissed and threw another ninja star quick as lightning and split open the bottle, spilling her precious breakfast all over the floor.

   Sheeba glared at the hateful creation of her tormentor's imagination.  “Nobody spills my go-juice and gets away with it,” she said flatly.  The two women both crouched into fighting stances, Sheeba into kung-fu defensive position number one, Pussy Pussy into an arch-backed contortion.  There was a horrible meowling sound and then she struck, claws outstretched like a tiger.

   But Sheeba was ready for her.  She ducked under the flying feline female and rolled off to the side toward her gun.  Pussy Pussy landed on the wall, then retracted her claws sufficiently to throw another ninja star to knock the gun just out of Sheeba's reach.  Sheeba flipped quickly to her feet again as the ninja cat leapt first to the ceiling, then to the far wall, and finally pounced at her again.  Sheeba leapt as well, landing a flying roundhouse kick right in the feline's mid-section and sending her reeling back.  Pussy Pussy hissed again, and drew a katana blade out of god knows where.  She lunged at Sheeba, who ducked, dodged and dove back into her kitchenette, where she grabbed her BFP: her Big Frying Pan.

    The apartment rang with the sing song clanging of a medieval battle.  Sheeba retreated back to the kitchen counter where she blocked, struck, and parried, eventually deflecting Pussy Pussy's sword into the plaster and lathe wall where it stuck fast.  Thinking quickly, she grabbed the extendible faucet from the sink and turned on the water, spraying the cat woman right in the face.  Pussy Pussy shrieked and recoiled, but Sheeba mercilessly changed the faucet setting to high-pressure-burst.

   Then she paused, pensively.  Poor Pussy Pussy was just another pawn in the story, like her.  And like a black pawn and a white pawn, they were still both just cannon fodder for the powerful aristocracy.  Pussy Pussy'd probably prefer to be bird-watching or curled up on a heat register instead of fighting some stranger to the death in a kinky outfit at 5:30 am.  With a bit of perspective, Sheeba could see them uniting against the true enemy: The Author.

   Sheeba shook her head and fixed a bowl of milk to try to coax Pussy Pussy out from under the bed where she had fled to.  “Here Pussy Pussy,” she trilled softly.  She really hoped her pet python wasn't under there....

   â€œMaybe you need toy lat!” barked a diminutive asian fellow from the doorway.   A waft of cheap tobacco smoke and greasy take-out filled the apartment.  His goateed chin barely came up the scratch marks on the door-frame, putting him at about four feet tall, and he wore funny looking green sunglasses that weren't big enough to cover his eyes.

   Sheeba sighed.  “And who are you?!?”

   The man lit a second cigarette before crushing out the first with his dainty little elf-boots.  “They caw me Dr. Fuse!” he spat in a thick accent.

   â€œWhy, 'cause you're always burning?” she asked, inching backward.

   â€œNo!” the doctor shouted curtly, then lit a short firecracker with his cigarette and tossed it in her direction.  Sheeba dove back into the bathroom before a loud explosion went off, causing plaster dust to start snowing from the ceiling and a wincing howl of shock to come from under the bed.  She slammed the door shut and almost had a heart attack from the half-faceless man who was hiding behind it. 

   â€œBoss Hincks... says your ....rent is....” the man spluttered.  Sheeba scowled in disgust as the man's eyeball dangled like a pendulum each time he tried to speak.  She quickly grabbed him by the neck, opened the door, and with one fluid motion shoved him out the door.  Only he tripped over the tiny Dr. Fuse, who had bent down on one knee to shove another firecracker into the lock of the door, and they both tumbled to the ground.

   BANG!  A second explosion went off from the door lock, slamming the door shut but for the gaping hole where the knob used to be.  Through it Sheeba could see past the writhing bodies to her gilded 9mm in the middle of the floor.  With practised elegance she shoved the door open and did a flip over her assailants to grab the pistol, coming to a skidding stop by what used to be her window.  Dr. Fuse was now free of the half-faced goon and had another firecracker lit, but Sheeba evaded his range by back-flipping out the shattered window and up the fire escape.  As the cool morning air erected her nipples, she cursed The Author once more.

   Quickly she scaled up the rusted stairway.  On another day she would have busted Dr. Fuse's head, maybe melted his cancer mouth onto an exhaust tailpipe, and finished him off with an ironic drive through a Chinese New Year parade, but today her heart just wasn't in to it.  Dr. F. was just a working stiff like her, trying to impress the readers at the behest of the calloused creator in the sky.  If he'd had his druthers he'd probably be at some origami class or playing fire-bug around a camp-fire out in the woods.  As she ascended the fire escape she could hear the cacophonous hum of the city around her.  Or was that just the cooling fan of an outdated lap-top running an obsolete word-processor?

   Suddenly a freaky skeleton barred her path.  Without thinking she drew her pistol and shot it six times before realizing that her bullets were just going through the spaces between the bones.  “I AM DEATH!!!!” it proclaimed.

   Sheebah turned to go back down, but there was Dr. Fuse with a mischievous grin.  He tossed another explosive stick up at her, cackling maniacally.  Sheeba deftly dodged the bomb, and it stuck instead inside the ribcage of the Skeleton behind her.  The skeleton looked down disdainfully at his sizzling chest, then declared: “NOTHING CAN STOP M-”

   BANG!  Sheeba clung to the balustrade and a shower of bones rained down.  She glanced down to see Dr. Fuse fiddling with his chic micro-glasses, which had sustained some damage from a flying bone shard.  Pussy Pussy Baudrons had now emerged from under the bed and was stealthily scaling the sheer brick wall.  And the half-faced guard was stumbling out of the window opening now with a python locked around his right leg.  Sheeba shook her head and ascended the rest of the fire escape.

   She mounted the roof and saw towering over her a great billboard featuring none other than her personal tormentor, the mighty Author himself.  Anger gripped her then, like a shot of tequila during a table dance, and she began to scale the rigging that supported the great poster.  At the top there was a narrow gangway for working on the billboard, and she heaved herself up to stand upon it.  Above her the Author's self-promotional advertisement loomed, the  bug-like eyes of his giant face seeming to follow her every movement.  Creepy like a bug! Sheeba shuddered.

   And then her heart skipped a beat, for she had missed the slender figure of mystery wearing a fancy hat, oversized sunglasses, and a purple fur-trimmed suit jacket.  In one hand he sported a silver tipped walking cane, and in the other a bottle of what looked to be cheap gin.  Sheeba drew her gilded pistol and aimed it squarely at the stranger, its laser sights reflecting off of the jewels in his jewel-encrusted smile.   â€œWho the Sweet Buddha are you?” she wondered aloud.

   â€œI be Pimp Diddy,” he said, shuffling towards her crotch-first like a drunken scarecrow.

   â€œIs that a prosthetic leg?” Sheeba asked, wrinkling her nose a bit.  Rather than wait for an answer she popped a few bullets into the phantom limb.  The pimp's advance was undeterred.

   â€œChew no what a hate?!?” Pimp Diddy asked rhetorically, opening his coat to reveal a pyramid-tomb's worth of jewellery draped around his neck. 

   â€œPoorly written dialog?” Sheeba asked back, glancing up again at the towering poster.  The Author's face seemed to twist into a distasteful sneer.

   â€œDat's funny, dat's what dat is.  I love a girl wit a sense of humor!  What I hate is-”  Sheeba shot the prosthetic leg three more times, all in the knee, and at last the piece gave way under the swaying pimp.  “Ga dang!” he shouted as he dropped his bottle of gin and toppled over the railing.  He would have plunged to his death if it weren't for his excessive bling that somehow got caught in the rigging.  As it was he just choked slowly, flailing helplessly like a fly in a spider's web.  But Sheeba took no joy in his imminent demise: if it weren't for The Author the pimp would have probably slept-in this morning, then maybe worked himself up to taking some of his estranged children to the zoo.  After maybe he would have gone back to his cosmetology program at night-school or taken that nice hooker he'd been seeing out for a romantic dinner....

   A ninja star stuck into the paper wall behind her, and then a bomb landed on the gangway next to her, but she just kicked it off again absent-mindedly.  It was The Author who was her enemy, not the twisted misfits of his deranged imagination.   He leered down at her now, the shadow of his power casting wide in the low light of early morning.  Sheeba could hear distant sirens and what sounded like the murderous whirl of military attack helicopters, but she just shrugged and stared up at her oppressor.  The poster proclaimed the millions of copies sold, but she shouted back defiantly: “Ain't nobody gonna read this tripe!”

   The Author glowered and a now alien space ships began to descend from the heavens.

   â€œYeah right!” she shouted, retrieving the half-spilt bottle of pimp gin.  Beneath her Pimp Diddy squirmed thirstily, but she let him dangle.  Below him she could see an army of hooligans and night prowlers pouring onto the roof.  But still she just turned back toward The Author.

   â€œFight!” the poster exhorted in a hollow, unworldly voice.

   Sheeba shook her head as well as the contents of the bottle onto the poster.

   â€œYou MUST fight!” The Author boomed.  “I made you!”

   Another firecracker bomb sailed by and Sheeba grabbed it out of mid-air, deftly pulling out the sparkling fuse. 

   â€œNo, I made you!” she shouted back, and lit the gin-soaked paper with the fuse.   The poster erupted into a sheet of purging fire, peeling back the horrified image of The Author to reveal the blackening pages of the manuscript beneath. 

    And though the towering pyre burned violently, the rest of the world was now suddenly at peace.
   
   

Submission pending.  I've got it mostly written, but it really needs some cleaning up.  Stand by.

[Closing brace]

Having torn out my hair many a time due to this, I am changing my answer to:

Spoiler

Closing brace.  They are a huge pain to sort out, especially if there are many braces nested inside other ones (multiple levels of conditionality, etc.).

[close]

[Vasecto Shorn]

Easy peasy:

Spoiler

"could leave" refers to a path of egress, the conditional component denoting that its theoretical openness has been severed, while "my absence at the end" refers to simply removing "my" from the end of a word.  "You hairless" is just a clever homophone of "ewe hairless".  Therefore, the answer can only be:

Vasecto Shorn

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HAHAHA OH CRAP

* Mandle pisses himself

I told you that would happen!  I told you!

Nope.  Here's some light reading 2 give it away.

Not exactly.  It's actually the word "bad", only in oppositeland code.  I'm laying it all out there because I think I might have made it too hard, kinda like the Rumplestiltskin puzzle in the original KQ2.  Has anyone peed yet, by the way?

Close again, but you're forgetting the first part of the clue, and the oppositeland bit, and hint number 1 (as you mentioned) ...but your word count is impeccable.

The Simpsons LIED to me?!?  Way to shatter my life-paradigm, Mandle.

But what about spools of thread, toilet paper rolls and willy willies?  Do they at least spin backwards in Oz?

Not a bad guess at all, but WRONG.

hint #1

Spoiler

AGS Related

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hint #2 (only read if you want specific procedural directions)

Spoiler

Try googling a lyric

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hint #3 (we're getting dangerously close to giving it away here)

Spoiler

What is Australia, metaphorically speaking?  Their summer is our winter, their toilets flush clockwise while ours more sensibly flush counter-clockwise, our nature is relatively tame while theirs is a toxic slurry of venomous evil....

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Yeah, a bit of weekend would be helpful before the deadline.  +1