cephantasy

<div class=centered> <p>[[silk->intro]]</p> </div>

An infinite quantity of silver silk ripples away to the horizon around you. It has a creamy flavor, and is soft and smooth on your [[tentacle]] [[tips]]. There's a [[slimy forest]] up ahead that might have some tasty creatures in it. But there's also a [[tiger prawn]] scuttlin' around about ten feet away…

Long, twisting, and spindly, with a mass of suckers on the end like a club. They move partially of their own accord.

Covered in suckers spiraling around in a Fibonacci pattern. The suckers have little teeth in them which help in grabbing. There are tastebuds all along your tentacles but especially here.

You jet into the forest. Tall twisty green ribbons of a rubbery material twirl up around you, coated in a dark green mucus that also covers the forest floor. It's real comfy—all the slime everywhere feels nice on your skin. As you're flouncing around, you notice a big red crab on the underside of a long, wide leaf. It looks healthy and delicious. The holdfasts of the long spindly plants resemble you rather closely, splaying out on the forest floor like tentacled appendages. They might provide a good opportunity for camouflage and a sneak attack. Then again, you've got some rippling light-and-dark aquamarine patterns you can display that often draw a crab's attention—and risky curiousity. [[hide out in the holdfasts->hide_holdfast]] [[attempt to entrance->entrance_crab]]

It's fluttering around some rocks without a care in the world. Hehehe… [[hide behind an ink screen and sneak up on 'em->ink_screen]] [[hypnotize 'em with flashing colors->flashing_colors]] [[pretend to be a rock until the last moment->camouflage]]

You spurt out a puff of ink between you and the shrimp. The shrimp turns and notices the ink, but you're safely hidden for now. [[spurt another puff of ink to get closer->more_ink]] [[spin around behind 'em and pounce while they're distracted->spin_pounce]]

You begin to pulsate in a dizzying array of violet and aquamarine colors and hover a couple of feet away from the shrimp. The shrimp stares at you, transfixed. [[gotcha!!->pounce]]

You twist your body up into the shape of a rock and turn a dull brown color, then slink slowly towards the shrimp. They're none the wiser…You're getting very close… [[now!!->pounce]]

You snake just behind the ink screen and puff out another, which comes to rest near the shrimp. The shrimp seems confused but not alarmed. You rush behind the second ink screen. [[now's yer chance!!->pounce]]

While they're still staring at the ink cloud, you change color to match the ground and twirl around behind them. They're none the wiser… [[pounce!!->pounce]]

Rarrrrrr!!! You whip out a tentacle and in a flash the shrimp is in your mouth. Crunch!! Splursh!! You smash it into pieces with your beak and coat it in toxic slime. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!—it's fresh and almost fruity. Having eaten your fill, you notice a bed of coral in the distance. [[maybe there's a little coral nook i can wriggle up in->coral]]

You gently snuggle down into the holdfast below the stalk of the plant the crab is on, nestling your tentacles in among the branches and shifting your color patterns to match their mottled browns and oranges. The branches feel smooth and fibrous and tasteless. The crab shows no sign of noticing. Before long it's wandered down the plant towards you. It's getting closer and closer… [[strike!!->eat_crab]]

You send pulsating waves of alternating dark gray and turquoise stripes across your entire body and splay your tentacles out at your sides in an elaborate twisting pattern. You then hover a few feet away from the crab, catching its eye. It considers you for a few moments, then begins to edge towards you on the leaf, investigating. If it takes a few steps closer it won't stand a chance… [[…now!!->eat_crab]]

You shoot out two of your tentacles and grab the crab, bringing it up to your mouth in a whiplike flash. It's too big to eat all at once, so you puncture its shell with your beak, injecting it with paralytic neurotoxin. It lays helplessly in your grasp while you much on its viscera. A light and savory flavor… After you've eaten your fill you drop the crab shell to the ground. There's a fun-looking coral zone off to your right. [[bet there's some fun places to burrow in there->coral]]

You pulse and jet your way over to the knobbly and bulbous bed of coral. Just as you expected, there are lot of nice little caverns and wridges to nestle into. You settle down into a ridge that feels cozy while still giving you a good view of your surroundings. You're considering nuzzling in deeper and taking a bit of a siesta when one of your peers, large and vervey, crests over the top of the coral bulb in front of you. They curl their tentacles into a Fleur-de-lis in front of their mouth and send waves of red and black zigzags across their body oscillating out from around their eyes. They seem interested in you. You've been carrying around ready-to-fertilize eggs for a few days… Just then they turn their attention away from you for a moment to check out something on the ground. You feel ripples off to the left behind you and turn to see a smaller suitor, blending in with the coral, hiding. They flash the same zigzag pattern at your for just a moment as the larger suitor is distracted. They're not quite as hearty but they're kinda cute… [[great big one->big_partner]] [[li'l cute one->lil_partner]]

You jet away up in front of the big suitor and lock eyes with them. Both of you move towards one another. You both hesitate for a few moments, moving back and forth, and then suddenly wrap your tentacles around one another's heads. Wrapped up in their tentacles, you feel them insert an arm into the cavity below your left eye. Then, you feel it tense, and the space fills with a soft, knotted object, which suddenly bursts, releasing a viscous liquid. The two of you remain locked together, pulsating in a variety of mottled and striped patterns and petting one another's faces for several minutes. [[now the eggs are ready…->lay_eggs_big]]

You drift further down into the ridge and the smaller suitor follows you. You both make your way under one of the large bulbs, into a little cavern, and orbit one another in a slow and gentle pattern for a few minutes. Sometimes they draw close to you, and splay their tentacles out for a moment. You open your tentacles in response, but each time they suddenly withdraw. Then, they draw a bit closer, you splay your tentacles again, and they dart in. You wrap your tentacles around their head as they stick a long arm inside you and then dart away just as fast. You feel the knotted, membraneous packet they left in you burst and coat your insides in a viscous liquid. You flash subtle patterns at one another, and drift gently around the cavern together, sometimes pulling in for a moment and petting one another's faces, sometimes lost in your own separate thoughts. [[…the eggs are ready now->lay_eggs_lil]]

The ceiling of the small cavern you're in seems like a perfect place to lay your eggs. You jet up to the top of the cavern and smoosh your face against the ceiling. Your partner moves in behind you and wraps their tentacles around you, doing their best to keep you safe. As you release each egg, you spray a bit of ink into it as it leaves your body, coloring them a dark cloudy gray. The ceiling is soon covered in a large mat of them, hanging down like smoky teardrops. Once you're done, you move away from the ceiling, and you and your partner [[wander off->exhausted]]…

Eventually, you break away, and go off to find a place to lay your eggs. Your partner follows behind. You find a nice spot on the underside of one of the bulbs. You smoosh up close to the bulb and begin releasing eggs and sticking them to it, spurting a bit of ink into each egg as you release it. Your partner gets up close and wraps you in their tentacles. Soon there is a mat of little smoky pearls hanging off of the bulb, waving gently back and forth. [[that took a lot of energy->exhausted]]

You feel completely exhausted. You swim on top of one of the coral bells and lay down, and with the tall ribbony plants swirling all around you, you drift off into unconsciousness. [[the end->afterward]]

Thanks for playing! Your life may be over, but your offspring will live on to have [[lives of their own->opening]]. *** One thing that might be worth noting is that cephalopods are colorblind (execpt the (link: "firefly squid")[(goToUrl: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watasenia_scintillans")], probably)! So the color descriptions in this game are for the benefit of color-seeing players. If you enjoyed this, you could check out (link: "my website")[(goToURl: "https://milky.flowers")] or (link: "my Twitter")[(goToURL: "https://twitter.com/spinnylights")]. You might be curious about the information I was swimming in as I was making this—so here's a li'l list: * (link:"tonmo.com (all over the website)")[(goToURL: "https://www.tonmo.com")] * (link: "//Sepia officinalis//: Form and Function")[(goToURL: "https://bioweb.uwlax.edu/bio203/f2013/ziegler_kyle/adaptation.htm")] * (link: "A model to explain spermatophore implantation in cephalopods and a discussion on its evolutionary origins and significance")[(goToURL: "http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1095-8312.2011.01832.x/full")] * (link: "Getting Under the Skin: Autonomous Implantation of Squid Spermatophores")[(goToURL: "http://www.biolbull.org/content/212/3/177.short")] * (link: "By leaking light, squid hides in plain sight")[(goToURL: "https://www.sciencenews.org/article/leaking-light-squid-hides-plain-sight")] * (link: "Squid filmed using their ink clouds as smokescreen to catch prey (includes really cool video)")[(goToURL: "https://www.newscientist.com/article/2078933-squid-filmed-using-their-ink-clouds-as-smokescreen-to-catch-prey/")] * (link: "So, what's the difference between a squid and a cuttlefish?")[(goToURL: "http://squidscientistas.tumblr.com/post/105284575434/so-whats-the-difference-between-a-squid-and-a")] * (link: "Getting Under the Skin: Autonomous Implantation of Squid Spermatophores")[(goToURL: "http://www.biolbull.org/content/212/3/177.short")] * (link: "The Giant Cuttlefish (various posts)")[(goToURL: "http://giantcuttlefish.com")]

<div class=title> #[[zebra-like INVISIBLE->opening]] a cephantasy by Zoë Sparks </div>

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